Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

BAZ

Poetry Slam Against The Patriarchy is the worst night of the month. Sometimes I wake in a cold sweat just thinking about it. The crowds. The people. The fashion. The poetry.

I want to dismantle the patriarchy as much as anyone, but some truly horrific sins against the spoken word have been committed at that mic, and it’s difficult to be a silent bystander.

Sometimes the performances are decent, if you like slam poetry. They can be good. Stirring even. But often they’re bad. Often they’re very, very bad. Like the woman currently speaking, who is taking long, torturous pauses between words, recounting the story of the first time she shaved. I think she’s trying to use her pink Bic Razor as a metaphor for her relationship with her sister. I don’t think she understands metaphors.

It’s been a long, long time since I heard a poem this awful. Keats is rolling in his grave. I’ve half a mind to join him.

The bookstore is almost full to bursting, and the crowd is thicker than usual, much to Fiona’s delight and my eternal frustration. Large crowds mean more performers, which means this night will drag on and on and all I want is to close up the store and go home and lay on my bed and contemplate nothingness for a night before I have to work on my school work.

Also I want to watch Netflix. And possibly get a kabob. There’s a whole world of possibilities waiting for me on the other side of this Saturday night, and none of them involve the pillage of the English language.

Very rarely have I ever wished for my father’s company, but I wish he was here right now, so we could murder ourselves together. He’d probably do the honours and set us both on fire.

Bic Razor Woman stops in the middle of her poem to check her phone, and I lay myself gently on the counter next to the cash register and wait to die.

I need coffee and a whole pack of cigarettes to get through this night. Bic Razor Woman is only the second performer, and Fiona’s poetry slams let anyone who shows up perform. So there’s really no telling how long this is going to go. I should take my break now and refuel.

I’m about to brave the crowd and ask Fiona to cover the register when the bell over the door chimes and a couple enters the bookstore—a boy and a girl about my age. Probably students.  

I try not to scrunch my face up when I see the boy. The men who come to these things are the worst. If I were a more generous person, (which I’m not) I’d want to think the best of them, and sometimes they’re alright, truly. But too often they’re mostly straight white men who call themselves allies, but nine out of ten times they’re trying to impress one of the women they’ve come with. Sometimes they even try to perform, which is always tragic. Once I had to listen to a man wearing a Coldplay shirt recite a rhyming poem about finding feminism through Beyonce.

I don’t feel bad for stereotyping. I’ve yet to be proved wrong.

A whisper goes through the crowd when the newcomers enter the store, and I watch the boy elbow the chubby Indian girl next to him. She looks like she’s meant to be here: cat eye glasses, wild purple hair, a notebook clutched to her chest. She must be planning to perform then.

Joy. Another one.

The boy is grinning and whispering something in her ear. He doesn’t look like he belongs here. He looks like he should be mugging some woman on the corner, with his large trainers and torn jeans and overly large jacket. He’s got a fucking snapback on, and his trousers are cuffed above his socks. What man wears a snapback to a feminist poetry night? He’s either a mugger or one of those parkour schemies who run around Edinburgh jumping over cars and shit.

They move through the crowd and more whispers go up. Pink Bic Razor Woman is still speaking, but no one is paying attention, and I watch as Fiona high fives the girl with purple hair and hands her the sign up clipboard. I guess they know each other then. Delightful. It never bodes well for me when Fiona has friends.

My eyes drag back to the scrub in the torn jeans. Under the yellow glow of the fairy lights Fiona has strung up between the shelves, I can see his bronze curls and tawny skin. He’s laughing at something his companion has said, his stubby teeth fully on display. When he smiles, his cheeks scrunch up into his eyes and his mess of freckles becomes overwhelming. He’s actually a little gorgeous.

Maybe he’s gay. It happens. We get a decent amount of gay men in here. His torn jeans and yellow trainers could be a deliberate style choice, if I squint properly. That would be delightful if he was. Maybe he could salvage this evening. I don’t think so though; Bic Razor Woman has begun beatboxing.

This is my cue to leave.

I make eye contact with Fiona through the crowd and gesture toward the door, before holding my hand up and splaying my fingers to indicate I’ll be back in five. The golden haired Adonis scrub looks up at me, confused, and hesitantly raises his hand and waves.

Oh. He thinks I’m waving at him. Adorable. I point behind him, toward Fiona, and watch as he turns slowly, sees her, and then turns back, a flush across his face.

Absolutely adorable.

He has to be straight though. Only a straight man would wear that hat.

I give him a tight smile and slip out from behind the counter, grabbing my coat and escaping out into the frigid night air. It’s a perfect Edinburgh fall night; the air is crisp, the light is blue, and the air smells like fall and kabobs.

Christ, I want a kabob.

SIMON

I’ve been to enough of these things by now to tell what’s a decent sized crowd, and this is definitely more than decent. This is huge. Probably the biggest crowd yet, and everyone turned to stare when Penny walked in. I think the crowd is here for her.

Penny looks torn between vomiting and flying away, and every few minutes she checks back over her notebook.

“I mean, I know anyone who wants to can technically enter, but she did specifically ask me to come,” Penny says again. “And her slams are notorious. She’s notorious. I’ve never done anything on this level.”

Penny isn’t normally one for nervousness, and I can’t lie, it’s sort of making me nervous too. Which is absurd. Penny is brilliant. She’s dead brilliant—at everything, but especially poetry. Watching her perform is like a thrill.

I’m not big on poetry usually, which prompts me to regularly ask myself why I’m studying literature, but Penny’s poetry is different. The words just come alive when she speaks, and she fills the room with this energy and electricity. Listening to her speak is like feeling yourself fill up with helium. Your head goes fuzzy, and everything inside you is swollen until you feel like you might pop.

And I’m not the only one who loves it. Everyone who hears her perform falls in love. She has a huge social media following, and even more word of mouth. She’s practically famous at our university.

Honestly, I’m amazed we’ve never been here before. I’ve passed this store dozens of times—it’s right off the Royal Mile, and I pass it on my way to school sometimes—but I’ve never popped in. It’s just a normal bookstore, but there’s always signs in the window like “ GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN-DAMENTAL RIGHTS ” and “ THE FUTURE IS FEMALE ” and I always sort of thought that whoever worked here wouldn’t be happy about me popping in alone and poking around. Penny is always going on about the woman who owns it, and how she’s some incredible author, and when we came here tonight I sort of assumed the store would be staffed by… women who look like Penny.

I glance back toward the desk where the bloke with the black hair had been sitting, but he’s gone. I try not to think about the fact that I thought he was waving to me. Not my finest moment.

The heat of the crowd and the awkwardness of my earlier interaction has me feeling itchy, and I already kind of want to leave. But that would be a shit thing to do to Penny, and we just got here. But today was rough—fuck, this whole week has been a kick in the head—and the idea of standing around here and waiting is enough to nearly drive me mad.

“Do you want a tea? It might calm you down,” I whisper to Penny. The woman on the stage is currently beatboxing and I don’t want to be rude and talk over her, but it’s also kind of making my head hurt.

I’ve no idea why Pen thinks this competition is too good for her.

“I’d kill for a tea,” she whispers back. “Nothing with cream though. I need to save my voice.”

I clap Pen on the shoulder and make my way back through the crowd until I reach the front door. We’ve only been in the store a few moments but it’s fucking hot in here with all the people, and when I emerge out into the night the cool air feels like a blessing.

The cafe is only a street away, so I cut in that direction, pulling my jacket up against the wind. A group of drunk tourists stumbles past me, and I can hear the last notes of a bagpipe on the Mile floating toward me on the wind.

Glancing at my watch I pick up my pace; Ebb will be closing in a few. She wouldn’t care if I kept her open later, but I hate taking advantage of her kindness.

The cafe is right on the corner of the main street. It’s nothing special—it’s not even very cute, it’s a bit run down, like everything on this end of the street. I don’t even fully know the name. It’s got a sign that says ‘tea and coffee’, but I’ve always just thought of it as Ebb’s. But anyway, even if its a bit manky, it’s a right side cheaper than Starbucks. And it’s nice in its own way.

There’s someone already at the counter when I get in there, which is a bit surprising. She never gets customers this late, especially on a Saturday night. Ebb looks up at the bell and smiles over the latte machine.

“Awright, Simon!” she calls cheerily. “I thought you were going to that poetry thing?”

The figure at the counter turns and the smile I had been giving Ebb falters. It’s the bloke I accidentally waved at. The one who works at the bookstore.

I can see him better in the light of the cafe, and he looks about my age, but he’s way taller than me. He’s got tight black jeans on that make his legs look like sticks—they go on for ages, and are so thin I could probably wrap a hand around his calf. Which is kind of a weird mental image, I guess. But he’s just one tall, dark mass; dark complexion, thick fucking dark eyebrows, dark, heavy coat, and sharp black loafers. I know that his hair is black too, but I can’t see it, as he’s got it tucked up under a dark gray beanie.

He looks far too predatory to be working a feminist poetry slam. He looks like he could eat someone.

He looks like the big bad wolf.

Ebb is still smiling at me and I remember that she asked a question, and I duck my head away from the guy at the counter.

“Aye, I am,” I respond, rubbing at the back of my neck and avoiding the gaze of the boy next to me. “Just came to grab some fuel. Can I get a plain black?”

“Right up, just let me ring up this dear,” she says, smiling at the boy from the bookstore. He doesn’t look like a dear. He doesn’t look like the kind of person anyone has ever called dear.

She hands him a cup, and he accepts it with a nod and takes a long sip, and it’s like he suddenly comes alive. He stands up taller, his shoulders unhitch, and it’s as though a visible wave of relief travels through him. He looks like he’s experiencing joy for the first time. He must really like his caffeine.

“£3, if you please,” she says. I watch him dig in his pocket, then his other one, then begin frantically patting down his large black coat. A look of pure panic flicks across his face momentarily, and then it’s gone, replaced by an icey demeanour.

“I’m afraid I left my wallet at my work. I’m just around the corner—do you mind if I leave this here and go get it?” he asks, putting his coffee on the counter. His accent pricks at my ears. English then. Or at least well enough educated that he sounds it.

I know how Ebb is going to answer—she’s just going to tell him to take it, on the house, like she always does. Just like she did for me on my first day in the city when I was lost and confused and discovered I’d been pickpocketed by some shifty guy in a kilt. So I step up and dig a few coins out of my pocket.

“Just add it to mine,” I say, shoving the money across the counter. The boy goes ramrod stiff and turns to me like he’s going to strike me.

“That’s not necessary,” he says, his jaw tight. I just shrug. What the fuck is wrong with him?

“It’s £3. It’s fine,” I say, trying to smile at him to ease some of this tension, but he doesn’t smile back. Ebb hands me my coffee and I raise the cup at her in appreciation before I turn back to the bookstore boy.

“You’re at the poetry slam,” he says, but it’s not a question. “Let me pay you back when we get back to the store.”

I squint at him and shrug. I’m skint at the moment and currently unemployed, and I don’t really have £3 to spare, so it would be nice to be paid back. But something about his offer is extremely off putting.

“You don’t need to, but, aye, sure,” I say. I try not to notice that he hasn’t said thank you. (To me or Ebb.) (What a wank.) He picks up his coffee and strides toward the door of Ebb’s. He looks back at me once, and I realise he’s just waiting for me to follow.

“See you,” I call to Ebb, then follow him out.

This time, the cold air and wind feels abrasive. It’s practically baltic out here suddenly, so I pull my jacket tighter around me. He waited for me by the door, which I suppose is polite, but as soon as I’m through he’s striding off down the close right next to the cafe. I’ve never gone down this way, as it’s a dead end, but I assume he knows what he’s doing.

Or maybe he’s brought me down here to kill me.

“It connects to the store room,” he says, as if he can read my mind.

“Right,” I say, because I’m still not positive I’m not going to die. It’s younger than I thought it would be. And not how I thought it would go down. He’s got the height advantage, but I could probably land a few good kicks—his nose is a perfect target, it’s a bit squint already. And I’m handy in a fight. I flex my hand, and can almost feel the scars pull tight across the bones of my knuckles. Yeah, I could take him.

We pause at the end of the close and bookstore boy stops suddenly, raises his head, and sniffs the wind. Like a dog. No, not a dog. Dogs are friendly and approachable, which is entirely opposite of this bloke. More like a … wolf.

Oh fuck, what if he’s a werewolf?

His head snaps back down and he digs in the pocket of his posh black coat and pulls out a ring of keys, then quickly opens a door that I couldn’t even see. There’s no lights in the close, and the buildings on either side of us stretch up so high that no light pollution can get through.

The door swings open and I hear the happy buzz of conversation and the hum of the microphone, and I relax a bit and follow him into the dark store room.

“Watch out for the—” he says, but it’s too late, and my foot collides violently with a box on the floor.

“Son of a bitch,” I mutter, wincing through the pain. I spilled half my coffee down my hand, and it’s burning a hot ring around my now soaked wrist.

We emerge from the store room quickly, and he motions impatiently for me to follow him back up to the register near the door. Someone new is performing now, and I see Penny through the crowd. We make eye contact and she starts moving through the crowd toward me.

Ah fuck. I forgot the tea.

I’m going to choose to blame the werewolf.

BAZ

The loon has completely thrown me through a loop, and I’m not sure how to respond.

It was kind of him—Simon, his name is Simon, apparently—to buy my coffee. Unnecessary, but kind. But it caught me off guard. I wasn’t prepared to be polite tonight.

My stomach is in knots and I can’t tell if it’s because it reeks of beef kabob outside and I’m starving, or if it’s because Simon is actually outrageously attractive. In the light of the cafe he looked less like a mugger and more like one of those deliberately ragged arty boys, which is awful news for me because that is exactly my type.

And his moles .

He should be illegal.

As I pop behind the desk to rummage through my bag for my wallet, I see the purple haired girl approach Simon. Fuck, please, not more people.

“Here you go,” I say, leaning over the counter and pushing three pounds at him. Then, belatedly, because I’m a civilised person, I add, “thanks, by the way.”

“Oh, no problem, er—” he trails off and looks at me expectantly.

“Basil,” I say, then almost cringe. Why did I give him that name? Of all the seventeen names I could have given him, I gave the one least used.

“Basil,” he says. His accent is thick—far thicker than mine, he might be from Glasgow—and the vowels of my name sound thick and heavy and fucking delicious, and I’m suddenly so glad I gave him that name. No one else I know is ever allowed to call me Basil now, because I never want to replace the way this sounds.

Christ, I need to get a hold of myself. I’m about to spiral into a full gay obsession.

“Simon,” he says, like I didn’t already hear his name in the cafe, and I nod politely just as his friend (girlfriend?) reaches the counter

“Made a friend?” the purple haired girl asks, smiling too widely.

“Oh, er,” Simon says. He seems to fall over his words a lot. “Sort of. This is Basil.” Christ alive, it sounds even better the second time. “Uh, Basil, this is my friend Penny.”

I nod a curt hello. I’m utterly uninterested in meeting this girl, but I think I was a bit of a prick back in the cafe, and it can’t hurt to try to seem polite. I mean, it can hurt, if they’re obnoxious. But I’ll give it a shot. Mostly to see if he’ll say my name again.

“Are you performing?” I ask the purple haired girl. Penny. She nods, and her hair teeters perilously on top of her head.

“Good luck.”

Simon squints between the two of us, like he’s personally offended by something, and then juts out his chin.

“Pen doesn’t need luck,” he says, and pokes his friend in the side. “She’s pure dead brilliant. Wait till you hear her, you’ve never heard poetry this good.”

Is he offended that I was kind to his friend? What the fuck? I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Well, there’s a low bar tonight. You should easily excell,” I say, gesturing toward the stage, where a new performer is swaying rhythmically to a non-existent beat. Simon stares at the stage, and when he looks back at me, he’s practically growling.

“People are trying their best. No need to be a twat about it,” he snaps.

I just stare at him. What the fuck? The one highlight of tonight was getting to see this gorgeous fuck, but everything about our interactions has been a trainwreck. I’m not the best at interacting with fit men, but it’s not normally this disastrous. And it’s barely even my fault. He’s so antagonistic. How is one person so combative? I’m used to being the most difficult person in the room, and I dislike having this mantel taken from me.

“Did you enjoy the beatboxing then?” I ask him sharply. He colours and opens his mouth, but he starts blustering.

“No,” he spits out finally, and I sneer.

“Ah. I thought you had, given how passionate you seem about it.”

“She may have done a shitty job, but that’s no reason to be a cock,” he practically shouts. He’s far, far too loud, and multiple heads turn in his direction. Even the girl on the stage pauses, blushes, and stutters out her next line.

“Ah,” I say, giving him an insincere smile. “Who’s the twat now?”

He looks like he might be on the verge of punching me, so I turn to his friend and smile.

“Good luck,” I say again, then turn around and leave the register and head for the toilet. I don’t need to piss. I just want to get away from him.

“Fucking nugget,” he mutters as I stalk away.

He’s probably straight anyway.

SIMON

Penny won by popular vote, and I didn’t even notice because I was too busy being a selfish prick.

I’m not sure why I’m being such a cockstain tonight. First I forget her tea, then I shit all over that Basil guy, then I tune out during Penny’s performance. I just kept looking back at the register to see if he’s there, but he seems to have completely vanished. That was probably my fault.

I’m not normally that antagonistic—or at least I try not to be anymore. When I moved here, I left the fights and the quick tempers behind, and I swore I wasn’t going to explode on people anymore. And it’s going semi-well. With only a few exceptions. But then I just jumped all over him, for no real reason. At the time I thought he was insulting Penny, but that pretty clearly wasn’t the case.

I guess I was just miffed he didn’t thank me for the coffee.

That’s a tad petty of me.

Even now, Penny is in the corner talking to the woman who owns the bookstore, delighting about her win, and I should be over there with her celebrating, but all I can think of is how I want to go home and wallow and stop talking to people. Penny and I are almost the only people left in the store, and it’s about to get to that awkward straggler stage.

“Simon!” Penny calls, motioning for me to come over. “You’ve got to meet Fiona.”

I drag my feet like a petulant child as I move over to them. The woman—Fiona, I guess—is unplugging lights and wrapping up the microphone cord. She looks impossibly cool, like she just walked out of some ‘80s film, and her sharp black hair is cut so bluntly it seems like it could scratch you. Penny has been obsessing over her for some time now, and trying to get me to read her books. (I haven’t.) Fiona is pretty much exactly how I imagined her.

“Fiona, this is my friend Simon, the one I was telling you about,” Penny says, and I wave. Fiona straightens up and scowls at me.

“I like your trainers,” she says, though she doesn’t sound genuine at all.

“Er, thanks,” I say. “I like your boots.”

She’s wearing Doc Marten combat boots, like the kind I’ve always wanted. Hers are white though. Fiona gives me a wide grin, then shoves the wound up mic cable at me.

“Hold this,” she grunts, before bending down to unscrew the stand. “So, Pen says you’re a broke student?”

I nod, and silently accept another cord.

“Pen also says you got fired from your job at the uni bookstore.”

I shoot a glance at my best friend, but she just rolls her eyes. Penny’s been on my case all week about it, like she thinks I haven’t actively been looking into every job opportunity I’ve come across. The first thing she said when I saw her the day I was sacked was, “You can’t move in with me if you fail to pay rent,” and that’s pretty much the attitude she’s kept up about the entire thing.

“Er, well,” I say, but Fiona waves me off. Apparently she doesn’t need me to talk to actually to carry on this conversation. I’m thrilled.

“So, I’m looking to hire more part time help. Currently it’s just me and my nephew, and he’s in uni as well, and, frankly, I have shit to do, and he’s bloody useless, so we could use some help.” Her lips are moving, but largely I’m caught off guard by the idea that Basil is her nephew. Honestly? She looks like the type to have a werewolf in the family.

“I got fired from my last job for being late and fighting,” I tell her, because it seems like the right thing to do. Penny says my honesty is a form of self-sabotage, but I just don’t see the point in hiding things from people who are trying to help me out. Fiona smiles, and her whole body lights up with a mischievous, chaotic energy.

“I don’t give a shit who you punch as long as they’ve paid first,” she says, then takes the cables from me. “Maybe you can fight Baz. Christ knows he could do with a good pounding.” There’s an awful glint in her eye that makes me think she’s being extremely cheeky as she leans in to mock whisper, “I think it’s been awhile.”

“Fiona!”

I spin, and there he is. Baz—Basil—the werewolf, lurking by the register. He’s pulled himself up to his full height, and he’s glowering at his aunt. He’s lost the beanie, and his hair is down around his face and he looks practically lupine, crackling with energy, looking like he’s about to pounce. On me or his aunt, I don’t know.

“Don’t ‘Fiona’ me, you little shit,” she says, talking over Penny and my’s heads. “Unless you want to drop a class or start waking up at a reasonable hour, we need help.” Fiona shoves her cables into a zippered bag with another grunt and looks up at me.

“So, Simon. Want a job?”

I look between Fiona and her nephew. He looks positively murderous. He looks like he’s ready to fight me, right here, right now. I should say no. I shouldn’t sign up and take on a responsibility and make a commitment to a job where I’ve already had trouble with a coworker. It’s almost a sure thing that Baz and I will come to blows at some point, especially if he keeps looking at me like that. And I don’t want to be a fighter anymore.

Maybe I can fix this. Start over. Get off to a better start.

The werewolf is practically growling, his metaphorical hackles raised as I turn back to his aunt.

“When should I start?”

Chapter Text

 SIMON

Penny says that I need to get better about thinking positive thoughts about myself. I need to be more confident in my abilities and not immediately assume I’m going to cock things up. She says the second I start to fail at something, I just shut off my brain and barrel my way through, because I assume the only way I can succeed is through brute force.

She’s got a bit of a point. But I don’t think I’m always being unnecessarily down on myself. I think I’m just being realistic. And I like that about myself.

Like now, I’m being realistic when I say I’m pure shite at this job.

Fiona had to walk me through the register system about six times this morning. Then, when she asked me to help her shelve things, I got flustered and fucked up the alphabet and momentarily forgot that ‘k’ came before ‘l’. She’s been extremely nice about it, even if she has been making shitty comments—but I don’t mind them. I don’t think they’re meant to be mean.

“You know what, you’ve got time to learn to spell,” she said without a smile as she reshelved the books for me. “Let’s maybe start you on something more your speed.”

She had me sorting returns. And I was getting pretty good at it, if I may say so. I’m not really someone who’s naturally skilled at things; I tend to get by on memorisation, sincerity and practice. So when Fiona left me to myself and let me get in the groove of things, I was actually kind of getting the hang of it. The shop is warm and bright and cosy, with a maze of shelves and chairs on the lower level and a winding oak staircase leading to the upstairs landing, where a balcony loops around the store with a handful of wee rooms off of that. It’s the kind of place that just feels nice to be in, and I was feeling pretty content. Happy even.

But then Baz showed up.

I’m halfway through my shift when he walks in, and it’s like a bad wind blows in with him. The collar of his dark jacket is turned up and he’s all in black again—well, almost. His trousers are a dark charcoal, and they look incredibly soft. Everything he’s wearing looks soft, which is such a strange contradiction to the sharp angles of his face and the severe bun he has his hair pulled back into.

The door to the store slams against the wall, and a few leaves get blown in amongst his feet. Framed against the cloudy skin, a mess of dark colours and ill wind, he’s actually rather beautiful, in a terrifying, untouchable way. And I don’t think he plans to even look at me.

“Oi, you, stop,” Fiona calls. He’s hanging up his coat by the door and I can see his eyes flick over to her in annoyance. “Come here.”

He strolls over—painfully slow—and digs through a stack of papers on the desk, deliberately not looking at me, an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a coffee in his other hand. He’s impossibly distant and effortlessly cool. In the light of day, he’s ferociously intimidating, until Fiona reaches over, snatches the fag from his lips, and tucks it into the breast pocket of her shirt. I follow the cigarette's path with my eyes. Fuck, I could use a smoke right now. I'm getting antsy.

“Simon, this is my nephew, Basil Grimm-Pitch. Baz, this is Simon Snow,” Fiona says, gesturing between us with a half-chewed pen she’s pulled out of her mouth.

“We’ve met,” he says. His eyes glide over me and he smiles widely, and for a moment my heart beats faster. Maybe that unpleasantness from last week is behind us? “Nice trousers,” he says, and I think he’s giving me a genuine compliment, until I remember that I slipped while running across The Meadows on the way here, and I’m covered in mud. I probably look like I’ve shit myself. My face heats up and I’m seconds from snapping back at him when he nods once and stalks off somewhere upstairs.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have the last word.

He continues to ignore me the entire time Fiona is training me. He pops up once to take a book from the fiction section, and when he passes by the counter he pauses.

“You do realise your flies are down, right?” My hands fly to my crotch, pure humiliation rolling through me before I realise he’s just fucking with me. My head snaps back up, my forehead furrowed, ready to tell him off, but he’s already fucked back off to wherever he’s been. I don’t think he’s done any work at all since he’s been here.

“Does he always, uh...lurk?” I ask as he disappears back up the stairs.

“He does school work while he’s here a lot,” Fiona says, flicking her hair out of her eyes. “But don’t worry, he’ll pull his weight.” There’s a tone in her voice that makes me think that Baz gets to do whatever the fuck he wants, and I’m not meant to question it.

Nepotism. Brilliant.

Fiona goes back to my training and I get to help ring up a few customers, and I almost forget Baz is there until the non-stop stream of Duran Duran that has been playing from a speaker in the corner cuts off, and The Smiths starts wafting through the store.

“Baz!” Fiona shouts. A woman browsing through fiction jumps. “Turn this melancholy bullshit off!”

There’s a long moment of silence, and then The Smiths gets louder. It’s actually almost funny—he’s a bit childish, for a bloke who looks like he could rip your throat out with his teeth. But I refuse to laugh, largely because I’m put out that he’s ignoring me.

“Basil!” Fiona calls again. The Smiths stop playing, and Soft Cell comes on instead. I guess this is acceptable to Fiona, because she loses her frown (a bit. I think the whole Pitch family is predisposed to frowning, at least from what I’ve seen) and goes back to walking me through the filing system.

Fiona stays for about half an hour after that, before she pushes back from the counter and begins pulling on her jacket. (Leather, of course.) (I think she might be a tad predictable.)

“You’re leaving?” I ask, eyes wide. I’m slowly getting the hang of things, but I’m not ready for her to take the training wheels off yet.

“Yup,” she says, adjusting her hair. “I’ve got a deadline, and the entire reason I hired you was so I wouldn’t have to hang around here all day.” She flashes me a sharp smile, then tilts her head back. “Oi! Baz!”

I watch his inky head pop over the bannister from upstairs. Has he just been right up on the landing the whole time?

“What?” he snaps back. Fiona narrows her eyes and extends one finger. Her nails are sharpened to a point and painted black. “I’m about to leave, get down here.”

He takes his time, strolling down like he’s the fucking Queen, and leans against a nearby shelf, arms folded across his chest.

“Right. Simon’s shift is up in three hours. I won’t be back, and I’ve a list of things that need to get done.”

I’m practically tingling with fear at the idea of being given tasks.

“The new poetry book that the publisher is pushing came in, they’ve given us loads, so get that shelved. Baz, I want you to start looking over any orders for next month, see what we want to buy. Also, stick around and help Simon with any questions he has. One of you needs to change the light upstairs in horror, and please, for the love of Christ, at some point this week we need to organise the store room. I’ve nearly killed myself six times trying to get books from there.”

She leans beneath the counter and picks up a small box of books and sets it on the counter with a thud.

“No scaring off customers,” she says, pointing to Baz, then rounds on me. “No fighting.” She grins and places one hand on top each of our heads and musses our hair like we’re five. “Play nicely.”

And then, as suddenly as her nephew arrived, she departs.

I’d planned to apologise to Baz the first chance I got, to try to get back on better footing. I was an absolute prick last week at the poetry slam, and I feel pretty awful about it. He kind of deserved some of it, but Penny says I need to stop looking for reasons to not trust people, so, here I am. A new Simon. A new city, a new school year, a new job. A new leaf.

