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The flat was quiet in that specific, rain-soaked way—grey light filtering through the windows, the radiator hissing like a contented snake. Baz was attempting to read The Economist, or at least pretending to, while Simon sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by case files from the World of Mages, his glasses sliding down his nose, his hair sticking up in that particular angle that suggested he’d been running his hands through it for the last hour.
Baz was watching him over the top of his magazine. Watching him. The way Simon’s broad shoulders curved under the too-tight Watford sweater—Baz’s sweater, technically, stretched out at the collar where Simon had absently tugged at it, smelling now of Simon’s soap and Simon’s magic and that particular warm, grassy scent that was just him. His wings poked through the material, bunched up in a way that looked uncomfortable, but Simon had insisted it was perfectly fine. Baz watched the way his mouth moved slightly as he read, pink and distractingly soft. The way he looked utterly, stupidly, devastatingly livable.
It hit Baz, sometimes, like a physical blow, that Simon lived here. With him. That he got to keep this. That everything was finally working out.
Simon looked up then, pushing his glasses up with one finger, and the afternoon light caught the gold in his brown eyes. He stared at Baz—not at the magazine, not through him, but at him, the way he sometimes did with unsettling, Chosen-One intensity, as if Baz were the only thing in the room that mattered.
“I love you,” Simon said. Casually. He turned a page, not looking up, like he’d just commented on the weather or the tea. “You want dinner later? I’m thinking curry. The place near that park you always go to?”
Baz’s fingers tightened on the magazine. He—what?
SIMON NEVER INITIATES IT FIRST.
Never.
It was always Baz, wasn’t it? Baz at 3 AM, trembling and terrified, whispering it into Simon’s hair like a secret he was committing to the dark. Baz in the aftermath of a near-death experience, clutching Simon’s face and saying it desperately, I love you, you absolute moron, don’t you dare die. Always Baz who wrote it in notes left on the refrigerator, who traced it into Simon’s palm when they held hands during movies, who said it first, last, and always, while Simon would grin and flush and mumble it back like it was a gift Baz was giving him, not something Simon was handing over freely.
But now Simon had just… tossed it out there. Like it was obvious. Like the sky was blue. Like Baz should have known already (which, to be fair, he did, but that wasn’t the point).
Baz’s heart was attempting to escape his ribcage. Is he joking? Is this a bit? Is he quoting something? Oh god, he looks so—
Baz couldn’t move. He was frozen on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other, cashmere sweater suddenly feeling too warm, too tight. Simon was looking at him with those eyes, and the collar of the stolen sweater had slipped down over one shoulder, revealing the sharp line of his collarbone, the constellation of freckles there, the one particular freckle Baz liked to kiss when Simon was sleepy and pliant. He looked kissable. He looked like a sunset. He looked like everything Baz had ever wanted and been too afraid to claim.
“Baz?” Simon’s forehead crinkled. “You alright? You’re staring.”
Oh no, Simon thought, staring at the way Baz had gone perfectly, terrifyingly still on the sofa. Oh no, oh shit.
He hadn’t meant to say it like that. It had just… slipped out. Because Baz was sitting there with his legs crossed at the ankle, looking like a Renaissance painting in his charcoal cashmere, his pale skin almost luminous against the dark fabric, his sharp cheekbones dusted with the faintest pink, his grey eyes wide and shocked. His mouth was slightly open, showing just the hint of fang, and his hair—that ridiculous, perfect black hair—was falling over his forehead in a way that made Simon’s chest ache.
It always surprised him how Baz chose him of all people to end up with. He could've picked anyone really, everyone had a crush on Baz back in Watford, the girls had made shrine-level sacrifices to the idea of him—crying in the bathrooms, slipping notes into his blazer pockets, staring at him across the Great Hall with the kind of devotion Simon reserved for… well, for Baz, actually, though he’d spent six years convincing himself it was hatred.
And the boys, too—Simon had caught more than a few of his classmates staring at Baz with that hungry, hopeless look, the one Simon understood now because he felt it every day. He used to think they were staring at Baz in fear or disgust, after all, Simon had been a complete idiot the whole of their school years hadn't he?
