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Simon is lying in the dark, but it’s not really that dark, at least not for Baz. Baz can clearly see that Simon’s trying to stare at him, but his eyes won’t adjust to the darkness the same way Baz’s will. And so, Baz enjoys it for a moment. He enjoys the way Simon’s eyes are flickering around, trying to catch a glimpse of Baz in the dark. He enjoys the way Simon props himself up on his elbows and tries to nonchalantly lean closer to Baz’s bed, his curly hair toppling over his forehead.
Then, he can’t enjoy it anymore. What does Snow want, anyway? Certainly not the same things Baz wants.
“Snow,” Baz sighs, watching Simon’s head jerk up at his calling. “Stop trying.”
“Trying what?” Simon flops back onto his bed, his gaze tossed to the ceiling.
“Trying to stare at me.”
“I wasn’t.”
He’s obviously lying.
“Right, then. Go to sleep.” Baz clears his throat. “I wouldn’t want you to be tired for your next day of being ‘The Chosen One’.”
“Shut up, Baz.”
Baz doesn’t respond, so Simon turns his head and tries to again rake the darkness for him. Baz rolls his eyes, turning over onto his side to face away from Simon.
There are a few minutes of silence, but Baz can still feel a burning sensation on his back. Everything’s always burns, with Simon. It’s a good thing Baz is best with fire.
It’s not long before the burning becomes unbearable, so Baz rolls over to face Simon once again.
“Do you want to set me on fire?” Baz sneers, even though Simon can’t see him.
“I…” Simon stops himself, lifting one of his hands to rub at his left eye.
Baz sighs again; he can’t sleep while Simon’s magic is seeping out through his eyes and Simon obviously won’t rest until he says what’s on his mind.
“I wanted to try something again,” Simon speaks as if he’s prepared the sentence.
There are lots of things I’d like to try again with you, Snow, Baz thinks, for example: killing you.
With no response, Simon continues. “Of course you remember the night we… I shared my magic with you.”
“I couldn’t forget,” Baz replies coolly, even if I wanted to.
“And you brought us to the stars… or you brought the stars to us,” Simon remembers, “And I want to do that again—see the stars again.”
“Do you?” Baz sits up on his bed. “I’m not sure it would even work, again. I didn’t even say a real spell.”
Simon doesn’t tell Baz that doesn’t matter, not with his magic. He just shrugs. “Do you want to try again?”
Baz hesitates. Not because he doesn’t want to, because oh, Crowley does he want to. Because he shouldn’t. Someday, Simon Snow is going to kill me.
But not tonight. Not while they’re on truce; not while they’re in their shared room.
Someday, but not today.
“Yes,” Baz finally responds, prompting Simon to clamber out of his bed and join Baz on his own. Baz pulls his legs out from under the blanket and crosses them, pressing his knees against Simon’s.
Baz wonders for a moment if magic can be passed through kissing. He doesn’t dare ask Simon if he wants to try.
Simon takes both of Baz’s hands into his own—they’re cold against Simon’s warm skin—and Baz swallows thickly.
“Ready?” Simon’s tone is soft, almost caring. It can’t be.
Simon lifts his gaze from their intertwined hands and cements eye contact with Baz. Baz’s line of sight switches rapidly between Simon’s eyes.
“I’m ready,” he replies, unintentionally squeezing Simon’s hand.
Simon squeezes back before Baz feels as though he’s been struck with a match—a magical match, one that wouldn’t kill him instantly, but one that could.
Baz shuts his eyes. The magic flows into him, filling empty spaces he hadn’t been aware were empty. “Twinkle, twinkle little star!” Baz repeats clearly, and Simon looks around in wonder.
“You don’t need to say anymore,” Simon's speech is breathy as he observes the stars around him. “and you can open your eyes.”
Baz doesn’t want to open his eyes; if he does, this will be real. It feels like a dream—he’s floating through space with Simon Snow, holding hands. It’sdefinitely a dream.
“Baz?” Simon questions, tearing his eyes from the stars and directing them to Baz. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” Baz breathes, “Crowley, no. It’s fine. It’s—great.”
“Then open your eyes.” Simon’s voice is unbelievably gentle, so much so Baz wonders if this is a trick.