Unfortunately, Baz is a fucking wank.

I tried to apologise to him—fuck, I tried to just speak to him—but he twists everything I say. And now, somehow, we’ve wound up in an argument about who has to shelve the poetry books. I’m not exactly a short guy, but these shelves are fucking tall, and Baz claims there’s no ladder around. And without one, I can’t reach.

“You’re taller than me, you do it.”

“I’m not that much taller than you,” he snaps back, shoving the box at me. “You can reach. Stand on your tippytoes.”

He’s right, he’s really not that much taller than me, but the fact that he’s right pisses me off, so I shove the box back at him, more forcefully than I intended, and it catches him in the gut. He lets out a grunt.

“You’re way taller,” I say, gesturing to him. “You’re like a praying mantis with all your limbs.”

“A praying mantis?” he asks. His annoyed expression drops for a moment, and a delighted, sharp smile pokes through. In the short time I’ve known him, I’ve noticed that he does that sometimes—his mask falls away, and he shows true humour and enjoyment. But you can’t even appreciate it because it’s always followed by something shitty.

“Aye, a praying mantis,” I say, suddenly feeling extremely stupid. “You know, those sticky type bugs who eat heads after sex?”

He tilts his head to the side and the corner of his mouth quirks up. I can see the hint of pearly white teeth, and his face is a mask of delighted confusion, as if I’ve just said the most amusing thing he’s ever heard, and he hasn’t figured out how to process it.It looks like he’s going to say something when the bell above the door chimes and two girls walk in. Baz’s eyes flick to them, then snap back to me, and suddenly the delight is gone. The smile is erased and replaced with a smirk.

“You’re right, that does sound like me,” he says, taking the box and heading off toward the poetry section. He pauses for a moment, then turns around and gives me one of this wolffish smiles.

“You know, not many men are confident enough to be so open about lacking a few centimetres,” he says, extremely loudly. I nearly choke. This has got to be workplace harassment or bullying or something . He can’t just talk about my banger like that. Fuck, why is he so infuriating?

“Please don’t talk about my dick!” I shout after him, too loud. But he’s disappeared, leaving me alone up front with the two girls.

I turn to them and smile, trying to ignore the fact that my face is red as fuck.

“Hiya,” I say, stumbling a bit. “Welcome to Pitch Books.”

BAZ

Simon Snow may be beautiful, but he’s an idiot.

Everything about him is stupid, from his name (what kind of name is Snow?) to his hideous fashion sense to the way his mouth hangs open as I have to re-explain the register to him. He’s incompetent. In the four days he’s worked here, I’ve had to walk him through the sale system six times.

He has no concept of how to shelve. Every book he touches lands back in the wrong place. He knocked over my centre display (twice) and spilled coffee on three of the cards Fiona had written for her staff picks.

“That looks about right,” he said, frowning, putting the books back in the wrong places on the display, and hurrying off to do God knows what. He was wearing the snapback again that day, paired with a yellow windbreaker. I hate him.

Let the record state, unequivocally, that I was against hiring him. We don’t need three people working the store. We absolutely don’t need two people working at once, except on event nights and maybe the occasional summer weekend. To prove my point, I spent my entire day yesterday upstairs reorganising in the horror section, and did absolutely nothing else. I let Snow run the whole show. And aside from one minor crises involving ringing up a customer six times, he was fine.

He’s actually rather good at talking to customers, actually. It seems to be his one skill set. I have no faith in his abilities, but I do believe he’s semi-capable of working the register now, so when I hear the bell above the door ring, I head upstairs quickly, and leave him to it.

Leaving him to deal with the customers is actually ideal, as I’m exhausted—I stayed up far too late working on my paper—and I don’t want to interact with people today. Plus, I’ve at least three books to read for class.

I left my school books tucked under a chair in the horror section, and I pull them out and settle in while I wait for the customer to leave. It’s an elderly woman, which means we might be here for awhile.

“Can I help you find anything?” I hear Snow ask her. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. I wonder if he’s ever even read a book. He certainly doesn’t know the stock well even to give directions or suggestions.

“I’m looking for a book,” the old woman says. “I can’t remember the title, but it’s blue.”

I withhold my inner cringe and return to my studies.

“Blue, eh? Well, I’m not sure I know it, but let’s look. Is it fiction?”

He sounds so eager, all the time. When he talks to customers it’s like he lights up from within. Even when he talks to Fiona he’s all smiles and cheeky banter. Not with me, though. With me it’s all stuttering comments and huffs and exasperated sighs. He always seems like he’s on the verge of saying “fuck it” and punching me.

I suppose I can’t really blame him. I haven’t been exactly kind.

There was one time, two days ago, when I think he was trying to be friendly. He was popping out to get a coffee and asked if I wanted one. I hadn’t answered, just went back to shelving, but when he came back, he had one for me. And it was exactly what I wanted, which means he’s either highly observant (which I know isn’t true, I’ve trained him), or he asked the woman who runs the cafe what my usual is.

I should have thanked him. I should have taken it and smiled and put this whole thing behind us.

But he’s an idiot. And he’s gorgeous. And if I smile at him, I’m royally fucked.

So I waited until his shift was over to drink it.

He’s just constantly doing stupid things like running his hand over the back of his neck, or rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms above his head in the most garish display possible. Sometimes he’ll zone out while working the counter, and he’ll run his teeth over his knuckles, which are covered with scars, and then he’ll rub at his face with his large hand and pull at his chin with his stubby fingers and I can see his weird, revolting pinky that’s a bit crooked and looks like it was broken and set improperly.

And he wears stupid, hideous things, like the green pullover he’s got on today, which looks far too large and far too worn, and is bringing out red highlights in his hair that I didn’t know were there.

I’ve just got too much going on in my life right now to have to take on the added burden of dealing with this idiot, and the fact that I am wildly attracted to him, despite all common sense.

I’m too busy to even waste the time and mental energy complaining about him. I’ve got papers to write and books to read. I’m in four courses this semester, and the university recommends ten hours of independent study per credit, so I’ve at least 700 hours of independent study to get through this term, and I’m taking specialised courses already.

I probably don’t need to be doing this heavy of a load, but I never really know what to do if I don’t have schoolwork. Who even am I if I’m not overworked and overstressed?

For the first time, I feel like my father’s annoyance over my Philosophy and English Literature Programme might have been justified; maybe I should have just taken Literature or Business, like he suggested, and had an easy time through uni.

“Are any of these the book you were looking for?” I hear Snow ask, punching through my thoughts. It’s probably for the best; I can feel myself on the verge of a stress spiral.

Glancing over the railing, I can see that he has six blue books in his hands, and he’s passing them over to the elderly woman. She picks through them slowly—painstakingly slowly —then shakes her head.

“Er, right,” he says. By this point, I would have told the woman to go Google it, but Snow doesn’t look thrown for a minute. He’s still beaming his school boy smile. “How about these?” He trots back over to the shelf and returns with more books. Christ, has he pulled out every blue book in the fiction section?

The woman apparently finds the book she’s looking for in this stack, and Snow rings up her purchase. He only types something into the system wrong once. When she leaves, he’s still smiling as he puts the books back in their places. I should tell him to leave them out —it would make a good idea for a centre display—but I don’t. I don’t say anything. I just turn back to my schoolwork and continue to ignore him.

Maybe I should be nicer to him. He’s clearly trying.

I’ll start tomorrow.

SIMON

On Fridays Baz and my’s schedule flips, and he’s in before I am. Fiona isn’t due in until later, so we’re going to be alone together for a good while, and instead of just steadily ignoring each other (or me trying to talk to him while he turns the music up louder and louder) (or me trying to ignore him while he repeatedly insults me) I’m going to try to be nice. I’m going to try to finish what I started on my first day, and apologise. Even though by this point, I think he owes me way, way more apologies.

I’m going to try to be friends, because Penny said so. Penny is usually adamantly against having friends, so the fact that she’s encouraging this is pretty serious.

It’s cold as fuck when I get in, and the wind is blowing something fierce, but it’s absolutely gorgeous out. The sky is that classic, clear Edinburgh blue, with not a cloud in sight. I cut through The Meadows again on my way in (and manage not to fall) and if the weather keeps up like this I might even go take a hike tomorrow.

Life is good. It’s Friday, I didn’t completely fuck my tutorial, and I’ve gone all day without a cigarette (Penny will kill me if I don’t quit), so I stop in at Ebb’s to treat myself. And because I’m determined to make friends, I get Baz’s drink again too. (He never thanked me the last time I did it, but when I came in the next day I saw the empty cup in the rubbish, so I know he drank it.)

But when I get to work, Baz isn’t there.

Someone has been here—probably him, judging by the God awful music that’s playing—but no one is at the counter, and I don’t see him hiding upstairs like he usually does. His coat is by the door though, so I don’t think he’s left.

Maybe he’s lying in wait to kill me.

“Basil?” I call, because even though Fiona calls him Baz, he introduced himself as Basil, and that seems like what I should call him until I’m told otherwise. I hear a thud and then a grunt and a muffled “Jesus fuck,” coming from the storeroom.

I guess he’s finally organising it. I kind of thought he was going to make me deal with it. That’s the vibe he’d given me, at least.

Grabbing his coffee, I head to the back where the store room door propped open with a box. He’s in the middle of the room, surrounded by boxes, his shirt sleeves rolled up and a generally annoyed expression on his face. A box is on its side, dozens of copies of the same book spilled out on the floor, and I’m guessing that was the source of the noise.

“Awright,” I say, holding up one of the coffee cups. “Grabbed you a coffee.” His expression flattens out, and he blows a strand of hair out of his face.

“Brilliant,” he says, reaching for the cup. I don’t think he’s being sarcastic, and it throws me off a bit, because I expected to fight him on this. That’s just the type of bloke he is; you’ve got to beat him into accepting a genuine gesture.

Just like that first time I saw him, the second he takes a sip of his coffee it’s like his entire body just unwinds and loosens and he gains ten years on his lifespan. His face opens up, his eyes brighten, and he’s a whole new person.

“Thanks,” he says finally. “I needed that.”

“Larger task than you expected?” I ask, and he nods, kicking at the spilled pile of books at his feet.

“I don’t think Fiona has cleaned this place out in years,” he mutters as he bends down to shove them back into their box. Glancing around, I can see his progress—the far back wall by the door to the close has been cleared, the boxes stacked neatly on shelves instead of piled haphazardly around the floor. Half another wall has been done as well, but the rest of it is still chaos. There’s no way he’ll finish by the time his shift is up.

I should help. This is the perfect friend-making activity. And besides, he already accepted my offering of coffee. Maybe he’s being less of a prick today.

“Here, tell me what system you’ve got going, and I’ll give you a hand,” I say, grabbing the box that’s in the middle of the doorway. “This looks like it’s just full of gift bags…” I start to say, but I trail off as I look up.

Baz is staring at me with murder in his eyes.

“What—” I start, but he pushes past me, practically throwing me into the wall. Christ, maybe he is a werewolf. He’s at the door, which has closed behind me, pulling at it viciously.

Oh fuck.

“You fucking cocksplat,” he says, turning on me. His grey eyes are narrowed into slits, and he’s pushing his words out between clenched teeth. “That door opens from the outside.”

“No, no way,” I say, dropping the box I was holding and moving toward the door. “Why would it only open one way?” I tug on the door, but it won’t budge. I push on it, but that won’t work either.

“Because this is an old building, you fucking muppet,” he spits. He takes a deep breath and runs his hand over his face. “Do you have your mobile on you?”

I pause.

“No. It’s in my coat. You?”

I judge from his silence that he doesn’t.

“Well, just calm down,” I say, trying to keep this situation from exploding. He looks ready to throttle me. “What about the door to the close?”

“It’s locked,” he hisses. “And the keys are at the register.”

Fuck, this isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.

“Surely this has happened before,” I say. I pray. But Baz just shakes his head and begins pacing. The room is small and his legs are long, and he’s able to cross the full space in only a handful of strides before he has to turn around and start over. Watching it is making me anxious. My chest feels tight.

“No, it hasn’t. Because we know that the door locks, which is why we keep a fucking box there,” he snaps.

“What about poetry slam night? We came in through the storeroom then.”

“I left the door cracked!” he shouts. He kicks at a book lying near him and it goes flying through the air. The corner of it connects sharply with my shin, and a burst of pain explodes through me. “I knew I was coming back in, so I took precautions! I thought I’d done so today, but I have somehow managed to underestimate your fucking stupidity!”

“Oi!” I shout. My shin is fucking throbbing from where the book hit me. “Look, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know. I was just trying to help out. No one told me. Which, by the way, is pretty shitty, considering I might have gotten stuck back here.”

“Yes, I’m aware!” Baz snaps. “I didn’t tell you because I thought it would be funny when it inevitably happened. But you’ve gone and ruined that, you absolute minger.” He’s practically panting from anger, and he storms to the far corner and sits on a box.

“Fucking hilarious,” I snap.

“I thought so. But now I’m stuck in here with you,” he snarls. He pulls at his hair, and it looks like he’s about to go into a full on panic. “I’ve things to do today, Snow. Things that don’t involve being kidnapped in a storage room by a fucking numpty like you.”

I could kill him. My fists curl at my side, and I can feel my anger rising, and every nerve in my body is telling me to strike. To grab him and shove him against the wall and break his fucking nose. I breathe out through my nostrils quickly, trying to shove the anger down, trying to swallow the rage. This won’t get me anywhere. I can’t just blink out and kill him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Baz snaps. I open my eyes, and he’s looking at me, his grey eyes wide, and I think he’s realised for the first time that I’m practically homicidal.

“Shut up,” I growl, trying to control my breathing. My knuckles are white. Deep breaths.

“Punch the wall,” he says, quickly, and I notice he’s moved off his box and away from me.

“What?”

“Punch the wall,” he says again. “I don’t fancy having my nose caved in, so just punch the wall.”

He’s caught me by surprise, and it’s worked a bit. Some of the anger is fading away, and the idea of punching him—or the wall—doesn’t feel as necessary and impending anymore. I unclench my fist. Deep breaths. I’m calming down.

Baz is standing by the door to the close, his arms wrapped round himself like he’s cold. I don’t know how he can be; it’s boiling in here. He’s staring down his nose at me like I’m a piece of rubbish. But his eyes are darted around like a trapped animal, and there's a sickening twist in my stomach; He's scared of me.

“Are you a psychopath or something? What was that?”

“No, I just….lose my temper.” I rub at the back of my neck, embarrassed. So much for making friends. I’ve never actually seen myself go off before, but I know how I feel afterward, and I know how I get. I can imagine I look a tad scary. More than a tad. This is humiliating and emotionally awful on a deeply terrible level. Fuck, I hate myself sometimes.

“Leave it to a Glaswegian to have a homicidal rage button,” he sneers. I know he's trying to make a joke, but my temper flares again. Deep breaths.

“Am no from Glasgow,” I say between clenched teeth. And why would it matter anyway?

“Where are you from then?” He seems less worried that I’m going to kill him suddenly. Maybe he's realised that he could probably just outrun me on his spindly legs. With a condescending stare, he moves back to his box. He tucks his legs up and wraps his arms around them, his chin resting on his knees. On another person it would look juvenile; on him it just looks like he’s waiting to pounce.

“No idea,” I say. I try the door again, for good measure. Still locked. “Got dropped at a hospital in Aberdeen so I assume somewhere near there. Wasn’t born at that hospital though.”

I really don’t want to run through my history with him. I don’t want to run through my history with anyone. It’s not interesting. And it doesn’t exactly paint me in a good light. Kicked around homes because I fought too much, wound up as the charity case for Davy, and got a shit ton of expectations put on me. Not cheerful. Not interesting. Not exactly top banter.

Baz narrows his eyes at me and surveys me from over his knees. His hair has fallen back in his face, but he doesn’t bother to move it.

“Why do you sound like you’re from Glasgow?”

Why the fuck is he hung up on Glasgow?

“I guess I spent some time there,” I say, grunting. I hate talking about myself. Everything about this is uncomfortable and awful and I’m jittery as hell. The anger has passed, but the weird, skittering, itching feeling that accompanies it isn’t gone, and it’s racing across my skin and doing kickboxing in my stomach. ”It’s, I dunno. I, well, it’s—”

“Use your words, Snow,” Baz snaps. My face fills with colour and I squint my eyes at him. I hate when people say that.

“Please don’t say that. You sound like my foster father.”

Baz tilts his head a little and blows another strand of hair out of his face. He’s pouting. A full on pout, lip stuck out, mouth turned down, arms crossed. Churlish fuck.

“Maybe we would have gotten on,” he says, his tone dry.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” I snap. I can’t imagine two people more different than Baz and Davy. Though then again, they are both assholes. And they both seem to hate me. “And he’s from Glasgow, and you apparently hate Glaswegians, so.”

Baz laughs sharply, and it echoes through the room. It’s a harsh sound, and it echoes through my brain. Christ, it’s seriously boiling in here, and I feel like I’m about to combust.

“I don’t hate them,” he says. “I just haven’t met one I like.”

Brilliant. He’ll never stop being a fucking prick.

“Thanks,” I growl, then settle on the floor with my back against the door. Maybe a customer will come in and save us. Maybe. Christ, please don’t let me be stuck here overnight with him.

I’m too young to die.

BAZ

“How long do you think it’ll be till Fiona finds us?”

He’s asked this question at least seven times in the last three and a half hours, and when he asks it now he punctuates each word by banging the back of his head against the door.

“No idea,” I say, the same thing I’ve been saying for three and a half hours. It’s pretty much the only thing I’ve said, as I’ve imposed a rule of silence on the room. Snow has been reading the various books littered around, but none seem to keep his attention very long. I can’t really blame him for that—most of the stock back here is just copies of the same vampire book. I’ve read it. It’s not riveting.

I’ve been trying to sleep, but I haven’t been successful; even if Snow weren’t talking at me, it’s too bloody cold in here to sleep comfortably.

“Do you think she’ll leave us here all night?” he asks, finally voicing my number one fear. I’ve been avoiding considering the possibility because I don’t want to fall into the familiar panic that accompanies falling behind on my work. I’ve way too much to do; I scheduled out three hours for revision tonight, and another hour for working on a paper due next week, and the universe is cruel and didn’t lock me in here with my school books.

“No idea,” I say again. “She’s on deadline today, so that usually means she’ll probably get plastered, and might not come in at all.”

I shiver a bit at the idea, and Snow notices and holds up his jumper in a silent gesture. I shake my head. Somehow, despite the fact that I’m slowly turning to ice, he claims he’s hot. He took off his pullover an hour ago, and his thin, ratty white t shirt was actually sticking to him with sweat. He’s offered his discarded jumper to me a handful of times, but I keep saying no. The indignity of getting stuck in here with him is too much. I refuse to add the extra layer of humiliation that is wearing his sweat-soaked clothing.

“What does Fiona write?” he asks. His voice sounds sleepy. It’s a good sound on him.

“Whatever she wants,” I answer with a shrug. “Usually feminist rants.” I sigh. Sitting here in silence is getting aggravating, and it’s hard to keep my mind off the idea that we’re trapped in an extremely small room with nothing to do but panic. “Sometimes they’re good. Once she wrote a series of essays about 80’s music. Those were bearable.” I tilt my head to the side and pick at nonexistent dirt under my nail, just so Snow won’t think I’m too invested in this conversation. “I think my father is scared of her, so he just lets her publish whatever.”

Snow’s head perks up.

“You father? He’s a publisher?”

I stare at him. There’s no way he’s this thick. He’s an idiot; I know he’s an idiot, but even I thought he was brighter than this. I pick up a book from the box closest to me and hold up the spine, pointing to the two black Ps that are stamped on it.

“My father is Malcolm Grimm-Pitch,” I say slowly. “As in Pitch Publishing? As in half the books we have stocked here? Really, Snow. You’re a complete pelican sometimes.”

Snow flushes. He does that a lot.

“Thought it was a coincidence,” he mumbles.

I toss the book back into the box and lean my head back against the wall and hum.

“That’s a hell of a legacy,” he says finally. His voice sounds far away, like he’s considering something. “You going to work there when you finish school?”

It’s a reasonable question, but I wince all the same.

“Now you sound like my father.”

He smiles at that, and it’s like the fucking sun has exploded in this storeroom. When did I fall this hard for him? I don’t remember deciding to do this, but somehow I’ve turned the corner from finding him attractive to desperately wanting to lick him.

Sometimes I disturb myself.

But it’s fine. I can lust after him. It’s completely socially acceptable to be physically attracted to a beautiful idiot. And it’s not like I have actual feelings for him. Wanting to kiss his moles is far different from wanting to actually be with him. And I don’t think I want that. There's no emotional bond here; I don't even care if he seems to be a somewhat thoughtful person. He's a clod. Just, a beautiful one.

“Is that a bad thing?” he asks, pulling me back to reality with a question about my father. I suppose that’s one way to get me to stop thinking about his Adam’s Apple.

“He’s the only person who manages to aggravate me as much as you,” I sneer.

I’m positive that he’s going to growl at me or start shaking with psychopathic rage again, but instead he just sighs and leans his head back against the wall. He looks like he’s physically in pain. My chest squeezes.

“Why do you look like you’re dying?” I try to put venom and spite in my voice, but I’m honestly just too tired. My shift ended an hour ago. I want to be in my bed. I want this day to be over, so I can allow myself to be stressed out in peace.

“I’ve had to piss for an hour, and I’m scared that if I stand up it’s all just gonna flood out.” His voice is small, like he’s embarrassed. He's absurd. Everything about him is absurd.

“You’re the most revolting human I’ve ever encountered,” I snap. “If you piss in front of me, I’ll pull your intestines out through your nose.”

“Look if we’re trapped here all night, it’s going to happen,” he says with a pained sigh. He's being infuriatingly realistic about this. “So just start preparing yourself now. You’ll have to give in eventually.”

I have to piss too, but I’m not telling him that.

“If you pull out your dick in front of me, I’m serious, I’ll kill you.”

“Your threats aren’t even good anymore, they’re just—”

“Hello? ”

Our eyes go wide and we both scramble to our feet and toward the door. Fiona’s voice is muffled, but we can hear her yelling.

“In here!” Snow shouts. I pound on the door. “Fiona, we’re in here!” Snow joins me in hitting the door with the palms of his hands.

“What are you two doing in there?” she asks through the door.

“Snow locked us in,” I say at the same time as he says, “We accidentally got locked in.” I shoot a glare at him, but it’s short lived, as I can hear Fiona jiggling the handle.

The second the door is open Snow flies toward my aunt, grabs her by her shoulders and places a dramatic kiss on her cheek.

“I’ll love you till my dying day, but first I’ve got to piss,” he shouts, almost bodily throwing her aside in his eagerness to get out the door. When she turns to me, Fiona is grinning far, far too widely for a woman who just got tossed like rubbish.

“Baz,” she says, “I’ve told you no rumpy-pumpy with blokes in the storage room.” My face is bright red and I feel like I’m going to combust from my own need to piss coupled with my intense, desperate desire to die right this moment. I don't know if Snow heard her, but he's clearly within earshot. He doesn't falter in his mad dash to the toilet though. 

Then—

“Oi, fuck off, Fiona,” he calls. The door to the toilet slams shut behind him. I suppose he did hear, then. I turn back to Fiona and grin. 

“You heard the man,” I say, feeling far more cheerful than I have all day. “Fuck off.” 

Perhaps Snow isn't the idiot I thought he was.

Chapter Text

SIMON

“This is actually spooky. Is it like looking into a mirror?” I hold the book up next to Baz’s face and grin widely. “This can’t be a coincidence. Did you pose for the cover art?”

He’s not looking at me, his eyes locked on the supply list he’s going through. I think I see the corner of his mouth twitch, though. Since the storeroom, he’s been far less verbally abusive to me, and doesn’t hide as much when I’m around. But he’s also kind of freezing me out. I mean, he’s always been chilly, but before he’d at least talk to me, even if it was just to list out my defaults. But now he won’t talk to me hardly at all, except to be occasionally civil.

I don’t like it.

At this angle, Baz looks even more like the book cover in my hands: A bloke with long dark hair stares broodily back, his lips stuck out in a pout, his eyes hooded, like he’s glaring at the spindly red letters at the top of the cover that reads BLOODSPORT: THE ELEAZAR CRAVEN TRILOGY.

I’ve been staring at this brooding face—the one on the cover, not Baz—for days. The books are famous (best selling trilogy, movie deal in the works) and the hype leading up to the final release has been insane. This brooding fuck is everywhere I look. And because they’re published by Pitch Publishing, our store is hosting the official release party. Balloons, streamers, costumes, lines to get in. You name it. The author will be here signing books. It’s going to be insane.

And I’m absolutely delighted, because it means that in a few days, Baz is going to have to work a midnight release with a hundred teenage girls who are all going to see his shocking resemblance to the pouty, rich, century-old vampire on the cover.

He’s been pouting about it for weeks.

He sighs heavily, not paying attention to the book I’m holding by his head. Christ, I should get a photo of this. I dig slowly in my pocket for my mobile.

“Fiona, did you send the publisher a picture of Basil for the cover art?” I call over my shoulder. She’s trying to wrangle an oversized poster onto an empty table in the back, but it keeps falling over and hitting her in the head. She grunts and throws it to the ground, and Eleazar scowls up from the floor of the Young Adult section.

“No, he went up and modeled naked for it,” she shoots back, kicking the cardboard poster. “You should see the rejected cover.”

Baz looks up to glare at his aunt, and I snap a photo of him and the book cover.

“Delete that,” he barks, but it’s weak. Some of his venom is missing today. Normally he’s buttoned up and bristling, but he’s seemed extremely tired since he got in. Part of me thinks he might be sick; everytime the door opens and the wind comes in, he shivers, and he’s wearing that beanie, the one I saw on the first night we met.

I think that’s part of why I’ve been so cheeky today; I’m trying to pull him out of his bad mood. I don’t know when I decided that was my responsibility.

“Do we have a Twitter?” I ask Fiona. “We should tweet this in advance of the book release party. We could make him famous.” The photo of Baz pouting stares back at me from my phone screen, and I save it. I’ll probably put it on Instagram later.

“We could print it and put it with his staff suggestion cards,” Fiona responds, abandoning her poster attempt. “He’s read the whole trilogy, I’ve seen them in his flat.”

I turn back to grin at him. Everything about this is delightful. Baz reads vampire romance books. Absolutely delightful.

“I don’t look like Eleazar Craven,” he says finally, but it just comes out petulant, his voice tilting up in pitch. He flicks at glare at his aunt. “And I haven’t read the books.”

Fiona and I glance at each other and her lips quirk up.

“Whatever you say, Zar.”

“It’s the hair,” I say. I almost reach out to flick one of the dark strands, but I catch myself. He’d probably break my wrist if I touched him. “It’s just very broody. Why do you keep it so long?”

“I like it long,” he responds sharply. I roll my eyes and put my elbows on the counter across from him and prop my head up in my hands.

I do this a lot now; I sit across from him and just pepper him with stupid comments in the hope that he’ll stop ignoring me. Penny says it’s flirty, but I disagree. It’s just my own special way of annoying him. There seems to be a correlation between how much I annoy him and how good his mood is, so I suppose I’ve become a bit obnoxious lately.

“Really, I can’t believe your mum lets you run around with vampire hair,” I say.

There was a moment when I thought I might have cracked through, when the small dimple on his cheek had indented and he was about to smile. But then his face goes dark, his eyes narrow to slits, and he grabs the book from my hand.

“Fuck off,” he snaps, smacking me roughly in the forehead with the hardback book, then stalks away.

“What the fuck!” I yell after him, but he’s already halfway up the stairs. My head is ringing with the force of his hit, and I can still barely believe that happened. I’m going to have a big red blotch.

“He hit me,” I say to Fiona, dazed. She slips around behind the counter to pick up the ledger Baz had been working in. “Did you see that? He hit me. That fucking wank hit me. I was just making a joke and he went postal. What the fuck? Why is he like this?”

“Simon,” Fiona says, not looking up from her work.

“What?”

