Archive of Our Own ^beta

Fresh snow glances off the windshield, melting into nothing on contact, but somehow managing to be a prescient reminder of the centralizing feature of my whole hopeless life. Snow. It’s always Snow.  

There are hundreds of miles in front of me hundreds of miles behind.

It’s December 24th, and for the first time in years—since he forced self-preservation through my lips beneath a forest on fire, since leftover Shepherd's pie in a cool casserole dish, since he took me by the back of my neck and turned a single kiss into more—I am not with Simon Snow.

“We should always try to be together on our anniversary,” he said, I don’t remember when. The memories dissolve into the nebulous mass of shared history and time. Sometimes, I forget where he stops and I begin.

I do remember being surprised.

“Funny thing,” I said, trying to pretend I wasn’t pleased as punch. Back when I thought playing it cool would protect me from potential hurts. “That’s a bit sentimental for you, Snow. I never thought you’d be the kind of boyfriend who cared about something so trivial as an anniversary.”

Oh, and this is where the memory get’s good. Never one for subtlety or half-arsed confessions, Simon had strode into my space with the confidence of a someone in shining armour, a supportive horse, and a happily ever after waiting in the wings. He grabbed my collar and stared at me with the same intensity as he’d done when I’d insisted that this fire wasn’t for him. He hadn’t listened then. He isn’t listening now.

“You,” he said, “are worth it. Don’t you ever forget it.”

The road is nothing more than a black stripe in my high beams and I focus on the lines of pavement as they come into frame. He’s not here.  We were meant to be together. Snow was right, and if it meant I could have a passing glance at that bastard, I’d even admit it to him. You were right Snow and you’re not here and it hurts.

My white knuckles cling to black leather and try to remind myself that there was no way around this. That, sometimes, the universe doesn’t deliver a perfect ending to every story.

But then I think, It’s our anniversary and you’re not here.

He’s not here.

My feet are on the coffee table. Sockless. Next to a mug of tea. Coasterless. Baz would be pitching a fit if he could see me, and I think that’s the point. A tiny slight, a teensy effort to force him to rise, to take the bait of my bad behaviour and to pay attention and to just be here. He’s not.

It’s not like I was expecting him.

I’ve lit a fire in the fireplace in an effort to try to melt my feelings into a puddle of cheery warmth and soft heat; instead, the flames are cackling and it's definitely at my expense. A thick layer of soot has piled up in the grate. Baz was the only one who cleaned it. Baz.

He's not here and there’s nothing to be done.

My eyes are heavy, drooping against the heat and the migraine of emotions pressing against the inside of my skull. Bed is the appropriate choice. The tiny piece of me that stands apart from my pining knows that I should wobble up the stairs into the queen size mattress and jersey knit sheets.

Except they don’t smell like him anymore and I can’t stand it. And so it will be in the neutral space of the sprawling sectional where I finally find sleep. Where his absence isn’t so stark.

I wasn’t expecting him.

The houseplants have suffered too long without their benevolent human overlord, prancing around with a watering can and an intense stare. Baz is intense in every context—from ripping the chin off a traitorous vampire to watering the Peace Lilly. No one can deny the man has range.

Now the Christmas Cactus is sagging, the Spider Plant’s leaves have turned a soft brown, and I managed to kill a succulent. I can’t find the charger for my mobile. The spare key for the house was lost long ago to the depths of my disarray and pitiful efforts at keeping my life tidy.

I have never known a man who pesters me quite like Baz. I never will again.

I have never known a man who thunders quite like Simon Snow. I never will again . His elephant feet intentionally smash heel first into the hardwood. He has the auditory profile of a rhinoceros; he could score on the Richter scale if he really put his mind to it.

“We’re going to be late, Simon,” I half shout up the stairs. The stampede increases in volume—the assumption that there are several monstrously large men parading through the upstairs of our home would not be misplaced. I hear a loud thump, the sound of shattering, followed by a noise I assume is Simon landing hard on the floor.

“Did you trip on the—”

“FUCKING LAMP!”

I feel a sigh tumble out of me, but it comes with a gentle smile, because it’s Simon and there is nothing about this oaf I don’t find endearing.

