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SIMON
The stars... they're close enough to touch tonight.
(Not really.) (That would be dangerous.)
They do look close, though—jewels and gems I could reach with my fingertips, if I tried. If I stretched as far as I could. One jewel breaks away from the rest and streaks across the sky—I watch it go, and wonder what that might be like. To be outside everything, to be nothing but ice and dust.
This isn’t what we planned, lying here like this. On a rooftop, watching space and not exactly speaking. Tonight was supposed to be this whole thing, a night out we looked forward to for months—I even bought tickets! I made arrangements! I phoned people. It was fucking horrible.
We were meant to go to a stargazing event at the Royal Observatory. I saw an advert in the paper and thought it was right up Baz's alley—they let you look through this old telescope and stand on the Meridian Line for a bit, then they tell you about the constellations. (Baz would’ve loved it—at this point, his personality’s roughly 90% telescope facts.)
We were going to have fun and learn things. That was the plan.
And look, I did book two tickets. I did check the date and we were both free. I wasn’t working and he wasn’t stuck in evening lectures at uni, reading books about books written by long-dead book people. I’d got it all sorted—we’d walk to the park from the flat, maybe stop for a cheeky tangent (aka a snog) on our way up the hill. Then he’d get lost in all the space stuff and I’d stand there, on the far side of the line dividing hemispheres.
I kissed him there last year. (Had a cracking pizza after as well, though I'd better not bring it up.) (Goblin pizza. Fucking ace.)
Maybe tonight we would’ve stood on the same side of the line. Nothing between us, not even time.
But, well... things happen, don’t they? Life gets in the way.
Baz’s aunt called earlier. She doesn’t quite live in Greenwich, but still close enough to pop in whenever she bloody well wants to. (Fiona Pitch is proper scary. We get on, but I think her love language might actually be dismemberment.) She asked for help with a crisis—Baz made her clarify whether or not the crisis involved sharp objects and/or explosives. (She said no, but you can never be sure.)
“It won’t take long,” he said confidently, locking the door to the flat. “Her preferred drinking establishment is on the way to the park—we can meet her there before we go to the observatory. Prop her up in a corner, and still make it in time for stargazing.”
Optimism. It's not one of Baz's best known traits. I should've guessed then that it was all going to go wrong.
We ended up trapped in The Swan's Head for hours, watching Fiona Pitch cement herself into the bottom of an empty pint glass. (I think there was a bit of fermenting going on, too.) I’m still not sure what the crisis was. Something about the Coven asking her to do paperwork as part of her day job, which apparently is not goin ta fackin appen, boyo!
Looking back, it’s possible Fiona herself was the crisis.
By the time we peeled ourselves away, we would’ve had to fly to the bloody observatory and drop in through the chimney, like every kid's worst Christmas nightmare. Even then, we still would've been late. (Let's be honest, we also would’ve been a headline.) (Does the observatory have a chimney? Could I have dropped Baz down the telescope?)
It’s alright. It’s okay. Things happen.
Neither of us are upset, or at least I hope not—we’re still together, right? And the sky’s starry, whether you watch it through a telescope or not. There’s only a wisp of cloud, and I can’t speak for Baz, but I’m enjoying the view.
I glance to my left, where he’s lying. Looking up, out and over.
Yeah. I’m definitely enjoying the view.
The stars. So close I can connect them, finger trailing lines from A to B. Sometimes I think about how Baz and I are like that now—two dots, tied together. Our own little Tube map.
It’s been months since I kissed him in the rain that day, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like five minutes. It’s seconds, it’s years. Feels like he’s always been there, letting me trailing after him like a comet’s tail.
There’s no such thing as time, lying here.
There’s just us, two dots in space.
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BAZ
Simon’s hand trails over the back of my own, and I let it drift.
I marvel, sometimes, at the soppy mess I've become. Or have I always been this way?
It’s not as though any of this is novel. Not anymore. We’ve lived together for months, two strange souls adrift in the city. London hasn’t quite been enough to devour us whole, however the bricks and alleyways might wish to—each thing thrown at us, dealt with and discarded.
Still, every morning feels like the first. Each look he gives, each kiss chased by a midnight whisper. There’s nothing about Simon Snow that doesn’t have me immediately surrendering up all sensibilities, entirely his to descend upon.
I don’t mind that our (despicably romantic) night of stargazing was disrupted. (Though of all things, it had to be my aunt? Does she have nothing better to do than antagonise me?) (No, wait. Don’t answer that.)
Simon thinks I mind—he keeps looking over, possibly to make sure I haven’t flung myself off the roof in disappointment. (He’d catch me. He’s rather good at manoeuvring those wings these days, Westlife spell or otherwise.)
He needs to have a drama—it keeps him occupied. Now that he isn’t out pruning the local goblin population on a nightly basis, he flirts with the perils of boredom. (For Christmas I bought him several video games, which he was thankful for. Truthfully, I was buying myself a bit of peace.)
“Will your aunt be alright?” he asks, hands folded behind his head. “She seemed proper down.”
