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Baz
It’s late when I come back from the Catacombs. I haven’t fed in a few days and I lost the notion of time somewhere between the ten and fifteenth rat. (This place is going to be infested when I leave.)
When I go back to our dorm (My dorm. Snow didn’t come back this term) I check my phone (headmistress Bunce lets us have phones now) and I see a call from Simon.
Simon and I talk on the phone almost everyday now. He calls me to video chat and then we stay up all night and talk...or don’t talk. Sometimes we just stare at each other.
It’s still weird between us most of the time. I’m still waiting for the day Snow would realize how insane all of this is and instead of calling me to ask how I’ve been, he would send me a text saying he breaks up with me. But that hasn’t happened yet, and so I’m going to indulge in this fantasy as long as he will let me.
I sit on the bed and call him. After a few seconds he answers and my phone screen gets filled with blue eyes, bronze curls and freckles. I smile.
“Hi,” he says, also smiling.
“How are you?”
He moves on the bed (he’s staying in the guest bedroom at Bunce’s house) and I can see his wings flap.
“I’m good,” he says, “bored mostly.” He smiles again. “How was your day?”
“Better now that I can see your face.”
Snow blushes, and I bite my tongue. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m still not sure how much I can push this before he realizes it’s a bad idea.
“I-I mean-”
“Yeah, same.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I think I might be blushing too, because of the rats.
None of us says anything for a while. We just stare at each other, engulfed in complete silence, but it’s comfortable, familiar, so none of us is bothered by it.
Then there’s a knock at the door and the moment fades.
“Simon, are you dressed?” someone shouts. Not someone. Bunce.
Snow turns his head, and I can see the mole on his neck. (I would give anything to kiss it right now.) “Yeah, I’m good.”
I raise an eyebrow. He’s not naked, but he’s certainly not dressed either. Because of his wings, he developed the habit of walking around shirtless (a habit I can’t unfortunately fully benefit from yet.) The first time I brought to his attention that he can’t spend his days half naked in a house he’s the guest of, he laughed and told me he mostly sits in the guestroom where no one besides Penelope bothers him. And then when he goes out he wears a hoodie Bunce slashed in the back to make room for his wings.
After that I changed the subject because even though he doesn’t say it, I know it bothers him.
“Simon, you’re not wearing a shirt,” Bunce says, plopping on the bed next to Snow. The image shakes, and purple hair engulfs the camera. “Are you talking with Baz?”
The image shakes again, Penelope battling with Snow for the phone. “Hello, Basil.”
I nod. “Bunce.”
“How is it now without competition? Are you finally the first one in our year?”
Snow shifts next to Bunce, and I want to grimace. I don’t like to talk about school when he’s there. I know he misses having magic and going to Watford. Bunce told me one time I should stop treating Simon like a glass baby, and I told her I’ll try. Just not about this. Not right now. Not so soon.
Nevertheless, I answer her. “I have been first. You were too busy getting into trouble with Snow to notice.”
“And yet I still managed to give you a run for your money.”
I roll my eyes. “I wouldn't say that.”
Penelope snorts. “I seem to recall quite well in fifth year when-”
Simon groans, interrupting her. “Save me from these nerds.”
Bunce rolls her eyes, brushing into Simon’s shoulder, and I take this as good a cue as any to change the subject without fearing to get a wall of text from Bunce about how we should stop acting sorry for Simon around him because otherwise how could he stop feeling sorry for himself. (She’s right. But still. Giving my number to Penelope Bunce will forever be my biggest mistake.)
“How have the two of you been?”
Simon opens his mouth, but Bunce beats him to it.
“I spelled Simon’s wings, and we went to the cinema today.”
“Oh.” I smile, focusing on Simon. He’s not looking at the screen. “That sounds nice.”
“Yeah, it was a good movie, the new one about-” she stops talking, looking at me and frowning.
I’m glaring at my phone in a way that I hope says, “Bunce you’re a lovely person to have a conversation with, but can you leave so I can talk with my half-dragon boyfriend alone?”
Luckily she seems to understand because the next second she hands the phone back to Simon and his confused face comes into focus. Somewhere in the background comes Bunce’s voice.
