Chapter Text
Baz hates Simon Snow.
How his eyes flutter shut when he leans in for a kiss, arms falling slack at his sides as he melts into her embrace. His freckled cheeks turn pink, the blush spreading to the tips to his ears and all the way down his neck.
It’s infuriating, watching his chapped lips pucker against Agatha’s glossy ones.
The crowd's cheers overpower Baz’s own heartbeat, despite it pounding in his ears. He could barely hear himself breathe over their chants, KISS! KISS! KISS! Well, they got their wish.
It’s less a kiss and more a makeout, at this point. The audience can’t see it, their faces are covered by Agatha’s golden hair, but Baz could see it from where he was standing. They were practically eating each other’s faces, fervently pushing themselves closer together as if Agatha hadn’t already thrown her arms around Simon’s neck.
Baz could feel his heart lurch in his chest, the drop in his stomach, the shake in his knees. He hated it. He hated Simon for always doing this. He hated himself for feeling this way.
He steals a glance at Penelope, who is slack-jawed and barely managing to hold up her guitar in shock. This wasn’t the first time Simon and Agatha had done this, they’d basically been doing it since they first formed the band, but it never made it less… jarring. Especially for someone as dense as Penelope.
Eventually, Baz forces himself to look away. It’s unhealthy, all this jealousy. It eats at him from the inside, he can feel it now, the dull ache in his heart, the sting in the corner of his eyes. His grip on his bass tightens, knuckles turning white as he wills himself to forget. Wills himself to hate.
He hears a gasp, a laugh, and Agatha’s footsteps as she approaches the mic stand once more. “That’s all for tonight, everybody!” she announces, eyes wide and lips swollen. The audience goes wild, shouting for an encore, which Baz hopes Agatha disagrees to. He doesn’t have enough mental strength left for another song after witnessing that.
Thankfully, she does. Everything after the wave of relief that comes over him is a blur. Agatha said a few more words, he vaguely remembers waving goodbye, the lights went out, and they took their leave.
Baz avoided Simon, which was easy since he just clung to Agatha the whole way. Packing their equipment, debriefing with the tech crew, walking to the parking lot. Not a word said to Baz, which was what he wanted. Totally.
“Great show tonight, guys,” Agatha says with a smile, arm wrapped around Simon’s. “Remember, we have practice tomorrow afternoon. Don’t be late!”
Simon looked dazed, staring off into space. Typical.
After some quick goodbyes, the couple were off to Simon’s convertible. Probably so they could shag in Agatha’s two-story loft apartment. The thought made Baz sick, Penelope seemed to feel the same way.
“I hate when they do things like that on stage,” she says, trailing behind Baz to his car. “It’s so inappropriate! Even if the audience can’t see them kiss, I can see them, and it’s disgusting!”
Baz’s lips quirk into a smile, at least one of them's not afraid to say it aloud. He’s got a lot of things he wishes he could say aloud, but it’d ruin things he’d like to keep. “Yeah,” is all Baz can manage. Penelope seemed satisfied enough, opting to stay quiet for the rest of the walk to the car and drive to their shared apartment.
Somehow, they ended up rooming together to save money. Well, really it was the three of them including Simon, but he was usually at Agatha’s anyway. Spending time with his beloved girlfriend.
Baz didn’t mind, in fact, it made things easier. Less mess to clean up, less people to live around, more space to work with.
He couldn’t imagine seeing Simon everyday, fresh out the shower, shirtless with only a towel wrapped loosely around his waist.
Baz shifted his focus onto the road.
“How’s the new album coming along?” Penelope asks, staring out the window at the changing buildings.
“Smoothly,” he replies, “I have a few more ideas I want to flesh out when I have the time.”
He has time when they get home. He gets comfy on the couch, pencil and notepad at the ready, but he can’t seem to focus. The pencil taps against the paper uselessly, Baz bites his lip in thought. But he can’t think.
His mind lingers on the reddening tips of Simon’s ears, how his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows, the way his hand gently cups Agatha’s cheek.
There it is again; that feeling. It isn’t love, Baz tells himself. But he knows it isn’t true. He’s known for a long time that the dull ache in his heart wasn’t hate, nor was the sting in his eyes, nor was the fluttery feeling in his stomach.