“You know I don’t give a shit, right? Baz is Baz. I’ve know him his whole life. I don’t need to hear about him constantly.”

“Right, sorry,” I say, feeling sheepish. But I can’t turn it off. I rub at the mark on my forehead. A headache is building. “He just drives me fucking crazy.”

“He says the same about you,” Fiona drawls. She frowns at something in her ledger and writes a note angrily. She finally looks up at me and flashes a mirthless smile. “Maybe you two should just fuck and get it over with.”

“Fiona!” I shout, choking on my words. My face has gone bright red and I feel like my throat is about to close up.

“Why? You are gay, aren’t you?”

I feel like my face is going to explode. Is she allowed to ask me this? And why did she just assume? I don’t really talk about these things—fuck, I don’t really think about these things—but this is like the tenth time she’s made a joke about Baz and I… you know. Up until now I had assumed she was doing it to get a rise out of me, but now I’m not so sure.

“Uh, no,” I squeak out.

Fiona raises an eyebrow, and her kohl lined eyes narrow, like she thinks I’m lying.

“Really?” There’s an intense note of surprise in her voice. Do I seem really gay? “You’re straight?”

“Well, uh, no, I didn’t say that.” I really don’t want to get into this right now.

Fiona rolls her eyes. Her whole face gets in on the action, her mouth opening, her chin jutting to the side. She spares no effort to make sure I know just how obnoxious she finds me.

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t care. What’s your issue then? Don’t you find him fit? You stare at him constantly. You’re like a fucking puppy, following him around, begging for attention all the time.”

“Christ alive, you can’t just say those things!” I shout. I glance upward. I pray he isn’t listening to this, but I don’t know where he is. Usually he sits in the horror section, which is right next to the balcony.

“Why not?” she snaps. “You’ll bitch to me about literally anything. Why can’t I do the same?”

“You’re his aunt,” I say, thoroughly scandalised. I feel like a cat backed into a corner; my hackles are up and I just want to yell and hop the fuck away.

“Yeah, I am, I’m not his mother, I can say that shit. Though, knowing Natasha, she’d be concerned at how depressingly single he is.”

I pause. I’ve never actually heard his mother’s name before. I’ve never even heard her referenced, except in passing as the one who opened this store.

“Is that his mother?” I ask, frowning. I lean forward and lower my voice. “Does he have mum issues or something? Because when I made a joke about his mum letting him keep his hair short he flipped on me. That’s when he smacked me.”

“Don’t mention his mother,” Fiona says. Her voice is sharp and direct, and all the humour is gone. “She died a bit back, and it’s a titchy subject with us all.” She closes the ledger and pushes it away with a huff, and then shakes her head at me like I’m a child whose just done something naughty. “Just take it easy on him today, all right? He’s had a rough day.”

This is classic Fiona. One moment she’s your best friend, and then her blunt edge gets sharpened into a blade and she’s cutting and cold and talks to you like you’re something unpleasant under her shoe. Sometimes it’s like she and Baz are the same person.

“What happened?” I feel like a massive prick for making a joke about his mum, even if I didn’t know. But in my defence, I could tell he was having a bad day. I had been trying to make it better, before I cocked it up. But he still shouldn’t have hit me. That was too far.

Fiona sighs. I can tell I’m annoying her, but I can’t stop.

“His roommate is moving out, so now Baz has to find another one, and he hates living with people. He only put up with Dev because they’re cousins.”

“Oh,” I say. That’s...yeah, that’s unfortunate.”

Still not a reason to fucking hit people, though. Christ, he’s a wankstain sometimes.

Fiona hums in agreement and reaches for her bag.

“Malcolm lets Pitch employees live there rent free, so he’ll probably just end up shoving him in with someone he hates,” she says, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and tapping it against her hand. “Classic Malcolm.”

This feels like it’s about to steer into a conversation about family drama, and I really, really don’t want to be involved. I’ve got enough of my own.

“I should probably apologise for saying he looks like a YA vampire, shouldn’t I?”

I glance up at the balcony, and I can see his shadow moving against the back wall. He’s probably far enough away that he hasn’t been hearing this mind-meltingly humiliating conversation.

“I mean, I wouldn’t,” Fiona says, sticking a cigarette between her teeth and shrugging into her jacket. “Just let him sulk it out.”

Brilliant. Great plan. It’s like Fiona doesn’t know that Baz could win an Olympic gold in sulking.

I hate waiting.

BAZ

Simon is playing The Talking Heads, even though it’s his day to do the music, and he’s putting up the promotional poster in the window, even though I said I would do it. (I was going to make him do it anyway, but I had been at least pretending I would.)

He’s being nice, which pisses me off, because I can never tell if he’s being nice because he wants to be friendly to me or if he’s being nice because he’s just a genuinely good person. It’s a crucial distinction, and one that’s been driving me slowly insane.

I should be nice back.

“Oi, cockstain, you’ve put the poster up backwards,” I call over the railing. He jumps when he hears me, slips off the stool in his attempt to turn around, and goes plummeting into a shelf. He hits the floor in a shower of books.

Christ, he’s hopeless.

“Thanks a load, you bawbag,” he calls from the floor. It’s more like a grunt. I would check on him, but I’m sure he’s fine. His body looks like he’s broken every bone he has already, so I’m sure he can handle a small fall. Maybe it’ll snap his revolting pinky back into place, so it’ll stop sticking out.

I glance back over to my phone, which has been occupying my entire attention for the last half hour, the text from Fiona still blinking up at me from the screen.

FP: Simon confirmed: “not straight”

FP: nearly shit himself when I asked if he thought you were fit

FP: please get laid so you’ll stop being a twat all the time

She’s the most awful person I’ve ever met.

A large part of me feels ridiculous for reacting the way I did earlier. He had no idea; no one had told him. And he was being adorable, falling all over the counter, constantly talking at me. That’s his new thing: he just talks and talks and talks. Before the storage room, I couldn’t get a full sentence out of him, and now it’s like he’s been saving up his words his entire life just to unleash them on me now.

I wasn’t even pissed about the vampire thing. Eleazar Crane was voted Number 2 on Waterstones Sexiest Literary Characters. There are worse people to be compared to.

I’m just…. Well, I’m just a prickly twat sometimes. I’m confident enough to admit it.

The problem is that sometimes when Snow is being friendly, it seems like he’s flirting. I think he’s just a naturally flirty person, so I try not to read into it, but sometimes he lays it on heavy, and I get a bit wrapped up in it. So the sudden shift from “you’re a sexy vampire” to jokes about my mum caught me off guard. It wasn’t the joke that upset me so much as it was the awful, unexpected, gut wrenching mention of her in the midst of what had otherwise been a pretty nice moment.

And if this weren’t already an awful day, I now owe Fiona five quid, because I bet her that Snow was straight. Finding out that he’s not is both a delight and a burden.

Christ I’m a mess.

“Si, you’re coming to drinks after the book release, right?” I hear Fiona call across the bookstore. I wish they would shut up. They’ve been talking all afternoon and I just want to get through my school work, but it’s impossible to focus on Plato when Snow is around.

“Oh, er,” he says, his stilted words floating up to me. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Well plan on it,” Fiona says. “And bring Penny. I miss her.”

“I was kind of planning on going home, spending some time with Agatha,” Snow says. I pause.

Who is Agatha?

“She’ll survive without you for one night,” Fiona says. Snow laughs.

“I know, but I feel like I never see her anymore,” he says. “I’ll have to pass.”

If he’s not straight, then who is Agatha? Obviously she’s important enough that Fiona knows about her. But I’ve never heard her name before. Considering that Snow chatters at me about everything, I don’t really know a whole lot about his life. I know his friend Bunce, because she comes in a bit. But aside from what I learned in the storage room, I really know nothing about him. I don’t know why his pinky sticks out weird, and why he has a scar across one eyebrow, and why his knuckles are covered in crisscrossed ridges of pale skin. I don’t know why he’s studying literature or even how he got into Edinburgh University. I don’t know what he does when he leaves the store. I didn’t know he wasn’t straight.

Not straight doesn’t mean necessarily mean gay though. He could be in a relationship with someone named Agatha.

Christ, I need coffee. Snow usually goes on a coffee run around this time each day. Sometimes he’ll ask if I want something, but on days I’m being particularly stroppy, he’ll just show up with one for me. It’s exhausting to think about how much energy he expends being nice to other people. When does he have time to do his school work?

I don’t look up when I hear his clodding footsteps on the stairs up to the balcony, but I am relieved to hear them.

“I’m going for coffee,” he grunts from behind me, but I don’t acknowledge him. “You want anything? If you just ignore me, I’m not bringing you anything back.”

“Yes you will,” I say, because I’m an asshole. “You always do.”

There’s silence behind me, and then a heavy sigh.

“Awright then,” he says. There’s a pause. “Sorry I made a joke about… you know. I won’t again.”

I turn around, finally. There’s a cut on his lip and a bruise forming on his forehead from where he fell and got pelted by books. Or maybe it’s from where I hit him. It looks like it was worse than I thought. I feel a little bad for laughing so loudly when he fell now.

“It’s fine.” My voice is quiet. “Thanks.”

We stand in awkward silence for a moment.

“Well?” I say. “Aren’t you going for coffee?”

I don’t want him to leave, but I have no idea what to say next in this conversation, or how to respond. I’ve been being a prick, and he’s been trying to be nice, and I know I should turn off the antagonism but I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to start being kind to someone. Usually when I push people away, they don't push back. I don’t know what to do with this golden haired wreck in front of me who just tries so hard.

“Fuck you,” he growls.

“You wish,” I say, flicking his nose. I’m trying to be flirty, in some backwards, schoolboy way, and I regret it the moment my arm reaches out. He startles like I’ve just punched him, and he reaches out too late to smack me, but I throw up an arm to block him. As my arm comes up he flinches violently.

Oh. He thought I was going to hit him.

Why does he have that immediate fear response?

He steps backward, away from me, and I see the missing step before he feels it, his foot going down hard on empty air. His eyes go wide and his arms pinwheel out and I reach for him, but his broad fucking shoulders make him top heavy and he’s already off course, falling backwards, uncontrollably bouncing off the stairs and sliding over steps until he lands at the bottom with a sickening dull thud and a grunt.

“Simon?” I say, rushing down the stairs after him, skipping steps. He pushes himself to a dazed sitting position as I reach him, and there’s blood everywhere. His nose is like a tap, just gushing out onto the floor, seeping through his light jeans and staining everything. He looks up at me with fear and hurt and betrayal in his eyes.

“You fucking pushed me down the stairs,” he growls, pushing himself to his feet. “What the fuck?”

“I didn’t—” I start, reaching for him, but it’s too late. The moment I move his eyes go wide and his arm comes up and back and then—

His fist connects with my jaw, my head snapping to the side violently. Small sunbursts appear behind my eyes as I let out a shout of pain and surprise.

“Jesus fuck,” I yell, but moving my jaw hurts. “What the fuck was that for?”

Snow is breathing heavily, his fists clenched, his blue eyes blown, looking like he did that day in the storage room. He’s gone off, blinked out. He really wasn’t lying about having a short temper.

He looks torn between hitting me again and sobbing.

“Oi, oi, break it up!” Fiona shouts, running across the store to get to us. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to get hit again, but he’s standing there, looking terrified, and I want to reach for him. When he hears Fiona’s voice his face crumples.

“I—I’m sorry,” he squeaks out, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”

He grabs his jacket from the hook by the door and bolts out, blood still streaming from his nose.

“What the—” Fiona starts, but I shake my head. There are tears pricking at my eyes from the pain radiating through my jaw. His apology, raw and on the verge of tears, keeps playing through my head.

“I think I pushed him too far,” I say.

“Did you push him down the stairs?”

“Fuck no!” I shout, turning on her. “I swear I didn’t. He just...has anger issues. I don’t think he would have hit me if I hadn’t surprised him.”

Fiona stares at the door he’s disappeared through, shaking her head.

“Jesus Christ, that kid is a wreck,” she says, digging through her pocket for a cigarette.

“Yeah,” I say, rubbing my jaw. “I suppose we match.”

Chapter Text

SIMON

Baz is in the close when I get to work.

I almost don’t see him at first. I assume he’s just another dark shadow cast by a cloudy day until I see an orange glow. He’s leaning against the wall, bundled up in his dark jacket and smoking a cigarette. And I think he’s been waiting for me.

I didn’t come in yesterday. I didn’t know how to work up the bravery to face what I’d done, and the longer I waited the harder it got to make myself leave my flat. This morning was truly awful, and I’ve had a rock sitting in the pit of my gut. How am I going to explain this? Baz is going to kill me. Fiona is going to fire me. I’ve really and truly fucked things up, just like always.

I’m almost trembling with anxiety by the time I reach him.

His eyes flick up to my face and I know he’s taking in my cut lip and swollen nose. There’s a small bruise on his jaw, but he looks like he got off easy. Easier than me at least. But the sight of his bruise makes something sharp thrum in my throat.

“We need to talk,” he says, and my stomach coils in on itself and squeezes. I feel like I can’t breathe.

I nod curtly, my fists curling in my jacket. He doesn’t speak, though. Instead, he offers me his cigarette. I’m trying to quit, but I take it anyway. I’ll quit tomorrow.

I take a drag of the cigarette and hold in the smoke for a long moment. The brand he smokes is stronger than mine, sharper, and it settles like a coiled heat in my chest, and I can feel my muscles relax, just a little.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I say dumbly, exhaling. He never smells like smoke, unlike me. I know I always reek of it.

“I think there’s a lot we don’t know about each other,” he says, accepting the cigarette back from me. He inspects it for a moment and then takes another drag. His shoulders are hunched, and he’s never look more like a black and white movie villain than he does now.

“I’d like to propose a truce.”

“A truce?” I echo. He nods.

“A truce. A ceasefire from… whatever the fuck this is,” he says, gesturing between us. He sighs and flicks the ash from his cigarette. “Look. I’m tired. I don’t fancy being hit again. And tomorrow is the book release party, and it will be busy and stressful, and we don’t need to make it worse by squabbling like children.”

I wasn’t really expecting this, and the surprise of it all is making the tension and ache in my chest even worse. I don’t really know what to say, but he’s apparently not done.

“My father will be there. And I’d rather things go smoothly.”

The silence between us is palpable. He holds out his cigarette again, but I shake my head.

“So… you’re forgiving me because you don’t want to look like you’re fighting in front of your dad?” I say. I can’t even begin to understand this line of reasoning, but part of me is slightly miffed that he’s offering this truce because of appearances, and not because he just doesn’t want to fight.

He glares at me and shrugs.

“Something like that.” He sighs again and runs a hand through his hair. It’s down today, tucked neatly behind his ears and curling up at the collar of his jacket. He squints at the ground and flicks his ash again. “My father always expects me to be difficult. We have a lot of issues. It would just be easier in general to not disappoint him. And being in some petty feud with a coworker is, frankly, disappointing.”

He’s still not looking at me.

“What kind of issues?” I ask, because I still don’t know how to answer. I’m hunched over, my hands in my pocket, and neither of us are looking at each other. Baz is glaring at the ground, and for a moment I don’t think he’s going to answer me.

“He expects a lot from me, academically and professionally,” he says, then glances at the wall quickly. Christ, is it possible he looks self conscious? “He’s also not thrilled about me being gay, so.”

He exhales a puff of air and brings the cigarette back up to his mouth, his eyes deliberately not trained on me. When he exhales, his face is hidden by a cloud of smoke.

I knew he was gay. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but Baz has never said it out loud to me before. He’s never really shared anything about himself, honestly. Hearing him tell me this feels like he’s deliberately forcing himself to open up. I roll my shoulders and carefully take the cigarette out of his hand and take another drag.

He finally looks at me.

“Fuck him then,” I say, turning my head to blow smoke in the opposite direction before I hand the cigarette back. “You work harder than anyone I know, and if he’s going to be a prick about things, why should you worry about what he thinks?”

“It’s not that easy,” he snaps, sharper than he’s been this entire conversation. I guess I’ve crossed a line. But the tension and anxiety I’ve been carrying for two days is starting to unwind, and I feel a bit unmoored and weightless suddenly.

“Why not?”

“You don’t understand the difficulties of a family dynamic, do you?” My brow furrows and I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but he holds his hand up between us. “That’s not a slam, Snow, it’s just the truth. Just trust me when I say it’s worth it to try to get along with my father, even if you don’t get it.”

He’s being so cool and adult and… almost kind. He’s opening up and trying to get me to open up, and considering he’s the most closed off person I’ve ever met, I almost have to wonder if he’s high. If I hadn’t been sharing his cigarette, I would think he was.

I’m silent for a moment, but I nod.

“Right,” I say. “Aye, right. It’s your life.”

He hums in agreement.

“Now,” he says, dropping the cigarette to the ground and grinding it into the cobblestone. “Why did you punch me?”

The tension and anxiety comes slamming back.

“I… I’ve always had...”

“A short temper, I know,” he says, finishing my sentence with a tight smile. “You weren’t kidding.”

Guilt flares within me, and I try not to look at the bruise on his chin, so instead I look down at our feet. His black, shiny boots look impossibly clean next to my torn up white Adidas.

“Yeah, I’m working on it,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair.

“Is that what happened to your pinky?” he asks. I’m in the process of lowering my hand, and I glance at it in surprise. I didn’t know he’d noticed the way it kind of juts out from my other fingers. I clench it, but it never really bends properly, and I shove my hand back in my pocket.

“Uh… no. Someone closed it in a door.” It’s the briefest explanation I can give, but a phantom pulse of pain shoots through my arm at the memory.

“A door?” He raises an eyebrow, and I flush.

“Aye. Couple of times.” He’s silent for a long moment, and I can tell that he’s already stumbled onto the truth, or some version of it. He’s smart. He’s too fucking smart.

“Did you kill them?”

His question forces a sharp laugh from me, and I shake my head.

“Not yet.”

He nods once, then twice, then pushes back from the wall and turns to face me.

“Look, I’ve been a bit of a prick. I’ve been under stress, but that’s not an excuse to be an ass. I’m sorry for my part in this unpleasantness.”

I nod enthusiastically, desperately happy to be off the topic of my fucked up pinky and fucked up past.

“Me too,” I babble. “Short temper isn’t a reason to punch you. Sorry, by the way.”

He shrugs it off, then looks away from me again and sighs, like whatever he’s about to say next is going to be incredibly painful for him.

“I’m not offering friendship or whatever, but I’m offering something adjacent. If you’d want.”

If I want. Do I want?

“I’d like that,” I say, grinning. This is what I’ve been trying to accomplish since day one, anyway. Penny told me I should be friends with him. This is a good first step. A truce. “Just, don’t push me down the stairs again.”

“I didn’t push you down the stairs,” he snaps, turning to unlock the storage room door. “But you would have deserved it if I had.”

“Prick,” I say, but I’m still smiling.

He steps aside to hold the door open for me.

“Don’t get all full of yourself, twat.”

BAZ

Across a crowd of crazed teenage girls, I see Simon Snow, wearing trousers and loafers and a real shirt, and my heart stops.

He’s talking to two girls who have been camped out for the release party since this morning, the fairy lights glinting off his curls as he nods along to what they’re saying and slowly sets up the mic stand. He’s smiling. I don’t think he’s stopped smiling since yesterday. He’d started grinning like a loon in the close, when I asked for a truce. It had faltered a but when he came in to talk to Fiona, but she hadn’t even blinked when he approached her, all puppy eyes and contrition. Just ruffled his hair and told him to get to work, and the smile was back. He bounded around the store like a golden retriever on crack all afternoon.

I don’t know if the smile is because of me, or because he still has a job, but I’d like to think it’s because of me.

I’m glad that our conversation or heart-to-heart or whatever you want to call it reinvigourated him, because it absolutely drained me. I don’t think I’ve been that open with anyone, ever, and it was almost physically painful to force myself to be direct and blunt with him and not hide behind sneers and shitty comments. Saying the words “I’m sorry” nearly choked me.

But he’s spent so much time trying with me, I felt like I owed it to him.

And also, I felt bad about the stairs.

No one from the publishing house has shown up yet, but the Bloodsport release party is in full swing when I walk in. I guess I took longer getting ready than I had thought, which is ridiculous, because I’m just wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a pair of boots I stole from Fiona’s boyfriend pile. I did spend a ridiculous amount of time on my hair, though.

Sometimes I wish I weren’t so vain.

Fiona is in the corner restacking books, and she’s dressed ridiculously in leather and torn fishnets and has three dramatic scratches down the side of her face. It takes me almost a full moment to realise she’s decided to come as the girl who gets shredded by werewolves in the first book.

Bunce has apparently been appropriated as a staff member for the evening, because she’s in the corner, dressed as a fairy and serving punch. I don’t recall any fairies in the books.

I try to push my way through the crowd toward Snow, but I get stopped three times by packs of girls asking for a photo, and everywhere I look, Eleazar Crane’s pouty face glares at me, mocking me and my costume, making me feel like and absolute idiot. I try not to snap at people. I chose to do this to myself.

When I finally get to Snow, the mob of teen girls around him has lessened a bit.

“Snow,” I say, and he whirls, the thin gold cross around his neck flying up to catch him in the chin.

“Hiya!” he says, then pauses as he looks at me. I watch his Adam’s Apple bob, and then his jaw tightens. I have no idea what’s causing this reaction, but he looks almost like he does when he gets angry–his eyes are narrowed, and it’s like his brain has shut off.

“Baz, you’re… you’re wearing jeans,” he says, quietly, almost reverently, and I have to bite down the intense flush trying to make its way across my face. He’s never called me Baz before. Only Basil.

“And fangs,” I say, pointing to the cheap prop fangs affixed to my canine teeth.

This seems to snap him out of whatever haze he was in, because he shakes his head incredulously and goes back to fixing the mic.

“You put literally the least amount of effort possible into your costume and yet you still have the best one here,” he says, shaking his head. He’s still eyeing me a way I’ve never seen before though, and it’s making me slightly uncomfortable. In a good way.

“Who are you supposed to be?” I ask, switching the subject away from my appearance. He looks incredible in his costume, with his dark colours and cuffed trousers. I’ve never seen him wear something so dark before, and it’s a good fucking look. He looks posh and pulled together. He looks cool .

He frowns at me, like this should be obvious.

“I’m Lily.”

I almost choke.

“Lily the main love interest Lily? The girl?” I squeak out. I’m trying not to laugh.

Snow nods.

“Yeah! I figured, blonde and blue eyed, fits right? And remember in the second book when she has that spell done to make her look like a bloke so she can infiltrate the Brotherhood of Shadows and investigate Eleazar’s disappearance?” He gestures down at himself. “That’s me! I’m book two Lily!”

Jesus Christ, he’s actually read the books.

I squint at the black cashmere he’s got on, which is stretched tight over his shoulders. I try not to think about his shoulders.

“Is that my sweater?”

Snow looks down at himself and flushes.

“Oh, er… I dunno. Fiona dressed me.”

“In my clothes, apparently,” I say, and he flushes an even deeper red. I tamp down the urge to give him shit about stretching my sweater. “I thought you would have come as Sam the werewolf.”

He laughs loudly and rubs at the back of his neck. He’s even wearing my watch. Fiona literally just stole an outfit I wore last week.

“Sam is the worst,” Snow exclaims. “And he’s always shirtless and wearing like...short shorts. Not really my look.” I try not to swallow. I think it would be his look.

Seeing him in my clothes is kind of his look as well though.

“Why is Bunce a fairy?” I ask instead, gesturing toward his friend. She has an angry expression on her face as she argues with two girls wearing shirts with Eleazar’s face on them.

“She hasn’t read the books and just assumed because they were fantasy that they’d have a fairy,” Snow says, shrugging. “She refuses to read anything that she finds heteronormative. She says the second book was queerbaiting with a Eleazar/Sam relationship.”

I snort. After the ten total minutes I’ve spent with Bunce, this does not surprise me at all. And also, I agree with her. The second book was a travesty.

“You know, I always thought the series would have been better if Lily were a bloke.”

Snow grins.

“Me too.”

Last night, when I was alone in my bed and trying to push back a wave of anxiety, I worried that I was going to regret this truce. I didn’t know if I could be friendly with Snow, or if it would just make my pathetic crush on him worse. But watching him walk away in my trousers, I don’t think I regret it.

I regret my costume though. I’m swarmed by girls all night, and I beg Fiona to put me on the register instead of the floor. When the author shows up before midnight, she enters the room to a round of screaming, and it’s as though the crowd swells to six times its previous size. I’m extremely thankful for the black short sleeve shirt I’m wearing, because it’s so hot in here that I’m practically sweating, and the sheer number of bodies makes it almost difficult to breathe.

As the clock ticks down to midnight, we have to begin packing people into the upstairs balconies, and Bunce starts turning people away at the door. I try to keep an eye on Snow, but through the crowd of teenage girls and black-haired fake vampires, it’s impossible to see him. Finally I spot him, eyes wide, backed into a corner. He looks panicked.

Does he have a problem with crowds? The only time I’ve seen him in one was the poetry slam, and he did seem jittery then. He’s got himself pressed against a shelf, flexing one hand over and over.

I try to make eye contact with him across the crowd, but he’s not looking at me.

“Snow!” I yell, but he doesn’t hear me. I clear my throat and try again. “Simon Snow!” I shout.

Heads across the store snap up, including his, and his pale blue eyes lock onto mine. There’s a question in his expression, and he looks overwhelmed.

“Snow, we need you at the register!” I shout, and motion for him to come over. I’ll stick him behind the register, where there will be a barrier between him and the crowd.

He smiles.

“Basilton,” a voice says to my left. “There’s no need to yell.”

“Hello father,” I say, not taking my eyes from Snow, who is picking his way through the crowd. He’s going slow, and I feel jittery now too—whether it’s because of my father’s proximity or because Snow looks on the verge of a breakdown, I don’t know.

“This is quite a turn out,” my father says, leaning back against the counter. Even with the room packed with people, it’s still strange to see him here. He never comes by; I think he’s been here maybe three times total since Mother died and Fiona took over, and he always looks out of place. Too tall, too formal, too business-like to exist in our cramped, cosy store.

Sometimes I wonder if that means I look out of place here too.

“That it is,” I respond, watching Snow pose for an awkward photo with three other Lilys. He smiles brightly at the girls, even though I can see from his clenched jaw that he’s uncomfortable. “I expect you’re pleased.”

“I am,” my father says. “Listen, Basilton, I was thinking–”

“You wanted me?” Snow interrupts, popping up beside me and completely disregarding my father’s existence. He’s sweating and smiling so widely at me I can see his teeth. Christ, he’s perfect.

“Snow,” I say, jerking my head as nonchalantly as possible toward my father. “This is Malcolm Grimm-Pitch, my father. Father, this is Simon Snow. Fiona recently hired him.”

“Oh,” Snow says, and I see his eyes slide over my father, and I remember our awkward conversation in the close yesterday. Snow’s smile drops immediately. “Pleasure to meet you.” His tone is steely as he holds out his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Snow,” Father says, accepting Snow’s hand for a firm shake. I try not to roll my eyes at the formality. “I didn’t know Fiona had hired someone,” he says, turning to me. I nod.

“She needed more time to work on her deadlines,” I say, inspecting a receipt from earlier.

“This is excellent!” my father says, completely ignoring Snow. “Now you’ll have time to do the internship next term with the Publishing House. You’ve always said you were too busy with your shifts.”

I can feel Snow’s eyes heavy on me, but I don’t look.

“I’m taking a full course load next term,” I say, reminding my father of this fact for the third time. “I don’t think I’ll have time.”

Father sighs heavily. I’m acutely familiar with that sigh.

“You know, you don’t have to take four courses every term. You could drop down to two or three, clear up your schedule. You’re well ahead, you don’t need to always overload yourself. No wonder you’re always sleeping till noon,” Father laughs, like something about this is funny. “Honestly, you wonder why your sleep schedule is off–”

“I’ve already enrolled and spoken to my tutor,” I say sharply. I had assumed we would have this argument at Christmas, not in the middle of a party with Snow standing here, sweating and mouth breathing. I can practically feel the black mood rolling off of him the longer my father speaks.

