Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Baz sets out tea and buns - those pink iced buns that Swithin likes so much - on the coffee table, but Swithin doesn’t immediately shove one into his mouth. A rarity, for him. 

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FATIMA 

Fatima watches as, horror of horrors, Swithin and That Gremlin become friends.

She’s more used to seeing it at week-long music camps, everybody awkward on the first day, and by the last day, people are hugging each other and crying and swearing they’ll write every day.

But this? Whatever bullshit that’s going on with Swithin and That Gremlin, where they’ve gone from barely talking to being attached at the hip? This is different.

Phuong nudges her knee. “You’re going to snap your flute in half.” 

“Yeah, cause I’m powerful,” Fatima says, automatically. She’s watching Swithin and That Gremlin at the entrance of the music room - Swithin’s just standing there, his cello on his back, listening to That Gremlin, who seems to be trying to absorb every spare second before practice begins to talk about something nerdy. That Gremlin’s flapping his arms and his face is shining, and Swithin looks mildly interested which means he’s fucking besotted. 

“Stop being so jelly, it’s bad for your skin,” Phuong says. 

Fatima bites her tongue to keep from saying, I am not jelly, because she’s not five. She’s not as easily baited as That Gremlin. 

“Isn’t it good that they’re getting along now?” Phuong continues. “It’s miserable if you’re at odds with your roommate.” 

It is, probably, objectively better that Swithin and That Gremlin seem to be friends now. Swithin’s a lot cheerier now instead of just mooning uselessly, and of course that counts for a lot, but- 

“That Gremlin is subtle as a sledgehammer,” Fatima says, as That Gremlin scampers off - probably late for Robotics Club or to complain on Reddit about something - and Swithin stands at the door for a long time, just watching him go. “I just know he’s going to say something or do something that’ll-”

That’ll make Swithin curl up into himself, hide himself away. He’ll get hurt, and he’ll never say so, because he doesn’t say so - he just takes that hurt into himself. Fatima’s seen it so many times over the years. 

And the way that Swithin feels about That Gremlin is obviously so big, so encompassing. There’s no way That Gremlin will be cool about it when he realises that Swithin’s feelings aren’t strictly platonic. And there’ll be nowhere for Swithin to run because they live together. It won’t be a safe space anymore.

Fuck it. Maybe Fatima will just smuggle Swithin into the Cloisters, and he can live with her and Phuong for the next three years. 

Phuong’s looking at her closely. “Swithin’s a big boy,” she says. “You can’t just swaddle him in bubble wrap and slap a KEEP OUT sign on him.” 

“Swithin’d probably like that, actually,” Fatima says. “He’s a fiend for bubble wrap.” 

Swithin settles into the seat next to them and unzips his cello case. “Hi,” he says, as he gets set up. 

Phuong’s made of pure trouble, so she locks eyes with Fatima as she says, deliberately, “How’s Petty doing?”

Swithin fiddles with his sheet music. “He’s good,” Swithin says. “We’re going to play. Some co-op video games later.” 

“Sounds like a hot date,” Phuong says, because she likes to give Fatima ulcers. 

“Let’s swap roommates,” Fatima says, which is something she’s said at least a dozen times before. “Swithin, you can live with me, and Phuong and That Gremlin can live in Mummers.” 

Swithin smiles as he ties his hair back into a short horsetail. He looks soft and - damn That Gremlin to the Slough and back -  happy.

“No dice,” he says, as Ms. Tomas barrels into the room, sheet music spilling from her arms. “I’m good like this, thanks.”

Chapter Text

Swithin is trying to figure out how to ask Gregory to come over for Christmas.

He’s got several drafts in his Clairefontaine journal. Gregory, would you like to come over to my house during the hols? I’ve got lots of games - that’s how the first one goes. But the more he re-reads it, the more it seems like he’s trying to lure Gregory over with sweets, like a serial killer. 

I think it would be nice to spend more time together outside of school - that one’s honest, but nakedly so. 

I’ll miss you - same. 

We’re friends now, right? Friends go over to each other’s houses during the holidays. It wouldn’t be weird - He crosses out the last sentence with a long stroke. 

It would be weird. But it could be a very good kind of weird, like trying lychee jelly for the first time, or those warm flutters that shoot up from his torso into the very tips of his fingers when Gregory says, "Swithin!" when he has something new he wants to show him. 

Christmases have been a bit melancholy since his dad passed away, a month before Christmas four years ago. It doesn’t hurt anymore nearly as much as it did back then, but he still looks forward to Christmas with this cramping combination of pleasure and dread. He wants to see his mum and his siblings, especially since Sophie and Tyr just started uni this year and he hasn’t seen them since summer. But being together makes it so much clearer that Dad isn’t there, in a way that doesn’t feel obvious when Swithin is just off at school. 

But if Gregory’s in Oxford during the break, it might tip the scales, from good-bad to… better. 

Gregory bursts in through the door. He’s red-cheeked, puffing, his glasses fogged up from the cold, and Swithin slaps his journal shut. 

“I’m freezing, budge up,” he says, clambering into Swithin’s bed (into Swithin’s bed. Where Swithin sleeps, and… tries not to think about Gregory), shoving his socked feet under Swithin’s thighs.

Swithin gets the sense, from Gregory and from Simon, that the Pettys are a very physical family, constantly up in each other’s space. Ever since Gregory and Swithin have properly become friends, Swithin has to stop from freezing up and reading too much into it when Gregory sits close to him at dinner, or cuddles up next to him when they watch films on Swithin’s laptop, or when Gregory clasps the back of Swithin’s neck and shakes him playfully when he’s done very well at a video game. 

It’s just the way that Gregory is, with his friends, with his family. It doesn’t make Swithin special. 

“What were you doing outside?” Swithin asks, as Gregory takes off his glasses to wipe them on the edge of his school jumper.

Swithin takes Gregory’s glasses out of his hands, and fishes around in his bedside table for the cleaning cloth and spray that he borrowed from Simon. There are pale marks on Gregory’s face where his glasses were pressed into his face. 

“Helping Ioanna bring in stuff to decorate the dining hall,” Gregory says. “Pine boughs and holly and things like that.” 

Ioanna Giorgos is in their year. She’s plump and pretty, dark-haired and green-eyed, and her nails are always nicely manicured. She’s on the Campus Beautification Society and Swithin didn’t even know that Gregory talked with Ioanna, never mind helped her out with club activities. 

“That’s. Good of you,” Swithin says. He works on carefully swiping the cleaning cloth over Gregory’s glasses, over and over again. First one side, then the other. 

Gregory grimaces. “Is it? I traded her so she’d proofread my Greek essay. I didn’t know it would mean she’d treat me as a pack mule for two hours out in the cold.”

“I could’ve looked over your essay.”

“Yeah, but-” Gregory rubs at the back of his neck, embarrassed. “You’re already looking at my Lit essay, aren’t you? I can’t just keep going to you for help with every little thing. That’s not on.”

A small, cautious hope blooms in Gregory’s chest. “I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, but I do,” Gregory says, firmly. “You’ve got better things to do with your time than help me with Greek. We’ve got like, one million Qi quests, for starters.”

Gregory and Swithin started playing Stardew Valley on co-op together a few days after they came back from the half-term break. They’re married in the game now, because Gregory pointed out that it was quicker for them to get a stardrop by marrying each other than for each of them to marry NPCs and get them up to 13 hearts. Swithin’s still got the Wedding Ring that Gregory crafted for him, after Gregory grinded in the Skull Caverns for multiple Sundays to get five iridium bars and a prismatic shard. Even if the ring has no buffs, Swithin’s never, ever going to de-equip it from his character. 

“Do you want to come over to mine during the break?” Swithin asks. 

No, Swithin hears himself ask. But he’s not - like this. He doesn’t just blurt out what he’s thinking, like Gregory.

“YES,” Gregory says, and then he coughs and adds, “Yeah, that’d be cool. I’ll ask my mum if it’s okay.”

“Cool,” Swithin says, handing Gregory his clean glasses. “Cool.” 

Chapter Text

GREGORY

To: Simon Snow 

The other day Swithin had his hair in a little ponytail and it made my stomach feel weird is that normal or like 

(unsent) 

To: Simon Snow 

If you’re studying with someone in the library and you’re sitting next to them, how close is too close?? Like if I can see Swithin’s birthmark is that too 

(unsent) 

To: Simon Snow 

Swithin gave me a handkerchief after I cried one time when he played the cello and I washed it  but I don’t know how to give it back without reminding him that I cried so  

(unsent) 

To: Simon Snow

SWITHIN INVITED ME OVER FOR CHRISTMAS HELP HOW DO I NOT EMBARRASS MYSELF 

(Calling: Simon Snow) 

SWITHIN  

Swithin’s currently sitting on Fatima’s bed, his head between his knees, trying not to hyperventilate while Fatima pats his back. 

“You know,” Fatima says, trying to be helpful, “you could always un-invite him." 

He glares at her. 

"It was worth a shot," she says with a shrug, grabbing her laptop. "Okay, let's call the cavalry."

GREGORY 

“So,” Simon asks, squinting at the camera. He’s in a blue tunic, he's covered in grass stains, and his hair looks weird and squashed, because he’s been wearing a helmet. It sounds like he's mostly been doing a lot of riding stunts (Agatha's mad for cramming horse scenes into every film she directs.) “Do you want advice, or to rant?” 

“I want to rant but then get advice," Gregory says, "as long as the advice is useful and not some Yoda bullshit.” 

Simon rubs at his nose. “Fair.” 

“And you’re not allowed to get all-” Gregory makes a face. “-like ho ho ho, I remember when I was young! Those were the days! ”

Simon tries to turn his laugh into a cough. “All right,” he says, “hit me with your best shot.” 

SWITHIN 

“... And that’s where we are right now,” Fatima says, finishing her summary. 

On screen, Baz looks pensive, tapping a pen against his cheek. “I think,” he says, “that no matter how things go, you’ll be glad that you asked him.”

“You mean-” Swithin lifts his head. “It could turn out okay?” 

“It could be a disaster,” Baz says frankly. “But I think that if you didn’t ask, you’d regret it for a long time.” His expression turns wistful. “I know that I did.” 

GREGORY 

“Their family’s really posh, right?” Gregory asks. He’s walking around his room with his phone in hand, taking books off of shelves and then putting them back. “Do I need to pack a suit? I don’t think I have a suit. Should I buy a suit? Can you lend me a suit? Never mind, I can’t borrow one of your suits, I’d be like Peter Parker in the fucking Iron Man Suit.” 

Simon’s not even trying to hide his laughter anymore. He’s the worst. 

“They’re not that formal anymore at Christmas, I don’t think,” Simon says. “They used to be, when their dad was still around. But Daphne’s a lot more relaxed about those kinds of things. You could probably show up wearing a Baby Yoda jumper-” 

“His name is Grogu,” Gregory interrupts.

"- And Daphne would still be over the moon that you’re there,” Simon continues. “It’ll be a treat for her. I don't think Swithin brings friends over very often." 

Gregory stands stock still, his hands going slack on a volume of Locke & Key. What does that mean? Does that mean something? Anything? Why does he feel like he’s run a mile? Is he having an asthma attack? 

“Gregory?” Simon asks. 

“Idon’twanttoembarasshim,” Gregory says. 

“I don’t think you could,” Simon says. “No matter what you do, Swithin likes you just the same.” 

SWITHIN 

“Baz,” Swithin says, "you’ll help Gregory feel comfortable at Christmas. Won’t you?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Baz promises. “And you know that Mum will too, and Tyr.” 

“I’m not worried about Tyr,” Swithin says. Tyr is quiet and tactful and restful to be around. “But Mordelia and Sophie…” 

Mordelia can be terrifying. Sophie is chaos incarnate. And Swithin wants Gregory to want to come over again - and again, and again.

“I’ll talk to them,” Baz says coolly, the way that someone else would say, I’ve hired a contract killer.  

GREGORY 

Swithin likes you just the same. 

Swithin likes you. Just the same. 

Swithin likes you. 

“You mean,” Gregory says numbly, “like friends, right? Because we’re friends.” 

“Yeah,” Simon says easily. “That’s what I meant.” 

FATIMA

Baz threads his fingers under his chin. “This may be easier to say than to do,” he says. “But it may be less nerve-wracking if you… give yourself permission to enjoy it.” 

“I.” Swithin's chest feels like someone’s dropped a brick into an icy pond. “I-” 

“Swithin,” Fatima says, using that gentle voice she only breaks out around him, “remember to breathe.” 

So Swithin - does. He tries. He draws in one shuddering breath after another, trying to steady out, trying not to feel the painful silence of Baz and Fatima waiting, just waiting for him to speak. 

“I just,” Swithin says, when he can talk. “It’s just a lot. I never thought. I’d get this much of him. And I - I’m scared to. To want any more.” He breathes again, a harsh stutter of a breath. “It feels - greedy. Like I’m. Going to get punished. For wanting that much.”

GREGORY 

“And it’s, it’s normal to like your friends, right?” Gregory says. “It’s normal to want to, to hang out with them all the time, and to know what they’re thinking, and to feel really good when they laugh at your jokes. Right? And if you think about it, it's like me and Swithin are catching up on like five years of friendship all in one go, so it’s bound to be - intense. More intense than usual. Right?” 

Simon opens his mouth but Gregory barrels on. He’s still taking out books but not bothering to put them back, just tossing them onto his bed, one muffled whump after another. 

“And,” Gregory says, unsteadily, “it’s like. Of course you want to brag about your friends when they’re really cool, or really smart, or really fit, or because they know more about cryptography than anyone else. Of course you want to give your friends a hug, whenever they look like they need a hug. Or whenever you need a hug. That’s just. That’s what friends do. Isn’t it?” 

Simon’s still watching him, not interrupting. The look on his face is terribly kind. 

His words aren’t making any sense. There are words for this, aren’t there? Words for the way that Gregory wants to be trusted with all of Swithin’s secrets and then swallow them like a key, so that no one else knows Swithin as well as he does. 

SWITHIN

“You’re allowed to want, Swithin,” Baz says. “It doesn’t make you greedy. It only makes you human.” 

GREGORY 

...

“This-” Gregory shakes his phone. “THIS WAS A TRAP!” 

“Gregory-” Simon says, but Gregory's already stuck his fingers in his ears. 

“YOU’RE AN EVIL MASTERMIND! STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME - MAKE ME - REALISE THINGS!!!” 

He unplugs his ears so that he can hear Simon protest, "-not a mastermind! I was just listening, you walked yourself right into-” 

“I HOPE YOU FALL OFF A HORSE AND GET A REALLY STUPID-LOOKING BRUISE ON YOUR ARSE!”

Gregory hangs up. 

SWITHIN

Swithin's crying. He’s crying, but it’s okay, because it’s just in front of Baz and Fatima, who’ve both seen him cry a hundred times before. 

Baz and Fatima are talking to each other, but Swithin isn’t paying attention any more, Baz’s words still rolling around inside of him. 

“C’mon,” Fatima says. She shuts her laptop off - he didn’t even get to say bye to Baz, or thank him, or… anything. “I’ll sneak you out before curfew.”

Fatima walks him back to Mummers, steering him by the arm. He's dazed, light-headed. His feet don’t feel quite attached to the rest of his body. 

“You going to be okay?” Fatima asks at his door, still looking worried. "Should I stay? Be a roommate buffer?" She reaches up and touches his forehead, like he’s got a fever. 

“No,” Swithin croaks. “I'll be fine. Go on. Before you get caught.” 

Fatima casts him one last look before she heads back to the Cloisters.

When he enters their room, he sees that - for some reason - every single one of Gregory’s books is scattered over his bed. 

“Swithin!” Gregory says. Swithin likes the way that Gregory says his name like that, as if there's an exclamation mark at the end. Gregory's hair looks mad, like he's just been harassed by a flock of sparrows. “You look, um-”

Swithin sniffles. “‘M fine.” 

Gregory hovers. “D’you - d’you want a hug?” 

You’re allowed to want, Swithin.  