It didn’t matter what it was or what it wasn’t, he’d learnt. He’d be miserable either way.
Hours later, once he’s resorted to drinking wine by himself on the living room sofa, he gets a text.
hey baz
r u alr? u were acting off earlier
No, Baz wished he could say. I hate you, he could say. I love you, he’d never say.
yeah i’m fine
just a stomach bug
oh
must’ve been something you ate, get well soon!
btw i’m staying over at agatha’s
Baz takes another sip of wine, bitter and sour against his tongue. He can faintly hear Penelope from her room, the familiar strumming of her guitar seeping into the living room. Good for her, at least one of them’s getting something productive done.
ok
He turns off his phone off before he can say something he’ll regret. They’re probably snuggling right now, aftersex glow all over their perfect faces as they lay in Agatha’s king-sized bed. She’s probably using Simon’s toned bicep as a pillow, pushing her face into the crook where his neck and shoulder meet as she sleeps.
Baz can picture the freckles and moles that litter that joint, though he’s never had the chance to count them properly. And he probably never will get that chance.
They make it hard for Baz not to wallow in his own sadness, alone on the couch, wine bottle by his side just waiting to be finished.
Baz hates Simon Snow.
Wouldn’t you know it, the bottle runs dry. Every last drop of bitter wine went down Baz’s throat and was left to sit uncomfortably in his stomach. It’s definitely getting to his head, though. Everything feels hot and blurry, as if time itself had slowed down.
His mind is sluggish and groggy, but he can’t stop. Can’t put his phone down, can’t stop scrolling down the rabbit hole of #Simatha on the godforsaken Twitter app.
Pictures, videos, even fanart of the two litter his feed. Videos of them kissing the night before, of candid pictures of them about the city, going on dates and having their fun. Their gleeful smiles fill his brain and fuel his jealousy to another level.
Yet he keeps going.
It’s unhealthy, he knows that well, but since when did that matter? He won’t remember any of this anyway, probably. That was the magic of alcohol; its ability to drown his sorrows away. To a degree.
In fact, he’s so absorbed in his own little pity party that he barely notices the knocking at the door. It’s tentative at first, like whoever’s doing it is scared of waking everyone up, until it becomes banging.
“Baz? Penelope?” a voice calls out from the other side.
Now, Baz may be drunk, but he’s not so drunk that he’s lost his logical ability. It’s Simon, he’s pretty sure, but that can’t be right. He glances at the time, three in the morning. Didn’t Simon say he was staying at Agatha’s?
“Please…” Simon’s call devolves into a desperate plea, as if he’s choking up on his own words. “Please open the door…”
Baz slides off the couch like a snake, dragging his body off and pushing himself up. His head pounds, nearly making him see stars, but he walks on. Perhaps stagger on is a better way to put it.
He doesn’t bother turning the lights on and instead opts to fumble with the lock in the dark, a challenge when you’re half awake and a hundred percent drunk. Baz gets it open eventually.
It is Simon, but not the Simon Snow Baz had seen the previous night. Not the Simon Snow Baz had texted just a few hours ago.
This is Baz’s least favorite Simon.
“Baz…” Simon whines, “Agatha kicked me out.”
“Again?” Baz says aloud before he can stop himself, “What’s it about this time?” Curse his alcohol induced lack of a filter.
Thankfully, Simon doesn’t seem to notice his bluntness. Or maybe he does and just decides to ignore it. “I don’t even know,” he sobs, Baz ushers him inside and closes the door shut behind him.
“Didn’t you two shag?” Baz slurs, eyes following Simon’s figure in the dark.
“We did,” he admits, taking a seat on the sofa.
“So? What went wrong?” This is unhealthy too, Baz knows. But Simon is his friend, it’s his duty as a friend to comfort Simon through the extreme highs and lows #Simatha experience behind the scenes.
“It was great. It was good—we were good,” he says shakily, pausing to take a deep breath. “Then all of a sudden we… we weren’t.”
