Chapter Text
SIMON
Tonight wasn’t what I thought it would be.
It was fun and overwhelming in the way that partying in Allston always is, especially around Halloween. Boston’s party neighborhood gets even wilder than normal when there's costumes involved. I feel sticky and hazy and happy — soaked through with it all.
Agatha showed up for a bit. She was half-heartedly dressed as a cat. Black leggings and a crop top, a little headband with whiskers painted on. I took a picture of her with Baz, since they matched; Baz had paired his tight black clothes with charcoal eyeliner and sleeves that turned his arms into bat wings.
Agatha and I talked. We danced. She went home early, because she has to work in the morning. And that was it. She didn’t confess that she’d missed me this past month. She didn’t let her eyes flit between mine and my lips. We didn’t get back together. It’s not what I thought it would be. It’s not what I’d hoped.
As someone plucks my cowboy hat off my head, I realize I’m not really that disappointed.
“Hey!” Baz slurs, lurching off down the street in pursuit. Harvard Ave is swarming with drunk college students, all determined to catch the last few Green Line trains before the T stops running for the night. People spill in and out of the McDonald’s across from the train stop. One guy is climbing the scaffolding. There’s always a guy climbing the scaffolding, isn’t there? I’m just thankful it’s never been me.
A tiny blonde girl with fairy wings is wearing my hat now, giggling and skipping in circles around Baz. The man plays for the school soccer team, but he is absolutely useless when he’s hammered. I catch up and grab his forearm — a rush of fondness for my best friend and roommate filling my chest, combatting the chilly October air. Baz leans into me with his full weight, eyebrows lowered, as we watch the girl disappear into the crowd.
“She stole your hat,” Baz whispers, his face by my ear. I laugh, because I’m really fucking drunk, and someone stole my cowboy hat. Baz laughs too, pulling his arms around me. He’s probably cold — Baz is a beanpole, and he retains no warmth. I wrap my arm around his waist, letting him cling to me. He smells like booze and sweat and his nice, fancy soap.
Another train pulls through, and as many people as possible crowd into it. I sigh. This is always the worst part of coming to Allston. I don’t come out here much anymore — it’s not as exciting now that all my friends are 21. But Penny had wanted us all to come to her new boyfriend’s Halloween party, and since when can I say no to Penny? Plus, Shepard is cool.
“We should just walk home,” I say. Baz doesn’t respond, so I shake him a bit, ensuring he hasn’t fallen asleep draped over me. He hums in response. It’ll probably be faster than the T anyway, since we’d have to take it all the way into the center of Boston and back out to Mission Hill. We took the 66 bus here, but the stop around the corner is just as bustling as everything else in the area.
“C’mon,” I say, taking a step forward. Baz heaves a deep sigh — it’s always the dramatics with this one. But he straightens up, his octopus limbs releasing me. I keep my arm around his waist, just in case.
“If we’re going to walk, I’ll need sustenance,” I tell him.
“You always need sustenance,” Baz snaps, but he’s smiling. “I’m not going into that McDonald’s. You know I can’t show my face there ever again.”
On St Patrick’s Day of freshman year, Baz hurled right onto the floor of that McDonald’s. French fries, Guinness, Bailey’s, and Jameson. It was the least elegant thing I’ve ever seen him do, and I couldn’t even make fun of him for it because he was so mortified. We don’t go to that McDonald’s anymore.
“Nah,” I agree. “Let’s hit the 7/11.”
The 7/11 across from the McDonald’s is still busy, but the cashier is used to the midnight rush, checking people out with admirable speed. We’re standing in line, holding Doritos and KitKats, when Baz turns to me with wide eyes.
“I don’t have my wallet.”
“You do not,” I confirm. He doesn’t have his phone either — it’s currently in my pocket, which I realize belatedly makes it useless if he got lost (his only reason for bringing it). His tight black jeans don’t have real pockets; they’re basically painted to his legs. Baz furrows his eyebrows, leaning forward to whisper in my ear.