“Yeah,” Swithin says. “A hug would be nice.”

Gregory gives very good hugs. Tight, but not uncomfortably so -  firm, like a weighted blanket, or a compression bandage wrapped just right. And he’s warm. And he’s so short that Swithin could rest his head on the top of Gregory’s. He doesn't do that, though, because that would probably just make Gregory squawk and pull away and complain about Swithin’s height. 

“I got some Maltesers,” Gregory says, muffled, into Swithin’s uniform jacket. “When I was in town. They’re in my pencil case, if you want.”

Swithin can feel his mouth trying to pull itself into a smile. “... Why are they in your pencil case?”

“Reward,” Gregory says. “Finish a vocab exercise, get a Malteser. You can have ‘em though, if you want.” 

It doesn’t make you greedy. It only makes you human. 

“Hey,” Swithin says. It’s like the tears have burnished something clean, as if they’ve left a braver version of him behind. “I’m looking forward to the winter break.”

Gregory squeezes him more tightly. 

“Me too,” he says. 

Chapter Text

GREGORY

When Gregory hugs Swithin, he tries very pointedly not to notice the nutmeg smell of his hair, or how sadorable his nose is, all swollen from crying. He goes to bed and he wakes up and he’s fine, he's fine, it’s all fine. 

But then. 

They’re leaving for breakfast the next morning when Gregory swings open the door, and a whole bunch of pine boughs and holly and other garbage is dangling from their door. 

“What?” Gregory asks, confused. He squints up at it. There’s some plants there that look familiar, a bunch of leaves with small white berries, wrapped up with a red ribbon. It looks like the stuff he helped Ioanna gather up the other day - 

“That’s.” Swithin clears his throat. “That’s mistletoe.” 

IOANNA

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Ioanna asks for the dozenth time, where she’s crouching behind a corner in Mummers House with Phuong. “Won’t Fatima be furious?”

“Fatima's an over-protective mama bear,” Phuong says dismissively, craning her neck to get a better view of Gregory and Swithin. “We’re just helping Swithin live his best life. All right - go!” 

And Phuong shoves Ioanna into the hallway. 

GREGORY 

“Gregory!” Ioanna says. She smooths out her school skirt, smiling uncertainly. She’s got on Christmas earrings, these big sparkly snowflakes that chime as she swings her head back and forth, looking between them. “And Swithin! Good morning!” 

“Gregory,” she says, “I was wondering if-” 

Gregory gets spun around. Swithin’s grabbed his collar and for a moment, he looks furious, his eyes all dark -

So he IS a demon! 

Then Swithin kisses him. 

IOANNA

Would it be weird if she took a picture? 

Because… she’s drawing this webcomic right now, and this would make a perfect reference shot - 

GREGORY

On the cheek! Gregory yells at his brain. It’s just a kiss on the cheek, just Swithin’s mouth bumping up against Gregory’s cheekbone, like an accident, or like a grandma kiss, or like - like - 

Swithin lets go of his collar. He looks as startled as Gregory feels. His entire face has gone pink, up to his forehead, like he’s got a sunburn. 

“Sorry,” Swithin says, turning on his heel. 

IOANNA 

She should probably… give them some privacy… 

But it also looks like they’ve forgotten that she exists… 

(She takes out her phone.) 

GREGORY 

“Wait!” Gregory yells, once his brain has re-booted. He runs after Swithin striding down the hallway, his shoulders practically around his ears. “Swithin, just - wait!”

Swithin stops, but doesn’t turn to face him. 

“Sorry,” Swithin says again, his voice stiff, distant. “You probably wanted to - with Ioanna.” 

“What? No, that would’ve been massively weird.”

“... Oh.”

“I don’t-” Gregory doesn’t even know what to say, just that he wants Swithin to stop looking like that, to stop retreating and hiding behind this perfect mask of politeness, like he’s the Swithin from before, the one that Gregory didn’t really know at all. “I didn’t mind. If I was gonna be stuck under mistletoe with anyone, I’d rather it was you, yeah?”

… It’s true. Gregory didn’t know that it was true until he said it, but now that he has, it’s out there and it - it’s true. There’s no one that Gregory would rather kiss than Swithin. 

Wait. That’s not - 

He didn’t mean it like that -

“Oh,” Swithin says again. 

“Yeah,” Gregory says. 

They’re just standing in the hallway. The toes of their shoes are almost touching, Swithin’s loafers and Gregory’s trainers. The morning is so bright, it makes everything around them feel clear and sharp. Like someone’s struck a tuning fork and the sound is still ringing all around them. 

“We should get breakfast,” Swithin says. 

“Yeah,” Gregory says. “And burn that mistletoe.” 

Swithin hiccups a laugh. 

IOANNA

“So,” Ioanna says. They’re trailing about ten feet behind Swithin and Gregory, like a pair of ladies-in-waiting discreetly chaperoning their charges. “How hard is Fatima going to murder us?” 

Phuong shrugs. “Just bat your eyelashes. Lean in real close while touching her shoulder.” 

“That’ll never work,” Ioanna says indignantly. “Not on Fatima. She doesn’t-”

Phuong gives her an unimpressed look. “Peaches. Sweets. Honey bun. Come on.” 

Ioanna stops dead. 

“Does she?” Ioanna asks. “I mean, do you think she would? Do you think she would, about -  me?”

They’re passing by Swithin and Gregory’s room. Phuong sighs, grabs the mistletoe from their doorway, and shoves it into Ioanna’s hands. 

“You need this more than them,” Phuong says, and Ioanna feels herself blush.

Chapter Text

SWITHIN 

Gregory is stalking him. 

Okay, maybe not… stalking, but. Following him. Definitely tailing him. He's not subtle about it. 

On any other day, Swithin would be overjoyed at this development, this sign that maybe Gregory wanted to spend as much time together as Swithin did. 

But this morning, there was. That whole thing. With Ioanna. The mistletoe. 

The kiss. 

Gregory keeps trotting beside him and shooting him worried looks, as if he’s afraid Swithin is just going to withdraw completely into his turtle shell and not say anything for a week. 

And it is… sweet. It is. But Swithin really needs to just sit by himself for awhile, and do the tactical breathing exercises that Tyr taught him, and not worry about looking lame or like he’s freaking out, and it’s hard to do that when Gregory is just… there. Existing. With his face, right there. The face that Swithin… kissed. 

And Swithin doesn’t know how to say, not to Gregory, Please go away so I can have a breakdown in peace and quiet. 

“I’ll do it,” Fatima says during Art, one of the classes that he doesn’t have with Gregory. 

“You’re not allowed,” Swithin says, roughing out a sketch. “You’d enjoy it too much. And then he’d never talk to me again.” 

“Is that, like, a bad thing?”

“Fatima.” 

“FINE,” she says, stealing his kneadable eraser. “I still can’t believe you ki-”

“Don’t say it,” Swithin moans, sinking into his chair. Every time he thinks of it, his whole body seizes up and he flashes back to that moment when he saw Ioanna Giorgis, biting her rosy bottom lip as she looked at Gregory, under the mistletoe, and thought, No. Absolutely not. Unacceptable.

And then it was like a demon possessed his body, he just grabbed Gregory's shirt, and-

“I’m not like this,” Swithin says. “I don’t just do things - impulsively.” 

Fatima squints at him. “Should I point out the very obvious counter-example? Or will you just pout?” 

“I don’t pout,” he says, bending over his sketchbook. 

“You do,” she says, “you really, really do.”

GREGORY 

Fatima sits across from Gregory at dinner, interrupting an argument that he’s having with Kimbel Ashburne over the correct ratio of gravy to mash in the chafing dishes - the obvious answer is 1:1, and Kimbel has the nerve to call that excessive.

“Swithin’s working on an extra project for Music class,” Fatima says. “So he won’t be back at Mummers for a while.”

“Okay?” Gregory says, wondering why Fatima is the one telling him this, why Swithin hasn’t just texted or told Gregory himself and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this is exactly what Gregory didn’t want. There’s now this, this, this Incident between them, and now it’s all awkward and weird and- 

“Hey,” Fatima says, rapping her fork on his plate, rude. “I’m going to do you a gigantic favour and share some intel because I’m a good person.” 

“Debatable,” Gregory mutters. “Highly debatable, biassed sources, no peer review-” 

“Greg,” Kimbel says, “you do know that she’s like, right there, don’t you?” 

“Indeed,” Fatima says frostily. Fuck, she really is going to slaughter him the next time they play MTG. “Listen, Swithin needs time to process things. I know that you,” and her eyes flick over him, disdainful, “lack any brain-to-mouth filter and just vomit whatever you’re thinking and feeling-”

“That’s-” Gregory splutters.

“Incredibly accurate,” Kimbel says, because he’s a traitor, a turncloak, a fiend in the night. 

Fatima inclines her head, as if she’s a queen bestowing her favour upon a beloved jester. “But Swithin needs alone time to process things. Whether they’re good or they’re bad.” 

Things. The Incident. 

Was it - was it a bad kiss?

“You’ll see him when he’s good and ready,” Fatima says, rising from her seat, probably to harass or confuse somebody else. Fuck, it’s really annoying how Fatima is so much taller than Gregory and more suited to smugly looming with her arms crossed. “So just be a good little gremlin while you wait for him to come back.” 

SWITHIN 

Swithin normally likes composing. 

He likes these moments when he’s just woken up from a dream, or when he’s halfway to sleep, or in the shower, or walking outside, and a bit of a song will unfurl in his mind - a refrain, a phrase, the perfect slide of a note that makes your throat ache even though you can't say why. It’s like something blooms in his mind, unbidden, when he’s thinking or doing something else, concentrating but not concentrating at the same time. He talked about it with Baz once, who nodded and said, “Keats’ negative capability,” before loaning him The Golden Compass.

Sitting in the empty practice room, with blank sheet music and a freshly-inked LAMY, is… nothing like that. 

He’s mostly just noodling around on the cello when there’s a knock at the door. For one moment, he thinks it’s Gregory, and he doesn’t know whether to be happy or panicked - but it’s Ioanna Giorgis. 

“Hi Swithin,” she says brightly, even though he’s fairly sure they’ve never really spoken before. Not before this morning. “Do you have a moment?”

It’s so strange. He can feel himself closing down, a numbing coldness creeping over his face. He wonders if his face looks the way that Mordelia's or Baz's does sometimes, all haughty and closed off. 

No, he wants to say. 

“Sure,” he says aloud. 

She takes a few hesitant steps into the Music room, and then stops in front of him. She's twisting her hands in her skirt. 

“I just," she stutters, "I just wanted to say - I’m cheering for you!” 

“What?” Swithin asks, because… what? 

She seizes his right hand in both of hers, and he wants to pull away, but it seems - rude. 

“For you and Gregory!” she says. There’s a blazing, determined look in her eyes. “If you need any help, let me know, okay? I don’t have any dating experience, but I’ve read a lot of manga.” 

Ioanna lets go of his hands, which is a relief, especially because he still doesn’t quite understand what’s going on. What is his life? How is this his life? 

“What were you playing when I came in?” she asks. “It was really pretty.” 

~

Sometimes, it’s hard for Swithin to put things into words. 

So - he puts it into the music instead. 

The way that Gregory looks in the morning, pillow creases on his face and his cowlicks wilder than ever. The way his glasses slide down his nose when he gets very absorbed in a book. The brightness of his face, his voice, his eyes, the movement of his arms when he talks about something he’s excited about. The way he’ll turn that attention and focus on Swithin, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming, not like the way the way it is when other people look at Swithin. It’s like Gregory is radiating all this light and heat, and instead of blinding Swithin, Gregory just sits right next to him, and Swithin is - warm, encircled, safe. 

The more that he knows about Gregory, the more he wants to know about Gregory. He wants to know what Gregory was like before they met; he wants to be with Gregory right now and watch things unfold in present tense; and he wants to see, with his own eyes, what Gregory will become in the future. 

He wants all of it, and it's terrifying. It doesn't feel - right, to want so much.

… But what if Baz is right? What if it’s okay for Swithin to want this? What if the wanting won’t swallow him whole? 

He puts those questions into the music as well. 

When he gets back to Mummers, Gregory is getting ready for bed. He’s wearing black and red Jurassic Park pyjama bottoms and a baggy grey t-shirt that Swithin thinks he stole from Simon; it says I’ve got a forklift licence and I’m not afraid to use it.

“Hey!” Gregory says brightly. His face is red as his pyjama bottoms, as if his skin is freshly scrubbed (Was it really just this morning that Swithin kissed him, right there, on the crest of his cheekbone? It was so quick, there and gone, like a firefly winking in and then out). “How’s your Music project going?”

“Good,” Swithin says. His voice comes out soft, but Gregory never tells him to speak up, to speak louder; it’s as if he’s always listening closely to what Swithin is trying to say. “I think it could be really, really good.” 

GREGORY

In bed, Gregory stares up at the dark ceiling and thinks, Is it gay to -

No. That isn't the right question.

What does it mean if he wants Swithin to kiss him again?

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

He misses Swithin.

Which is… stupid. Gregory saw him on the last day of school, the 19th, and he'll see him again on the 26th. Mum put her foot down about Gregory spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home, especially since they’re down a man, what with Simon stuck in Malta until mid-January. 

And it’s good, yeah? Being home with Mum and Cam and Gram, Uncle Nico, Aunt Ebb, and Aunt Ebb’s wife, Tante Laurel, visiting almost every day. Cam whispered to him that Uncle Nico has a new/old girlfriend (who he won’t bring round to theirs) and that he’s rediscovering puppy love at an advanced age. When Uncle Nico overheard Cam, he got her right in the face with a snowball.

But he keeps turning left, turning right - expecting to see Swithin at his elbow, or hunched on his bed writing in his journal with one of his fancy pens, or watching speed runs on YouTube with his big headphones on. Gregory keeps thinking of things that he wants to tell Swithin or show him or ask him about, and he… can’t. He can’t just keep texting Swithin every time he thinks of him - it’ll make him look like some kind of stalker. 

Also. He tries not to think about the Incident, but it’s… hard. 

His brain keeps playing it on a loop, and his face and his stomach and his fingers and toes all get really, really warm. He keeps glancing at himself in the mirror and expecting to see something there, a mark where Swithin’s mouth touched his face. 

When he was with Swithin before the break started, he’d shoved it all down because the only alternative was cornering Swithin in their room, shaking him by the collar, and asking him, What does it all MEAN? 

But you couldn’t just do that to someone you lived with.  They’d think you were nutters and never be able to sleep in the same room with you ever again. 

About three days into the winter break, he tries to talk to Simon about it. They’re into shooting part of the film where the Thracians have been subjugated by the Greeks, so Simon’s kitted out in a proper bell cuirass and a brown cloak. (Gregory wonders if Simon will be allowed to take any of the props or costume home, as a souvenir; his great would be great for LARPing.) 

“Is it,” Gregory tries to ask the question, and has to swallow; he feels like Swithin, stumbling over every word. “Is it like - if - if I thought about - I don’t know, doing s-stuff with Swithin, it’s - that’s normal, right? That’s not necessarily gay?”  

They’re…. Teenage boys. Teenage boys are horny, right? They’re horny about anything. If Kimbel Ashburne kissed Gregory under the mistletoe, Gregory probably would’ve thought about kissing him too. Never mind that he doesn’t really think of Kimbel that way (also, Kimbel likes some weird spicy candy that his madrina sends him from Mexico City, so Gregory would never want to kiss him anyway). 

Simon scrubs his hand through his hair, thoughtful. “Why is it either or ?” he asks, finally. “Just, try this thought experiment. What if it’s normal and gay? What would that mean for you?”

If it’s - 

If it’s normal and gay - 

“Of course it’s normal to be gay,” Gregory says, uncertainly. “That’s not - I didn’t mean-“ 

Because if he thinks about it, if he slows the thought down, of course it’s normal to be gay. Simon’s gay, or at least gay for Baz. There's Aunt Ebb and Tante Laurel. Agatha. George Takei. Yoon-Ha Lee. Laura Kate Dale. Loads of people. 

