Chapter Text
Baz
Simon is burning toast again.
I can smell it from the bedroom, this particular kind of charred desperation that means Simon has decided to "make breakfast" and is now stubbornly committed to the bit, even though the toast is black and the smoke alarm is about to start screaming and he definitely doesn't know where we keep the fire extinguisher.
I do know where we keep the fire extinguisher. I have always known. I checked the expiration date on it last month while Simon was sleeping, which is the kind of thing I don't tell him because he would find it both endearing and deeply concerning, and I prefer when Simon finds me concerning in ways that don't also make him worry about my mental health.
I pull on a jumper and pad out to the kitchen, where Simon is standing in front of the toaster with a knife in one hand and a look of intense concentration on his face, like he's defusing a bomb instead of trying to scrape carbon off bread.
"It's done," I say.
"It's not done," Simon says. "It's just... well-done."
"It's cremated. That toast has achieved closure. It's moved on to the next plane of existence."
Simon turns to look at me, and his face does something complicated—this mix of frustration and fondness that I've learned to read over two years of waking up next to him. He still looks surprised sometimes when he sees me. Like he forgot I live here. Like he's not sure why I'm still here, in his kitchen, making fun of his cooking at nine in the morning.
I know why I'm here. Simon asked me to stay once—middle of the night, both of us half-asleep, some nonsense about not wanting to be alone—and I said yes. I keep saying yes. It's a sickness. Simon doesn't need to know that most of my decisions are just different ways of saying yes to him. It's embarrassing.
"You're a snob, Basil," he says, which is fair.
"And you're trying to poison me."
"Accidentally trying to poison you. There's a difference."
I cross the kitchen in three strides and fit myself against his back, wrapping my arms around his waist. He's warm—Simon is always warm, furnace-hot in a way that has nothing to do with his magic anymore and everything to do with his ridiculous metabolism. I press my nose into the curve of his neck and breathe in: soap, something citrus from his shampoo, and underneath it all, the familiar electric scent of Simon that no amount of normality could ever fully extinguish.
"You're shivering," he murmurs, leaning back into me.
"You're a space heater with opposable thumbs."
"And you love me."
I tighten my arms. "Unfortunately."
The smoke alarm goes off. Simon curses and waves his hand in that vague, hopeful way he has when he's trying to use magic, producing nothing but a faint warmth and a lot of arm movement. I flick my wrist—casual, effortless—and the smoke dissipates into nothing, the alarm falling silent.
"Show-off," Simon mutters.
"Failure," I counter.
He laughs, and I feel it against my chest, this vibration that goes straight to my fangs. I have to concentrate for a second, to remind myself that it's morning, and we're in the kitchen, and Simon is wearing my old Winchester hoodie with the sleeves pushed up and there's flour on his cheek from where he tried to fix the toaster with magic and failed.
He fails at a lot of things, Simon. He burns toast and he can't organise a bookshelf and he once flooded our bathroom because he thought he could charm the pipes into working better. But he also loves me like it's easy. Like it's breathing. And I'm still not used to it, even after two years. I don't think I'll ever be used to it.
This is our life now. Domestic and strange and ours.
Simon works at a bookshop in Camden—The Magickal Page, which sells actual spellbooks alongside the tourist nonsense. He mostly handles the register and tries not to set things on fire when tourists ask him to demonstrate "real magic." He comes home smelling like old paper and incense and this particular kind of exhaustion that happens when you've spent eight hours pretending to be normal.
I'm finishing my degree in Ancient Magical Texts at the London College of Magick, which involves a lot of library hours and a lot of complaining about other people's translation errors. (I don't actually complain out loud. I write passive-aggressive notes in the margins of my textbooks and then show them to Simon, who laughs even when he doesn't understand the references. Simon laughs at most of my jokes. It's one of his worst qualities. I love him for it.)
We've been together for two years. Officially, properly together—not the catastrophic pining of our school years, not the desperate, hungry thing that consumed us at Watford when we finally stopped trying to kill each other and started trying to keep each other alive. This is different. This is Simon leaving his socks everywhere and me pretending to be annoyed about it. This is me reading aloud from obscure magical theory while Simon falls asleep on my shoulder. This is learning how to be soft with each other, how to be gentle, how to love without the constant threat of war hanging over our heads.
But there are still things we don't talk about. Spaces in our shared life that remain unmapped.
My family is one of them.
