Work Text:
BAZ
“So, what do you think?”, I finish. Both Dev and Niall stare at me incredulously. Dev’s mouth is hanging open, a sandwich frozen in his hand an inch away from it. He blinks at me, putting the sandwich back down without taking a bite.
“Baz, that plan sucks”, he states. I turn to Niall for approval, but he’s nodding in agreement.
“Yup. Also, it’s super gay. And I’m not using gay as an insult here. I would never, I have gay friends-“
“I know, dipshit. I am your gay friend.”
“Right. So what I’m saying here is that the plan you just proposed is not just bad but also super homosexual.” Dev, who’s returned to eating his sandwich, gives an affirming hum to the comment. I cannot believe them.
“What? It is not gay!”
“Okay”, Dev says. “Let’s recap. Your newest plan to piss off your roommate is, if I have understood you correctly, to flirt with him.”
“Yes.”
“You are a guy, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So is he?”
“Yes.”
“And your plan is to flirt with him?”
“Yes.”
“Now please tell me how that doesn't sound gay to you.”
“Because I’m not flirting with him in a gay way!”
“Oh of course”, Niall interrupts. “You’re flirting with your male roommate in the straight way! Just two guys being dudes, flirting with each other. Like guys do. What’re you gonna do, follow it up with ‘no hom-“
“Shut up, Niall. You’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
“I’m not flirting for the sake of flirting, I’m doing it to make him uncomfortable!”
“Why?”, both Dev and Niall ask at nearly exactly the same time.
“Because he’s like super straight and also he hates me so it’ll be super annoying! It makes sense.”
“Nope.”
“Nu-uh. Besides, how do you know he’s straight?”
“I have a gaydar, and he's the perfect example of a super straight jock. He’s kinda dumb, he’s on the football team-“
“So are you, and you’re gay.”
“Shut up, Niall. Also, he has that thing with Agatha, who looks like the head cheerleader who’s dating the quarterback in every romantic comedy ever. I rest my case.”
“You do know that he’s not actually going out with Agatha, right?”
“Niall I swear I’lll decapitate you.”
He just shrugs.
“Oh, I don’t care what you guys think. It’s a great plan and I’m doing it.”
I’ve already turned my back to them, but I can practically feel them roll their eyes.
SIMON
Boarding schools. Who the hell came up with boarding schools? And more importantly, why do I have to go to one? Despite this being my final year at said boarding school, I still ask myself this on a daily basis. Maybe it would be fine if it wasn’t for the roommates. My roommate is a dick who, for some inexplicable reason, has decided to make it his life’s mission to piss me off. Now to be fair I’ve never been especially kind to him either, but I’m fairly sure he started it. (And even if he didn’t, he still kind of did by just being such a huge twat.) I want to look forward to getting back to my room and relaxing, but there’s a very high risk he’ll already be there, so I never do.
I manage to time my entry as poorly as possible. Not only is Baz already in the room, but he’s changing. He must’ve pulled his undershirt over his head the moment before I opened the door, because it’s still hanging around his forearms, the white a stark contrast against his tan skin. I freeze in the doorway, unsure how to act. He spun around when the door opened and is facing me, but he makes no attempt to cover up. The shirt isn’t even fully off, he could pull it back on in one motion. Instead, he finishes taking it off and throws it on his bed.
It’s not until he speaks that I realise I’ve been looking at his torso and not his face.
“Would you mind closing the door?”, he says, and to my great surprise he sounds neither sarcastic nor angry. He hasn’t even reached for a shirt to put on yet. Like he couldn’t care less who saw him shirtless. I do close the door. I just close it with myself still outside.
BAZ
This is going to be easier than expected.
I don’t think existing without a shirt on even counts as flirting.
SIMON
I don’t return to the room until several hours later. I’m not sure what happened and I do not want to talk to Baz about it, so I find Penelope and tell her I need help studying for our upcoming English test. (Which, while true, was not my original plan for the day.)
Baz is in the bathroom when I return. I change quickly and then bury my face in a book to avoid staring directly at him when he comes out, but he’s fully clothed this time. (Do pyjamas count as clothes? He’s fully covered.)
“Can you turn the lights off?”, I ask, putting the book away.
“Sure babe”, he responds. The lights go out with a loud click. I hear him get into bed. I hear him shuffle around a bit before settling into a position. By the time he falls asleep, I’m still sitting upright in my bed, staring into the darkness, trying to process what the fuck just happened.
I wake up before he does, not entirely convinced it wasn’t just a bizarre dream. I hurry out of the room before I can get some kind of confirmation that it wasn’t.
BAZ
Snow has left the room when I wake up. If I keep this up, I might get the room for myself! And Dev and Niall thought it was a bad plan… Joke’s on them, this is brilliant! I do wish I’d gotten to see Snow’s reaction to the pet name, though.
Snow and I are forced to sit next to each other in math. He hates it (because he’s bad at math and I’m at the top of our class) and so do I (because he’s annoying) but for this particular approach to irritating him, it works very well. When Snow, like he inevitably does at least once every class, gets stuck on a problem, I offer to help explain it to him. He squints suspiciously at me.
“If you tell me the wrong answer I’ll find a way to get you expelled”, he says.
“Why would I do that?”, I ask, like it’s the most insulting thing he’s ever said to me.
“Because you’re a jerk”, he retorts. Fair enough.