But - 

It was normal for them. He’d always thought that it was normal for them to be gay. That’s just who they were. 

… Gregory had never thought that it might be normal for him to be gay. 

And if that’s true, then - 

Then that means - 

Fucking - Jesus Christ - Mary and Joseph and all the saints - god damn Cthulhu and Shai-Hulud, and - 

“I don’t like your questions,” Gregory croaks. “It’s clear you’ve had too much therapy.” 

Simon’s mouth quirks into a smile. But he doesn’t laugh at him.  

~

Gregory can’t sit still. 

He barrels out the door, his mobile shoved in the pocket of his jeans. He walks the familiar streets of his neighbourhood, and then less familiar streets, and then unfamiliar streets. 

Everything’s slushy and gross and underfoot, even though there’s a sprinkling of snow coming down. The sky is that muffled grey colour where it’s impossible to tell what time of day it is. 

His thoughts keep jumping around. They won’t sit still. 

If - if Gregory is normal, and he’s gay -

And he’s thinking a lot ( a lot ) about that time Swithin kissed him, and he’s hoping it happens again, and he’s thinking what if, what if I, what if I kissed him back -  

Then - 

He winds up at a bridge by a park, overlooking a bit of river he’s never seen before. He scrabbles with numb hands for his phone; it’s only at 6%. Right, he had the video chat with Simon, and he’s been walking out in the cold for who knows how long, and - 

He should open Google Maps. Figure out how to get home. 

He doesn’t do that. 

Swithin picks up on the first ring. 

SWITHIN 

“Gregory?” Swithin asks. 

They’re on a break right now from rehearsing for the Plan. Baz is keeping Mum occupied by helping her purge her wardrobe; probably, that means they’re getting bombed on mulled wine while they try on a bunch of her clothes. 

Sophie’s absorbed with hand-lettering lyrics on a big roll of butcher paper with a 6.0 mm Pilot Parallel pen, Tyr’s getting more shortbread from the kitchen, and Mordelia’s checking over her viola to make sure it’s tuned properly. 

Gregory isn’t saying anything, but Swithin can hear him over the phone, his breathing loud and shaky. 

“Gregory?” Swithin asks again. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know where I am,” Gregory says, sounding young and bewildered. 

Swithin’s never heard Gregory sound like that before. 

“Can you.” Swithin swallows, worry tightening his throat. “Can you drop a pin?”

“My phone’s almost dead,” Gregory says. His voice gets muffled, and Swithin thinks that he might be rubbing his hand over his face - Gregory does that sometimes, when he’s feeling overwhelmed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

“Okay,” Swithin says, trying to sound calmer than he feels. “Okay. Can you describe where you are?” 

Gregory tries. A bridge, the way the river looks, the name of of the side street, of the pound shop on the corner- 

“I’m at three percent,” Gregory says, and he coughs. “I should’ve worn a coat. Fuck me, I’m an idiot.” 

… Swithin is very, very worried. 

“I think I’ve got enough,” Swithin says, looking down at the notes he’d scrawled on a piece of butcher paper he’d torn off of Sophie’s roll, even though she squawked. “Just. Just stay there, and keep warm, and I’ll-”

“Thanks,” Gregory says. He still sounds strange. He still sounds lost. “You always know what to do." 

“Gregory,” Swithin says. His heart feels too big for his chest, all twisted up and lanced through with concern. “You should hang up. Save your battery.” 

“One percent,” Gregory says. “Swithin, I think I-” 

GREGORY 

Gregory stares at the screen of his dead mobile. 

It was worth it, he thinks, tucking it back into his pocket, trying to clap some warmth back into his hands. 

It was worth it, to hear Swithin’s voice. 

~

Cam pulls up in their mum’s lime-green Honda Fit, honking and scaring the life out of him. She swings open the car door and says, kindly, “Get in the car, you numpty.”

He does. The heater’s going full blast and she brought a knitted blanket from home, and his jacket. 

“How’d you find me?” he asks, when his teeth stop chattering. 

“Your pal Swithin got Baz to call Mum,” she says. “What were you thinking, you little gargoyle?” 

“I wasn’t,” Gregory says. “Thinking. I mean, I was thinking, about other stuff. Just got lost in thought, I suppose.” 

“Well,” she says, as they pull onto their street, “let your mate know that you made it home, okay? You must’ve worried him to death.” 

~ 

Cam marches him to the couch. Mum throws a jumper at his head, and piles three or four blankets on top of him. She makes a big pot of tea and plunks a lot of gingersnaps onto a tray. She finds a channel that’s streaming Cats Does Countdown, and sits next to him on the couch. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mum asks briskly. She’s not a cuddly person, but she’s a good sort.  

“I talked to Simon,” Gregory says. “It’s okay, I think. Just got some stuff to sort out.” 

She tousles his hair, and shoves a gingersnap into his hand. 

It smells like nutmeg. 

~ 

“Hey,” Gregory says, that night. He’s curled up in bed, under a heap of blankets, clutching a BB8 pillow into his chest. His phone’s plugged in and he’s finally thawed out. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m okay, really. Just had a bit of a freak out earlier.”

Swithin is quiet on the other end. For a moment, Gregory wonders if he’ll ask the same question as Mum - Do you want to talk about it? - but that isn’t really Swithin’s way. Swithin usually gets that if Gregory wants to talk about something he will, and that if he doesn’t, then he doesn’t. 

“I’m just.” Swithin breathes out, long and slow. “I’m glad you’re okay.” 

“I am now,” Gregory says. “Or, I will be.” Then, “Hey, four more sleeps.”

“There’s only three nights until Christmas.”

“Until Boxing Day, ” Gregory says. He’s going to get up at the arse crack of dawn on the 26th and stagger onto the first train to Oxford; he's already prepared to be wired and tired and hopped up on caffeine. “It’ll be good to see you," he adds, because it's true, and it feels easier to say that instead of, I want to see you or I’m scared to see you or I’m scared of how much I want to see you or Do you want to see me too? 

So Gregory adds, “And I want to see your board game collection.” 

He can hear Swithin’s smile over the phone. “I’ve clocked you.”

Gregory squeezes BB8 tighter. “Yeah?”

“You’re just coming over to steal my games.” 

And Gregory has to laugh, even though it’s not very funny, because he’s a bit hysterical and a bit lightheaded and more than a bit in love with Swithin Grimm. 

“Yeah,” Gregory says. “You’ve got me.”  

Chapter Text

BAZ

Swithin is pacing at the train station. 

When he paces, he moves his wrists back and forth, as if stretching out his tendons. He’s done it since he was little. Daphne got Swithin and Baz and Malcolm matching dark blue velvet housecoats one year for Christmas, and there’s a picture of Swithin pacing in the kitchen, a frown on his face, wearing his housecoat and looking like a little old man. All he needed was a pipe and a rolled up newspaper. 

“Gregory’s train should be here any minute,” Baz calls out, and Swithin jerks his head up. 

“I know,” he says. He doesn’t stop pacing. 

When Gregory finally tumbles off the train, hauling a green duffle and a large black plastic rubbish bag like some sort of discount Father Christmas, he calls out “Swithin!” and beams so vividly that Baz has to pull out his phone to take a picture for Simon. 

Gregory pulls Swithin into a hug as if they haven’t seen each other in a year. Baz can’t see Swithin’s face from this angle, but he imagines that his little brother is trying to keep a look of effusive joy from taking over his entire face. 

Simon texts back right away - he must be on a break from shooting. You Grimms and Grimm-Pitches tend to have that effect on people. Make a bloke happy just by walking into a room  

It makes something flutter around Baz’s throat. Simon’s flirting has only gotten more awful over the years, and yet that doesn’t stop it from being effective.

When Baz looks up from his phone, Swithin and Gregory are still standing there on the train platform, hugging. They’ve been hugging for - quite awhile, it seems. 

… Huh. 

Swithin eventually takes the black plastic bag from Gregory and hauls it over his own shoulder. His face is very pink, and Gregory is trotting beside him; Baz is surprised he can’t see Gregory’s tail wagging behind him. 

“Tyr was making gingerbread when we left,” Swithin says, shyly - maybe he’s a bit self-conscious after that hug. “It should be ready by the time we get back.”

“FUCK YEAH, FRESH GINGERBREAD!” Gregory says, because he only seems to have one volume. Simon may be adopted, but it’s very clear that he and Gregory are related in their enthusiasm for baking. 

Baz gets into the driver’s seat, and his phone connects to Bluetooth. The White Album picks up where they left off, “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” giving way to “I Will.” 

“I used to sing this to Swithin when he was a baby,”  Baz says, conversational, taking the familiar turns that will lead them back to the Grimm hunting lodge. “He had trouble sleeping unless someone picked him up and sang to him. It drove our parents mad.” 

He peeks at the backseat to see that Swithin is burying his face in his hands while Gregory looks alarmingly tearful. 

“That’s so fucking precious,” Gregory says, voice wobbly. “Are there - are there pictures of that?” He swallows. "Are there baby pictures of Swithin?" 

Swithin makes a sound remarkably like an offended goose.

Baz smirks. He’s usually not in the habit of torturing his younger siblings; that’s more Mordelia and Sophie’s game. But Gregory is looking at Baz as if the question is life or death, so Baz takes great satisfaction in saying, “Tons.”

GREGORY 

“Baz! ” Swithin hunches in his seat, mortified, and it’s adorable. (How long has Gregory thought that - that Swithin was adorable? It doesn’t feel like a new thought.) “If you don’t stop, I’ll - I’ll tell Simon-” 

Baz scoffs. “I’ve already ceded all my dignity when it comes to Simon. There’s nothing that you can use against me.”

Swithin’s face screws up, and he leans forward in his seat to whisper something in Baz’s ear. Baz’s face goes smooth and blank, a mask even more perfect than Swithin’s dropping into place. 

“Touche, little brother,” Baz says, pulling up into the driveway of the hunting lodge. 

“What did you say to him?” Gregory asks, fascinated. 

Swithin opens his mouth, then closes it again after glancing at Baz. “I’ll tell you later,” he says. “Much, much later.” 

SWITHIN 

When they get to the lodge, Gregory seems quieter than normal, and he clings more closely to Swithin - probably because he’s in a new place, around new people. 

It makes Swithin want to be tender with him, to take him by the hand and show him every corner of the lodge and the grounds, so that Gregory feels as comfortable here as he does back in their room at Mummers House. 

When Swithin shows Gregory his bedroom, Gregory brightens, dropping his duffle on the floor, and immediately zooming over to his bookshelves. 

“You have all the Hyperion books!” he says, his face shining, and Swithin feels this strange squeezing in his chest. He keeps thinking it’s impossible to like Gregory any more than he already does, and he keeps on being proven wrong. 

“Yeah,” he says, padding over, “and Ilium and Olympos too.” 

They end up sitting on the floor of Swithin’s room in front of the bookshelves, Gregory pulling out book after book so they can talk about them, and it’s everything that Swithin dreamed - Gregory, right here, in his space, looking around and fascinated by everything.

Then Sophie opens his door without knocking. 

“Sweets,” she says, “Mum says dinner is almost - oh!” She claps her hands together, looking delighted. Her hair is even madder than usual, her brown-dyed-blonde-dyed-pink hair sticking up in a pair of power buns tied off with pink spiral hair ties. “Is this him? Is this your roommate?” 

Swithin tenses, but Gregory pipes up, “Yeah, I’m Gregory. Are you Sophie?”

“The one and only,” she says, hand on her cocked hip, tilting her head at him as they get up from the floor. “For some reason, I thought you’d be taller.”

Gregory bristles, and Swithin says quickly, “What’s for dinner?”

“Maudie made roast chicken and veg before she went home for the day,” Sophie says, her eyes shifting back to him. “She very seriously took your instructions to make anything except for butter chicken,” and Swithin feels like sinking into the floor. 

“It was my own fault!” Gregory says hotly. “I shouldn’t have eaten food that was sitting out there for who knows how long, Swithin didn’t mean any harm by it-” 

Swithin has to stare down at his feet, because if he looks at Gregory now, Gregory will know - it will be all over his face, it will be so blindingly obvious how Swithin feels about him. 

Sophie cackles. “Well, c’mon, Gregorio. You’ll get first crack at the chicken, while it’s fresh out of the oven.” 

“Gregorio…?” 

Swithin grimaces. “She can’t help it. Giving people nicknames. It’s one of her… things.” 

“Simon is Cinnamon Roll, for obvious reasons,” Sophie calls over her shoulder. “And Swithin is Sweets, because he’s a sweetie.” 

… Swithin does love his sister. He really does. He has to remind himself of this, to keep himself from strangling her. 

“He’s a lot of other things too,” Gregory says indignantly. “He’s very cool, and very clever-” 

Sophie swings around, a manic grin on her face as she asks Swithin, “We’re keeping this one, right?” 

Yes, Swithin doesn't say out loud. 

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

So far, this is Gregory’s tier list of the Grimm family: 

S - Swithin, duh. The S is right there in his name. 

A - Baz and Daphne. Baz has always been solidly in the A Tier, and all around, he's a good egg. Daphne smiles at Gregory with genuine warmth, uses his real name when she addresses him, and keeps offering him second and third helpings of everything. 

B - Tyr. Gregory honestly doesn't know Tyr that well; Tyr had just offered Gregory a distracted smile and nod, then sat down to eat dinner. But they also made gingerbread, so Gregory has high hopes for Tyr climbing the ranks. 

C - Mordelia. She seems a little scary, and she's mostly just been tapping away at her phone while she eats one-handed. She’s wearing vampy blood-red lipstick that his sister Cam would probably admire; it’s spooky how none of it comes off while she’s eating or drinking.  

D - Sophie. The nickname “Gregorio” wasn’t too bad - she shortened it to “Gorio,” which reminds Gregory of Goro from Mortal Kombat - but she’s clearly a chaos demon in human form, because she keeps making fun of Gregory’s height and she likes to tease Swithin in a way that makes him squirm. Sophie needs to be contained.

(He’s still undecided about the ranking for Swithin’s dad, Malcolm.) 

After dinner, Gregory offers to help Tyr make tea and plate up gingerbread while the other Grimm siblings are clearing the dining room table. Tyr spoons loose leaf tea into a blue and white china teapot, and Gregory blurts out, "I like your shirt." It's dark blue with Desert Bus for Hope written in golden script. 

Tyr gives him a sideways look. Even though Tyr is solid and stocky where Swithin is slender and lanky, and Tyr's hair is a lot shorter than Swithin's, stuffed under a black stocking cap, there still seems to be something similar about Tyr and Swithin. It's in the guarded stiffness of their expressions - except Gregory knows Swithin well enough by now to know that Swithin's shy and often just figuring out what to say.  

“Thanks,” Tyr says, going back to the teapot. 

“Swithin and I stayed up all night watching Desert Bus for Hope and now I’m not allowed to drink Monster anymore,” Gregory says. “I  mean, I’m allowed but Swithin gives me really sad eyes whenever I drink one, so I don’t anymore.”

Tyr’s mouth twitches. “Sensible,” they say. And then, casually, as if it’s nothing, “One of my friends designed this shirt.”

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!” Gregory hears himself screech, and so of course he has to ask all about it. The smile on Tyr’s face grows steadier with every one of Gregory’s questions. 

“These are really cool, where did you get your cookie cutters?” Swithin asks, as he brings out the plate of gingerbread. He likes the ones that are shaped like Space Invaders, but he can spot, at a glance, ninjas, daleks, and TARDISes. 

“Online,” Tyr says. “I can show you, if you like.” 

“Oh?” Sophie asks, reaching for a biscuit shaped like Yoda and biting its head off. “Are you and Gorio best buds already? Don’t go making Sweets all jealous.”

Next to Gregory, Swithin chokes on his tea, and Gregory pounds him on the back to help him clear his throat. Then he pats Swithin’s back, in case he whacked him too hard. 

“Gregory has good tastes in video games,” Tyr says mildly. “And you’re getting crumbs on your new jumper.”   

