Work Text:
I’m too sober for this.
Simon Snow is not.
Snow is absolutely sozzled, leaning heavily into Penelope’s side as she tries to guide him to a bench away from the group of drunken, hormonal teenagers thrashing about to some too loud, too bass heavy music.
It’s not every day that Snow and I are invited to the same parties, but tonight just happens to be that rare occasion. He was spending Christmas with the Wellbeloves, and Dev’s obnoxious crush put Agatha and her friends at the top of the guest list. I’m here because he’s my cousin, and he and Niall wouldn’t stop pestering me until I agreed to attend this stupid New Years party they were throwing.
Daphne was thrilled when Dev brought it up, she thinks I spend too much time moping. She’d never outrightly say it to me, but I know that’s why she was just as insistent on me coming tonight because she and Father frequently forget that my condition gives me astoundingly great senses. Including the ability to overhear their conversations before they actually see me and cut them short.
Well, she’s wrong. I don’t spend too much time moping. I spend too much time pining, which leads to just the right amount of moping. It’s a delicate balance that I have been working on for the past seven years.
I’m stood in the a corner, barely touched drink in my hand, and my eyes trail back over to Snow and Bunce because I haven’t yet reached my quota for pining today. Snow’s hair is wild, he’s been running his hands through it a lot tonight. Or someone else has. My eyes flick over to Agatha, across the room, and I have to push that thought away. That will come later, when I return to moping. That’s when I’ll think of Wellbelove’s fingers running through those curls, her hands trailing down his arms, her mouth following the line of moles down his neck, from cheek to shoulder.
For now I’m pining, so instead I switch over to thinking of how much I want to do that.
It’s no secret that I’m hopelessly in love with Simon Snow. Well, it is a secret, I suppose, but I’m not sure how. It hit me like a freight train in fifth year, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.
No matter how hard I try I always find myself coming back to bronze curls, freckles and moles, and astonishingly plain blue eyes. Astonishingly plain blue eyes that are now trained on me.
I look away as quickly as I can, but it’s too late. He’s spotted me, and he’s spotted me spotting him, and he’s on his feet, unsteadily making his way toward me.
“Baz! I didn’ know you’d be here.” He’s not quite slurring his words, but his mouth is moving lazily. Maybe he’s not as sloshed as I originally thought, but he’s absolutely not sober. “What’re you doin’ here?”
“I don’t know, Snow, what would I be doing at a party hosted by Dev Grimm?” I say flatly. Usually, he’d already be bristling. He’s so easy to work up. Apparently not so much when he’s drunk.
“That’s what I’ve asked, innit?” He leans against the wall next to me. He’s too close, I can smell tequila on his breath and the general smokey scent that is Simon Snow. “You’ve never seemed the party type, have you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You hate people.”
“Correction: I hate you.” I bring my cup to my mouth and it’s absolutely not just to obscure my own face so I don’t accidentally give away how big of a lie that is. It’s two-fold, it’s for that and for getting enough alcohol into my system to be able to handle this interaction and this party in general. I’m three levels below everyone else, it would seem, even Penelope looks quite tipsy across the room, swaying and laughing with Agatha.
“So you like everyone else? Just not me?”
“Exactly.” I take another gulp and it burns the entire way down and I’m not sure if being a vampire affects my alcohol tolerance or if I’m just able to handle my liquor better than anyone else in this room. Either way, it’s complete bollocks, because Snow is leaning closer and I have to school my face into a glare at the proximity.
“Why d’you hate me so much?”
I roll my eyes in response. That wasn’t the answer he was looking for, now he’s frowning at me and grabbing the sleeve of my shirt between his thumb and forefinger to start tugging at it like a petulant child.
“Seriously, Baz, what have I ever actually done to you?”
Primarily, you made me fall for you, and remained heterosexual. Those are top of the list. “We haven’t got the time to start on that list.”
“Aside from all the shit I’ve done because you hate me - like, what did I do to start this? You’ve hated me since you met me but I don’t get why.”
“You exist, Snow, that’s reason enough.” I sneer. And then he’s dropped his forehead to my shoulder and I think every synapse in my brain short circuits. His hair tickles my cheek and I want nothing more than to run my hand through it. He’s so close and it would be so easy to reach out and put my arm around his waist and pull him closer. “I’m too sober for this,” I repeat. Aloud.
Snow looks up and I mourn the loss of contact. “What?”
He’s still just as close only now his face is tilted up towards mine, and I can see the flush across his cheeks and his dilated pupils and the drunken haze in his eyes. I could count every single freckle along the bridge of his nose if I wanted to.
Worse than that, I could easily close the two inches between us and kiss him.
And maybe that drink is starting to hit me because that suddenly doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world, and I really want to do it.
“I know you want to kill me,” Snow says, not moving and not quite looking me in the eye. More in the cheek. “And I don’t know why that is. But I don’t want to kill you. And I don’t know why that is either, but it’s true.” His eyes have moved down. They’re on my lips. That’s absolutely the only thing he could be looking at, isn’t it? He’s not checking out my chin, though I do have quite a nice chin. No, he’s definitely looking above that. “But I think we could be friends.” I feel like I’m on fire from the inside. “Or something…” I want to set myself on fire from the inside.
I’m perfectly flammable even without the vampire thing, because I’ve apparently gotten drunk enough to lean in and press my mouth to his. Drunk from the vodka or drunk from being so close to Simon Snow, I’m still not sure.
It’s certainly becoming a combination of both because Snow is kissing me back almost immediately. For a split second I’m full of regret, and his mouth is stiff, surprised, unmoving. But in the next his hands are on my face, his lips sliding against mine, and I lose all sense of anything but the feeling of him against me.
His hands move from my face to my chest and he’s pushing my back against the wall, crowding me in and our bodies are completely touching from shoulder to knee and I want to scream. This is even better than any of my idle pining fantasies, this is the real Simon Snow pushing his real tongue into my real mouth and running his real hands down my real torso and beneath my real shirt.
I’m embarrassed by the whine that I let slip out as his blunt nails dig into my shoulder blades, but it’s fine because I finally, finally slide a hand into his hair and earn an equally embarrassing sound from him when I tug a fistful.
We’re somehow unnoticed by everyone else in the room, but I quickly realize it’s because it’s nearing midnight. Everyone else is too focused on the countdown, the eventual switch into the new year. I’m too focused on Snow to process anything else happening, until the room is full of people shouting at the final three seconds.
3… 2… 1…
Snow pulls away first, cheeks a pretty shade of pink and breath coming out in short bursts. He’s smiling, and I catch myself almost returning it.
“Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year, Snow.”
He leans back and makes a show of rolling his eyes. “Crowley, Baz, you just shoved your tongue down my throat but you still can’t call me Simon?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re a terror.”
“You’re one to talk.”
I don’t know what this will mean tomorrow when he’s sober. I don’t know if this is turning over a new leaf for the new year, or if we’ll go right back to being mortal enemies.
What I do know is Simon Snow is now holding my hand and pulling me away from the mess of our peers.
And I think I’m still too sober for this, but somewhere along the way I stopped caring.