Work Text:
BAZ
Simon dreams about his magic. A lot. Some dreams are worse than others, more like nightmares, where he’ll wake up in a panic, hot and sweating with his heart going a hundred miles an hour. Others are fleeting, glimpses of what life could’ve been like if he still had it. Those ones hurt, because he gets sad and the self loathing starts to creep in again. He tells me about them when he’s calmed down. (The magickal psychologist he sees told him it’s better to talk about them right away so he can move on.)
I’ll play with his hair and hold him tight to my chest as he rehashes whatever messed up image his brain decided to conjure that night, and, if it’s a particularly bad one, my usual quips turn into reassurances whispered in his ear. That mostly consists of calling him ‘love’ and telling him I’m there, but it calms him, his breathing steadying out and his sentences forming more easily. Not eloquent, but Snow never is. And I love him for it.
When he finishes talking, he’ll curl around me like he does when he sleeps, his body heat keeping me warm and my lack of it keeping him cool, the perfect balance, and we’ll fall asleep to the sound of each other breathing.
Just like Watford.
Except with a few minor differences.
Such as wings and a tail. (And being in each other’s arms, but that’s besides the point.)
One morning, I’m startled awake by Simon gasping himself out of another nightmare, his wing almost clipping me as he sits up in a rush. His chest heaves with every shaky breath as he paws at his eyes with his fists. I let him fully awaken before I put out my hand for him to take, barely conscious myself. But he only links his fingers in mine once he’s realised he can’t calm down himself, and allows me to pull him back down on the bed and into my arms. I close my eyes again as he tightens his grip on my hand, because sometimes all he needs is to know that I’m here.
Navigating his new appendages is somewhat of a choreographed dance when we’re in bed together, but Snow tucks his wings in as best he can so I don’t lose an eye to the spikes sticking out of the points. That’s only one thing, his tail is something else entirely. At times, it’s like dancing with a temperamental python. Not that I have any experience dancing with snakes, python or otherwise, nor do I want to, but it’s an awful lot like a snake being charmed with a flute. Minus the ability to control. When Snow gets emotional, it thrashes about, and when he’s in one of his giddy moods, it sways from side to side almost like somebody kicking their feet back and forth. I find it completely adorable.
So when his tail wraps itself around my leg and squeezes, as it sometimes does, I’m not bothered by it. He’s like a clingy cat, except without the claws (which I am very grateful for). I thread my fingers into his curls, and he leans into the touch, nestling into me.
I can still feel Simon’s shoulders shaking even as he asks, his voice wavering, “what time’s it?”
There’s no need to mention it, so I don’t. I extract an arm, much to Simon’s disappointment, so I can roll over and check my phone. “Only just gone six,” I reply, turning back over.
“And when do we have to get up?”
I laugh. “Whenever you want. We’re unemployed, remember. Free spirits.”
“Right,” he says. Then shuffles a bit closer. And a bit more. Another shuffle and we’re practically weaving our eyelashes together.
“Lovely worm impression.” My breath ghosts across his lips, and his eyes flick down from mine briefly. “Ten out of ten.”
“Thanks.”
I curl my arm around him again, and Simon rests his head in the crook of my neck. As he works up to talking about his nightmare, I feel his mouth open and close a couple of times against my shoulder. In silent encouragement, I hold him tighter. He’ll talk when he’s ready.
Roughly five minutes later, when sleep is starting to pull at my eyes again, Simon speaks up. “It was different this time,” he whispers, his breath warm against my neck. “Like… a mix up of dreams.”
“How so?” I mumble. I let my hand trail down his back. He’s warm, so warm. He’s always been warm, but I didn’t quite realise how much of that was actually him and not just the burning intensity of his magic.
“I was in the coffin you were in,” he says, his voice small, and my hand stops.