He slides into frame at the top of the stairs, his shirt riding up his back, hair a distorted cotton ball, his face open-mouthed and filled with panic.

“I’m coming! I’m sorry, I couldn’t find—”

“The car keys?” I say, holding up his set.

Simon Snow has never been subtle. I watch feelings move his features from relief to gratitude to embarrassment to a full pout.

“Well, that’s obviously why I couldn’t find them. They weren’t where I left ‘em cause you went and took them.”

I don’t think Snow has truly plumbed the depths of my obsession—loving your sworn enemy in secret will do things to a man. I can interpret every twitch of his lip, can translate every slumped shoulder, can make meaning of every grunt and mumbled confession.

Which is why I know that he has no idea where he left his keys. On the coffee table, under a copy of V for Vendetta.  

Simon stomps down the stairs and snatches the car keys from my outstretched fingers. “Now I just need my—”

“Wallet?” I say, extending my other hand, which is filled with a simple bifold, the leather so worn I’m constantly telling him, “this thing is grotesque. Please let me replace it.”

“Fuck off,” he says, but there’s no venom in it. He mashes his feet into his shoes (“One should never force oneself on a pair of shoes,” I say, a thousand times. Every day. His reply is always the same.)

“You really shouldn’t force them on that way. I’m going to stop buying you nice things if you insist on—”

Simon takes me by the shoulders, the irritation on his face shifting into something almost feral. I feel my back hit the front door and his mouth—

My words are swallowed up by a kiss, open mouthed and demanding. I’m not sure where my breath went—not sure if it was the force of my back colliding with something hard or if it’s the ache of Simon pressing his hips into mine. There’s nothing gentle about this. His teeth are urgent as they bite at my lower lip, his tongue is pushy and his hands holding me in place are not taking questions. I could force this point. He knows it. He knows that I know it.

I let him manhandle me. Because it takes my breath away.

Which is, I think, the point.

“You’re such a prat.” Simon’s breathing is a mess. “Only way to get you to shut up.”

“I think what you mean,” I say, trying to reconfigure my lust into something more aloof. “Is that I know you better than you know yourself.”

Simon leans in and brushes his lips against mine. “Thanks.” His mouth on me, barely there, close enough that I can feel his lips forming words but not so close that I can force a kiss.

“You're welcome,” I say, keeping the whine keen to escape firmly in my throat.  We can do that later.

The moment is suddenly the consistency of fresh snow and I want to stand still as it flutters around us.

“Not sure why you keep me around,” he says into the corner of my mouth.

I savour how he’s left me tender.

My life, I think, is a study in Snow.

I throw the front door open and stride to the car with a reasonable amount of poise, considering that he’d just turned my legs into cooked noodles.

“It’s the little things,” I answer, not looking back.

“It’s the little things,” I insist, propping a hefty textbook against Baz’s shoulder blades. He lets out a little sigh but doesn’t protest. “They’re gonna get me on some stupid question about the properties of diarrhetics or the differences in left and right bundle branch blockages.”

“Simon.”

It’s not fair, really, that I had to go through all of fucking nursing school and it still isn’t enough. Muddling through anatomy and physiology (“why do I need to know the thirty different muscles in our hands!”), swimming in the tens of thousands of flashcards I made for Pharmacology (“Why the fuck do I need to know the discharge details for a transdermal nitroglycerin patch?”), swallowing the panic attacks that threatened to capsize my Med-Surg preceptorship, and still! A fucking exam at the end.

When will I ever be enough?

“You’re catastrophizing,” Baz says from behind the sprawling exam prep manual that is currently draped across his shoulders. “Stop it.”

 “Easy for you to say,” I mumble, thumbing the pages until I land on the chapter where I left off. “You’re not facing down a fucking licensing exam, that’ll decide whether or not I get…whether I’m good…”

I feel the down comforter crinkle and watch muscular shoulders shift beneath me. Baz is the picture of tousled in a grey t-shirt, with his hair loose around his face. The room smells of wax and balsam and clean sheets and as one of his hands settles on under my chin, I can’t help the feelings of calm that melt into me.  

“Simon,” he says, those grey eyes examining my face and—miraculously—finding something he thinks is worth having. “You have not been lazy or irresponsible about this. You have been studying every day for the past three months.”