And here Baz was, sitting in their cramped flat staring at Simon like he, well, like he loved him. Like Simon was the only thing in the room worth looking at.
He thinks I’m joking, Simon thought suddenly, panic fluttering in his stomach. He thinks I’m taking the piss. Because I’m never good at this. I’m never good at explaining my feelings. I just say things don't I? Things I usually don't mean? I hit things and hope for the best, and now I’ve gone and said it like it’s nothing and he’s going to think I don’t mean it—
Simon set down the case file. His hands were sweating. Baz still hadn’t moved, his magazine crumpling in his elegant, long-fingered hands.
“I mean it,” Simon said abruptly, his voice cracking slightly. “I really—I’m not just. It’s not a joke, Baz. I love you. I’ve loved you since—I don’t know, since forever? Since before I knew what it was? And I know I don’t say it first usually, but I was looking at you, and you’re just—you’re so—”
He gestured helplessly at Baz. At the way his grey eyes were going soft and dark, the way his chest was rising and falling too quickly, the way he looked like a storm contained in skin.
“You’re Baz,” Simon finished, helplessly. “And I love you.”
They both moved at the same time.
Simon pushed himself up from the floor just as Baz stood up from the sofa, and they lurched toward each other with the grace of two baby giraffes on ice. Simon reached for Baz’s waist at the exact moment Baz reached for Simon’s face, and—
Clack.
“Ow,” Simon mumbled, his nose smushed against Baz’s.
Baz let out a strangled laugh—high and relieved and slightly hysterical. “You—your nose—”
“Your nose is harder than it looks,” Simon said, pulling back slightly, his eyes watering. “Which is saying something because you look like you’re carved out of marble.”
Baz was grinning now, really grinning, all fangs and joy and unbearable tenderness, his grey eyes crinkling at the corners. “You said it first,” he whispered, his thumb brushing Simon’s cheekbone. “You said it first, Snow.”
“I’ll say it again,” Simon promised, his heart hammering, the panic dissolving into something warm and bright. “I’ll say it every day. I love you when you’re shouting at me about proper tea brewing. I love you when you look like—like this—like you’ve stepped out of a painting to grace me with your presence, and I’m just—"
He gestured down at himself again, at the disaster.
Baz’s eyes went dark and soft and terrifyingly fond. “You’re looking at me like that,” Baz said, his voice rough, almost snarling, “and you think you’re the one who doesn’t deserve this?”
“Like what?” Simon whispered.
“Like I’m the answer,” Baz said. “Like I’m the only thing in the room. Like you’d still pick me, even if you could have anyone.”
Simon’s throat felt tight. “You are. I would. Every time.”
They leaned in again—Simon surging up on his toes, Baz tilting his head down—and this time, this time, they timed it perfectly. No bumped noses. Just the soft, sweet press of mouths, Baz’s lips cool and yielding, Simon’s warm and eager. Baz made a small, broken sound in the back of his throat, and Simon felt it in his spine, his fingers tightening on Baz’s waist, pulling him closer, anchoring him. Baz’s hands slid into Simon’s hair, long fingers cradling his skull, holding him like he was precious. Like he was chosen.
The magazine fell off the sofa and onto the floor, forgotten. The case files could wait. The curry could definitely wait.
When they finally broke apart, Baz rested his forehead against Simon’s, breathing hard, his eyes closed. “Say it again,” he demanded, softly.
Simon grinned, his heart so full it felt like it might burst. He wrapped his arms around Baz’s waist, pulling him close, burying his face in that perfect black hair that smelled like rain and expensive cologne and home and theirs. “I love you, Baz.” he whispered, "I love you, I—"
Baz kissed him again, smiling against his mouth, his fingers threading through Simon’s hair, holding him like he planned to never let go. He opened his eyes again—grey and endless and full of light. “Again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
Simon laughed, bumping their noses together gently, on purpose this time. “I love you, Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch. I love you, I love you, I—”
Baz kissed him quiet. Again and again and again.
Outside, the rain kept falling, but inside, the flat was very, very warm.