Sophie brushes at her sweatshirt, which is tie-dyed in yellow, blue, and pink, and says BITCHES AIN’T SHIT in bright white font. “I’m just christening your Christmas present,” she says pertly. “You know it isn’t a piece of Sophie clothing unless it’s covered in food or drink.”

“OH,” Gregory says, remembering. “I’ve got Christmas presents for all of you!” 

He trots back to Swithin’s room, and digs up the stack of colouring books out of the black plastic bag. He presents them to the table, and Mordelia actually looks up from her phone. 

“Finally,” she says, grabbing the first colouring book. “Now it feels like Christmas. I’ll queue up Die Hard.” 

“ What?” Gregory asks. 

Baz looks fond and amused as he props his chin up one hand. “The first time I brought Simon here for Christmas,” he says, “he brought these materialistic heathens-” and he waves a lazy hand at his siblings, “-colouring books, even though I told him they were spoiled enough as it is. We also watched Die Hard, and Mordelia imprinted on it. It’s become a Christmas tradition ever since.”

“Doesn’t feel the same, doing this without Simon,” Tyr says wistfully. 

“Simon let me know you have explicit permission to colour and watch Die Hard without him,” Baz continues, “as long as you make sure to yell Yippee-ki-yay motherfu-” He pauses, looking at Daphne, who hides a smile behind her hand, “-to yell loud enough so he can hear you in Malta.” 

SWITHIN 

Another part of the Die Hard, Colour Hard tradition is apparently hot cider and kettle corn. Gregory practically leaps up from his chair, excited to help, so Swithin talks him through what to add to the cider: cinnamon sticks, cloves, a sliced and peeled orange. He gives Gregory a micro-planer and a whole nutmeg, and Gregory stands there at the kitchen counter, frozen. 

“Do you need help?” Swithin asks. “Have you ever used a zester before?”

“What?” Gregory asks, shaking his head while he clutches the nutmeg in one hand. “I mean, yeah, I can zest. Just a couple of little zippy zips, right?” 

Swithin also shows him one of Simon’s tricks - a solid chunk of butter, melted into the cider, pooling a delightful gold. “Like hot buttered rum!” Gregory says, and Swithin feels himself smiling and saying, “Exactly.” 

They’re standing close together, hunched over the cider. It's usually hard to tell the colour of Gregory's eyes, but this close up, Swithin can see, very clearly, that they're hazel, with little flecks of green. Gregory’s breath smells sweet, like the slice of orange that he snuck into his mouth when he thought Swithin wasn’t looking.

“All right, let’s get some actual rum in here,” Sophie says behind them, which makes Swithin stumble away. She shakes a bottle of Kraken at them. “Step aside, Sweets.”

Swithin eyes the bottle, mistrustful. “We’re underage.” 

“I asked Mum, she said it was fine if you and Gorio have a little drinky poo,” Sophie says dismissively, pouring a… a significant amount of rum into the cider. “After all, it’s the holidays.” 

Next, they have to make kettle corn. It’s easy enough, but it is gratifying how Gregory says, awed, “I’ve only made popcorn in the microwave before!” 

Swithin feels the back of his neck getting hot at the starry-eyed way that Gregory is looking at him. “It’s not difficult,” he mumbles, busying himself with re-checking the temperature of the oven for the fifth time. “We could probably make it at school. If Cook Pritchard let us use the kitchen.” 

“Wow,” Gregory says, fervent. “Okay, that settles it, we have to be roommates forever and ever.” 

When Gregory says it like that, it almost sounds like- 

“Yeah,” Swithin says. “All right.” 

Chapter Text

SWITHIN 

“I am NOT drunk,” Gregory announces, about twenty minutes into Die Hard.

“Sure Jan,” Mordelia says, not looking up from where she’s carefully drawing fishnet tights on Rudolph. 

“I’m really not. I can say big words and everything, like pulchritudinous.”

“What does that mean?” Tyr asks. 

“Extremely, mind-bogglingly beautiful,” Gregory says. He’s waving his arms, as if he really needs the arm gestures so that they’ll understand. “You know, like - like a unicorn. Or Swithin!” 

…. 

… 

… Swithin pokes at his own face. It feels like it’s gone numb. 

He’s suddenly very, very glad that didn’t have much of the cider himself, not after he sipped it and realised it was more rum than anything else. 

Sophie cackles. “Oh, you are absolutely not drunk,” she says to Gregory. “You’re just like, ice cold sober. So sober. The soberest.”

“Yes,” Gregory says, nodding so fast his glasses are slipping off his nose. “Yes, you understand, you get it. Also this popcorn must be salty I’m very thirsty for some reason-” 

Swithin bolts upright. “I’ll get you some water,” he says, and then he stands in front of the fridge like a coward while he tries to remember how to breathe. 

“HEY,” Gregory says, in a whisper-shout, because, okay. Apparently Gregory decided to follow Swithin into the kitchen, and that's fine, that's - fine, Swithin will just - 

- Try not to jump when Gregory presses his forehead into Swithin's back. When Gregory wraps his arms loosely around Swithin’s waist. 

“I’m really not drunk,” Gregory says, his voice muffled by Swithin's cardigan. “I know - I know a hat from a handsaw.” 

“It’s.” Swithin can feel a hysterical giggle bubbling up in his chest, and he has to breathe sharply through his nose to push it down. “It’s a hawk.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. I know a hack from a hand basket.” 

“Gregory, are you-?”

“Am I embarrassing you?”

… Oh.

“No,” Swithin says. “I mean. I get, I get - I get like this, but it’s not. No, you never embarrass me.” 

“Okay.” Gregory exhales hard, his hot breath landing square in the middle of Swithin’s shoulder blades, and it’s like being - struck. Like he’s a string that’s been plucked and he’s left there, reverberating. 

“Swithin?”

“Yeah?”

“.... I think Sophie got me drunk. Buzzed. Tipsy. You know. The thing. The thing with the drinking.” 

“Yeah,” Swithin says. “Yeah, I think she did. " He dares to pat one of Gregory's hands. "Let’s get you some water.” 

GREGORY 

“Oh my god.” Gregory’s crying, and he doesn’t care who knows it - or rather, he’ll care about it later on, when his heart isn’t being absolutely decimated. They’re taking an intermission between Die Hard and Die Hard 2, so Daphne had decided it was a great time to bring out the photo albums. 

Gregory is dead. Deceased. Done for. 

Because he is staring at a Grimm family Christmas picture from when Swithin was just a baby, with chubby cheeks and a mop of brown hair, held in a much younger Daphne’s arms. He’s dressed in a dark green onesie and a fucking bowtie. The bowtie is sparkly and silver and the whole thing is making Gregory's heart seize in his chest. 

“He just,” Gregory chokes, “he somehow looks SO BORED and yet SO SERIOUS?? He’s just a baby and yet his eyes look a HUNDRED YEARS OLD?? Why does this photo look like it was taken in the Victorian era? How is he so adorable?”  

Daphne beams. “I know!” she says. “Isn’t it marvellous?” 

SWITHIN 

Swithin wakes up.

He's not in bed. He's still in the den. The TV's off, everything's dark, and he feels curiously warm and drowsy. 

He can hear whispered arguing. If he squints, he can see silhouette of Tyr, arms crossed and blocking the doorway. Sophie and Mordelia are trying to peer over Tyr’s shoulder, into the den. 

“Just a little one,” Sophie is saying desperately, standing on tiptoe and waving her mobile. “For posterity. I won’t post it anywhere!”

“No,” Tyr says, not moving. “Absolutely not. You promised Baz.”

“We didn’t promise Baz,” Mordelia says, cool and scathing. “We made a devil’s bargain with him. And anyway, Agatha loves us - I’m sure she’d send us a signed shooting script even if Baz wasn’t dangling it in front of our noses for good behaviour.” 

“Leave. Them. Alone,” Tyr says. “Or I won’t make any more biscuits f or the rest of the break.” 

Sophie gasps in actual horror. “You wouldn’t! You need to feed people to live!”

“Try me,” Tyr says.

Mordelia sighs, sounding bored. “They’re not going to budge,” she says to Sophie. “Let’s suit up. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can be warm again.” 

Tyr heaves a sigh of relief then calls out, "Swithin?" 

“Yeah,” Swithin says, sitting up and realising that his shoulder is damp, because Gregory is… 

Gregory is… 

Gregory is… curled up against him. On the couch. Drooling on his shoulder. And someone's draped a blanket over the both of them. 

Gregory’s going to have an awful crick in his neck, and he’s warm, pressed into Swithin’s side, and he smells like - like caramel corn, and the sweetness of apple cider, and spices, and Christmas oranges. 

And Swithin is suddenly so grateful that Tyr scared Sophie and Mordelia away. 

“Mum and Baz are both asleep already,” Tyr says, their voice pitched low. “Join us when you’re ready, okay?” 

“Okay,” Swithin whispers, because he literally can’t remember any other word. His mind is split in two: one part is a blizzard of white noise, and another part is  hyper focused on the pressure and sensation of Gregory’s chest pushing against him as he breathes in and then out. “Okay.” 

GREGORY 

He wakes up from a dream where he’s wandering in the library of his old school, looking for a first edition of Dune written in crayon. He wants to give it to Swithin for his birthday, but every time he turns a corner, another corner of the library unfurls, like a labyrinth that just keeps expanding, unfurling, blossoming into eternity. 

When he blinks himself properly awake, he sees that Swithin is standing over him, biting his lip. 

“I’m heading outside to help decorate,” Swithin says. “You can go to bed, I-”

“No, no,” Gregory says groggily. Ye gods, his mouth feels nasty. “I’ve got to help with the Plan too.” 

Swithin holds out Gregory's orange puffer jacket so that he can shrug it on. He stumbles into his boots and he shoves on his blue hat, knitted by his Gram, but he can’t find his gloves, so Swithin lends him a pair - they’re made of leather that gleams like coffee beans, and they feel like kitten’s fur on the inside. 

He fishes his mobile out of his pocket so he can check the time; it’s half past midnight. But for a moment, he’s not sure if it is his phone, because he doesn’t recognise the picture on the lock screen. 

“Swithin?” Gregory asks, tugging at the edge of Swithin’s jacket. “Why is there a picture of a baby in a bowtie on my mobile?” 

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

By the time they make it outside, Mordelia and Sophie and Tyr have already started stringing lights through the trees that line the long driveway. 

“Oh good,” Sophie says, clapping her mittened hands together. “You two are the lightest, so you’re going up the ladders, hup hup.” 

Gregory finds himself perched on a ladder held by Mordelia, who has a cigarette perched between her red lips. Sophie hands him a green plastic bag filled with delicate, star-shaped paper lanterns, and shows him how to fit a lantern around one of the golden-white lights. Tiny pieces are cut out of each star lantern in intricate designs, the effect like candles through lacework. 

“I know,” Sophie says smugly. “I spent ages making these - the Plan would be impossible without me. I’m going to string more lights, holler if you need me.” 

Gregory’s gotten through at least three star lanterns before Mordelia says, “Hey. Thanks for listening to Swithin at dinner.” 

Gregory frowns, trying to untangle a light. “What d’you mean? Why wouldn’t I listen to him?”

Mordelia squints up at him, a disbelieving look on her face. “He talked about Pokemon for forty minutes without stopping for a breath.”

“There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to Nuzlocke runs!” 

Mordelia shrugs. “Anyway, thanks. It was good of you.”

He manages to untangle the light, and ends up shoving on the next star more haphazardly. He’s - he’s upset, and he’s not quite sure why. 

“Swithin’s not four years old,” Gregory says abruptly. “He doesn’t need his sister arranging a - a playdate, or anything. I like listening to him, he’s got loads of interesting things to say. I’m not just tolerating him, or humouring him, or  - whatever you think is going on.” 

Mordelia’s dark eyebrows draw together. “I didn’t mean to offend,” she says slowly, sounding almost - placating, rather than just haughty and elegant, which is how she usually sounds. “But we have… there are members of our family who never bothered to get to know Swithin the way you do. Who weren’t nearly as understanding.”  

“Who are these relatives? Can I murder them?”

Mordelia smiles. It’s not comforting. “One of them’s already dead.”

… Oh. 

SWITHIN

Swithin tries to concentrate on hanging star lanterns, but it’s hard when Gregory and Mordelia are talking just out of earshot. 

“They’re not,” Swithin says, then stops. “Mordelia wouldn’t say anything. Horrible. Would she?” 

“I was very firm with her and Sophie,” Tyr says. “They’ll behave.” 

“... Thank you. I really owe you.” 

“You do not,” Tyr says kindly, which is a blatant lie. Tyr introduced Swithin to DnD and Jonathan Coulton and xkcd; Swithin owes them an awful lot. “It’s just - it’s nice to see you like this. Happy.” 

“You too,” Swithin says, because it is good to see Tyr more comfortable with themselves, more confident, now that they’re not constantly being forced into a matched set with Sophie - something that Tyr and Sophie had both fought tooth and nail. Tyr feels so much more solid and present compared to when they were younger; they’re so much more themselves, with every passing year. 

“Did I tell you,” Tyr says thoughtfully, “what Sophie did after I went in for my first consult in the summer? For my top surgery?” 

“No,” Swithin says, but knowing Sophie, it could be anything. Literally, anything - an ice sculpture of Mario and Luigi, a maze made of balloons, a fountain filled with laundry detergent. 

Tyr smiles as they hand Swithin another star lantern. “She got me a sheet cake and had the bakery write TOP OF THE MORNING TO YOU on it. It was an afternoon in June. The baker was very confused.” 

… And Swithin has to smile at that. Yeah, he can absolutely see Sophie doing that. 

“I know she’s maddening,” Tyr says. “And not always good about boundaries. But I think in her own way, she’s rooting for you.” They pause. “For you and Gregory.” 

Swithin spends a long time putting up the next star lantern, getting the light within positioned just right. He doesn’t know what to say to that. It feels too big to hope for, too much to say out loud. 

“I am too,” Tyr says, gently. “I’m always rooting for you. And I do like him - your Gregory.” 

“He isn’t-” 

“He is,” Tyr says, firmer now. “I really think he is.” 

GREGORY 

“Simon got Baz to quit forever ago,” Gregory is saying. “He wouldn’t let Baz smoke around me at all.” 

“Yes, well Baz is whipped, isn’t he?” Mordelia says. “I don’t have a cute girlfriend to nag at me, so in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the nicotine.” 

“I’m serious. You should really stop smoking-”

“And you should really stop drinking,” she says sweetly. “If Tyr wasn’t such a tyrant, Sophie and I would have blackmail material on you for the next decade.” 

“Wha-” Gregory clutches at the ladder. “Wait. Wait wait wait. What does that - did I - what did I-”

“Star wench!” Mordelia calls out to Sophie. “We need more stars here!” 

~

By the time they’re finished, Gregory’s yawning his head off, shuffling after Swithin in the unfamiliar halls of the lodge. The second time he stumbles into Swithin’s back, Swithin says, “Here,” and he grabs Gregory’s hand. 

Gregory can feel his callouses; Swithin’s holding Gregory’s right hand with his left. Swithin’s hands are warm. They’re always warm, and surprisingly large. His hands are bigger than Gregory’s, but more careful, more precise. His handwriting is a mess, so he usually prints in neat block lettering with his fancy pens. Swithin’s hand eye coordination in first person shooters is through the roof, and Gregory doesn’t know if he’s ever thought of his own hands as much as he’s thought of Swithin’s. 

… He probably should’ve realised he was in love with Swithin a lot sooner. 

(He is never, ever going to tell Simon that.) 

“Did I do anything embarrassing when I was drunk?” Gregory asks, because why not jump from one embarrassing topic to another. “Mordelia said-”

“You cried a little,” Swithin says. “And then you passed out.” He pauses. “Mordelia was probably just trying to rile you up.” 

“Oh,” Gregory says. Something’s tickling his brain - Swithin, the kitchen, the waffle knit of his cardigan - but his brain feels slow and syrupy and he’s so sleepy. He’ll think about it in the morning. Or never. “All right.” 