It’s true. I have.

“It’s been a bit much, honestly,” Baz is still saying. “To study months for something.”

“Says the human encyclopedia who hasn’t been anything less than perfect his whole goddamn life.”

“I know,” he says with an exaggerated sigh, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw. “It’s exhausting, honestly.”

“Prat.” The bastard grins, letting my face drop.

“Your prat,” he says, voice muffled as he nestles into my neck.

“Mine,” I mumble, and still can’t believe we’re here. That wars and death, old hatred and new biases, after everything we lost…that I was able to hold onto this.

I kiss the tip of his nose.

His cheeks turn the colour of the rosé he sipped at dinner. I can still surprise him.

“Why don’t you stop messing around and start rattling off how to address the increased perfusion in veins and arteries.”

“You do listen,” I say, in what I try to play off as mock surprise, but what is actually a pang of affection that strikes at the heart of me.

“Fine,” I growl, and savour the way his face finds the crook in my neck and his feet slip under my back, and his fingers trace circles into my bare chest. And I start to read.

Frost presses spiky shapes into the window pane, the winter air rattles in the bones of our tiny flat. But here, as I start to narrate exam preparations…

Well.

It’s warm.

It’s cold.

Even under two comforters and swallowed in fleece pyjamas, I still feel like death frozen over. Because I am, I think and try to squish the thought with the warmth of the man I love lying next to me 

I slip my feet under Simon’s back and feel him flinch.

“Fuck a witch’s tit, that’s fucking cold, Baz.”

I wince. Something about the reaction burns like disinfectant in an open wound. Simon has always run hot and melting the chill in my feet was something understated that he did for me, without me ever needing to ask. “My apologies. I didn’t mean for my monstrous body chemistry to offend you.”

“Hmmph,” he groans, rolling onto his side. Away from the ice cubes that should be toes. Away from me.

“Are you alright?” I was hoping to talk to him tonight. To wait for a moment that was calm and soft.

“M’fine,” he says, and I almost believe it. His voice is soft serve and sleep. It’s the tension in his shoulders that gives him away.

“Look,” I say, reaching down into my belly for some semblance of the courage I’ve seen Simon display nearly every day of his life. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?”

“It’s…” I try to find words that don’t sound cliché. I fail. “It’s important.”

“Go on then,” he says, but he’s still facing the wall, those shoulders a barrier to entry.

“That position I interviewed for—” I start.

“The one that’s in Edinburgh, a million miles from here?” This wasn’t a fight when I’d applied, but I’d sensed the tension brewing in his reaction to my decision to take the interview in the first place.

Simon’s displeasure is not subtle, no matter how hard he tries to smooth the gravel out of his words. It will always be obvious—at least, it will always be obvious to me.

“I’ve received an offer,” I say, barely believing it myself. There aren’t exactly an abundance of tenure track positions for newly minted PhDs in Victorian Literature with a focus on queer representation.

“Of course you did,” Simon says, and this time, there’s nothing bitter in the words. He’s proud of me. That much shines through whatever gravel was there earlier. “You’re bloody brilliant, Baz. They’d be stupid not to.”

“It…” and here are the words I’m afraid to say. “It’s an amazing opportunity. And I want to take it.” So much of my life after Watford should not climax in a single email subject line: Congratulations. Ten years of school and twenty years off my sanity, research opportunities and an intro class filled with students, wide eyes and—

“I don’t want to go, Baz.” Bronze curls have flopped over on the pillow and blue eyes are searching my face. Even now, even after decades of scrutiny, the unwavering attention of Simon Snow leaves me breathless.  

Six words that feel like an ending. That I wish I could swap for “And they lived happily ever after.”

I search his face for answers and find nothing but a pained expression; I search for words and find I don’t have any.

Don’t make me choose, Simon. Please don’t make me choose.

Simon, for once, fills the void with something to say. “I’m tired, Baz. I’m tired of moving. I’ve moved so much in my life and now I’ve found a home that I love. With you. Here. I’m happy and…” There are lines forming at the edges of those plain blue eyes. Lines and, right now, tears.

“I don’t want to go.”

