theshrubbery

[theshrubbery]

I finally did a snowbaz piece! This is during their road trip in the upcoming book.

Ref

[theshrubbery]

A late Christmas and an early new year’s gift :D Thanks for making my 2018 a fun and inspirational one  :D

[theshrubbery]

ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS!

Headed your way July 6! All 579 pages of it!

Cover designed by Olga Grlic and illustrated by @kevinwada. Endpapers and case stamp illustrated by Jim Tierney. The whole book was expertly designed and shepherded by Michelle McMillian at Wednesday Books.

This is the standard U.S. hardcover edition.

GUIDE TO EDITIONS AND ORDERING LINKS HERE.

[theshrubbery]

Here’s my new snowbaz fic!!

Summary: Back at Watford I was always on the ball with these things. I spent years suspecting he was a vampire and yet here I am, completely oblivious. Sometimes I feel as though I left all of that at Watford, like Baz took on a new identity when we left, like that’s an old life that I’m not a part of anymore.

Sometimes I forget that I’m not the only one with scars. My tail flicks pointedly.

Or; 5 times Simon forgot that Baz was a vampire, and 1 time he didn't.

________________________________________________________________

Baz has been gone for far too long. He’s never out this long. Especially not when he has uni the next day. It’s way past midnight, probably past one now. I haven’t checked in a while because that would mean I have to stop pacing long enough to look.

He should be back by now. Where is he?

He said he’d be back over an hour ago and he’s not answering his phone. It’s just ringing straight through to voicemail - he doesn’t even have the excuse that it’s died. Unless he’s lost it? But that’s unlikely. Baz never loses anything, Merlin knows how.  

I can’t take much more of this. I stop pacing, growl in frustration, run my hands through my hair and then slide my phone out of my pocket.

he’s still not back pen I type out quickly, sending it to Penny. She’s at home visiting her parents for the weekend, it’s her mum’s birthday. I’d give anything to have her here now, she always knows what to do. Unlike me. So much for being the chosen one, Merlin and Morgana I can’t do anything on my own.

Give him a little longer. Penny texts back in reply. I rush to unlock my phone so I can read it in full. Don’t go looking for him. Not with your tail and wings out.

Frustration bubbles up from my stomach to my chest. I hate this. I hate that I can’t just go out like a normal person. I hate that I can’t even open the door for a bloody delivery driver anymore without someone spelling all my extra parts invisible first. It’s demeaning and ridiculous and I feel like a ninny.

I clench my teeth and walk stiffly over to the table, finishing off the dregs of a bottle of cider - my third one of the night. So far. I shake the bottle a few times over my open mouth and then slam it down and continue to pace. At least it’s gotten me off the sofa, I suppose.

My stomach is in absolute knots. I’m so worried over this it’s making it ache. It doesn’t matter that we’re living safely amongst Normals, anything could have happened. It’s not like the underbelly of the Magickal world pays any attention to the rules.

Then, just as I really am about to go insane with worry, there’s a dull thump at the door. It rattles on its hinges, like someone’s thrown themselves against it and all I can think is I swear Baz took his keys when he left.

I rush to look through the keyhole, just in case. It’s a habit Baz and Penny absolutely drilled into me so that I didn’t swing the door open to anyone with my wings out.

It’s Baz. Oh, great snakes. Thank Merlin. Though the relief is short lived.

I yank the door open and my heart instantly drops to somewhere near my intestines.

Baz is heaving for breath, one arm clutching his bloodied shirt and the other hanging limply at his side, his wand in his hand. His clothes are dirty and torn, blood is puddling slowly at the floor by his feet. I’m having trouble breathing. It’s like the fight with the Mage all over again, it’s Ebb’s dead body.

Baz mutters a spell under his breath, I don’t catch what it is but it magicks the floor clean. Has he been doing that the entire way up here? Surely that’s draining way more magic than it’s worth! Energy that Baz could be better using to just concentrate on getting to the flat and not dying in the process.

“You goin’ to… You going to let me in or what?” Baz slurs, catching himself halfway through and fighting to get the words out. He’s gritting his teeth, his perfect mouth is stained red. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Baz slur, it’s disconcerting. I’ve known him most of my life and in all that time his enunciation was always near perfect at the worst of times, impeccable at the best. It’s part of what makes him so talented with magick.

“Oh fuck. Baz? Baz, what happened?” I rush out, distantly noticing I’m swearing like a Normal from the stress. My hands flutter around Baz, I don’t know where I should touch him, I don’t know if I can touch him. What if I make it worse? What if I hurt him?

“I got jumped,” Baz tells me, starting to shoulder his way past me and into the flat. “I got stabbed. Quite a few times, actually.”

I block the way, glad that Baz doesn’t seem to have the strength to boulder his way past me.

“Oh, god. We need to go to the hospital.” I dart to the dish on the hallway side, my vision tilting in panic as I grab my keys and wallet. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe what we’ve fought together and he’s been so badly maimed by muggers. This might even beat the Numpties incident. I can’t believe I’m thinking something like that at a time like this - this isn’t the time for jokes. Oh, god.

“I’m not going,” Baz says, pushing past me. I grab his shoulders to stop him, and then let go with a sickened jolt when he winces.

“Stop being stupid, Baz. Hospital. Now.” Baz leans his forearm on the door-frame and begins to bow over himself, groaning. My heart is hammering a mile a minute. “Look at you, you’re bleeding to death!”

Baz snorts. “If only.”

“What?”

“Merlin and Morgana, just let me in.” Baz spells the floor clean again. “Hurry up, before someone sees you.”

“But the-”

“Simon.” Baz lifts his bowed head to look at me, his forehead is crinkled. “Trust me. Don’t-” he breaks off with a load moan of pain, turning to rest his forehead on the arm holding him up against the frame.

“Baz!” My voice is shaking so hard it’s difficult to imagine I ever stood up to dragons, if this is all it takes to bring me down. To be fair, I think I’d go down with a lot less, too, these days.

“I need to lay down,” Baz says faintly. I really don’t like this. I mean, who would? But this is terrifying. It’s always Baz cleaning up after me, Baz patching me up, Baz is never the one as vulnerable as this. I don’t like it, I hate it, and I hate that I don’t have a single clue what to fucking do.

“Fine. Fuck. Okay, come on,” I stutter out. I take Baz’s wand, ignoring the pang in my chest at holding it, and sling his arm over my shoulders. I lead him into the flat, kicking the front door closed behind us, and walk us slowly to the sofa.

Baz staggers his way over, holding out his other arm and grabbing at things as we pass them. He grabs the back of a chair, the sideboard, the back of the sofa. He’s leaving blood stains but I don’t care.

“Easy, Snow,” Baz says as I lower him down, as gently as I possibly can. Baz’s eyes look a little glazed and I feel sick.

“I got you,” I tell him quietly. I put his wand on the coffee table.

“Your hands’re shaking,” Baz mumbles, his words stringing together, like that’s the most important fucking thing to be realising right now. Maybe he’s going into shock? I really doesn’t know what to do. I needs Penny. Penny would know what to do.

Once he can feel the sofa beneath him, Baz lays himself down and I lift both his legs up onto the sofa for him. I try to make him as comfortable as possible despite the way they hang, lanky, over the arm. Or as comfortable as one can be when he’s fucking bleeding out and refusing to get any medical attention .

“Do you need anything?” I ask quickly, already pulling my phone out to scroll for Penny’s number.

“Towel or something, please. Just to soak the blood.”

“Okay, love. Okay. I got it. I’ll be right back.” I kiss his forehead and rush off, holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I crash my way into the bathroom and start rummaging around for towels and anything that might possibly help.

“Simon? What is it?” Penny's tinny voice asks. Not even a hello, that’s so typical, straight to the point. Right now I’m extremely thankful for it. I pull a plastic bowl out of the sink and throw some towels in it as I reply.

“Baz’s hurt. He got jumped. I think he’s been stabbed.”

“Merlin, stabbed? How is that possible? Is he alright?”  

“He’s bleeding bad and refusing to go to hospital.” I throw a half empty packet of plasters in my bowl as though they’ll help anything. “I don’t know what to do, Pen.”

“I mean… He can’t go to hospital anyways, Simon. He should be fine unless it was some special sort of weapon. I mean, I can’t think of many ways that a knife can actually kill a vampire.” And then the other shoe drops.

“Oh, shit,��� I swear, realisation washing over me in a great big wave of Simon you complete buffoon.

“What is it?”  

“A vampire. Great snakes, Pen, I forgot he was a bloody vampire!”

“Oh, Simon,” Penny says with a sigh. Though there’s still a worried edge to her voice. “No wonder you were worrying so much.”

“Now it makes sense why he wouldn’t go to hospital.”

“Go and look after him, Simon. He’ll be alright. Just keep him comfortable and he’ll be healed up in no time. If he’s still not healed by the time I come back home I’ll sort him out.”

“I will. Sorry, Pen. For disturbing you so late. But- thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s what I’m here for.” There’s a muted beep as she hangs up the phone, and I shove it back in my pocket. I feel like a complete idiot. Vampire. How on earth could I possibly forget that? I’m going to blame it on my panic. I’m going to blame it on the fact Baz doesn’t hang from walls and kidnap virgin maidens to drain their blood, the fact he doesn’t turn into a bat.

Or at least not that I’m aware of.

I take the towels and box of plasters out of the empty bowl and fill it with warm water out the bathroom tap instead, then carry all of it back to the sofa and set it out on the floor next to Baz.

He’s still lying exactly how I left him, though with one arm draped over his eyes, the other clutching in a white-knuckled grip at his torso.

“Took you long enough,” Baz says in a low voice. It almost sounds like a groan.

“Sorry, Baz.” I kneel down, my legs tucked under me. “I completely forgot about the whole… Vampire thing.”

“Vampire thing,” he parrots back. “Right. So I heard. That would explain things.” Guilt rushes through my system, heats my cheeks. Of course he heard me on the phone. Back at Watford I was always on the ball with these things. I spent years suspecting he was a vampire and yet here I am, completely oblivious. Sometimes I feel as though I left all of that at Watford, like Baz took on a new identity when we left, like that’s an old life that I’m not a part of anymore.

Sometimes I forget that I’m not the only one with scars. My tail flicks pointedly.

“Does it hurt?” I ask him, dunking a towel in the water. “How did it even happen?”

Baz nods and makes a small noise deep in his throat. “Yeah. It hurts. It probably will for a few hours, then it’ll mostly just be itchy. I’ll heal in no time. The only reason I’m even bleeding like this is because I’d just fed - I’ll have to go again once this is sorted.”

“But how did it happen? Was it another vampire?” Surely there has to be more to the story than this. Baz looks uncomfortable, if a little sheepish.

“Just your average alleyway muggers, really.” I raise my eyebrows.

“Crowley.” I curse. “How’d you manage that?”

“I didn’t want to hurt them,” Baz admits with a wince, lowering his arm and staring up at the ceiling. “It would, of course, been fairly easy to tear them to shreds with my bare hands. But that isn’t something I was willing to do.”

“Christ, Baz. There’s going easy on people and then there’s this.” I let go of the towel and gesture sweepingly across Baz’s abdomen and chest. “They shouldn’t have been able to leave this much damage on you.”

Baz looks distant, like he’s weighing things up in his head. I hate that look. It means he’s deciding how much I need to know.

We haven’t really been getting along as well as we used to, recently. Or maybe, it’s just hard to transition from sworn enemies to boyfriends in the matter of a few days. We’ve only been out of Watford a couple of months, but it’s been difficult for us. At first we couldn’t stop kissing and groping for long enough to watch a full episode of the Bake Off but recently it’s like there’s some invisible wedge growing between us.

I still love him, I’m sure of it. I think he loves me, too. But I don’t know what I’m doing. What we’re doing. We need to talk, communicate, but I’m terrified that if we do he’ll leave me. So I just let the divide deepen, and hate myself for it the entire time.

Looking at Baz now, though, I’m scared that I’m looking at the same Baz that tried to set himself alight in the woods. He has issues too, he just hides them better than I do. I feel like such a shit boyfriend, I can’t help him. One day he’ll realise he’s better than me, that I’m not good enough. But I don't want him to go, and that's selfish.

“I didn’t want to hurt them,” Baz repeats after a long silence. “Either way, they were pretty scared by the fact I stayed on my feet for so long.”

“Of course they were, if you were normal you’d be dead.”

Baz immediately flinches, his smirk drops along with my stomach.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” I say quickly, but the words catch in my throat and sound like an insincere stutter. “You are normal. For you, I mean.”

Baz sighs. For a second I think he’s going to punch me, but then I realise it’s the opposite. He deflates; his pinched brow and glazed eyes are the fight leaving him.

“Help me out of this shirt,” he says, letting it go.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“But I’m not normal, am I? Not for me. I wasn’t born this way, I was made. It was forced on me,” he quips. Sharp and fast and unfaltering. His eyes are blazing again.

“I-”

“It’s fine.” As quickly as the sparks catch they return to ash again. I really am sorry though. He won’t let me say it, not out loud, so I carry it like a mantra through my thoughts; I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry. “Help me with the shirt. Please, love.”

I bite my lip, but the endearment melts me a little. I know that it’s genuine, even if there is a whole void of unsaid things drifting between us. I reach for the buttons, undoing them as best I can with how my hands are shaking. I have to fight to keep my wings still, my tail, but it’s a losing battle. It’s written all over my body how agitated and nervous I am.

The shirt (the white shirt, why Baz hunts in a white shirt is beyond me) is torn across the chest and stomach, and as I undo the buttons and push the sides apart, my hand accidentally slides through the slash. Baz flinches, though he tries to control it.

“Watch the gaping bloody holes,” he says bluntly. I wince. There’s two glistening puncture wounds, I do my best not to look at them.

I pull the shirt away from him, bracing a hand on his back to help him sit up so I can pull it from under him even though I’m fairly sure he doesn’t really need the help. Looking at him, I can already see where the skin is healing. It doesn’t scab and clot, like flesh wounds normally do, the skin just seems to stitch itself smoothly back together.

I ball his shirt up and throw it to the side, then gently begin wiping the blood away with a damp towel.

“Careful, Snow,” Baz warns with a quiet hiss.

“Does it still hurt?” I have no idea how vampire pain receptors work.

“Crowely, Snow. Of course it hurts. I got stabbed .” Baz doesn’t really sound mad, but his voice has an edge to it.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. I don’t really know what else to say.

Baz doesn’t reply straight away. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I carry on wiping at the blood, vaguely recognising that, really, this isn’t even Baz’s.

“Why do you keep apologising so much?” He asks softly.

“I just- I don’t know.” I really don’t. “I just keep making you feel bad, and what sort of boyfriend forgets his boyfriend is a vampire? I’m sorry, Baz. Really.”

“It’s alright, Simon.” My stomach flutters at the use of my first name. “I’m glad I have you.” Baz always does this. He puts affection over everything like a salve. Lately he won’t let me be in the wrong, not him or Penny. The both of them walking on eggshells with me. It’s why nothing ever gets properly sorted out. Now isn’t the time for a fight, though.

“I bet you could do a better job with magic,” I mutter bitterly anyways.

“I don’t want to use magic. I’ve used enough magic. I don’t think I’d have enough left in me if I wanted to regardless.”

“Are you sure this is okay?”

“Absolutely, Simon. Absolutely.”

I carry on patching him up in silence. Even though it’s pointless. He’ll heal anyways, but he doesn’t stop me from wrapping the towels around him like a bandage and applying pressure with my hand. I look at where my hands are pressing over the wounds, trying to focus on the solid pressure of Baz beneath them.

The pain is mostly gone out of his face now, he just looks uncomfortable.

I wonder how indestructible Baz is. I wonder how long he’ll live. I wonder- no. I swallow. It’s no good thinking about all of this, not now, at least.

“I’m going to nap,” Baz says.

“Here? Or…?”

“I’ll be alright here, don’t worry.” I stare down at him until he looks back up at me. My heart squeezes as our eyes make contact and I reach up to press my hand against the side of his his grey face. His eyes seem to melt a little, he smiles and turns his head to kiss my hand.

“Come to bed. With me,” I whisper. I don’t want to be away from him right now. I need him near me, I need to feel that un-dead chest breathing.

It’s a struggle, but I help him up, and keep an arm around his waist as I lead him to the bedroom. He gets into bed first, lifting the covers and sliding in with a low hum. He’s falling asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. I notice how he pushes the covers away so that they don’t get stained.

I don’t care, I climb in and pull them over the both of us.

Baz lays still for a moment, tense. Then he shuffles closer to me, rests his head on my shoulder. I press my cheek to the top of it, hoping to smell bergamot. All I can smell is the tangy copper of blood. He’ll be wanting to shower once he’s awake, Baz hates being a mess.

He’s cold where he presses against me, but I don’t mind. He’s a vampire. It’s part of the deal. I want him as he is, not as he wishes he should be. I wonder if he thinks the same of me.

[theshrubbery]

Sorry, wasn’t able to post anything. But after seeing the absolutely gorgeous AWTWB cover, I had to do something. Hope you guys like it. They supposed to be a set.

[theshrubbery]

“Guys!” Bunce shrieks. “We are literally fleeing a crime. And also still in Middle America.”

- Wayward Son by @rainbowrowell

A year ago today, this scene was making me especially happy. 💙💛

[theshrubbery]

Chapter 8!

BAZ

“Pumpkin picking?” Snow sounds incredulous. I stare at him blankly.

“Yes, Snow,” I say. “Pumpkin picking.”

“But why?” He presses, as though pumpkin picking is some great offence to him. We’re sitting on the sofa Snow insists on sleeping on at the end of my bed. We’re sharing a plate of toast between us, though Snow is eating the bulk of it without even realising. He’s like a machine.

“Because it’s nearly Halloween and there’s a perfectly good pumpkin patch fifteen minutes away in the car?” He blinks, opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He’s quiet for a few moments before he replies.

“I’ve never been pumpkin picking,” he mumbles, looking down at the toast in his hand. “I always wanted to.”

“Then there we go.” I nod, trying to mask the clench in my chest at his admission behind assuredness. “Perfect opportunity, isn’t it?”

“I… Guess so?” He says it as more of a question than an answer, like he’s still rolling the idea of pumpkin picking with me over in his head.

“Right, well, I’m done with the toast—” I push the plate closer to him and stand “—eat up and come downstairs when you’re ready.” He looks at me as though he’s going to say something, and then quickly away again.

I leave him to it and go downstairs. I catch sight of my father in the sitting room as I pass. He’s smiling and talking to Mordelia. He looks up and sees me and his smile falters, his eyes glaze a little, but he doesn’t look as angry as I’d thought he might, and I continue past him to get my coat and Snow’s from the hallway closet.

I hear footsteps thudding towards me as lean into the closet to get the coats but the open door is blocking me from seeing who it is. Of course, as embarrassing as it is, I don’t really need to use my eyes to know who it is. I could recognise Snow’s oaf-like gait anywhere.

“That was quick,” I say to him before I’ve even turned around to look. He coughs.

“Your bedroom freaks me out.” His voice is muffled, like he’s talking around something and—yes, he has a mouthful of toast I see as I turn to face him, very much hoping my face conveys my best unimpressed expression.

“Snow, you’re a mess.”

He shrugs and looks faintly embarrassed. I pass him his coat and we go to wait for the rest of my family to be ready.

Pumpkin picking has been a yearly tradition for my family since I was old enough to walk. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother and I scouring for the largest possible pumpkin, cutting it free at the stalk and then laughing as we forced my father to carry it back to the car. It’s never been quite the same since mother died. Father’s heart has never quite been in it. Mordelia and the kids love it though, and the consistency of it is reassuring and grounding.

