Work Text:
Simon
It started when we were on our way to one of Baz’s family’s posh parties. I was nervous. Baz had kitted me out in a suit that was tailored around my wings and tail and covered up in a brown trenchcoat like David Tennant wears on Doctor Who. (I think it might be a replica of the actual coat from the show. Seems like something Baz would do.) He’d dragged me to a salon, where someone filed and snipped until my nails and cuticles looked like I hadn’t spent my whole life chewing them. The hand and foot massages were nice, I guess, but it all seemed like a bit much. He didn’t let me see the bill. Baz had taken half an hour styling my hair without magic and getting my curls to lay just so. I’m sure it wasn’t necessary. I think he just wanted to.
So when my hand instinctively reached up to stim with my hair on the Tube, Baz swatted it away. There was simply no way I was going to sit there and not stim at all, so I grabbed the hand that swatted me and put my focus on it. I traced the lines of bones and veins with my fingertips. I thumbed the creases of his knuckles. I followed the musculature with my fingers. And then I started pressing and rubbing like the people had done at the salon, massaging his entire hand until it was jelly in mine and Baz was almost asleep on my shoulder.
When I got to the party, I was more settled than I’d ever been at the start of one of those things, so I figured that I was on to something. If stimming with Baz’s hand was so effective, what else might work? How many ways can I use him as a stim toy? How long will it take him to figure it out?
Baz
I am never letting Simon touch his hair again.
His curls look perfect. And that hand massage on the Tube? If that wasn’t heaven, then I want to go to hell. Did he learn to do that from one session at the nail salon? Fuck. I’m going to take him for a full body massage next.
Simon
1. Tactile.
Apparently, I did well at the party because the next day, Baz tells me I seem tense and takes me out for couples massages. I don’t know what I did. I don’t ask. But the massage feels good. I wish I’d had this after getting back from missions. Kind of seems like an oversight now. I push the thought aside and focus on relaxing and paying attention to what the hands on my body are doing.
The next day, when I get home from a stressful day at work and feel my nerves buzzing under my skin, I push the anxiety out through my hands on Baz’s back, his shoulders, down his arms, to his hands, down his legs to his feet, up his neck, and all over his scalp. I roll him over so I can get to his chest and then lay his head in my lap so I can massage all of the muscles in his face. When I’m done, he’s asleep and I’ve worked up a sweat. But the sparks under my skin have died back. I lay Baz’s head on his pillow and go to the kitchen to make dinner, feeling like I can breathe.
Massage isn’t the only tactile stim I do with Baz- far from it. That’s just the one I do when I need to lose myself in pressure and intensity to find myself again. (Or when Baz seems stressed.) There are so many other ways. Especially if we’re sitting on the sofa and watching something.
I hold his hand and rub his fingertip across my lips. Along my cheekbones and jaw. Down the middle of my forehead to the tip of my nose. Against the edges of my teeth. Along my hairline. He usually starts playing with my hair when I do that. I let him and sink into the sensation.
I run his hair through my fingers. Over and over until it puffs out like Einstein. He pretends to hate it, but I caught him taking a selfie afterwards once.
I braid his hair too. I stumbled across a viral tutorial video and went on a binge. And now it’s a toss-up whether Baz gets off the sofa looking like Einstein or a bride ready for her big day. I sometimes sneak things to the sofa with me to braid into his hair. It might be pretty things like flowers or beads, but sometimes it’s silly things like macaroni (raw or cooked, depending on how much of Baz’s wrath I’m willing to take later), Froot Loops, or nuts and washers. When I use food, I usually eat it when it’s time to undo the braids. Baz says it’s disgusting, but I don’t want to waste food.
Washing his hair is another good one. The slick feeling of the shampoo on my skin and the pull of the wet strands between my fingers. The way the roots twist and abrade my fingertips as I rub the product into his scalp. The way loose hairs get caught on my hands as I use them to comb it through and have to be pulled off like spiderwebs.
I wash the rest of him too, feeling the smooth glide of his skin under my fingers and the contours of his muscles and bones underneath. The resistance of hairs on his arms, legs, and chest. The way parts of him tense and relax under my touch.
I lay my hands flat against his shoulderblades when he plays violin and close my eyes so I can feel his movements without disrupting.
I run my toes up and down his shin when we’re across from each other at the table.
I rest my head on his chest and close my eyes to feel it rise and fall. Sometimes, I blow air on his stomach or sneak a lick or a nip to make his muscles twitch under my cheek.
I spoon him in bed, feeling how his body fits against mine, how his joints bend to fill in my gaps, how his cool skin warms against mine and how my skin cools against his. I rub my face into the nape of his neck, letting the cartilage in my nose get pulled back and forth. I trace his ribs and his sternum.
I trace a part of him with my fingers and with the spade of my tail and feel the difference in my own sensation and in how Baz reacts.
I wrap my tail around different parts of him and squeeze, releasing, moving it a little, and tightening like I’m trying to get the last bit out of a toothpaste tube.
I let my tail slither over him like a snake, exploring wherever it wants over and under his clothes.
I use the spade of my tail or one of the spikes on my wing to precisely part his hair in different places. Sometimes, I do a straight part, but sometimes it’s zig zags or curves like a river.
I wrap my wings around him and feel the way he relaxes into their embrace.
I drape a wing over us while he’s sleeping and feel the rhythm of his breathing.
I lay a wing across his lap and let him stroke absently along the bones.
This is the best idea I’ve ever had. It’s all so relaxing. I can’t wait to get home every day so I can have Baz time. I’m finding that I’m less stressed. Touching him works better than stimming with my hair and cuticles. I think it’s like how I felt better pushing my magic into him than going off. I don’t have magic anymore, but I can still push.