“I think we have to steal the Doritos.”
“Or I can pay,” I say with a laugh, digging my wallet out of my perfectly adequate pocket to show him. Baz frowns. His family is loaded, and he’s very aware that mine is not — I get by on scholarships, student loans, and a limited stack of cash I earned under the table working my neighbor’s landscaping business over the summer.
It used to bother me that he always insisted on paying for things whenever we hung out, even though I know he’s not doing it to rub his wealth in my face. But Baz showed me the numbers on his trust fund years ago. I stopped fighting him about money then. That thing literally earns money just by existing.
Baz isn’t like most of the rich kids I’ve met. He’s sort of a snob, but not in any of the ways that matter. When the three of us were preparing to move out of the dorms together, he let Penny and I tour tons of shitty far-out apartments in our price range, even though he could easily afford something nice downtown. Eventually, he brought us to a showing of our current apartment. It’s a cozy, updated three-bedroom, but the master bedroom is huge and has its own bathroom. Penelope and I gawked when we heard the monthly rent, but Baz had already worked out the numbers. In the end, the two of us are paying well under our budgets, while Baz pays more to have the big room. (Way more. Baz did not work out the numbers in a logical way.)
We get to the front of the line, and I buy the snacks. Baz pouts. I loop my arm through his as we head back out onto the busy street and turn away from the crowds. It’s only a few blocks before we’re over the border into quiet, suburban Brookline. The difference is jarring — Allston welcomes co-ed antics with open arms, but Brookline shuts that shit down. My campus newspaper staff had a small gathering at an editor’s Brookline apartment once, and the cops were called within an hour. We weren’t even playing music, a fact that Baz had been lamenting since we’d gotten there. (Baz is not on the newspaper staff with me, but everyone throws a fit if I don’t bring him to social events.)
“How are your feet?” I ask Baz. He’s got a bit of a wobble going, but he’s trucking on impressively in his two-inch heeled boots.
“Fine,” Baz murmurs, but he unlinks his arm from mine to throw it around my shoulders instead, letting me take some of his weight.
“So they hurt like hell?” I ask, and Baz turns to me with lowered eyebrows. I laugh, because I know he won’t admit I was right about his terrible shoe choice. He told me I was ruining my costume by wearing sneakers instead of cowboy boots, but I have zero regrets.
“You could’ve been a 6’1 bat instead of a 6’3 bat,” I say for maybe the tenth time tonight. “I still think we should’ve gotten the Loki and Thor costumes.”
“Stop saying I look like that greasy fuck,” Baz says sniffing and looking away.
“You’re not greasy,” I assure him, looping my arm around his waist again. “But also, Tom Hiddleston is sexy.”
“You’re disturbed. No more MCU talk, I don’t fuck with them anymore.”
“Still hung up on the Captain America thing?”
“I will always be hung up on the Captain America thing. Steve was so wrong for that.”
Baz hadn’t cared about superheroes before we became friends. Then I made him watch the Captain America movies, and he got hooked. I think he mostly maintained interest to appease me, but he also insists that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are gay for each other. He threw a fit after Avengers Endgame, yelling that Marvel hates the gays so bad that they’d upended years of characterization work to ensure the audience knew there was no chance Cap was gay.
“You’re just mad because you wanted to see Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan make out,” I’d said once. He’d glared at me.
“I can be mad about both,” he’d snapped, a smile in his eyes.
Now, I knock my head against his as we walk the quiet streets — forehead to chin, he’s so bloody tall.
“I’d never do that to you.”
Baz turns his head to look down at me, one brow raised.
“Not even if you could go back to 1940 and live with Agatha in married bliss?”
“Nah.” I squeeze his waist tighter, grinning up at him and quoting Captain America: “You and me, ‘till the end of the line.”
Baz’s expression wobbles because he’s a fucking sap. It sends my heart into overdrive — I thank the roommate lottery gods for introducing me to the best friend I could’ve asked for.