I don’t think I could forget that coffin, even if I lived a thousand lifetimes spoiled with as much space and food and top quality blood as I could inhale. The emptiness, the hunger, the dark. The weakness. I have nightmares of it too, sometimes, where I’ll forget where I am and wake up with Simon wrapped around me, in a panic because I can’t move. He’s quick to calm me down, always the light in my darkness, and encourages me to talk about it like he does. But I can’t. All I’ll say is ‘numpties’ and leave it at that, because it’s less real when I think about their stupidity and not the blood being thrown at me like meat to a lion. Like I’m the monster many people see me as.
Snow carries on, when he twigs that I’m not going to say anything. “Everything was dark, like a void. And I felt that way inside, too. Like there should’ve been something there but there just wasn’t.”
The familiarity — for me, and for him, that hole in his chest begging to be filled — of what he felt in his dream stings. “Magic?” I ask, moving my hand back and forth again as I try to keep my voice level. It’s Snow that needs comforting, not me.
“Maybe,” he huffs against my skin. “Dunno. Felt different.”
“Use your words, Snow,” I say, and he nips my neck. That sentence used to annoy him, piss him off like nothing else, make him go off, mostly when I said it with all the prickliness and hatred I could muster. But now, in my early morning voice, coated with affection, it’s a gentle encouragement over anything else.
“It was a different sort of ache. I think– I think magic was a part of it.” He sniffs. I squeeze him a bit more. “I don’t know. There was more. It’s all a bit fuzzy.”
And then my hand comes to rest at the base of his tail, and Simon’s breath catches in his throat. Oh. Oh, that is interesting. I draw a circle around it with my finger and his tail twitches.
“Baz,” Simon whines. His tail wraps around my arm — I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose — and I brush my thumb up some of the smooth scales. “I was speaking.”
“Carry on, then, Simon,” I murmur. “I’m not stopping you.”
“You’re certainly bloody trying.” I assume he meant to grumble at me, but it comes out more like a sigh, and the devil-like end of his tail twirls about.
“Ginger tabby cat,” I hum.
“My hair isn’t ginger. And a cat wouldn’t let you touch their tail this much.”
“Sorry.” I’m not sorry at all. “Immobile, shrivelled, naked cat suit you better?”
“Fuck off– oh my god–” He actually purrs when I resume my stroking of his hair at the same time as his tail, and the tips of his ears instantly turn a bright red. “I didn’t do that.”
“Yes you did.” My smile is so wide it hurts. Part of why I’m smiling is because I’ve ended up with Simon Snow, the worst Chosen One ever to be chosen, as my boyfriend, and we’re cuddling in his flat and he has stupidly brilliant wings and a tail straight out of some cartoon. But the other part is because I’ve managed to coax him out of another nightmare induced panic, and he trusts me enough to let me do that, and he’s making progress in handling the shitty cards life dealt him. (Most of the time, anyways, but even ‘fallen supervillains’, as Snow calls himself, have their off days). And, without trying to sound like a total sap, I’m proud. Of him. And of us.
Simon huffs again, louder this time, which shows he doesn’t mean it. “I’ve forgotten what I was going to say now.”
“Couldn’t have been that important,” I tease. “Cuddling with me must be higher on your list of priorities.”
“That’s well gay.”
“I think we established that a little while ago, Snow. I am gay.”
His arms wind around my waist and squeeze at the same time his tails does on my thigh, pulling us even closer together. If I’d drained anything last night, I’d probably be blushing. “Lucky for me then.”
His contentness is mirrored in my own voice. “I suppose it is. We can do lots of gay stuff.”
Simon peeks his head up. “Like what?”
“Like this.” And I kiss him, morning breath and all, my chest swelling with emotion. I find it’s quite hard to kiss someone on the lips when they’re smiling like a goof, and Simon does that a lot, so I trail kisses up his face and then plant one on his forehead. His laugh sounds more like a giggle, and he curls up against my chest again. “Are we getting up, then?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Nope.” The end of his tail flicks about and I carry on with petting him like the cat he says he isn’t. He practically mewls. “Don’t stop.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The last thing I see before I fall back asleep is Simon’s lips stretched wide into a dopey smile.