“Well, I won’t. I’ve already solved that problem, so you can compare your answer to mine when you’re done. Now, tell me what it is you don’t get.”
He still looks suspicious, but he can’t afford to turn the help down. I push my chair closer to his and lean over his book, so close I can smell his cologne. He leans away from me, but only slightly. He does still need to see what I’m doing.
“Oh, this is simple”, I say, reverting to my usual mocking tone. “And the teacher explained it like a week ago.” He scowls at me as I explain it to him.
He makes an attempt to solve the problem, and his answer is completely wrong.
“Not even close”, I state. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.” His annoyed frown quickly turns into… something else. He goes bright red, pulls the book away from me and declares that he can manage on his own, actually.
It’s glorious.
SIMON
I have no fucking idea what Baz is doing but it is humiliating. He’s yet to pull anything in front of other people, but just thinking about it is bad enough. And I’m pretty sure Penny saw what went down in math class, even if she couldn’t hear it. What the hell is he up to?
“What was that in math class?”, Penny asks as we sit down at a lunch table. “Was I hallucinating or were you talking to Baz?” I poke at my food, contemplating how much to tell her.
“He offered to help me and I figured it’d be dumb to turn it down, he is very good at math.”
“Wait, really? Baz offered to help you?”
“Yeah, but don’t rearrange your worldview quite yet. He did explain the math, but he ended up just using it as an excuse to mock me when I got it wrong.”
“That seems more like him.” Satisfied with this knowledge, she digs into her lunch. I want to tell her about the rest of it, but I don’t know what I’d say. “Baz is flirting with me and it makes me feel weird”? it sounds insane when you try to retell it.
We have math again the next day. He leans over to me five minutes into class without even looking at my work and goes “do you need help with that, darling?”
His tone is as condescending as usual, but the added darling sends all my blood to my face and I try to push myself away from him without noticeably moving the desk. The bastard has the gall to smirk at me, which helps in absolutely no way at all.
BAZ
I let Snow walk in on me changing again, just because it was so effective the first time. I check when his football practice ends (we have two football teams, and Snow and I intentionally avoided signing up for the same one) and make sure to shower while he’s on the pitch. I don’t start putting my shirt on until I hear him in the hallway.
SIMON
Baz is standing in the middle of the room, only half dressed. Again. His hair is wet, and his unbuttoned dress shirt is clinging to his skin. I try my best to pretend I haven’t noticed that he’s skipped the undershirt this time.
“Déjà vu, Snow”, he smirks. Was my face this hot before I opened the door?
Baz strokes his wet hair out of his face without breaking eye contact.
It definitely wasn’t.
I redirect my gaze to the floor and walk into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. What’s gotten into me?
BAZ
Snow freezes in the doorway, his face turning beet red. He unfreezes as soon as I speak and locks himself in the bathroom without responding. It’s almost too easy. I should’ve thought of this ages ago.
SIMON
Baz keeps doing whatever it is he’s doing. A darling here, a babe there, a somehow condescending compliment about my appearance there. It never ends, and I never get used to it. If this is his new bizarre way to get a rise out of me, it’s working. I’m losing my mind, and I still haven’t told Penny anything.
He walks past me and Penny in the library, and I could swear he winks at me. It’s so subtle I’m not entirely sure it actually happened, but it’s enough to distract me from our conversation. Penny, who’s in the middle of a rant, doesn’t notice. Baz walks up to a nearby bookshelf. He puts a book back on the top shelf and his shirt, which can’t have been properly tucked in, slips up to reveal a sliver of his stomach. It’s barely noticeable, and yet I find myself imagining him in the middle of our room, shirtless, his hair wet from the shower. Déjà vu, Snow.
Penny waves a hand in my face.
“Simon! I can tell when you stop listening, you know! What are you thinking abo- …wait, are you blushing?”
“What? No! I- I just zoned out. Sorry.”
She squints at me, clearly unconvinced, but decides to let it go and returns to her rant. Baz has left now, but the image of him lingers in my mind.
What’s happening to me?
BAZ
Dev and Niall remain unimpressed with my results.
“I’m telling you, he’s going mad! He’ll practically leave any room whenever I say anything remotely flirty and if he can’t, he gets super flustered and stops talking to me!”
They give each other a look.
“Baz”, Niall says. “This is the third time this week you’ve told us about how great it is that you’re making Simon flustered. I think now is a great time to revisit the ‘this plan is gay’-point.”
“You’re a bad friend, Niall. I don’t know why I let you in on my plans.”
“Neither do I Baz, neither do I.”
I’m actually trying to mind my own business and study when I see Snow at the library. His uniform is not up to code (his shirt is untucked, his tie is barely tied, his shirt is at least two buttons more open than what’s allowed and he’s missing his blazer entirely) and his hair is, as always, a mess. He’s reaching for a book on a shelf that’s just out of reach for him and refusing to step on a chair or ask for help. Looking around, I realise that we’re alone in this section of the library.
SIMON
Someone grabs the book I’m reaching for.
“Did you want this?”, Baz asks and I turn around to find his face mere inches away from mine.
“I did, yeah”, I say. “Were you planning on giving it to me?” Baz shrugs slightly and steps so close to me that our hips touch.
“Only if you ask nicely”, he murmurs and then, in a whisper, adds “darling.”
I grab his collar and pull his mouth down to mine. He freezes for a second and then kisses back, pressing my body against the bookshelf.
BAZ
Okay, so maybe this plan was a little gay.