“‘Till the end of the line,” Baz whispers. He swallows once, then looks up into the distance. I look up at his face, curious, as he turns back with a devious grin. Before I know it, he’s sprinting down the street, off our path home.
I chase him. ‘Til the end of the line, I suppose.
BAZ
There’s a playground down the street to our right. I see it just in time and bolt before I do or say something embarrassingly sappy.
“I thought you were tired!” Simon yells after me, his voice thundering through the quiet Brookline air. I hop the low fence, even though the gate is open. It feels good to embrace the chaos, to give my heart a reason to pound.
The playground is nice and modern, because Brookline is nice and modern. It’s all colorfully-painted steel and twisting shapes. I run until I reach a set of monkey bars that are just tall enough that my feet won’t touch the ground, but my momentum stops when I jump up and grab the first bar, legs swinging in the air. I’ve never been able to actually do monkey bars — there’s something about letting go to grab the next bar that makes my whole body seize up. I let myself swing with my eyes closed, let the world tilt and twirl pleasantly around me as it has all night.
Simon catches up, huffing a bit.
“Stuck?”
I nod, not opening my eyes. He hugs around my thighs, holding me up so that I can do the bars without the risk of falling.
“Fly, little bat,” Simon whispers. It makes us both giggle.
I get about three quarters of the way across and decide to just let go, sending us both tumbling to the ground.
“You’re so fucking crazy,” Simon giggles, extricating himself from my limbs. I roll over onto my back, giving him a lazy two-finger salute. He’s sitting cross-legged near my shoulder, rubbing the back of his head. “I think you might have concussed me.”
I wobble up into a sitting position, my hand coming to replace his, feeling for bumps.
“I’m sorry,” I say. His skull feels normal, his curls soft and fluffy in my fingers. He’s been using the conditioner I bought him. It smells like apples. “Are you okay?”
Simon uses my moment of weakness to tackle me, seeking out my unguarded waist. He knows that’s where I’m most ticklish. I shriek with laughter, trying to push him off, but he’s fucking mulish when he wants to be. He stops when the tears start forming in the corner of my eyes, and then he takes off running. It takes me a moment to get my bearings and stand up. I give up on chasing pretty quickly. If I really tried, I could probably catch him — I’m a fucking midfielder, and Simon’s main form of exercise is taking the campus stairs instead of the elevators two days a week. “Stairs day,” he’ll groan as he collapses on the couch next to me in the evening, begging me to make him tea.
There’s a small metal merry-go-round, and I lay down between the handlebars. It’s not long before the disc begins to slowly spin, Simon’s warmth now radiating somewhere to my left.
We look up at the sky, but the stars aren’t really visible past the hazy light of the streetlights. There were stars in Vermont that first time Simon invited me up to his childhood home for Thanksgiving break. He made me hike the trail behind his house at night. Simon called it a hill, but it was definitely a mountain.
“No, it really doesn’t classify as a mountain,” Simon said as I huffed and puffed. “It’s just a big hill. You’re the athlete. Stop complaining.”
There was a large, dusty logging truck abandoned off the trail in the middle of the woods. Simon said he and his friends from high school used to come here to drink. I’ve seen a photo of Simon hanging off the side of this truck, mooning a camera with the flash on.
We sat in the truck bed that night and looked at the stars — more stars than I’d ever seen growing up under Orange County smog. I looked at Simon in profile, toward the constellations across Simon’s cheeks that I could barely see in the moonlight but knew were there, and I let the fact of it all settle in my chest. I was in love with my roommate. I was in love with Simon.
Tonight, Simon is still next to me. Still freckled and lovely. He’s in love with Agatha, I think, but she doesn’t want him. It breaks my heart in more ways than one.
I reach over and grab Simon’s hand, squeezing.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Agatha tonight,” I whisper. Simon shrugs, turning his head to the side and burying his nose against my shoulder.