“Just think it over. It would be useful for you to get some real experience,” my father says. “Get out of this store and into the real world every now and then.”

I’ve been staring down at the counter, attempting to avoid my father’s gaze, when I see Snow’s fist curl at his side. His eyes are narrowed and his chin is jutted out, and it’s the exact same expression I saw the first day I met him, when he thought I was insulting Bunce. When he thought he needed to protect her.

“I don’t think the shop could run if Baz wasn’t here,” Snow says stiffly. His hand unclenches at his side, and he stares at my father. “Fi and I are a bit hopeless at it. He’s pure dead brilliant, the only one who understands how everything works. Honestly, it’s amazing he has any time to sleep at all, considering how hard he works at school and the shop.”

His jaw clenches again as he meets my father’s gaze, and my stomach flips over and a hand reaches out to squeeze at my chest. Somehow, I’ve become someone Snow wants to protect.

His sudden aggressiveness has caught my father off guard, and he looks ready to bark back when the microphone in the corner cuts on, and Fiona’s voice echoes through the room. She’s introducing the author and going through the costume contest winners, but I’m not paying attention. I’m just staring at Snow.

Impossible, insane, absolutely obnoxious Snow, who looked seconds from forgetting his pledge to calm his temper. Even in my posh clothes he still looks like a fighter.

Father has turned his attention to the stage, but Snow is still glowering.

Before I can change my mind, I reach out a hand and rest it lightly on his arm. His shoulders drop immediately and he turns to look at me, a question in his eye. He doesn’t need his words to tell me that he’s willing to fight if I want him to.

Instead I just smile tightly at him and shake my head lightly. He scrunches his nose and glares at my father again, and then shrugs.

Just before he turns to pay attention to the stage, he throws a smile at me over his shoulder, and I’m absolutely fucked.

I’m so, so fucked.

Chapter Text

BAZ

“Be quiet, this is my favourite part,” Snow says, waving his hand in my direction. I raise an eyebrow at him; I didn’t say anything. I haven’t said anything at all for the past thirty minutes. The only sound at all has been the steady downpour of rain outside and his scratchy voice floating through the empty bookstore.

Snow is laying on his back in the middle of the children’s section, his feet propped up on the shelves, reading me a Paddington book.

It’s today's new form of torture. On slow days it’s not unusual for him to lay down in fiction and read books off of the shelves. Usually he’ll read silently for a bit, then bitch that he should be doing his coursework. Today he was actually doing his work (the first time I’ve ever seen him study—I had no idea he was in the literature programme as well), sprawled on his stomach in the middle of nonfiction, calling out across the store for me to give him help on his paper.

“What should my thesis statement for A Picture of Dorian Gray be?” he’d asked.

“I’m not writing your paper,” I’d responded. “But I’ll give you 5 quid if you use the phrase ‘Victorian twink.’”

“Why am I studying literature?” he moaned, rolling over to drop the book on his face. “This is so boring.”

“Maybe you should try something more your speed,” I'd said, looking up from my own work for the first time. “Children’s is over there.”

I expected him to tell me to piss off, but instead he just flashed me his awful, cheek-aching grin, collected himself from the floor of the nonfiction section and padded over to children’s. He stared at the shelves for a moment before selecting a book and throwing himself back down on the ground in a heap. He likes to lay with his feet up, I’ve noticed. From the register, sometimes all I’ll see are his disgusting Adidas sticking up over a shelf. His jeans are cuffed again today, and I can see his knobbly ankles. He even has freckles there. He must have freckles everywhere .

That's a dangerous line of thought.

“ Chapter one. Please look after this bear ,” he’d started, then paused, cleared his throat, crossed his legs, and continued. “ Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform. In fact, that was how he came to have such an unusual name for a bear... ”

I thought if I ignored him he would trail off and get bored. But he didn’t. He kept going, pausing occasionally to turn the page and flick his eyes over to me, as if checking to see if I’m still listening.

I am. He doesn’t need to tell me to be quiet and pay attention, because that’s all I’ve been doing. I’ve long since abandoned my own work in favour of simply listening to him. With my head propped on my hand I can stare at him easily without being caught, and I allow myself to just enjoy the soft cadence of his voice; of his round vowels sliding over the words, his thick consonants ringing out rich and lush. I should be responsible and tell him to stop, to get off the floor and remove his feet from the shelves, but it’s a Tuesday, and it’s raining, and no one is coming in.

And I don’t want him to stop.

There’s a tingling feeling that’s crawling down my scalp and through my shoulders, and it takes me a moment to realise that it’s relaxation. It’s contentment.

I love Paddington . I haven’t heard the story since I was a kid, since my mum read it to me. Her voice was different from Snow’s—elegant, smooth, engaged. She did voices and went up high, and I would hang off of every word, absolutely entranced. Not this time though; I’m barely following the plot, as the combination of the rain and Snow’s voice is lulling me to sleep.

Christ, I need sleep. I haven’t had a decent night’s rest in weeks.

I close my eyes. Just for a moment.

SIMON

“He looked hungrily at the cakes, in particular at a large cream-and-jam one which Mr. Brown placed on a plate in front of him.”

I pause reading for a moment and lick my lips.

“I’d kill for a jam and cream. I’m starved. What about you?” I ask, turning to face Baz. He has his head propped up on the counter with one hand, his eyes closed and his hair falling in front of his face. He looks incredibly soft.

“Oi,” I say, but gently. He doesn’t answer. Is he sleeping? His eyelashes flutter slightly. Christ, they’re long. I’ve never noticed how long and full they are.

“Basilton,” I whisper. His eyes flick open and meet mine. He smiles lightly, and something inside my chest squeezes tight.

“What?” His voice sounds leagues away, and a bit coarse at the edges. I think I woke him up.

“Are you hungry? I want jam.”

“Jam? You just want jam?” he asks, sitting back and blinking. He was definitely asleep. “You just want to dig into a full jar of jam?”

“Are you hungry?” I repeat. He seems to consider it for a moment, then nods. I glance around the store. It’s deserted. It’s been deserted all day, and Fiona isn’t due in, and I seriously doubt we’re going to have any customers. Moving quickly, I pull myself from the ground and stretch my back out before putting Paddington back in his spot.

“Come on then,” I say, heading to the front door. I flip the closed sign round, then reach for my jacket. “Let’s go to Ebb’s.”

“We can’t just leave,” he says. But he’s standing up already and putting on his own coat. “Fiona will kill us.”

“If Fiona were going to kill us she would have already,” I answer. “You know, I think she’s all bark.”

“Oh she’s barking alright,” he mutters, and follows me to the store room. He grabs a box from a nearby shelf and places it in front of the storeroom door.

“Just in case,” he says, and I scrunch up my nose in response. It’s a good idea. I’m not eager to get trapped in a room with him again.

But then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He’s been uncharacteristically nice to me today. He’s been nice ever since our truce, honestly. Even after I accidentally destroyed the sweater I borrowed from him. (Why would you have a sweater you can’t wash?) (He just stared at it when I handed it back to him. He didn’t even seem surprised.) (Just resigned.)

Maybe today would be a good day to ask him. He seems mellow. This might be my best shot. I just need to buck up and find the courage.

It’s still raining when we get outside and we both start running, down the close and out onto the street, skittering around the corner as we slam into Ebb’s. She looks up with a smile.

“Awright fellas!” she calls from the counter. “Bit dreich out?”

“That’s an understatement,” I call back, shaking out of my coat and throwing it on one of the two tables. “Hey can we get a straight black and a latte with extra sugar?

Baz pauses taking off his coat and stares at me. I’ve gotten his coffee for him loads of times, and yet he constantly seems surprised that I know his order. Sometimes I think he truly believes I'm a complete idiot. Fucker.

He shakes his head to dispel some of the water that’s collected in his hair, and a stray drop hits me in the face. Honestly, my initial impression of him being a werewolf is kind of spot on sometimes.

“Would you happen to have any jam?” he asks. Ebb grins brightly.

“Jam is exactly what is needed for a day like this,” she says, heading to the back. “But none of this coffee business! If you’re having jam, you’ll have a proper cuppa!”

“She’s interesting,” Baz says quietly as he settles into a chair at the table closest to the window. I take the one across from him and watch as he pulls a hand through his damp hair. I think he was trying to tame it, but it’s had the opposite result. Now it just looks poofy and is sticking out at strange angles. I bite down a smile. I don’t want him to catch on and fix it.

“Ebb’s great. She’s the first person I met here, actually,” I say. I’m bouncing my leg under the table to try to dispel some of my nervous energy. I just need to calm down. The worst thing that happens is he says no. And it will be embarrassing, but fine. Really, it’ll be fine.

“Why do you look like you’re about to explode?” he asks, just as Ebb emerges from the back with a tray. She sets down a dingy looking metal teapot and two cups, along with several scones and a jar of jam. I have to stop myself from reaching for a scone immediately.

Baz turns to his jacket to pull out his wallet, but she waves him off.

“On the house! No one’s been in all day. And honestly, I’m a wee bit bored, and I’ll take my payment in eavesdropping on your conversations.”

She gives me a wide grin and pats me on the shoulder, and I feel ready to pop. Sometimes it’s like Ebb can read my mind. She always seems to know when I’m a bundle of nerves, and the smile she’s giving me now is distinctly comforting. I swear she’s a witch.

“Thanks,” I say weakly, and Baz murmurs his thanks as well.

I turn my attention on the plate of scones as Baz pours himself tea. I can’t remember the last time I sat down for tea with someone. It feels so proper. Baz hands me the milk silently, and I just stare at it for a moment.

“You take your tea with milk, right?” he asks, his head tilted to the side.

“Uh, aye, yeah,” I mutter, accepting it from him.

I should just do it. Just get it over with, rip off the plaster, charge forward into the breach.

“Did you find a roommate yet?” I say, and immediately shove a scone in my mouth, sans jam, to keep myself from having to continue to speak.

Baz raises an eyebrow over his cup and dumps in a packet of sugar.

“Not yet. I’m trying to drag my feet. Why?”

I pour myself a cup of tea and take a sip—too large of a sip, and I choke slightly on the burning liquid. I’m coughing as I try to swallow it, and I’m desperately trying not to spit all over him. When I finally stop coughing, I look up, and he’s staring at me like I’m a complete lunatic. I guess I am. I take a breath and wipe at my mouth.

“I, er…” I start. “I’m being kicked out of my flat. And I wondered if you, er...well, if you want a new flatmate?”

BAZ

My hand pauses on the way to my mouth.

Simon Snow wants to be my flatmate?

He’s staring at me, his big blue eyes full of hesitation, and he looks like he’s about to be sick. Why would he want to live with me? I put my cup down on the table and sit back.

We called a truce, yes, but we haven’t even really bridged the friendship thing yet. And we still bicker. Constantly. And less than two weeks ago he punched me. His broken nose from the stairs incident has just finally healed.

I must be taking too long to answer, because Snow looks like he’s about to fall apart. He slaps his hands down on the table and hunches his shoulders, staring forcefully at the fake plastic newsprint top of the cafe table.

The cafe is deadly silent, save for the sound of rain hitting the window and Ebb’s soft clattering in the backroom.

“You can say no, obviously,” he mutters. “But just, you know, I’m not going to steal your shit or break things.” His tone gets dark. “Am no gonna have a chug on your sofa or anything.”

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. When he gets nervous he becomes fucking impossible to understand. And he gets crass. You can judge Snow’s comfort level by how vulgar he’s being.

“Why...” I start, “Why would you even say that? That wasn’t a concern I had before, but it’s one I have now.”

“Sorry,” he says, blushing. “I just meant, I’m not an awful roommate. I won’t do awful roommate things. I keep to myself and out of your hair.”

“If you’re such a good roommate, why are you being kicked out of your flat?” I ask, forcing my tone to be even. I need to buy myself time to think. And also, I know he’ll tell me the truth. He never lies. He’s obnoxiously upfront about everything. His eyes dart around the cafe.

“Uh. Noise complaints. Music, shouting, things like that. And I’m behind on rent.”

“Shouting?” I ask. Does Snow host raves in his home? Or is he one of those people who has revoltingly loud sex? I could see that, actually. He seems the type.

His freckled hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck, then falls to the string of his gray hoodie. He begins twirling it through two of his knobbled fingers.

“I sometimes… fuck. I sometimes have nightmares. And I kind of. Shout.”

If I were a substance, I would have just melted.

It’s tempting. My mind is already playing scenarios: running into him on his way from the shower. Breakfast with Snow. Studying together. Impromptu late-night talking in the kitchen. A thousand impossible, horrifying domestic scenes flash in front of my eyes, and the part of me that has given up and acknowledged that I have a pathetic crush on him is screaming yes.

But then what about when Snow and I just argue all day, every day? I’ll have nowhere to go to escape him. He’ll be everywhere—except my classes (for now, there’s always a chance we might overlap in the future). And what happens when he inevitably brings a girl home? Or, Jesus, a boy? I can’t imagine that he’s not getting laid regularly. No one who looks like that isn’t. And what about the girlfriend?

“Why don’t you live with your—uh—Agatha?” I say, spitting out the name.

Snow tilts his head and stares at me.

“I do?” he says slowly, like I’m the idiot here. “She’d be coming with me. Is that a problem?”

I blink.

Is that a problem? Is Snow and his girlfriend moving in a problem? Jesus fuck all Christ, what is wrong with him?

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening,” I snap, pushing my tea cup away and reaching for my coat. “You and your girlfriend aren’t moving in with me. I’d rather set myself on fire.”

Snow reaches out to grab my wrist, and I feel like I’ve been shot.

“I don’t have a girlfriend?” he says, his brow wrinkled, his voice pitching up, like he’s asking me a question. “Agatha is my cat?”

Agatha is a cat.

Oh my God, he’s a cat person. He’s a single male with a cat. Named Agatha.

“Why do you want to live with me?” I say instead of blurting out my internal freak out. I don’t even like cats. We don’t get on. I’ve no idea why the fact that Snow has a cat is making me fall apart right now. Maybe it’s just relief that he doesn’t have a girlfriend?

Snow shrugs and takes another sip of his tea, and I follow suit.

“Well, for starters, I’m always skint, and Fiona said employees can live in your flat for free,” he says, blushing. I deflate a bit. Money. Money is the obvious reason he asked, not me. Why didn’t I think of that?

“And also,” he continues. “I don’t really like living alone. I’m kind of a social person. Penny won’t let me live with her, and you’re kind of my only other friend, so…”

My grip tightens around my cup and I keep my face blank.

I’m Snow’s friend.

I’m feeling a wild array of emotions currently, and I have no idea what to do with any of them. So I add my sugar to my tea.

“Fair enough, I suppose,” I say cooly. “It’s fine with me. Do you want to see it first though? Before we agree?”

Snow pauses in the middle of eating a scone.

“Honestly, it could be a complete shit den and I’d agree,” he says, his eyes large. “You’re really alright with this? I thought I was going to have to fight you on it.”

I pour myself another cup, just to give me something to do with my hands.

“My father is going to force me to have a flatmate, whether I like it or not. At least I know I can somewhat tolerate being around you,” I sniff. I don’t want to sound too enthusiastic about this. I wonder what he looks like in the mornings? Probably as much of a mess as he looks the rest of the time. I wonder what his insane hair looks like before he's tried to tame it for the day.

“If the flat is free, why does he care about having it filled?”

My stomach lurches. I could wave off his question and chalk it up to my father being a conscientious employer or something. But that’s not the truth. And his comment about having nightmares is ringing in my ears.

“I’m not a social person,” I say, and Snow snorts, like this isn’t the most obvious thing I’ve ever said. I want to glare at him, but the electric buzz vibrating through my skin makes me look down at my cup. “But I’ve a history of… well… Father and Fiona think it’s not good for me to live alone.” I take a deep breath and look out the window, to avoid his gaze. “Father doesn’t care about filling the flat. He only makes me have a roommate so that there’s someone around to keep me out of my head too much, or something.” I flick a strand of hair out of my face and sit back. “It’s absurd and unnecessary, obviously. But those are the conditions for letting me live there, so.”

I slide my eyes back over to him hesitantly. He’s leaning forward in his chair, chewing on his lip and looking thoughtful.

“Oh,” Snow says. He nods. “Aye, yeah. I can do that.”

“Do what?”

He smiles, and his dimples and one crooked tooth are on full display.

“Annoy you out of your head.”

I huff. Fuck. Fuck, why is he like this? Can I really handle living with him?

He shoves another scone into his mouth and absentmindedly brushes crumbs off of his black t-shirt, not realising that he’s leaving a trail of jam behind with his hand.

I don’t know if I can handle it. But I’ll hate myself if I don’t try.

SIMON

“You live above the store? Why didn’t I know this?” I ask, my hands in the pocket of my hoodie as I wait for Baz to unlock the heavy green door in front of us. I’m a bit winded from the trek up the four flights of stairs to get up here, admittedly, and I’m antsy. I still can’t believe this is happening.

“Because you’re a complete numpty,” Baz snaps, shouldering the door open and then standing aside for me to enter.

He nearly smacks into me when he goes to follow, because I’ve stopped walking.

“You live here ?” I squeak out, turning around to stare at the huge living area I’ve just walked into. I knew it was going to be nice; the hand-carved wooden stair rails and crown molding on the way up and tipped me off to that fact, but I wasn’t really expecting this. The living room is wide open, with a fireplace in one corner and dark wood floors running throughout. And the windows. Four huge panes of glass adorn the far wall, curving around into a paneled wooden bay. It’s raining, so you can’t see far, but there’s one extremely distinct shape visible through the fog.

“Is that the fucking castle?” I breathe, heading toward the windows. Behind me Baz shrugs, his hands still in the pockets of his dark coat. He looks uncomfortable.

“There’s a better view of it from my room, but it should be visible a bit from yours as well,” he says. I side step the overstuffed couch and press my face to the clear panes. I can see the fucking castle. I can’t believe it.

I turn back to him and try to take in the rest of the room. Books are littered across every surface, and the white built-in shelves next to the fireplace are bursting. Behind Baz I can see a doorway leading to what must be the kitchen. All that’s visible is a giant fucking wooden table. There are even more books piled on top of it.

“Basil,” I say. “Baz. Basilton. This is insane. I didn’t know people lived in places like this.”

His shoulders hunch.

“The building used to be a Georgian townhome,” he says. “My grandparents split it up into the store and two units. Fiona lives in the one beneath this. Hers is actually far larger.” He looks embarrassed, suddenly. I try to reel myself back in.

“Why wouldn’t she take the top level? That view is fucking killer."

“She doesn’t like to climb more stairs than necessary,” he says. I nod. That sounds like Fiona.

We stand in silence for a moment. I’m trying not to look at the shoes that have been kicked off next to the sofa, or the empty bag of crisps set on top of the television, or the hoodie slung over one of the arm chairs. Instead I look at what he has on the walls. He’s framed some vinyl albums—The Talking Heads, The Smiths (of course)—which hang across from an overly large, artsy black and white tour poster for some terrifying-looking musician called Nick Cave.

On the floor next to the fireplace is a mess of pillows and a comforter, and several dirty tea mugs. Does he sleep next to the fire? Maybe he studies there. I can almost see it: getting up to get water at night and stumbling on Baz, swamped in a mess of blankets, blinking up at me over an essay. 

It’s so...lived in. I would have expected him to be meticulously clean, an everything in its place type of bloke. Everything is clean , but it’s just far more cluttered and comfortable than I’d thought it would be. I’m surprisingly relieved. I’m a fucking disaster, honestly. If he were a complete neat freak, that would have stressed me the fuck out.

“Your room would be over here,” he says, clearing his throat and gesturing toward a hallway. It’s a tight fit, a bit narrow, and nothing tells me how old this building is more than this cramped, slightly crooked hallway.

“There’s just one bathroom, but it’s large,” he says, pointing at a door as we pass. “And this would be your room. I’m just across the hall.”

He opens a white paneled door that has a fucking window over it, and stands aside for me to look.

“It’s nothing special, it’s the smaller room, but Dev didn’t destroy it too badly, so it should—” he starts, but I turn to him, my eyes huge.

“Baz,” I say slowly. “This is nicer than anything I’ve ever lived in. I grew up in care homes. This is….” I pause, turning around in the room. It’s painted white, with just two windows on the far wall and another set of white built ins on either side of the double bed. There’s a desk in the far corner, and an uncomfortable looking yellow wing-back chair by the window. “This is incredible. Are you sure you’re alright with me living here? I’m…” I trail off. “I don’t want to fuck anything up.”

“There’s a hole in the plaster of my room that I put there the day I moved in,” he says, shrugging. I want to laugh with the sheer insanity of how many times he’s shrugged today. I’ve literally never seen him do it before. “You’re fine, Snow. Just don’t set the place on fire.”

“I’m not that clumsy,” I mutter, looking around the room again. I don’t want to leave.

“Obviously everything is cleared and whatnot,” Baz says, leaning against the door frame. His hair has dried fully now, and it’s curling around his ears and falling in soft waves. Does he straighten it everyday? I wonder how often I’ll get to see it wavy and loose like this. “When are you supposed to be out of your flat by?”

I bite my bottom lip.

“Uh,” I say. “I kind of lied. I’m already out. I’ve been crashing with Penny all week.”

Baz just stares at me, his expression not changing.

“Move in tonight, then,” he says, his tone all business. “I’m going to my friend Niall’s after work, but I’ll give you my key.”

I nod, trying to be casual, but I’m jittery and too excited and I can’t stop nodding. I want to hug him, but he’d throw me out of these gorgeous fucking windows. The windows from which I can see the castle . Kind of.

“Brilliant,” I say. “Wonderful, yeah, Brilliant. Great. Thanks again. Really. This… this is great Baz.”

He shrugs and goes to push back from the door, but pauses.

“There’s only two ground rules,” he says. “First, mail will come for me with my first name on it. You’re not allowed to make any comment about it whatsoever.”

“Got it,” I say, though I’m now suddenly burning upside with an intense need to know what his first name is. I thought it was Basilton, up until this moment. I cannot begin to imagine what name is worse than Basilton, but I cannot wait to discover it. “What’s the second one?”

He’s looking down at his key ring instead of at me, fighting to get a slender copper key off of it. When he does, he hands it over to me and makes direct eye contact.

“Do not wake me before noon. Ever,” he says, not blinking. A chill runs down my spine. “If you do, I will stab you in the heart and piss on your body, and I will not cry at your funeral. Understand?”

I should look cowed, but I can’t. I’m smiling too widely.

“Loud and clear, roomie,” I say, taking the key from him. Baz turns on his heel quickly and leaves the room— my room —making loud noises of disgust his entire way down the hall.

“Don’t make me regret this charity, Snow,” he calls, and then the door slams shut behind him, and I’m left alone in Baz’s home.

Or, I guess, our home.

Chapter Text

BAZ

Watching Simon Snow make eggs is a traumatic experience.

There should be an addition made to the Geneva Accords that watching Simon Snow cook anything, but especially eggs, is considered cruel and unusual punishment.

First it’s the butter. I’m making coffee when I see him do it the first time; drop half a stick of butter into the pan, then turn back to the fridge like he hasn’t just started to melt more calories than I eat in a day.

I left quickly. It wasn’t something I wanted to witness again, and he was blasting some awful music, so I could leave unnoticed, like I have every other time I’ve seen him around the flat. I’ve been generally avoiding him since he moved in. It hasn’t been hard—he actually does keep to himself, and I’m at work or school all day, and in the evening when I come back to study, he stays in his room. There’s some strange agreement made: we talk at work, but not at home.

But he’s in the kitchen making eggs again this morning, the music blaring again. He looks like he’s just woken up; he’s still in his pyjamas (or what counts as pyjamas for him. I’ve noticed he just sleeps in whatever shirt he had on and swaps in some sweatpants) (which really says a lot about the quality of shirts he wears). His hair is sticking up in the back, and I want to run a hand through his curls. I don’t. (These are the kind of thoughts that I’ve been trying to beat back.)

He hears me fiddling with the coffee maker and he turns, and I nearly curse.

He’s wearing glasses. Large, wire frame glasses, and he smiles at me like a four eyed bug, his blue eyes huge and magnified and bright.

“Morning!” he says. “Want some eggs?”

As he speaks, he grabs an egg and cracks it into the pan. Five more follow. How much does he eat?

“No thank you,” I say, leaning against the counter to wait for my coffee. And also to enjoy the view. His faded flannel sweats hang low on his hip, and he’s wearing the same T-shirt and hoodie he wore yesterday. And the day before that. He’s barefoot. And I can’t get over the glasses. This is the first time I’ve seen them. How is this the first time I’ve seen them?

He must usually be dressed before I wake up.

“Aren’t you going to eat breakfast?” he asks, frowning as he leans over and grabs salt. I watch in terror as he tips it in, not even checking to see how much he’s pouring. Then he grabs a spatula and just starts...hacking.

Is this how he makes scrambled eggs? With brute force and imprecision? Why doesn’t he whisk the ingredients together beforehand?

“I don’t eat breakfast,” I respond. He turns again to squint at me.

“It’s almost lunch.”

“I don’t eat lunch.”

His eyebrows come together and he opens his mouth to stare at me, like I’ve just said something both deeply offensive and psychologically deranged.

“When do you eat?”

“At dinner,” I respond, pouring myself a cup of coffee. I hold up the pot to him in a silent question, and he nods. I grab another of my mugs (Snow only brought one mug with him, and it’s currently in the sink) and fill it up.

“Jesus, no wonder you’re in such a bad fucking mood all the time,” he says, grabbing more eggs and cracking them into the pan with the already half-baked eggs. “Here, I’m making extra.”

And then he adds more butter.

“I’m not eating those,” I snap. “You just used an entire stick of butter.”

“Shut the fuck up and eat the eggs,” he growls, shoving four pieces of bread into the toaster oven. “You’ll like it, it’s well tidy scran.”

“I refuse on both counts.” I pour my milk into my coffee and step back to survey Snow’s cooking. He’s currently opening a tin can of beans, and then—

Oh, Christ. He dumps the beans right into the pan. All of it.

“You’re actually eating that?” I say, amazed. Snow just squints at me and rubs a hand through his craze of curls. He’s pre-shower—he still smells like the curry he made last night. He tried to make me eat that too. I refused. (Until he went to sleep. Then I did eat some. It was surprisingly good.)

“Aye, and you are too,” he says. Then upends half a bag of shredded white cheddar into the pan, and I have to resist the urge to vomit. I’m busy trying to come up with a perfect, cutting comment when a plate piled high with beans and eggs and toast is shoved at me, and Snow collapses at my kitchen table. He stretches his legs out and angles himself toward the window, and props one hand under his chin so he can stare out at the city as he eats.

He looks good in my kitchen.

Even in the dim gray light of the rainy morning, the room looks warmer. Brighter. I think it’s him. I never use it—I almost always eat out, if I’m eating— and Dev never used it either, so before him it was used only for coffee and tea and a place to study. So it’s not just Snow’s presence that’s making me feel oddly warm inside. It’s the sound of his music and the smell of an entire stick of butter that’s making my stomach turn over. It has nothing to do with Snow’s awful hair and the fact that he looks so impossibly natural as he stares at his phone and shoves beans in his mouth.

“This looks like cat food,” I snap, staring at the food steaming on the plate before me.

“Nah, Agatha won’t eat it. I’ve tried.”

Christ, while we’re on the subject, that’s another travesty: Snow and his goddamn cat. Having to watch them interact should be a war crime.

Snow may keep to himself, but his cat doesn’t. She’s an impossibly small thing, with a head that I could fit in my fist and huge eyes, and she’s obsessed with me. She follows me around the flat, yelling at my heels, and everytime I sit down, she appears in my lap. And she hates Snow. She spends half her day just staring at him like he’s an absolute idiot, and every time he tries to show her affection, she runs away.

The only time she’s nice to him is when he’s not paying attention to her or is asleep. Sometimes I’ll pass by his room at four a.m. and find he’s left his door open for her, and I’ll see him passed out on his stomach, one arm flung over the side of the bed, his mouth hanging open, with the fucking cat sleeping on his back, curled up right between his shoulder blades.