“I can’t go,” he moans into the side of my neck and fuck. “Not now.”  I feel stubble scraping against my skin as I breathe into Baz’s mouth. I don’t think there’s anything I love more than Baz losing control. I can feel his sharp words dissolving into slurred syllables as my hands move over him and I can’t stop—

“Please!” he whimpers, and I revise my earlier thought. Baz begging. Yup. I love that more. “I need to get up. I need to shower. I need—"

“What are you waiting for?” I say, my voice low and thick with how much I want. I roll up out of the blankets and on top of him, his lovely long lines between my thighs. 

Baz has his eyes closed and he’s squirming. “I need, I need, I…oh fuck.”

This is so much better than fighting.

I leave him in a puddle on our bed and slip into the bathroom, cranking the shower as hot as it’ll go.

“The pipes are too old,” Baz had said when we first looked at the place. “It’ll take ages for the water to get hot.”

“That’s what you’re worried about,” I’d replied, already smitten with the little house we’d eventually made our home. “You spent half your life in a Gothic fucking mansion.”

“How many times do I have to explain that there’s a difference between Gothic and Victorian?”

I flinch as ice cold water sputters through the shower head. The twat had been right—a fact he still refuses to let go. And so I get it ready for him. Because I want to. Because I can.

“Showers on,” I shout down the hall, wondering if he’s still blissed out under the sheets. Licking my lips, the taste of Baz on my tongue, I can’t help but smile.

I sling his towel (monogrammed, of course. TBGP) over one shoulder and stomp down the stairs. (Baz says I thunder. I say he has ears like a bat.) If I toss his towel in the dryer, it’ll be warm for when he’s done.

Okay, maybe the previous assessment needs an additional amendment.

I love it when he’s happy. When I manage to make him happy. There’s nothing I love more than that.

There is nothing I hate more than—“Snow,” I shout out into the cool morning. “You’ve left a fucking glob of toothpaste in the sink!”

My hair is a damp lump against the back of my neck, with water whispering over my skin and disappearing into the towel around my waist. The hopeless moron still throws it in the dryer every morning, “so you won’t be cold, cause you’ve got the internal body temp of a woolly mammoth.”

“I’m supposed to be the overly sentimental one,” I’d said, giving him a seismic eye roll, in a desperate attempt to mask how affected I was by this stupid little thing. Seven years later, my towel has never been cold.  

“What are you whinging about,” Simon says, rubbing his eyes and wobbling through the door frame.

“You left toothpaste in the sink,” I say again, picking up the offending tube and waving it in his direction.

He snatches it from my fingers with the dexterity of a retired Chosen One and grabs his toothbrush from the glass on the corner of the sink. “Well, you left a-a…” Snow fights though a long yawn. “A rat’s nest of long black hairs down the drain, but you don’t hear me complaining about that.”

It’s a fair point, one I refuse to concede. “It’s pasty mush,” I say instead, and start to brush my teeth in earnest. “It’s morning breath congealed. It’s disgusting.” The minty foam muffles my words.

“S’not as bad as all that,” Simon says.

I shudder at the glob of white residue. When I look up, that imbecile is grinning at me.

“You’re an animal,” I mumble around a mouthful of toothbrush.

“You think?” There’s a challenge in those words.

“Barely even human, most days,” I mutter, trying my best to glare. Those fucking blue eyes are looking at me like I’m something to eat.

“You’re so fucking dramatic.” He’s crowding into my space. I feel his fingers slip under my towel.

“Don’t you dare.”

Simon licks his lips and pushes me into the vanity.  

“I swear to Cersei, I will toss you over my shoulder and do obscene things to you—"

“You think that’s gonna make me stop?”

He presses his frothy mouth against mine.

It’s good. It’s always been good. It’s still good. Even with a plastic stick in my mouth. He gives me an inch and I try to breathe through the foam. 

“Gross! Snow!” There’s toothpaste on his lips. On his chin. I want to…lick it off. (I’m still disturbed. Ask anyone.)

I turn and spit into the porcelain. “Toothpaste kisses,” he giggles, moving in behind me.

“You’re a menace.”

“A walking disaster? Yes Baz. You may’ve mentioned it.”

He pulls me closer. So much closer than I ever thought we could be.