I’m looking forwards to it today more than I have in a long time, I’ve thought about a million and one ways in which I could somehow take Snow with me sometime. Oddly enough, fake-dating has never crossed my mind.

Snow doesn’t seem that impressed. Or maybe he is. I don’t know. I’m not quite sure how to interpret the radio silence he’s dealing me.

“Alright, Snow?” I ask him. I look away from the road for a moment to glance at him. He’s been fidgeting and shifting for the whole of the five minutes we’ve been driving so far. I insisted I take me and Simon in our own car. I didn’t want to be stuck in an enclosed space with father and Simon both. I hope father interprets it as a couple-thing and not an I-want-you-to-leave-me-alone thing.

“Yeah, fine.” He looks quickly to me and then away again. Tucks his hands under his legs and then pulls them back out to pick at the loose threads at the cuffs of his coat. I turn down the radio a little, hopefully so that Snow knows I’m serious. There’s a David Bowie song playing, it’s Fiona’s, and I should have known something was up when Snow didn’t use that as an excuse to insult me as a super-fan after finding that t-shirt.

“You’re very quiet.” I start drumming my fingers nervously against the steering wheel before I realise I’m picking up on Snow’s anxious energy, and I force myself to stop.

“Am I?” It’s very clear that Snow’s forcing himself to sound surprised. I wish he’d just talk to me. “I didn’t even realise. Nosey bastard, you, aren’t you?”

“Stop avoiding the question,” I say firmly. Snow clears his throat quietly and pushes himself back in the seat, lolling his head to the side to look at the rolling countryside out the window.

“I’m fine,” he repeats. I feel uncomfortable pushing him any more than that. We’re enemies, after all, sworn nemeses. Or at least that’s what Snow thinks we are. I can’t have him thinking I care about him now, can I? Or maybe I can. I’m not sure anymore. Snow and I, our lines have always been very clearly drawn in the sand but, lately, it’s as though the tide has come in and blurred them. I have no idea where I stand with him now. It is, frankly, terrifying.

I leave him alone for the rest of the drive and turn the music back up. Bowie gives way to Fleetwood Mac just as we’re pulling onto the pumpkin patch and The Chain cuts abruptly out at the chorus as I turn the engine off.

“Right then,” I sigh. “Here we are.” Snow’s expression is unreadable and I wait for him to get out of the car before I follow, grabbing the bag with our saws in from the backseat before I do. My father and the rest of the family is already here. The twins are hyper and Mordelia even more so. I’m parked diagonally from father, behind him, and he looks over the roof of his car at me as I go round the side of my own and take Snow’s hand. He startles a little, like he wasn’t expecting it. His hand is clammy and his fingers keep twitching. He seems incredibly anxious over something.

Father turns away and offers his arm to Daphne, who links her own through his, and they head into the patch.

“Come on then, Snow. It’s pumpkin time.” I smile at him, hoping I can ease his nerves just a little. He gives me a wobbly sort of smile and nods. His hand squeezes mine just a little tighter as we begin to walk and I pretend not to notice. I wonder if he’s changed his mind about all of this after what’s happened. After my father. After that kiss. After my stupid breakdown. I really hope he hasn’t, but I would understand if he had.

The gravel of the car park crunches under our feet as we walk over to the field. There’s a thick wooden gate at the entrance and I let go of Snow’s hand to push it open. I hold it open with my back, and tuck one arm against me as I bend in a mock bow for him, gesturing to the field with my other hand. I can hear my father’s distant scoff. Or perhaps I’m so used to his scorn that my brain is now filling in the blanks. It doesn’t matter. I’m doing this for Snow, not for him, but he doesn’t need to know that. Snow smiles a little and I only just manage to stop myself from grinning back. Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch does not grin. I have the meagre shreds of my image to maintain.

“Stop being a twat, c’mon.” He snorts. Snow still isn’t shining as bright as he usually does, but at least he’s still in there. I really just want to know what’s wrong. It’s difficult to navigate where I stand with him when there are so many layers and complications.

Snow lightens up a little when he gets a good look at the pumpkins. I knew it, he’s a complete child at heart. I grab him by the arm as he makes to go venturing off into the depths of the field.

“Hang on a second,” I tell him, “you need something to cut your pumpkin with.” I sling my bag from my shoulder to my front and unzip it. I hand him a saw, covered with a safety cap, and then send him on his way. Maybe he just needs some space, I figure, so I let him go on his own for a while. I don’t even think he realises I’m walking away and picking a different path through the field, he’s so captivated by the pumpkins.

“Only one!” I shout at him when he starts looking between three pumpkins. He’s close enough that he can hear me shout but far enough to have his own space. I realise that this distance may be causing my father suspicion but Snow’s wellbeing is far more important to me at the moment.

I’ve left Snow for all of five minutes when I look over and see him wrestling with the safety covering on the saw. It has one of those child-lock contraptions built in, and, apparently, also Simon Snow-proof. So I start picking my way over to him, walking in this strange high-knee way so that I don’t trip over and make a fool of myself. I call out to him as I get closer and hold out a hand for the saw.

“I can do it myself!” He says defensively. I sigh.

“Obviously not.” I give the child-look a pointed look. “Pass it here, I’ll do it.”

“No, I can do it myself!” Snow pulls the saw closer to his chest at the same time I make a grab for it and although my hand rushes through empty air, Snow takes a jerky step backwards and his arms begin to windmill as the back of his ankle catches against the very pumpkin he’d chosen to cut.

“The saw!” I shout as I launch towards it again. Only Snow could fall and impale himself on a saw with a safety covering, I just know it, and it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. Reaching out, I snatch the saw from him and yank him forwards with my other hand, underestimating the full potential of Snow’s clumsiness as that then redirects his falling trajectory towards myself.

“Oof!” Snow gasps as we tumble to the ground. He’s straddling me. It’s the pillow fight all over again albeit roles reversed. The saw lays discarded to the side and Snow’s hands cage my head in. His cheeks begin to get rosy, rosier, and then a blatant red that would be ugly on anyone else. Simon Snow could pull anything off.

His eyes are wide, the pupils blown, the blue iris a thin ring. There’s a sort of dazed expression on his face, like his exterior has glazed over, frozen, whilst he deals with whatever’s going on in that brain of his. I wonder if I look the same. He’s so close to me I could probably see the reflection of myself inside his eyes but I don’t want to see myself right now. I want to see Simon, I only want Simon, I don’t care that there’s twigs in my hair and stones digging into my back, I could lay here forever if it meant I’d never have to relinquish this moment.

Simon Snow’s head tilts. His breath stutters. He swallows and glances from my eyes to my lips. I feel like my body is igniting, my heart hammering, sweat prickling over my skin, adrenaline blanking out my thoughts. Simon leans a little further down towards me. He’s looking at my mouth still. Is this wishful thinking? Am I imagining this? Is this an act for my father? Surely he can’t…

He leans further down and his breath fans gently across my cheek as he gets closer… closer… and I think I’m going insane with want. I’ve never felt anything like this. I’ve never wanted anything, anyone, so badly it hurts in the way I want Simon. I hope I’m not dreaming. I hope he’s going to kiss me.

Maybe, just maybe, Simon Snow wants me just as badly as I want him.

It’s taking everything I have not to lean up and meet him halfway. Everything I have to give him the time to pull away, the time to change his mind. We’ve come so far, I can’t scare him off now.

A moth flutters between us and thus the moment is broken. I wish I could say something poetic about it, but there’s nothing even vaguely poetic about the way Snow squeals and scrambles away from me, and especially nothing poetic about the way his knee collides with my crotch.

“My fucking balls, Snow!” I cry, shoving him the rest of the way away from me and hunching over.

“Fuck! Moth! Sorry!” Snow shouts as he tries to frantically bat the moth away from us. In his mad scramble, he trips over another pumpkin and lands flat on his arse. I want to be mad at him, or at east annoyed. I really do. But I can’t. I burst out laughing, ignoring the look of shock on his face, whatever that means, and reach over the pumpkin to help him up to his feet.

“You’re such an idiot.” I smile down at him. He smiles back at me and my heart melts just a little. Snow’s hand is warm and clammy in mine, I can feel dirt smearing between our palms and fingers from where he had his hands on the ground, I can’t really bring myself to care. Not when there’s a chance Simon likes me back. I grin.

SIMON

The sun is setting outside the window by the time we finish in the pumpkin field. It’s turning a really nice kind of golden yellow and all the pumpkins look fit to turn to carriages. I’m sure Baz would have something more romantic to say about it all but I’m not Baz. I’m also trying not to think of Baz. Except he’s sitting next to me and I just tried to kiss him. I didn’t even have the excuse I was acting for his dad—Baz seemed into it, though. Or at least I hope he was. I hope I haven’t just ruined everything we’ve built.

I feel like we get along better than before, like being forced to pretend we’re boyfriends has finally opened some sort of channel of communication between us. Baz has always been my enemy, but for the first time in my life, I’m wondering if that’s how it always has to be.

“You hungry?” Baz asks, and I look down at the pumpkin weighing my lap down. It’s comforting, the weight of it, it feels grounding. I’ve named it Keith, Baz thinks I’m ridiculous but I think Baz is ridiculous so that doesn’t really bother me. I’m not taking name advice by someone whose first name is Tyrannus.

“McDonald’s,” I say. Half because I fancy a BigMac and half because I want to see what Baz’s reaction to it is, the posh bastard. He raises an eyebrow and scoffs, glancing quickly from the road to me and then back again. I wish he’d look at me forever. Fuck, that’s really gay isn’t it? Am I gay? I must be. Fuck. I’ll think about this later, I decide, I’m hungry right now.

“I like McDonald’s,” I defend.

“We literally have cooks at home that could make you anything you want, literally anything,” Baz says bluntly. “But no, McDonald’s, cheap, nasty, greasy fast food. That’s Simon Snow all over, that is.”

“You asked what I want! I want a BigMac. And fries. Also a Mcflurry.”

“Snow, it’s freezing.”

“McFlurry!”

“Right. Right, fine, McDonalds it is,” Baz acquiesces, flicking the indicator up to change lanes. “honestly Snow, it’s a wonder you’re not the size of a house all this fucking shit you eat.”

“Oi! It’s cheap and it tastes great, I don’t see the problem.” I clutch Keith the pumpkin defensively closer to me.

“The problem is it’ll kill you.” Baz deadpans, but he turns into the drive thru anyways.

“Meh.” I flop one hand towards him. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

Baz turns to look at me with this sort of hopelessly fond look, I hope I’m interpreting it right. I really, really hope I am. Then he shakes his head and runs a hand down his face, huffing out a laugh and rolling down his window.

“BigMac, fries, and McFlurry!” I chant quickly at him.

“Yes, yes I know, be quiet now.”

Baz’s house was surprisingly not that far from McDonald’s. I wasn’t sure why but I wasn’t expecting Baz to live anywhere within a five-mile radius of one considering his reaction, as though the greasiness of the fries would pervade his senses and clog his arteries from that close a proximity.

We’re sitting on his bed now, as we always seem to be, and I’m picking at my fries. They’re surprisingly still pretty hot. Baz shifts opposite me, looking a little uncomfortable, and it makes me feel a little sick that he might be thinking about me nearly kissing him earlier.

“What did you think of the pumpkin picking?” He asks, sounding uncharacteristically unsure. Baz always put on a front about even the smallest things. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or feel about all this vulnerability I’ve been shown. I don’t know how to cope with seeing Baz so human.

“It was pretty good,” I say, nodding. It’s true. It was pretty good. For reasons I’m not sure I want to talk about with him yet and I jump as though I’ve actually alluded to the almost-kiss out loud; I stumble to correct myself.

“Uh—I mean—” I quickly chew and swallow the couple of fries in my hand “—isn’t the whole point of me being here to act couply in front of your dad? Why are we hiding up in your room all the time anyways?”

Baz doesn’t look up at me as he replies. “I think my father already saw enough of that from us today.” He slides a single fry out his box and chews absently on it. I watch the shapes his mouth makes and feel heat coil amongst the butterflies in my stomach. “It’s a family tradition, pumpkin picking.” He says, changing the subject a little.

“Did you used to go with your mom?” I ask, unwrapping my burger and trying to act more casual than I feel. I think it’s working.

Or at least I think so until Baz visibly tenses, pausing with a fry halfway to his mouth, and my heart drops a little. Before I can try and rectify whatever fuck-up I’d made, though, he carries on as though nothing happened. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the change in the atmosphere, though, the sudden heaviness of it.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We went every year.” I feel like I shouldn’t push the boundaries any further but I feel like I’ve been getting so much closer to Baz lately and I have this weird feeling, like I want to know him better than anyone else does, better than even himself. I want to know him inside and out. Maybe that’s what love does. I don’t even know if I am in love, I don’t even know if I want to be. I watch as Baz tucks his hair behind his ear and it’s a struggle to remind myself that he’s only being nice to me because we agreed to this whole stupid fake dating thing.

“Do you miss her?” I ask, and then force a massive bite of my burger. The force of it squeezes the sauce out of the back and I rush to catch it in my mouth before it falls on Baz’s bed. I brace myself for his comment, but it never comes. He’s still not even looking at me. He’s not even eating anymore. I wonder if I’ve crossed the line.

“Of course,” he says quietly. “Every day.”

“I don’t even remember my mom,” I tell him, trying to be as open with him as he is with me. “Or my dad, for that matter.” I shrug. “All I remember is care homes.”

Baz is silent for a few tense moments, then he sighs and tips a few more fries into his mouth. “We’re a right pair, aren’t we?”

I laugh, but it’s humourless. We really are.

“They never caught them, you know. My mother’s killers.”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” I assure him quickly. That’s when he looks at me, really looks at me. Makes such intense eye contact I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. It feels like there’s nothing else in the world. It feels like I can see straight through to his fucking soul and I wonder if he can see mine, too.

“I still have nightmares about it.” He continues, without looking away, blinking only once. He sounds quietly desperate, like the words are bursting out of him.

“I know.” I put my burger down. “I’ve been sharing a room with you for nearly a decade.”

“They… kept me locked away. It felt like a coffin. It might’ve been. I don’t even… I don’t know if they were a cult or what, but they sure acted like one. Locked me away for a week. It was horrible. I’ve never forgotten it.”

“Baz…” I really don’t feel like eating anymore. “Baz, you really don’t need to tell me this.” Baz shakes his head, finally breaking the eye contact and holding a hand over his eyes, bowing his head and propping the elbow on his knee. I’m half-scared that he’s going to cry again but he doesn’t.

“It’s fine, Si—Snow. It’s fine. Why should I try and hide it when it was all over the news anyways?” I notice his hands are beginning to tremble and before I can even think about it I’m reaching towards him. The fuck am I thinking? I panic and pull my hand back before I really make this weird. He’s confiding in me as a friend, and I’m about to scare him off. Baz is only pretending to like me, I need to remember that. I’m the only one that’s really initiated anything, if he liked me back I’d know.

“Are you okay?” I ask instead. I want to hold him, hug him, I want to tell him I love him.

“Fine.” He pushes his hair back and looks back up at me with a tight smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Maybe we should get an early night,” I suggest when I see the dark circles beneath Baz’s eyes. He looks tired even though I know he’s been sleeping. Maybe it’s stress. I close the BigMac box and motion for Baz’s rubbish. He gathers it up, drops it all into his paper bag and hands it to me.

“Just put it in the corner,” he says as I make to leave the room. I turn around to look at him where he sits hunched, facing away, on the bed. I don’t mention the fact it’s going to stink the room up, just do as he says and then walk round to the sofa at the end of Baz’s bed.

“Wait—” Baz suddenly interrupts, almost violently, as he rushes to the end of the bed and grabs my wrist. I freeze as soon as his clammy hand squeezes my arm. His face is a wild kind of desperate and I wish more than ever that I knew what was going through his head. “Stay. Please, I mean—”

“Okay.” I cut him off before he can finish rambling. “Okay.” And I crawl up onto the bed next to him. He watches me as I get under the covers on the side I know he doesn’t usually sleep. I try not to give myself away, try to act as casual as I can, try not to read into any of this.

But it’s hard when Baz smiles shakily and climbs into bed next to me, both of us still fully dressed but apparently forgoing pyjamas.

It’s even harder when I can feel the heat from his body radiating towards me and I can smell his hair.

Hardest when he sighs in his sleep and clenches a large hand in my t-shirt, right above my heart.

[theshrubbery]

Hi guys! I’m not sure how many of you came here from my ao3, but I’m finished planning my next snowbaz fic, I just have to write the first chapter! It won’t be long now ;) <3

[theshrubbery]

Chapter 7 of Can I Be Close to You

I hope you enjoy! Also, I’m not sure if the links are working, I haven’t been able to load anything on Tumblr for a while - I’m not sure if that’s the same for everyone, though!

SIMON

Baz’s bed is comfy. I’m sitting in the middle of it with my legs crossed, waiting for him to come back. I’m hoping he comes back to his room anyways. I’m meant to be with Mordelia, but she’d told me to do one after I dropped her back in her room, so I came back here.

I’ve been sitting here a while now. I’m bored. I don’t know where I’ve stuck my phone and I can’t be bothered to look for it, so I’m stuck with nothing but my own thoughts and picking at the lint on Baz’s bed cover until Baz himself bursts through the door.

I don’t think he expected me to be in here, the way he throws it open and storms into the room.

The way the tears are beading along his jaw.

I scramble from the bed and stand there, dumbly, a little panicked. A lot panicked. Baz rushes to compose himself, quickly wiping the tears and acting as though he’d just been wiping his face.

“I thought you’d be with Mordelia. Or in your room. Snooping again, are we?” Baz says, bitterly. It lacks the bite of his usual retorts and it makes my chest tighten. His voice is hoarse; watery and thick in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever heard. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I’ve ever really been in this situation before; I’ve certainly never actually seen Baz cry. I’ve heard him a few times, during the nights at Watford, but it was always dark, and I always ignored it.

“What happened?” I ask, not rising to his bait. “Did you argue?”

“What do you think?” Baz snaps, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling as he closes the door. He leans his weight onto one leg, keeping his gaze locked above my head. He clenches one hand on his hip and uses the other to quickly wipe at the tears that keep forming.

I take a step forwards, no idea if that’s the right thing to do. What does Baz need? Should I leave? Should I stay?

“Are you okay?” I fight against the tightness in my throat to ask him.

“Snow, just—leave. Please leave. I’m fine, it’s just—it’s just my father.”

“I don’t think you should be on your own right now,” I tell him, the words just falling from my mouth. I take another step towards him; he still isn’t looking at me.

“Please, go.” The hand at Baz’s hip tightens, trembles, clutches at his own shirt.

“As much as I hate your guts, you don’t deserve to be treated like shit by your own dad,” I say. Baz goes quiet, the room silent enough for me to hear the way his breath is hitching. I can see tears welling in his bloodshot eyes, his bottom lip quivering before he bites on it to try and keep it still. Baz tries to take a deep breath. Then I watch as he swallows, his throat bobbing. Then his face begins to screw up, his eyebrows furrowing, his mouth pulling into a frown, his eyes squeezing shut.

Fuck, what do I do? I’m probably making this worse, aren’t I? Should I let him cry it out? Try and make him stop? He told me to leave but did he even mean it?

Baz presses both his hands to his face, trying to muffle his sharp hiccups and shuddering breaths. He’s beginning to hunch over a little, and he looks so vulnerable and small as he sobs and curls into himself that I start to feel sick with the anxiety of not knowing why.