“I forgot I have this thing to do, but I’ll let you two talk. Goodnight, Simon. Goodnight Basil!”
Then I hear the door closing loudly.
“So,” Simon starts.
“You didn’t tell me you went to the cinema.”
He looks guilty for a second, so I try to smile.
“It just didn’t seem important,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“What?” He brushes his hand through his hair again. “It was fun.” He stops, looking terribly embarrassed. “I’ve never been to a cinema before.”
I think he expects me to make fun of him. To raise my eyebrow and say something rude and hurtful. And I probably would, if not for the look on his face and the feeling inside my chest.
“Well, it’s nice that you had fun. The first time I went to the cinema I was watching a horror movie with Dev and he got so scared he spilled his coke all over the place.”
Simon laughs. “I didn’t think Dev was the kind of person to get scared so easily.”
“In his defence we were twelve.”
“Who lets a twelve-year-old watch a horror movie?”
“No one. We snuck in. Daphne and his mom brought us to watch some new animated movie, but we thought that would suck so we lost them in the crowd and then Dev suggested we go watch ‘an adult movie’”
Simon is smiling wildly now, his eyes sparkling with joy. “I can’t believe you snuck away from your mother. Daphne is nice! How did they even let you watch that?”
“You’d be surprised how little attention people are actually paying. And a proper distraction goes a long way.”
“You’re the worst,” he says, but his eyes are so warm and his smile so big it makes me feel like I’m the best.
Simon
I know he’s been avoiding Penny’s questions about school. He always does. And hearing them talk about Watford feels terrible, but not as horrible as Watford becoming a strange place for me. Watford has been my home, and even though it’s not anymore, I still want to know what’s happening with it.
I can’t go there and make new memories, but I can live there through Baz.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He laughs a little. “What question?”
“About your day?” I brush my hand through my hair (it’s getting longer again, but I’m not sure I want to cut it. I’m not sure I have the energy too.) “How’s school?”
His smile drops from his face and he looks at me almost guiltily. “It’s the same as it’s always been, Simon.”
“But it’s not really. The Mage didn’t let us have phones.”
“Wonderful observation, Snow.”
“No, I mean. Things are different now.”
“Not different enough for anything interesting to happen. The merwolfs are still annoying.”
I laugh. “You know, they’ll probably be a lot more tolerable if you would stop riling them up.”
“Never.”
“This is the sort of thinking that gets you in trouble.”
“You’re the one who was always in trouble," Baz says. “I’m the one who’s careful not to get caught.”
I shrug. "Ok, yeah. Fair."
I can feel my tail wiggling behind me, and I know Baz can see it. He watches its movement with his eyes. It does that sometimes (the tail, not Baz). It moves according to my emotions. When I'm anxious and stressed or when I'm incredibly fucking happy.
"You're like a dog," Baz said once, when we were having dinner together and I was so happy and anxious I couldn't control my tail. He caught it moving using his vampire speed and held it in his hand the whole day. I wonder if he's thinking about it.
"Stop looking at my tail," I say now, trying to fold it under my leg.
He smiles. "Learn to control it first, maybe."
"I can control it just fine."
Baz just shakes his head. "Sure you do."
Baz
Simon doesn't respond and I don't know what to say, so we fall back into silence, except it's not as comfortable as the first time. This time around it feels heavy, like Simon is thinking really hard if he should say what’s on his mind or not.
"Use your words, Snow," I say when he starts to bite his fingernails because that's just disgusting and I will have no boyfriend of mine doing that.
His finger is close to his mouth when he talks. "I don't see the point. You're not answering my questions, anyway."
I know he’s not trying to make me feel guilty. He wouldn't. And what he's saying it's true anyway, but I still feel like a prick for it.
I move under my blankets. "Alright then. I'll answer."
"Really?" He says, and there's something in his eyes except I can't tell if it's happiness or sadness. Maybe it's a little bit of both.
"Really."
Simon yawns and it makes me want to kiss him.
I shake my head. "I didn’t lie when I said everything is still boring. We started a new chapter in Elocution. Naturally, I'm the best." Simon laughs at that. "Gareth still has that damned belt buckle. Makes me want to jump out the window every time he does a spell and what else….Oh! And I heard Trixie's girlfriend moved into Bunce's room. Apparently they spelled the beds together."