There’s another pause, a pocket of brief silence where reality sinks its teeth into Simon. And he just breaks down. His chest is heaving, breaths unable to keep up with the sobs escaping his lips. Unintelligible babbling, and Baz can’t tell if he’s trying to say something or nothing at all.
It’s heartbreaking, seeing Simon like this. Tears running down his cheeks, grabbing at his hair so hard it looked like he was gonna rip patches of it out. This is Baz’s least favorite Simon.
He dims on the lights and goes to sit by Simon on the couch, rubbing soothing circles on his back. Baz has seen one too many of these breakdowns, and has helped Simon through through nearly each and every one of them. It’s so bad that Baz had managed to sober up, partially.
“Simon,” he calls, hands reaching up to pull Simon’s hands away from his hair and into his own. “Look at me.”
He’s hysterical, his sobs and hiccups become one and the same, but his aqua blue eyes finally meet Baz’s. They’re swollen and red-rimmed, tears threatening to fall brimming the corners.
“Follow after me,” Baz squeezes Simon’s hand in his, before walking him through some simple breathing exercises. Breathe in, breathe out.
Simon’s convulsive breathing slows, and the shake in his hands dies down. “Good,” Baz coos, “that’s good, Simon.”
Simon seems to swell at the praise, hands squeezing Baz’s back. “Thanks, Baz.”
“It’s no problem,” Baz says, rubbing circles onto the back of Simon’s hand with his thumb. “Now, tell me what happened.”
It was the standard Simon and Agatha spiel, a little more intense than usual, but nothing too out of the ordinary. One half-hearted off-hand comment led to a string of bickering and eventually a fight. Simon and Agatha, being the hard headed individuals they are, both refused to back down and apologize. It kept escalating and escalating until it blew up, ending with Simon getting kicked out.
Or Baz was pretty sure that’s what happened. He didn’t know for certain as he’d zoned out during the conversation. Catching words here and there but not enough to form full sentences.
Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was Simon’s captivating blue eyes staring so passionately into his, Baz didn't know anymore. All he knew was that it was hot, that Simon’s hands were in his, and that Simon and Agatha were probably gonna get back together after this anyway.
The rugged drummer and the ethereal singer, the staple couple in any band. For them, that was Simon and Agatha. They’d make out on stage, exchange fleeting glances, hold hands, all the gross couple-y stuff that the crowd lived for.
It was their thing, and it’s been their thing since forever. #Simatha is the core of their band; there isn’t a post tagged with #TheNormals that don't mention their relationship.
But, of course, the fans can only take their relationship at face value. They don’t know the highs and lows #Simatha goes through; the animosity, the mental breakdowns, the ‘hiatuses’ the band takes solely to sort out their relationship drama.
They don’t know how sick and tired Baz is of all of it. They don’t know how badly Baz wants them to break up, they don’t know how badly Baz wants to have Simon Snow all to himself.
They won’t know about tonight where, in their dimly lit shared apartment, Baz captures Simon’s lips with a kiss.
Even Baz wasn’t quite sure how it’d happened. One second Simon was talking how he’d forgotten his keys because of how Agatha was rushing him, and the next Baz had leaned in and closed the gap between them.
Baz realizes his mistake, quickly pulling away and feeling his cheeks flush in shame and embarrassment. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—“
He’s abruptly interrupted when Simon leans back in and pushes his lips against Baz’s, and wow.
It wasn’t anything what Baz imagined kissing Simon would feel like, but he didn’t mind. All that really matters is Simon’s lips on his, and the prick of pain that comes when Simon bites his lower lip. Baz gasps, and Simon uses the opportunity to slip his tongue into Baz’s mouth. Gosh, Baz didn’t know kissing could feel so good.
It wasn’t gentle. It was rough, quick, messy, and uncoordinated. Full of tongue and teeth, as if they were trying to devour each other whole. Baz liked it. He liked Simon, liked the feel of the arms wrapping around his waist to pull him closer, liked the small puffs of breath Simon would let out when they’d break apart just before leaning back in.
This is wrong, Baz knows. This is unhealthy, he knows. Simon and Agatha are gonna get back together after this, no matter what Baz says to Simon. Doing this, whatever this is, will only delay the inevitable.
But why does it matter? Baz won’t remember any of this anyway. Probably.