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BAZ
Sleeping with Simon Snow is weird. I don’t mean sleeping with sleeping with – we’re not ready yet. (Or, let’s be honest, he’s not ready yet. If I came home one day and he was ready, I’d be naked before the front door even finished closing behind me.)(It’s fine – he doesn’t need to know.) I just mean this. Simon Snow taking up half my bed, warm and snuggly, with his tousled bronze curls all in his freckled, sleeping face. His giant red wings casting enormous black shadows in the moonlight.
My entire family doesn’t have enough fingers and toes among them to keep count how many times I used to lie awake at night at Watford, aching to be this close to him. How many nights I’d think if I could just have this, I’d never ask for anything else for the rest of my life.
Turns out, I don’t seem to do much sleeping now that I have it, either. Maybe it’s just because we don’t do it very often. The logistics of sharing a bed with your partial-dragon boyfriend are complicated at best, and Simon’s a bit of a violent sleeper these days. I’ve taken a wingtip to the eye more than once. (And once is already one too many times.)
It’s also a little distracting how handsy my brain wants me to be. (I just – Crowley, I am the greediest bastard. I want to run my hands up and down the curves of his shoulder muscles. I want to trace all the freckles around his lips. I want to watch him fall asleep while I run my fingers through his hair.) I don’t think Simon’s ready for all my handsiness, either.
So, I’m staring. I’m still fucking staring. Like it’s sixth year all over again, and I’m back to fantasizing that if I stare long enough, I’ll somehow incept his dreams and convince him to break up with Agatha and give making out with boys a try. (Huh. Maybe it worked after all?)
And that’s what I’m doing when he starts twitching in his sleep. (This isn’t new. Sometimes he talks, too.)(The last time we tried this, he full on tried to punch me in the face in his sleep.)(I was a little wary when he’d expressed an interest in staying tonight.) I start to preemptively roll away, in case he starts fluttering his wings, because I’d rather have him jab me in the back than the eye (again).
But that’s when he whimpers, a high, plaintive sound that threatens to break a few heartstrings. I look over my shoulder at him.
He’s still deep asleep, but his arms are crossed in front of his bare chest (lucky me, he sleeps shirtless) and his tawny brows are drawn together tight. I’m gutted by the way he huddles in on himself. I just want to hold him. I start to roll back to him, but stop short at the sound of his wings shuddering. (It brings to mind the method cowboys in old Westerns use to soothe wild horses – whoa, there. Easy, big fella. Like that would work.)
I’m ready to ignore them altogether, though, when Simon lets out something that sounds like a distant cry. It’s haunting. It’s horrible. It can’t go on.
“Simon,” I whisper into the dark. I try to reach out a hand to nudge him, to gently wake him out of it, and when I do, he draws in a shuddering breath. And starts to moan out something that sounds like Help.
“Hey, wake up.” I’m more insistent now – rising up on an elbow, giving his sleep-warmed shoulder a little shake. “Snow, wake up.”
He draws in a rasping gasp then, his eyes flaring open. His wings rustle and flap; I hold out a defensive hand.
“You were dreaming,” I tell him. He’s panting hard and shaking. “It was just a dream.”
He folds his wings in, then, spreading out onto his back with one hand pressed to his chest. It’s rising and falling fast with his shallow breaths – it sounds cacophonous in the dead of the night.
“You’re okay.” I keep reassuring him. I just want to hold him. Before I can move, he grabs my arm, like he’s steadying himself. His hand is clammy. “It was just a dream.”
“Fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his face, pressing the heel of his palm into one eye. And lets out a shaking breath.
“What happened?” I ask. I wonder if my clear voice is betraying how little sleeping I’ve actually been doing.
For a moment, I think that Simon isn’t going to answer. Or he’s going to say, “It’s fine” or “I don’t remember” when neither is true. He’s going to try to tack up another wall between us, because that is what we do lately. He’s just pinching the bridge of his nose, squishing his eyes shut tight, and I feel like I’m drifting further out to sea.
But, this time, he lets out a breath.
“I killed him,” he says, in a strained whisper. He means the Mage. In the moonlight, I catch a glimpse of the first tear that leaks from the corner of his eye.
I brush it away with the pad of my thumb.
“You saved us all, love,” I remind him, softly. “He was going to kill Agatha. And probably you and me and Penny, and who knows where he would have stopped.”
“He’d always been so good to me,” Simon whispers, like he hates to admit it. I would, too, if I were him.
It’s a complicated thing, this grief he carries (or mostly avoids). I don’t mourn the Mage – there’s no one else I know who does. But it’s something else entirely for Simon. The Mage had appeared in Simon’s life with hope and promises and a whole new life when Simon desperately needed one. And while he knows the Mage had gone on to deal in some extremely shady shit, that’s not something a person just easily puts aside in light of new information.
“You did the brave thing,” I remind him. “You did the right thing.”
There’s a steady stream of tears now. I wipe them with the backs of my fingers – they’re scalding hot, like he’s been boiling them in a dragon’s belly.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks. He’s still gripping my arm with one hand, the other hand pressed to his eye. I don’t know what good this is doing, and I just…
“Don’t be daft,” I say. “Will you just come here?”
And I open up one arm – an invitation. He can turn me down if he wants – I’ve survived worse. (I just want to hold him.)
And maybe it’s the magic of the moonlight or dream inception is truly a thing or Simon’s for once willing to let me in. It doesn’t matter. He rolls over into my arms, his lean body on top of mine, his head pressed to my chest.
This. This. This is all I’ve ever wanted. Just this.
(Tears aside, of course.)
I pull him tighter against me when I feel the heat of his tears begin to wet my shirt. (I don’t actually sleep shirtless – I’m too cold all the time.) I push my fingers into his curls, press my head to the top of his. He’s trying so hard to keep from openly weeping, but little good it’s doing him – I can feel how his muscles contract with each sob.
I hold him through it.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks again.
“Would you stop apologizing?” He’s so warm beneath my cold hands. “You’ve seen me cry, too.”
“Yeah, once,” Simon complains, petulantly. “And it was so beautiful, I made out with your snotty face.”
That makes me chuckle, and the fact that my laughter makes Simon’s head bob up and down on my chest makes him start to give a sniffling laugh.
“I’ll make out with your snotty face,” I offer, and he laughs again. (And I will. I have no shame.)
“That’s okay,” he says, and raises his head a moment. Looks down at the bloom of damp tears on my white t-shirt. “Sorry I got your shirt all wet.”
I just shrug.
“I like it – it’s Simon Snow art,” I tease, and double over my chin so I can inspect it. “Look – it looks like you’ve made a flower.”
“Oh, yeah?” He rests his head back on it, snug beneath my neck. Crowley, this is perfection. “You like wearing flowers now?”
“Maybe I do. Don’t you judge me, Snow.”
His chuckle rumbles through him and through me, too. I run my fingertips up the valleys of his back muscles. Slowly. Gently. Easy now. And his body starts to relax against me. I’m warmer than I’ve ever been in the night.
“Is this okay?” he whispers to me. I’m relaxing, too, growing heavy in the mattress. Comfortable. Soothed.
“It’s perfect,” I tell him, and press a kiss to his hair. He wraps his arms around me. He’s not going anywhere.
“Sorry in advance for drooling on you in my sleep,” he says as I’m starting to doze.
“Mmm. Sexy.” I grunt.
Snow laughs, and so do I – and again when his head bobs up and down with my laugh.
It’s the last thing I remember before finally falling off to sleep.