“It’s fine,” Simon murmurs. I feel the words warm through the thin material of my shirt, welcome in the cool air. “Seeing her tonight made me realize I haven’t actually missed being with her specifically. I think I just miss belonging to someone.”
My chest aches with emotions I don’t have the energy to process right now. So I just lie here, feeling Simon’s breath, holding his hand, wishing he belonged to me.
He does, in some ways. I don’t question that Simon loves me, that he’s always going to be there for me. I’m okay with what we have, with getting as close as I can get. He’ll never be in love with me, but I still get to hold his hand and pull him close when I’m too drunk to stand, still get to laugh with him every day.
His breath starts to even out in that way that means he’s falling asleep. I’m well-studied in the art of Simon’s breathing — even if I wasn’t gone for him, two years in a double with someone clues you into their sleeping patterns. It had been difficult to fall asleep when we moved into our off-campus apartment at the start of junior year, knowing he was breathing on the other side of the wall where I couldn’t hear it.
I shake Simon a bit, giving him a warning before I climb to my feet. He groans, and I reach down to pull him up too.
“Should we just call an Uber?” I ask, swaying a bit.
“We can do it,” Simon says, stretching his arms over his head and exposing a strip of the freckled skin at his waist. His shirt has long been untucked, the ridiculous fringe of his cowboy costume swinging as he pinwheels his arms, trying to wake himself up. “It’s no more than a 15 minute walk.”
I groan. We’re past the fun part of drunkenness and at the place where we should be tucked into bed with Gatorades waiting on our nightstands. Also, my feet really hurt.
Simon does a jumping jack, and then sets off for the gate. I sigh and slip off my boots, admitting defeat and letting my feet sink into the bouncy playground floor. Simon looks over his shoulder, and I wait for him to launch into a lecture on why he was right about making smart shoe choices.
“You can’t walk around in your socks,” he says instead. “You’ll step on glass.”
“I do what I want.” I lift my chin in defiance.
“Don’t I know it.” Simon shakes his head with a grin. I’ve caught up to him now. He turns his back to me, holding his arms out wide. “Come on, hop up.”
I do. I’d never turn down an invitation to cling to him. He hitches his arms under my knees, and I loop my arms over his shoulders, dangling my shoes over his chest. He runs at first, intentionally jostling me as much as possible, but I just hold on and bury my face against his neck.
He slows down thirty seconds later when he tires himself out.
“You can skip a stair day next week,” I murmur, and I feel the rumble of his laugh in my chest.
“This is nothing,” he says. “I could give you piggy backs up ten flights of stairs and it would make no difference. You weigh like 10 pounds.”
“I do not,” I argue. “I’m made of muscle.”
“Man of steel,” Simon agrees, a smile in his voice. “Don’t fall asleep.”
“I won’t,” I say, even though my eyes are closed. We’re crossing the line into Mission Hill now, walking through the bridge under the parkway. Almost home.
“Do you remember,” Simon starts, his voice low, “sophomore year, when we snuck into the upperclassmen dorm to make brownies in the nice kitchens, and Gareth dared me to throw an egg at the window while you were in the bathroom?”
SIMON
Baz was so mad that day, said I was being disrespectful to the people who have to clean up after us.
“You made me wash the whole window,” I continue, “not even just the egg bits.”
“Served you right,” Baz murmurs against my neck.
“Remember the first time it snowed freshman year? You’d never seen snow before. And Dev and Niall were like, ‘No, there’s definitely snow in California, you just have to go to the mountains’.”
“I don’t fucking ski,” Baz gurmbles. “I don’t go up mountains unless forced by idiotic roommates.”
“Still a hill,” I correct. “Anyway, you were pumped for the storm. And now you hate snow.”
He was so disappointed, standing in the park in the middle of the first snowfall of the season, shivering and pouting in his too-thin coat as his hair got soaked.
“It’s pretty, though, isn’t it?” I asked him that night, laughing as he glared at me.