“Why doesn’t he love me,” Baz hiccups out. He says it the way people do when they’re upset. Like he doesn’t even know he’s saying it, like he has no control over his mouth. I’ve never heard Baz sound so broken.

“’Cause he’s a dick,” I say. I’m so far out of my element I think I can see the fourth-dimension.

“But—” Baz chokes on a sob, then another, and just one more before he can carry on speaking. “But he’s my father. Why won’t he—” He shudders, heaves in more air. He’d probably be able to breathe a lot better if he took his hands away from his stupid face, if he tied his hair back, maybe. Baz sobs again, following it up with a pathetic whine that has me prying my hands from his face and fighting the urge to kiss them.

“Baz… Come on,” I say as I pull his hands down gently. He looks wrecked.

“My father is right there he’s—it’s like I’ve lost him, too. I just—I just want him to be my father.”

I manage to get his hands away from his face and I keep hold of them. Baz is blotchy and red; tears seem to be falling faster than his eyes can make them. But even then, wretched as he looks, I still feel like I want to kiss him again. It hurts to see him like this though—proud, pompous Baz, usually so confident and poised, reduced to this crying mess. It’s hard to see someone so well put together pulled so far apart.

“C’mon, come with me, let’s go sit down.” I try to move him using the grip I have on his hands, but he refuses to budge. His legs are starting to shake though, and I don’t trust his knees to hold him up much longer.

Baz shakes his head and starts lowering himself down to the floor. Okay then, floor it is, I guess. I know how stubborn Baz is—it’s no good trying to get him to the bed if he’s so fine with sitting on the floor—so I follow him down without letting go of his hands.

He thumps to the floor on his ass and I sit in front of him, close enough to see the pores in his skin, resisting the urge to wipe the tears from his cheeks. I never felt like this when Agatha cried. When Agatha cried it was sort of like; there, there, it’s okay but with Baz… Baz sitting here, crying his eyes out, it makes me feel like I need to fight the world. It’s making my eyes burn.

“Is being gay so wrong?” Baz sobs over his lap.

“Of course not,” I tell him firmly, pulling on his hands to get him to look at me. “Of course not—Baz there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I can’t help it,” Baz cries, lost in his own thoughts. “I can’t help it. Why won’t he love me?”

I don’t know what to say to that. To be completely fucking honest I think I might start crying along with him if I open my mouth to try and say anything at all. I don’t think Baz will listen to anything I say at this point anyways, he’s too far gone. I steel myself and try anyways though.

“Your feelings aren’t flaws, it’s just part of who you are.” I yank on his hands again when he looks away from me, force him to focus his eyes on mine. “You should be proud of it. It’s not something to be hated, you’re fine as you are, Baz.” I’m proud of myself for managing that. I’m surprised at how easy it was to say.

Baz’s eyes flick between each of mine, like he’s searching for something inside of me, and then his face twists back up and he slumps forwards into my chest. I wasn’t expecting him to do that, and it takes me a moment to reorient myself to the feeling of Baz’s face pushed into my neck, the feeling of his hot breath on my skin as he sobs.

Hesitantly, because you can never be too fucking sure with Baz, I let go of his hands and extract them from between my chest and Baz’s to pull him closer to me in a hug. It seems like the right thing to do; Baz pushes his face even further against me and wraps his own arms around my waist. His legs are tucked under him, splaying to the side beneath the arches of my own legs, which are bent at the knee and spread to let Baz sit between them. One of his ankles is touching mine; the contact is making my skin tingle.

I reckon he’s gonna be really embarrassed when he comes back to himself but for now I think it’s best if I just let him get it out his system. So, I do. I just let him cling to me and cry like the world has fallen down around him. His hands are twisting in the back of my shirt, pinching my skin, but I can’t bring myself to care; I don’t care. Right now, all I care about is my mortal enemy, who, I’m realising, I kind of want to hold in my arms for a really long while. And maybe kiss again. But mostly I just want him to smile.

It’s uncomfortable sitting hunched over like this, I’m a sloucher by nature. And I’m not too far away from the wall, so I squeeze my arms around him tighter and shuffle backwards until I’m leaning. Baz clings a little harder, but I don’t think he really notices.

Eventually, Baz seems to cry himself out. He slumps heavier against me, warm and solid and there. His chest and shoulders still stutter with hiccups and shuddering breaths, but he’s calming down. He must’ve needed the release, he seems so slack now.

BAZ

I feel like I should be horrified. Or at least embarrassed. I’m not though, or at least not yet. I just feel safe. Snow is terrible at comforting people and yet he knew exactly what I needed to hear, exactly what I needed to do. I haven’t cried that hard in years. It’s probably why I exploded like that in the first place—I’m a champion at bottling everything up. Conceal, don’t feel, or whatever it is Mordelia has been going on about recently—pretty sure it’s from some film.

“Alright?” Snow asks me. He sounds so soft that I can’t help but imagine he loves me like I love him. But that’s wishful thinking and I know it. I feel him pull away from me and try to look down at my face where I’m keeping it bowed down towards our laps. Oh, sweet mother of god, I’m in Simon Snow’s lap.

“Fine,” I reply. I try to loosen my grip around his waist but instead I pull him closer again. I feel, rather than hear, Snow make some sort of disapproving noise. It’s like a low hum that vibrates in his chest; I feel it against the side of my face. I never want to let him go. I want to sit this close to him forever, I want to feel him like the warmth of the sun all over my skin until the day I die.

I sit up and remove my arms, shuffling backwards away from him, leaving the security of his arms and legs. My face feels sticky and crusty. It’s disgusting and I wipe at it, still refusing to look at Snow—I think I’m afraid of what I might or might not see—and try to think of something witty to say, something Baz-like.

“I hope you’re happy,” I say, thinking the words up as I speak them. “You have enough blackmail material to destroy me, now, don’t you, you bastard?” I try to sound callous, maybe a little venomous, but my voice wobbles and I finish speaking with a hiccough. How ghastly.

Snow leans away from the wall and tucks his legs beneath him, pressing his hands firmly into his thighs as though he wants to reach for me just as much as I want to reach back out to him.

“I’m not gonna hold this against you.” I don’t look up at his face yet, but he sounds like he’s pouting.

“Why not?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest to stop me from doing anything stupid. Who came up with this fake-dating idea anyways?

“You… That would be low, even for me. I have standards, Jesus, Baz.” The tremor in his voice makes me look up at him. Or that’s what I blame it on, at least. My stomach somersaults a little when we make eye contact.

“Snow, were you crying?” I blurt before I can try for any semblance of tact.

“What—No. No!” Snow blinks frantically to try and dispel the tears but this only shakes them loose. “Fuck. Maybe a little.” He pauses. “Okay, fine, I did. A little. I couldn’t help it!”

We must be a sorry sight, the two of us. Me, crying like my soul’s being ripped out. Snow, crying because I’m crying. What a complete tosser. I love him. What’s new, really?

“You’re a disaster, Snow,” I say. I keep my voice as level as I can—blank so that Snow can make of it what he will. I notice the golden shadows beginning to slide down the wall above Snow’s head, capturing his fine, flyaway hairs in a gilded glimmer. It must be later than I thought.

“Are you hungry?” He says, ignoring what I said.

I nod. “I could eat.” My voice still has an unpleasant gravelly thickness to it. “I don’t want to see my father, though.”

“No, yeah.” Snow waves a hand and nods his head. “That’s probably for the best right now. I’ll go get us something to eat if you want.”

“Can you even remember where the kitchens are?” I taunt. I think my nose is starting to run and I’m tempted to wipe it with my sleeve, but I resist—that’s disgusting. Besides, I’ve already embarrassed myself enough in front of Snow for one day.

“Of course! It’s about the only place I can.”

“Lord behold, Simon Snow and his stomach-ruled compass,” I say drily, rolling my eyes. “At least change your shirt first.”

My tears, snot, and god-knows what else are all over him. He looks down, I expect him to pull a face at it, but instead he just snorts and tells me he probably should and pulls the shirt off. He doesn’t even stand up, doesn’t turn around, doesn’t wait until he’s on the other side of the room. Nope. Not Simon Snow. He just yanks his shirt off and then brings it closer to his face to inspect it, sticking out his lower lip in concentration.

I’m about to make a comment. I’m not sure what kind of comment. Probably an asshole one. I don’t, though, it dies in my throat. Or, maybe, it’s sucked out by the slight pudge of Snow’s stomach, like a dream to a catcher above a bed. That sounds ridiculous, even to me—I just can’t stop staring at him. He’s beautiful. Luckily he’s not paying any attention to me, or if he is he’s not giving me any indication that I should stop looking.

Snow pushes himself to his feet and I try not to watch the way his arms flex and contract as he pushes himself up. Obviously, I fail. I’m ogling the poor bastard. He’s mumbling something to me, but all I’m hearing is sound and all I’m seeing is him. He goes over to my closet, throwing the dirty shirt down onto the floor beside the door of it like the animal he is, and begins to look through my clothes for something to wear.

The cheek of him.

It’s so hot.

“Baz, don’t you just have, like—I dunno, t-shirts?” Snow is pulling this affronted sort of face, like my choice in clothing offends him. He should understand that some of us have taste.

“Do I look like I own—”

“Never mind, I got one.”

I raise my eyebrows.

He turns around holding up a faded black t-shirt with a large, peeling, print of David Bowie plastered onto it.

“David Bowie?” Snow asks me as he pulls it on.

“My aunt got it me for—” I hiccup again, like I’ve been doing since I stopped bawling my eye sockets out and I try to play it off as cool. “Look, Snow, just go get us food, okay? I’m starved.”

“R-right. Right, will do. Be right back.” He grabs his phone (it’s a flip phone, I hate it), nods, smiles, ducks towards me like he’s going to do something else, flushes red, ducks away, and leaves.

I breathe out a heavy sigh and push my hand through my hair, make a fist and grip it there. I want to rip it all out if that’ll ease the pressure in my chest just a little.

I love him. I love him. It’s all I ever think, all I ever feel. It’s getting repetitive. I can’t find it in me to say it feels old. He’s setting my brain alight recently and I don’t know what to do with it. The way he held me… I’ve had dreams of Simon holding me like that. Admittedly I wasn’t crying in those, but still, the feeling of his arms so tight around me was as perfect as I thought it would be.

My face is still sticky. The skin on my cheeks feels tight and crusted. I really should wash it. I go down the hall to the bathroom whilst Snow’s occupied downstairs with his foraging and splash some cold water on my face. I look dreadful in the reflection. My eyelids are so puffy and red I wish I hadn’t looked. I can’t believe I let Snow see me like this. Nothing I can do about it now, though, I suppose. What’s done is done and all of that.

Back in my room, I go to my bed; I sit. Eventually sitting gets boring, so I lay back instead, looking up at the wooden panelling of the canopy. Snow’s taking his sweet time. My back hurts. I sit back up, restless, then sigh. The light in the room changes, dips a little darker, and I go to the window to look out at the grounds.

The window rattles as I push it open and lean in the frame on my crossed forearms. It’s so cold that the air feels crisp and sharp, I feel so stale and wrung-out, it’s refreshing. Two dim headlights trundle up to the front gates, I can see them from here, and a little blue Prius pulls to a stop. I’m confused until I hear the front door open and see Snow jogging up to meet him, waving an arm to tell the driver he has the right place.

I try not to laugh. I really do, I don’t want Snow to see me and ruin his surprise. The driver is wearing a Dominoes uniform and is carrying what is clearly a pizza box. As grateful as I am for pizza, Snow clearly didn’t think this through all the way and it’s hilarious to watch. He’s on one side of the gate, the driver the other, and neither of them has the code to get in.

I can’t hear what Snow or the driver is saying from here, I can just hear the low vibrations of Snow’s voice, but I imagine it’s great. Snow makes some sort of gesture and the driver responds by nodding and turning the pizza box to the side to pass it between the bars in the gate. It looks like some sort of criminal exchange and Snow is all the more endearing for it.

He thanks the driver, turns, and I duck away from the window to make sure he doesn’t see me and go back to the bed. I’m not really sure why, but it doesn’t matter.

I hear the car drive away and, a few minutes later, the bedroom door creaks open and Snow pokes his head through the gap looking as though he isn’t sure he even has the right room. When he sees me, he kicks the door open with more force and flourish than is really necessary and holds the pizza box above his head like Rafiki and Simba.

“Look what I got!”

“I can smell what you got.” It smells glorious. My mouth’s watering.

“Never insult me again, dickhead!” Snow crows, as though he’s giving me a gift from the gods and not a takeaway pizza. It might as well be though, a god-given gift, that is. My family are very big believers in eating properly—I can’t even remember the last time I had a takeaway. My stomach grows loudly.

“Whatever possessed you to order pizza?” I ask, as though the idea of stuffing my face with the stuff isn’t glorious. I pull my legs up beneath me on the bed and gesture Simon over.

“It’s the food of champions, this,” he says as he climbs up next to me and puts the box between us. He starts opening the lid and I swear I see golden rays of light spilling out from inside.

“If that’s what you want to call it, sure."

“Don’t you ever dispute the healing properties of pizza, Pitch,” he says seriously. He opens the pizza box all the way and removes the little bit of plastic from the centre. “Sorry there’s only one. I didn’t have the money for more.”

“You bought this yourself?” I say, surprised. I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s not like he could have asked my father if he had any spare change laying around. I guess I’m just not used to thinking about money in the same way that Snow is. “I’ll pay you back.”

Snow waves a hand and makes a noise of, I presume, disagreement. “No, no. Don’t bother. I bought it for you because I wanted to.”

SIMON

Baz is looking at me as though I just proposed to him or something. Then he clears his throat and gingerly peels a greasy slice of pizza out of the box, tipping his head back and guiding it into his mouth with his other hand.

It’s making me feel hot all over, watching him. And my chest is twisting with this strange sort of protectiveness. The sort of protectiveness I was told I should have felt for Agatha.

“I wasn’t sure what kind of pizza you liked so I just played it safe.” I blurt out. The pizza is just plain margherita. To be honest I wanted more on it—maybe pineapple—but Baz is a picky eater, he has been since first year.

“This is fine, Snow,” he says once he’s swallowed his mouthful, covering his mouth with his hand as he speaks. He’s done that since first year, too.

He finishes his first slice and picks up a second, I’m still only on my first. I can’t concentrate. The pizza tastes great but it’s like a thick ball of dough in my mouth. I’m nervous, anxious, jittery. I don’t know why. But I do know I want to brush the hair out of Baz’s eyes. It’s slipped from behind his ears and is draping over his eyes—he doesn’t seem bothered about it, but I want to touch it.

And whilst I’m looking at his hair I look at his eyes. Really look at them, whilst he’s looking away from me, and notice how long his fucking eyelashes are. They seem a darker colour than his hair, which is black as it is. But it’s the kind of black that seems to hide a rainbow inside it when the sun shines at the right angle, like raven feathers or oil. His eyes are slightly down-turned, and the sort of turbulent grey you see ships sail in in those old paintings.

I take another bite of pizza and another lock of hair falls into Baz’s face. I clench my fist to stop myself moving. He flicks his head to move it out his face, scrunches his eyebrows, tilts his head to the side to keep his hair away from his mouth. This angle exposes his neck to me, his strong jawline.

Something like butterflies dipped in molten glass swoops low in my stomach.

I like him, I realise.

I’m in love with Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-fucking-Pitch.

I choke on my pizza and Baz rushes to pour me a glass of water from his bedside pitcher.

[theshrubbery]

Chapter 6 of Can I Be Close to You

SIMON

I kissed Baz. Actually kissed him. Mouth-on-mouth. Kissed. It was nothing like kissing Agatha. Kissing Agatha never made my head spin like this. It was good, sure, it was fun but this. Kissing Baz. It felt different, somehow. I still don’t entirely know why I did it. He probably hates me even more now, I should probably watch my back.

I look over at him. Baz, I mean. He’s sitting across from me, studying. I’m meant to be studying too but I just can’t concentrate, every time I try my brain betrays me. Goes back to Baz. Back to Baz’s lips. Oh fuck, I’m staring at his lips again.

“Aren’t you supposed to be studying, Snow?” Baz drawls, not looking up from the essay he’s writing out a plan for. He doesn’t stop writing, and for a second I’m hypnotised by the way he loops his Ls and Gs, the particular slant of his script. How in the shit is he so calm whilst I’m falling apart from the inside? Surely I’ve gone too far, kissing him like that.

“I am,” I say grudgingly, looking back down at my notebook. I press my textbook (Baz’s textbook, actually, I’m borrowing it) further open and lean over it to get a better look at the words. But that’s all they are to me; words. Words floating round a page, letters, lines, weird squiggly markings that mean shit-all to me right now.

Why can’t I fucking concentrate?

Why is Baz so calm?

I’m supposed to hate Baz, he’s my mortal enemy, my sworn nemesis. So why is it that all I can think about is that kiss? About how wrong it is he was kidnapped? No one deserves that. No one deserves to have their mother murdered, no one deserves to be held captive. I just can’t look at Baz the same knowing all this, I can’t help but see the kid in that photograph, smiling with his mum. And really, Baz can’t be that bad, can he? Sure, he pushed me down the fucking stairs, I don’t care what Penny says, he fucking did and he fucking meant it, the prick, but I’m still alive aren’t I? After sharing a dorm with him for nearly a decade, I’m still alive enough to kiss him.

Fuck’s sake, I can’t stop thinking about kissing him.

I’m looking away from my textbook again. I can’t even stop my little traitor eyes from looking back up at Baz.

His dark hair is falling over his face as he bows his head over his work. I watch as he tucks it behind his ear on one side, tilts his head to keep it there.

At least all the nightmares he used to have back at Watford make sense now. It was impossible for me not to notice them when he’d start thrashing and shouting. Our beds were close enough that I could reach across and shake him awake if I knelt on the very edge of mine and leaned over but I never did. I always just left him to it.

“I know I’m handsome but really, Snow, it’s rude to stare.”

“I’m not staring!” I snap a little too quickly. I can feel my face flushing and Baz smirks. I want to slap it off his face. Not really. I just think that’s what I should be thinking. Really I’m still thinking about that stupid fucking kiss.

Baz laughs, says whatever, and goes back to studying. I see him shift out of my peripheral vision and I know that he’s rearranging his legs under the table to sit with them crossed over one another. He always does that when he’s concentrating. That’s how I usually know when he’s plotting something against me.

The next time Baz catches me looking at him, because I’m an incapable prat and I can’t just ignore everything, play at being normal, and do my fucking homework, he slams his book shut.

“Studying not doing it for you, Snow?” He says with a raised eyebrow, his hand still pressed to the hardcover front of the book, his fingers splayed. The noise jolted me and suddenly I wasn’t sure if my heart was still in my chest with how hard it was fucking hammering.

“I hate studying,” I tell him, trying to play it cool. I stammered though, I just can’t help it when I’m flustered.

“Aren’t you meant to be a genius?”

“Yeah. Exactly,” I lean forwards and slam my own books shut. “So I don’t need to study.” That’s a lie and we both know it.

Baz sighs and stretches his long arms out in front of him, interlocking his fingers and pushing them out, his palms facing me. Then he runs both hands through his hair, combing it back, and grabbing it in a fist at the back of his head in a small ponytail before letting it loose and shaking his head.

I wonder what Baz would look like with his hair tied back.

Probably good.

Fuck, that’s gay.