He’s pushing me away. So much farther than I ever thought he could be. Even at Watford, through the siege of fifth year and the fire of unrequited love. I can feel his weight shifting our mattress as Snow tries to sneak out of bed—something he’s been doing a lot lately. Something I’ve been pretending not to notice. He’s so far away.

The blues of his irises have turned icy, the chill of feelings frozen over. I can’t reach him when he’s like this. And he’s like this so often these days.

I hear his heels connect with the hardwood and realize that he’s leaving again. That he’s going to steal away when he thinks I’m asleep and go somewhere I can't follow. (I don't know where he goes. I've never asked).

I can’t help my mental arithmetic. It's become a predictable routine of nightly sums. Additions and subtractions of the good I can do. Do I want him to know I’m awake? Should I try to stop him? Let my dead hands reach out for his bright red wings and stroke the fire in their flesh? Should I try to convince him to roll us up in the heat and wait for whatever storm is drowning him from the inside to clear?

A rush of cold air sneaks beneath the covers as he leaves the sheets. The scuffs of a man who can’t see in the dark, flailing desperately for a pair of trackies. I should go to him and try to say all of the right words that I’ve been unable to manage these past days and weeks and months.

If only there were magic words for depression. If only I could spell this all away.

Perhaps there are, I think. Maybe my voice will be enough. Maybe the world doesn’t need a spell to set it right, and before I can stop myself, I sit up. A new arithmetic added to our delicate equation.

“Simon?”

His hand is on the bedroom door.

“Love, please.”

His shoulder stiffens, a wall of flesh to hide behind.

“Please, how can I…what can I…” I’m stammering but I find that I don’t have any fucks left to give. Not about appearances or propriety or looking like I’m in control.

I’ve never been. Not where you’re concerned, Simon.

We steep in the silence, poised on the edge of a door handle and my knobbly elbows.

“I can’t breathe,” he whispers, finally letting something slip and I wouldn't have heard him if my ears were human.

“Let’s go outside, then.”

“But you’ve got the body temperature of a salamander,” he says, his voice thick in the air.

The speed with which I move from our bed to his arms is only possible for vampires and men in love. I let my feet find all of the creaks in the old flooring so that he knows I’m coming.

His mane of curls is fuzzy in the moonlight when he turns to look at me. I let my fingers slip between his.

“Come on,” I say, as gently as I can muster. “Balcony’s this way.” Pulling him away from the threshold of our space, back into a moment we can share.

We let this place for the balcony. “It stretches the entire length of the flat!” Simon had shouted into the summer air, before these long nights and long shadows and long silences. “Baz, please! I need it to be this one. Can we make this…our home?”

Who was I to deny the Chosen One? My Chosen One. Specifically.

Even in the dead of winter, it's still lovely up here. My bare feet sting against the icy tile, but that’s not important. Not right now.  

I turn to look at him. Let myself linger on the details I wished we could erase. Red wings built for flying limp and useless against his back. Powerful shoulders sagging into the floor. Black lines staining worn skin. I let my thumbs trace half-moons under his eyes.

It is a testament to the magic of this night that he doesn’t flinch.

“You’re not okay, Simon,” I say, trying to suppress a shiver. February is nipping at my naked skin.

He isn’t saying anything but he’s staring at me, blue eyes spilling into grey.

“Where do you go?” I whisper, the air turning to ice in between us.

His swallow is slow and long and my eyes flit to his Adam’s apple.

“Running,” he breathes. “I run and run and run until I can’t think anymore.”

From demons and memories and mages and blood.

Wisps of snow are falling all around us, catching in his curls, on his wingtips, on my lips.

I love him . I’ve known it for a lifetime. For so long, it was more fantasy than a phrase that could be uttered out loud.

I love you, Simon Snow.

Not because he’s the Chosen One, I think, and then. Not because he’s the greatest mage. And then not because he’s the hero. Because he’s just a boy.

I’m going to tell him . I’m going to lick the snow from my lips and I’m going to tell him.

I reach out, finally, because he’s still here and he’s not running, not from me, and I want to touch him so much I think that I’ll break.

As my hands twist through his hair, Simon finally finds his voice, and says his secrets into the night—I should’ve known I’d never get the chance to say it first.

