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BAZ
I’m only here to get sloshed.
I usually hate these things. Socialising with my peers, watching Snow get fawned over, top 100 pop songs that make my ears bleed. I’d normally stay as far away from this type of situation as possible. But there's alcohol. A lot of it. And it’s free. So, whenever there’s a party going on, I join Dev and Niall in going downstairs, and usually no one bothers me while I brood in the corner with my drink.
Usually. But not tonight.
Wellbelove is tugging on my arm, Dev’s gaze is shifting from her to me—looking hopeful towards her, murderous towards me—, and Snow’s loud laugh from the other side of the room is ricocheting around my head.
I take a large gulp of my drink and let myself be pulled into the group gathering in the middle of the room.
Every month or so someone manages to host a party in some strange corner of the school. Today we’re in an old classroom, far from the teachers’ lounge and big enough to fit a good portion of the seventh and eighth years. And, as is customary with a group of drunk, horny teenagers, someone usually proposes a game by the end of the night.
I’ve successfully begged off playing both spin the bottle and truth or dare on previous occasions, and I’m wondering if there’s any chance of being able to slip from Wellbelove’s grasp, nick a bottle and slip out the doors before they announce tonight’s embarrassment opportunity of choice. Her grip is tight, though, and when I try to tug my arm back, she shoots me a death glare.
Ever since Snow and I’s strange truce, he and Bunce have been tolerable if not slightly amiable towards me, but Wellbelove has been sticking to me like a strange sweat. She and Snow had broken up towards the beginning of the semester, and when she started sitting next to me at the library and asking me what I was listening to, I panicked, thinking she was actually coming on to me and regretting every time I’ve goaded her on. But she never tried anything suggestive, and eventually she started asking me if I thought she had a chance with some eighth year called Adrian, so I think she genuinely just wants to be friends. The only uncomfortable thing about it, really, is Snow’s glares, but those have lessened over time.
Also, she’s the only person at Watford whose fashion advice I trust.
So now she thinks she has the right to drag me into participating in horny teenage party games.
While we wait for everyone to settle down and pick a game, I let my gaze wander over to Snow. He’s standing in the crowd with Penelope, Gareth, and a few others, talking to Bunce and gesturing wildly with his hands. He’s got a bit of a manic look in his eyes, but he’s standing too far away for me to hear what could have gotten him this riled up. He’s in a blue denim jacket and dark jeans, and they look ridiculously good on him. I’ve seen him out of uniform before because of these parties. But his hair is also messier than usual, his curls askew, and the humidity of the room has given a rosy flush to his cheeks. He looks unbearably cute. There might be more than one reason I came tonight. I take another gulp of my drink.
Finally, the group seems to have decided on something, and Gareth claps his hands, trying to get everyone’s attention.
“Listen up! Okay. So, we’re going to start a game of seven minutes in heaven,” he calls, and a cheer goes up from the crowd. I take another gulp. “Except, we want it to be fun, so there’s going to be a twist. Penny’s going to cast a spell on the hat, so if you’re chosen to go in with someone, there’s no backing out.”
“That sounds mildly like sexual harassment,” Niall says from next to me, frowning.
“Not really,” Dev interjects. “You just have to go in the closet with them, no ones’ forcing anyone to kiss.”
“No one but the dozen people who’ll be standing right outside the closet with their ears to the door,” Niall replies, and I snort.
Gareth is calling for attention again. “Everyone who wants to play, grab a piece of paper from Trixie, write your name on it, and drop it into this hat.” He holds up a beat-up bucket hat, which I think I saw earlier on the head of some seventh year. Charming. “Once everyone’s got their names in, we’ll get started.”
“Right,” Wellbelove says, turning to look at me.
“No fucking way,” I say. I’m not drunk enough to deal with this. “I’m not sitting in a closet and swapping spit with anyone here. Especially not anyone who would willingly play this game.” Niall makes a sound of approval. Sometimes I think he and I are the only ones in this friendship group with any semblance of common sense. Or sanity.
Wellbelove gives in much easier than I thought she would. “Fine,” she says, and I’m not sure I completely trust her tone, but the alcohol is starting to hit me, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be wary of. She turns to Dev. “Dev? Care to join?”