A war crime.

“Why is she obsessed with me?” I’d asked after the fifth time Agatha tried to crawl in my lap while I was working on an essay at the table. Snow was in the kitchen making tea, but he kept getting distracted by his phone, and so the process took him approximately seven times longer than it should have.

“I dunno,” he said. “She’s got a mind of her own. Doesn’t listen to a word I say.”

“I don’t want her,” I said, eyeing the cat in my lap. “Make her stop.”

“Stop leading her on,” he said, not looking up from his mobile.

“I’m not leading her on,” I snapped, staring at the offending cat in question. Snow just shrugged.

“You let her climb all over you. You act like you like her.”

“I’m just trying to win her loyalties so she’ll abandon you,” I sneered. We both know it’s a lie, but there’s no power on Earth that will get me to admit I actually like this cat.

I think I only like her because she likes me, and is rude to Snow. She clearly has good taste.

Agatha isn’t around right now, though. She tends to run when Snow or I play music, and he still has his mobile going. He’s almost through with his revolting egg and bean concoction, but I still haven’t touched mine. Snow squints at me from behind his wire frames, and he seems offended that I’m not eating his cooking.

“Where did those come from?” I ask, leaning over to flick at his glasses. I make my movement long and slow, so he knows it’s coming. He doesn’t do well with sudden movements.

“I’ve had them,” he grunts, shoving another piece of toast in his mouth.

“Why don’t you wear them more? They make you actually look like you belong in the literature program, instead of like some drunken ned who got lost on his way to steal a car.”

Snow pauses, drops his toast to the plate, and stares at me.

“You really don’t know how to give compliments, do you?” he asks, pulling his hood up over his head. “Eat your fucking food.”

“I’d rather starve, thank you,” I say lightly, finishing the last of my coffee and shoving my plate toward him. “I’ll see you at work.”

He just grunts and picks up my rejected food and transfers it to his plate.

“Oh, and Snow?” I say, pulling my jacket on and unwinding my headphones from my pocket. He looks up. “I like the glasses.”

“Get tae fuck,” he mutters, and pulls his hood up further over his face as I leave the kitchen and head to class.

When I come in for my shift at the bookstore that evening, Snow is wearing his glasses.

SIMON

We’ve lived together for almost a month when it finally happens.

I get the post first.

He always gets the post, without fail. Sometimes we’ll be walking back from work, and he’ll remember the post, and then he’ll speed up to get there first. For awhile I thought he just really enjoyed getting post, which is kind of cute. But then I realised it was something far deeper. Baz doesn’t do anything out of sheer enjoyment. There’s always a plot.

He was hiding his mail from me.

I started trying to get it first, but he somehow always beat me. Once I caught him checking it while he was supposed to be at work. Another time he was passed out on the sofa (he sleeps there a lot; half the time I get up in the night he’s asleep by the fire, and in the morning he’ll have migrated to the sofa) and I was trying to quietly get out to get the mail when he was suddenly wide awake and bolting out the door ahead of me. It’s the most enthusiastic I’ve seen him about anything. No matter how hard I tried, I never got there first.

Now that I’ve beat him though, I’m not really sure what to do. I leave it on the table, with the envelope for him on the bottom, so that he’ll know there’s a possibility I saw it, but he won’t know for sure, and then I sit on the information. I’ve never been this devious in my life. I’ve never been this patient in my life. But some things are worth waiting for.

I’m in the kitchen making dinner when he, Niall and Dev come in. I have my headphones on, and I don’t acknowledge them. I don’t really like Baz’s friends; they’re mostly alright, but occasionally Niall says weird passive aggressive things and Dev makes fun of how much Baz studies, and he sounds so much like Baz’s dad that I want to punch him. But they’re not over often, and Penny is here constantly, so I don’t say anything.

“Are those plants? He has plants?” I hear Niall say from the living room.

“Of course they’re plants. What do you think they are?” Baz responds. There’s a muffled noise and then the television clicks on. They’re watching rugby.

(That’s another weird thing about living with Baz. He’s into sports. I would never have guessed that.) (Not because he’s gay.) (Because he’s posh.)

“Is he cooking?” Dev asks. “I didn’t know that range worked. This is weird.”

“He can hear you,” Baz snaps. “Shut up and watch the game.”

“He has headphones in,” Niall says. “It smells good, whatever he’s making. I can’t believe he cooks.”

“I can’t believe he has plants,” Dev says. “So fucking weird.”

“I think the plants are kind of nice,” Niall says. “And Baz’s oppressive negativity hasn’t killed them yet, so that must mean something.”

“I can’t hear the match,” Baz sighs.

“Where did you find him?”

“You said he’s gay? He looks like a schemie.”

“Oh my god is that the cat? I love her.”

“Are you—Baz, do you like that cat? I’ve never seen you touch a cat before.”

“No,” Baz sneers. I hear Agatha chirp at him, as if correcting his bold faced lie. He loves her. He can’t even pretend he doesn’t.

“I thought you were allergic.”

“I am.”

“You’re not sneezing.”

“There’s such a thing as allergy medicine.”

I nearly choke. Baz never told me he was allergic to cats. Not once. He’s been taking allergy medicine to be around Agatha? I feel a little bad, but also not. He must like her more than I realised; otherwise he’d never pass up an opportunity to make me feel like shit.

“This is so fucking weird,” Dev mutters.

“I’m going to slit your throats and throw you to the tourists if you don’t shut the fuck up and let me watch the game,” Baz barks. The television gets louder.

I’ve never heard Baz’s friends tease him before. Usually they just stand there silently and make weird comments. But this is the first time they’ve been around when they think I’m not listening, so maybe they’re just more comfortable. I like them significantly more when they’re being dicks to Baz.

I kind of like hearing him get annoyed and flustered while being teased about me.

Maybe I don’t want to punch his friends.

Maybe I want to join them.

I put the pan on simmer and lean against the doorway quietly. The game is louder now, but Dev and Niall are still talking. From my position I can see them going through the shelf that Baz cleared for my books.

“Oh, Jesus, he’s a literary twat too,” Dev mutters.

“He’s barely literate,” Baz snaps, grabbing one of my school books out of Dev’s hands. He tosses it over his shoulder with a clatter, and Agatha scatters.

“What are you doing with my shit?” I say, emerging from the kitchen. I watch all three of them freeze and Dev stares up at me guiltily.

“Burning it,” Baz says, not looking away from the television. I squint at him. I wanted to savour it. I wanted the first time to be special. But I can’t wait.

“Don’t touch my shit,” I say, “Tyrannus.”

Dev and Niall’s eyes go wide, and I see the hunch of Baz’s shoulders. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to absolutely throttle me.

“Get the fuck out of my flat,” he says, his tone flat, still not looking away from the television.

“Only if you give me back my cat,” I say. Agatha has reclaimed her perch on the sofa behind him, half reclined across his shoulder. He touches her head gently and she bumps her head into his hand.

“I’m keeping her,” he says, then waves a hand at me dismissively. “What did you make for dinner?”

“Bolognese?” I say, confused. There’s no possible way that he’s moved on from the Tyrannus thing so quickly. Baz doesn’t just let things go. That’s kind of his defining characteristic. He holds grudges.

“Can we have some?” Dev asks. He’s looking between Baz and me like he’s ready to run from the inevitable brawl. But I respect his attempt to get food first.

“Aye right? Sure,” I say. Baz still isn’t looking at me. “It’s on the stove.”

Dev and Niall shoot up, and Dev claps Baz on the shoulder.

“Good job with the new flatmate, Tyrannus,” he says. “I approve.”

When Baz finally turns to face me, it’s like looking into the eyes of death. I don’t even need to hear the threat that’s about to fall out of his mouth. I know I’m gone for.

He stands silently and heads toward the kitchen, but pauses as he passes me, leaning in so close his mouth is almost touching my ear.

“Lock your door when you sleep,” he whispers.

My blood should run cold, but instead I feel a bit warm.

BAZ

We’ve lived together for just over a month when it finally happens.

Simon has a nightmare.

I fell asleep while revising in my spot by the fire, and I was sprawled out on the floor of the living room when I wake to the sound of shouting. No, not just shouting. Screaming. Terrified, panicked screaming. I fell asleep with the record player on and it’s still going, the soft tune crooning in the background as Simon pleads with some dream figure to stop. Agatha comes racing out of his room and skittering around the corner, practically colliding with me in her attempt to take shelter. She’s spooked as hell, and I can’t blame her. I am too.

He’d told me, the day he moved in, and again just after we started living together, that if he has a nightmare I shouldn’t wake him up.

“I get easily confused, sometimes I lash out. I don’t want to hurt you accidentally,” he’d said.

“I’m sturdier than I look,” I’d told him, but he just stared at me.

“Well you look like a stick, so that’s not saying much.”

Even with his warning running through my mind, I feel like I should get up and go to him. My heart is racing, and he sounds absolutely terrified. What could he possibly be dreaming about that makes him make those noises? No wonder his old landlord kicked him out.

I give it a minute. If he’s not awake in a minute, I’ll go to him. I start counting the seconds, but I lose track. I can’t think with all that noise. In the silence of the night, it’s particularly jarring, echoing off the windows. Christ, Fiona can probably hear this from below us. I need to go to him.

Just as I push back my blanket to stand up, the shouting stops. There’s a long moment of silence and then the familiar squeaking of his bed, his feet on the floorboards, his heavy steps coming down the hall. I wake up to those sounds almost every night when he gets up to get water. I’ll blink up at him from my spot on the floor, trying to look angry. “Go to bed or get on the sofa,” he’ll mutter as he enters the kitchen, and by the time he comes back I’ll have thrown myself on the sofa or dragged myself to my room, depending on how much energy I have.

But tonight I’m wide awake when he turns the corner, my blood thrumming in my ears. He stops when he sees me, his dark shape lightly illuminated by the moonlight from the window and the fading shadows cast by the quickly dying fireplace.

The silence left behind after his screaming is deafening. The record still plays.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he says. His voice is scratchy. He screamed himself hoarse.

“It’s alright,” I breathe. I can’t stop staring at him. He’s not moving from his spot by the kitchen doorway.

“You should go to your bed,” he says finally. There’s another long lapse of silence. “Did Agatha come out here?”

I nod, but I don’t know if he can see me in the dark.

“Are you alright?” I whisper.

“Why do you sleep on the floor?” he asks. He’s deliberately avoiding my question. He’s clearly not alright.

“I fall asleep while studying,” I say. “Are you alright?”

“Why not go to your room to study? Or why not move to your bed when you wake up?”

“Sleep and I don’t get on,” I say. It’s easier to play along, I suppose. Maybe if I answer his questions, he’ll answer mine. “When it decides to grace me, I don’t like to jinx it.”

“Why do you have sleep problems?”

“Fuck if I know. It’s either the depression or the insomnia, it’s a bit of a mixed bag,” I say. I meant for it to come off as a joke, but it’s too late, and both of our nerves are too fried, and so the word hangs heavy in the dark room between us. My stomach roils.

“Oh,” he says. I hear him pad further into the room and see his outline as he picks up a blanket and sits on the sofa across from me. “You know, I’m shit with words. But if you ever want to talk, and you’re okay with me not knowing what to say, I’m always here to just… listen.”

Simon Snow just woke up sobbing from a nightmare, and he’s offering me emotional support.

“Oh,” I echo. “That’s… That’s kind. Thank you.” I push up from the floor and settle myself in one of the armchairs. “Do you want to…” I pause, and sigh. “What the fuck was that?”

Snow looks down at his hands.

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing,” I say quietly. “You were begging someone to stop. You kept saying ‘no’ and apologising.” Snow cracks his knuckles anxiously, but still doesn’t speak. “Snow are you—did you—did someone hurt you?”

I’ve been dying to know this for months now. I’ve had my suspicions. I want to know, but I want him to tell me, willingly. And then I want to find the person responsible for making him scream like that, and I want to choke every last breath out of their body.

“That’s in the past,” he says, tucking his knees up on the couch and circling his arms around them. “I don’t really think about it.”

“That’s clearly not working out well for you,” I say. Beside me, Agatha bumps her small head into my side, then jumps up on the sofa next to Snow and curls up in his lap. His hand comes up to pet her absentmindedly.

“I had a rough start, like I told you. Bounced around, always fighting, couldn’t keep my temper. No one was good at making me stop, and no one wants a problem kid,” he says, shrugging. “Then I got placed with my foster father, Davy. He’s a teacher. And a writer, like Fiona, actually. And he was…” Snow shifts and looks out the window. “Well. I understood what you meant about expectations. Davy did a lot for me. Got me into schools. Got me into uni. But it kind of….well…” he trails off.

“What kind of expectations?” I ask quietly. Snow shrugs.

“Just, you know. Do well. Be popular. Get the grades. Make him proud.” He sighs and scrubs a freckled hand over his face. “He used to tell me that he knew my mum. That she’d be disappointed. He’d always use information about her as like, leverage. And if that didn’t work, it was… stupid things.”

“Stupid things like closing your hands in doors?” I breathe. Snow looks up at me, and his expression hardens.

“When I got to uni, I cut him off. I’m doing it all on my own, no help. Not going by his plans. I don’t even think about him anymore.”

He stands quickly—too quickly—and runs his hand through his hair again.

“I don’t want to talk about this. I’m sorry for waking you,” he says. Agatha chirps at him again, and he bends down to scoop her up. For once she complies and allows herself to be held.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I ask again. I want to follow him. I want to sit on the end of his bed and blether to him about something stupid, or read him one of his school books, or even just sit in silence. I don’t want him to be alone. I don’t want to hear him making those noises ever again.

“I’m always alright,” he responds with a tired smile.

“Is that why you practically attacked my father at the book release party?” I ask. It bursts out of me before I can contain it. I’m tired and scared and on edge. I don’t think I’d ask if I wasn’t. “Because you’re used to pressures being put on you?”

He pauses, Agatha still clutched to him, and shrugs.

“I didn’t like seeing him talk to you like that. You’re doing so much, and he didn’t get it. And telling you to lay off so you can take on more work?” He scoffs, and it’s a hard, bitter sound. It doesn’t suit him. “When someone is drowning, you don’t tell them to swim.”

“Do you think I’m drowning?”

Snow looks at me and shrugs. “Not anymore,” he says with a small smile. Then turns back down the hall to go back to bed.

“Simon,” I say, because I’m weak, and he stops. I know he’s not used to me saying his name. “If you need to talk, I’m here. Pretty much every night.”

He smiles again. It’s not his usual cheek-aching grin. It’s sad and small. But it’s still genuine. He’s always genuine.

“I’m okay. I promise.” He holds Agatha closer to his chest. “Thanks, Basilton.”

SIMON

I want to say I figured it out the night of the nightmare, when he called me Simon. When he blinked up at me from the floor, his eyes sleepy, his hoodie skewed, and he deliberately and methodically broke down all my defenses. When he asked me why I nearly jumped his father that one time. Everything in me was screaming “ because I want to protect you ,” even though I didn’t say it. I want to say I just knew it then.

But honestly, it was all Penny. I don’t think it would have gotten it if it weren’t for her.

I’m pretty useless without her.

We were in the kitchen yesterday and I was making breakfast. Penny sometimes comes over early in the mornings so we can walk to school together. She was sitting on top of the kitchen table, her feet resting on a chair, watching me scoop eggs and bacon into a plastic container.

“What are you doing? I was going to eat that,” she said, reaching out her hands and making grabbing motions at the pan.

“That’s Baz’s,” I said, piling the last of the food in the container and sealing the lid.

“Baz isn’t here. I’m here,” Penny said. “And I want to eat that.”

“No, see, Baz doesn’t eat,” I said, stacking it in the fridge. I leaned back over to the counter, grabbed an orange, and placed that on top of the container as well. Just in case.

“So why are we wasting my food on him? That’s well shan.” Penny was eyeing my plate, having apparently given up on the food in the fridge, so I dug out another fork with an exaggerated sigh.

“If I make him breakfast or give him lunch, he won’t take it, right? The only thing I can get him to eat without bitching is dinner,” I said, coming to sit next to her and handing her the second fork. “But if I box up breakfast or lunch and put it in the fridge, it’s always gone when I get back.”

“Oh my god,” she said, too loud. I flapped my hands and made shushing noises at her. Baz was asleep in his room just next door, and it was still before noon. When he actually sleeps in his room, I’m determined to make sure he doesn’t get woken up. “Simon, that’s how my dad makes my mum eat during grading season,” Penny said, lowering her voice to a hiss.

“I know! That’s where I got the idea actually. I mean, he could just be tossing it, but I don’t think so. And I see the containers come back through the wash. He’s looking better, don’t you think? Less...starved?”

He has been looking better lately. I don’t think I’m making it up. He eats at least two meals a day, as far as I can tell, and almost every other night I manage to get him off the floor and into his bed. He even seems to be sleeping better now, though he’d never admit it. I know he says he has insomnia and all, but part of me thinks he’d feel drastically better if he just tried going to bed in a real bed at a reasonable time for once in his life.

“This is unbearable,” Penny muttered around a forkful of my eggs. She was shaking her head, and her huge mass of curls looked ready to topple over.

“What?”

“Simon,” she said, eyes glinting, “You do realise that you’re basically dating, right?”

“What?” I squeaked. “No we’re not.” I could feel my face growing redder by the moment.

“Yes you are. You’re cohabitating. He practically co-owns your cat. You pack him lunch. You make him dinner. Last week you said you couldn’t come study with me because you and Baz were making curry.”

“Only sometimes,” I muttered.

“When was the last time you fought?”

“Yesterday morning! He didn’t buy coffee, and we were out.”

“See? You even take turns getting the messages.” Penny sighed in that special way that’s reserved just for me, when I’ve said something thick. I’m very familiar with that sigh. “Simon, you’re dating. You just skipped over the sexual tension bit and went straight to being married.”

“No we didn’t,” I muttered darkly, shoving food in my mouth.

“What was that?” Penny said brightly, poking my cheek.

“I said no we didn’t!” I growled. “Trust me, the tension is there.”

“Fiona was right,” Penny said, breathing. “Shit. I thought she was full of it.”

“Right about what?” I asked. My face was probably the same colour as my red hoodie by that point, but I was in too deep. I couldn’t back out. It’s always like this when I realise something big or important: I have to be hit over the head by it first, thrown in the deep end.

Penny shoved another heaping forkful of eggs into her mouth and grinned at me. It was a gross, creepy thing, and she had a bit of bacon in her teeth.

“You’ve got it bad, Si. You’ve got it so bad.”

She’s right. As usual.

It’s all I thought about yesterday, and all I can think about this morning as I’m sitting at the table, drinking coffee, watching Baz.

He’s different in mornings. He moves slower, like he hurts, and his hair sticks out at all angles, and he still has his spectacles on. (He wears them too, sometimes.) (That’s probably why he didn’t give me shit for mine.) It’s the only time I see him unmade—joggers on, T-shirt. Barefoot. He’s sitting across from me, one hand holding his coffee mug to his lips, his other hand tapping a pen against his cheek as he goes over his revision.

I want this.

The thought strikes me suddenly, but not violently. I want this. I want him. I want us. I want to be able to reach across the table and brush my hand over his wrist. I want to put my hand on his shoulder. I want to refill his coffee and put a light kiss to the back of his neck where his hair touches his collar, and I want him to reach up absentmindedly and touch my cheek when I do it. I want the gesture to be so normal and regular that it’s mundane. I want him to expect it; to be so used to my love and touch that it’s not worth commenting on.

The sudden, palpable feeling of emotional want washes over me so thoroughly that my chest actually hurts from the sensation.

His gray eyes flick up and meet mine and he smiles briefly at me, a tired smile, and then he looks back down at his book. His leg is jiggling under the table; he’s nervous for his tutorial. He shouldn’t be. He’s brilliant. The most brilliant person I’ve ever met.

I’ve spent my life not wanting things. Because you don’t get the things you want, no matter how hard you wish. And when you think things are coming around, that they’re finally in your grasp, they always turn out to be the opposite of what you wanted. A snake in disguise.

Maybe that’s why I want him. He could be the best thing to ever happen to me, wrapped up and disguised as a messy, troublesome mistake.

I’m done telling myself not to want.

I want him.

He’ll fight me on it though. I think he wants me back—I hope he wants me back—but something tells me he’s the kind of person whose spent a life denying himself as well. Baz doesn’t allow himself to want things; he takes what he needs. Everything else is superfluous.

I’m used to fighting him, though. I’m up to the challenge.

I always win my fights.

Chapter Text

BAZ

I’m normally the type of person who would never admit when I’m in over my head.

But I may be in over my head.

There’s not even two weeks left in the term, and I still have four books to get through, three essays to revise, and two more tutorials to survive. My schedule is entirely off, and I’m at least fifteen hours behind the timetable I set up at the beginning of the year. If I want to actually do 700 hours of independent work, I’ll have to skip sleep the next few nights. It’s the only way.

And I should never have let Snow talk me into studying in my room. I study in the living room for a specific reason: it’s uncomfortable out there, and I’m less likely to fall asleep. And also, there’s the fire. Our flat may be tidy, but it’s old, and as a result there is no insulation, and I’m permanently freezing. I’ve two blankets on right now, and I’m moderately warm, but the cold combined with the softness of my bed is making it extremely difficult to focus on Aristotle.

(Then again, the living room had suddenly become exponentially cosier since Snow dragged home the garish fucking Christmas tree.) (It’s adorable, and I hate it.)

I’m never going to finish this. There’s just not enough time, and I’m never going to be able to properly outline my paper, and I obviously haven’t been taking this seriously enough. It’s after 2 a.m. and even Snow is still awake studying, which shows how properly serious things have gotten. I went to bed early last night without finishing up editing my essay, which put me back at least two hours, and I shouldn’t have done it. It was extremely irresponsible of me.

Christ, I need to get out of this room. If I fall asleep, I’m completely fucked.

I grab up my books and pull on a jumper and head to the kitchen, where I can hear Simon’s music. I’ll go back to my spot by the fire, but I need coffee first.

“Why are you still awake?” Snow barks the moment I walk in the room. I stare at him.

“I’m studying?” I say. This forcefulness is very out of character for him.

“Jesus Christ, Baz,” he says indignantly. “You need to fucking sleep.”

“No,” I say slowly, because he’s an idiot. “I need to study. I’m so behind. You fucking distracted me all day yesterday with the Christmas tree and your stupid fucking decorations, and then talked me into going to sleep early, and I’ve done nothing I was meant to. I had planned to write out notes for my tutorial at work today, but then you destroyed the window display and I had to fix it, and now I’m at least fifteen hours behind, which is—”

“When was the last time you ate?” he asks, cutting through my rant.

“What?”

“When was the last time you ate?” he asks again, standing up from the table and moving to the range. He opens a cabinet noisily and pulls out a bag of oatmeal.

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I’m not hungry. I was just going to get some coffee.”

“We’re out,” he says. His shoulders are squared, and I can’t see his jaw, but I’m sure it’s jutted out as well. “Drink tea.”

“We’re not out,” I snap, going to move past him toward the cupboard where we keep the coffee. But he darts quickly to block me with his body, reaches out behind him, and grabs the bag of Folgers that I bought last week.

“I told you we weren’t—” I start, but he scoots past me, runs to the window, opens it, and then flings the fucking coffee out into the close.

“We’re out,” he says, turning back to me. His tone is dark. “Drink tea.”

I stare at him in shock. How can one person be so blindingly, infuriatingly, fucking stupid?

“You’re insane,” I say in wonder. “You’re cracked. You’ve completely lost it.”

He just nods, purses his lips together, and folds his arms.

“Yup,” he says, popping the p. “And you’re on the verge of a breakdown. Either sit down in here, or sit down in your room, but you’re going to fucking eat and have some tea.”

“You’re not my mother,” I snap. “I was going to study in the living room.”

“Do you have to be so fucking difficult all the time?” he shouts, slamming a pot on the stove. “Just shut the fuck up and either sit in here or go back to your room. If you sit on that fucking floor I’m going to kick you.”

He’s already fitzing with a pot and has turned the kettle on, and I know there’s no arguing with him when he gets like this. I sigh and collect my books back up. I’ll be in my room.

Agatha trots along behind me as I make my way back down the hallway and gently kick my door open. I’d study in the kitchen with Snow, but it’s the coldest room in the flat, and half of my body feels numb and freezing and tingling. The idea of my toes falling from the cold seems likely.

I look down at my books and my chest tightens. I have so much to do. Even this small break was too much. And now Snow is going to come in and talk to me, and it’s going to distract me even further. Why did I let it get to this point? Why wasn’t I more disciplined? Maybe my father was right, maybe I shouldn’t have signed up for the extra course load. Maybe I can’t handle. Maybe I—

“You need to stop thinking,” Snow says from behind me. He’s in the doorway, holding two mugs of tea and a bowl, and has books tucked under his arm. He’s fighting down a yawn, and I’m positive the tea is about to go all over my rug. He takes a large step and bounds up onto my bed, holding the liquids aloft, and makes his way over toward me.

“I have a chair,” I start to say, but he lowers himself with a grunt into the space next to me and positions his back against the wall, so he’s facing me. He hands me a cup of tea and the bowl, and rests his own tea on one of the books he’s brought.

“I thought I’d study in here with you for a bit. I’m bored out there,” he says in response to my raised eyebrow.

“I wasn’t going to study in here,” I argue, because the idea of being in my bed with Snow at 2 a.m. is too unbearable to contemplate. My chest is squeezing in on itself and I can’t tell if its his proximity or a panic attack.

“Why not? What’s so great about the living room?”

“It has the fireplace,” I say tightly. I feel like I can’t breathe. This has to be anxiety. This isn’t him. I don’t have time to have this conversation anyway.

“Oh. Well, hold this,” he says, shoving his tea toward me and jumping off the bed. The mattress springs behind him, and a bit of his tea splashes over onto my fingers, but I barely feel it. My head is buzzing. It feels like there’s a thousand wasps inside the front lobe of my brain. What’s happening to me?

Snow appears in my doorway again in less than a moment, dragging a heavy white comforter with him.

“Here,” he says, throwing it on the bed. The corner of it hits me in the face, and the tea in my hands jostles again as he climbs back onto the bed. “I don’t use this anyway. I run hot.”

He carefully picks the tea out of my hands and tugs the blanket further up toward me, then shoves the hot liquid back. He’s making me feel like a child, and I’d tell him to go die in a hole, but my lips feel numb. I don’t even know if I can speak. Am I dying? What if I don’t finish everything by the end of term? What if I—

“Drink,” he orders. He yawns again and rubs at his eyes with freckled knuckles. “The whole fucking thing. Drink. Then eat.”

“I don’t need this,” I say. “I need to study. I’m behind on my—”

“What do you have due tomorrow?” he asks, interrupting.

“My draft of my final essay.”

“Is it written?”

“Well, yes,” I say, “but I was going to review it and—”

“Then your work for tonight is done. So shut your gob and drink the fucking tea,” he growls, nuding the arm holding the cup.

I drink it slowly, and every time I pull it away from my mouth Snow glares at me. Everything inside me feels like it’s on overdrive, and I don’t have it in me to argue with him tonight. But the tea is actually helping. It’s some kind of chamomile, I think, like I used to drink when I was a child, and my nerves are calming down a bit. His knees are pressed to the outside of my thigh, and the contact is grounding me.

I lean my head back against the wall and take deep breaths. The room is quiet, and Snow is here, and I finally feel warm. I don’t know how long I sit there until my head stops buzzing, but when I finally open my eyes, he’s still there next to me, his eyes closed as well, his books unopened. He yawns again and tries to cover it with his mug, but he’s unsuccessful.

“Go to sleep, I’m fine,” I say, picking up the oatmeal from where I’d put it on my bedside table. It’s gone cold and has started to congeal a bit, but I’m actually hungry for once. I’ll choke through it.

“I want company,” he says through another yawn. “I’m staying here.”

“I don’t want you here,” I snap, but half my mouth is full of oats and it comes out sounding small and pathetic.