On our balcony, Simon says, “Love is the only magic left in my world.” There are tears, cold and catching in his lashes. “And it’s for you Baz. I’d give it all to you.”

He’s so warm and the world is so cold.

My hands are so warm until…fuck! What’s so cold?

I bite my bottom lip and reach down into the sink. It’s a search and rescue mission as I try to dislodge the offending food bits. After a bit of finagling, I wrap my hands around the slimy remnants of, not one, but two tea bags.

Baz fucking Pitch.

“What was that?” he asks, not looking up.

I hold the slippery offenders, slick with the repulsive goop only a long stay in at the bottom of the sink can cultivate, between my wet fingers and walk over to the fucking love of my life.

He’s perched on a bar stool, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, a crossword spread out beneath him. His pen is poised to attack, letters at the ready, awaiting instruction.

“How many times,” I say, leaning in, “have I told you.” He looks up, probably scenting the danger. But it’s too late.

“Not to dump your teabags in the fucking sink!” I slam the messy things right into the middle of his newspaper. Droplets explode, peppering the newsprint and Baz’s cheeks with the sins of their decomposition.

Rage seethes through Baz’s nostrils and a bit of sink water blows off the tips of his nose. “I was nearly done with that.” He says the words with a deliberate pace that lets me know he is properly distressed.

Baz should know better than to try to intimidate me. It’s not worked for twenty years; it certainly won’t start now.

“Just showing you the consequences for dumping your teabag all haphazard like into the sink.”

“Says the numpty who refuses to rinse the recycling—”

“What’s the bloody point—”

“Or make the bed—”

“It’s just gonna get used again that evening—”

“Or throw his dirty tissues in the bin—”

“That was one time!”

The tea bags have left a giant wet spot in the middle of Baz’s crossword; there is no possibility of salvage, no chance for resuscitation. I look up into those grey eyes that always manage to leave me breathless and see Baz, a stick of dynamite at the end of his fuse.

“Speaking of consequences,” he says, his voice low and he’s got that look on his face that I spent most of my teenage years trying to puzzle out. Like he wants to kill me; like he wants to kiss me. “You should probably run.”

I jut out my chin and laugh in his face. “ When have I ever run from you?”

Why are you running from me?

Snow’s riding passenger, forehead pressed to the window, curls a mess of fuzz and stress. How wise, Basil, to have a serious conversation before a long drive up to the manor. Brilliant timing, that was.

The issue, as I see it now, is that it hadn’t felt like dangerous territory. I’d thought—foolishly, it seems—that we were past all of this. Issues of intimacy, of feelings, and all of the other things that go poetically unsaid.

All because of one lazy landlord (I’m going to set Sandy’s flat on fire tomorrow) and a broken washing machine.

“It’s at it again!” Snow had roared in from the kitchen, stomping with the vigour of someone who could grind a man’s bones to make his bread.

“What’s that?” I mumbled through a cuppa.

“That fucking washing machine has it out for me, Baz!” Snow was working himself up into full bluster, a hurricane, Category 5, about to make landfall. “It’s fucking eating my clothes!” Snow had started to gesticulate, and that’s when I realized he was holding something very wet and even more dishevelled in his hand.

“Never your things!” he bellowed, reaching catastrophic damage levels. “Just mine!”

I’d sighed, setting my cup gently on a coaster and giving him my full attention—this would only get worse if he thought I wasn’t treating his complaints with the utmost seriousness. “What did it get this time?”

Snow had held up the offended party and it took everything that I am, every ounce of self-control that I’d possessed, not to giggle.

It was his oldest pair of boxers.

“Love,” I said, pursing my lips into a thin line to keep the laughter at bay. “If that’s the pair I think it is, it was well on its way to the grave.”

This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say.

“You think you’re so smart!” he roared, the shredded underpants flapping in his angry hands. “Just wait, Baz. It’ll come for you eventually. And then, you’d better not come crying to me. Because I won’t feel sorry for you! Not a fucking bit!”

He’d been breathing like a beached beluga, as his arms finally came to rest at his sides.

“Are you quite finished?”

“It’s just so…” That lovely chin had turned towards the floor. “I’ve had these since Watford.”