Dev nods, practically glowing, and he and Wellbelove go to get their names down.
“Does he think he actually has a chance? Is he going to try and rig the game or something?” Niall wonders.
“He’s going to get himself punched in the face, probably,” I say. Niall murmurs his agreement.
Dev eventually comes back, the game begins with Rhys disappearing into the closet with a seventh-year girl to a soundtrack of cheers, and the boys and I revert back to our original aim for the night: to get roaring drunk.
SIMON
For the record, I think this game is stupid. I didn’t even want to play, but Agatha kept goading me. When I reach my hand into the hat, it’s only to get her to shut up and stop bothering me. And I sort of hate Penny right now. Actually, I really hate her.
I’m wondering if I can drop the paper back into the hat and pick out a new name, but I don’t think Penny’s spell would let me do that. And it’s too late, anyway, because Trixie is already by my side and snatching the paper out of my hand to read it.
Fuck me.
Trixie lets out a hysterical laugh from beside me, and everyone rushes forward to find out who I pulled. There’s no getting out of this now.
I have to spend seven minutes in heaven with Baz.
Fuck.
Me.
Baz is going to eat me alive.
BAZ
I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. Dev’s been trying to flirt with seventh years using terrible Harry Potter pick-up lines for the past half hour, Niall’s been narrating his attempts in a terrible American accent, and I’m halfway to being completely blitzed.
We’ve all forgotten about the game until there’s an unusually high shriek of laughter coming from the direction of the closet.
I turn towards the commotion and see Snow standing beside the closet door, holding that infernal hat, looking panicked and uncomfortable. Trixie is amongst the crowd gathered beside him, laughing her head off. I barely have time to muster up any jealousy towards whoever’s name Snow picked before I hear my own being called.
“Baz!” Trixie gets out between fits of laughter. “You’re up, Basil! You and Simon, seven minutes in heaven!”
I—What?
What?
I must be drunker than I thought, because I’m hearing things.
“Come on, Baz!” A voice I don’t recognise shouts. “Get your ass over here!”
I can’t comprehend what’s going on.
I didn’t even put my name in. This can’t be happening.
There’s no fucking way I’m going to sit in a dark closet with Simon Snow for seven fucking minutes. No. I’m not doing it.
Just. What?
I look at Simon, and he looks exactly how I’m feeling, his face a picture of confusion and dejection.
This has to be a joke.
I look back at Dev and Niall, hoping for some explanation. Niall is trying not to look amused, but he’s too sloshed to put on a straight face, and Dev is outright smirking at me.
“About time you got some, mate,” he says, and it clicks into place. He must have put my name into that infernal hat with his own. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to set him on fucking fire. I’m going to punch him right in his smug fucking face. When I said that Dev was probably going to get himself punched tonight, I wasn’t expecting myself to be the one doing the punching, but I’m completely open to the idea.
I’m just about to tell him exactly how I plan on throwing him into the moat when I remember Bunce’s stupid fucking spell, and my feet start moving despite their own accord, following the pull in my chest. Jesus. It feels just like the sting of the crucible from all those years ago, dragging me towards the same nightmare. I rack my brain, trying to think of a counter spell to stop my feet as they bring me closer and closer to the possible cause of my death, but my mind keeps coming up blank. I’m too drunk. I try to dig my heels into the floor, but it just makes me stumble. Everyone is watching me, and people are catcalling, and I’m trying to not look so panicked, but my face isn’t listening to me. Fuck.
When I reach the crowd gathered around the closet, Wellbelove is standing beside Snow, looking incredibly proud of herself. I scowl at her. I’m sure Dev wasn’t alone in his plot to get to me to humiliate myself in front of a good portion of our classmates.
I manage to get in a “I’m going to fucking dismember you” before she grabs my arm and shoves me into the closet, a body is pushed into mine, and the door slams shut, enveloping us in darkness.
Fuck.
SIMON
I scramble to get off of Baz, but it’s pitch black in here and I end up getting a few elbows in my gut before he pushes me off. This closet is tiny, though, and I don’t go far. Our legs are still tangled together when I manage to sit upright against the wall.