“I expect she’ll be fine,” I say dryly, trying to trace the constellations. A dot-to-dot puzzle beyond comprehension. “The Coven hasn’t had much work for her since she drove the vampire gang away.”
He laughs. “The Abdominal Ones. Worst name ever.”
“Don’t remind me,” I groan.
Long Harold and his cohorts weren’t entirely villainous, in the end. Fiona presented them with a list of the Coven's Best Practices for City-Dwelling Vampires, which they refused to sign, on account of all the small print. They departed Greenwich in an agreeable enough fashion—by all accounts, there’s since been a notable increase in Brighton’s vampire population— leaving me with a parting gift of precious knowledge.
To drink without killing, without Turning. Long Harold passed the secret to me on the back of a business card, along with what I suspect were cocktail recipes. (Apparently, vicious park squirrel goes well with impatient barista.)
A life beyond dock rats and urban wildlife. A life without lurking, and chasing, and avoiding the RSPCA. I hadn't believed it possible.
I asked Snow what he thought—always a gamble—and after the usual round of shrugs, he asked if I thought he qualified as wildlife. (Does he? He does have a tail.)
I didn't catch on, but as it turned out, this was his very unsubtle way of offering himself up for a bite. He tried again two nights later, rather too casually as we were watching Coronation Street. Shoved his hand in my mouth and told me to bloody well go for it, mate. (As the ending theme tune played, I left two polite punctures in his arm, aligning with his moles. He seemed disappointed not to have been mauled.)
We don't do it every night. I still pass my hours at the docks, in the park, down the side streets. But it's nice to know there's more.
“Maybe Fiona’s bored," Snow says now, bringing me back to the present. "Tell you what, she needs a hobby. Is she into embroidery? Or knitting. I watched her stitch up a cut on her own leg, once.”
I snort. “I dread to think—can you imagine what she’d get up to with knitting needles? No, she’ll survive. She probably just wanted company, and was too proud to ask.”
Simon sighs. He mistakes tonight for a disaster, when I couldn’t be more content—us, on a rooftop by ourselves. The sky's ours alone, with the city unfolding before us. For us.
This is better than any guided tour. I told him so earlier, when we accepted we were going to miss the planetarium presentation, and I meant it. (And I would have to mean it, because Crowley knows I love a good guided tour more than anything else in this life.)
We stood on the pavement, hands in pockets, watching Fiona wobble down the steps to the Tube station. (She was on a group call with colleagues, who were apparently hosting an impromptu anti-paperwork party in Camden.)
“Baz,” he said. “Spell my wings back. Just for a sec.”
It’s risky business, resembling a dragon in public, but I did as he bade. (I usually do, unless he’s being downright insolent.) Red settled over us as a warm hand snaked around my waist. He checked the street for fellow pedestrians, then touched his other hand to my face before kicking off.
We landed on the roof of an anonymous office building, somewhere north of the Thames. It doesn’t matter where he takes me, it never does—I’d let him take me to Grimsby, if it would please him.
Snow, I’m glad it’s the two of us. Move around you like a satellite in the wake of a furious star.
Above, constellations dance beneath the tip of Simon’s finger. It’s my turn to steal a glance, and I do. I twist my neck to see his wings spread under him, his reappeared tail flicking idly. He’s wearing shorts, despite the snap of cold in the air—the coat I bullied him into is sensible, at least, and there’s one of my scarves tucked over his bottom lip. He’s gazing up unblinkingly, and I suppose he’s finding in infinity what I see in him every day.
There’s something I’ve been meaning to say, I think. I imagined it might be lovely, finding a quiet moment alone at the observatory. But perhaps this is better.
It’s between us and space, Simon. Us and the stars.
A bright streak of light shoots from left to right, and I suppose this must be it.
Meteors in flight, a sea of silver above.
And isn't it almost within reach?
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SIMON
I’m going to do it tonight. Finally.
I’m going to tell Baz that I love him.
Hang on. That makes me sound a lot more confident than I actually am.
I want to tell him. I’ve wanted to for a while now, but how do you drop that on someone when they’re always busy and you’re always busy, and the rare night together gets lost on the sofa, splitting a bag of too-vinegary chips? (Forgive me, Merlin, for I have sinned. There’s no such thing as too much vinegar.)
He’d prefer me to just say it, probably. If I slid onto his side of the sofa—it used to be my side, but at some point since he moved in, I lost the war—and pressed a kiss right there, between all his woes and worries. If I told him how fucking brilliant he is and followed it up with, “By the way, I bloody love you, and this, and the sofa, and us.”
Baz, you came crashing into my life, buggered it up good and proper,
and now I never, ever want things to go back to how they were.
—an essay by Simon Snow.
I’m not sure my life was much of anything before. What was I doing? Eating sandwiches at an alarming rate, waiting for somebody to give me the chance I was never going to give myself?
If I turned to him right now and said, Baz, I love you, and you don’t need to say it back even though I’d lose my mind if you did, he’d be well happy. I know he would. I feel it.
Still, it’s a lot to think about. A lot to hope for.