I need to stop thinking these kinds of thoughts. I hate Baz. I don’t like him and he sure as fuck doesn’t like me.

“What else can we do?” I ask him, hoping to sound as nonchalant as I wish I was. Baz hums, looks off to the side as he drops his arms back down onto the table. His eyes narrow a little as he thinks, he bites his lip, twists his wrist to look at his watch.

“I mean there isn’t really anything around here for you to do but I have to practice violin soon,” Baz says as he starts piling all his strewn papers neatly together, flipping them all over and making sure they all face the same way. He’s so neat and orderly. I don’t give a shit, I just slap my hands against the table and drag them all into a messy heap. Baz glances up whilst I’m doing it and he pauses mid-pile, he smiles and starts to huff a laugh but chokes it off into a cough when he catches what he’s doing.

The fuck is that all about?

“What, do you have a schedule even when you’re at home?” I stand up and push the chair in, Baz does the same, holds out his hand for my messy heap of notes and starts to shuffle them against the table to at least tuck all the corners in.

“Of course, what did you expect?” He huffs. “Father runs a strict household.”

“Routines are for school,” I tell him. Because really, they are. I hate routines.

“Whatever, you animal. Are you coming with me, then?”

“Only ‘cause I’m bored.”

“Right.” Baz nods. I follow him out the room. “Only because you’re bored.”

Baz’s damn mansion has its own dedicated music room, ‘cause of course it does. How rich can you get? It’s a pretty small room though, in comparison with the study we were just in. The walls are a deep navy blue, and there’s some really ugly, thick curtains with tassels and ties framing the big windows.

“You can sit over there.” Baz points to a big green armchair near the fireplace with the bow of his violin, so I do.

“What sort of bastard has a room in their house filled with instruments?” I gawp at the grand piano behind the armchair I’m sitting in. Baz lifts the violin to his neck, and presses his face into it, positioning it or whatever. Watching him do that is kind of making my skin tingle and I don’t fucking know why.

“I do, Snow.” Baz glares at me, looking up at me through his eyelashes. There’s no real ice in his glare though, or at least I don’t think there is. I wonder if Baz is still thinking about the kiss as much as I am. “Now shut up for five minutes, I’m concentrating.”

“Whatever.” I cross my arms and try to look confrontational. I don’t feel confrontational. Especially when Baz gently flips a sheet of music over on the spindly stand in front of him, poises himself ready to play, and then does.

I’d never really heard Baz play before, not properly. He left lessons early to rehearse violin with his private tutor at school, and he played in the school band performances too but even then, he was drowned out by everyone else.

This was something entirely different. Seeing Baz so focused, so in-the-moment as he stroked the bow over the strings, his fingers dancing at the neck of the violin so effortlessly and so perfectly I almost couldn’t believe it was Baz playing. Baz who was so much of an angry git, a prat, an absolute insufferable bastard, here playing such a soft and emotive song. It feels familiar, the song, but I can’t put a name to it.

My face is burning, again, I really need to try and figure out if there’s a way to stop blushing all the time—it’s becoming a problem—and I feel like I’m intruding on something. Something personal, something I’m not meant to see, which sounds stupid as fuck when Baz himself invited me to sit and listen.

“What song is that?” I blurt out, trying to cover my sudden embarrassment, only to realise that Baz hadn’t been paying me any attention anyways. Baz opens his eyes and looks at me, really looks at me; he doesn’t stop playing.

“You wouldn’t know it if I told you,” he says, smirking, trying to rile me up. I feel like I should retaliate, like I should be getting riled up by him, but if I’m thinking that’s what I should be doing I obviously don’t feel that way genuinely. Why don’t I feel that way? “I’m practising it for the formal in a few days.”

“Formal?”

“Yes, Snow, formal. Father is hosting a formal with some business partners. I’m attending, you’re attending, he’s attending, Daphne’s attending.” Baz stops playing, lowers the violin. I want to tell him to keep playing, I don’t know why but I think I could sit and listen to him play that thing for hours.

“I don’t think that’s my thing,” I tell him, panicked. “I really will screw things up at a formal.”

“You won’t don’t worry. And even if you do, it’s fine. I’ll cover for you.” Baz shrugs.

“I—Baz, I can’t go to a formal!”

“You don’t have a choice, it’s part of the deal we made.”

“I didn’t agree to a formal!” I grab the thick arms of the chair and lean forwards.

“Do you really have to keep emphasising it like that? Really, Snow, it’ll be fine.” Baz raises the violin back to his neck and turns to his sheet music, and that’s the end of that. I want to argue more, I want to throw a proper bloody tantrum over it, but somehow the desire to hear Baz carry on playing that fucking violin wins.

Baz carries on playing right from where he left off as though he’d never been interrupted, and I feel myself getting sucked right back into his music.

This is dangerous, I realise.

“You make that look easy.” Fucks’ sake. I didn’t even last two minutes. I would very much like my brain to mouth filter to come back from wherever the hell it’s gone, please. God, I sounded like such a dreamy bastard as I said it, too. I hope Baz didn’t pick up on it.

My gut tells me he did though if the way the violin string squeals as he slips and pushes against it the wrong way with the bow.

“I-It’s not easy, Snow.” He clears his throat, but I heard the stutter. Why did he stutter? Baz never gets flustered.

“I bet I could do it,” I say ‘cause it’s too late to go back now. Baz smiles and, unexpectedly, holds the violin out to me.

I really don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for Baz to hand me the violin. It seems too valuable a thing to let me touch it but I take it anyways. I’ve dug myself into a hole after all, might as well make it a pit, a trench maybe, depending on how badly I feel like humiliating myself.

“Not like that,” Baz chastises as I raise the violin to my neck as I watched Baz do. I can’t imagine there’s many ways to hold a violin wrong, but apparently, I’m doing one of them.

BAZ

Snow looks like an oaf holding my violin. A maddeningly attractive oaf. When I tell him he’s holding it wrong, he tries to tilt it further towards him but that’s wrong too and there’s only so much I can watch of Snow manhandling my violin.

It’s obvious he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s doing. I wonder whether he’d let me help him, guide him with my hands. After that kiss it seems likely he’d let me do many things. But I shouldn’t think of the kiss right now, I need to carry on repressing it along with the rest of my feelings in the overflowing jar labelled ‘For Simon Snow’.

“Snow just—” But it’s too late, he’s already jumped the gun and the violin is screaming. There’s no other word for the absolutely unholy screeching coming from that instrument and I can see it in his face that he knows he’s doing a shit job but he’s too stubborn to quit.

Snow pauses, looks down at the violin, and drags the bow across again.

Dear lord and Christ above, my fucking ears.

“Stop!” I yell. Snow jumps about three feet out his skin and swings his arms out with the violin in one hand and the bow in the other, for a second I think he’s going to lob it and I panic. He doesn’t though, just stands and looks adorably shell-shocked. “Let me show you, you absolute buffoon.”

I stride towards Snow, stand behind him so I can guide his hands, and reach around him to grab his arms and pull them back up. He lets me pull the violin into the correct position, lets me position his hands, his head, and I don’t even realise what I’m doing until I hear him gasp.

“Hold it there,” I murmur, ignoring him. My face burns red hot. I can smell him, this close, can feel how warm he is. My heart’s hammering against my ribs and I wonder if he can feel it. I can’t help but look down at his chest to see if Snow’s is doing the same, and I feel a twist of something when I see the fabric of his jumper fluttering ever so slightly above his heart.

I force my breathing to remain steady against the twisting in my stomach, force my hands to keep steady, I don’t want to be given away. I press my chest to his back, my chin is almost touching the shoulder the violin isn’t occupying, the shell of his ear brushes my cheek, his cheeks are bright red. I wish I could see his eyes.

“Like this?” Snow asks me and it’s so quiet I can hardly recognise that it’s Snow who spoke it.

I nod, press even closer, flush against him, and slide my arm down his, all the way to his wrist, and I guide the bow in his hand to the violin. I cover his hand with mine and feel the way his breathing stutters through his back, the way it breaks into a laugh as I push him to drag the bow across the strings and the instrument screams out loudly again.

I can’t help but laugh, too. I feel giddy, electric, I feel like I’m floating. I push and pull at his arm a few more times, and the sounds get louder and more hideous, but Simon Snow’s laughter gets louder and, by God, it’s a drug. I’m addicted. I feel like he’s pulling me closer, through some unseen force, and just when I’m about to take the next risk and press my cheek to his, my father bursts into the room shouting.

“What in the name of God is all this noise!” My father yells, one hand on the doorknob, the other gripping the doorframe, his face blotchy and red with anger.

“Oh shit,” Snow swears, pulling away from me. I take a quick step backwards, pull him behind me, as though that will remove him from my father’s metaphorical firing line. The movement draws his attention, though, and he realises with a start what exactly is in Snow’s hands.

“How dare you touch that!” Father swings out an arm to point, stepping forwards into the room. “That was Natasha’s!”

“Oh fuck,” Snow tries to push the violin into my hands and I take it from him, I don’t have any choice but to do so with how desperately he’s trying to get rid of it. “I-I’m so sorry. Fuck, Baz, why did you let me—I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine, Snow, don’t worry,” I reassure him, moving both parts of the instrument into one hand and using my free one to rest a hand on his hunched shoulder.

“How dare you!” Father repeats. He marches forward and snatches the violin from my hands, as though I’m also at risk of defiling it even though its my fucking violin that my mother left me. “And how dare you make such a racket in your host’s home! Have you no manners?”

“Father,” I try to interrupt. He holds up a hand to me, doesn’t take his eyes away from Snow.

“I let you stay under my roof, and you make such noise as that? You mess with such precious items?”

“Daddy, is Baz in trouble?” Of course Mordelia heard all the noise and decided it was worth butting in. I love her, I do, but she’s so completely clueless sometimes that it does my head in. I don’t want her getting into trouble on my behalf.

“This doesn’t concern you, Mordelia, back to your bedroom!” Father, already more than wound up, snaps at her.

“Mordelia, you should leave,” I tell her a little more gently but as firmly as I can. She’s too young to really understand what’s going on here but she’s old enough to do as she’s told. She’s also old enough to choose to ignore everyone, apparently.

“What’s happening?” She asks, tottering forwards in her little dress and tipping her head back to look at father. When father doesn’t reply or acknowledge her, she tilts her head to the side and looks to me and Snow instead and her eyes light up when she sees the violin. She really does need to learn how to read a room. “Is Baz and his boyfriend playing violin? Can I play violin, Daddy?”

“Mordelia! Leave!” Father snaps at her, “I don’t want you getting any ideas.” And it’s the way his voice curls around that last word like something coiling and venomous that boils my blood. I’m shouting before I’ve even realised I’ve spoken.

“Is ostracising one child not enough for you?” I bite out quickly, my hands shaking with the effort to hold back. I pull my hand from Snow’s shoulder so I don’t hurt him. “Would you do the same to your daughter as you have me? Father, how can you say that?”

“What would you do to me?” Mordelia interrupts, looking confused and worried.

I feel like I’m losing control. Like I’m going to say something I’ll regret. If I do, at the very least I want Mordelia to be kept out of it.

“Mordelia, everything’s okay here,” Snow reassures her suddenly, or at least tries to. She looks at him like she’s trying to figure him out. “You should go back to your bedroom.”

“How dare you tell my daughter what to do!” Father barks at Snow no sooner have the words left his mouth. I feel humiliated that my father would speak to Snow in that way. I feel like I need to apologise a thousand times and I wonder why I ever opened my stupid fucking mouth about having a boyfriend in the first place.

I’m practically vibrating at this point, I can’t take this much longer. Can’t take the disgusting way father is speaking to me, to Simon, to Mordelia.

“Simon, please can you take Mordelia back to her bedroom?” I ask him without looking away from my father, realising only belatedly what I’d called him. Father purses his lips tightly and furrows his brows even lower, but even at his worst he still has respect for Mordelia, for keeping control of himself around her. Father will shout and rage, but he doesn’t really want Mordelia dragged into this, I know that, she’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Simon agrees and I watch from the corner of my eye as he walks around me, takes Mordelia’s hand, and leads her from the room. He pauses to look back at me before he leaves but I don’t acknowledge it, I keep my eyes locked with my father’s until it is just the two of us.SIMON

I kissed Baz. Actually kissed him. Mouth-on-mouth. Kissed. It was nothing like kissing Agatha. Kissing Agatha never made my head spin like this. It was good, sure, it was fun but this. Kissing Baz. It felt different, somehow. I still don’t entirely know why I did it. He probably hates me even more now, I should probably watch my back.

I look over at him. Baz, I mean. He’s sitting across from me, studying. I’m meant to be studying too but I just can’t concentrate, every time I try my brain betrays me. Goes back to Baz. Back to Baz’s lips. Oh fuck, I’m staring at his lips again.

“Aren’t you supposed to be studying, Snow?” Baz drawls, not looking up from the essay he’s writing out a plan for. He doesn’t stop writing, and for a second I’m hypnotised by the way he loops his Ls and Gs, the particular slant of his script. How in the shit is he so calm whilst I’m falling apart from the inside? Surely I’ve gone too far, kissing him like that.

“I am,” I say grudgingly, looking back down at my notebook. I press my textbook (Baz’s textbook, actually, I’m borrowing it) further open and lean over it to get a better look at the words. But that’s all they are to me; words. Words floating round a page, letters, lines, weird squiggly markings that mean shit-all to me right now.

Why can’t I fucking concentrate?

Why is Baz so calm?

I’m supposed to hate Baz, he’s my mortal enemy, my sworn nemesis. So why is it that all I can think about is that kiss? About how wrong it is he was kidnapped? No one deserves that. No one deserves to have their mother murdered, no one deserves to be held captive. I just can’t look at Baz the same knowing all this, I can’t help but see the kid in that photograph, smiling with his mum. And really, Baz can’t be that bad, can he? Sure, he pushed me down the fucking stairs, I don’t care what Penny says, he fucking did and he fucking meant it, the prick, but I’m still alive aren’t I? After sharing a dorm with him for nearly a decade, I’m still alive enough to kiss him.

Fuck’s sake, I can’t stop thinking about kissing him.

I’m looking away from my textbook again. I can’t even stop my little traitor eyes from looking back up at Baz.

His dark hair is falling over his face as he bows his head over his work. I watch as he tucks it behind his ear on one side, tilts his head to keep it there.

At least all the nightmares he used to have back at Watford make sense now. It was impossible for me not to notice them when he’d start thrashing and shouting. Our beds were close enough that I could reach across and shake him awake if I knelt on the very edge of mine and leaned over but I never did. I always just left him to it.

“I know I’m handsome but really, Snow, it’s rude to stare.”

“I’m not staring!” I snap a little too quickly. I can feel my face flushing and Baz smirks. I want to slap it off his face. Not really. I just think that’s what I should be thinking. Really I’m still thinking about that stupid fucking kiss.

Baz laughs, says whatever, and goes back to studying. I see him shift out of my peripheral vision and I know that he’s rearranging his legs under the table to sit with them crossed over one another. He always does that when he’s concentrating. That’s how I usually know when he’s plotting something against me.

The next time Baz catches me looking at him, because I’m an incapable prat and I can’t just ignore everything, play at being normal, and do my fucking homework, he slams his book shut.

“Studying not doing it for you, Snow?” He says with a raised eyebrow, his hand still pressed to the hardcover front of the book, his fingers splayed. The noise jolted me and suddenly I wasn’t sure if my heart was still in my chest with how hard it was fucking hammering.

“I hate studying,” I tell him, trying to play it cool. I stammered though, I just can’t help it when I’m flustered.

“Aren’t you meant to be a genius?”

“Yeah. Exactly,” I lean forwards and slam my own books shut. “So I don’t need to study.” That’s a lie and we both know it.

Baz sighs and stretches his long arms out in front of him, interlocking his fingers and pushing them out, his palms facing me. Then he runs both hands through his hair, combing it back, and grabbing it in a fist at the back of his head in a small ponytail before letting it loose and shaking his head.

I wonder what Baz would look like with his hair tied back.

Probably good.

Fuck, that’s gay.

I need to stop thinking these kinds of thoughts. I hate Baz. I don’t like him and he sure as fuck doesn’t like me.

“What else can we do?” I ask him, hoping to sound as nonchalant as I wish I was. Baz hums, looks off to the side as he drops his arms back down onto the table. His eyes narrow a little as he thinks, he bites his lip, twists his wrist to look at his watch.

“I mean there isn’t really anything around here for you to do but I have to practice violin soon,” Baz says as he starts piling all his strewn papers neatly together, flipping them all over and making sure they all face the same way. He’s so neat and orderly. I don’t give a shit, I just slap my hands against the table and drag them all into a messy heap. Baz glances up whilst I’m doing it and he pauses mid-pile, he smiles and starts to huff a laugh but chokes it off into a cough when he catches what he’s doing.

The fuck is that all about?

“What, do you have a schedule even when you’re at home?” I stand up and push the chair in, Baz does the same, holds out his hand for my messy heap of notes and starts to shuffle them against the table to at least tuck all the corners in.

“Of course, what did you expect?” He huffs. “Father runs a strict household.”

“Routines are for school,” I tell him. Because really, they are. I hate routines.

“Whatever, you animal. Are you coming with me, then?”

“Only ‘cause I’m bored.”

“Right.” Baz nods. I follow him out the room. “Only because you’re bored.”

Baz’s damn mansion has its own dedicated music room, ‘cause of course it does. How rich can you get? It’s a pretty small room though, in comparison with the study we were just in. The walls are a deep navy blue, and there’s some really ugly, thick curtains with tassels and ties framing the big windows.

“You can sit over there.” Baz points to a big green armchair near the fireplace with the bow of his violin, so I do.

“What sort of bastard has a room in their house filled with instruments?” I gawp at the grand piano behind the armchair I’m sitting in. Baz lifts the violin to his neck, and presses his face into it, positioning it or whatever. Watching him do that is kind of making my skin tingle and I don’t fucking know why.

“I do, Snow.” Baz glares at me, looking up at me through his eyelashes. There’s no real ice in his glare though, or at least I don’t think there is. I wonder if Baz is still thinking about the kiss as much as I am. “Now shut up for five minutes, I’m concentrating.”

“Whatever.” I cross my arms and try to look confrontational. I don’t feel confrontational. Especially when Baz gently flips a sheet of music over on the spindly stand in front of him, poises himself ready to play, and then does.

I’d never really heard Baz play before, not properly. He left lessons early to rehearse violin with his private tutor at school, and he played in the school band performances too but even then, he was drowned out by everyone else.

This was something entirely different. Seeing Baz so focused, so in-the-moment as he stroked the bow over the strings, his fingers dancing at the neck of the violin so effortlessly and so perfectly I almost couldn’t believe it was Baz playing. Baz who was so much of an angry git, a prat, an absolute insufferable bastard, here playing such a soft and emotive song. It feels familiar, the song, but I can’t put a name to it.

My face is burning, again, I really need to try and figure out if there’s a way to stop blushing all the time—it’s becoming a problem—and I feel like I’m intruding on something. Something personal, something I’m not meant to see, which sounds stupid as fuck when Baz himself invited me to sit and listen.

“What song is that?” I blurt out, trying to cover my sudden embarrassment, only to realise that Baz hadn’t been paying me any attention anyways. Baz opens his eyes and looks at me, really looks at me; he doesn’t stop playing.

“You wouldn’t know it if I told you,” he says, smirking, trying to rile me up. I feel like I should retaliate, like I should be getting riled up by him, but if I’m thinking that’s what I should be doing I obviously don’t feel that way genuinely. Why don’t I feel that way? “I’m practising it for the formal in a few days.”