Someone must have put up a silencing spell, because it’s deathly quiet.
All I can hear is Baz’s breathing, until he mumbles something that sounds like “fuck this” and suddenly I can see again, a small flame dancing above Baz’s outstretched palm.
We regard each other in silence for a moment. I think he’s as flabbergasted at this whole situation as I am. There are rows of coats hanging above us—why the fuck is there a clothing closet inside a classroom? —and the combination of them with the flickering light casts strange shadows on his face. Half of it is unreadable, but the other half is bathed in warm, orange light. The edge of his nose looks like it can cut me, but the high tops of his cheekbones look like they’d be soft to the touch. His eyes are almost black in the darkness. He raises an eyebrow at me, and I realise I’ve been staring too long.
“Uh,” I say. “Hi”. Because I don’t know what else to say, and it’s getting awkward, and I hate feeling awkward. What’s the standard protocol for when you’re shoved into a tight closet with your used-to-be-enemy-but-not-really-anymore, who you’ve spent way too much time thinking about kissing, and are expected to kiss him?
I would say that that’s a recent development, but Penny doesn’t think so. The wanting to kiss him, I mean.
We came back from summer for eighth year, and with the Humdrum’s attack at the end of last semester, this rivalry we had didn’t seem as important to me as it used to. It seemed petty in comparison to a situation that literally had the word ‘insidious’ in its name, especially after it was able to teleport me to it and almost kill Penny and me. So, I started to antagonise him less, and he started to threaten me less, and eventually I told him I didn’t want to fight him, and he made some sort of remark that implied he didn’t want to fight me, either.
And as we started to get along slightly better and he started to smile at my jokes, I noticed that he’s got a really beautiful smile, actually, straight teeth and slight dimples and a crinkle around his eyes, and when I watched his hands as he did his homework in our room, his elegant fingers grasping his pen lightly, I wanted to run my own across his. And he’s really funny. His snark isn’t that annoying. Sometimes I get a glimpse of his collarbone when we’re in our room and he’s got his tie undone, and my face goes hot. I had to stop watching his football practises because seeing him run down the field, the muscles in his leg shifting gracefully beneath his skin and his hair falling into his eyes, left a funny sort of pain in my stomach.
It became much easier for me to fall asleep at night when he was in the room rather than out hunting. I don’t feel so afraid of going off in class when I know he’s only a few meters away from me. I don’t even feel like I’m about to go off that much, anymore. A sort of calm settles over me whenever I know he’s around. I always find myself drifting towards him.
I noticed that everything he does leaves me slightly breathless.
When I admitted this to Penny, the only thing she said was, “Oh, it’s about time you realised the actual reason you’ve been stalking him for years”.
So, now I think about kissing him.
“Hi,” he says back, blinking at me stupidly. I don’t think he’s ever done anything stupid. I think he might be drunk.
I shift a bit, trying to get comfortable in the cramped space. His bare calf is cool where it presses against my leg. We sit in silence for a few beats more.
“How- Uh, how are you enjoying the party?” I ask, because apparently, I absolutely cannot keep my mouth shut.
Now he looks at me as if I’m the one being stupid. Which, I mean, I guess I am. “Okay,” he shrugs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him shrug. That’s my thing. I don’t know why he’s letting his poshy demeanour slide so much—I guess he must be really, really gone. “I only came to get drunk. And now I’m drunk,” he declares.
“Why did you want to get drunk?”
“I like being drunk.”
“Why do you like being drunk?” It’s my turn to be stupid.
He gives me an incredulous look. “Because I like alcohol.”
This is the weirdest conversation we’ve ever had.
“Um.” I shift again. “This is weird.”
I think he’s trying to sneer at me, but it’s not working. His nose is scrunched up, and the corner of his mouth is twitching, like it can’t decide whether it wants to go up or down, and there’s a crease between his eyebrows. But there’s no malice in his eyes, and so all his scrunched nose does is make him look like a petulant child. It shouldn’t be endearing, but it is.
“Is it? I didn’t notice. Sitting in closets with my past enemies is actually one of my favourite pastimes.”
My heart misses a beat at his use of the word past. “Really? You’ve had more enemies, other than me? I thought we had something special.”