“I like one Snow,” Baz mumbles now, and it takes me a minute to remember Snow is my middle name. I squeeze his thighs closer to my sides in an attempt at a weird piggy-back-hug.
“Remember when we went to Castle Island so Penny could film the sunrise?” Baz hums his affirmation. “You were so deliriously tired. I carried you down to the dock on my back, just like this, and then you fell asleep on a bench. Missed the whole sunrise.”
I think about that morning a lot. My chest was so full of fondness for Baz as I sat next to where he was all curled up in his sweats. I let myself pet his hair as the sky changed from purple to pink to orange. I wanted that moment to go on forever.
We’re outside our building now, so I pat Baz’s knees a few times. He drops to the ground with a sigh, leaning against the wall next to the door as he waits for me to get my keys out, because he didn’t bring those either. Truly, where would he be without me?
He lifts one of his ankles to look at the back of it, where his stupid shoe has rubbed his skin raw and bloody. I frown, hit with the urge to lean down and kiss the wound. Like, kiss it better — not kiss it in a foot fetish way. Although, maybe I could be into his feet. I’ve always found every part of Baz attractive, haven’t I?
Huh. I guess I have. I don’t know what that means. My head is swirling, gravity pulling hard on all my muscles. Tonight was never going to be the kind of night where I could eat some mac and cheese and go to bed sober — I can feel the hangover building up preemptively, crawling up my throat and souring my saliva.
But Baz is looking up at me now through hooded eyes, sleepy and pretty, his silky hair in his face. The dim yellow light of the streetlights casts him in long shadows, all the sharp edges of him emphasized. I blink at him a few times, and reach out to tuck his hair behind his ear. My hand brushes against the soft skin over his cheekbone.
“Are you going to open the door?” Baz asks, turning his face toward my hand. I take a shuddering breath and nod, letting my hand drop.
BAZ
We climb the stairs to the third floor in silence. My face still feels electric where his hand had been. It takes days for me to recover from shit like this. Simon is an open flame — I’m constantly playing with fire and getting burned.
I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open as Simon unlocks the apartment door. I throw my shoes toward the boot rack and am planning on trudging straight to bed, but Simon grabs one of my bat wings and tugs me toward his room. I follow — I always do — but when he falls into his bed, I only sit tentatively on the edge of it.
“Stay,” Simon whispers, his face half in his pillow. He pulls on my arm again for emphasis.
“Why?” I ask. We don’t really do this. We’ve shared a bed plenty of times before — at Lucy’s house in Vermont, on trips. But not at home. If it became a habit, I wouldn’t be able to pretend.
“Because it’s Halloween. And I don’t want you to leave.”
“It’s not even really Halloween,” I murmur, but my resolve is paper thin, so I get into the bed. “The actual holiday isn’t until Sunday.”
“TGIF, then,” Simon whispers, pulling the comforter up higher over our shoulders. I’m not sure what I’m allowed. I want to roll over and wrap all my limbs around him. I want to curl into a ball and let Simon cover me like a blanket from behind. But instead I just lie here on my side, burning where his hand still rests on my elbow.
“Baz,” he whispers after a while.
“What?”
I know he hasn’t been sleeping. I wonder if he’s realized this is too much, if he’s going to ask me to go to my own room. But then Simon reaches out and puts a hand on my lower back, pulling me against him. We’re chest to chest now.
“Baz,” he says again, his breath warm and acrid on my chin.
SIMON
There’s alarm bells ringing somewhere in my head, but for the life of me I can’t tell why. My mind is lumbering, running on half-speed. All I know is that I want more.
I’ve always thought Baz was beautiful. I’ve always known he was clever and funny and kind. He’s the first person I want to talk to when anything happens, good or bad. He’s always been the one I come home to. Well, for the last three years, anyway.
I’ve been dreading graduation and the unknown of it all — what if Baz wants to get his own place? What if we don’t even live in the same city? What if he meets some guy and they start dating?