“Formal?”

“Yes, Snow, formal. Father is hosting a formal with some business partners. I’m attending, you’re attending, he’s attending, Daphne’s attending.” Baz stops playing, lowers the violin. I want to tell him to keep playing, I don’t know why but I think I could sit and listen to him play that thing for hours.

“I don’t think that’s my thing,” I tell him, panicked. “I really will screw things up at a formal.”

“You won’t don’t worry. And even if you do, it’s fine. I’ll cover for you.” Baz shrugs.

“I—Baz, I can’t go to a formal!”

“You don’t have a choice, it’s part of the deal we made.”

“I didn’t agree to a formal!” I grab the thick arms of the chair and lean forwards.

“Do you really have to keep emphasising it like that? Really, Snow, it’ll be fine.” Baz raises the violin back to his neck and turns to his sheet music, and that’s the end of that. I want to argue more, I want to throw a proper bloody tantrum over it, but somehow the desire to hear Baz carry on playing that fucking violin wins.

Baz carries on playing right from where he left off as though he’d never been interrupted, and I feel myself getting sucked right back into his music.

This is dangerous, I realise.

“You make that look easy.” Fucks’ sake. I didn’t even last two minutes. I would very much like my brain to mouth filter to come back from wherever the hell it’s gone, please. God, I sounded like such a dreamy bastard as I said it, too. I hope Baz didn’t pick up on it.

My gut tells me he did though if the way the violin string squeals as he slips and pushes against it the wrong way with the bow.

“I-It’s not easy, Snow.” He clears his throat, but I heard the stutter. Why did he stutter? Baz never gets flustered.

“I bet I could do it,” I say ‘cause it’s too late to go back now. Baz smiles and, unexpectedly, holds the violin out to me.

I really don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for Baz to hand me the violin. It seems too valuable a thing to let me touch it but I take it anyways. I’ve dug myself into a hole after all, might as well make it a pit, a trench maybe, depending on how badly I feel like humiliating myself.

“Not like that,” Baz chastises as I raise the violin to my neck as I watched Baz do. I can’t imagine there’s many ways to hold a violin wrong, but apparently, I’m doing one of them.

BAZ

Snow looks like an oaf holding my violin. A maddeningly attractive oaf. When I tell him he’s holding it wrong, he tries to tilt it further towards him but that’s wrong too and there’s only so much I can watch of Snow manhandling my violin.

It’s obvious he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s doing. I wonder whether he’d let me help him, guide him with my hands. After that kiss it seems likely he’d let me do many things. But I shouldn’t think of the kiss right now, I need to carry on repressing it along with the rest of my feelings in the overflowing jar labelled ‘For Simon Snow’.

“Snow just—” But it’s too late, he’s already jumped the gun and the violin is screaming. There’s no other word for the absolutely unholy screeching coming from that instrument and I can see it in his face that he knows he’s doing a shit job but he’s too stubborn to quit.

Snow pauses, looks down at the violin, and drags the bow across again.

Dear lord and Christ above, my fucking ears.

“Stop!” I yell. Snow jumps about three feet out his skin and swings his arms out with the violin in one hand and the bow in the other, for a second I think he’s going to lob it and I panic. He doesn’t though, just stands and looks adorably shell-shocked. “Let me show you, you absolute buffoon.”

I stride towards Snow, stand behind him so I can guide his hands, and reach around him to grab his arms and pull them back up. He lets me pull the violin into the correct position, lets me position his hands, his head, and I don’t even realise what I’m doing until I hear him gasp.

“Hold it there,” I murmur, ignoring him. My face burns red hot. I can smell him, this close, can feel how warm he is. My heart’s hammering against my ribs and I wonder if he can feel it. I can’t help but look down at his chest to see if Snow’s is doing the same, and I feel a twist of something when I see the fabric of his jumper fluttering ever so slightly above his heart.

I force my breathing to remain steady against the twisting in my stomach, force my hands to keep steady, I don’t want to be given away. I press my chest to his back, my chin is almost touching the shoulder the violin isn’t occupying, the shell of his ear brushes my cheek, his cheeks are bright red. I wish I could see his eyes.

“Like this?” Snow asks me and it’s so quiet I can hardly recognise that it’s Snow who spoke it.

I nod, press even closer, flush against him, and slide my arm down his, all the way to his wrist, and I guide the bow in his hand to the violin. I cover his hand with mine and feel the way his breathing stutters through his back, the way it breaks into a laugh as I push him to drag the bow across the strings and the instrument screams out loudly again.

I can’t help but laugh, too. I feel giddy, electric, I feel like I’m floating. I push and pull at his arm a few more times, and the sounds get louder and more hideous, but Simon Snow’s laughter gets louder and, by God, it’s a drug. I’m addicted. I feel like he’s pulling me closer, through some unseen force, and just when I’m about to take the next risk and press my cheek to his, my father bursts into the room shouting.

“What in the name of God is all this noise!” My father yells, one hand on the doorknob, the other gripping the doorframe, his face blotchy and red with anger.

“Oh shit,” Snow swears, pulling away from me. I take a quick step backwards, pull him behind me, as though that will remove him from my father’s metaphorical firing line. The movement draws his attention, though, and he realises with a start what exactly is in Snow’s hands.

“How dare you touch that!” Father swings out an arm to point, stepping forwards into the room. “That was Natasha’s!”

“Oh fuck,” Snow tries to push the violin into my hands and I take it from him, I don’t have any choice but to do so with how desperately he’s trying to get rid of it. “I-I’m so sorry. Fuck, Baz, why did you let me—I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine, Snow, don’t worry,” I reassure him, moving both parts of the instrument into one hand and using my free one to rest a hand on his hunched shoulder.

“How dare you!” Father repeats. He marches forward and snatches the violin from my hands, as though I’m also at risk of defiling it even though its my fucking violin that my mother left me. “And how dare you make such a racket in your host’s home! Have you no manners?”

“Father,” I try to interrupt. He holds up a hand to me, doesn’t take his eyes away from Snow.

“I let you stay under my roof, and you make such noise as that? You mess with such precious items?”

“Daddy, is Baz in trouble?” Of course Mordelia heard all the noise and decided it was worth butting in. I love her, I do, but she’s so completely clueless sometimes that it does my head in. I don’t want her getting into trouble on my behalf.

“This doesn’t concern you, Mordelia, back to your bedroom!” Father, already more than wound up, snaps at her.

“Mordelia, you should leave,” I tell her a little more gently but as firmly as I can. She’s too young to really understand what’s going on here but she’s old enough to do as she’s told. She’s also old enough to choose to ignore everyone, apparently.

“What’s happening?” She asks, tottering forwards in her little dress and tipping her head back to look at father. When father doesn’t reply or acknowledge her, she tilts her head to the side and looks to me and Snow instead and her eyes light up when she sees the violin. She really does need to learn how to read a room. “Is Baz and his boyfriend playing violin? Can I play violin, Daddy?”

“Mordelia! Leave!” Father snaps at her, “I don’t want you getting any ideas.” And it’s the way his voice curls around that last word like something coiling and venomous that boils my blood. I’m shouting before I’ve even realised I’ve spoken.

“Is ostracising one child not enough for you?” I bite out quickly, my hands shaking with the effort to hold back. I pull my hand from Snow’s shoulder so I don’t hurt him. “Would you do the same to your daughter as you have me? Father, how can you say that?”

“What would you do to me?” Mordelia interrupts, looking confused and worried.

I feel like I’m losing control. Like I’m going to say something I’ll regret. If I do, at the very least I want Mordelia to be kept out of it.

“Mordelia, everything’s okay here,” Snow reassures her suddenly, or at least tries to. She looks at him like she’s trying to figure him out. “You should go back to your bedroom.”

“How dare you tell my daughter what to do!” Father barks at Snow no sooner have the words left his mouth. I feel humiliated that my father would speak to Snow in that way. I feel like I need to apologise a thousand times and I wonder why I ever opened my stupid fucking mouth about having a boyfriend in the first place.

I’m practically vibrating at this point, I can’t take this much longer. Can’t take the disgusting way father is speaking to me, to Simon, to Mordelia.

“Simon, please can you take Mordelia back to her bedroom?” I ask him without looking away from my father, realising only belatedly what I’d called him. Father purses his lips tightly and furrows his brows even lower, but even at his worst he still has respect for Mordelia, for keeping control of himself around her. Father will shout and rage, but he doesn’t really want Mordelia dragged into this, I know that, she’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Simon agrees and I watch from the corner of my eye as he walks around me, takes Mordelia’s hand, and leads her from the room. He pauses to look back at me before he leaves but I don’t acknowledge it, I keep my eyes locked with my father’s until it is just the two of us.

[theshrubbery]

Chapter 5 of my fic :)

Chapter summary: 

My father is shouting something, I feel like I should be listening to him, but all I can focus on is how beautiful Simon is. He’s fucking gorgeous and it’s breaking my heart. I love him so much that I can’t breathe, my chest is constricting and it’s all I can do not to lean back into him, let him swallow me whole.

SIMON

I didn’t mean to rifle through Baz’s personal things like this. I didn’t even know they were personal until I noticed how worn the newspaper clippings were, how thin the paper of the photo had become. It was a photo of a tall, beautiful woman holding a small Baz in her arms, both of them are smiling, standing in front of a window—I notice Baz’s father, Malcolm, in the reflection. One corner of his smile is peeking out from the side of the camera, which is held high, right to his face, as he squints through the viewfinder.

I’d shared a room with Baz for long enough to know that his mum had died, though I’d never really thought much of it. I realise that makes me sound like something of a complete asshole, but this is, of course, coming from an orphan.

Honestly, though, I’d been looking for some clothes to wear. I was too scared to go back to my room to fetch my bag full of my own clothes. I’d ditched them in my escape out of that fucking freak-hole, and I sure as shit wasn’t going back for them. As much as I hate the idea of borrowing Baz’s clothes (again) I hate the idea of going back to that room even more. So, naturally, I’d started looking through his wardrobe for something that didn’t look like it was over a bajillion pounds. Something more Primark, less… whatever expensive brands these silk shirts were.

For some reason, I’d figured that Baz must have just been keeping all his fancy shit out to show off. Most people would do that, I figured, and Baz definitely seemed the type to try and keep up his pretentious image like that, so I got up on my tip-toes and started to rummage around the top shelves, pushing a neatly folded pile of jumpers out of the way until I accidentally found the shoebox. Might I add that it was a very expensive branded shoebox, too.

Inside were the articles I’m sitting holding now: the newspaper clippings of Baz’s mum’s death. The newspaper clippings of Baz’s childhood kidnapping that I’ve never heard a fucking thing about. What the fuck?

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Baz’s voice sends a cold shock straight through me. My stomach drops through the floor, a sense of dread pouring like cement into my chest cavity. I’m holding the photograph when Baz opens the door. The one of he and his mum; he strides forwards and snatches it straight from me before I can think to surrender it of my own accord. I look up at him.

Baz is seething. In all the years I’ve known Baz, never have I seen him look so genuinely terrifying. It makes me wonder whether I’ve actually ever seen him mad.

“I’m sorry,” I say. But I say it too quickly, it sucks the genuineness out and leaves it empty, bland. I can’t help but curse myself, internally, there’s no way out of this one.

“For a genius you sure are thick,” Baz spits, shoving me hard in the shoulder as he gathers the clippings back into the box and holds them tightly to his chest. He gets to his feet and glares down at me, like he isn’t sure what to do next and doesn’t want me to know.

“You were kidnapped,” I say. Baz flinches. “You were kidnapped by your mum’s killers.”

Baz’s jaw tightens, his thick eyebrows lowering even further, casting shadows over his eyes. He’s scowling so tightly his lips are starting to whiten.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I try again, and I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m still going with this. It’s clear that Baz doesn’t want to talk about it, that he’s enraged I ever looked through his stuff without permission in the first place, but I guess now that the can of worms is open…

“Baz!” Mordelia shouts up the stairs. I can hear Malcolm trying to quiet her, but she shouts again anyways, reminding us that there’s breakfast to be had, a relationship to fake.

“I can’t believe you,” Baz snarls under his breath, and somehow his disappointment is an even sharper spear to the stomach than his anger. “I can’t believe you.”

“Baz, please, I really am sorry.”

“Just shut the fuck up, Snow, I don’t want to hear it.” Baz pushes a hand through his hair, pulling at it when he gets to the back of his head, then he forces a violent sigh through his teeth and throws his hand away from his scalp, slapping it against his thigh. He gives me this look, and it scalds me, like he expected more from me. What I don’t understand is why would he? It’s not like we’ve ever really been friends.

Baz turns away from me and takes a deep breath. “Let’s just go down to breakfast.”

“Right,” I say quietly, feeling like I really don’t have the right to talk at all.

“Come on, Snow. We’ll discuss this later but for now, don’t fuck this up for me too.” I don’t need to ask him what he means, I already know he means pretending to be his boyfriend. I feel like I owe him, I feel guilty, so on the way down the stairs, after Baz has (literally) thrown me some clothes to change into, I psyche myself up, and I grab his hand.

Baz freezes, stumbles, nearly misses a step, then rights himself and tentatively pushes his fingers through the spaces in my own, interlocking our hands. It’s strange, I think, how effortless it is to do this, how easy it is to pretend we’re a couple.

Malcolm looks down his nose at us, standing at the bottom of the stairs as we descend. I can’t see Baz’s face, but I really can’t imagine it would look much better. Baz’s hand tightens in mine and he pulls me closer to his body as his father’s eyes rake over me. Then, Mordelia comes bounding around the corner again, obviously over-exited at all the happenings. She probably doesn’t see many visitors inside the house.

“Cute!” She exclaims, her eyes ogling our joined hands. Malcolm swallows, as though he’s physically withholding himself from making some sort of derogatory comment.

“Enough, Mordelia, go back to the table,” Malcolm tells her, gently pressing his hand into her tiny shoulder and sending her away. He’s acting as though whatever me and Baz are, whatever we have, is infectious. It’s nothing short of frustrating. Really, it’s a lot more than frustrating, it’s disgusting, but this isn’t my place to say anything, not yet anyways. “Baz, you and… your friend will join us.” Malcolm’s voice curls around the word ‘friend’, wrapping it in sneeringly impolite undertones. It’s making me feel awkward and uncomfortable. Luckily, even though Baz and I aren’t really seeing eye-to-eye right now, he doesn’t just stand there and let his father pick at me.

“He has a name. And you know he is more than a friend,” Baz’s voice is flat, empty, but I can still make out the simmer in it that tells me he’s trying to keep his cool. “Just because you’re my father, it doesn’t give you the right to treat Simon this way.”

“Basilton,” Malcolm snaps. “You really need to rethink your position in this family, rethink your rank, your status, are you really going to throw that all away to gallivant around with this boy?”

Baz steps down a couple more steps, and I unwillingly follow. Not that I have a choice with how his sweaty hand has mine in a death-clamp. I’m not sure whether he even remembers he’s holding it.

“And what if I am?” Baz challenges. He’s already tall, but standing as he is, a few steps higher than his father, puts him inches above eye-level and forces Malcolm to look up at him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. The sooner you give this whole thing up, the better, it’s clear what you’re doing here, Basil.” My heart starts thudding just a little harder at the implications. Has Malcolm figured us out already? Am I really that bad at this whole dating thing? Baz gave me one job, granted I hate him, but letting people down once I’ve committed to a promise really isn’t something I like to do. It feels like a failure on my part.

“What are you talking about?” Baz demands. I can see his pulse in the hollow of his throat. I’m two steps above Baz and I slowly lower myself down one until I’m directly behind him, so close I can feel the heat from his body.

“You’re an idiot if you think I can’t tell what you’re doing here, Basilton. You honestly expect me to believe that straight after our conversation you’d reveal to be dating the one boy you’ve hated since first year? It’s clear to me you’re just trying to prove a point, and the act is up. So drop it.”

“You’re wrong, father.” Baz squeezes my hand. I look down at his whitening knuckles and then up to his clenching jaw, which I can just about see from this angle. I look to Malcolm and it irks me how fucking confident he is that he’s won this. Baz and I don’t convince him at all, even if he has only had one dinner to form his opinion of us.

“The act is up,” Malcolm repeats. “Basilton, come to your senses. Just stop this foolishness, it is, frankly, embarrassing.” I hear the hitch in Baz’s breath that he can’t quite cover in time. There’s a splotchy red flush of colour blooming in ugly flowers across his cheeks, down his neck, his chest, where I can see a bronze ‘v’ of skin between the fabric of his button-down shirt.

My ears feel kind of like they’re ringing, I feel a little like I can’t see properly, like I’m standing on the other side of a glass window looking in on my own life. It’s strange. I feel like I’m floating, weightless and unreal.

In hindsight, my body probably knew what I was going to do next before my brain caught up with it. The chemicals surging in my brain, the adrenaline trembling through my veins, it was all because of a subconscious thought that hadn’t quite reached the forefront of my mind yet.

Unsure of what I’m doing, I pull at Baz’s hand, turn him at an angle, use his momentary surprise to tilt his head towards mine with my other hand, cradling his jaw for what feels like an eternity. I’m not looking at his eyes, but his parted lips.

And then, I kiss him.

BAZ

He’s kissing me. Simon Snow is kissing me. I feel dizzy, lightheaded, I feel like melting. I haven’t ever been kissed before, I wonder if Snow knows that this is my first, wonder if he can feel the same fireworks that I can. My heart is pounding when we pull gently away. He doesn’t jerk back with the disgust I’d have expected from Snow, I’m sure it must’ve sunk in that he’s pretending to be in a relationship with a gay man by now. I never imagined that Snow would ever willingly kiss me and look as dazed as he does right now. His eyes are glazed, his lips are flushed pink, his cheeks on fire, his pulse pounding in the column of his golden throat, the freckled skin fluttering.

My father is shouting something, I’m vaguely aware of him storming away and I feel like I should be listening to him, but all I can focus on is how beautiful Simon is. He’s fucking gorgeous and it’s breaking my heart. I love him so much that I can’t breathe, my chest is constricting and it’s all I can do not to lean back into him, let him swallow me whole.

Snow is looking at me, I am looking at Snow, neither of us know what to do now. My father distantly tells us to get down to the dining room at once, he sounds disgusted, he probably thinks we’re disgusting and I just don’t care. Simon Snow just kissed me. Snow’s eyes widen, his head jars back suddenly, and I can’t help the jolt in my stomach, I knew it was too good to be true. He doesn’t say anything though, not for what feels like an eternity. He just stands and stares, his hand sweating where it’s still holding my jaw. I want to push my face into his hand and breathe him in, but I can’t. I can’t, and it’s killing me.

“I—Sorry, that was—that was too much,” Snow stutters. Nausea is swirling unpleasantly in my gut. There it is. The rejection. Though… does that really count as rejection when he’s the one who initiated it in the first place? Snow looks uncomfortable, like he doesn’t know what he should do now, and I decide to put him out of his misery.

“It’s fine, Snow, I get it,” I tell him, forcing my voice to stay level. Forcing myself not to allow the thickness in my throat to constrict my words. I can’t scare Snow off, not now. “You’re… doing well, my father will have no choice but to believe us now.”

“I just—how could he say those things to you? It was—I didn’t think—I just—” I hold up a hand to stop him. He must really be feeling quite turbulent if he’s stuttering over his words like this, it’s been a long while since he stumbled over each word like a hurdle in this way.

“We don’t need to talk about this, I understand, Snow. We can discuss things later.”