He huffs out something almost like a laugh. “Don’t get too upset about it. I’m not a very likable guy, what did you expect?”
“Nah, I reckon you’re plenty likable, as long as you’re not planning how you’re going to kill me.” We’ve joked around a lot, recently, but never like this—never about the serious stuff. But being this close to him is making me feel sort of brash and brave. And he’s let down his guard a bit—I should be able to do that, too.
“I’ve spent years perfecting this demeanour, Snow, you can’t just call me likable,” he replies, but he’s rolling his eyes, and that was definitely a laugh. I’d do almost anything to hear it again.
“You mean your bad boy act? You put way too much effort into your appearance for anyone to actually think you’re troubled,” I say, and he actually snorts.
We fall into a comfortable silence, the tension gone. He leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. After a moment, I close mine, too. When I open them again, the space is slightly dimmer, his flame having shrunk, and he’s looking at me through half-lidded eyes. He looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him.
“I like being drunk because…” I realise he’s actually answering my dumb question from earlier. “Because being drunk means I don’t have to think about everything so hard. Because I can say the things I really mean. Because… I can tell you this.” He frowns. “I wouldn’t be telling you this if I wasn’t completely off my mind. But I am.” Everything he says sounds like a declaration. It never occurred to me that Baz would be a chatty, oversharing drunk.
“That sounds like a good thing,” I tell him.
“I don’t think it is,” he sighs, sounding forlorn. I feel his breath on my cheek.
“This light makes your eyelashes look like satin.” Can you get drunk just by being next to someone who is drunk? I think maybe I’m getting lightheaded just by being this close to him. Merlin, that sounds like a lyric of a trashy pop song.
I kind of feel bad for him. I mean, I just ruined his chance of getting a good snog tonight. I wonder who he would’ve wanted to pick his name. I’m feeling giddy, so I ask him.
BAZ
This situation is completely bizarre.
I’m sitting inside a closet. With Simon fucking Snow. The irony of the situation doesn’t escape me.
And we’re having an actual conversation. He’s making me laugh and grinning widely every time I do. It’s barely been a few minutes, and I’ve already shared with him much more than I intended. I wonder if this is just a fever dream. I’m fucked up enough that this is probably something my subconscious wants. To be stuck in a dark, enclosed space with Snow.
Actually, that doesn’t sound too bad. I should probably enjoy the press of his leg against my calf while it’s there.
“Who would you have wanted to pick your name? For the game? I mean, who did you want to snog?” he asks. He sounds soft and contemplative. Because I am a constant disappointment to myself, I actually answer him instead of ignoring the question completely. Like I’ve been doing this entire time. I’m going to regret this tomorrow.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I say, and my voice comes out not nearly as harsh as I wanted it to. Crowley, I sound like I’m teasing him. I’m starting to blush, and I’m glad for the darkness, because the only thing that could make this situation even more humiliating is if Simon knew how our proximity was affecting me.
I try not to look at his lips. He’s stunning in the dim light. I am very, very drunk.
“Can I try to guess?” He leans forward, batting his eyelashes at me.
“No.”
“It’s not Agatha, is it? I used to think so, but…” he trails off. I desperately want him to change the topic. “How about Amanda? She’s pretty cute. I saw you looking at her, earlier.”
“Who the fuck is Amanda?”
“The seventh year? Okay, okay, what about… Nora? You always sit next to her in elocution.”
“I don’t sit next to her in elocution, she sits next to me. Also, I wouldn’t kiss her. She’s not my type. She’s terrible at elocution.”
“So, your type is people who are good at elocution?”
“No.” Snow is terrible at elocution.
“Describe your type for me, then.”
“I’m not telling you my type.” I try to scowl at him, but this situation is entirely too amusing, and the corner of my lip keeps tugging up. “We’re not here to chat like preteen girls at a sleepover.”
“No, we’re here to snog,” he points out, and my cheeks burn at the insinuation. He leans his head back against the wall, looking pleased with himself. The action exposes his throat, and I try and fail to tear my eyes away from his Adam’s apple.