The phone rings at half past six, while I'm attempting to salvage dinner and Simon is doing the crossword with his feet up on the coffee table. I glance at the caller ID and feel my stomach drop—automatic, Pavlovian, learned through years of disappointment.
"Father," I answer, keeping my voice neutral.
"Baz." Malcolm Grimm-Pitch sounds exactly as he always does—precise, clipped, as if every word costs him something. "Dinner. Saturday. The usual time."
I close my eyes. The "usual time" means seven o'clock sharp. The "usual" means me arriving alone, making excuses for Simon's absence, enduring three hours of stilted conversation and Daphne's desperate attempts at peacemaking while Malcolm asks about my grades and my future and why I haven't started looking for "suitable employment" yet.
"I'll be there," I say.
"See that you are." A pause. Static on the line. "And Baz?"
"Yes?"
"Don't be late."
The line goes dead. I stare at the phone for a long moment, then set it down carefully on the counter, as if it might shatter if I handle it too roughly.
"Everything okay?" Simon asks, not looking up from his crossword. He's chewing on the end of his pen in a way that makes me want to simultaneously kiss him and confiscate all writing implements.
"Fine," I say. "Family dinner. Saturday."
Simon finally looks up then, and I hate the careful blankness that settles over his features. It's not quite hurt—Simon is better at hiding his feelings than he used to be, better at protecting himself—but it's something adjacent. Something tired.
"I'll—I'll find something to do.” Simon says, “Penny's been asking me to help her organise her new flat. Or I could see if Agatha wants to get drinks."
"You could come with me," I say, even though we both know it's not true. Not really. Not with Father sitting at the head of the table like a particularly judgmental gargoyle.
Simon smiles, soft and timid. "It's okay, Baz. I know how it is."
But he doesn't. Not entirely. Because I've never fully explained how it is—how Father looks at me sometimes like I'm a disappointment that keeps unfolding, how the silence at that dinner table weighs more than any shouting match ever could. How Daphne is kind in her way, but her kindness is careful, calibrated, never quite enough to risk Malcolm's displeasure.
Simon knows that my father doesn't like him. He knows that I go to these dinners alone, that I come back quieter, more brittle, smelling like the expensive wine I drink to get through the evening. But he doesn't know the specifics. The way Father refers to Simon as "that Snow boy" in a tone that suggests something unpleasant stuck to his shoe. The way he never asks about Simon, never acknowledges our relationship, treats my refusal to discuss "settling down with a nice girl" as a phase to be waited out.
I've never told him. Some part of me is terrified that if Simon knew exactly how deep the Grimm-Pitch disapproval ran, he would start to believe he deserves it.
"Come here," I say instead of explaining.
Simon sets down his crossword and crosses the room, fitting himself against my side. He's warm and solid and real, and I bury my face in his hair and try to memorise this—the good parts, the parts that are only ours.
"I'll be back late," I murmur. "Don't wait up."
"I always wait up."
"I know. I wish you wouldn't."
Simon pulls back just enough to look at me, and his eyes are so open, so unbearably honest. "I like waiting up. I like when you come home and wake me up on the couch and carry me to bed."
"You're ridiculous."
"You're carrying me to bed on Saturday."
"You're not even going to be awake."
"I'll pretend to be asleep. For the aesthetic."
I laugh, startled, and Simon grins at me—bright and triumphant, like he's won something. And maybe he has. Maybe getting me to laugh when I'm thinking about my father is a victory worth celebrating. "Fine," I say. "But if you drool on my silk shirt again, I'm leaving you on the couch."
"Promises, promises."
Later, when Simon has fallen asleep against my shoulder during a documentary about magical creature conservation, I find myself thinking about the other home—the one we never really visit. Lady Salisbury's home, Cranborne Manor, where the walls are lined with photographs of Simon’s mother and his uncle at every age, and recently more photos of him on the mantle place, and where the guest room has been "my room" for two years now without anyone officially acknowledging it.
Lady Salisbury had hugged me the first time I came to dinner. An official dinner, one where Simon didn’t find out that they were related and came home with a sword. She had pulled me into her arms like I was something precious, like I was family, and said, "Anyone Simon loves is welcome here."
Anyone Simon loves.
I look down at Simon's sleeping face, the way his mouth has fallen slightly open, the faint snore that he's always denied making. I think about my father's voice on the phone, the careful absence of any question about Simon's wellbeing. The way Daphne will smile at me on Saturday and ask about my studies and carefully, carefully avoid mentioning the fact that I share a flat with another man. That I'm in love with that man. That I've built a life with him while everyone pretends not to notice.