There is an awful lot we need to talk about later.

Breakfast was so tense I was half positive Snow was about to get up and run. He scoffed his food like he always does, though I think he was just nervous. Mordelia wouldn’t shut up, asking us all sorts of questions as to the status of our relationship. In the end Malcolm had snapped at her to be quiet, something he very rarely did. Daphne took her away from the table as soon as she could, taking the rest of the kids with her too with the help of two maids. When Snow and I had arrived, the house had been empty, but in the mean time Daphne had returned with Mordelia and all my other siblings. I love them, I do, but I don’t feel like I can handle all the attention at the moment. Though I don’t let anyone into this, I can’t, my mother taught me better than to lose my composure.

So I remained composed, dignified, ate my breakfast, reprimanded Snow on his eating habits just to reassure him that I wasn’t mad at him. Not for kissing me, not for finding out everything I never wanted anyone to know. My father didn’t make any more remarks, in honesty he tried not to look at us, I’m not sure what I want from him—other than acceptance of course. It hurts to have my father treat me this way. It hurts to feel like a disappointment for something that I can’t control. It’s even worse knowing that he still loves me, I know that he does, he’s always done everything he can for me its just… he cannot stand me being attracted to other men. He’s always ignored it, probably in hopes that it’s just a phase. But it isn’t, it never was, and it never will be. I have no idea if he’ll ever stop letting this be a wedge between us.

“What are—what are we doing today then, Baz?” Snow asks me after breakfast. We’re the last ones at the table, father has excused himself to work and I’m grateful I can drop my ramrod posture, if only a little. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead when I invited Snow here. Usually I would spend the holiday studying, attending formals with my father, counting down until I could go back to school. Snow has always stayed at Watford over the holidays, I’ve always speculated over what he spent his time doing in our room alone, though those thoughts often ended up wondering down a hormonal path that I really should steer clear of at the moment.

I cross my legs and lean back in my seat.

“Anything you want to do?” I reply as nonchalantly as I can. Snow glances at me and then quickly away, I can’t work out what he’s thinking. Is it about the kiss? Is it about finding him rummaging through my mother’s articles? My kidnapping? I don’t know whether I want to distract us from these thoughts, or talk them through. It feels like too much, all mounting up on me like this, I can’t help but feel anxious.

Snow shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders. “I’m the guest here.”

“I’d use that lightly,” I huff. “You’re not exactly getting the best hospitality here, are you?” I say it flatly, Snow knows that it’s not a question but a fact. He shrugs again. He’s always shrugging. His eyebrows pinch like his trying to think about how to word something.

“Don’t you feel—”

“Let’s study,” I say, cutting him off. I don’t want to answer anything that is poised as a question and includes the word ‘feel’.

“Study?” Snow asks, like he’s hearing the word for the first time.

“Yes, study.” He’s looking at me like I’ve just told him I’m a vampire. “What? Christ, Snow, aren’t you meant to be a genius? Are you telling me you’ve never studied?”

“No, that’s not. That’s not it, I study plenty, thank you very much—I just. I’m surprised you’d suggest studying.”

“Surprised?”

“Yeah, considering everything that’s happened, I just—”

“Please,” I interrupt again. I can’t have this talk right now, any of these talks. I don’t want to deal with feelings, I just want to pretend everything is fine, just for a little longer. I don’t want to talk about my mother, I don’t want to talk about myself, I don’t want to talk about that kiss, I just don’t think I can. I don’t trust myself not to spill everything I’ve been holding back for years. I just—I need to pretend. Just for a little longer. “Let’s just—let’s not talk about anything just yet, Snow. Let’s study. I’m still not entirely convinced you even know how to read.”

“Of course I can read!” He exclaims, sounding genuinely offended. I bless the heavens above that it’s so easy to distract him, so easy to rile him up. I love him for it.

“Oh really?” I taunt, pushing away from the table. He follows without breaking eye-contact. “I guess you’re just going to have to prove how smart you are then, scholarship-student.”

“I literally got the third highest grade in English!”

“Yeah, after me and Bunce.”

“You probably have like eighty private tutors and a rich-people machine that feeds knowledge into your head!”

“Snow, can you hear yourself?” I can’t help but laugh at him. Though it’s short and controlled. I manage to make it look like a sneer. Snow is most comfortable around me when I’m like this, playing the enemy, picking a fight.

“Fuck off, Baz.” He starts walking away from the table, then stops and looks over his shoulder to see if I’m following him, which I’m not.

“What is it?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“I don’t know where to go,” he says blankly. I huff through my nose, bite my lip to try and keep from smiling as I watch him standing there in my clothes which are a size or two too big. The sleeves hang over his hands; he has the fabric of each cuff bunched up in each freckled hand. I love him. I love him.

“Come on then, you git.”

[theshrubbery]

The next chapter of my fic - I’ve been so busy lately moving to uni I’ve barely had time for tumblr (i know, the travesty)

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

SIMON

Baz opens his door with a muted groan but somehow it feels as though he were expecting me to find my way back here. He leans in the doorframe, looking as though he’s aiming for something casual that he can’t quite pull off with the rigidity of his shoulders. His dark hair is mussed about his face, his golden skin glittering in the dim lighting of the hallway. Baz wears a loose-fitting white t-shirt and some pyjama bottoms that hang low on his hips—I think it’s the least casual I’ve ever seen him and I wonder why it makes my heart stutter.

“Snow,” Baz says, snapping me back to the present. Baz crosses his arms and then crosses his ankles, he looks like he’s trying to twist himself into the doorway.

“I can’t stay in that room,” I tell Baz as matter-of-factly as I can manage with the way my mouth has ran dry. I’ll have to make Baz get me a drink, or ask one of his maids or butlers or whatever it is he has get me something.

“I’m sure you can,” Baz replies. I shift from foot to foot for a moment, look behind me down the hallway as though whatever creepy creature-from-the-underworld that was lurking under the bed is going to come barrelling up towards me at any moment to finish the job.

“No, I—I really can’t.” I clear my throat, look at Baz, look away from Baz, look behind me again. “I think it’s haunted.” Baz, the fucking bastard, bursts out laughing obnoxiously at me and I fluster, stuttering to try and explain myself, but Baz uncrosses his ankles and kicks the door further open, rolling along the door-frame and inviting me in with a nod of his head.

I take a tentative step into the room, all too aware of Baz’s eyes on me as I do, as though he’s searching me for a reaction, or maybe regretting ever letting me in his house in the first place.

“You can sleep on there.” Baz gestures to the sofa at the end of his bed. It’s wooden-framed with thick green cushions, it looks like the kind of sofa you’d find in an antique store, definitely not one out the eternal DFS sale. Then I notice something even stranger.

“Gargoyles?” I crane my neck to squint through the dusky darkness of the room to see what are definitely ugly little gargoyles carved into the woodwork of Baz’s bedframe. I’ve always known that Baz was evil, and that, by default, he must have an evil lair in which to do his bidding, but this really was just too much. “What the fuck, Baz?”

“Snow, that bed is older than both of us put together, I didn’t choose to be guarded by fucking gargoyles while I sleep,” Baz says, exasperated.

“You always told me you didn’t have a lair.” I look around the room, take a whiff of the mustiness clinging to the dust and cobwebs.

“This isn’t a lair, Snow.” Baz drags a hand down his face, keeping his mouth covered as he stares blankly at me.

“It so fucking is, Baz, there’s even, like, eighteen layers of dust and cobwebs in here.”

“Snow, are you thick? You do know we go to boarding school together, right? You know, we share a room. As in, how often do you think I’m actually ever in this room, you absolute tit.” I feel the colour rise in my cheeks, a flush of embarrassment and a rush of frustration.

“Fuck off, Baz,” I say, and I hate the look of satisfaction that flits across Baz’s face. We both know he’s won.

Baz walks over to his bed, it’s twice as wide as the beds at Watford, and tosses two fluffed-up pillows at me. Before I can turn to put them down on the sofa, he balls up a thick blanket that was ruffled up at the bottom of his bed and throws that at me too. I barely have time to react before I’m throwing the pillows to the floor and stepping forwards to catch the blanket, which uncoils from the scrunched ball Baz had compressed it into and gets trapped beneath my foot as I step forwards. I fall into the pile of pillows and blanket with a heavy thud and for a moment I’m sure that I’m going to fall through Baz’s bastard floorboards, but, thankfully they hold.

With the blanket partially over my head, I can feel myself gearing up to smack Baz round the face and give him a piece of my mind for being such an ass but then I hear something that stops me. Baz is laughing. As in, genuinely laughing. Even muffled through the blanket, I find that it’s one of the strangest sounds I’ve ever heard. My throat tightens as Baz tries to say something to me, probably to call me a fucking idiot, only for his mirth to bite off the end of his word and swallow his insults in the thick honey of his laughter. It’s endearing, somehow, even if it is at my expense.

I’m not sure what this feeling is. I’m not sure I want to explain it. So I do the only thing I can think to do, rip myself free from the blankets, take up arms with a cushion in each hand, raised above my head, and with a battle cry launch myself into Baz. I feel the impact of his body against mine as I send him flailing down into his bed, pummelling him in the face with my fists of cushioned glory.

“Fuck—Snow, what—!” Baz splutters out, squawking in such an undignified way I almost forget all his prestigious upbringings. I’ve never seen Baz look so unkempt as he does now, earlier when I saw him in pyjamas I thought thatwas the least put-together I’d seen him but this, this is something else. His hair, with no gel to hold it back, falls over his face and around his head in a dark halo, his high cheekbones are a deep, deep pink, and his grey eyes are shining something fierce.

“Die, Pitch! Die!” I yell as I whack him in the face again with a pillow. He barks out a laugh and begins to wrestle me for it. He kicks out his legs and hooks them behind mine, pulling me forwards so I fall on top of him from where I was previously kneeling over him. As my chest thumps against his, I lose my grip on the pillows, mostly out of shock, and he quickly takes them off me, both of them, the twat, and gives me a taste of my own medicine.

“How do you like that then, Snow? Not such a prodigy now, are you?” Baz jeers, rolling us over so he’s straddling me, pinning me to the mattress where he sits on my hips. Baz raises his arm and hits me in the face, the shoulder, with the soft weapon of death, and I raise my arms to try and stop him, I can’t help but laugh. In that moment I forget that I hate Baz, I consider, for a moment, that maybe we can be friends after all.

“Give me a pillow, this isn’t fair!” I cry, grabbling at everything I can reach, which doesn’t happen to be very much, until Baz loses his balance and pitches forwards down, down, towards me. Pillows forgotten, he catches himself with his hands, pinned either side of my head, and, when he looks down at me, it’s with this kind of stricken expression. His face seems to get even redder, a thick vein is beginning to protrude from his forehead. Baz’s breath hitches, and I feel frozen to the spot, unable to do anything but look up at Baz looking down at me. Then his eyes widen almost comically and Baz seems to come back to himself.

“Get the fuck out of my bed,” Baz says lowly, almost spits it, and the moment is broken, whatever kind of moment that was.

“What?” I stutter dumbly for a moment, I can’t understand what just happened, what had caused the sudden change in Baz’s demeanour. He kicks me in the side, harshly, and I jolt up and off the bed, my lips curling back as I glare at him.

“Why do you have to be such a fucking bastard, Baz,” I grind out as I snatch the pillows from his bed, the blanket up from off the floor, and lob it angrily onto the sofa. “I don’t know why the fuck I agreed to go along with this, you’re an insufferable prick.”

Baz at least had the decency not to reply. I fix up my make-shift bed and yank the blanket over me, staring, scowling, into the depths of Baz’s stupid room and wondering why I ever thought fraternizing with the enemy could be a good idea.

BAZ

I’m really letting this go too far. I almost lost it for a moment there, I know I did, seeing Snow pinned beneath me like that was like every wet dream I’d ever had and I was seconds away from kissing him. And, if I’d sat on him any longer than I did, I’d have had a far bigger problem than just kissing him. I’m disgusted with myself. For taking advantage of him like this. For the way even now, my mind is tracing the heavy, solid warmth of Snow pressed against the backs of my thighs. The way he’d lay there, his mouth parted, his lips looking so soft and his skin so flushed and lovely. He’d looked windswept and happy and—God, I need to get a fucking grip on myself before I do something I regret.

I look over towards the sofa, where Snow is laying, and I can tell that he’s stewing. He’s not sleeping yet, but I know he will be soon. I’m in so deep I’ve even mapped his stupid breathing patterns before he falls into sleep. Some nights, listening to Snow’s steady sleep-breathing is the only thing keeping me sane. I just wish I could feel the heat of his breath against my neck as he slept, instead of watching from across the room, in separate beds, aching to hold him close.

This is torture.

But I can’t let myself run away with this, I can’t lose Snow completely, even if to be near him I do have to play the role of his nemesis. Whatever he wants, I will be that.

I sit on the edge of my bed, taking one last look at the tuft of Snow’s curly hair I can see just peeking out from between the blanket and the cushions, and then I get under my own covers, willing myself to dream of anything other than blue eyes and golden hair.

I wake up to the most ridiculously ear-splitting screech I think I’ve ever heard. My heart almost breaks my ribs at the sudden startle as I sit bolt-upright and try to work out what’s going on and why Snow is sitting at the end of my bed and why my sister is standing gawping, pointing at us, in the doorway.

“Mordelia!” I snap. How many fucking times do I have to tell her to knock the fucking door?

“Holy shit,” Snow says breathlessly, clutching at his chest with both hands, sitting hunched on my bed. Why he’s on my bed, I don’t know. Snow always has had a habit of waking up before me, but that’s no reason to perv on me in my sleep or whatever it was he was doing—on second thoughts, I don’t really have a right to say anything there.

“Why is there a boy in your bed, Baz!” Mordelia screeches, her little hand jumping from me to Snow and back again. Suddenly she gasps, her hands flying to cover her mouth. “Are you two doing s—”

“Mordelia!” I cut her off immediately. She’s just a kid, where in fuck’s name did she hear that shit? “Get out right now, what have I told you about knocking?”

“But, Baz, I was told to come get you!” She defended, throwing her hands down to her sides in a tantrum. It’s times like these that I can see just how useless Daphne’s blood is, though I love Mordelia, she will never have the dignity my mother gave me.

“What’s going on?” Snow asks, finally unclenching his hands from his t-shirt. I can see him looking at me out the corner of my eye but I don’t quite feel ready to give him full eye contact just yet.

“My sister, Mordelia,” I say. “Mordelia, meet Simon Snow.”

“Simon Snow?” Mordelia repeats, taking another step into the room and scrutinising Snow like he’s some sort of fascinating bug. “Wait! Are you—”

“Yes, he’s my boyfriend. Now go away, tell father we shall be down shortly, I presume it’s he who sent you.”

“I’m n—” Snow startles, cutting himself off before he can finish the exclamation that was most likely going to deny being my boyfriend. What an idiot. He’s been here a day and he’s already forgotten what the job at hand is. I glare at him, watching the perfect ‘o’ of his mouth as realisation washes over him and he laughs nervously, muttering out a quiet “never mind”.

“Boyfriend?” Mordelia gasps, as though her mind can’t possibly comprehend the concept of me having a partner. My sister hurriedly looks between us one more time and then runs from the room, the sound of her wretched high-pitched yelling pattering further and further away from us as she shouts for Daphne to tell her of Snow. Daphne, of course, already knows. Father told her before she left to collect Mordelia from her own boarding school, a bit cruel, I think, sending a seven-year-old to boarding school but it isn’t my place to judge.

“Shit, what now?” Snow gapes at me. For an alleged genius, Snow sure is a damned dumbo.

“What do you mean, ‘what now’?” I throw my hands up in exasperation, “have you forgotten what you’re doing here?” Snow pauses, his mouth snaps shut. He at least has the decency to look embarrassed.

“Sorry, Baz,” he murmurs.

“Whatever.” I drop my hands against the sides of my legs with a soft pat and begin rifling through my wardrobe for something to wear. “Best get ready for the day.”

“Right,” Snow says. I can feel an awkwardness in the air. Tense and palpable. It’s like wading through molasses. It’s my fault, I can’t blame Snow for what happened last night, so I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I can go soft on him, no, Snow would only think something was wrong if I didn’t act like I hated him in these moments when we’re alone.

It all seems kind of backwards to me. Hating each other in private and loving each other in public.

“I’m using the bathroom first,” I tell him, neatly folding my clothes over my arm and making my way for the door. “Of course, there are plenty other bathrooms for you to use if you fancy taking a gander down these haunted corridors of mine.”

“I’m not scared,” Snow replies too quickly for him to pretend he’s anything but petrified of our alleged poltergeists and the flush of his cheeks proves this.

“Right, sure, well, you go tell those ghosts that, then.” I smirk at him over my shoulder, in that specific way I have cultivated purely to get under his skin, and then close the door behind me. I pretend not to hear the pillow that thuds against the door moments later.

I get ready as quickly as I can, not wanting to leave Snow unattended for any longer than possible. Trouble is, quite simply, attracted to him. He just can’t help but wade through it, and I’d like to get through this week with as few incidents as possible, thank you very much, but halfway through buttoning my deep-green shirt I pause, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly in an uncertain exhale. I hold onto the rim of the sink, leaning over it and staring down the plughole as I try to will myself to get a grip. I can feel an uneasy frustration bubbling through my gut, making me feel restless and irritated. Slamming the tap on, I splash my face with cold water, startling a little at the shock of the cold. The water is always fucking freezing in October. Stupid plumbing.

I take another deep breath and grip the basin again, looking up at my reflection in the mirror, watching the droplets of water dribble down my face and drip off my chin, the tips of my hair.

“Get a fucking grip, Pitch,” I tell myself. I feel like a right arsecrack but it’s the best I can do. Watching my own reflection, I try to school my features into something more…passive. My usual impassivity seems to have deserted me, and it takes effort to stop myself looking so hopeless and pissed off. I give myself a smile, thinking of Snow as I do, just to see what I look like when I think of him.

Bollocks. At least I know my so-called act is believable. If Snow notices anything, I’ll just have to tell him I’m an excellent actor and hope he buys it.

On the way back to my room, I give myself a pep talk, try to make myself more casual, more natural. Basically trying to find a way to hide the fact that I’m in love with Simon Snow from Simon Snow whilst also pretending that I’m pretending to be in love with Simon Snow. It’s kind of pathetic really, but I think I’m making progress.

Then, just when I’ve erased all traces of anger, annoyance, frustration, all of that, I open my bedroom door, take one blasted look at Snow, and it all comes flooding right back. And this is because sitting there, on the floor, is Snow rifling through my hidden articles of my mother’s murder, holding the only photo I have of us together in his hand.

[theshrubbery]

Chapter 3 of my fic! Also feel free to send me any snowbaz requests you might have - i wanna start writing short drabble type fics on here :)

ps: when i copy and paste my fic here the italics don’t go through so just imagine whichever words you think should be emphasised haha

pps: search the tag cibcty on my tumblr to find the previous two chapters

SIMON

I know I’m gaping and I really should shut my mouth and play my part but Baz’s house really is incredible. It’s so… luxurious, grand, over-the-top, and at least twice as big as any care-home I’ve ever been in. I feel incredibly out of place. All of this is almost enough to distract me from Baz’s cold hand in mine. Baz always complains of the cold, he hates it whenever I leave our dorm window open overnight but I always do it anyways—just to piss him off. My fingers instinctively tighten around his for a moment, my heart lurches, Baz squeezes right back as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“You’re late, Basilton.” A disembodied voice calls from around the corner as Baz takes my jacket from me and hangs it right next to his. I feel like I should take my shoes off too, but then I’d just look naff.