I have no idea how long we’ve been in here for, but I don’t really want to leave. I know I should, that sitting here and having him guess my type is probably not going to end well for me, but I’m enjoying the banter way too much. I’m enjoying him way too much.
“Hmm, okay, so it’s not Agatha, or Amanda, or Nora… There must be someone in this school that you want to kiss,” he insists. “But I never see you hanging out with anyone else… You’re very antisocial, Baz. Unless… it’s not Dev or Niall, is it?”
“Dev or—Crowley, Snow, Dev and I are cousins! And Niall is… well, I don’t know, but I don’t want to kiss him.”
Snow is grinning from ear to ear. It’s intoxicating. “But you didn’t say anything about them being blokes. You wouldn’t mind it being a bloke, right?”
“Of course not. Do I seriously look straight to you?” I don’t know how I’m able to speak about this so casually. I can’t believe I just came out to Simon Snow. Simon Snow knows that I’m into blokes. My heart is about to explode.
SIMON
Baz is blushing, and it’s entirely too cute. I’m probably having way more fun than I should be right now. I can’t take my eyes off of him, in this light…
My heart is pounding with the knowledge that Baz is into boys. It’s not really a surprise. I mean, his eyebrows look way too good for him to be straight. But having him confirm it opened the gate for a flood of possibilities in my head.
“If…” I start. I lean forward slightly, placing my hand on his knee where it’s still tangled with mine. “Perhaps, if you don’t mind blokes…”
I look into his eyes, hoping I won’t have to spell it out for him. He’s already looking at me, and his gaze is so intense.
I’m not drunk; I only had one drink. But if it comes down to it, if everything goes wrong, I can probably pretend that I am. But I don’t think I have to. I think about what he said earlier, about how being drunk allows him to say the things he really means. I think about his blush, and how his eyes keep glancing at my lips. I think about the way he’s looking at me from underneath his eyelashes.
“Yes?” He says. His voice is so light, and slightly quivering. The lighthearted mood from the banter is gone. Goddamn him, he’s going to make me spell it out.
“Well, since you don’t mind blokes, and we’re already here, maybe we could, you know…” I’m surprising myself with how steady my voice is. I lean forward even more and see his eyes flicker to my lips once again.
BAZ
I think Simon is going to kiss me.
He keeps leaning forward, and looking at my lips, and what he was saying…. I keep expecting to wake up.
Simon Snow is asking to kiss me. I don’t know why, but I’m sure as fuck not going to say no.
“Okay,” I all but whisper, and the corners of his mouth tilt upwards. I hold my hand with the flame out to the side, hoping nothing will catch fire, and the space around us dims further.
Simon moves even closer, and I shift my legs, making room for him. He reaches out a hand to cup my face, his touch feather-light, barely there. I lean into his touch, aware of how much I’m acting like a cat, and he laughs, the sound pushing my heart even further up my throat.
This close, I can see faint freckles across his nose, so light that I’ve never noticed them before. I can feel his breath on my face, and I tilt my head upwards, my lips almost touching his, almost…
The door slams open.
Simon jumps back in surprise, yelping as his head hits the wall, and I lean back quickly. The thumping bass from those infernal pop songs and bright light flood back into the closet, blinding us temporarily and sobering me up almost instantly.
“Times up, lovebirds,” Agatha says, appearing in the doorway. She’s looking between us, her expression still smug. Neither of us is looking pretty innocent, even though we didn’t even do anything—our legs are still intertwined, and we’re both blushing like mad.
I almost kissed Simon Snow. Aleister fucking Crowley.
I stand up quickly, ignoring my spinning head and push past Wellbelove and out of the closet, letting my shoulder hit hers, hard. I can still feel my cheeks burning, and I will my blush to leave as I storm through the crowd to cheers and catcalls, needing to leave.
Simon Snow almost kissed me.
I can’t make sense of anything.
I pass Niall on my way to the door, and he tries to grab my arm. His smirk is insufferable right now, though, so I push past him, desperate to get outside. My face—no, my entire body—feels like it’s burning from the inside out. Is this how Simon constantly feels? Why he always keeps the damn window open? I finally get outside, and the cool night air helps me breathe again.
SIMON
Actually, Penny’s okay. Her spell wasn’t that bad. She’s off the hook. It’s Agatha that I’m going to kill now.