I think about the silk shirt hanging in my wardrobe, the one I wear to these dinners like armour. The way I'll stand in front of the mirror and practice my expression—neutral, polite, not too happy, not too anything. The way I'll drive to that house and feel myself shrinking, folding into a version of myself that fits better in Father’s world.
And then I'll come home. And Simon will be waiting, half-asleep on the couch, and I'll carry him to bed, and we'll be warm and safe and ours again.
It's enough. It has to be enough.
I press a kiss to Simon's temple and settle deeper into the couch, determined to enjoy this while I can. Saturday will come soon enough. The silence will come. The careful, heavy absence of everything I can't say.
But tonight, Simon is here. Simon is mine. And for now, that is everything.
The next morning, I wake to the sound of Simon humming in the kitchen and the smell of coffee that doesn't taste like despair. I find him at the counter, actually wearing an apron—my apron, the one with the badger on it that Penny gave me as a joke—and attempting to arrange strawberries on a plate in a way that suggests "I tried" rather than "I have any idea what I'm doing."
"Morning," Simon says, grinning. "I didn't burn anything."
"I'm proud of you."
"Don't sound so surprised."
I pour myself coffee and lean against the counter, watching Simon move around our kitchen with the clumsy grace of someone who has never quite grown into his own body. He's wearing my dressing gown over his pjamas, sleeves rolled up, and there's flour on his nose from where he's apparently attempted something involving pastry.
"What's the occasion?" I ask.
"No occasion. Just... wanted to do something nice. Before Saturday."
The casual mention of it makes my chest tighten. I set down my coffee cup. "Simon—"
"I know," Simon says quickly. "I know we don't talk about it. I just wanted to say—" He stops, frowning at the strawberries. "I wanted to say that I know it's hard. Going there. And I'm sorry I can't—"
"Don't." I cross the kitchen in two strides, take Simon's flour-covered hands in mine. "Don't apologise for my family being—"
"Difficult?"
"Impossible. Archaic. Full of terrible people with excellent bone structure."
Simon laughs, startled. "You have excellent bone structure."
"I'm the exception that proves the rule."
"Baz." Simon squeezes my hands. "You know you can talk to me. About all of it. I know you try to protect me from the worst parts, but I can handle it. I want to handle it. With you."
I look at him—at this impossible, ridiculous, wonderful man who loves me despite everything, who burned the world down and built something better from the ashes—and feel something crack open in my chest. Not broken. Just... open. Exposed. "I know," I say quietly. "I just—I don't want you to think less of me. Because of where I come from."
Simon stares at me. "Baz. I literally tried to kill you for six years because I thought you were a vampire. I don't think less of you because your dad's a prat."
"That's... oddly comforting."
"I'm full of surprises."
I kiss him then, flour and all, tasting strawberries and coffee and Simon. Simon makes a surprised noise and kisses back, hands coming up to frame my face, and for a moment everything else falls away. The dinner. The silence. The weight of expectations that I've been carrying since I was old enough to understand that love in the Grimm-Pitch household was something you earned, not something you were given.
When we pull apart, Simon is smiling, soft and fond. "You're going to be late for class."
"I don't care."
"You care. You have that presentation on medieval curse theory."
I groan. "I hate that you remember my schedule better than I do."
"I have a lot of free time. Not everyone can be a fancy graduate student."
"You're a fancy bookseller."
"I'm a disaster who happens to work in a bookshop."
I kiss him again, quick and sharp, and then force myself to step back. "Saturday," I say, because it needs to be said. "I'll be back late. Don't—"
"Wait up," Simon finishes, grinning. "I know. I'll try not to."
We both know he will.
I leave for my presentation with Simon's laughter still echoing in my ears and the taste of strawberries on my lips. I don't think about the phone call. Don't think about Father’s voice, the careful absence of Simon's name, the weight of all the things we don't say in that house.
I think instead about coming home. About Simon waiting, half-asleep and stubborn and warm. About carrying him to bed and feeling, for a few hours at least, like the person I want to be. Not the Grimm-Pitch heir. Not the vampire's son. Not the disappointment.
Just Baz. Just Simon's Baz.
It's enough. It has to be enough.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, a small voice whispers that it isn't. That the space between what we have and what we could have is growing wider, not narrower. That someday, something will have to give.
I push the thought away and focus on my curse theory. I have years of practice at ignoring the things that hurt too much to examine.
I'll need every bit of it for Saturday.