Snow attaches to the things he has, hoards them like someone three times his age. It is only now, decades into knowing this beautiful mess of a man, that I understand it is because he’d never had many things to begin with.

“You could call Sandy—” I’d started, but Snow’s rebuttal was swift.

“I’ve told Sandy! I’ve shown her the fucking graveyard of my undergarments. She refuses to do anything!”

“Well,” I’d started, but Snow was not finished.

“And don’t you tell me that she means well and that the washing machine doesn’t have it out for me or any of that bullshit because, frankly, I’ve had it up to here with—

“Snow!”

I’d successfully startled him from his strop.

“What?”

“We could just…” I took a deep breath. It’s been six years. It’s fine. Be brave. Be more like Simon. “We could buy a place of our own?”

The silence had stretched into infinity. Perhaps I’d been wrong. Snow hadn’t finished hurricaning into our living room. This was just the eye of the storm.

Finally, “We’re not even married.”

A sentence that hit me with the force of a sledgehammer.

We’d danced around this topic, always letting it slip in and out of casual conversation like a fair-weather friend or cheap umbrella.

Did he want to be?

I’d always assumed…well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? I’d assumed and, with Snow, that was never the right choice.

“No,” I’d said, “we’re not,” and let the topic die.

And now he’s sitting with his stupid head pressed against the stupid window and I don’t know what to say to make it right.

The interior of the car is thick with whatever feelings are rolling off of Simon and I find I can barely concentrate on the road.

We’re not even married.

The words ring in my ears and I still don’t know what to say.

I reach across the middle console and search for his hand.

Snow flinches, and I almost retreat, but those stubby fingers hold on to mine and refuse to let me go.

When he can’t find his words, and I can’t find the right ones, this is what saves us. I savour the warmth of his fingers, the tiny squeeze that reminds me that the world isn’t ending and he’s not going to leave. When everything else feels wrong, this feels right.

Everything else with Baz has felt right, but this…this feels wrong.

The air freshener is listless as it hangs from the rear-view mirror, swaying to and fro to the beat of the yellow lines on the road as we gobble them up. Cedar scented, because I’m obsessed, and Baz has a sense of humour.

My knees are the most fascinating thing in the world—knobbly things that have started to ache when I bend down because thirty doesn’t go easy on anyone—because I can’t look at him. Because if I do, I’ll say all of those selfish things; I have a thousand little words that could pick apart Baz’s motivation to go, to take this opportunity and make it his. He’s chasing the goals he carved out of the wreckage of Watford and the war and I will not tear holes in the wings of his dreams.

But…

I don’t want him to go.

“Simon.” His voice is low and soft, but it fills up the interior. “We’ll be alright. This is for now. Not forever.”

Goddammit. He can read my face like one of his bloody novels.

“It feels like forever,” I say and, my god, I’m thirty years old and I’m pouting.

“The term is only four months long.”

“Like I said,” I grumble, giving in to the melancholy. “Forever.” Edinburgh is so far and four months is a lot of fucking months and…

Those full lips twitch and I watch 30 years of steely self-control smooth his face into something considerate and plaintive and just for me. “If you require it,” he says in that same low voice, “I’ll make the drive on weekends. So that you may feast your eyes on me and delight in the quality of my company and the sharpness of my wit.”

“I fucking hate you.” I fucking love you.

He reaches across the middle console and tugs at my hand—long fingers weave us into something that was meant to fit together.

When I can’t find the words and he can’t read my mind, this is what saves us. “I’ve had you in my sights since I was eleven years old,” I groan. “One constant pretentious twat, always around. Always where I could see you. It’s just…”

My words run out of steam. It’s just that I’m scared.

I don’t want to leave my knees, knobbles and all, but—

“Look at me, Snow.”

His head is turned to face me, (curse his fucking vampire senses straight to hell. Being able to both drive and stare me straight in the face is blatant Darwinian favouritism). Dark hair catches in the August sun. 

He’s smiling at me (I can’t believe I get to have him).

Like I’m the best thing in the universe (that I get to have this).

Like I’m enough (and maybe I am).

“You are enough,” I whisper against his mouth. “You have always been enough.”

The groan that crashes out of Simon is a distillation of every explicit thought I’ve ever had, tenderized by how fucking soft I am for this idiot.