“If I leave, you’re just going to study,” Snow says, sighing dramatically. He’s sounding more and more like me every day. I watch him adjust his position and pull off his hoodie and toss it to the end of my bed. I try not to look at the patch of his collarbone revealed by his stretched out t-shirt.

“So I’m going to stay here until you go the fuck to sleep like a normal fucking person. Because whether you realise it or not, the human body needs sleep,” he says, ignoring my gay crisis. “And when you’re up and rattling about like a fucking ghoul it keeps me up, and you’re not the only one with an important tutorial tomorrow.”

“Oh,” I say. “I forgot you had a tutorial tomorrow.” I feel like a bit of a prick; that’s probably why he was still awake. And instead of doing whatever it is he needs to be doing, he’s in here, with me. He just nods and suddenly he shifts, and I feel his revolting knobby toes shoved under my thigh.

“I actually was wondering…” he starts, then trails off. He rubs at the back of his neck and looks away, toward the window on the far wall. It’s pitch black out there; all he can see is the dim reflection of us on the bed. “I was wondering if you could uh, help me look nice for it.”

“Look nice?” I ask, blinking at him. I’ve finished the oatmeal, and I set the bowl aside next to my mug. His tea seems to be empty as well, so I carefully pluck it from his hands and place it there as well.

“Aye, you know. Help me figure out what I’ve got that looks presentable. I just wear the same buttoned shirt over and over.” He shrugs. “I’ve never been too great at the whole dressing thing. When I lived with Davy I had a school uniform, so I didn’t have many clothes, and...well, yeah.”

“It’s about time you acknowledge you’re a disaster,” I say, sinking lower into my bed. I’m suddenly exhausted, and even the electrifying presence of Snow isn’t enough to keep my eyes open. “I’ve laid awake at nights just dreaming of this day. When you come to me and say, ‘Baz, I dress like a ned. Fix me.’” I’m blethering. But I can’t stop. “I’ve always wondered what I’d do, but it would probably start with throwing everything you own away.” I’m deranged. I can’t stop. My stressed, sleep deprived mouth has taken over. “There’s very little that can be done to change the intrinsic disaster that is Simon Snow, but I can at least loan you a jumper.”

“Settle down, Tyrannus,” he snaps, pushing me slightly. He’s frowning, and looks mildly annoyed. “Just forget I fucking asked.”

“You’ve given me a reason to live, Snow,” I say between yawns. “It’s my new mission. Goodbye illiterate ned. Hello semi-functioning human.”

“I hate you,” he mutters. I close my eyes and hum. I’m not planning to sleep. I’m just going to fake it long enough for him to leave me alone so I can get back to studying.

“Get fucked,” I say. And then I fall asleep, warm, relaxed, and uncharacteristically happy.

SIMON

I wake up to cool hands on my cheeks, and I blink into the darkness.

I don’t know where I am. This isn’t my bed. I’m shaking, and my face feels wet and my throat is sore and everything is too quiet. Except it’s not—someone is speaking, right next to my ear.

“It’s okay, stop, it’s okay,” they say over and over, and, “Simon, stop. You’re alright. It’s alright.”

I didn’t realise I was kicking at the blankets, and I stop suddenly. I’m awake. I’m in Baz’s bed. The hand on my face belongs to Baz, and the hand brushing my hair from my forehead belongs to Baz, and the lips that are pressed to the top of my head, muttering things gently, belong to Baz.

My hand reaches out in the dark and I feel Agatha’s soft fur. She’s nestled between us, curled up in the space between my head and Baz’s feet. I fell asleep sideways, I guess, and Baz is sitting up, leaning over me. I’m not even under the covers.

“You had another nightmare,” he whispers. I can’t even see his face in the darkness, but I can feel his breath on my cheek. “You told me not to wake you up, but I—”

“Thank you,” I croak out. My voice sounds rough to my own ears, and Baz’s hands stop working their way through my hair. I don’t want him to stop, but I don’t have the words to say so.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I go to sit back, and Baz leans back quickly to avoid being hit. “I’m sorry for waking you. I’ll go to my own room. I’m sorry. You need sleep.”

“No, Simon,” he says, reaching out. I don’t know how he can see me, but his hand finds my wrist. “Stay.”

I don’t know if it’s actually him tugging on my arm or the exhaustion of the day, but I feel myself pulled back down to the mattress. Baz is still sitting up beside me, hovering over me.

“Are you alright?” he says. He’s wide awake, and his voice sounds tinged with fear. I hate that I woke him. I hate that he saw me like that.

“I’m fine,” I say, like always. My heart is still pounding, and I still feel clammy, but it is true. I’m awake. I’m fine. I’m here. He’s here.

There’s a motion on the mattress, and I think that Agatha is crawling up, so I reach for her. But instead of finding fur, my hand connects with the cool skin of Baz’s fingers, and I grip them tightly. He doesn’t shake me off.

“Go back to sleep. You can stay here,” he murmurs, and readjusts himself in the bed. Our hands are still clasped, but we’re almost face to face now, and if I squint I can see the outline of his hair, and maybe his eyes, and possibly his lips. We’re so close that I could just close the distance. I could kiss him, and use his fire to burn out the fear that’s still hanging around in the back of my mind and replace my racing pulse with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

I lean in slightly, and I hear his breath hitch.

“Thank you,” I breath, and then I wait. I want him to come to me. We’re so close that our breath is mingled, and I’m aware of every inch of his body in the dark between us. If he just moves his head a little, if he just comes to me, we’ll be fully touching. His hair is brushing my face, and I think he’s moving in to close the distance, and I grip his hand a little tighter.

I want him to kiss me. I feel like I’ve been hollowed out inside and I just want him to hold me. I don’t know how many nights I’ve woken up from a dream like this and been alone, but now that he’s here, now that he’s so close, and I can’t imagine ever having to face this alone again. If he just kisses me--

But then he pulls back.

“Go to sleep, Simon,” he whispers. I want to argue, but I don’t; I’m too tired. I do what I’m told.

I dream about cold lips on mine and a soft voice whispering my name.

BAZ

Snow is still in my bed when I wake up.

He’s sleeping face down, like always, with Agatha curled between his arm and his chest, and he’s breathing heavy. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about though. Not like last night. Not like when he woke me up screaming.

I couldn’t stop myself. It’s one thing to hold back when he’s in a different room, but when he’s right there, in my bed, thrashing about and screaming like he’s terrified for his life, how could I just let him be? I was already preparing excuses and insults as I sat up and reached for him, but he didn’t make me give them. He clung to me—fully clung to me—for at least a minute before he woke up and realised where he was. I let him go when that happened, but he didn’t seem upset.

He just apologised. He apologised for his own fear and his pain, like it inconvenienced me. He tried to leave.

I didn’t want him to leave. I never want him to leave.

And then when he almost kissed me—

He had to have been half out of his mind with fear and exhaustion, and he couldn’t see for shit. How could I be sure he was leaning in for a kiss? How could I be sure that’s what he wanted? And how ethical is it to take advantage of him like that, when he’s terrified and looking for comfort?

Just because I love him doesn’t mean he loves me back.

That’s why I did it, I think. That’s why I pulled back. Because I realised that I loved him. Because of all the stupid food he hides for me and the tea he forces on me and the muttered curses and general annoyance at my refusal to take care of myself. Because he’s the sun, and he glows, and he’s lit up my entire fucking world.

Because he was crying in his sleep and I just wanted to hold him.

If we kiss, I want him to want it. I don’t want it to be dark and tinged with fear. And I want him to come to me.

In the morning, with the sun streaming in and his curls across my pillow, I’m not sure if I could love him anymore than this. I want to kiss the back of his neck and find that one mole I sometimes see, but I don’t. Instead I get out of bed quickly, careful to not wake him, and leave him alone in my room.

I need to get ready for class.

SIMON

“Baz, this music is awful.”

We’re on the second hour of some man who sounds like he has a nasal infection singing about being hit by a bus, and I can’t stand it a moment longer.

“Turn off your music, it’s my turn,” I say, pulling out my mobile. Baz is leaning against the counter, flipping through the galley selections for next month, only speaking to make shitty comments about the plots. “Let’s play: Gay couple in a YA book or girl main character with a masculine name?” “Why did we order four books about getting divorced and opening a bookstore?” “Oh look, this character is named Ziggy. What kind of name is Ziggy?”

I think this is what constitutes a good Baz mood. We’re two days out of the term, Christmas is right around the corner, and he has no school work to do for possibly the first time in his life. He’s been sleeping regularly, and he did well in his tutorial. I did well in mine—I showed up in Baz’s clothes, and even kind of smelled like him, and I felt confident in a way I never really have before. I rocked the fuck out that tutorial. Christ knows I’m in a good mood because of it.

“My store, my music,” he says, not changing his tone.

“Fine,” I say, approaching the desk. “Let’s see what you have.”

I grab his phone from its spot near the register and hoof it across the store before he can stop me. His head snaps up.

“Give me my phone,” he demands.

“No. Not until I find something else to listen to,” I say, opening his Spotify. Christ, he has a lot of playlists. I just kind of listen to the same three on repeat.

“Baz, all of these are terrible. You have Radiohead and The Smiths on every single playlist.”

I scroll through them and I’ve almost decided to just put Christmas music on when I come to one made a few months ago, and click.

“Oh this one is good actually. Only one Smiths song,” I say, then squint. This playlist does not seem like Baz’s usual music. “Why would you call a playlist ‘idiot’? What kind of name is that?”

Baz’s eyes go wide for a moment, and then his face settles back into a mask.

“Give me my phone, Snow.”

“Baz, what is this playlist? It’s not even the closest bit suicidal. There’s actually decent songs on here? And all these titles are a bit…romantic.” My chest squeezes and I grin at him. “Is this what you put on once a year when you want to feel emotion?”

“You’re going to feel something in a moment, Snow.”

“Fiona, are we feeling more Human League or Harry Styles today? Because Baz has both on this playlist.” I can’t stop smiling at him. I’ve no idea what this ridiculous, sappy playlist is, but I love it.

“I’m going to skin you alive,” he snaps.

“Human League for sure,” Fiona calls from the back office, where she’s currently sitting with her feet up on the desk, playing Tetris on her mobile.

I press play on Baz’s playlist, then hand his phone back. Part of me thought he’d change the music immediately, but he’s being suspiciously tolerant of me today. He’s been suspiciously tolerant of me since I slept in his bed.

I told myself not to dwell on that, though, so I’m just going to side step right around that line of thought.

The song is infectious. I’m not a dancer, but I do like to move, and so I wiggle a little and bop my head in time to the intro, dancing slightly as hoist myself up onto the counter next to where Baz is still looking through book orders.

“You can’t just sit in front of me and dance,” he drawls. I grin and reach for one of his hands and shake it slightly, trying to get him to move. When I drop it, his hand falls heavy back to the counter, and he glares.

“Lighten up. Have fun. Dance. Sing along.”

“No.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know the words.” I’m being flirty. I can tell, it’s just getting away from me. I can’t always help it—Penny says I’m a naturally flirty guy. But sometimes it comes out full force, without me asking it to. And sometimes around Baz, it’s hard to restrain myself. Who am I kidding? Around Baz, I can never restrain myself.

Which is why I start singing.

“Don’t. You. Want. Me. Baby?” I sing, “Don’t you want me, ooooooh?”

I look at Baz as I do, spreading my hand out flat in front of him, palm up, and moving it toward him boyband style. His mouth twitches up, but his eyes refuse to meet mine.

“Don’t you want me? Ooooooohhhhh,” I say, drawing it out. A couple perusing shelves in the back start laughing.

“You sound like Agatha asking for food,” he says, but the smile is there.

“Do you remember right after I moved in? I put this on and I was dancing and you screamed at me from the living room and then I burnt my eggs,” I say, grinning. I’m still dancing, my hands in fists and doing a little cha cha as I move my shoulders. I have to look like a loon.

“I don’t recall,” he says. But he’s still smiling, and he’s looking at me with this expression that I can’t name, but everything inside my chest is hurting and I feel like I’m about to lose my balance. I keep dancing though, and I keep singing, and Baz keeps smiling, and it strikes me that this might be a properly romantic moment.

I’ve never really had many of those. I guess I only realise they’ve happened once they pass.

The song fades out and the next one starts, catching me off guard. It’s slower than the rest of the mix, and it’s sweet. It’s startlingly sweet.

“Baby, I'm yours. And I'll be yours until the stars fall from the sky.”

I glance at Baz, but he’s looking steadily down at the counter. There’s the smallest hint of a blush around his ears, and if I didn’t know him so well, I would have missed it.

“Yours until the rivers all run dry. In other words, until I die.”

I really like this song. It’s got a kind of old school vibe, and it’s slow and melodic, and, as embarrassing at it sounds, it kind of makes me think of Baz. I snake across and steal his phone again, and open up his text messages, scrolling and looking for my name so I can send myself the song, but I’m not there. I go to his contacts and type in my name, but that doesn’t pop up either.

“What are you doing? You can’t just go through my shit,” he says, reaching for the phone, but I hold it out of his reach.

“I’m trying to find my contact so I can send myself this song,” I say, frowning at his mobile. “But I don’t seem to be listed. What do you have me saved in your phone as?”

“Colossal waste of space,” he snaps, reaching for it again. But I’m sitting on the counter and am easily able to keep it out of his reach as I hold it above my head and go back to his recent messages. I should be toward the top somewhere—last night I texted him a photo of a bird I saw. I try to squint through his messages as he makes a dash to grab me around the waist.

I jump off the counter and run to the back of the store, still searching.

Mordelia, Fiona, Dev, and then—

Idiot.

Someone saved as “Idiot” texted him last night. I tap on the message, and sure enough, there’s the pigeon I saw rummaging through trash on George Street with a gummy worm in its mouth.

Idiot. I’m saved as Idiot. Like the playlist. Like the romantic playlist. Full of songs I love.

I close out of the message just as he darts around the counter and makes a beeline for me, and I toss him his phone back. He catches it easily, even though I tossed it way too high.

“Fine, fine, take it!” I shout, trying to keep the smile from my voice. “But if I find out you’ve saved me as something awful, I’m going to kill you.”

“Not if I kill you first,” he growls, pocketing his mobile and stalking away. He grabs his jacket as he goes, and I know he’s going out to the close to smoke.

The playlist is still going though, the slow song I liked still playing.

“Baby I’m yours.”

I bite down my grin and shove my hands in my pockets.

I’m Idiot.

He wants me.

Chapter Text

BAZ 

“What are you doing right now?”

Snow looks up at me over his book and flushes, like I’ve just caught him doing something naughty instead of lounging innocently on the sofa. His knees are tucked up under a blanket and he’s been reading there since I woke up an hour ago. Whatever he’s reading has captured his attention fully; he barely glanced at me when I shuffled in and out to get coffee, and he’s been in some kind of blanket-cocooned trance. The lights of the tree are bouncing off his glasses, and for once he doesn’t have the television on, and he looks impossibly cosy. I almost hate to disturb him, but it’s necessary. I have shit to do.

Sheepishly he lowers his book, and I see that he has a comic tucked between the pages.

“How did you know?” he asks. I resist the urge to roll my eyes, and instead I just glare at him. I actually had no clue. It’s actually kind of adorable that he was hiding it.

“Get up, we’re going to the castle.”

“What castle?”

I point out the window.

“What fucking castle do you think?”

“But it’s Christmas Eve,” he says, his eyebrows shooting up. His mouth drops open and he’s whining like a petulant child. “We’ve work off! I thought we could stay around here and watch movies or shit. You know, hang out.” He shrugs and scratches at his chin. “Have a day off.”

“We can hang out at the castle,” I say, pushing down the idea of curling up on the sofa to watch some God awful movie with Snow. He’d probably put on a Muppet’s Christmas or something. Christ, he’s half a muppet.

“Put on trousers and lets go,” I say. Maybe if we get this done with quickly, we can come back and make dinner and watch a movie. I haven’t decided if I’m going to give him his present tonight or tomorrow, but maybe it would be nice to exchange gifts tonight. I’m pathetically excited to find out what he got me.

I got him a jumper.

On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be too excited.

I head back to the kitchen to give him time to get ready, but he appears moments later with his glasses still on, wearing his awful jeans with the knees blown out and a cable knit that looks suspiciously like one of mine. Why did I bother buying him one? Ever since I leant him a sweater for his tutorial, he’s just started helping himself to my clothes anyway.

“Why are we going to the castle? That doesn’t seem your speed,” he says, putting on his jacket. He grabs an orange from the counter and shoves it in his pocket. A snack for later, I suppose.

“I still have to get Daphne a present,” I explain, leading the way out of the flat. “She likes this very specific type of tea, but it’s one of those touristy novelty types, and the only place I know to find it is the castle gift store.”

“Novelty tea?” he asks. “That doesn’t seem very posh. I can’t imagine your family ever stepping foot in a gift store.”

“My stepmother is a kind woman,” I say, holding the door to the outer street open for him. “But let us never forget she is English, and therefore has no taste.”

It’s a beautiful day out, even if it is fucking freezing. But the sky is bright and clear and all of the Royal Mile is draped in Christmas decorations, and it’s like walking into a Victorian novel everywhere you look. Snow sticks his hands in his pockets and shivers dramatically, and when he turns to smile at me his face is already flushed a bright pink from the cold.

“Happy fucking Christmas!” he shouts, shivering again. Even with his bitching, his red nose makes him look like an overly excited child.  “Can’t believe we’re going to the castle. You know, I’ve never been?”

“Really?” I assumed everyone had been dragged at some point, either on a school trip or to show relatives around or something. I don’t recall ever really deciding to go or ever even wanting to, and yet I’ve been there more times than I can count.

“Aye,” he says, jogging up a little to kick at a tin can. “There’s all kinds of touristy things I haven’t done. I kind of just go to school and work and home.”

“We should fix that,” I say, the words falling from my mouth before I can catch them, but he just nods and grins.

“We should.”

Edinburgh Castle is a madhouse. It always is, bursting with tourists and old men, but today it’s especially full. I get Snow and I in free with the passes my father buys every year but never uses, and then I have to physically drag him along the paths to get to the shop we need.

“Can we go in there?” he asks, pointing to a museum I’ve been to at least six times.

“Do you like military history?” I ask. He shakes his head. “Then why bother?”

“Oh! Tea! They’ve a tea service! Fuck, I’m cold. Can we get tea?”

“After we’ve got the tea we came for. Come on.”

Everywhere we look there’s children and families and couples. So many couples. Smiling, holding hands, a handful lounging against the castle walls, looking fucking delighted and in love. There’s mistletoe hung up around archways, and I try not to glare at it. Who the fuck decided to make a parasitic species an icon of holiday cheer?

The Germans, probably.

By the time I drag Snow into the gift shop, I’m ready to kill the next couple I see kissing. Why are there so many?

“Is it just me or does this seem to be a popular date spot today?” Snow asks as he trails behind me into the store. He pauses to inspect a tin of haggis and nearly knocks down a display of stuffed Loch Ness Monsters while I finally find the tea Daphne likes. It’s in a canister shaped like a Scottie dog. (Honestly. She has no taste.)

“There’s couples everywhere,” I mutter. Rubbing their happiness in my face. But I don’t say that part. “Christ, is everyone in this fucking city in a relationship?”

“Do you wish you were in a relationship?” he asks suddenly. My stomach churns.

“Er,” I say, trying to run up to the cashier. “I don’t really think about it.” An absolute lie. “Do you miss being in one?”

It’s a leading question, but I’m actually pathetically desperate to know about his dating life.

“I dunno,” he says with a shrug. “Never really had one. I’ve always just done, you know, hook ups and shit. You know how it is.”

The cashier, bless her, pretends to not be listening as I hand her several pounds.

“Not really,” I tell him, hoping the ground will swallow me whole. Snow tilts his head, like this news surprises him. When they hell did he think I was getting laid? All I do is work and study. And I’m also the least casual person on the face of the planet. Of course I’m not having fucking hookups.

“Really? So you haven’t...” he trails off and raises his eyebrows in what I think is meant to be a suggestive manner, and I snatch the bag of tea from the cashier before I explode into flames.

“Jesus, Snow, all I do is study,” I snap. “I haven’t been with someone in months.” I’m blushing. It’s stupid to blush, but I do. I know that this is supposed to be a normal conversation. It’s what friends talk about. Just a bit of lad banter, whatever the fuck that is. But friends aren’t typically madly in love with each other. And I’m also lying. It hasn’t been months. It’s been over a year. Well over.

“Aye, I feel you there,” he says, smiling, and my stomach flips. There’s something awful in his smile, and my throat feels like it’s about to drop through my body. He takes a step closer, and his hand connects with my shirt tail. “You know...” he says, and I stop breathing. “We could fix that.”

Is he propositioning me?

“Fix that?” I ask, and he flushes a bit, then nods. His hand moves from my shirt to my wrist, and his index finger snakes up over my pulse point. For someone who hasn’t stopped bitching about the cold, his skin is so warm on mine.

“Aye. If you wanted to,” he says, and then looks away and bites his lip, just like he always does when he’s trying to find the right thing to say. Jesus, he can’t even get his words straight when offering sex.

Is that even what he’s offering?

“Christ knows you’ve been...stressed. And, ya know. Christmas and all that. Just saying...” he rubs his hand against the back of his neck, and looks back at me. His cheeky, confident tone is gone, and he’s suddenly serious. “Just, if you wanted...if you had interest...you’d just have to ask.”

I’d just have to ask.

Simon Snow has just offered up sex. I just have to ask.

“Simon!” A voice calls. My head snaps up and from across the shop I see Ebb making her way toward us, her arms loaded down with scarves. I never seen anyone buy one of those scarves, but there she is, holding at least three. Snow springs toward her like a dog, dropping my hand, his eyes wide.

He’s overly enthusiastic in his conversation, and I can tell he’s overcompensating for the immense awkwardness he must be feeling. I check out of listening; there’s far too many things to focus on right now instead of his empty conversation.

I can still feel the ghost of his fingers on my wrist, and I’m burning up inside with the need to touch him.

He’s offered me what I want most. All I’ve wanted is to be close to him, to touch him, to have him, and he’s just offered it up with a smile. It’s an awful idea, but I don’t know if I have it in me to say no?

Do I have it in me to say yes?

“Aye, I’ll come round tomorrow,” he says to Ebb. I’ve no idea what he’s talking about. My mind has shut off, and all I can think about is dragging him from this shop. I want to tell him yes, I want him. I think about reaching out for his hand, trailing my fingers along his palm. He said all I have to do is ask.

So I do.

I walk up behind him quietly and let my finger trace a line down his elbow and across his palm, and then I hook his pinky with mine and shift slightly so I’m pressing a bit against his back.

“Awright, we got to go,” he says suddenly, his voice pitching up an octave. “See you!”

I don’t wait for Ebb’s goodbye before I close my hand over his and pull him out of the shop and around the corner.

“Baz, why are you,” he starts, but I drop his hand and whirl on him before he can continue.

“You drive me fucking crazy,” I hiss, pushing him against the wall. “You’re mental and stupid and absolutely out to ruin my life, you complete muppet, you absolute idiot.”

And then I kiss him.

Pressed up against the cool stone wall of the castle gift shop, one hand around the back of his neck, the other still wrapped around his fingers, I’m kissing him like my life depends on it and he’s kissing me back.

He’s drinking me in like I’m air and he’s coiled himself around me and I’ve never felt so needed in my life. His hands are like vices on me, grasping at my hand and the other moving from my arm to my neck to my cheek and he’s holding me so tight, so impossibly tight that I’ll never break free.

I’ve seen Simon blink out from rage before, seen his mind shut down and go on pure instinct, and that’s what he’s doing now. But it’s not anger that’s driving him. It’s lust.

I’m practically shaking when I pull back and see it, just before he leans back up to kiss along my jaw.

“Let’s go, yeah?” he growls, biting at my ear. I nod. I’m completely agreed.

I need to get home. I need to get him home, and I’ll deal with the fallout tomorrow. I’ve no idea what this means, what any of this means, but it’s Christmas. He said I just had to ask, and I’m asking. Fuck, I’m close to begging.

I can let my Christmas gift to myself be this one night: this one night where I let myself have Simon and be with him. One night where I’ll turn off my brain and I’ll deal with my emotions later.

I’ve spent years practising how to turn off my emotions, and that’s what I’ll have to do, because it’s just going to be sex: I know it will just be sex, because that’s who he is. He doesn’t do relationships. He literally just told me this. He does hook ups. I’ve never done a hook up in my life.

But I’ll cross every line for him.

So tomorrow I plan to wake up in his arms and hope for the best. But I’ll give myself one night, just one night, before this all ends in flames.

SIMON

A bagpiper starts up as we pass him, the pipes screeching through my ear canals and echoing off my brain.

“Get fucked,” I mutter at the same time as Baz says, “fuck off,” and I turn to grin at him.

“I hate bagpipes,” I say. He nods vehemently.

We’re not touching; both walking with our hands shoved into our pockets, but there’s an electric field between us. I feel like I should touch him, but I don’t know how to start. How are you supposed to act when you’re walking with someone, sober, on the way to go have sex?

Christ, I think we’re going to go have sex.

Every inch of me is still charged with the electricity and sharpness of his kiss. I can’t wait to feel it again. I can’t believe that I’m going to feel it again. I can’t believe it worked. I can’t believe this is happening.

We’re going to go home—to our home—and probably have amazing, insane sex, and then we’re probably going to curl together in his giant bed, and Jesus, we might even wake up tomorrow and do it again. Or maybe I’ll make us breakfast, and then—

I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.

This is everything I could have ever wanted for Christmas. I wonder if he’ll let me make us hot chocolate and watch a movie. I want to be in his bed, but the tree is in the living room, and I want to kiss him next to it. And then I want him to lay with his head in my lap and I want to tell him I love him. And then I want to wake up tomorrow, on Christmas, with him in my arms, and tell him I love him again. I’ll be wearing my glasses and he’ll just be in his joggers and that awful uni shirt he wears to sleep in, and I’ll make us waffles.

I’m shit at waffles, but I’d like to try, for him.

I’ve been planning this, a bit. Not the sex, mind you. That came out of left field. I kind of figured that would happen after I told him how I feel, but I don’t really mind if it comes before. That was just a shot in the dark, taking an opening. But the love thing—I’ve been planning to tell him that for a bit. I didn’t get him a Christmas present, because this kind of it.

I shouldn’t feel as nervous as I do. I know he loves me. I’m positive. I knew from his playlist that he at least liked me, and from the way he held me the night of my nightmare I was sure it was a deep like. A strong like. But now I’m reconsidering. No one kisses someone like that if they don’t love them.

He fucking jumped the moment I gave him an opening. How long has he just been waiting for me to make a move? How long as he wanted this? I thought I was going to have to fight him to the death, force him into conceding.

Turns out, I liked that eager kiss a whole hell of a lot more than fighting.

The anticipation is killing me. I need to touch him. We’re halfway down the Royal Mile already, almost home. There’s a close up ahead; I could shove him down it when we pass, pin him to the wall, just get another taste before—

“You know, I used to play the pipes,” he says suddenly, sniffing with disdain, like this is some dark past he has. I almost choke.

“What? How?”

“Childhood torment, I suppose.” He shrugs and scowls at a passing tourist who almost steps into traffic. “I was rather good, actually. I’m very musically inclined.”

I stare at him in wonder. He never stops surprising me. I’m going to be able to give him shit about this for forever.

“Do you still have them?” I ask.

“Somewhere.”

“You’ve got to play for me,” I say, grinning. I walk a bit closer and knock him in the shoulder. “I’ve got to see this.”

He scrunches up his nose and sniffs at the air. “Never.”

“You could do a street show,” I say, practically bouncing with the excitement of everything that’s happened. “Set up on a corner, fight that bloke who eats swords for a spot. I can see it now: Braw Basil’s Bangin’ Bagpipes. We could tour.”

“Braw Basil?”

He looks sideways at me and I manage to catch his smile before he forces it back behind his mask. I shrug.

“You’re a pretty man, just face it,” I say without a hint of blush. I knock his shoulder again, but I don’t move back, so now we’re walking with our arms pressed together. “We could market it. Kit you out in a nice kilt. Maybe one of those hats with the feathers?”