The hunting lodge feels huge in the darkness. But Swithin’s leading him carefully by the hand, back to his bedroom, where they’re going to sleep. Together. In the same bed. 

“I missed sleeping with you,” Gregory blurts out, and Swithin’s hand tightens around his. “I mean - sleeping in the same room with you. I’m not used to sleeping alone anymore, without hearing someone else breathing. It’s weird, you know? Is it weird for you?”

In the darkness of the hallway, Gregory can’t see Swithin’s face. But he hears Swithin say, his voice soft as the snow outside, “I understand.” 

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

Gregory can’t sleep. 

Swithin’s got an actual four-poster bed. There’s alicorns carved into the bed posts, but they’re kind of scary-looking alicorns, with dragon-y wings. It’s a Choice. Gregory’s somehow so tired but also wide awake, and he can tell, from his breathing, that Swithin is awake too. 

“Do you remember that time we slept over at Simon and Baz’s flat?” Gregory asks, and Swithin makes a noise in his throat, like mm-hmm. It’s an ordinary human noise, but it feels different when it’s dark, and they’re in bed together in the same bed, draped under the same blanket and only inches apart; if Gregory shifted a little, he could rest his head on Swithin’s shoulder. “Not gonna lie, but even at that point, I was still kind of worried that you wanted to murder me.”

Swithin moves so he’s on his side, facing Gregory. “Why would you think that I wanted to murder you?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” Gregory says. “I thought - I thought you found me annoying. That you wished you had another roommate.”

 “… You know that’s not true.”

“I know it now, but I didn’t know it then, did I? I just, I never shut up, and you barely said a word to me. Even outside our room, I’d see you in the hallways or in class or in the dining hall, and you’d just - I’d see you see me, and you always looked away. Is it that weird that I thought you hated me? I know Fatima hates me, and she’s your best friend. She threatens to have me kidnapped, like, every other week.”

Swithin is quiet for a long time. 

And then he says, finally, “You were always with your friends.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” 

“You were always.” Swithin gestures. “With people. I’d. I’d think about saying hello, and the words just. They wouldn’t come out.” And he says, so low that Gregory almost doesn’t catch it, “… Sorry.”

“Oh my god,” Gregory says, mortified, “do not feel sorry for me being a tit, that’s on me. I should’ve - I dunno, we lived together for five years, you know? I should’ve figured out by then that you don’t feel comfortable around most people. I could’ve tried harder to get to know you, instead of just thinking that you were some kind of demon,” and OH SHIT HE DID NOT MEAN TO SAY THAT OUT LOUD.

Swithin raises his head. “What?”

Gregory squints up at the canopy of the four-poster. “Is there any chance,” he says, sounding calm but feeling desperate, “that you could pretend I’m still drunk, and I didn’t mean anything by that?”  

“No.” Swithin pokes his shoulder. “Explain.”

Gregory groans into the spare pillow he’s cuddling. Maybe if he sounds pathetic enough, Swithin’ll leave it alone and- 

“Gregory.” 

“Imayhavethoughtyouwereademon.” 

“… Why?”

Why indeed? What had he said to Simon, a lifetime ago? He never gets bedhead. He’s uncannily good at games. One time he played the cello and it was so beautiful it made me cry. 

Fuck, how long has he been gay for Swithin? 

“Dunno,” Gregory said. “Cause I’m stupid, I reckon.”

“You are not stupid,” Swithin says, surprisingly heated. “You’re one of the cleverest, most creative people I know.” 

“… Oh.”

“Yeah.” 

“… I think. Okay, I don’t know how much I thought you were an actual, literal demon. But it seemed easier to think that than - I dunno, how is this person so good at everything? How are they so perfect?” 

Swithin shifts, turning his face away. “I’m not-“ 

“I know. I know now, I know you better now.” 

He would argue that Swithin is actually more perfect than he originally thought - but in better ways, in different ways. Swithin is perfect as he is, and even as they grow up and change,  he knows that Swithin will just keep on being perfect, in that way that has nothing to do with success or performance or achievement and everything to do with being perfectly human - complicated, contradictory, persevering, endlessly kind. 

But if Gregory said any of that, he thinks Swithin might clam up and not speak to him for a week. 

“What did you think of me back then?” Gregory asks. “Before we went to the cinema with Simon and Baz? Did you think I was a total disaster? It won’t hurt my feelings if you say so - I know I’m a total disaster.”  

“I thought.” Swithin swallows. “I thought - I wish we were friends.”

… It’s fucking ridiculous, how much Gregory fancies him.

“Well,” Gregory says, blinking away tears, “we are now, aren’t we?” 

SWITHIN 

When Swithin wakes up, Gregory is cuddling his arm. 

Gregory sleeps hot. He’s kicked off half the covers, and he’s only wearing one sock. His hair is all sweaty, each cowlick more wild than the last. His face looks naked and vulnerable, without his glasses; it’s strange to see his familiar features relaxed in rest, instead of expressive, ever-changing. There’s a scar on his forehead, pale and crescent-shaped; Gregory told him that he ran into a doorway playing tag as a kid. His lips are chapped because he breathes through his mouth. He’s drooling. 

He’s wonderful. 

Gregory’s got one of Swithin’s arms wrapped in both of his, so Swithin’s wrist is flush against his chest. Swithin’s heartbeat is in his pulse. It’s pressed against Gregory’s heartbeat, in his chest, and it’s like they match. 

Swithin should move. He should extricate himself. He should pretend to be asleep. He should try to fall back asleep. 

(He doesn’t want to be asleep for this. He doesn’t want to miss a single moment.) 

What if Gregory wakes up? 

(What if he wakes up and he doesn’t mind?) 

There’s a knock at his door. 

“Swithin?” Mum calls, and Swithin sags with relief that it’s not Sophie or Mordelia. “There’s breakfast, whenever you boys are up.” 

“... Thanks. Be there in a bit.” 

Swithin tries to say it as quietly as possible, but Gregory still stirs, still blinks up at him. 

“Hey,” Gregory rasps. He sounds like the morning. He’s a mess, pillow creases on his cheek and sleep in his eyes, and he’s lovely. He’s so, so lovely. He’s everything that Swithin loves. 

“Hey,” Swithin says. 

Gregory blinks again, and seems to realise that he’s gripping Swithin’s arm, and he lets go, scrambling backwards on the bed. “Oh - shite, sorry, I-”

“It’s okay,” Swithin interrupts. He normally doesn’t like interrupting, but he can practically see the gears starting to spin in Gregory’s head, as if Gregory is poised at the very edge of a panic spiral. “It’s fine. It’s okay. Really.” 

Gregory fumbles around on the nightstand, and Swithin passes his glasses to him.

“Yeah?” Gregory says warily, shoving his glasses onto his face. “You weren’t,” he swallows, “uncomfortable?” 

Swithin’s arm is all prickles and stings. He’ll have to massage it properly, to get the blood flowing, before he can play the cello today. 

“I wasn’t,” Swithin says. 

Chapter Text

SWITHIN 

When Swithin enters the kitchen, Mordelia’s sitting at the island, drinking coffee. She’s already in full make up, writing in her journal with her stainless steel Lamy 2K (Swithin can admit he’s jealous; Baz promised to get him one as a graduation present). 

Swithin opens the fridge and then he finds himself just standing there, because he can’t see anything in his mind’s eye except that forehead scar, those pillow creases, those chapped lips. 

He has a full-body memory of standing here, only last night, with Gregory’s forehead pressed into his back. He thinks that he could be a hundred years old, and he’d still remember it - that shocked-sweet feeling, somewhere between floating and falling and being anchored in absolute warmth. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Mordelia asks. “Your face is doing a thing.” 

“What? Nothing’s wrong.” 

“Did you scare off your shadow?” Mordelia presses. “Did you touch his-” 

“Mordelia,” Baz says crisply, materialising in the doorway. “Time to practise - your bowing’s getting sloppy.” 

Mordelia neatly closes her journal, and flips Baz the bird. “You’re nicer when you’re getting dick,” she says. “See you in the music room in ten.” 

GREGORY 

At least it was just his arm, Gregory tells himself as he gnaws on his breakfast. Just Swithin’s arm. Just a bit of nice, platonic, friendly arm-cuddling. At least he didn’t like, smell Swithin’s hair (this time) or smoosh his face in his neck, or spoon him, or - 

Swithin looks up from his phone - he’s got a pleased look on his face, which probably means he got a good gacha pull in Genshin. “I didn’t get to give you your present yesterday,” he says.  

Gregory swallows a bite of his ham and egg croissant. “Oh, I - I got a gift for you too. I mean, I made it. But you have to let me give mine first, okay? Because it’s going to be crap, and it’s okay to laugh at it, and you don’t have to wear it, and-” 

Swithin smiles shyly, and there it is, that perfect little gap in his front teeth, like a keyhole in a garden door. “Okay.”  

Gregory fetches Swithin’s present, which he’d wrapped like a Christmas cracker, with red ribbon at each end; Cam had helped him curl the ribbons with a pair of scissors. Swithin runs his fingers over the wrapping paper, which features AT-ATs draped in Christmas lights. “Cool,” he says, sliding a fingernail carefully under one piece of tape.

“I’ll-” Gregory is torn between hovering so he can soak in every moment of Swithin opening this present, and  tearing out the door so he can throw himself headfirst into the snow, “maybe I should just go and-”

The wrapping paper flutters to the floor, and Swithin lifts up the scarf. 

Gregory made it over the winter break, under Gram’s amused tutelage. It’s in the colours of House Atreides from Dune , with thick stripes of black and green, an angular red hawk worked into one corner, and ragged black and green fringes at each end. 

Swithin is silent, holding the scarf in his hands as if it’s a piece of the Rosetta stone. As if it’ll unriddle its secrets and speak to him. 

“I know it’s rubbish,” Gregory hears himself babbling. “I kept dropping stitches, Gram couldn’t stop laughing at me. I was having an Airbender marathon with Cam when I did a lot of it, and I definitely got distracted during the episode with the, the Secret Tunnel, it’s one of my favourites, and I cannot emphasise how much you absolutely do not have to wear it, in private or in public or anywhere, ever-” 

Swithin loops the scarf around his neck. He says, simply, “This is my favourite scarf.” 

~ 

Mordelia and Baz have cleared out of the music room by the time that Swithin and Gregory enter. Gregory feels like the top of his head has blown off; there’s no way that Swithin likes that scarf as much as he says he does, but he hasn’t. Taken. It. Off. 

“Have a seat,” Swithin says, polite, gesturing to a few squishy armchairs at one end of the music room. There are three or four thick carpets underneath, and lots of instruments crammed in the music, including  a piano and harp, and plants lining the windows. 

Swithin drags out a chair. He takes off his maroon hoodie and drapes it over one of the other armchairs, but he doesn’t take off the scarf. He rolls up the sleeves of his white button down and oh no. Oh no, Gregory is feeling sensations at the sight of Swithin’s bare forearms, the, the muscles, the tendons, the vulnerable skin- 

Swithin sits down, his cello gleaming blood-red against his dark jeans. 

“This piece doesn’t have a name,” Swithin says, “but I wrote it for you.” 

He. What. 

He. 

He - 

…. Is he TRYING to murder Gregory? 

SWITHIN  

The piece comes out well. He’s over-practiced it, the muscle memory sunk deep. Now that he’s actually playing it for Gregory, he feels weirdly calm, as if he’s transcended anxiety and reached some kind of cloud kingdom where the music flows out of him. 

He can still feel everything that went into the composition, but it comes to him, this time, as images, sensations: the burst of a freshly peeled orange in the air. The rhythm of a chest rising and falling, the shift of green flecks in hazel. The dark heady sweetness of rum, and the sharp edge of paper starlight. The texture of green and black and red threads, knit together and lying against Swithin’s skin, keeping him warm. 

You can want this, his cello sings. You already want this. And it’s beautiful. 

There’s a ringing silence after he’s done. 

He looks up, and - Gregory’s not sitting in the armchair anymore.

Gregory’s standing in front of him. There are tears shining on his face, and his eyes are brighter than Swithin’s ever seen. 

“Swithin,” Gregory says, and he swallows Swithin up in a hug. Swithin pats him back gingerly, his bow still gripped in one hand. 

They hold each other like that, for a very long time.  

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

He can’t stop clinging to Swithin. 

If Gregory lets go - if he takes a step back - if he lets himself look at Swithin’s face - he’s going to do something completely mental, like attack Swithin with his mouth. 

And then it’ll be like the Incident with the Mistletoe; Swithin will freeze up in his arms and walk away, his whole face shutting down. Gregory doesn’t ever want to make Swithin look that way. 

But Swithin wrote a song for him. And it makes him want to cry and it makes him want to laugh, as if Swithin made up a whole new language that’s only meant for the two of them to speak. 

Does Swithin like him? 

Gregory had spent so long after the Incident with the Mistletoe thinking about what it meant for him; who he was and who he liked and what it meant if he wanted to kiss Swithin back. 

But it’s only right now, when he’s holding onto Swithin like a lifeline, his face buried in the House Atreides scarf (that Swithin is still wearing, Jesus fucking Christ), that he wonders what it means that Swithin kissed him. 

Swithin kissed him, Swithin wrote a song for him, Swithin invited him over for the winter holidays and introduced him to his family. Swithin held his hand to lead him through the dark hallways and Swithin said it was fine when Gregory woke up cuddling his arm. Swithin said that Gregory never embarasses him. Swithin never seems to mind when Gregory can’t shut up, the words barrelling out of his mouth faster before he can process them. Swithin bought Jelly Babies that time at the cinema, before they were even properly friends; maybe he knew, back then, that Gregory liked them. Maybe he’d been paying attention to Gregory the way that Gregory had been paying attention to him, without realising it. 

If he likes Swithin - and Swithin likes him - 

But life doesn’t work that way, does it? That neatly, that… serendipitously. 

“Swithin?” Tyr’s voice is quiet from the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt - Mum’s asking for your help with lunch.” 

Gregory forces himself to unlatch. He has to look at his feet, because he still can’t look at Swithin; his face, his arms, all of his skin is burning up, a blaze of sun in the middle of winter. 

“Okay,” Swithin says. His voice sounds scratchier than normal; he clears his throat. "Okay." 

SWITHIN 

He’s helping Mum put together lunch, but his head and his limbs all feel slow and light, drifting half a step behind. 

Across the kitchen, Baz is trying to teach Gregory how to use the mandolin to slice potatoes; it looks like Gregory is arguing with him and stabbing at the air with his fingers. 

“Pass me the Nigella, will you darling?” Mum asks, and Swithin reaches up to get Nigella Christmas from one of the taller shelves. A picture flutters from its pages, and he grabs it - it’s of Swithin when he’s three or four, and his father. 

Swithin’s on top of a grey horse, and he’s dressed in a pair of maroon dungarees that he thinks he recognises from some of Baz’s baby pictures. He looks serious and scared, gripping the reins tightly in chubby fists. His father is patting the horse on the head, facing away from the camera, and looking up at Swithin. 

Mum comes up behind him, and hooks her chin on his shoulder to look at the photograph. 

“That was the first time you rode a horse,” Mum says. “You refused to go near it all afternoon, until your dad coaxed you with caramel fudge.” 

Swithin touches the edges of the photo, trying to find any trace of himself in the sharp planes of his father’s face, in the cut or the angle of his ivory hair. He takes after his mother, like all them do, except for Baz, who takes after his mother. Swithin wonders if his hair will go white early; Mordelia’s proud of the silver strands already creeping into her dark hair, because she idolises Baz’s Aunt Fiona to a worrying degree. 

“Do you think,” Swithin asks, slowly, “do you think if Dad. If he knew me now, do you think he would-” 

Do you think he would hate me? Do you think he would hate who I am? 

There are things that happened when Swithin was younger that he’s only starting to understand now, especially after talking more with Baz and Mum. He understands why Dad tried to push him into cars and sports and hunting, though Swithin never took to football or antique cars the way that Baz did. He has more of an inkling, now, as to why his father was so harsh, so impatient, whenever Swithin cried.