Snow frowns. "Is that allowed?"
"What the teachers don't know won't hurt them."
"This system's kinda pointless anyway, don't you think?"
"I don't know what you mean."
He yawns again. "I mean...this whole boy and girl dormitory stuff and how we're not allowed in each other's dorms. Kinda beats the purpose with people like Trixie and her girlfriend and us."
I crook an eyebrow. "Us?"
"We were roommates. And now we snog."
"But we didn't snog when we were roommates," I say.
He shrugs. "We could have."
I frown. "No, we couldn't have."
He smiles. "But we could have. If you would have stopped being so cryptic all the time and I would have figured stuff out sooner, we could have definitely been boyfriends before."
"I'm not cryptic."
Simon shakes his head. "You were impossible."
"Am impossible."
He smiles. "Yes."
I shake my head. "Expected a little more resistance there."
"Why? It's the truth."
"The truth hurts Snow."
"You're a big boy I think you can handle it," he says, yawning for the third time. He props his hand on his arm, closing his eyes.
For a second I think he fell asleep so I let myself indulge in watching him. But then he opens one of his eyes and looks at me. "Who said you get to watch me sleep?"
"You're not the boss of me." This time I'm the one who yawns. "Look what you did, Snow."
He laughs, half asleep. "Maybe I'm the one who will watch you sleep."
I smile. "You need your eyes open for that."
"I can open them if I want," he says, but he doesn't actually do it.
"I'm waiting."
He stops holding the phone in his hand and it falls on the pillow, his head following shortly after. "I said if I want to."
Simon
I'm too lazy to keep my eyes open. I know Baz must be tired too. None of us makes any effort to end the call, though. We never do.
Sometimes we just fall asleep on call in the middle of sentences(usually it's me who does it first), other times just like now, we have a silent understanding to fall asleep listening to each other's breaths. I don’t know how Baz feels about it, but it helps me sleep. I'm too used to hearing his voice, feeling his presence. I used to never be able to sleep in the summer.
I hear rustling coming from the phone, but I don't open my eyes. I think Baz put the phone on his pillow next to his face. He does that sometimes. I do too. I can hear him in my sleep better like this. Every movement, every breath. I like to pretend he's here with me, even though I know he’s not. And he's not going to be for a while.
Maybe Penny's mother will let him come visit on the weekends. Or maybe we'll have our own thing when he finishes Watford. I think I would like to live with Penny, though. We talked about it before so maybe he could visit. Stay over.
I dream about it at night. Me and Penny having our own apartment and Baz coming to visit. Eating breakfast with us. Watching movies. Doing nerd things with Penny. Doing boyfriend things with me. Then when it's night he doesn't go home but sleeps with me in my bed where we are both safe. Where I can hold him close and he can hold me back.
I never said this to him or to Penny. I think it's kinda stupid to be this exited over something like this, something that might not even happen. One day Baz might just wake up and decide he's grown bored with me and date one of his other friends. The ones that come from The Old Families, and are big and powerful and most important...magic.
I told him this once, and he said I'm also magic.
"I don't have magic," I replied.
"Maybe," he said, "but you're the only person I know with wings."
"And how does that do anything?" I asked.
"I've always wanted a boyfriend that can get me stuff from the top shelf."
"You can do that yourself, you're plenty tall."
He frowned. "Fantasies are not supposed to make sense, Snow."
"So you fantasise about tall blokes getting you stuff from shelves?"
"You're missing the point."
"Which is?"
I never got to hear the point before he kissed me. It started quick and small, but then I pushed back and lost myself in it. I never knew how fun kissing someone can be until I kissed Baz. It's always a competition with him.
Now in the quiet, I wouldn't want anything more than to kiss him again. I can hear him mumble a spell to turn off the lights in our old dorm, but I still don't open my eyes.
"Goodnight, Snow," he says, drowned in sleep.
I smile. " 'Mnight, Baz," I say, falling asleep listening to the sound of his breath, the mumbling of his voice as he remembered something he wanted to tell me.
I never want to lose this. I'll be damned if I do.