Nonetheless, he pries open his eyes to meet Simon’s blue ones. Simon cracks a wondrous smile, and Baz wishes he didn’t think Simon was more bloody beautiful than the stars surrounding them, but.
Simon doesn’t break eye contact, even though he said he’d wanted to see the stars. Baz’s chest feels on fire, for more than one reason. He doesn’t imagine space smelling of thick green smoke; he can’t imagine anything but Simonfucking Snow, holding his hands, staring into his eyes like he wants to devour him whole. Baz would let him.
“Why are we supposed to hate each other, really?” Simon ponders, his eyes momentarily flashing down to Baz’s lips. No.
Baz laughs. “Says the Mage’s Heir.”
“But really,” Simon persists, “What if I don’t want to hate you anymore?”
By Merlin, Baz must be dreaming. Simon Snow would never say that, never. He’d draw his sword and break the Anathema before uttering a word of that.Baz was supposed to be the one who felt drunk, the one with an excuse to say things out of the ordinary.
Baz suddenly pulls his hands out of Simon’s, and they’re both thrown out of the stars and back onto Baz’s bed. Their knees are still touching, so Baz pushes himself backwards.
I should kiss him, Simon thinks; I should kill him, Baz thinks.
Neither of them act; they continue to stare at each other like they’re bloody first years that were just cast together by the Crucible.
“I- I’m sorry.” Simon is the first to speak as he shuffles off of Baz’s bed. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, Simon,” Baz stares fiercely at Simon as he continues to back away. “Youhave to hate me; you’re going to kill me some day. You know that, don’t you?”
Simon stops in his tracks.
“Don’t make this harder for yourself, Snow.” Baz’s speech is icy; each word sounds as though he’s bitten it.
“You called me ‘Simon’.”
“Of all the things I just said, that’s what you focused on?” Baz’s temper is beginning to fade. “Simon Snow, the Mage’s Heir, The Chosen One, might as well tack the Insidious Humdrum onto the list!”
“Stop it, Baz!” Simon sounds like a whiny child. He is, really. He can be.
And Baz knows he shouldn’t send Simon on a tantrum—he might not escape it alive. He’s not sure he would mind.
“I’ve heard you and Bunce talking; I know the Humdrum is you—”
“It’s not me!” Simon clenches his fists; Baz swears he can see them begin to radiate. “It just looks like me.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Christ, Baz!”
A single bolt of something unidentifiable flashes out of Simon’s fist and shoots out of the open window.
“I’m restraining.” Simon clenches his jaw, telling the magic that’s risen to the surface to back away. Baz stares at him with wide eyes for a few moments before looking out the window. The blast had hit a tree, and now the whole top half of it’s obliterated.
“Don’t restrain,” Baz replies, looking back at Simon. “It’s as good a moment now to kill me as ever!”
Baz had always expected he’d die by fire in some sort, and he thought as his final act of spite, Simon killing him would at least get Simon kicked out of Watford by the Anathema.
Squeezing his eyes shut, awaiting the final blow, Baz is shocked at the sound of a wrecked sob. His eyes fly open to see Simon slouched on the floor, his fists pressed against his stomach.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Baz leaps off of the bed and down to Simon, prying Simon’s hands away from his stomach.
“I don’t want to kill you, Baz.” Simon doesn’t sound weak, but he sounds broken.
Simon’s always been broken.
Penny’s awfully nosy that next day, and Simon’s not sure he can take it. He wants to lock himself into his room and Baz out, because he doesn’t know where the hell those words came from last night.
Well.
Okay, he does. He figured it out, anyway. Penny probably already has, as well. But he doesn’t think that he’s gay. He loved Agatha, or he thought he did, and he still thinks she’s beautiful. Maybe it’s just… Baz?
“We don’t keep secrets,” Penny reminds Simon, who rests his head on one of his hands at breakfast. He’s already downed all the scones Penny had brought for him.
“It’s not a secret,” Simon’s voice is muffled by another scone—one he’d taken from Penny’s breakfast.
“It’s a secret if you’re the only one who knows,” Penny sighs exasperatedly, pushing her food towards Simon.
“Baz knows.”