When Swithin was seven, he stumbled over a poem he had to memorise for school, “The Jabberwocky.” Twas brillig and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe… He knew it all off by heart, but as soon as he had to recite it in front of anyone, the words stuck in his throat. 

“What is so difficult about this?” his father had asked. “When Baz was your age-” and then he cut himself off. 

Everything’s so much clearer now, in hindsight. His father saw Baz’s queerness as some kind of failure on his part; he tried to make things right (make things straight) with Swithin. 

And then Swithin turned out to be like Baz anyway. 

Maybe it’s some sort of blessing, that his father passed away before Swithin figured that out about himself. Before Swithin broke his heart. 

“My love,” Mum says, squeezing his arm. “I never, ever doubted that your father loved you. He was a good man - but he was wrong about an awful lot of things. If he were alive right now, I think you and your siblings would’ve kept teaching him new things, every single day.” 

“Especially Sophie,” Swithin can’t help himself from saying, because if anyone can go off on a good rant about gender variance and sexual diversity, it’s Sophie. 

“Especially Sophie,” Mum agrees. “I hope he would’ve been proud of you,” and she squeezes his arm again, the smile on her face so hopeful, so golden, so filled with love. “I know that I am.”  

GREGORY 

“I didn’t," Gregory says, aghast. Baz didn’t end up trusting him with the mandolin, so now Gregory’s gathering up potato peelings.  

“You really did,” Baz says, neatly scalloping potatoes at a worrying speed. “You called him pulchritudinous, and then you compared him to a unicorn.” 

“No." 

“And then you cried over his baby photos,” Baz continues, calm and merciless. “You insisted on taking pictures of the pictures, even though Daphne promised to share her Dropbox with you. You kept clutching the album to your chest and you wouldn’t let anyone take it from you - you insisted that you were the only one properly equipped to protect Baby Swithin.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck."   

“It’s fine,” Baz says, dismissively. “I think you won over Daphne. She managed to pry the album from you after you passed out.” 

“Did you,” Swithin swallows, “did you tell Simon?”

Baz pauses, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I might have given him the Coles’ Notes version,” he admits.  

Gregory howls.

SWITHIN 

They gather Mum in the music room at lunch for the Plan: Phase 1. Sophie and Tyr have been busy, putting up the last of the pine boughs and the candles and the star lanterns, so the whole place is aglow. 

Gregory’s in charge of bringing in Daphne at the last minute; he brings her into the music room, and Swithin finds himself living for the moment when Gregory’s eyes widen, taking in the transformed room. 

They’re all poised and ready - Swithin at the cello, Baz on first violin, Tyr on second violin, Mordelia with her viola. And Sophie’s got her giant butcher paper lyric roll contraption set up, ready to hoist away. 

“Happy birthday, Mum,” Swithin says, and they launch into “In My Life.” 

His mind drifts while he’s playing. He’s thinking of his father, how this was one of his favourite songs, which is why they’d chosen it for Mum. He wonders if Baz feels any bitterness, on his mother’s behalf, over the lines scrolling past on butcher paper: In my life, I love you more. 

He chances a glance up, and Gregory is staring at him. After Swithin played that song for him this morning, Gregory’s been awkward - dropping things, not quite looking at Swithin. 

But now Gregory’s meeting his eyes, and he’s not looking away. There’s a dark flush burned into his cheeks. 

And suddenly, Swithin thinks - it doesn’t matter what his father would have thought. He wouldn’t trade a single iota of parental approval for what he feels right now, with Gregory’s eyes on him, with Swithin’s cello telling him the things that he can never say out loud. 

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them

In my life, I love you more

In my life, I love you more 

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

Daphne cries and beams and hugs everybody, even Gregory. She holds onto him after and whispers in his ear, “Thank you for making Swithin so happy.”

Gregory sputters something absolutely incoherent, but Daphne just gives him one more beam and goes off to coo over the nibbles that Tyr’s wheeling into the music room: bubbly Christmas punch with oranges and pomegranates and cranberries, crunchy parmesan bread twists, flaky golden triangles of spanakopita. And Tyr made a magnificent buttercrunch toffee cake, four layers high and decorated with a simple spray of laurel leaves. 

Gregory looks over to see Swithin talking with Baz. Swithin is smiling, brushing his hair out of his eyes, and oh. Oh, that feeling of wanting to kiss him hasn’t gone away - if anything, it’s gotten even stronger.

All right, so: he might be a bit gay for Swithin playing the cello. Or Swithin doing anything well. Or Swithin doing anything. Or just, y'know. Swithin. 

Swithin comes over for some punch and touches Gregory’s elbow. "Everything okay?” he asks, and Gregory realises he's been clutching a glass of punch and staring fixedly at a spot in the wall. 

“Yeah, ‘m grand,” Gregory says. “That was, uh. That was some good cello-ing on your part. Very good." 

Then he shoves some spanakopita into his mouth, hoping that it’ll prevent him from saying anything embarrassing, like I think I’m in love with you, and that I have been for a stupidly long time.

~ 

They break out video games in the den. Tyr introduced Sophie to Unpacking, and she's being chaotic evil by cramming as many action figures as she can onto the bed; it makes Gregory’s fingers twitch to snatch the controller out of her hands and re-arrange all the books on the shelves. 

“Come on,” Swithin says, nudging him, “let’s check the farm.” 

They’re sitting together on the couch, sharing a dark green blanket. The side of Swithin’s leg is pressed against Gregory’s and his brain keeps going, Is this cuddling? Are we cuddling right now?  

Swithin’s joggers are dark grey and soft; Gregory knows that Swithin can’t focus if any of his clothes are scratchy or tight. Swithin once told him that he had to wear a wool sweater when he was four, and all he could say was, “It’s too spicy.” Gregory had spent ages at the craft store agonising over different yarns for the Atreides scarf, trying to find the softest ones, while Cam brought armfuls of DMC threads to make rude cross-stitches full of swears. 

Their farm in Stardew Valley - Mummers Farm - is well and thriving. They’ve got a grey cat named Jorbs and a cave full of mushrooms. They got married in their third autumn, after they cleared the Community Centre, and now they’ve started up a farm on Ginger Island. Swithin placed one of the twin beds, covered in palm leaves, right by the door, so they could squish into bed together in the last ten minutes of the day, at 1:50 am. 

Gregory forces his attention away from the warmth of Swithin’s knee pressed into his, and settles into his usual morning routine, harvesting dancing stalks of ginger and panning for ore in the river by the boneyard.  

“Oh my GOD!” Gregory yells, jumping up and jostling Swithin. “I got a Lucky Ring!” 

“Really?” A smile lights up Swithin’s face, leaving Gregory temporarily gobsmacked. “That’s brilliant! Are you going to combine it with one of your Iridium Bands?”

“I could, we’ve got enough cinder shards saved up-” And then he has a better idea. “You should combine it with your Wedding Ring!” 

It’s Swithin’s turn to look stunned. “But… you’re the one who found it, you-” 

“I’ve already got two combined rings equipped,” Gregory says reasonably (an Iridium Band and a Glowstone, and another Iridium Band and a Java Ring, so he can keep chugging the good bean juice that makes him go fast). “Your Wedding Ring’s got no buffs, so at least this way you’ll get a luck boost. I’ll pop it into the Junimo Chest for you!”

“Gregory,” Swithin says. He’s biting his bottom lip, worrying at it, which makes it redder than usual. It’s. Distracting. Distracting from what, Gregory isn't sure. Just. Distracting. “I-”

“Hold up,” Sophie says, pausing Unpacking to twist around and look at them. “Sweets, are you telling me that you and Gorio are married in Stardew Valley?” 

“It was quicker for us to marry each other than to get to 13 hearts with NPCs!” Gregory squawks. "It was just for the stardrop!" 

It was purely a pragmatic decision, even though, okay, yes, he did hang onto the Wedding Ring and time the proposal so that they got married on Autumn 1, because Swithin likes the music from autumn the best. And okay, Gregory did wear a Red Tuxedo to their wedding while Swithin wore a Navy Tuxedo, but only because it was like, funny - 

“I’m sure it was,” Sophie leers. “And you’re honeymooning on an island just for funsies, and-” 

“Sophie,” Swithin says calmly, “shut up. You’re just jealous that you weren’t invited to our wedding.” 

Sophie makes a sound like an enraged howler monkey, and Gregory can’t help it - he doubles over laughing until he’s clutching at Swithin’s shoulder, and burying his face in his scarf. 

~ 

Daphne's the birthday tyrant, so she gets to pick that night's film, Love Actually. Swithin's said he's been forced to see it loads of times, so he's mostly tuning it out while he plays The Bridge on his Switch, but Gregory’s never seen it before, so he has to keep tugging on the sleeve of Swithin's cardigan and asking questions like, “What’s up with that creepy old Santa dude? Is he a porno actor?” and “What is Qui Gon-Jin doing in this movie?” 

Daphne and Baz are toasting each other with Christmas punch to which they've added white rum, Tyr and Sophie are eating leftover cake while colouring, and Mordelia’s brought out a small fraction of her expansive collection of sheet masks. 

“These were picked at random,” Mordelia says, handing Swithin a sheet mask that looks like a unicorn while Gregory gets a mask that looks like one of those Japanese dolls with the blacked out eyes, a daruma. 

“This doesn’t feel random,” Gregory says, as Mordelia gives Baz a blue owl sheet mask and puts aside a green dragon one for Simon.  

“You’re imagining things,” she says briskly, tearing open her own apricot poodle sheet mask. 

Gregory has trouble even just unfolding the goopy white sheet mask, so Swithin helps him put it on. Swithin's fingers seem to linger for a long while on Gregory's face, smoothing out the cool, wet edges of the mask over his forehead, his cheek, his jaw. 

"That's - that's probably good, yeah?" Gregory asks, trying to move his mouth as little as possible when he speaks, so as not to disturb the mask. 

"Hmm?" Swithin says. "Oh, yeah." And then he pulls out his mobile to take a picture. "It suits you." 

“When can I take this off?” Gregory asks, hoping that the answer is as soon as possible. 

“When your skin feels hydrated and glowing,” Mordelia orders. 

“So, never?” 

“Fifteen minutes,” Swithin says, setting a timer on his mobile. He, of course, looks fucking adorable in his sheet mask. And Mordelia just had to pick a fucking unicorn for Swithin. It's pink with a purple mane and a golden horn. A UNICORN. It's like Mordelia is trying to ruin Gregory's life, and succeeding, and she's not even Gregory's sister. 

Mordelia comes over to supervise Gregory when he takes off his mask, because she clearly doesn’t trust him. She tuts and says, “Your lips are in horrid condition - here.” And before Gregory can protest, she's smearing some kind of thick, gritty balm that smells like peppermint and cocoa over his mouth. 

“Whaf if fis,” Gregory says, muffled. 

“Sugar and jojoba oil lip scrub,” she says. “Just rub it over your lips for a minute, then lick away the extra."

Gregory sticks out his tongue to taste the sugar scrub; it melts on his tongue. "It tastes like Mint Aero bars," he says, surprised. 

Next to him, Swithin makes a tiny, indescribable noise. "I'm going to get more popcorn," he says, before he practically teleports to the kitchen. 

SWITHIN

“You are a Bad Person,” Swithin says. He’s in the kitchen with Mordelia, re-stocking a massive stainless steel bowl with truffle popcorn while she mixes up a rum-and-punch for herself. His earlier tartness with Sophie has abandoned him completely, his mind lost in one of those shaken up snow globe confetti storms, thinking about Gregory licking his lips, and that smell, like chocolate and Christmas, like- 

 “Don’t blame me for giving your boyfriend kissable lips,” Mordelia says, rolling her eyes. “Also, you’re welcome.”

Chapter Text

GREGORY

On New Year’s Eve, Gregory is understandably twitchy. 

Like, why does there have to be an entire day that culminates in kissing somebody at midnight? Who thought that was a good idea? There are loads of folks who don’t want to kiss anybody and that’s totally cool and fine. Or there are other people who, like, don’t want to jeopardise their entire relationship with their best friend just because they’ve gotten a wee bit obsessed with the idea of mashing their faces together. It’s just. It’s such a rude holiday.

Sometimes Gregory worries that he’s thinking so loud that Swithin will be sure to catch onto how weird and creepy Gregory is being. But Swithin seems like his normal self, like he can’t hear any of Gregory’s mind creepiness - although lately, he does seem to keep touching Gregory a lot. Gregory isn’t quite sure whether Swithin has become more physically affectionate recently, or whether he’s just more aware of it, post-Realisation. None of which is helping Gregory’s brain, which is caught in a hamster wheel of what if I what if I what if I - 

It’s still a good day because honestly, any day that he gets to hang out with Swithin is a good day, but it’s damned difficult to focus.

Sophie insisted on dragging them all outside to make snowpeople, and Gregory’s thinking about how nice this all is, mucking about in the snow and knowing that they’ll go in afterwards and have hot tea or cocoa and steal a bite of whatever Tyr’s experimenting with in the kitchen. Swithin will probably drop a blanket over Gregory’s head and, if Gregory lies and says he can’t find his Grogu jumper anywhere, Swithin will probably lend him one of his comfy, drapey cardigans that doesn’t have any annoying buttons. 

But it would also be nice to hang out Swithin when it’s warm outside, when there’s sunlight and green things and they can run around - well, maybe Gregory will run around, while Swithin paces or ambles. 

“Do you want to visit my house in the summer?” Gregory hears himself ask. 

Swithin pauses next to him from where he’s been making a snow angel, his gloved fingertips almost brushing Gregory’s. (Gregory tried to give back the gloves that Swithin loaned him, but Swithin refused to take them back.)

“There’s a really good board game shop near my house,” Gregory says. “That’s where I play Friday Night Magic. And there’s a pool nearby too, we could go swimming, and-” Oh, oh god, that means that he might see Swithin with his shirt off, Jesus fucking - “and there’s a fancy ice cream shop too,” Gregory hurries along. “And Film & Comic Con’s in July, and you said you’d never been, we could-” 

“Yes,” Swithin says. 

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Swithin says again. There’s snow falling now, and snowflakes in his dark hair and his dark scarf and caught in his eyelashes; when he blinks, it’s like the snowflakes turn to raindrops on his skin. 

“We could also go to that - that secondhand book shop I mentioned, the one where my sister works in the summer-”

“Gregory.” Swithin catches Gregory’s gloved hand with his own. And he says, gently, “I already said yes.” 

“Yeah,” Gregory says, trying to pretend he isn’t grinning like a fiend. “Right. Cool. Yes.”

~

Maudie from the village comes over and makes Beef Wellington for supper; Gregory takes about a million pictures and sends them to Simon. There’s also roasted beets and lemon asparagus spears and rosemary fingerling potatoes, but he doesn’t think those will make Simon stew in jealousy as much. 

All the olds are drinking champagne already because Daphne said there was no point waiting until midnight to start having fun. Gregory is sticking to sparkling apple juice no matter how Sophie tries to coax him, thank you very much. 

They’re watching Big Fat Quiz of the Year and Gregory is torn because he loves the Big Fat Quiz of the Year, but also he can’t. Sit. Still. He keeps checking his phone for updates, until Swithin closes his hands over his - Gregory squeaks and then immediately tries to backpedal and turn it into a cough - and Swithin says, “He’ll let us know.”

“I know,” Gregory says, “but what if-” 

There’s so many What ifs there, and they have almost nothing to do with the Plan. Phase 2 of the Plan should be big enough to keep his brain occupied while he tries not to think about kissing Swithin, but stray thoughts keep shooting out: What if I kiss him and he kisses me back, what if I kiss him and he doesn’t kiss me back, what if he kisses me back to be polite but it’s so awkward and he doesn’t ever look at me again, what if I’m terrible at kissing and Swithin is too nice to tell me, what if I -

Gregory’s mobile buzzes beneath their hands. He checks it, and-

“Lord, thank you,” he breathes, and then he types into the secret group chat, SOUR CHERRY SCONES!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! 