Baz leaves abruptly, but before I can follow him, Agatha steps in my way, ready for an interrogation.
“Well?” she asks. She’s got her hands on her hips, and she’s grinning like mad. “Did you kiss him? You had to have kissed him.”
I don’t have time for this. I’m shifting from foot to foot, needing to run after Baz, watching the back of his head disappear further and further into the crowd. I need to follow him. “No. Fuck, Agatha, I was about to, but—” Baz’s head has disappeared completely out of my line of sight. “Fuck, I have to go,” I say, and don’t wait for her reply, pushing past her and through the crowd, towards the door I saw Baz disappear through.
Outside is cold, and I shiver as the cool hair hits my cheeks, wrapping my jacket tighter around myself. I can’t see Baz anywhere immediately, so I start to jog around the yards, trying to keep warm and hoping he hasn’t gone inside anywhere.
By the time I find him, sitting on a bench underneath a tree near the lake, I’m out of breath, and a good twenty minutes has passed.
I don’t think he can see me approaching, because he’s slumped down and has his head tilted upwards, looking up at the branches of the tree, and he starts when I sit down next to him. I’m not sure what to do or how to act now that the moment’s over and some time has passed.
“Snow,” he says, and his voice is steady and cool, devoid of emotion. He’s not drunk anymore, then. I guess that’s a good thing, considering what I want to do, but I wish he wouldn’t be so frigid with me.
He doesn’t change his position, so I slouch down to match him, tilting my head back against the bench and looking up. The branches of the tree are swaying slightly, and behind them, I can see a glimpse of the stars, pulsing along to my heartbeat. We’re sitting close enough together that when the wind catches Baz’s hair, some of it tickles my face.
“What I meant,” I say, after a moment, and my voice is a whisper, “Back in the closet, is that I would like to kiss you. Not just because you’re a bloke that’s into blokes and Agatha is an asshole and we got stuck in there together, but because I like you.” My confidence is back, and once I’ve gotten started, I can’t stop myself from blurting out everything I want to say to him. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while. And I think you want to kiss me, too.”
He’s silent for a moment before he starts shifting. “What—” he sits up, and I take the opportunity, turning and swinging one of my legs across him, straddling him almost as soon as he’s upright. His hands come up immediately to rest at my hips.
BAZ
I keep thinking I’m about to wake up. I came out here to try to talk some sense into myself, to accept the reality that Simon didn’t actually want to kiss me back in the closet, that I have to stop believing delusions… But I can’t stop thinking about the moment he put his hand on my face, palm caressing my jaw, fingertips stroking my hair, thumb tracing my eyebrow. I’d do anything to feel it again.
I’ve got a lap full of Simon Snow and his hands on my shoulders and his eyes on mine, and I keep thinking I’m about to wake up.
“Is this real?” I ask him. We’re still whispering. He’s so close to me.
“It’s real.”
“You want to kiss me?”
“Yeah, I want to kiss you.” He leans in more with every word.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Simon…”
“Are you going to remember this tomorrow?”
“I couldn’t forget if I wanted to.”
We’re as close as we were in the closet now, and I want this so much that I can barely move, barely breathe. I’m smiling so wide, and so is he, that I don’t even know if I can kiss him.
I reach a hand out to the back of his neck to pull him closer, and his lips brush mine, finally, finally. I try to stop smiling so I can kiss him back, but I can’t. He’s smiling, too, and it’s barely even a kiss—we’re just smiling stupidly against each other.
He leans back a fraction. “Okay, wait,” he says, and I watch him try to school his expression into something composed. He fails terribly. “I just have to…. Fuck, hold on,” he laughs, and it’s contagious. My heart is feather-light.
We both calm down, after a moment, but I’ve never felt giddier and more overwhelmed with happiness. The crinkles at the edges of his eyes are the only thing I can see right now. He leans forward again, and I force my face to relax, my smile to disappear, but the moment his lips touch mine, we both burst out laughing again.
His head falls down onto my shoulder and he turns his face into my neck, still giggling slightly.
“Sorry,” he whispers into my neck, “I promise to make it up to you next time.”
And he does.