It’s not a fair thought to have, and I know it. I’ve been dating Agatha the majority of the time we’ve been friends, but Baz has never had a serious relationship. I think he’s dated, maybe slept around a bit. It’s the one thing we don’t really talk about. I guess I’ve never really wanted to know.
Tonight didn’t go the way I thought it would. I want to belong. I want to be loved. I don’t feel those things around Agatha, not anymore. Not for a while now. But haven’t I always felt those things around Baz? Haven’t I always sort of wondered, in the back of my mind? Baz is gay. I’m not sure what I am. But I know that I like to watch Baz play soccer — those long legs in shorts. So fucking graceful. I like his eyes, gray, a color I’ve never seen on anyone else except Baz’s own mother and aunt. Lined with charcoal tonight. My heart had stuttered when Baz came out of his room with it on earlier. He looked so good. He always looks so good. He always fits right here: his cheek tucked against my forehead, his knee slotted between mine, his fingers splayed out on my bicep.
Would Baz want more with me? Would I ruin everything if I tried? Can I ignore all this shit swelling inside me now that I’m aware of it?
“Baz,” I say, again, and he just hums in response. I tilt my head back so I can see his face. His hair is in his eyes again. I brush it behind his ear. “Baz.”
He’s looking at me now, brow furrowed. I ghost my fingers over the wrinkle there, rest my palm on his cheek. Baz leans into it instinctively, probably seeking the warmth. Baz is always cold, and I run hot. I’ve got Vermonter blood.
I lean my face forward, and Baz doesn’t pull away. So I take a deep breath and kiss him.
It’s gentle at first — just my chapped lips brushing against his. Baz doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, and I think I’ve made a colossal error. But then he lights up beneath me. He opens his mouth, his hands wrapping around the back of my neck, pulling me closer. It’s messy, sloppy — neither of us have the coordination tonight, neither of us brushed the teeth we keep knocking together. But it’s good, so good, feels more right than anything I’ve ever done.
Too soon, Baz pulls away. He sits up in bed, his hands coming up to cover his face.
“Why did you do that?” he asks, voice hoarse.
“I wanted to.” I don’t know what else to say. He shakes his head. I think he’s crying — Baz is the most delicate crier, all flowing tears and silent sobs and trembling hands. I reach out for him, but he shrinks away from me. I feel my chest cave in.
“We can’t just do this because we’re drunk,” Baz says. He drops his hands, and even though his cheeks are tear-streaked, his expression is hard and walled. I recognize the protective mask, though it’s not one I’ve had directed at me in years.
“Oh,” I say, running a hand through my hair. I’m sitting up now too. “Did I ruin everything?”
Baz’s face crumples. He moves his hand like he’s going to reach out, but he doesn’t. He sighs.
“No, you didn’t ruin anything,” Baz says. His voice is soft again, his face more familiar. He gets out of my bed, looking away from me. “We’ll talk in the morning. Goodnight, Simon.”
I don’t sleep, but I pretend to when Baz sneaks back into my room twenty minutes later, showered and fresh-smelling. He doesn’t climb back into my bed. He drops a Gatorade and the bottle of ibuprofen on my nightstand, and leaves again. The heady smell of him stays behind. Between it and the booze, I eventually fall into a restless sleep.
BAZ
My room is too dark.
Simon is breathing somewhere on the other side of the wall behind my bed.
There’s been a million nights like this. Over three years of moments where Simon smiles at me in a way that makes me hope that maybe he might feel the same way. That if I closed my eyes he’d close the gap between our faces and press his lips to mine. That he’d take my hand and tell me he loved me.
I never really thought much about what would happen next. I never thought he’d kiss me without knowing what it means.
Did I ruin everything? I don’t know, Simon. I know you best out of everyone, but even I don’t understand some of the things you do. But I know you enough to realize that you probably don’t understand either.
I shut my eyes and mash my face into my pillow to drown out the pitch blackness of my big, empty room. Sleep doesn’t come quickly — my stomach is turning and my head is pounding. But eventually, it slithers through the dark and takes me under.