“It’s good to see you, too, father,” Baz replies. He smirks and cocks an eyebrow at me, as though he’s trying to communicate something to me. I don’t speak whatever fucking mental-brain-language Baz is trying to talk in though, so I force a bland smile and scrunch my eyebrows in confusion. Baz rolls his eyes at me.

“What?” I ask. Baz shakes his head.

“Come on. Time for you to play your part, for the love of God, Snow, don’t let him see through us.” Baz’s voice is low and only mildly threatening. I supress a shiver of… something. Probably rage, I dunno. Baz takes my hand in his again, anyways, snatches it up so abruptly that my natural instinct is to yank it back again. I don’t though, I instead give Baz one final scowl and then begin to school my features into something remotely boyfriend-like, should such a thing exist.

Baz’s father has a formidable air about him. I can clearly see Baz’s features in him and yet the two of them seem worlds apart. Malcolm Grimm regards me with instant dislike, his eyebrows raise and he looks down his nose at me. Baz doesn’t seem phased in the slightest and I have to remind myself not to bristle, not to get angry. It’s not a case of whether or not Malcolm likes me but rather of keeping Baz out of the shit.

“I have not a clue who I was expecting but, Basilton, it surely was not Simon Snow,” Malcolm says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. Baz leads me to the side of the long table, laden with food covered by silver lids, and pulls out a chair for me to sit. I do, and never has my ass sat in such a comfortable table chair as this one. Baz takes his time with answering his father, pulling out the chair that puts him in the middle of myself and his father, and sitting down. Baz crosses his legs neatly and props his arm up on the table, hooking his thumb beneath his chin and curling his forefinger loosely over his lips. Malcolm’s hands clench and unclench in the fabric of his jacket sleeves in response to Baz’s leisurely behaviour.

“I mean,” Baz begins at length, as though he is considering the weight of each word. “It makes sense, really. Don’t you think?”

“So your proclamations of hatred were, in fact, proclamations of love?” Malcolm looks uncomfortable with even the idea of it. My stomach churns at the idea of Baz talking about me to his father, though I can’t tell what I think of it. By this point I’m more than used to people talking about me, with the Headmaster being as prolific as he is it only makes sense that people would talk when I came along as his only scholarship student—and out of care no less. The more… prosperous, shall we say, families who attended or have children attending Watford were far less receptive of me than the Headmaster. Luckily, I don’t really give two shits what they think. Well, in theory anyways. Having Malcolm Grimm sitting metres away giving me the stink-eye is pretty anxiety-inducing. Baz laughs, short and sharp, it jolts me out of my thoughts.

“Of course, father, how else was I supposed to talk about my boyfriend with you? Had you known what he was from the start, you’d have never let me ramble on for so long about Snow.”

“And why did it only occur to you recently to inform me of this?”

“Ah, well,” Baz’s mouth curls into a half-smile and I can see his perfect teeth almost clenched together, giving away how tense he is beneath this façade. “I decided it was simply time to come out of the closet.” Malcolm waves a dismissive hand.

“Oh please, Basil, you’ve never been in the closet in the first place.” I can’t help but snort at that. I have never even considered the possibility that Baz could be gay, much less be as open about it as his father was insinuating. At my quickly smothered outburst, Malcolm seems to remember I’m actually there, listening to the conversation, and he looks over me briefly. Baz continues staring at his father, until he recovers eye contact with him. They stare heatedly at one another for a few long moments, and then Baz, making sure his father knows exactly what he’s doing, slowly inches his hand towards me and runs his palm down my thigh.

My body jolts in my seat at the contact, my heart jolts in my chest at how nice it feels. Suddenly I feel like I should be doing something in return, something that solidifies any doubts Malcolm might have about us as a couple, but my brain has all but short-circuited. Baz doesn’t seem put off by my lack of outward reaction, but Malcolm huffs and asks what can only be his servants to lift the lids on the food so that we can begin our meal.

BAZ

I’m touching up Simon Snow. Holy shit. Well, not actually ‘touching up’ but definitely touching. Stroking my hand down his thigh. It’s strange but Simon’s body simultaneously feels like home and like some unfamiliar thing. I’m so used to seeing Snow from a distance, spitting at each other from across the room, to have his thigh firm beneath my hand like this makes my gut feel like molten lava. It burns and really, I should pull away, but I can’t, not even when I realise just how much I’m taking advantage of this situation. It’s like his body is pulsating with magnetism, drawing me in, sucking me into his void and refusing to let go.

I eat my meal with one hand, half because I can’t let go, and half just to piss my father off. My father looks almost constipated at this, or that could, perhaps, just be at how wolfishly Snow is eating. It’s obvious that he’s never had one single fucking lesson on high dining. Snow holds his fork like a shovel, in a tight-fisted grip with his elbow thrust into the air as he scoops peas into his mouth. Rather than use a knife, he rips chicken off the fork with his teeth, eating as though he’s never been fed in his life, like he’s expecting someone to come along at any moment and take it all from him. He is so utterly consumed in his meal, if you’ll excuse the pun, that he seems to have all but forgotten my hand.

“Snow, will you eat properly?” I hiss, if only to restore some bantering normality. Snow turns to look at me, his mouth hanging open, all his half chewed food sitting on his tongue. It would make me want to gag if I didn’t already find him so attractive. Snow at least has the decency to look sheepish, glancing at my father and then back to me. He swallows and then pulls his lower lip through his teeth and readjusts his fork in his hand, beginning to eat again but far slower this time, as though that would excuse the paltry way he handled his cutlery.

“Basilton, I would have thought you’d have at least taught any partner of yours the most basic of table-manners?” Father says, dabbing at his face with a napkin and then placing it down, leaning one elbow on the table and grabbing the edge of it with his other hand, extending his arm straight. He is eyeing Snow down with contempt.

“Uh… Sorry,” Simon says, then added “sir” as a sort of afterthought. Father cleared his throat and turned back to me, as though expecting a reply. I shrugged.

“Table manners aren’t really something that takes the spotlight in our relationship,” I say offhandedly. Father drums his fingers on the table.

“You can do better.” And with that, Father stands from the table and excuses himself. “I will see you tomorrow, that will be all for this afternoon.”

“Yes, father,” I mutter beneath my breath, only just loud enough for him to hear. Simon taps the back of my hand, the one on his thigh, and I realise that I’m digging my hand into his leg. I let go and apologise. Snow runs his own hand down his thigh, as though soothing the skin or straightening his trousers.

“That went… well?” Snow tries. I can tell that he doesn’t really know what to say. I wouldn’t either, in his position. For a moment I can’t look at him, I feel like I’m trapped in some sort of nightmare or dream. Not for the first time, it doesn’t feel like this is my reality, sitting in my dining room with Simon Snow, eating a meal with my father together. I feel overwhelmed and frustrated with my father, with his callous reactions and refusal to accept me. Eventually, I turn to look at Snow, and am struck by the concern on his face.

“It went just about as well as I’d have expected,” I say evenly. Snow hums and busies his hands by pushing away his (completely) empty plate.

“So, uh.” Simon fidgets, restless. “What now?”

“I suppose I’ll give you a tour. Show you around the house so you don’t piss yourself looking for a bathroom.”

“Fuck off, I’d find it,” Snow huffs. I don’t think he’s really all that irritated though. It’s almost like he’s too much out of his element to remember that he’s supposed to be my mortal enemy—it’s almost as though he’s relying on me. Endearing as that is, it only makes me feel more and more like I’m taking advantage of him. I don’t know why in the Hell I ever thought this was a good idea.

“Sure you would, Snow,” I say anyways, riling him up. “But, you know, just to be sure.”

“Fine, fine,” Snow agrees. He pushes himself up from his seat and then watches as I follow. As I turn to lead him from the room, I want to grab his hand again, but without my father watching, I have no excuse. I ball my hands into fists and keep them close by my sides.

SIMON

I’m starting to think that Baz lives in some sort of hybrid National-Trust version of the TARDIS. His house looked massive from the outside, but inside it feels even bigger. But more than that is how fucking creepy some of the upstairs areas are. Downstairs a lot of the rooms are wood-panelled, but the floors are marble, upstairs everything seems to be made of pure wood. Everything looks as though it were pulled directly out of a period drama, everything in my rooms at my care homes looks as though it were pulled directly out of IKEA. Baz mentions that they can’t move the furniture around in some of their rooms, that people from trusts come to do articles on the manor from time-to-time, and for the life of me I can’t work out whether or not he’s joking.

Baz takes me round the house, pointing out the various bathrooms and his father’s rooms, telling me not to go in those under any circumstances, and then deposits me in front of an oak door at the end of a dingy corridor that looks like it’s haunted by at least three different ghosts.

“This is your room,” Baz says. I look at Baz, and then again at the door, and then again down the corridor.

“What?” I say dumbly, as though I haven’t heard him. Baz crosses his arms and leans his weight onto one leg, jutting his hip out.

“Your room. This is it. Go inside. Your bag has already been brought up and put in there by one of the maids.”

“I thought I’d be staying in your room.” Baz’s face flushes at my words, and I can’t work out why. We’d been sharing a room for the past seven years, and it’s not like we were really  a couple. Besides, weren’t we meant to be making things more believable for his dad?

“Why in the name of all that is holy did you think that?” Baz asks me, and for a moment I feel embarrassed, then I remember that as far as I was concerned, I hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

“Because we always share a room. And besides, isn’t that more believable?”

“More believa—Snow, you’re not sleeping in my bed with me,” Baz cries. It’s like I’ve asked the git to sleep with him, how stubbornly he’s insisting I sleep alone in the spare room. I glare at him.

“Fine, fine, I’ll stay in your fucking spare room, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” I tell him, irritated, as I push open the door. The bedroom is massive, that much I can tell just by the view the doorway gives me.

“Bathroom’s down the hall, be decent at seven and I’ll get you for breakfast,” Baz says as he pushes me with one hand into the room and leans in to pull the door closed behind me. I stand there, like an idiot, looking around the dimly lit room and decide to unpack.

There’s a strange noise coming from under the creaky bed.

The strange noise gets louder when I lay in the creaky bed. Something is rattling in the corner, behind the wardrobe. Something is tapping on the window-panes.

I last an hour before I’m standing outside Baz’s bedroom door, calling out to him uneasily in the dark of the hallway, figuring it’s better to take my chances with Baz than it is with whatever freaky shit-show is going on in that bedroom.

[theshrubbery]

Here’s the link to my fake-dating snowbaz au! Alternatively, read the next chapter here :)

BAZ

The rest of the week passes in an uncomfortably fast blur, interspersed with Snow asking ridiculous questions that are setting my nerves on edge.

“But Baz, how do I act like your boyfriend?”

“Baz, do I have to hold your hand?”

“Do I have to kiss you?”

Christ above this was a mistake. Why I ever opened my fucking mouth in the first place and told my father what I did, I’ll never know. All I do know, is that I’m not sure I’ll actually survive this holiday knowing my family are going to be thinking Simon Snow is my bloody boyfriend. All I’ll be able to think is how much I wish he was. It feels like cruelty, to wave this in front of my face, to have Simon’s hand in mine and know it’s all for show. I don’t know how I’ll control myself.

I look over in the darkness at Simon’s bed. He’s sleeping, snoring so obnoxiously loudly I can almost pretend for a moment that I dowant to kill him, that I want to smother him out of existence with a pillow instead of smothering my lips against his. Snow does everything with flourish, with so much extra energy and I don’t even think it’s on purpose. It should irritate the shit out of me but I think it’s adorable. It’s adorable how his mouth is hanging open in sleep as he snores, how his golden hair is mussed up around his freckled face.

My chest aches with how badly I want to reach out and touch him. I probably could, if I really wanted to, if I shifted to the edge of the bed and just stretched my arm across, the beds are close enough together. I don’t though, I never have taken advantage of him. I didn’t intend to start either until this little fiasco.

I cannot believe I have to fake-date Simon Snow and somehow keep my feelings to myself, somehow pretend like I’m not touching the sun after all this time. I need to love him in public and hate him in private, it seems so backwards, the complete opposite of what I’ve been doing these past eight years.

I honestly don’t know how I’m getting out of this alive.

“Le’go o’ me you fuckin’…” Snow mumbles in his sleep. His words are garbled around the spit spilling down his face. Disgusting. I want to lick it. God, I’m so disturbed. I sigh, quietly, and roll over in bed. I’ve had enough of watching him sleep for one night, though I don’t know how he’s managing it considering tomorrow I’ll be driving him on his merry way to Hampshire to meet my family and begin this excruciating week of torment.

The next morning is the same as any other, and for a moment I have no idea why I ever imagined it could be different. Snow stretches obnoxiously, as usual, and pushes himself up in his bed, looking blearily around. I watch him in the reflection from where I stand before the mirror, fixing my tie. He looks at me but doesn’t make any sound of acknowledgement. Snow looks down at the bed, out of the window, then at his phone, as though he’s going through the motions and has no idea whether he’s actually awake or not.

“Are you going to get ready any time today?” I ask impatiently. We need to be on the road soon if we’re to make it to Hampshire for the lunch my father and step-mother wanted to prepare. “We’re going to be late.”

“Late for what? Class doesn’t start till nine, it’s only seven-forty,” Snow says in a way that’s so matter-of-fact I almost can’t believe his idiocy. I pause for a second, waiting to see if Simon’s joking, then I slowly turn to face him, raising an eyebrow. “What?” He asks, defensive.

“Are you actually as stupid as you look?” I ask him, watching as his cheeks heat up and his eyebrows knot together in frustration.

“Fuck off, Baz. Stop talking shit.”

“Uh, no. It’s you who’s talking shit,” I inform him, watching the confusion sweep across his features in a slow wave. It would be funny if he weren’t so infuriatingly dense. “Have you forgotten what day it is?”

Snow stares at me blankly, then a dull realisation drops his jaw.

“Wait…” Snow holds up a hand towards me, using the other to cover his eyes. “That’s today?”

“Yes?” I take a step towards him. “Did you seriously forget? No wonder you slept like a baby last night.” I realise in hindsight that I probably should have left that last part out. It makes it sounds like I was watching him. Which I was, but he doesn’t need to bloody know that.

“Fuck,” Snow says bluntly, pulling his hand away from his eyes and staring at me. My skin tingles. “Fuck, I thought that was next week!”

“Next week? Snow, do you not know what a calendar is? Do you not know the date?”

“Shut up, I wrote it down, I swear!” Snow fumbles with his phone, unlocking it on the fourth attempt and rushing to prove himself right. Except he doesn’t, I know that before he even opens his mouth. Snow’s eyes widen and his face reddens impressively. “Shit. My phone isn’t even set to the right year.”

I can’t help but burst out laughing at how ridiculously stupid Simon Snow is. The great Simon Snow, the scholarship student, the headmaster’s unofficial apprentice, is an absolute fucking prat. I love him for it.

“Christ, Snow, get yourself together,” I say when I’ve collected myself. I smirk at him in a way I know will get under his skin. “Pucker up, buttercup, it’s time to start pretending we’re deeply, deeply in love.”

“Like anyone would ever love you.” I turn around and try not to wince at the sting that leaves behind. Something tells me he doesn’t mean it, probably my hopeless subconscious, the back of my mind telling me maybe this won’t be so bad. But I’m not thick, I know this is going to be atrocious. The way Snow bristles as I pat his back as he walks past with his clothes in his arms is a great signal of how frustrating this next week is going to be.

SIMON

When we get into the car, we’re both silent. My mind is full and busy but for the life of me I can’t think of a way to properly start a conversation. There’s some old rock song playing through the car’s tinny speakers that Baz briefly murmurs belongs to his aunt, and that’s about as close as we get to speaking for the first half an hour or so.

I feel uncomfortable, like I’m being driven to my doom. Baz is dressed all in black, black trousers, black shirt, jacket, everything. He made me dress as presentable as possible before we left too, he said when we got to his house (although I’m expecting something grander than a house) there’d be a formal dinner with compulsory attendance. Compulsory makes it sound impersonal, like it’s less a family gathering and more a business meeting. I didn’t have any ‘formal’ clothes, not like the ones Baz is wearing, not outside of my school uniform, so Baz has lent me a grey turtleneck jumper. It’s soft and smells like something musky; it feels expensive. Apparently I can get away with wearing my school trousers, so I have.

“Stop fidgeting,” Baz says suddenly. It makes me jump a little in my seat, the seatbelt pinches my neck. I clear my throat and shift, tugging the belt away and settling it over my chest. I hadn’t even realised I was fidgeting and part of me suspects I hadn’t been and Baz just wanted an excuse to pick a fight. It wouldn’t surprise me.

I glance up at Baz and watch the tension in his jaw, clenching and unclenching, take in the whites of his knuckles against his smooth skin where they tighten around the wheel. He looks tense. I suppose I can’t really blame him considering the situation we’re in, can I?

“We need to lay down some ground rules,” Baz tells me, looking briefly away from the road to make eye contact, and then just as quickly away. I grimace and scratch the side of my head with my pointer finger if only for something to do other than face the fact I’m about to talk through the laws of mine and Baz’s fake relationship.

“What kind… of ground rules?” I say slowly, keeping my gaze fixed on the road. There’s not really much to see, just the grey of the motorway, the flitting of fields and trees to the left of the car.

“We need to make this believable,” Baz says. I see him swallow thickly out of my peripheral vision. “But not—we don’t need to do anything too hasty.” I think it’s one of the first times I’ve ever actually seen Baz genuinely lose his composure. He seems to be fighting for the right words, he’s agitated and scowling and I’m glad I’m not the only one uncomfortable with the situation. We aren’t even friends, let alone in the position to pretend to be boyfriends. I don’t even know if I’m gay.

“So what do we actually have to do? Are we going to have to kiss?”

“No.” Baz says immediately, before the last syllable has even left my lips. I look at him in surprise. “I mean. Maybe. If the situation calls for it. Obviously we just need to make sure we’re believable enough to fool my father and I can’t see why he’d expect us to kiss.”

I nod and look back out of the window. “What about hugging? Holding hands?”

“Just stand close to me and we should be fine. Don’t get trying anything, Snow.”

“Trying anything?” I parrot, incredulous. What kind of ideas does that prat have in his head? “Sorry, Baz, you’re handsome but you’re not that handsome. Fuck off.”

“Just do whatever you did with Wellbelove,” Baz says offhandedly. Then he realises what he’s just said and grimaces. “Actually, no. Just—you get the fucking idea, Snow, don’t you?”

“Righto, Baz,” I say, leaving a beat of silence whilst I consider the weight of my next words. “I’ll leave the fucking part out.” The car swerves sharply to the right as Baz splutters before he realises what he’s doing. His face is the most menacing shade of red I think I’ve ever seen and I can’t help but burst out laughing at the hilarity of it all.

“You did that?” Baz’s voice is strained, a thick vein bulges in the column of his flushed throat. I imagine I can see his pulse thrumming.

“No, I��m joking, calm your tits, Baz.” I wave a hand dismissively, pretending I don’t notice how Baz seems to sink back into his seat with relief. He was probably pissed that he thought I’d beaten him to it. “The most we did was a bit of groping.”

“Snow, I don’t want to know about whatever depraved antics you and Wellbelove got up to.”

“Are you sure you don’t care?” I retort. “Seeing as you’re the reason she left me and all.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Baz says. He’s recovered himself from whatever the flying fuck thatemotional display was earlier, and now his smug smirk is plastered back on his face. The one that tells me he knows exactly what he’s saying and exactly what he’s doing to piss me off. “I never liked her anyways. She obviously just had enough of you.”