“I’m not wearing a kilt.”

“Why not?” I ask, elbowing him. “I’ve heard you get a nice breeze on your knob.”

“Please don’t talk about my dick.” I let out a sharp laugh. Something inside me feels like it’s unwinding, and laughing has never been easier.

“You know, we say that to each other too much.”

“Simon—”

He grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop, and for a moment I think he’s stolen my idea to nip into a close before I see that he’s looking past me, his eyes blown. I turn to see what his eyes are trained on and I nearly choke.

Just ahead, at the bend that leads to the shop, multiple emergency vehicles are parked.

We take off running at the same time, our feet pounding in unison against the pavement. When we get closer I smell it: the acrid, singed, sharp taste of smoke that settles in the back of your throat, so thick you can taste it. A steady stream of black smoke has choked the air at this end of the street, rising steadily up like chimney smoke from the storefront on the corner. The bookstore.

The bookstore is on fire.

“Let us through, that’s, that’s my store, we work there, that’s—” Baz is saying, pushing past a man in a yellow vest as I follow behind him, one hand clasped in his coat to keep him within reach, the other gesturing apologies to the emergency workers we pass.

“We live in the building, this is our building,” I say to at least seven different people.

“Basil! Simon!”

Through the crowd of workers and onlookers we hear Fiona, her voice cutting like a whip. Her heavy black mascara is running down her face, her red lipstick smeared around her lips. We reach her in a mess of limbs; she drags Baz into her arms first, then reaches out to grab me and pull me in. It’s not so much of a hug as a collective collapse.

“What?” Baz is trying to say, but he seems to be speechless.

“Fire,” she says, her voice cracking. “They think it started in the bookstore. They’ve controlled it, but it spread throughout the bottom level, and the stair and balcony collapsed.”

“Was anyone inside? Agatha? Have you seen Agatha?” I ask.

“Where is she?” Baz demands, tearing himself away from his aunt to scrap the crowd frantically. “Where’s Agatha?”

“She’s fine, I took her to Ebb’s,” Fiona says. “It was contained to the bookstore, the upper levels were fine. There’s smoke damage but it’s okay. And no one was inside the store.”

Fiona is still talking, her words falling quickly out of her mouth, but Baz has checked out. He walks away from her, a dazed expression on his face, his eyes completely blank, and sits on a curb, just staring. Fiona doesn’t seem to notice he’s left and keeps talking. She’s found a cigarette and a lighter from somewhere, and she’s trying to light it with shaking hands.

“Fi,” I say, putting my hands over hers. “Probably not the place to light up.”

Her eyes snap up to mine and I think, for a wild moment, that she’s going to slap me, but instead she nods and just keeps talking about insurance and Mr. Grimm and fire hazards. I walk away in the middle of her sentence. She doesn’t notice.

“Are you alright?” I ask Baz as I sit next to him on the curb. He looks like a shell.

“It’s...gone,” he croaks out. He finally turns to look at me, and he’s not crying, but there’s a brightness in his eyes that indicates he’s close. “Simon, it’s gone.”

“It’s not gone!” I gesture at the storefront, where Baz’s most recent display can still be seen clearly. “It’s a little worse for the wear, aye, but not gone. A little work and it’ll be spic and span, and we’ve got money to spare, we’ll be fine. We got lucky no one was inside.”

Maybe I’m rambling too. My words aren’t getting through to Baz though. He just shakes his head again.

“It doesn’t matter if we rebuild, it’s gone,” he says again. His tone turns sharp. “Don’t you understand? It will never be the same. We’ve ruined it.”

“We’ll make it better,” I say, completely unable to keep up. “We can design it anyway we want. You can make it as gothic and creepy as you want. We’ll make the register look like a coffin. You can hide in it when customers come near. And we’ll get a storeroom door that doesn’t lock.”

I reach over and grab the hand that’s worrying at the button on his sleeve.

“Basil,” I say, quietly.

“It’s my mother’s store, Simon. It was hers. And we kept it just the same. Every inch of that store had been touched by her. And now she’s been burnt out. Don’t you understand?” His voice breaks and he turns to look at me. “We can rebuild it exactly as it was, but it won’t be the same. The memories are gone. She’s gone.”

He’s trying to pull his hand away and stand up, trying to push me away and stomp off, so I hold on tighter. I’m practically crushing his hand, but I won’t let him leave, not now. I yank on his arm and pull him closer to me, balling one hand in his collar.

“That’s bullshit,” I say, way too forcefully. It’s the only way with him. Gentle and rational never gets through. It’s always pain and force and fire. “It’s bullshit and you know it. She’s not gone. You’re here. You’re here, so she’s still here.”

His face crumples and he leans forward, his head falling onto my shoulder, and I feel his sharp inhalation of breath against my neck. Above his head I met Fiona’s eyes and jerk my head softly, gesturing for her to come over.

“She’s not gone,” I whisper again, unclenching my fist from his collar and bringing it around to clasp the back of his neck. I gently brush the small curls at his nape away, and hold him tight. It’s the same way he was holding me at the castle, when he was kissing me. But I can’t think about that right now. “No one can take her away from you. No one, nothing.”

“I miss her so much,” he whispers into my shoulder. “She was the one good thing and this store was all I had of her. Without her...I’ve got nothing.”

We’re silent for a long moment, and Fiona comes and sits grimly next to me, her arms tucked around her knees. She’s on her mobile, talking fast and yelling forced expletives at someone. She’s not paying attention to Baz and me, so I let go of his hand and wrap both my arms fully around him, pulling him in closer.

“That’s not true,” I mumble in his ear. The place where our skin touches is sweaty and wet and I’m fairly sure he is crying now. “You’ve got me,” I whisper. “You’ve got me.”

He stills, and I feel his breath hitch. He was leaning against me a moment ago, but now he feels like a board in my arms.

“Do I? Have you?” His voice is almost inaudible.

I tighten my arms around him and nod.

“I told you. I’m yours, if you want me. And I sure as hell hope you do, because you’re my one good thing. So if you don’t want me, I guess I’m as fucked as you.”

He pulls away from me, painstakingly, our jumbled limbs tangled together. He scrubs his hands across his face quickly, as if it will erase the fact that he was crying, and he turns away from me to face the smoking storefront.

But his hand reaches out and clasps mine.

“I do want you. More than anything,” he says, still not looking at me. “And you...you’ve had me for a bit.”

“I kind of figured,” I whisper back.

“You’re a loon,” he says, but there’s no venom there. Just a tired smile. I muster all the energy I have and smile back to him, then loop my arm around his shoulders and lean in to kiss the side of his head gently. On my other side, Fiona has hung up her call and gone quiet, so I reach out my other arm and throw it around her shoulders. She’s first to lean her head into me, and Baz follows a moment later, and I hold them both close.

“I love you,” I say. “We’ll be okay.”

I don’t know if I’m talking to him, or her, or both of them, but neither responds. I don’t need them to. The fact that they’re even letting me hold them says enough.

They’re both bony, prickly, and impossible to love. But they both lean into me, and we sit there and watch the smoke for a bit, snaking up and staining the gray December sky as the emergency workers try to salvage the remains of our home.

Chapter Text

SIMON

They said that a cigarette started the fire.

All three of us smoke, but we don’t smoke indoors, and no one had been in the shop that day, so we don’t know who is at fault, really. But Fiona bought us all nicotine patches for Christmas and sat on top of Baz and I and forcefully applied them, and neither of us argued with her about it. We both ended up with rashes from them, though. I think they were cheap.
It was probably one of the worst Christmases I’ve ever had, honestly, and I have a pretty low bar.

The plan had initially been for Baz, Fi and me to do our own holiday in the morning, and then when they went home, I’d go visit Ebb and her brother. I was looking forward to it: Baz had told me all about how he and Fiona always wake up late and get drunk on eggnog and listen to The Vandals Christmas album, and I loved the idea of being a part of a tradition. I’ve never had that before. And I really wanted to experience it.

I guess that’s where I went wrong: I started letting myself want too much. I always do this. I convince myself that it’s okay to want things, and start to believe that hoping and being excited for things isn’t going to cause it all to blow in my face. But then I let myself actually want , and everything goes up in flames. Literally.

So instead of waking up with Baz and spending the morning dancing with Fiona, I woke up cold and alone in an imposing guest room in the Pitch family mansion.

Our flat was fine, but there had been a lot of smoke and a lot of damage to the lower levels, so his stepmum Daphne insisted we couldn’t stay there until someone had been through to check and make sure it was sound. So Baz, Agatha and I packed up and migrated to Baz’s childhood home, which, although it isn’t even that far away, feels like it’s in another world.

“You grew up in a Gothic castle,” I said as Fiona’s car pulled up the (private!) drive. There’s no word for it other than castle. A fucking castle just chilling on ten acres in the middle of The Grange.

“It’s Jacobean, not Gothic,” he’d said. He didn’t even snap it—that’s how tired he was. He’d been silent and tense the entire time, which I totally understood. Things had been really fucking stressful and the whole day had been a wild, terrifying ride. Of course he was quiet.

If I’d had more energy, I would have told him to fuck off, just to try to normalise things a bit. But I was just as drained as he was. So instead we just pulled our things inside and settled in for an awkward and depressing holiday.

Honestly, his family wasn’t even that bad. I was all prepared to be shitty to Mr. Grimm, but he was actually kind of fine. He seemed shaken by all it all, and just kept talking about how glad he was that Baz and I weren’t home when it happened. And Daphne is extremely kind—she even got me a Christmas present, much to my immense panic. Everyone had been going around the living room (which was set up like something off of the fucking Game of Thrones set) and it hadn’t occurred to me at all that there would be presents for me, so when Daphne handed me one and said “This is from Mr. Grimm and I,” I had more than a slight panic attack. And then I unwrapped it to find a really nice Pitch Publishing limited edition of The Chronicles of Narnia, which is an absolute favourite of mine, and I almost started to have a full breakdown because it never fucking occurred to me to get them something.

But then Daphne unwrapped her Scottie dog tea and thanked me for it, and then Baz’s dad opened a book from me that I don’t recall buying. I can’t begin to express the wave of relief I felt when I realised Baz had taken care of it for me. I turned and smiled at him and went to hook our pinkies as a little “thank you”, but then he moved his hand away from mine, and I felt like I’d been punched.

I tried to calm myself down and remember that nothing was wrong. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Nerves were just still raw and we hadn’t talked about any of this and we were around his family, and it would be fine. I just kept telling myself that.

But it only got worse when I opened the really nice, soft, green jumper that Baz got me, and all eyes turned on me in expectation for me to give him his present. Except I didn’t fucking get him one.

I could have just lied and said that I’d forgotten it at the flat, but I didn’t think of that until later, so instead I just stammered out, “I, er, I kind of uh, gave you yours yesterday.”

His eyes flicked up and widened slightly, and then he looked away from me, and I started trying to find a way to set myself on fire. We were around his family so I couldn’t explain that I didn’t mean that offering him sex was his present, but rather that I’d had this whole romantic thing planned and I was going to tell him I loved him. But I never actually said it. So instead, from his perspective, it probably sounded a bit crass and more than a bit offensive.

He wasn’t looking at me after I said that, and apparently I’m a needy fuck who is starved for affection and attention, because I just really, really needed to know that it was okay. So I reached out my hand again on the sofa between us and tried to tap his finger again, but once again he just pulled his hand away and gave me one of those classic, patented, Baz Pitch “you’re a fucking numpty” looks, and kept talking to Fiona.

So yeah. It wasn’t the gifts or the location or the awkwardness that made it a bad Christmas. It’s that Baz just… wouldn’t touch me.

When we were finally alone on Christmas night, I couldn’t handle it anymore. He’d held my hand briefly under the table at dinner and I’d nearly fucking melted with relief. I’d started to worry that the day before hadn’t happened or that it was just the emotions from the fire and that he wasn’t going to ever acknowledge it. And I just needed to touch him, or hold him, or kiss him, or something. Everything had come burning down, but that didn’t mean that we had too, right? I think he had noticed that I was starting to panic, and that’s why he reached for me under the table. He just squeezed my hand once and dropped it, but it was enough to short circuit my internal freak out. For a bit, at least.

His parents had gone to bed a few hours previous and he, Fiona, Mordelia and I had stayed up to watch the Dr. Who special, and finally Fiona had carted a half asleep Mordelia off to bed and then it was just us. I nearly attacked him, I was so eager. I got up from my spot in the chair by the fire and went straight to him, tucking my feet up under me on the sofa as I grabbed his hand and leaned down to kiss him. But he pulled back from me, which elicited a feeling I never fucking want to experience again.

He looked incredibly calm and uncharacteristically soft as he put his hand on my cheek and shook his head.

“Not here,” he whispered. “I don’t….I don’t want this to start here.”

I don’t really know what he meant by that, but I figured I wouldn’t press him. He’d been through so many emotions in the last 24 hours that maybe it was too much to handle taking on all of this as well. And I know his dad is uncomfortable about him being gay, so maybe he’s just not comfortable being gay in his childhood home. I could kind of get that. And I didn’t want to force him, with everything going on.

So I didn’t kiss him that night. Or on Boxing Day, when we caught a bus and went to visit Penny. He did hold my hand briefly on the bus, but when I put my hand on the small of his back and leaned in to kiss his neck, he shifted away from me and scrunched his nose in a way that looked so fucking adorable and heartbreaking at the same time.

And it wasn’t just the lack of physical touch. He was just...spaced out. He spent half his time in his dad’s office with Fiona, talking about the bookstore I assume. But then when he was actually around, he wasn’t really there. By day three there were long silences when we were alone and he was talking normally to everyone except for me, and the anxiety in my stomach had flared into a full on aching freak out.

“I think I’m going to just go stay with Ebb until we get the all clear,” I’d finally said when I caught him coming out of his room. I’d spent the last three nights trying to think of an excuse to go in there and stay with him, but thus far the only explanation I could think of was “I want to.” And I really don’t want to be this fucking needy. But being around him and not being together—fuck, forget that, being around him and barely acting like friends—was killing me.

“Why?” he’d asked, surprise clearly written on his face. My cheeks had flushed and I shrugged.

“There’s just a lot going on, and I get the vibe that my presence is stressing you out,” I muttered. “And I just...I don’t want to make things worse. And things are bad enough so…”

He’d tilted his head then, and for a moment I thought he was going to hug me or something, but instead he just reached out slowly and gently flicked my ear.

“Don’t be a numpty,” he said softly. “I can’t get through this without you.” And then he squeezed my hand and left me standing alone in the hallway, confused as fuck, but wildly relieved.

It’s been like this nonstop: I start freaking out, he lightly touches me or smiles at me, and I’m fine again. Somehow he’s managed to become so important that him just smiling at me is enough to make my entire day better. And it seems like he’s acting like we’re together, at least in his mind, which makes things a bit better. But it’s all still so fucking stressful.

Christmas presents aside, being with the Grimm-Pitches is weird, especially since Fiona and Baz are technically the only Pitches. Everything is always this weird line between tense and totally fine.

Fiona and Mr. Grimm got into three separate fights in three days, but less than an hour later they just acted like nothing happened. Daphne flutters all over, trying to take care of people, and it drove me a bit nutters, so I ended up kind of forcefully situating myself as the person who does dishes after dinner, which everyone yelled at me for, but I just needed to do something. And Baz and his father, who are actually kind of getting along, keep having tense conversations about the internship at Pitch Publishing, and Baz keeps dragging me into them, and I’ve made a mental note to stab him for it.

“I’m not interested, Father,” he said at breakfast yesterday, after Mr. Grimm mentioned the internship again. “I don’t have time.”

“Basil, the shop will be closed for months at least. Your schedule just opened up.”

“So did Simon’s,” Baz said, gesturing at me lazily. “He has the same qualifications I do; give him the internship if you’re desperate to fill it. He’ll need a new job now anyway.”

I choked on my toast when he said that, and Fiona ended up slapping me on the back way too forcefully.

“I’m sure Simon would do a very serviceable job, but we’re not talking about him. We’re talking about you,” Mr. Grimm said. Baz just matched his father’s glare.

“Maybe I want to talk about him.”

My face had gone full red and I had no idea what Baz was getting at, but I wanted to flee.

“You’re allowed to yell at them,” Fiona muttered, leaning over to whisper in my ear. “You’re family now. A nice breakfast shouting match is a right of passage.”

“I can’t yell at Mr. Grimm,” I muttered back. “He already hates me.”

“What?” Fiona said, loudly. So loudly. “Malcolm doesn’t hate you. He loves you.”

Baz and his father stopped their conversation and turned to stare at me, and I prepared to stab myself in the eye with the fancy silver jelly knife.

“Fiona,” I muttered, but she snorted and took a sip of coffee. “Really, it’s always ‘Simon is so good for him’ and ‘Thank God Simon’s feeding him’,” Fiona said, doing an imitation of Mr. Grimm’s accent that did not sound at all accurate. “Truly kiddo, you’ve laid the groundwork beautifully. When you and Baz finally start bumping, Malcolm will have to get over his toxic homophobia and be nice to you, or else seem like a massive hypocrite.”

I sputtered and spit coffee across the white tablecloth, and Baz stood up from the table so forcefully his chair fell backward.

“Fiona,” he hissed, his voice low and sharp and echoed by Mr. Grimm throwing his napkin on the table and shouting, “God dammit, Fiona!” as Daphne rushed to put her hands over Mordelia’s ears and I tried to catch the coffee dribbling out of my mouth.

So, I guess I can kind of get why Baz has been standoffish while we’re still living in his parents house.

But it doesn’t mean I’m okay with it.

We got the all clear to move back so I went home yesterday, but Fiona and Baz stayed behind to celebrate Daphne’s birthday. I was invited, but I claimed I had shit to do.

Really, being there was just making me jittery. I wanted to be back in my own place with Baz, so he’d finally stop being so fucking quiet all the time and just talk to me. Or kiss me. Or something. I know he’s upset still about the store—I am too, and also slightly panicking because I have to find a new job—but I can’t really help him around his family. I can’t forcibly take care of him because Daphne’s doing that, and I can’t just push him until he lets me hold him, because he won’t come near me.

But he’s coming home today. And it’s New Year’s Eve and I can already hear the Hogmanay partygoers yelling down on the street, and I’m going try my luck and let myself want something again. Third time’s a charm, right?

And I swear to fucking God, if he doesn’t let me kiss him, I’m going to kill him and let Agatha eat his body.

BAZ

I can hear Snow’s music before I get to the fourth floor. It’s pulsing through the floorboards, and for a moment I think Fiona must be in there with him, because this is not his usual fair. But when I push open the door he’s on the sofa with Agatha, hunched over his phone and eating a grilled cheese.

Fuck, I’ve missed him. Even though we’ve been together, I’ve missed him so much.

I’ve been waiting for this all week. Waiting to be alone with him, back in our home where things are supposed to be. Where we’re supposed to be.

He looks up when the door closes and our eyes meet across the room, and for a moment I think about dropping my bags and striding over to him and wrapping him up in some Hollywood embrace and kissing him senseless. That would probably make him happy; I’m starting to get the vibe that he might like things like that. But instead I carefully take off my jacket and hang it on the hook by the door and go into the kitchen.

Now that I’m here, I’ve got to admit, I’m not really sure what I’m doing.

There’s a noise behind me and I turn to see that he’s gotten up from the sofa and followed me into the kitchen. His arms are crossed and he’s leaning against the door jamb and watching me wearily, like I’m some kind of wild animal that’s about to attack.

It stings a little to see it, but I can’t blame him, really. I’ve been holding him at arm’s length all week, even as he’s been trying to get close and get me to open up. I regret, it slightly. But I had things to think about and things to figure out, and I knew that if I let him in I’d be so wrapped up in this and us that I wouldn’t focus on my responsibilities.

“Ebb just texted me,” he says suddenly. “She’s offered me a job at her place. At least for a bit.”

My stomach flips with the reminder that we’ll no longer be working together. Because my mother’s store is burnt.

“That’s good fortune,” I say lightly, reaching for a mug. Snow left the coffee on. For me, I guess.

“Aye, I guess it is.”

He’s not moving from the doorway, and his mouth is pulled into a thin, straight line. He’s sizing me up. The air between us feels frigid with anticipation and awkwardness and something bitter. I can’t stand it. This kitchen is meant to be warm.

“What are you doing?” I ask, turning. His forehead wrinkles.

“What?” he says, but I ignore him and lean casually against the counter and smile slightly. The second I smile his whole face changes. Apparently I have the ability to do that now; flip his world at a second’s notice.

“Are you doing anything? Would you want to go out?”

“Out?” he echoes. “I, uh. No. I kind of thought we might watch a movie or something. Maybe make dinner? We could watch the count down.” He colours a bit, and I know what he’s not saying. Watch the countdown, kiss at midnight, snuggle up on the sofa.

It sounds fucking brilliant.

But there will be plenty of time for sitting around the flat later. I’m determined to do this properly. I think I owe him that, after all the distance. I may be getting ahead of myself, but I want this to last. I don’t want it to have started in flames.

“Have you ever been to Hogmanay?” I ask. He shakes his head, and I smile wider.

“Right, get your coat,” I say, gesturing to the hook. “We’re going out.”

“But—”

“Chop chop. Midnight waits for no man.”

He’s still looking confused, but there’s a smile on his face now, like he’s intrigued rather than alarmed by what’s happening, and I smile back, suddenly excited for Hogmanay for possibly the first time ever.

He takes longer than I expect for him to get ready, and when he finally steps out he’s wearing the jumper I gave him and jeans with no holes, and it looks like he’s brushed back his hair and shaved a bit of his scruff off. The gorgeous prick actually made an effort to look nice, and I won’t pretend that my chest doesn’t squeeze a bit when I see him.

“Shall we?” I ask, passing him his jacket, and he pulls it on with a wide grin.

“Lead the way, Basil.”

There’s still hours to midnight, but the streets are packed with people and revelers, sound makers are going off left and right, and there’s drinks and food everywhere. Men in kilts screeching into bagpipes pass us, and we catch sight of a troop of Viking Warriors on their way to go set the longboat on fire. We press into the crowd and let it carry us a bit as we make our way up the Royal Mile.

We’re not far from our flat when I start to think that’d maybe this wasn’t the best idea, though. Snow doesn’t do well in crowds, and even I’m starting to feel a bit claustrophobic as elbows push into me and another woman accidentally smacks me with her hair. Snow’s holding it together well, but I can see his eyes darting about, so I put my hand on the small of his back and direct him toward a tent set up on the pavement, where there are fewer people.

“I want a kebab,” I say, leaning down to speak into his ear so he can hear me over the drunk men singing a fight song next to us. My lips brush the top of his ear and he turns to smile at me with so much warmth and relief that I melt. Maybe I shouldn’t have dragged him out into this crowd for the sake of romance.

“So what’s your plan?” he asks as we wait in line for our food. He has his hands shoved into his pockets and he’s facing backward so he can look at me, and I keep having to gently nudge his foot to get him to move up whenever the line shifts.

“That’s for me to know, Snow,” I say tightly. He scrunches his nose up in annoyance and pulls his hands out of his pocket to blow on them for warmth.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t stay home. We’ve been gone all week.”

“We also have all next week off, and yet this only happens once a year,” I say dryly, spreading my arm wide toward the crowd. “And anyway, I wanted to get your opinion on something.”

I’m holding my breath. I’ve been wanting to talk to him about this all week, because I don’t know if it’s mad, or if it’ll work, or what he’ll think. And I desperately want to know what he’ll think. And maybe I’m being cowardly by talking to him about it in a crowd, but I couldn’t bear the idea of sitting in our quiet flat and having to deal with the fall out if he hates it.

“Fiona and my father are...we’re thinking of not reopening Pitch Books.”

He’s just about to take a bite of his kebab and he freezes, the meat halfway to his mouth, his eyes wide.

“Oh,” he says. Then, “Oh. Oh. Er, thanks for letting me know sooner than later, so I can start looking. I guess.”

He looks paralysed.

“Looking?” I ask. That wasn’t the response I expected. He already found a temporary job, I thought?

“For a new flat?” he says, his voice quiet. He sits down hard on the curb and I follow suit, even though the pavement is probably covered in piss. “I, er, if I’m not an employee I can’t afford the rent, right? So, er, yeah. I’ll need to start looking for a place.”

Oh Jesus Christ, he thinks he needs to move out. That’s the absolute last thing in the world I want. Fuck, I’m going about this wrong.

“No!” I shout, then softer, “no. That’s not.” I pause and run a hand through my hair. “No.”

I sigh and put my kebab on the pavement and turn to him. No sooner is it down than a pigeon attacks it and flees, my food dangling from its filthy mouth. Fucking rodents. I really wanted that kebab.

“Have I ever told you want I want to do? After university?” I ask.

He shakes his head and takes a tentative bite of his food. His panic seems to have calmed a bit, then. I shift so that I’m sitting next to him but not looking directly at him, and I sigh. This should be easier to talk about, but he and I don’t really talk about these serious things.

“I always thought I’d be a writer, like Fiona. And I still do kind of want to. But...working at the shop... it wasn’t just about my mother’s legacy for me.” I shrug and Snow reaches his hand out to flick at my pinky, and I smile. “I really loved working there. And I’m good at it.”

Snow nods. He knows it’s true; it’s Fiona’s store, technically, but she couldn’t run it without me. She hasn’t ever really had to run it; my mother always ran it, and then when she died I was old enough to start working, so Fiona has never had to do it alone. It’s more my store than hers at this point, and everyone in the family knows it.

“So what do you think you’re going to do?” Snow asks. He’s got a bit of yoghurt sauce on his chin, and I reach over and swipe it off with my thumb, then wipe my hand on his trousers. He grins at me so widely that I can still see the half-eaten food in his mouth. He’s revolting.

“My mother used to find these really old, out of print books and she’d bring them home and we’d read them together,” I say, stiffening up. I haven’t really talked about this in such sentimental terms before. “She always thought it was such a shame that these books weren’t popular anymore, that no one was reading them, that they were being discarded.”

Snow nods like he understands, but he clearly doesn’t. I sigh and brace myself.

“We want to turn the store into a boutique publisher. Revamp out of print books, rediscover neglected authors, give them new covers, market them, you name it,” I say. My voice has gone a bit robotic, and I’m about to start the business pitch I’ve been repeating to my father all week, but I stop. Snow doesn’t care about the details.

“That sounds like a lot of work,” he says slowly, and I nod.

“It would be. But father’s on board, and Fiona is too. She’d help get it off the ground, but it would be mine.” I look down at straighten the sleeves of my jacket. “I’d graduate and go into running it full time, and it would be a Pitch imprint.”

“And your father agreed?”

I nod.

“He’s mostly on board. I think it’ll be good for us, actually,” I say, fidgeting slightly. “He’s been desperate for me to get involved in the family business. And this lets me do it on my terms.”

“Basil, that sounds brilliant,” Snow says, and I flush a bit. I’ve noticed he only calls me Basil now when he’s trying to be serious. It still sounds delicious in his accent, even after this time. “That’s absolutely perfect, you’ll be brilliant at that.”

He’s smiling at me so widely and he looks so genuinely enthused and proud of me that I feel like I might burst. I don’t know why I ever thought he wouldn’t support this.

“I want you to help, if you want,” I say quickly. “Work there when we’re up. And when you graduate you’ll have a default job as long as you want.”

He shakes his head at me, his eyes wide, his mouth partially open, like he’s amazed.

“You’re nutters,” he says. But he’s smiling.

“Completely,” I respond, and knock his arm. “Come on, we need to get going.”

He allows me to pull him up and we brace ourselves before going back into the crowd. This time he sticks closer to me, his arm pressed against mine, occasionally knocking my shoulder or dipping his head a bit to rest on me as we walk. Everytime he does that I swell a bit inside.

We get distracted; Snow’s in a good mood now, stopping at half the stalls we pass, and by the time we get up the hill he’s bought himself a beanie (“It’s fucking cold, Baz”), a deep-fried kebab, and an entire bag of scones. I think he’ll finish it off by the time the night ends.