“Of course he does,” she rolls her eyes, crossing her legs under the table and pressing her hands on them. “so why can’t you tell me what’s bothering you? You’d tell me if it was just Baz.”
Simon shrugs.
“Fine,” Penny says, “We can just sit here quietly as you stare at Baz, shove your face with food, and the Humdrum—” Penny stops when she sees Simon wince.
She gapes, “Was it the Humdrum?”
“No,” he swallows, “No, it wasn’t the Humdrum.”
“Thank Merlin,” Penny lets out the breath she’d been holding. “Then for snakes’ sake, what is it?”
Simon hesitates, but then he blurts, “I wanted to kiss Baz.”
“What?” Penny’s jaw drops. Apparently she hadn’t worked it out.
Simon just looks away—to Baz. He’s sitting with Dev and Niall, but he’s not talking to them.
“I don’t think I’m gay.” Simon won’t meet Penny’s questioning gaze.
“Okay, Simon,” Penny starts, “That’s not what we need to start with. First off, you want to kiss Baz? Are you sure you didn’t just mix up two letters in there?”
“I don’t want to kill him,” Simon murmurs, barely loud enough for Penny to hear. “I wanted to kiss him.”
“‘Wanted’? Like, past tense?”
“I… don’t know.”
“You don’t know. Right. Well,” Penny taps a finger against her temple. “Let’s start with what we do know.”
“We’re not doing this.” Simon shuts her down.
She groans, “Well, does Baz want you to kiss him?”
“I thought so, maybe. But then he just wanted me to kill him.”
“Crowley, what happened last night?”
Simon stares down at Penny’s food. He pushes it back to her.
“Cat got your tongue?” Penny doesn’t say it with magic, so Simon lets out a sigh.
“I shared magic with him.” Simon pokes at the table absentmindedly.
“And you wanted kiss him?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it… a side effect?”
“I don’t think so.”
Penny clicks her tongue, “To be fair, you are pretty obsessed with Baz. I guess I’m not all that surprised. And, Simon, there’s a such thing as bisexuality.”
Simon’s mouth drops open for a second, “Right, yeah.” Then, he creases his eyebrows. “What do I do?” Penny always seems to be right.
“Kiss him, you dolt.”
“Dolt,” Simon repeats, and he’s smiling despite the fact he’s really fucking scared to kiss Baz. He’ll probably cast some kind of freeze spell so that Simon will be stuck puckering up for the rest of his life.
But maybe he won’t.
When Baz gets back from hunting in the Catacombs, Simon seems to already be asleep. Baz watches as Simon’s chest softly rises and falls, but he doesn’t look for long.
By the time he gets into his own bed, Simon has sat up in his own.
“Did I wake you?” Baz inquires, shifting his feet underneath his blanket.
“No.”
“Oh.” Baz watches as Simon stands up from his bed and approaches Baz’s. “What do you want?”
Simon climbs onto the end of the bed, sitting on it just as he had the night before. “Do you want to try again?”
“Snow, we can’t do this every night.” Baz’s face lights up with a wicked smile, “It’s nearing scandalous.”
Simon holds his hands out to Baz regardless. Baz sighs before sitting up and joining Simon on top of the blanket, clasping their hands.
Just as Baz inhales deeply to prepare himself for the magic that he thinks will soon be swirling inside of him, burning him softly but surely and nearly overwhelmingly, Simon dives forward and connects their lips.
Baz is taken by surprise, pushing Simon away by his hands. “Simon!”
“‘Simon’.”
“Shut it. Snow, what was that?”
“Do you want to do it again?” Simon is blushing fiercely in the darkness, but Baz can still see it. All the blood in Baz’s body flows to his head, but Simon can’t see that.
He does want to do it again, so he ducks his head back towards Simon’s.
One of Simon’s hand slips up into Baz’s hair and the other softly holds underneath Baz’s chin. Both of Baz’s hands cradle each side of the back of Simon’s jawbone.
It’s messy and rushed, as if they’re both trying to kiss each other as much as they can possibly bear before one tries to kill the other. But they don’t want that, not really.
When they pull away, their lips are slightly swollen and their eyes are half-lidded. Simon smiles widely at Baz, but Baz just stares ferociously back.
“You still have to kill me, Snow.”
“Not if I can help it.”