Baz
Simon won’t stop touching me. Sometimes, I pretend to be annoyed. I’m not. Simon Snow can touch me as much as he wants.
His hair has been looking better these days. I think he abuses it less since he started up on mine instead. I don’t mind. It means I get to look at him with his curls looking healthy and defined instead of pulled into frizz.
Simon
2. Visual.
Baz is obviously a pleasure to look at. He’s fit as anything. But being easy on the eyes goes deeper than that. When I have obtrusive thoughts, I follow the curve of each of his eyelashes until they crowd the thoughts out. I watch his pupils dilate and contract. I go back and forth between looking at his eyes and my reflection in them. I watch his fingers when he types or plays violin. I watch the water run down his body when we shower together or drip down him afterwards when we don’t. I let my eyes follow the patterns on his clothes.
Baz
Simon stares, sometimes like he’s studying me and sometimes like he’s looking right through me. Sometimes he can continue a conversation while he does it, and sometimes he fades away to another world. He smiles when he comes back, so I let it happen without comment.
Simon
3. Olfactory.
I’ve always found the smell of Baz’s hair and skin products comforting. Cedar and bergamot. Fucking bliss, that is. I smell it in his hair. I breathe it in when I lie on his chest.
I also lose myself in the smell of Baz. That personal scent that underlies the added fragrances. I described it as a cave once, as a hidden waterfall, as cool water I couldn’t stop drinking. It’s in his sweat. It’s in his breath. It’s in his spunk.
Baz
Simon thinks he’s being subtle when he sniffs me. He isn’t. I don’t let on. It’s not his fault he has a normal human’s sense of smell. I smell him all the time just by breathing. I won’t deny him.
Simon
4. Vocal.
Sometimes I hum to myself, but it’s different when I do it with my lips or my chest pressed against Baz. Maybe I should think of this as tactile, but the action is vocal, so here we are. I listen to and feel the way my sounds reverberate in Baz’s chest as the soundwaves vibrate his ribs and the air in his lungs. I listen to how the sound changes, depending on his progress of inhaling and exhaling. I hold notes. I change them. I get louder and softer. Sometimes, I growl. It’s obviously noticeable, but Baz doesn’t say anything about it. He just strokes my hair and lets me go.
Baz
Alestair Crowley. I don’t think Simon knows what it does to me when he vibrates against my skin. It doesn’t matter if it’s a toneless hum, a deep growl, or snippets from the Doctor Who score. It all makes my breath catch and my stomach flip. And then he sighs and acts like nothing happened. Just sighs and goes back to watching a show together or cuddling with me while I read. He’s never said what he’s doing. Why he presses our ribs together and acts like he’s trying to learn how to echolocate. He does it and moves on, leaving me afraid to ask about it and thrumming with heat.
Simon
5. Proprioceptive/Vestibular.
I love the feeling of having Baz’s full weight pressing me down. Grounding me. Keeping me on Earth. We might be watching tele or he might be reading and I’ll pull him fully on top of me. It keeps me in the moment so I can process the show or stop my brain from spiraling.
If he falls asleep before I do, I usually pull Baz gently on top of me and use him as a weighted blanket. Those are the nights when I’m least likely to have nightmares and most likely to dream of something pleasant, tolerable, or of nothing at all. I’ve started making it happen on purpose by stealing his book from him, turning out the lights, and stroking his hair until he falls asleep.
Baz
I keep waking up on top of Simon. I know I didn’t fall asleep that way. Instead of my pillow, my head will be on his chest. His arms and wings are both draped around me. I wake up coccooned in his warmth. It’s indescribable. Merlin, Morgana, and Methusela. It’s everything.
Simon
6 and 7. Auditory and Oral. Sometimes they’re separate, but they go together often enough to put them together.
I always used to chew on everything. Pens, pencils, my cross necklace, my nails, the skin of my lips. Anything, really. I still do a lot of that. But if I’m with Baz, I can run my teeth all over him. Sometimes, I gently press his fingertips between my teeth. Not really biting, definitely not chewing. Just exploring the pads, nails, and joints with my teeth, lips, and tongue. Or I’ll bite his collarbones or his ears or his neck.
In all cases, this is accompanied by sound, not from me, but from Baz. It made me pay attention, experiment with what sounds I could make him produce, and seek out particular ones to scratch whatever itch is in my brain. Baz is wonderful at playing the violin (and listening to that is another lovely auditory stim), but I’ve become an expert at playing the Baz.
I startle him with the lightest graze of my tongue after several minutes of dragging my teeth along the same spot to make his breath hitch. I tickle him to make him squeak. I make a pitiful attempt at raising one eyebrow to make him sniff.
Making Baz moan is easy. For me, anyway. A kiss here. A nip there. A press against his hips. The right tug of his hair to go with the other things. I have to work a little harder with my hands, my body, or my mouth if I want him to whine or scream. And if I’m very lucky, I can get him gasping my name. Or fail to and barely manage some, “Sssss’s,” or, “Nnnnn’s.” And then my nerves are left warm and tingly and I don’t even need or want to get off. I sink into his refractory haze and let my mind and my nerves go blank. It’s like turning my brain off and back on again.
Baz
Simon has progressed from not being able to touch me to not being able to keep his hands off of me. It’s everything I ever wanted. He doesn’t have missions anymore, so he’s made mastery in making me see stars his new one. The things that man does to me… Crowley. And half the time, he wants nothing in return. He blows my mind and then settles in next to me, soft in his smile and soft elsewhere, and relaxes while I recover.
I don’t understand it. I’m not sure if I’ll ever fully understand Simon Snow. But I’m not sure I need to either. I only need to love him however he comes… or doesn’t. And I’ve been the world’s leading expert in that since we were kids.