“Baz darling,” Daphne says, on cue, “I got invited to a fancy dress party and I’m having trouble figuring out how I should alter my gown. Can I get your opinion?” 

Baz rises to his feet with the same kind of grace as Swithin, even though Gregory’s sure that Baz has had at least three flutes of champagne. 

As soon as Daphne’s spirited Baz away, they all hustle like it’s a fire drill, pulling on their winter gear and ferrying the instruments and sheet music and stands outside. 

Gregory sprints back to Swithin’s room to dig out the bouquet of Mint Aero bars from the bottom of his black plastic rubbish bag. He’s pretty proud of how the bouquet turned out, even though Sophie scoffed and said she could do better. Gregory even tied off the bouquet with purple and green ribbons and everything.

By the time he runs back outside, the Grimm siblings have their gear set up, and the star lanterns are lit up in the trees. 

And there’s Simon. 

His hair is longer than Gregory’s ever seen it, spilling in big fat bronze curls over his collar, and he's huddled in a big black marshmallowy parka, stamping snow-covered boots. 

“Finally!” Gregory says, flying over to him, shoving the chocolate bar bouquet into Simon's hands. “I thought you were going to miss the countdown and that we were going to have to make some excuse to drag Baz out of bed, at like three in the morning-” 

Simon grins crookedly. “If my flight got delayed any more, you would’ve thought of something,” Simon says, reaching over to dislodge Gregory’s blue knitted cap and ruffle his hair, even though Gregory tries to bat his hand away. “You’re a resourceful lad.” Simon shifts to squint over at the Siblings Grimm; his glasses are fogging up, so he takes them off and wipes them with his fingers. “Things going all right with you and Swithin then?” 

“What did Baz tell you?” Gregory says, instantly on the defensive. 

Simon’s tanned such a dark gold that when he grins, his teeth flash, like he’s a model in a tooth-whitening commercial. “Something about a baby photo and how you’ve sworn off rum forever?”

Gregory scowls. He wants to call Baz a traitor but honestly he’s been a lamb compared to Sophie and Mordelia. 

“Hey,” Gregory asks, because now that he’s thought a thought, he can’t stuff the words back into his mouth, “you and Baz - who kissed who first?” 

Simon blinks. His glasses have fogged up again. “Do you know,” he muses, “I can’t remember? It all happened really quickly. One moment Baz seduced me with some scones and the next-” 

“Thank you, don’t say another word, you’re cancelled forever,” Gregory says, already jogging back to where Swithin and his siblings are warming up. But he does take a minute to turn back and holler at Simon, “Don’t screw this up!”  

~ 

“What,” Baz says, stepping out of the house, in his dark winter coat and a wine-red scarf, “on earth is going on-” 

And then he sees Simon. 

Swithin dips his head in a nod, and he and Tyr and Sophie start playing “Into My Arms” - the first song, Swithin said, that Simon and Baz ever danced to. 

Baz takes one step down the driveway towards Simon, and then another. He seems - dazed. His strides lengthen, as if he’s just walking down a sidewalk, as if it’s just another day - and then he runs. 

Gregory still remembers the first time that Swithin played “Into My Arms” back in their room at school, early in December, back when Simon first approached them with the beginnings of the Plan. Gregory had laid on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and hugging his pillow, and he’d felt this ache in his chest that wouldn’t go away for days. 

He’d looked across the room to see Swithin sitting on his bed, his eyes closed and his head tipped back, just listening to the song with his whole body, and that ache just deepened, like some kind of bruise that was flame-blue at the centre and gold at the edges, and back then - back then, Gregory hadn’t understand why. 

He understands now. 

Baz reaches Simon, and they’re - grabbing at each other, and talking to each other, but they’re too far away to hear over the music.  

Then Simon gets down on one knee. 

But then Baz digs his hands into his own hair, a caricature of frustration, and - 

Swithin breaks off from the song. “Baz!” he calls out. It’s the loudest Gregory’s ever heard him. 

Baz turns, distracted, and Swithin tosses something at him in a beautiful, overhead arc. 

Baz catches it easily in one hand. 

And then he gets down on one knee.  

“Oh my god,” Gregory whispers. He realises he’s clutching at his face, and latches onto Swithin’s arm instead. “Did you - was there a secret Phase 3? Swithin, did you make a Plan within the Plan within the Plan?” 

Phase 1 had been Daphne’s birthday present. It’s been Swithin’s idea to break it down into phases, to loop Baz into the first phase so he wouldn’t think anything of them hauling around their instruments or hanging up paper lanterns.

This is Phase 2 now, the real heart of it, but if Swithin just fucking Inception’d this proposal - 

Swithin’s not just smiling; he’s full out grinning.

“Baz has been carrying that around in his coat pocket since Simon left for Malta,” Swithin says. “That’s what I had over him. What I couldn’t tell you before.”

“Oh my god,” is all Gregory can say, over and over again, “oh my god.”

Baz and Simon have stopped being silly and are no longer kneeling in the snow. Now they’re standing up, snow on their trousers, and kissing each other, hands on each other’s faces, surrounded by the light of hundreds of star-shaped lanterns. 

And it makes Gregory’s chest ache and glow again, that blue-gold turning to cherry red, a fire breathed into life just beneath his breastbone. 

He wants that, he realises. Whatever it is that Simon and Baz have - that makes them run towards each other - come home to each other - kneel in the snow together, like a pair of numpties - make promises that are huge and impossible to keep, and then spend their whole lives trying to keep those promises anyway. 

Gregory wants it all. And he knows exactly who he wants it with. 

“Swithin,” Gregory says, tugging at his Atreides scarf.

“Yeah?” Swithin says, turning towards Gregory, the way he always does. 

Gregory tugs him closer. Presses in so they’re toe to toe. And he reaches up, and brushes his mouth against that perfect, tiny heart just beneath Swithin’s eye, the heart that feels like it was painted there just for him. 

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

Simon and the Grimms are all drinking champagne in the kitchen and talking over each other. They missed the countdown, but it doesn’t seem to matter - everything’s still golden, confetti, champagne corks, lots of hugging, and Gregory’s not taking in any of it. 

Daphne is pressing a keycard into Baz’s hands, insistent. “It’s all arranged,” she says. “John’s already got the room ready at the B&B for the two of you - I let him know you’d be in late.” 

“It’s an engagement present from all of us,” Sophie pipes up. “So we don’t have to hear the two of you-” 

“Thanks, Mum,” Baz cuts in, but it’s clear that he’s too ecstatic to be truly annoyed at Sophie. He’s got an arm wrapped around Simon’s waist, and he hasn’t let go yet; Simon doesn’t seem to mind, if the way he keeps touching Baz’s hair is any indication. Christ, they’ve only been engaged for like five minutes and they’re already making Gregory want to claw his face off; their wedding is going to be a special kind of hell. 

Swithin’s been quiet this whole time, that earlier grin wiped off of his face. Ever since Gregory - since he - 

“I think I’ll turn in,” Swithin says. “Congratulations, again.” 

~ 

Gregory shuffles behind Swithin, and wishes that he had a pillow to hug to his chest, or that he was brave enough to grab Swithin’s hand, or to just take him by the shoulders and ask, What are you thinking?

It’s never really bothered him before, how much time Swithin can take to put his thoughts together. Gregory can talk for an hour straight and turn to Swithin and ask, “So what do you think?” Swithin will tilt his head, and think for a few minutes, or maybe even walk away and pace for a bit - but he’ll always come back and then just demolish Gregory with one or two sentences that show he’s been listening the whole time. 

But this. Is killing him. 

After Gregory kissed him, Swithin had just look… stunned. 

He hadn’t kissed him back. He hadn’t done anything. Just stood there. 

And then they were packing up, and heading inside because it was freezing, and cracking open a new bottle of champagne, and Simon and Baz were so happy, everyone was so happy, and Gregory had just - 

He wanted Swithin to look at him. 

He wanted to cry. 

He stumbles into Swithin’s back, and realises that they’re at Swithin’s bedroom door. Swithin opens the door, and then he turns, ever so slightly, and says, “After you.” 

Gregory shuffles into the room. He kneels and grabs his pyjamas from his duffle bag and says, “I can sleep in the den, if you’re not comfortable, I can-” 

Swithin takes the pyjamas from his hands. He places them on top of his dresser. And then he takes Gregory’s hands, his warm fingers encircling Gregory’s wrists. 

“Why would I be uncomfortable?” Swithin asks. His face is tilted down, his hair falling into his eyes. The amber in them seems brighter than ever. 

Gregory swallows. “Because I - I mucked it all up, didn’t I?” 

Swithin shakes  his head slowly, side to side. “You did it perfectly,” he says. 

“... Oh.” 

And then Swithin says, “I’m going to kiss you now.” 

That’s. Decent of him. Giving Gregory fair warning, so he’s going to know the exact minute of his death. 

“... Okay,” Gregory says, but he says it into Swithin’s mouth, into his smile, into the sigh that moves between them like a love letter. And what he means is, Yes and yes and please, finally, yes.

SWITHIN 

He could do this forever, kissing Gregory. Just swallow up all the tiny noises quaking and falling from his mouth, breathe them in and never out, keep them close and safe. Cherished. 

He could do this for the rest of his life. 

Chapter Text

GREGORY 

It’s impossible to sleep after that. 

He changes into his forklift t-shirt and Death Star pj bottoms in the bathroom, and when he catches a glimpse of his face in the mirror, he has to slap his cheeks - which only makes them redder. 

“Stop that,” he says to his reflection, trying to be stern, but the manic grin doesn’t want to go away. Maybe it’s okay though, because Swithin seems to like him as he is. Enough to kiss him, over and over again, his mouth moving with no uncertainty, no hesitation. 

When he comes back to Swithin’s bedroom, it’s dark, and Swithin is already huddled under the blankets, lying on his stomach, dark hair in his eyes, which are already heavy-lidded, close to sleep. 

Gregory crawls under the blankets and Swithin turns towards him, clearly asking for a kiss, like it’s - like it’s automatic, like it’s something that they’ve always done, and why haven’t they always been doing this? Oh, because Gregory’s an idiot, yeah, right, that. 

So Gregroy leans in and kisses Swithin, carefully because it’s still dizzying, still so blindingly new - Swithin’s warm mouth crowding against his, Swithin not only asking for what he wants, but taking it. It’s so fucking hot. 

“You get prettier every time I look at you,” Gregory says, because he’ll never, ever stop being a disaster. Maybe Swithin won’t like being called pretty, even though he is. He’s so lovely that it makes Gregory’s skin hurt, it makes Gregory ache to touch him - and then he realises he can. 

So he reaches up, and just - lets the back of his fingers stroke Swithin’s cheekbone. Swithin turns into the touch, like a cat, and says, “That’s not actually possible. Infinitely increasing prettiness.” 

“Sure is,” Gregory says. “Your pulchritude stat is off the chart,” and Swithin huffs a breath of laughter. He reaches up and tangles his fingers with Gregory’s, and it’s overwhelmingly nice. 

“I-” Gregory swallows. “You kept holding my hand, the past few days, you - I wondered if it was an accident, or if maybe you didn’t realise-” 

“I wanted to,” Swithin says. “I always wanted to. I just got a bit braver about it, I think.” 

Gregory has to bury his face in Swithin’s neck, because he can’t, he can’t, he can’t have Swithin say things like that and then be expected to respond like a normal, sane human being. 

“I wanted you to,” Gregory says, muffled. Swithin smells like nutmeg and snow and warm skin; when they kissed, he tasted like cake, like champagne, like everything worth celebrating. “I - I like it when you hold my hand, and when you sit close to me, and when you -  when we-” 

“Yes?” Swithin says. Gregory can’t see Swithin’s face, but he can feel him smile in the dark. 

“Don’t make me say it.” Not everyone can be fucking bold as brass like Swithin Balthasar Grimm, and just say, I’m going to kiss you now. Jesus fuck, Gregory’s never going to recover from that. 

“Hey,” Swithin says. He tips Gregory’s face towards with his calloused fingers, until their foreheads are pressed together. Swithin nudges his nose against Gregory’s, and oh, it feels - as intimate as a kiss, in its own way.

“It’s okay,” Swithin says, because he is so good. “You don’t have to say anything you’re not comfortable saying.”

“I love you,” Gregory blurts out, because he can’t not say it. Not after Swithin said that. 

This time, Swithin doesn’t need twenty minutes to think about it. This time, he doesn’t miss a beat. 

“I love you too,” he says, his voice soft like the darkness, like his scarf and his cardigans and his gentle heart and the tip of his nose, still brushing against Gregory’s. “I always will.” 

Chapter Text

THEN

SWITHIN 

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Baz asks. 

They’ve just wrapped up Phase 1, in the music room. Swithin can see Mum hugging Gregory, and saying something that makes Gregory go splotchy red all over his face and his neck. 

“What do you mean?” Swithin asks. 

Baz waves a languid hand. “We all have eyes. I don’t think Gregory blinked the entire time he was staring at you.”

Swithin’s face is getting warm. There’s a smile trying to wrestle its way onto his face, while his pulse flutters hard in his throat. He ducks his head. “He wasn’t staring. Not at me.” 

“Swithin,” Baz says, sounding patient. “Please. You’re far too perceptive for this kind of self-sabotage.” 

Gregory’s just standing there with a glass of punch in his hand, his brow furrowed, his mouth opening and closing, like a fish. He looks like he’s in need of rescue. 

“I’m going to check on Gregory,” Swithin says, and Baz sighs. 

“As you will,” Baz says, dismissing Swithin as if he’s the queen. 

~

Give yourself permission to enjoy it, Baz had suggested, forever ago. It had seemed impossible at the time, but now it’s like the song they played for Mum unlocked something inside of Swithin’s chest, and now he - can. Just enjoy it. 

He lets himself enjoy sitting close to Gregory on the couch, their knees occasionally touching. He lets his fingers linger on the strong line of Gregory’s jaw as he helps him put on a face mask. He lets himself accept the Lucky Ring and the cinder shards; he combines them in the forge and admires the new combined ring - the glowing purple band, the golden crescent moon. 

And it’s enough. 

It’s already so much. A cup overflowing. It’s true, what he said to Gregory, that for the longest time all he’d thought, I wish we were friends. Even before he had a crush, or realised that he had a crush. He’d wanted to talk about books with Gregory, and play video games with him, and sit with him at mealtimes, and talk about homework, to have the warmth that Gregory turned on everybody else directed at him, to feel that their room in Mummers was really theirs. A place that belonged to both of them. 

So for Baz to imply what he was implying - for all of Swithin’s siblings to weigh in on it, in ways that were subtle and not subtle - felt too much like he was asking for a miracle. To even entertain the thought that Gregory might… like him. In the way that Swithin liked him. In the way that Swithin adored him. 

Couldn’t it be enough to just sit and enjoy the sunlight – without asking for the sun to shine for you and you alone? 

~

Gregory asks if he’ll visit in the summertime, and it’s absurdly sweet how nervous he gets while asking - like Swithin wouldn’t come to him wherever he was, whether that was in a desert or on the moon or at the bottom of an ocean. 

Yes. The answer will always be yes. 

~

Swithin moves slowly, cautiously. He needs time to think things through, to properly absorb them. He feels his way through life millimetre by millimetre. 

Gregory runs. He leaps and he bounds, he throws himself into life. It’s one reason, out of a million reasons, why Swithin loves to watch him, to be next to him, to share the same space as him. 

Simon and Baz are out there, proposing to each other - in the snow, under the starlight, surrounded by the music pouring out of Swithin’s cello, Mordelia’s viola, Tyr and Sophie’s matching violins. 

And Swithin is watching them, Simon and Baz, but he’s very aware of Gregory standing next to him, rapt. His glasses are fogged up, his cheeks red in the cold, his breath tumbling out in clouds, and he’s dancing from foot to foot - Swithin’s not sure if he even realises it. 