“You literally flirted with her!” I snap, recalling how I caught them in the woods behind the school at the end of last year. “I saw you both holding hands like a couple of fairies in fantasy land! Staring into each other’s eyes like you were about to break out into song and dance into the sunset!”

“Jesus Christ, Snow, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Baz flicks a curl of hair out of his face with a deft movement of his head. I want to take his hair and pull it straight out. “I promise you, nothing happened in those woods. Wellbelove thought I was into her and was trying to get me to go out with her. Obviously I didn’t. I have no interest in her. She left you of her own accord, thank you very much.”

“Fuck off, Baz,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say, and because I need to calm down if I’m going to make this whole fake dating debacle look even slightly real. Baz scoffs at me but I barely hear it, all I can think about is the way Baz had stared at Agatha whenever he saw us together. I don’t buy the shit he’s spouting, it’s obvious he wanted to come between me and Agatha, it was just another of his schemes. I need to remember throughout this that at the end of the day Baz is still my enemy, I can’t let my guard down too far or it’ll just come round to bite me in the ass.

BAZ

Simon Snow is a fucking imbecile. Of course I don’t have any feelings for Wellbelove. For starters she’s not a bloke, instantly off my radar. For seconds she’s not Snow, so I really couldn’t care less. This whole conversation has only served to remind me that Snow will probably never figure out why I do what I do, that I came between them for my own selfish reasons rather than for a shot at his girlfriend. I know it makes me a git, I know that it’s a pretty despicable thing to do, even to your proclaimed enemy, but still. Seeing them together was a special kind of death. They were an atrocious fit for one another anyways, Snow should be grateful. He can do so much better than her.

The rest of the drive is silence. Snow hums lowly to one of the songs at some point, as though he’s forgotten who it is that’s driving the car, then I see him jolt out the corner of his eye and he goes quiet again. Other than that there’s nothing but Aunt Fiona’s CDs filling the air. It’s thick with tension. Probably sexual tension on my part, but I doubt Snow picks up on that.

“We’re nearly there now,” I say as we approach the grand metal gates at the start of the road marking our private land. Snow had fallen into a kind of stupor, half dozing with his head against the window, not really paying attention to what was outside of the car. It was kind of adorable, I wanted to wrap him in a blanket and hold him close.

“Woah…” Snow perks up, pressing his hands into his seat either side of his legs as he leans forwards to get closer to the window. I roll down my own window and lean out, typing the passcode to open the gates and not hiding my smugness as how utterly bloody delighted Snow gets as they slowly creak open and we drive through. “You live here?”

“No, I live at Watford.” I reply bluntly, trying to get under Snow’s skin. He tuts at me, swears, and then passes over my aggression entirely.

“This is incredible,” Snow praises as the manor comes into view with its elaborate Victorian architecture lined with trees on either side, a large garden complete with hedges, flower beds, and a water fountain sitting before it. To me this was normal, it was home, what I’d grown up with, to Snow it was something out of a dream. “I never knew people actually lived like this.”

“My family is very prosperous,” I say offhandedly, ignoring the way my stomach is bubbling with the nerves of introducing Snow to my father and the adoration I feel for his stupid fucking face. “It makes sense.”

“Yeah, but this?” Snow is still gawping. He fumbles to unclip his seatbelt as soon as I stop the car in the driveway to the side of the main entrance without looking away from the building. I refrain from reaching out and doing it for him. I really want to. But instead I unclip my own and open the door to the car, barely smothering a laugh as Snow almost falls flat on his face in his haste to get out.

“Put your face right before a fly lays eggs in there,” I snap. Even I can tell it lacks my usual malice, though. “Come on you blithering idiot, we need to go and meet my father.” This sobers Snow right up. His mouth snaps closed and his eyes widen, as though he’d completely forgotten the whole reason we were even here in the first place. I hate to admit that I wouldn’t put it past him—not considering he’s the same fool who had his phone set to the wrong year and hadn’t ever noticed.

“I—Baz—” He grabs the sleeve of my arm as I walk past him, I could easily break free and keep going, but I don’t. I turn to look at him over my shoulder. His legs are spread where he stands, his knees slightly bent as though he’s considering legging it. I really hope he doesn’t. I don’t have a clue how I’d explain that one to my father. Not that he can get out anyways, the grounds are all fenced in and I don’t intend on telling Snow the passcode.

“Spit it out then,” I say, watching his cheeks flood with colour.

“I don’t know what to do,” Snow says earnestly. I don’t know what to tell him.

“Just pretend to be my boyfriend, easy.” It’s not easy.

“But what if your dad hates me?” I roll my eyes.

“Of course he’ll hate you. That’s the whole point of this exercise, idiot.” I pull my sleeve from his hand. “You’ll be fine, just come on. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” In place of my sleeve, I put my hand through his instead. It feels alien and unfamiliar as I tighten my fingers around his palm and he reflexively curls his around mine. His hand is warm and rough and not for the first time I wonder why I’m doing this to myself.

“Uh…” Snow looks down at our joined hands, looking like he’s short-circuited, but he doesn’t try to pull his hand back. My heart is thudding in my chest and I hope to God my hand doesn’t start sweating.

“We best start now,” I say before Snow has a chance to back out of it. I fix the collar of his (my) turtleneck with my free hand, as casually as I can manage through the thundering in my chest, and I quickly turn and start leading him to the doorway of the house to hide the hitch in my breath when my hand accidentally brushes against the skin of his neck.

And then, we’re standing, hand-in-hand, on the doorstep to my father’s manor, knowing that he’s on the other side. I look to Snow and Snow looks to me. I can’t work out how he’s feeling but his fingers twitch against the back of my hand. I hope he can’t read my face either. I push the door open and we step inside the polished interior towards the dining room where my father waits for us.

[theshrubbery]

Can I Be Close To You - snowbaz fake dating au ch1

I post this on ao3 but I fancied posting on here too ‘cause I really wanna start taking snowbaz writing requests and stuff but for that I figured I should post stuff first haha

SIMON

Baz is plotting something. I just know he is. I don’t care what Penny says, Baz is always plotting something and no one can persuade me otherwise. Understandably, after the last few times I’ve been sure that Baz was plotting against me and nothing actually happened, Penny has long since lost her faith in my judgement of him. Not that Penny really likes him all that much herself either anyways.

Baz is my roommate here at Watford, and he’s the poshest shitbag I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Though meeting really is putting it lightly, really we were forced together back in our first year, forced to become roommates for the rest of our careers at Watford. Fan-fucking-tastic that was, best bloody day of my life, as if I hadn’t already felt like I’d been thrown in somewhere I didn’t belong, I just had to be shoved into an eight-year rooming contract with the richest twat in the entire school.

Watford is a pretty elite school, I think it’s militant at times but Penny drools over the place, thinks it’s the bread and butter of the entire academic world. I only got in through a scholarship I didn’t even want. The headmaster of the school scouted me from care when I was eleven after news got around about my successive high marks in all my schoolwork. The headmaster all but adopted me then took me in as his young prodigy with promises of a better life and the expectation that I was probably going to grow up to cure cancer, or something like that.

This entire school is entirely out of my league, full of rich, elitist people from rich, elitist families, who’d all likely burst an artery if they knew I was here—the headmaster had kept it under wraps, had secretly enrolled me a few days before term started and sent me on my merry way to the Hell that is sharing a room with Tyrannus Basilton Grim-Pitch. Yes. That is his real name. What a git.

Back to my point, though, I am actually, genuinely, positive that Baz is plotting something this time. He’s always watched me when he thinks I’m not looking (seriously, who does he think I am to leave my guard down around him, my sworn enemy, of course I notice him staring at me) but now it feels like he’s watching me with a purpose. His face twists up as though he has something to say but he just can’t get it out. It looks painful enough that I almost want to snap around and face him when he looks at me like that, I want to demand to know what he’s thinking if only to put him out of that misery. Or something like that, I guess.

“Baz isn’t plotting anything, Simon,” Penny says as we sit down at a table in the cafeteria for breakfast. I roll my eyes and pick up a small roll of bread, biting a chunk out of it with my teeth and replying with my mouth still full of food. No matter how many times Penny tells me off for this, I just can’t seem to break the habit. Although that seems to imply that I try—which I don’t.

“You don’t see the way he looks at me, Pen.” I swallow my mouthful of bread and lather a thick chunk of butter across the remains in my hands, then I eat that, too. “We’ve only been back a couple weeks but I can already feel the murderous intent. I keep catching him staring at me like he’s just waiting for the right moment to take me down.”

“Simon, are you sure Baz sees you as his enemy?” Penny asks me, raising her eyebrow skeptically as I reach for another bread roll and begin to slather it in butter. I’m ravenous.

“Of course,” I say, probably a little too loudly. “Literally, Pen, how many times has he tried to take me down? Remember when he pushed me down that flight of stairs?”

“I mean, that was kind of both your faults, really, Simon.” Penny gives me a pointed look and flips her thick hair over her shoulder. “I literally don’t know what you were expecting, fighting at the top of the stairs like that.”

“I mean the fight started in our room,” I tell her. I can’t understand how Penny doesn’t realise how blatantly obvious it is that Baz is out for my blood. “He’s the one that pushed me through our door and onto the landing. I bet that was his plan all along! To get me to the edge of the stairs and then punch me so I fell down!”

“Yeah. Or, he just got in a lucky punch. You didn’t see how sick he looked after he realised what he’d done.”

“Probably thinking about the court charges and prison sentences when he realised he actually almost killed me.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Simon.” Penny pats my arm across the table from where she sits opposite me almost sarcastically. “I’m sure he has better people to kill than you.”

“I don’t understand him at all,” I huff, reaching to pull a plate of bacon sandwiches towards me. I’m halfway through my second one when I see Baz enter the cafeteria through the heavy-set wooden doors at the far end of the room over Penny’s shoulder and I almost choke at the surprise, coughing embarrassingly loudly. My eyes burn and water as Penny runs around my side of the table and begins thumping me, way too hard I shall add, on the back in an attempt to get me to breathe again. The chunk of sandwich that was lodged in my throat flies back up into my mouth and I take a deep, heaving breath as I chew and swallow it down properly. Penny looks at me with the most hilariously disgusted face I think I have ever seen.

“You are actually disgusting, Simon Snow,” she says as she sits back down. I give her a smile in apology but Baz catches my attention.

Baz looks at me and snickers, quite clearly, at my reaction to his entering the room, though when he realises I’m watching, he immediately tampers down and pretends he’s simply amused at something one of his minions said (because I highly doubt a guy like Baz has anything other than minions, forget friends). For a moment I think Baz is going to ignore me after that initial surprise of seeing me staring straight back at him, but instead he chooses to sit the table behind ours, facing me, clearly in my line of vision. It’s as though he wants me to see him, or he wants to see me. For more of his fucking creepy stalking, I presume.

It’s a nightmare to go to class after that, knowing full well that Baz was going to be there and knowing full well I’d be sat right next to him at my desk. I suppose it’s better than it used to be in the younger years, when the tables were pushed together to form groups of six students at each. Now we’re older, they’re arranged in straight lines down the room, so rather than bashing elbows with Baz we now have an arms-length between us.

Not that it was my choice to sit here, stupid schools and their stupid seating plans, it’s a wonder I ever survived English with Baz breathing right next to me the entire time, writing in his posh, cursive handwriting and making my scrawl look illegibly pathetic.

Now, as I enter the class, Baz is already there, sitting straight at his desk and managing to look somehow both attentive and bored. He notices me as I enter, I see one of his crossed legs twitch beneath the table and his jaw suddenly clench. I see it from the other side of the room when he swallows and looks pointedly away from me.

I don’t know whether he’s humiliated at me having caught him laughing at me, or whether he’s finally got tired of trying to plot against me but whatever it is, I feel oddly lost without it. Having an enemy like Baz, someone always a step ahead, gives me a reason to get up in the morning. Because if I don’t get up I’m almost positive Baz would smother me with a pillow and my death would be pathetic rather than heroic. And although I don’t really think that Baz would murder me, I don’t like to take chances like that where I can help it.

The lesson passes the same as usual, in a hazy blur. I take notes but only because if I don’t keep my grades up I’ll lose my scholarship and be sent back to a god-awful care home, but I barely take any of the information in, I’m far too conscious of Baz today, even-more-so than usual. Something just seems off with him, though I don’t have the slightest idea what. He keeps glancing over at me, fidgeting, writing out notes only to stop mid-sentence and push his pen hard into the paper of his glaringly empty page.

Baz keeps running a hand through his hair, too, and I can’t help the swirling of anger in my gut when I think he must be copying me. I’ve known Baz for eight years, lived with him for nine months of the year each time, but I’ve never known him to be the type to fidget and muss his hair up. The great Basilton Pitch was always exceptionally put-together, if only to lord it over the rest of us peasants, always neat and tidy and always making out like nothing was wrong, even when I hear him sobbing in our en-suite shower at the end of the day when he thinks I’m not in the room.

At the end of the lesson he’d looked over at me like he’d forgotten I had eyes and could look right back. His face had coloured, a deep red against the bronze of his skin (Baz had inherited his looks off his mother, apparently, and she was Egyptian), and he’d gathered his things, stuffing them in his leather satchel, and left the room in a hurry.

I don’t see Baz for the rest of the day until last lesson, history, though he doesn’t sit anywhere near me, thank God. Despite this though, I still can’t concentrate, not with the knowledge that Baz is in the room. It doesn’t matter how many other people fill up the room, Baz is pompous enough to make me feel like it’s just the two of us. Everyone else feels like an extra in our on-going battle. I make as many notes as I can, fill out the worksheets the teacher hands out to the best of my ability despite the churning in my stomach that tells me something is wrong, probably warning me that Baz is going to have me as soon as we’re out of lesson, he’s probably itching to fight me like we haven’t in years. We’re long overdue, really. But instead, rather than a fight, Baz volunteers to collect the worksheets for the teacher, and he leaves me until last.

My heart thrums as he gets nearer, the adrenaline beginning to surge through my veins at the prospect of another fight with him. Baz stands there, in front of my desk, the stack of stapled worksheets cradled in the crook of his arm and balanced on his hip as he looks uncomfortably down at me. Baz is taller than me, by at least three inches, so he loves to remind me, and to meet my eyes he has to lower that smug chin.

“Snow,” Baz says, pursing his lips. I panic and try to come up with something clever.

“Actually it’s raining,” I stupidly say instead. Baz huffs at me, shifts where he stands, and sucks his lips into his mouth as he looks out the window to confirm, letting the lower one slip through his teeth as he releases them. He looks back to me.

“Astute observation, Snow, you complete bloody moron.” Baz’s voice is flat and biting and it makes me want to punch him.

“What do you want, Baz?” I ask him, leaning forwards in my chair.

“Your worksheets,” answers Baz, holding out a well-cared-for hand. I make to give him my sheets but then yank them back at the last second, enjoying the grimace Baz gives me. I’m pretty sure I almost hear him growl.

“No,” I smirk. “What do you actually want?” Baz looks almost dumbfounded for a moment, like I’d asked him to reveal all his deepest darkest secrets, like I’d found something out he didn’t want me to know. Then his features settle again and he snatches the paper out my hand.

“Just meet me back in our room after lesson, I need to talk to you about something.”

“What do you mean? You’re not meant to tell your enemy your plans for murder, that just takes all the fun out of it.”

“Fuck—Snow, just—” Baz shakes his head and slams my paper down into the pile at his hip, already turning to storm away as he composes himself. “Just be there, okay? This is important.”

Baz doesn’t catch me giving him the middle finger as he walks away, but the teacher does, which is really just my luck, and I’m glad that Penny isn’t in this class with me to laugh at my misfortune.

“You want me to what?” I shout, incredulous. Did I actually just hear what I thought I heard with my very own two ears? I know that I’m prone to idiocy, I zone out a lot, mishear, all of that, but seriously. If I thought being caught giving Baz the finger was misfortune, I must have been stupid. This right here is misfortune.

“You heard me,” Baz says, leaning back against the door with his arms crossed as though he expects me to try and break free, escape, run and never come back. Honestly, I really am fucking considering it.

“I swear to God,” I say with a humourless laugh, running a hand down my face, the other propping me up on the bed. “I knew you were plotting something, Baz, but this? This just takes the fucking cake. Are you serious?”

“Yes, Snow, I am serious, and I’d appreciate it if you’d start treating it as such.”

“You told your dad. You have a boyfriend. To get under his skin. And it completely backfired?”

“Correct.” It looks like it pains Baz to admit it. Good.

“And now you want me  to pretend to be your boyfriend over half term at your house?”

“I always thought you were ignorant but I guess your ears do work after all, very well done, Snow,” Baz says patronisingly. The sound of his voice irks me and I all I want to do is refuse. But… there’s something in Baz’s face that tells me there’s more to this than meets the eye. I hate Baz, really I do, but I can’t stand to see him looking so vulnerable. I still don’t know how to answer him though, and the silence in the room is making the atmosphere heavy.

“You’re gay?” I ask instead of replying. I never considered that Baz could be gay, he always has girls fawning over him. My own girlfriend, Agatha, left me for a shot at Baz last year though that wound is long closed, I’m not sure me and Agatha were ever meant to be together in the first place. Still, though, having her leave me to throw herself at the enemy was a kick to the balls. I never understood why Baz had always turned all these girls down, he could probably have his pick of any of the girls in our year if he so wanted to (except Penny, because Penny both hates Baz and already has a boyfriend, Micah, who lives in America) so this really would explain it.

“Entirely,” Baz confirms with a nod. “Absolutely, one-hundred percent. You?”

“I…” I’ve never actually thought about it, and I can’t think of the right answer to say before Baz interrupts me.

“If you do this I promise I won’t kill you in your sleep.”

“Like you’d kill me anyways, it would be too much paperwork and shame to your family name.”

“Simon,” Baz says, and I can’t help but give him my full attention at that. “Please. Just do me this one favour. I’ll do whatever you want after the week is up, I’ll leave you alone or whatever the fuck it is you want from me. Just do me this one favour and don’t make me a fool before my father.”

“You’re a fool anyways,” I murmur under my breath, unable to help myself. I look up at Baz, really taking him in, and I realise just how serious this is to him, it feels like unnecessary cruelty to say no. Who knows what he might do to me if I refuse to help him. And besides… how bad could it really be? Jesus Christ I can’t believe I’m even thinking of doing this in the first place, what the fuck is wrong with me?

“I’ll do it,” I say, and Baz’s head snaps up so fast he hits it against the door. He looks at me, wide-eyed, like he’d already been planning his escape from his family and which country to start his new life in. I don’t know why this is such a big deal to Baz, but I suppose I’ll find out. At least I’ll get to see if he lives in a stupid mansion like I’ve always pictured he does.

BAZ

My stomach bottoms out when Snow agrees. I’d never actually expected him too. Christ above, I’m fake-dating Simon bloody Snow. I almost feel guilty that he doesn’t know how badly I want him, that he’s giving me everything I’ve ever craved in the cruellest way possible. It’s selfish, really, that I’m taking him for granted like this, but there’s no-one else I can trust enough. Maybe that’s because I’ve been hopelessly in love with Snow for years, but it doesn’t matter. At least for a week, I’ll have a taste of what could be, in a different life, I can look into those blue eyes and stroke that golden hair under the guise of fake-love, and when the week is up, I can come back to Watford and die of heartache over what could have been.