“The castle?” he asks as I pull him up to the gates and rummage around for the tickets I bought earlier in the week. I just nod, and he frowns. “I thought you hated the castle.”

“Can you shut up?” I say, handing the tickets over to an exhausted looking teen, who barely glances at them before she hands us two neon glowsticks. Snow frowns at his and waves it around in front of his face a few times, and I repress a sigh.

“Come on.”

I drag him past the museums and gift shop and try to not let my face heat up as we pass the alley that I shoved him into last week, and we keep walking up and up, past the crowds until we get to my favourite spot in the castle, and I lead him toward the rampart.

“Come look,” I order, and he shuffles up to the edge, his hands still in his pockets and huffing dramatically. He hits the rampart and I carefully slide one hand out of my own pocket and around his back, effectively trapping him between me and the wall. He turns to look at me, but I shake my head and point back out.

“You said you hadn’t seen much of the city,” I say quietly. “This is one of the best places to see it. Look, there’s our building,” I say, gesturing down the Royal Mile. You can’t really see our building, but you can see the general direction of it. “And if you turn toward the Firth of Forth, my parents are somewhere over there,” I say. He follows my finger dutifully, but he’s still glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, grinning. “And Fiona is probably somewhere down there, steamed out of her mind. Probably shouting at someone.”

“Probably shouting at Penny,” Snow offers. I nod.

“Probably.”

“This is beautiful,” he says, nodding appreciatively. He’s making a show of it, trying to look suitably impressed. I’m not sure he is though.

“It’s a gorgeous city,” I say, my voice a bit stilted. He shifts sideways so he’s leaning more into me, and he’s so warm against my side. My chest feels tight and my stomach is coiling in on itself. To be honest, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just wanted to bring him back here so we could reset everything and try again. So we could try that kiss over and hopefully have it lead in a much better direction than before.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says finally, his voice quiet. “But I don’t really care about the view.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling wildly stupid and also annoyed. Well, fuck him. I tried to do something romantic, and he’s being an idiot. Classic Snow. “Of course you don’t. You couldn’t appreciate beauty if it punched you in the face,” I snap.

“No offence,” he says, grinning, utterly unphased by my barbed response, “But can you just shut up and fucking kiss me?”

My eyes flick to his face and off again. I force myself not to smile.

“It’s not midnight,” I say.

Snow’s face scrunches into surprise and annoyance.

“Was that your plan?” he asks. “To drag me out here to freeze my knob off and wait for midnight and do some big tacky thing?”

I try not to be offended. That’s exactly what my plan was.

“It’s Hogmanay,” I say instead. I sniff at the air in disdain, but Snow just stares at me like he’s gobsmacked.

“Midnight is hours away,” he says. He sounds outraged, and I have to force myself not to laugh. He’s adorable when he’s offended.

“It’s Hogmanay,” I say again. “All the kissing is done at midnight.”

“Do you think I fucking care?” he says. “Kiss me, you prick.”

“Why can’t you kiss me?” I ask. My spirits are back up, and now that I’ve started to annoy him, I don’t want to stop. I love how he looks when he’s angry. “Why do I keep having to do all the work?” He looks ready to hit me. “I had to kiss you last time, you know. You’re extremely lazy.”

“I fucking hate you,” he says, shaking his head as he shifts himself so he’s facing me. “You’re such a twat. I hate you so much.”

And then he kisses me.

His hands slip inside my jacket and around my waist and he tilts his head up, pressing into me and it’s soft, and sweet, and his mouth tastes like smoke (the bastard didn’t quit smoking, I guess).

I can’t believe I could have been doing this all week. There were reasons that I kept telling myself as to why I wasn’t giving in: I didn’t want us to start something incredible right after something traumatising. I didn’t want our first kisses to be stolen in the hallways of my cold, isolated childhood home.

Sometimes, despite being a genius, I’m a massive fucking idiot.

He’s tilting his chin and my hands are on his cheeks and he’s everything. This is everything. I don’t know why I delayed. I wanted it to be right and perfect, but I was an idiot. Being with him could never be wrong.

He pulls my bottom lip into his mouth and my lips open for him and he licks lightly at my lip and I could honestly just dissolve in this moment. Maybe bringing him to the castle was a bad idea. I wish we were in our flat.

He pulls away slowly and grins up at me, and in the air between us I can see our breath mingling. I lean back down and kiss him again, and he laughs and goes to pull away, but I follow him. He’s laughing as he turns his head and ducks his chin into my jacket, trying to get away from my kisses, but I don’t let him. I kiss at his ear and a stray bronze curl and I wrap my arms around him and kiss at his forehead. He’s never getting away.

“Baz,” he says between laughs, and leans back so that there’s space between us. “This outing has been great and all, and I appreciate the kebab, but can we go home?”

I nod. Absolutely. We need to get home.

He kisses me again, and then I kiss him back with quick, searching kisses, and then he pushes me away and grabs my hand.

“You’ve got to stop,” he says, grinning. I shiver; without him wrapped around me, it’s fucking freezing.

“Do I?” I drawl, and my voice comes out far steadier than I’d expected it to.

“Oi, you didn’t eat your kebab before,” he says, ignoring my comment and pulling me along. His hand is kind of sweaty, but I’m not letting go. “Let’s get you another one. You’ve been wanting one for months.”

“Sometimes it’s best to not want things too badly,” I say dryly. He rolls his eyes.

“Come on. Let’s get you food."

“I’ll eat at home,” I say. Now that we’re on our way, I don’t want to make detours.

“You always say that, but you never do,” he growls. I laugh (Christ, it feels good to laugh) and slip my hand from his and throw it around his shoulders.

“Yes I will. We both know you’re going to be hungry by the time we get back, and you’ll make food, and you’ll make me eat it.”

He ducks his head into my shoulder quickly then hip checks me.

“I hate it when you’re right,” he mutters. I grin. I can’t help it.

“Simon, the sooner you learn that I’m always right, the easier this will go.”

He pushes his arm into my side again and I replace my arm around his shoulder and help steer him through the crowd. We side step a man in a kilt eating fire, and I pull him closer to me as a man in drag runs by. (Sometimes I love this city.)

“You’re a smug prick when you’re happy,” he mutters.

“Impossible. I’m never happy,” I respond, and he elbows me in the gut before he smiles up at me, and I go warm all over. He looks so excited. His hair is a horror show, his nose is red, his cheeks are flushed from the cold and he has crumbs from his scones caught in the lapels of his jacket. He’s a fucking mess. But he’s my fucking mess, and we’re going to go home and celebrate Hogmanay like the grouchy assholes we are, and at midnight I’m going to kiss him fucking senseless.

I don’t care if the building burns down around us: I’m going to end this year kissing Simon Snow.

“You’re happy,” he says. “Admit you’re happy.”

“Never,” I respond, but I place a well-aimed quick kiss to his curls. “I’m fucking miserable.”

Chapter Text

BAZ 

“Incoming!”

I hear the screech of the curtain being pulled back and then I’m assaulted by a blast of cold air as Simon stumbles into the shower behind me.

“What the fuck,” I start, but he shakes his head.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m running late,” he says, smiling sheepishly at me. There’s still a crease on the side of his face from the pillow.

“You can’t just invade my shower,” I snap. He nods like he’s agreeing, but he reaches past me for his three-in-one.

“Look, I woke up late. And you take forever! I’ll be finished before you are,” he says, flipping the cap of his wash and squirting way too much gel into his hands. “You just keep doing your five step hair process or whatever, you won’t even notice I’m here.”

He starts scrubbing at his skin and under his armpits, and he looks like a fucking buffoon. I sigh loudly and turn my back to him and attempt to keep washing my hair. I know when I’m beat. I try to ignore the weird fucking noises he’s making behind me, and focus on my own shower, but it’s hard, considering there are two grown men in a shower made for one.

“Oi, bunch up,” he says suddenly, slapping my ass. I jump. “You’re crowding me here.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I snap, turning to glare at him as I shift closer to the wall. “I don’t have time for this, Simon. I have my tutorial this morning, and if you’re trying to start something—”

“Is that what the smell is?” He interrupts, shoving his face into my hair and sniffing. “It’s your shampoo? I thought it was an aftershave.” I fix him with my best glare, and he throws his hands up and smiles. He’s fucking infuriating in the morning.

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m almost done, I swear.”

He scrubs his hands quickly through his hair, working up a ridiculous blue lather, and dunks his head under the shower stream. I turn away from him again; I have a lot of shit to do today, and the last thing I need is to get distracted by him. And he’s extremely, horrifyingly distracting right now.

I’m almost finished putting my conditioner in when I feel his hands slide onto my hips, and he presses a kiss to my shoulder blade.

“I’m done! See? Told you I was fast,” he says, and I snort. He smacks me again, and I try not to jump this time. “I’ll be gone by the time you’re out. Good luck today, yeah? Love you.”

I swat at him lazily as he clambers out of the tub behind me, my hand brushing across the ridiculous pair of tiny wings he has tattooed on his back. Simon has several tattoos, I’ve discovered, and I hate them all.

“Love you,” I respond, distracted. I have conditioner in my eye.

I finish up my routine and turn off the shower, only to find that the asshole stole my towel. Brilliant. What a beautiful start to this day.

The front door slams as I’m getting dressed and I peak out the window just in time to see the top of his head hurrying down the street, his curls bouncing in the wind. I glance at my watch. He’s going to be incredibly late to work. My father is not going to be pleased. But then again, I think he’s used to Simon’s aversion to timeliness by now.

It’s pleasantly warm out as I make my way to school, which means that it’s probably going to rain later. I mentally review my notes in my head, go over my speech for tonight, and pause once to double check I have my paper. My mobile goes off as I zip up my bag, and I pull it out to check.

Idiot: your dad definitely caught me coming in late with Starbucks

Idiot: did I say good luck? Good luck! One more and you’re done!

Idiot: your dad definitely just caught me texting

Idiot: see you tonight!

He’s an absolute nightmare. But he’s right: one more tutorial and I’m done for the term. I only took two courses this semester, since I was focusing on the store preparations, and I was extremely reluctant about it. Simon had to practically force me into it, but now that the term is over I’m glad as hell he did.

Not that I’ll ever tell him that.

One more tutorial and I’m done, and then I can be free to stress about the grand opening tonight. And after that’s done, I’ll find something new to stress about.

There’s always something to stress about.

My tutorial isn’t one of things though, as it turns out. My tutor turns me loose early because he has no comments or suggested revisions on my paper. I’m there for not even half an hour and then I’m released into the spring sunshine. I stop to get a coffee, and then pull out my mobile to text Simon.

BP: Done with tutorial. My tutor is an imbecile

BP: Iron your shirt tonight

He doesn’t respond, but that’s for the best. He’s on his mobile entirely too much at work, and it’s frankly amazing my father hasn’t caught him yet. But I suppose he’s lucky; the cubicle they stuck him in for his internship is far away from the main office, so the two don’t interact very much. And Simon’s position is far, far below my father’s notice; as head publisher, he doesn’t often speak to the intern in charge of going through the slush pile.

I’m starving, and I know I should eat now, because as soon as I get back to the shop I’m going to be in overdrive to get everything ready for tonight’s opening. But there’s just too much to do first. Maybe I’ll wait and get a kebab after the party in celebration. (I know Simon will be on board.) (He’s always on board for food.)

The shop is dark when I get there, which means Fiona hasn’t been in yet. But that’s fine; preferable, actually. I have a very clear idea of how things are meant to be, and she’d just mess it up.

I flip on the switch and pull up the blinds and look around. It’s still hard to believe it actually came together. It’s still hard to believe it’s actually happening, and that it all looks like this. When I’d pitched the idea to Father, we’d envisioned some kind of sleek lines, minimalistic, serious press. “We’ll appeal to an older, more distinguished market,” I’d said during our first conversation on the matter.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true anymore.

When we got down to the details—how to design the store, how to brand our materials, how to pick a name—I’d stuck by my initial, buttoned up ideas. We were going to keep the name Pitch Books, all our books were going to have black dust jackets, and we were going to keep a small and tidy stock. But Fiona fought me, of course.

“It’s a historic building,” she’d said one night. She, Simon and I had gone to the pub to eat, but it had just turned into a planning session. “It just doesn’t make sense to turn it into some trendy boutique. And what’s with keeping the name and making the books black? It’s like saying ‘hello, I have a stick up my ass.’ Is that what you actually want, or do you just think that’s what you should do?”

I turned to Simon for backup but he just held up his hands and shook his head.

“I like colour, but this isn’t my store,” he’d said. That had been his answer to everything. “I like name option one, but this isn’t my store.” “I think that’s too fancy, but this isn’t my store.”

I gave in, to a degree. I’m a bit glad I did, honestly. The final product looks more authentic and inviting than anything I’d envisioned previously. We ended up changing the name—Pitch Books never rolled off the tongue anyway—but almost everything else stayed the same.

There are some differences, of course. We painted the staircase and got rid of the heavy, oak bookcases and instead lined the walls with white shelves and filled the floor with display tables. We put chairs and small tables upstairs in the balcony, and left the entire back left of the store free for events. We even built a stage. “This will be brilliant for poetry slams,” Simon had said with a grin. I almost punched him.

It’s all very traditional, except for one indulgence. It was Simon’s idea actually, but I loved it. (And I probably wouldn’t have admitted that if he hadn’t been so uncharacteristically supportive of the idea.) But Fiona hasn’t stopped making fun of me for it since she first saw it: hand stenciled black letters on the wall above the counter reading “THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT.”

“It’s your favourite song,” Simon had said. We were sitting on the floor of the living room eating take away, and I was surrounded by papers and plans and having a full meltdown while he played FIFA. “And that’s a bit what reading is, isn’t it? If you love a story, it never goes away. You can’t get rid of that feeling. That story never dies.”

I stared at him for what felt like an hour.

“That was fucking brilliant,” I said. He just shrugged and picked up his controller and went back to his game. He has moments like that all the time, where he just drops these stunningly simplistic truths on me. He’s not often eloquent, but he has a way of cutting to the heart of a matter. That’s probably why he’s been so good at helping me pick books to publish.

Well, that and his short attention span.

“This is fucking boring,” he’d muttered, tossing aside the latest manuscript I’d handed him. That had been the hardest part of all of this; finding out of print books, wading through the muck, and deciding what to include in our first run. Simon had been extremely helpful in the decisions, and I had been using he, my father, and Fiona as my sounding boards for book choices.

“Well then what did you think of the last two?” I’d snapped, pouring over my own notated copy. We were in bed that night (my bed—his is too small), and Agatha kept trying to climb on top of my books, and I kept having to pick her up and move her, and as a result my patience was wearing a bit thin.

He rolled over and put his feet on my back and hummed, and I could tell he was trying to find his words.

“Well...they were a bit...gay,” he said finally. I narrowed my eyes.

“We’re a bit gay,” I’d responded, moving Agatha again. Honestly, she’s a nightmare sometimes. She takes after him.

“I just mean, do you want that to be the schtick? Printing gay books?” he’d asked. His foot wiggled on my back and he kicked at my hair, and I shot straight up because I hate when he touches me with his feet. Agatha bolted across the room when I moved, knocking my tea from the bedside table.

“I was thinking of doing special series sometimes; female authors, homosexual subtext or gay authors, authors of colour, etc,” I’d said, cleaning up the tea. “Something other than just reprinting dusty white men.”

Simon had been silent for a long moment, and I’d almost thought he’d fallen asleep.

“Why not just make that the theme? Print one of each in every round, or make each round a specific theme. That would make the selection process easier, wouldn’t it?”

He claims this store is entirely mine, that he’s not involved in any way, and that I did it alone. But honestly? I couldn’t have done it without him.

I’m big enough to admit it.

After all of the work and stress of getting things off the ground though, there’s actually not that much to be done in preparation of the opening. I set up the table for the drinks and text Fiona to remind her to get the champagne (and then I text Bunce as well). I organise the table full of swag we’re giving away to attendees—a book, a bookmark, a mug and a sticker. (The stickers were Simon’s idea. “Everyone loves stickers,” he’d insisted. “Stickers are required.”)

I straighten the stacks of sleek black books (I’d won the battle about the monochromatic dust jackets) and set up the microphone on the stage and text Dev to remind him that he was on music duty.

And then I’m out of things to do except stress. There’s still a few hours until the party, but it’s not technically too early to start getting ready. I think about texting Simon, but he’s still off work and won’t be free for a few more hours.

I wish he were here. He’d offered to take the day to help me prepare, but I’d said no, and now I’m strongly regretting it. He wouldn’t have been helpful at all in the actual preparations (when he helped me shelve last week he’d gotten himself locked in the storeroom again) but sometimes it’s nice to have him around to distract me.

He’s good at that; pulling me out of my head. Annoying me to death until I forget what I was stressed about.

I wish he were here. I hate that I’m not going to be able to see him until after the party gets started. And he’ll probably be late. Which will just stress me out more.

I should have had him take the day off.



SIMON

I’m running late, but honestly? No one ever expects me to be on time. By my internal clock, I’m almost early.

The store is packed when I get there, full of people from Pitch Publishing and loads of old people I don’t know. In the corner I see Penny and Fiona manning the champagne table, and I head straight to them. Penny is looking beautiful in a dress (I never see her in dresses) and Fiona looks ready to kill a man in her black, tailored pant suit.

“He ironed his shirt,” Penny says to Fiona. (Doesn’t even say hello to me.) Fiona just rolls her eyes, downs her champagne flute, and digs into the pocket of her sleek trousers for a handful of pounds and shoves them at Penny.

“How are things going?” I ask, grabbing two flutes. I don’t really like champagne and I don’t normally drink, but it seems like the thing to do tonight. Also I’m a bit nervous. Fiona gives me a quick side hug and points to the far corner of the store.

“He’s about to shit his pants,” she says.

“I’m going to go over there then,” I respond. “Oh! Penny, you’re coming to end of term drinks with us and Dev and Niall tomorrow, right?” Penny rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, I just spoke to them actually. I’ll be there. But you need to find more female friends,” she huffs. I shrug.

“I have Fiona. And Agatha.”

“Doesn’t count,” Penny and Fiona say at the same time. “We’re not friends, Simon,” Fiona says. “We’re arch nemeses. I thought we were agreed on this.”

“Whatever,” I mutter, grabbing the alcohol. “I have to go find Baz.”

Baz is holding court in the corner, surrounded by men twice his age, listening while his father tells some story that involves large hand gestures. I slip through the crowd and sidle up to Baz and pass him the champagne, and he takes it with a smile, then flicks his eyes down to inspect my shirt. The crease in his brow makes it clear that I apparently didn’t iron it well enough.

“Ah, Simon!” Mr. Grimm says, interrupting his story. My stomach goes cold for a moment. He and I get on well enough, and he’s distantly polite at work, but he’s still my boss and my boyfriend’s dad, which is a terrifying combination.

“Gentlemen, this is Basil’s boyfriend, Simon. Simon is doing the Pitch internship this term,” Mr. Grimm says. I reach out and shake the hands of several people I’ve never met and try to subtly catch Baz’s eye. He seems as thrown as I am by the fact that his father introduced me as his boyfriend, but he just gives a small shrug and raises his eyebrows. I grin.

The party is honestly kind of boring. It’s far more sedate and mature than the book release party we held here, and for the first time in my life I’m kind of wishing for some vampires to liven things up a bit. I do the rounds and say hello to people I don’t know, and then I solve a napkin crisis, and Fiona and I spend a long time talking to a graphic design student from the university and Fiona sets up an interview and I stand there awkwardly because honestly I have no role at all in staffing decisions, but in general I just try to stay close to Baz and keep him plied with alcohol.

When it’s time for him to give his speech I’m nearly falling asleep on my feet. It’s a huge day for him and Fiona, and I should really be far more tuned in, but I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to go upstairs and collapse into bed. I’m not even going to take my nice clothes off. Baz will enjoy yelling at me for that.

“Thank you for coming,” Baz says into the microphone. He looks impossibly cool and collected, despite the fact that I know he’s four drinks deep and screaming internally. He’s standing casually with one hand on the mic, the other tucked into the pocket of his suit trousers, and he looks like one long, lean, lanky shadow against the dark wall behind him. (He painted one wall black.) (Because that’s who he is.)

“Tonight is a big night for Hades Press, and I’m glad you could be here to share it with me,” he continues. His voice is crisp and calm and I catch his eye over the crowd and smile. One corner of his mouth tilts up in response.

“In Greek mythology, Hades is the god of death and the underworld,” he says. “His name means ‘the unseen one’ and I rather liked that. At Hades Press, our goal is to take those books and authors which have been unseen, those books who died an early death, and give them a new home.”

Fiona snorts beside me lightly, and I elbow her in the ribs. She’d made fun of his name choice for months (she wanted Bad Seed Books, like the Nick Cave band), but I love it. It’s entirely Baz: dark, intelligent, and so fucking extra.

“As many of you know, my mother opened this store almost thirty years ago as a general bookseller, and it stayed just the way she envisioned it until it closed earlier this year after a fire,” Baz says. I pull my attention off Fiona and back onto him. “Those of you who knew my mother knew she loved to collect beautiful, rare, out of print books, and that’s what initially inspired Hades Press. But that’s not exactly what we’re going to do here.”

I start to frown. I don’t remember this bit of the speech, and I know the whole thing. He’s been practising it nonstop. He fell asleep saying it last night. I could probably recite it at this point. This is the bit where he starts thanking his father for believing in his vision and talks up how great Pitch Publishing is. But he’s going off script.

“I’ve learned to see the beauty in the things that are discarded. The things that are unconventional, that don’t fit in. The things that have scars. In my eyes, sometimes the things with bad reputations are the things that can be most precious.” He catches my eye over the crowd again and my stomach clenches. From beside me, Fiona whispers, “shit, Basil.”

I get what she means. There’s something in my throat, but I’m not going to fucking cry.

“All of our titles are odd ducks,” Baz continues, breaking our eye contact. “Authors who didn’t fit the mold, authors who were seen as too different or too loud or too undesirable, authors who had so much to say, but weren’t properly given a chance to say it. We’re printing books that deserve a second chance. It’s a big task. But one I’m willing to take on.”

He ducks his head and smiles, and then swerves back onto his pre-written speech and I clear my throat quietly, trying to pretend that I’m not affected by the fact that my boyfriend is an eloquent, romantic prick.
The speech finishes up quickly and he gets a round of applause, and then his father takes over the mic to talk about publishing and Baz slips through the crowd to find me.

“You’re brilliant,” I whisper in his ear as I pull him into a half hug. He just shrugs, and from here I can see the dusting of pink on his ears and across his cheeks. He might be more drunk that I realised. That would explain his sentimental off-script ramblings.

Baz gets swept up by Fiona, then Penny, then Dev and Niall, and the night goes on way, way too long, but finally it’s over and the store is officially opened and I manage to drag myself back up to the flat and collapse on his bed, fully dressed and unwilling to ever move again.

He appears in the doorway a few moments later, still dressed, and I can almost hear the frown in his voice as he says, “oh.”

I roll over with a heavy groan and kick off my shoes.

“Oh what?”

“I was going to see if you want to go get a kebab.”

I just stare at him. It’s after midnight. We’d have to walk so fucking far to find kebabs. And I’m honestly unsure if I could force my body out of bed at this point. I’m fucking wiped . The combination of the semester and my internship and helping Baz with the store has made me feel like I’ve survived some kind of nuclear stress bomb.

I scrub a hand over my face and sigh.

“You deserve every kebab in the world,” I begin, and I see his forehead furrow. He knows where this is going. “But I beg you. Don’t make me get up. Bring your bony ass over here and go to sleep and I’ll buy you forty kebabs tomorrow. And the day after that.”

His mouth is a thin line and he looks ready to snap, but he pulls off his shoes and shrugs out of his jacket.

“You always say that,” he mutters, changing quickly. I just groan and turn my face back into his pillow. I feel the bed shift slightly and I prepare for him to climb in, but instead I flinch as something heavy and unexpected lands on my back and forces a surprised grunt out of me.

He threw Agatha at me.

“Eighty kebabs,” I say, my voice muffled by the pillow. I can hear his sigh from across the room, and then I finally feel his weight on the mattress.

“Are you really going to sleep like that?” he snaps, poking at my collar. I shrug, and I can hear him titter like an old bird. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, that shirt can hardly get more wrinkled.”

“Shut up and come here,” I mumble, reaching out for him. He likes to pretend that he doesn’t enjoy being close, and I expect him to put up a fight and shove his hand in my face. Tonight is no different. He pushes me away as he gets himself situated and pulls out his mobile, and makes me roll over so I’m hugging his leg and my cheek his laying on his thigh.
“I think that all went well,” I say. One of his hands comes down to rest on my head and play at my hair. He hums in agreement and then suddenly lowers his phone.

“Did you hear my father call you my boyfriend?” he asks. “What was that about?”

I shrug.

“Maybe he’s making an effort. All things said, he’s been pretty chill about it all.”

Baz snorts and tugs on one of my curls.

“Chill? Have you met my family? None of us are chill.”

I groan a bit and push myself up so that I’m sitting, and try to unbutton my shirt.

“No, I’m serious,” I say. “I think he’s trying. Something happened at work today and—”

“What happened?” Baz says, all the softness and humour from the previous moment gone from his voice. “Was it that prick in adverts again?”

I try to contain my sigh. I wasn’t going to tell him about it for this exact reason. Instead I just shimmy out of my trousers—which is easier said than done, considering I’m so tired I can barely sit up.

“No, it was another bloke,” I say in between grunts. Taking off trousers while lying down is really fucking hard. “We were talking about the release party and how stressed you’ve been and how I’ve been trying to keep you calm, and he made this weird comment about how I have a ‘full service internship’ and like wiggled his eyebrows.”

“Ew,” Baz says, scrunching his nose.

“Right?” I say, finally free of my trousers and button up. I collapse back into the pillows.

“What’s his name? I’m going to have Dev kill him.”

I reach out and poke him in the side gently and shake my head.

“No, it’s fine,” I say, biting back a yawn. “He was doing that joking thing, he wasn’t trying to be an ass. But he saw me freaking and went ‘I’m kidding! It’s 2018, pro homo!’ And when we turned around your dad was right there.”

Baz abandons his phone and slides down next to me and I eagerly roll over and grab at him. I’m kind of needy. It’s fine.

“Did he rip out the prick’s jugular?” he asks. I can feel his voice reverberating through my chest.

“No, he just invited me to Mordelia’s birthday and then sent the other bloke to get something from the annex storeroom.”

Baz is silent for a beat, then—

“Mordelia’s birthday was last month.”

“I know!”

Baz shakes his head and I don’t have to see him to know there’s a look of amused amazement on his face.

“Simon, you’ve been blessed with a rare sighting. You caught my father in an actual panic. Cherish it. It won’t happen again.”
“Noted,” I yawn, and tug him closer. His hand comes up around my shoulders to play at the curls on the back of my neck.

“Think it went alright tonight?” he whispers suddenly. I’m too tired to speak eloquently, so I just squeeze him.

“It went beautifully. You’re beautiful. All beautiful,” I mumble. I’m half asleep. “So good.”

He flicks at my ear gently and rests his chin on my head. I can almost hear him thinking, starting to go back over everything that happened, listing out everything that needs to be done. He’s searching for something new to stress and stay up about.

I move my hand from his waist and let it fall heavily on his face.

“Stop. Go to sleep. Tomorrow, we kebab. And then we get drunk with Fiona. We stress later,” I mumble, angling up to press a kiss to his neck. “If you stay up, I’m going to kill you.”

He sighs loudly and dramatically and shifts slightly to turn the light off, then repositions his arm around me.

“I love you,” he whispers into the darkness. He’s still awake and alert, and the words sound deliberate, pointed. Different from this morning. I nuzzle at his chest and sigh a happy, tired sigh.

“I love you too, you twat,” I say.

“Prick,” he responds.

“Nugget.”

“You’re a fucking disaster, Simon. You know that?” he asks, placing a kiss in my hair. “Go to sleep, you absolute nightmare.”

I do.