And then Gregory tugs at Swithin’s scarf. 

~ 

His mind keeps replaying it, on a loop: Gregory reaching up, his lips brushing Swithin’s cheek. His lips were softer than Swithin expected, because of Mordelia and her blessed/cursed sugar scrub. The tip of his cold nose brushed Swithin’s face and it made Swithin want to haul him inside, get him warmed up. But he was frozen in place. 

I don’t get to be this lucky, Swithin had thought, as Gregory settled back on his heels and stared at him, worried. And Swithin had wanted to smooth away that furrow in his brow, with his hands and with his mouth, but - I don’t get to be this lucky. No one gets to be this lucky. 

~

He holds Gregory’s hands in his wrists. 

No one gets to be this lucky, but it doesn’t matter. Gregory breaks all the rules in Swithin’s universe - why not this one? 

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Swithin says, because he can’t wait another second; he’s already let too much time go by without kissing Gregory Petty. 

NOW

When Swithin wakes up, Gregory’s on his mobile. 

“Morning,” Swithin says, and Gregory drops his mobile on his face. It bounces off his glasses and onto the bed. 

“Morning!” Gregory squeaks, and he scrambles, trying to grab his mobile, but Swithin finds it first and offers it to him. Swithin doesn’t mean to sneak a look at the screen, but he starts to laugh anyway. “Don’t laugh!” Gregory says, but his mouth is twitching in a grin as he snatches his mobile away and bangs it on the nightstand. 

But Swithin can’t help it - it’s like champagne bubbles rising in his chest, like sunlight pooling in his veins. He’s not laughing at Gregory, but - 

Gregory tackles him until he’s looming above him in bed, Swithin knocked back against his pillows, staring up at him, still laughing. Gregory’s a vision - red-cheeked and wild-haired, his glasses threatening to fall off, at this angle. 

Swithin reaches out up, and pushes Gregory’s glasses back so they rest more firmly on the bridge of his nose. He brushes the shell of one of Gregory’s ears, while he’s at it, because he’s always wanted to, and because he finally can. 

Gregory’s eyes flutter shut at the touch, and that’s. Powerful. It moves Swithin in ways that he never thought he’d been moved. He hated when strangers touched him, tolerated it when it was Fatima or his family; he doesn’t even like getting his hair cut. 

But he loves touching Gregory. He loves it when Gregory touches him, the way that he is now. Gregory’s braced above him, pinning Swithin down by his wrists - but his right thumb is stroking Swithin’s wrist, like he can’t help himself. He’s holding him down, but he’s gentle with it. He’s a mess of contradictions. He’s a mess. He’s a wonderful mess. 

“It’s always nice to learn new things,” Swithin says. “But. I don’t think WikiHow articles are…. the best way to learn?” 

Gregory flushes. When he swallows, his Adam's apple bobs in his throat, and it’s mesmerising. Swithin wants to place his mouth right there, so he can feel it against his lips, the movement of Gregory’s throat. 

“Was a rubbish article anyway,” Gregory says. He’s staring at Swithin’s mouth and that’s. That’s nice, too. “All the examples were of boys kissing girls, or vice versa. Nothing about boys kissing boys.” 

“We could both learn,” Swithin suggests, and he lives for the tiny hitch in Gregory’s breath, at that. “We could figure it out. Together.”

“Practice makes perfect?” Gregory says. He’s dipping closer, his forehead almost touching Swithin’s.

“Exactly.” 

“This is well nice,” Gregory whispers. He’s so close that his breath puffs out against Swithin’s mouth, and it’s making Swithin’s whole body feel like warm honey, being very slowly stirred. “Kissing you just to kiss you. Not because of mistletoe or midnight or any of that stuff. Just cause I want to.”

Then do it, Swithin is going to say, but Gregory’s already kissing him, soft and hot and shallow. His teeth are pressing gently against Swithin’s bottom lip, worrying at it the way that Swithin worries at his necklace. 

“You’ve got the most perfect mouth for kissing,” Gregory mumbles, and Swithin feels himself flush. He doesn’t know what to say, so he reaches up, and he kisses Gregory back, and back, and back. 

Can we stay just like this? Can we stay like this forever? 

"What do you want, Swithin?" Gregory asks, breaking off. He's panting hard, and it might be Swithin's new favourite sound in the whole world. 

"This," Swithin says, fanning his fingers against Gregory's mouth. "You." 

"You've got me," Gregory says. His grin is crooked and perfect. He looks so happy. He looks happy because of Swithin.  

It's enough. It's already so much. 

It'll never be enough.

He wants a whole lifetime, of this. Of them. An entire galaxy, revolving around the sun. 

Swithin flexes his wrist, and breaks Gregory's hold. He reaches up and cradles a hand around the back of Gregory's head, drags him in close to kiss him. 

And it's everything. 

Chapter Text

THEN

SWITHIN

When he looks in the mirror in the ensuite, he doesn’t recognise himself. 

There’s his round face, his overbite, his blobby birthmark. His hair is longer than it’s ever been, past his chin; Father always made sure it was cut short, but Mum hadn’t bugged him about it since Father passed away. Long hair is better to hide behind when he doesn’t know what to say. 

But he doesn’t recognise the line of his shoulders in his new school blazer, striped in purple and green, and his white button down shirt is starchy and stiff. He knows, logically, that the uniform is fit to his measurements. But it feels - tight, constricting. Hard to breathe. 

There’s a noise from the bedroom - laughter, the thump of luggage, a swear. 

His stomach flips. He’s always had his own bedroom, his own place where he could retreat and be quiet - be in his own head without anybody bothering him or asking him to be anything more than he is. 

He opens the door cautiously, just a sliver.

And there he is, another boy. Swithin’s roommate. He’s shorter than Swithin, and he’s wearing jeans, trainers, a bright blue t-shirt. His arms are sunburnt. He’s moving around the room, talking to someone. 

“Go away, Cam, I’ve got this,” the boy is arguing. “Don’t need you rummaging through my pants.” 

“Did you even pack enough pants?” someone asks - an older girl, amused. Her hair is dishwater blonde like his, her red tie loose around her neck. “Or did you only pack books?”

“I didn’t know what I’d want to reread!” the boy hollers. The back of his neck looks red, as if he’s sunburnt there too. 

“You gremlin,” she says, affectionate. “As if there isn’t a library here. Text me if you need anything.”

“Yeah yeah,” the boy says, sounding distracted. He’s already slotting books onto the shelf above the desk on his side of the room, lovingly rearranging them. 

As soon as the girl’s gone, Swithin pushes the door of the ensuite open. 

The boy yelps and whirls around, clutching a book to his chest. “Christ! Where’d you come from!? You scared the ever living fuck out of me!” 

“I’m,” Swithin says. He has to swallow; his throat is dry. “I’m. Sorry.” 

“You’re my roommate, then?” The boy eyes him cautiously; he’s got dark glasses that look too big for his face. “Not, like, a demon that someone summoned in the bathroom?”

“... No?” 

“All right,” the boy says, still not sounding convinced. “I’m Gregory,” he adds, bounding over and thrusting out his hand for a handshake. 

Swithin stares at Gregory’s outstretched hand. He doesn’t - he isn’t good at this part. He shakes hands quickly, pulls his own hand away as soon as he can. He wants to wipe his hand on his trousers, but Mordelia said that that’s rude, so he just lets his arms dangle there by his side. 

Gregory’s looking at him, head tilted, and Swithin needs to be somewhere else, anywhere else. He can’t stand being looked at. It’s easier when people don’t look at him, don’t notice him, don’t see how - how strange he is, how pathetic and awkward and slow. How much he doesn’t fit into his own skin. 

“What’s your name?” Gregory prompts, and Swithin realises he never actually introduced himself. 

“Swithin.” 

Gregory mouths the syllables. “Weird name,” he says. “I mean, not weird, just - uh, uncommon. Sorry, I shoot my mouth off a lot. Feel free to tell me to shut up if it’s too much.” 

Swithin shakes his head. “It’s fine.” 

He knows it’s a weird name. It doesn’t suit him at all - Swithin, quick and strong. The only name that fits worse in their family is Sophronia, for prudent, judicious. 

His mobile buzzes in his pocket. Thankfully, it’s Petra - no, Tyr, saying: Meet us in front of the Cloisters and we’ll show you how the dining hall works. And then: If Sophie says there’s a secret password that you need to get into any of the buildings, DO NOT BELIEVE HER 

“Have to go,” Swithin says, gesturing vaguely to the door. Gregory’s already putting away more books, and Swithin’s stomach swoops to recognise the titles - a graphic novel version of A Wrinkle in Time, a complete set of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy, both Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. 

“Cool,” Gregory says. “See you later, then?”

“Yeah,” Swithin says, already backing out the door before he can say anything to ruin things. “Sure.” 

GREGORY 

“Well, my roommate’s a bust,” Gregory says at tea, shoving another scone into his mouth; he has to admit, grudgingly, that they are really as good as Simon promised. 

“Oh?” Cam says, amused, pouring herself another cup of tea. 

“He was all-” Gregory waves a butter knife around. “I don’t know. Posh?” 

Swithin was taller than Gregory, the way everyone else was, and elegant in his school uniform, all neatly folded lines and crisply knotted tie. He had long, dark hair that should’ve looked weird on a bloke but seemed to suit him, and he looked like he stepped right out of a pamphlet for the school. 

Clearly he must’ve seen what a mess Gregory was, in his old jeans with the hems ripped off from trodding on them too many times, the tiny holes in his t-shirt from Cam’s cat, Mimi, clawing her way onto his shoulders. No wonder Swithin didn’t stick around; he had to bail ASAP so that whatever it was that made Gregory a disaster didn’t rub off on him. 

“I bet he’s good at school, too,” Gregory says, feeling even more morose. “I bet he’s never late for anything. I bet he has, like a pocket watch or something.” 

“Well, maybe you’ll become friends,” Cam suggests. “And then he’ll drag you into being on time for things.” 

Gregory wrinkles his nose. “Why would someone like that want to be friends with me?”

Cam just laughs. Christ, she’s unhelpful. “It’s hard not to become friendly with your roommate, you know? You’re stuck with them for the next eight years. You’ll either become the best of friends, or murder each other.” 

“Gah,” Gregory says. “Sounds like torture.” 

NOW

GREGORY

He’s swinging Swithin’s hand as they walk to the kitchen; he can’t help it, he’s too happy for his body to contain the feeling, to be at rest. 

“We’re going to get the last of those golden coconuts on Ginger Island today,” Gregory says. “I know it. I can feel it. And my feelings are always right.”

Swithin slants a smile at him. “Even when it comes to the gods of RNG?” 

“Shhh, don’t say anything, they can hear you. Speaking of RNG, did I tell you that Extra Credits did this really good video on Skinner Boxing? I wanted to show it to you but I got really sleepy and-” 

Swithin stops walking. He pushes at Gregory’s shoulders, gently, and Gregory’s confused but he follows the motion, until his back hits a wall. 

Then Swithin dips his head, and kisses him. Sweetly, but firmly. 

And it’s so good. It’s always so good. It should be illegal how good it is, Swithin should come with a, a warning, or a Pokedex entry - A Swithin will seem really shy at first glance, but they’re bold as fuck when it comes to snogging.  

“What was that for?” Gregory asks, and he flushes to hear how breathless, how fucking besotted, he sounds. 

Swithin smiles, his thumb stroking Gregory’s jaw. “I just always want to kiss you whenever you say something brilliant.” 

Gregory gapes. “And - Skinner Boxing is brilliant?” 

Swithin shakes his head a little, smiling. “It’s brilliant that you know what Skinner Boxing is. And I like how you get so excited talking about it. And how you wanted to show that video to me.”

“It just made me think of you,” Gregory says, weakly, and Swithin’s smile grows brighter. 

“Exactly,” he says. 

There’s a cough further down the hallway, and Gregory jumps to realise that Tyr is standing there, clearly just come out of their bedroom, in a dark hoodie and PJ bottoms and hippo slippers. 

“Morning, you two,” Tyr says. There’s a smile on their face, slow and delighted. “Just wanted to give you a heads up that Sophie will probably barrel out at any moment - if you want to, er, head onto the dining room and give her the slip.”

“Right!” Gregory yelps, as Swithin grabs his hand again. “Very good! Thanks, Tyr!” 

~

The last day of the winter break is bittersweet, packing up and parting ways: Sophie and Tyr are heading back to uni, Mordelia to London, Swithin and Gregory back to school. 

Simon and Baz are staying in Oxford a bit longer, still shacked up at the B&B. They come back round to the hunting lodge to have lunch with everyone, and Simon’s staggering like he’s come back from the wars, while Baz looks sleek and smug and satisfied. Gregory tries really, really hard not to think about why. 

Daphne makes them all gather in the living room, in front of their massive Christmas tree, for a family picture. Gregory thinks of the last Grimm family picture that he saw,  when he was revisiting one of the family photo albums (sober). 

Swithin’s dad was there, looking a bit scary, like a movie vampire, with snow-white hair and a severe sort of face. Daphne was smiling her toothy smile, but she was a lot skinnier, like there was less of her to hug. Mordelia had her arms crossed tight, and the twins were in matching green velvet dresses; Tyr must’ve hated that. Baz was in a green suit too, and a pink-red tie. And of course, there’s serious, tiny, adorable little Swithin, held in Daphne’s arms. They looked like a portrait of the royal family, everyone except Daphne stiff and bored and unsmiling, curated and carefully posed.  

This picture is nothing like that. There’s a lot of mild chaos, Mordelia trying to order everyone into position as she fixes her mobile to a tripod. Sophie keeps shuffling around her and Tyr, and Simon and Baz are laughing at some inside joke, Daphne’s fiddling with a bit of mistletoe that she’s trying to tuck into Swithin’s hair. And Gregory’s squished in right next to Swithin, holding hands, their shoulders pressed together. 

Swithin turns his head and says, right against the shell of Gregory’s ear, “Thanks for coming for Christmas.” 

Gregory feels his entire face heating up, as if he’s just been stuck under the spray of a hot shower. “You’re a menace,” he says. “I can’t believe I like you as much as I do.”

“I can’t believe it either,” Swithin says, but his smile is sweet and easy, completely sincere. 

“Swithin! You can’t just say stuff like that with a straight face!” 

“This is my gay face,” Swithin says solemnly. “It’s my only face.”

Gregory’s still doubled over laughing when the camera goes off. 

~ 

They’re on the train back to school, listening to a podcast version of “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt. Swithin brought an audio splitter so they’re listening to it on his mobile, but it’s rather hard to concentrate; he’s got Gregory’s hands in one of his, and he’s absently tracing circles in Gregory’s palm. It makes Gregory feel like he’s going to expire, like they need to be back at their room at Mummers right now, so Gregory can shove him against a door and snog him properly. 

The podcast audio hiccups, and Swithin check his mobile. He shows the picture that Fatima’s sent him, of her and Phuong and Ioanna, all of them grinning at the camera as they show off the Christmas biscuits they made: a truly impressive number of boobs in a variety of skin tones and with different sweets for the nipples. 

“Good for them,” Gregory says, feelingly. 

Swithin scrolls down, and makes a choking noise. “Fatima says we should join them next year, to help them bake, and. Expand the anatomy collection.”

“No, no, absolutely not,” Gregory says, horrified. He can’t - he can’t make biscuits shaped like dicks, not with Swithin right there - 

Swithin relaxes. “Oh, she said that next year, she just wants to make breasts and vulvas. Phalluses are banned. Something about not giving the symbol any more power.” 

“Thank the gods,” Gregory says, just his own mobile chimes. He checks it, and sees that Simon’s shared a picture of him and Baz, back at their B&B. They’re having tea in a dining room filled with holly and red ribbons, and they look so ridiculously glowy and happy, their engagement rings glinting in the sunlight. 

Thanks again, lads, for all your help, Simon has texted. We owe you a million. 

“Those numpties,” Gregory says, feeling expansive and fond as he shows the picture to Swithin, who squeezes his hand. “They would’ve been hopeless without us.”