But we’ve been through a lot, haven’t we? And there’s more, always. So much ahead. We’re going to France in the summer—First Class on the fucking Eurostar, mate. We're going continental, and if we can manage all that, what’s this one little thing, these few small words?
My wings are beneath me, softening the concrete covering the roof of this 90s monstrosity skyscraper. I scratch at them, knowing what Penny would say if she were here—I hear her voice in my head, beamed across the sea via our dodgy Skype connection. Simon Snow, are you moisturising properly? Wrinkly wings won’t get you anywhere! My tail’s curling around an aerial, most likely fucking up somebody’s telly reception.
And it’s good. I’m good. We’re good, right here.
I try to pick out patterns I recognise in the sky, but it’s difficult to concentrate. I’ve got the thought in my head now, and it’s hard to ignore.
I should say it.
(And if he doesn’t say it back?)
Say it anyway.
Let him know, then you’ll know.
I breathe in sharply, and it’s a louder sound than expected—Baz sits up and looks at me, eyebrow raised. I watch him from the corner of my eye.
“What’s wrong, Snow?” he asks. “Are you cold? That's what you get for dressing like we're on a stag night in Ibiza.”
“No, I'm not cold.” He knows I’m not; I never am. He only asks because he’s polite and if he doesn’t chuck his manners at me occasionally, they might boil over.
He knows everything about me that needs to be seen by another. And I know all about him. There’s not a part I don’t like, not even the pointy bits his teeth.
“What is it, then?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
He hums and crosses his legs at the ankle. I look at his Peaky Blinders socks (he pretends not to like it, but he knows half the episodes off by heart), then up at the sky again. If we’d gone on the observatory tour we’d have learnt all their names—stories of space imprinted on us, ready to take home and forget about during the twenty minute walk.
But this isn’t bad. And I don’t think Baz hates it.
Will I fuck things up by saying what I mean? He’s always on at me about using my words.
So I should, right?
If the words are there, he’d want to know.
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BAZ
Simon wants to say something.
It’s easy enough to surmise. His face turns crimson, the shade of an overburdened tomato, and he puffs at air as though he might find meaning there between parted lips, ready and waiting to tumble out.
Perhaps I should say what I’ve been meaning to first, in case it’s bad news. How likely is it that he’d fly us to the top of a skyscraper to crush me like a daydream, interrupted? He hasn’t asked me to spell his wings off, so I can only guess we’re to take the same route down. (Unless his plan is to abandon me to a dire fate with a rickety fire escape.) (Honestly, he’s had stranger ideas.)
It never pays to wallow. Fiona taught me that. No, it’s best I get this over with, then face whatever he’s working himself into a Stage 3 Solanum Situation about.
I hug my knees, looking out over the city. There are stars in the river, comets trapped in windows.
I’m just going to say it. Give him more than what I am.
“Simon,” I begin, twisting as far as I dare without losing my nerve completely. (If I look at him, I’ll come undone.) “Can we—well? Before we go, I wanted to say… oh, look. This is ridiculous, even by our standards. I—”
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SIMON
Sod this for a bag of chips. There’s no part of me, not one scrap or fleck, that doesn’t love Baz. After the shit we went through last year, is there anything he’d judge me for? Am I really so afraid of this?
I’m not. I’m not afraid of this, of us. And I’m not afraid to say it.
“I love you.”
Time glitches, a beat skipped as the world folds in on itself. I hear my own voice but there’s his too, winding under mine.
And it’s magic that comes with it.
Overhead, there’s a flash of silver that lights the sky completely, then it’s gone. It’s clearer now, brighter. The stars, closer to earth.
Did we—
At the exact same time?
We stare at each other, amazed and shocked and awed and all the rest of it. Then there’s laughter, the sort of smiles that are almost heavy. The ones that make your face ache with their honesty.
“The bloody hell was that? Do you have your wand out?” I ask, wiping my eyes.
He shakes his head. “No, it’s up my sleeve. Did you even bring yours?”
“Nah. Dropped it down the side of the sofa this morning, and couldn’t be arsed to dig it out.”
More laughter. He rolls his eyes. My sides hurt, but it’s not the kind of pain I’d spell away.
Magic. Is that what this is?
We could try it again, maybe—spell the stars down so I can hang them for him, one by one. Argue about who should have spoken first, or if it was better like this, both of us unsure and stumbling.
Instead we lie on our backs, Baz curling up on his side with my wing under him. His head finds just the right place in the dip of my neck, where his breath’s a tickle. A steadying reminder that he’s here, and I can warm him. That we’re here, despite what got in the way.
We’re stars, tonight. Space dust and atmosphere.
I squeeze his hand and he squeezes back. I press a kiss into his hair as he points out another constellation I can hardly fucking see.
It’s love without saying it twice. It’s love when you know.
And even when the sky’s red with morning, the next day’s demands stirring as Baz’s phone goes off and car horns blare out on the street below, neither of us move. Neither of us step off the meteor.
We’re not in the city, on a rooftop. We’re high and higher.
“Before we go,” I whisper, “tell me their names.”
He does.
Baz speaks the names of stars to me, words falling into orbit around us.
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