How often have you heard that? That you, just you, Simon Snow, are enough? I wonder, not for the first time.

How many times did anyone show you something gentle?

I pull back and kiss his forehead. (His knees are shaking—still knobbly, even into adulthood).

How often have you felt safe?

I cup his cheeks in my hands—both hands. Those simple blue eyes fall closed and he leans into my palm.

“I love you.” They are the only words that make sense right now. How often have you felt loved?

“I married you,” he says, smiling up at me. Up. Always up. By at least three inches.

The evidence of the day is all over him—the grey suit, the shine on the nicest pair of shoes I will ever see him wear, the hotel room that marks the end to a very long night, and the rings…

“I can’t believe that we—”

Too many words, I think, and cut him off with a kiss. Simon’s head falls back against the soft blue wallpaper and I drag my lips across his neck. Your neck has had me in raptures since I was 15, Simon Snow. Did you know that?

“I married you.” His whisper is thick with desire and something else, too. Disbelief, maybe. Like he’s managed to grab hold of a dream and can’t quite believe it’s real.

My hands find his and I tie our fingers together, pushing his arms above his head and running my teeth across his clavicle.

“You’re my husband,” he whispers, and I open my eyes and see Simon looking back at me. Plain blue, wet, and happier than I’ve ever seen them.

“I am,” I say, and every part of me is touching some part of him. It’s warm and intense and feels like the culmination of all of the moments I’ve had with Simon Snow. Is this what it was like to go off? “Now.” My chest must be exploding. I can’t contain this. I can’t hold this happiness in one place. “And for the rest of my life.”

I kiss him like it’s the first time. Like the world is on fire and he’s crawling to me in the snow, and he is all that exists.

Except this time, I’m kissing him, our hands clutched together above our heads, two wedding bands flashing bright against the low light.

A thin white tan line blinks up at me, bright against the morning light.

Where the fuck is my goddamn wedding band ?

I mash my palms against the tops of my eyelids and I try to blink away the itchy feeling that comes with too much work and not enough rest.

It’s been missing for the last three shifts.  With each passing day, my search for my missing fucking ring ( god, Baz is going to be so upset ) became more and more manic. I organized the med room rather than taking a break last night as a measure of last resort; I knew it wouldn’t be there.

I don’t like taking it off. I’m not allowed to wear it on shift—can’t really keep a ring sterile—and I usually slip it into the folds of my wallet or in the breast pocket of my scrubs or in the glove compartment or…fuck, why didn’t I just pick on place to keep it every single time and then I would never have lost it and then Baz wouldn’t find out and…

Fuck. Panic is slick in my gut.

The only mercy of four straight nights on the floor is that I’ve seen almost none of Baz and so he hasn’t noticed—he’s too sharp for his own good, and those grey eyes take no prisoners.

My exhaustion is so thick, I could bottle it. 

Last night was a nightmare shift, the kind of night that transforms a friendly nurse into an acid spitting dark creature. Room 9 had Gastro and no one caught it until they projectile-ed their sick across the room. The old bird in Room 22 tried to trip her roommate (a 90-year-old recovering from a stroke who, admittedly, can be a right arsehole). And, of course, I was assigned the patient with the trach (what a fucking mess).

It was a—

“Long night?”

Baz’s voice is thick with sleep as he slips in behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. The git still moves like a creature, ghosting across the hardwood without creaks or loud thumps.

“Monstrously busy with ridiculously high acuity.”

“I love it when you talk medical jargon to me.” Baz nuzzles into my neck. “Do it again.”

His chin is sandpaper as his stubble tickles. “What’re you doing up?” I say instead, my voice a bit slurred. Fuck, I could sleep right here, leaning against the granite countertop.

“You bluster,” he says, pulling his hips flush against my back, “and you slam the door. And the clatter of your keys on the countertop—”

“Okay okay, I get it—”

“And I set an alarm so I could see you today.” I feel his nose nuzzle against the side of my jaw. “I’ve missed you.”

The world is a seething ocean of danger and unpredictability and the unknown—always has been for me. Except for when I’m with Baz. Baz makes my world stand still. Baz soothes my life into something that makes sense. Baz—

Fuck. He’s going to see. He’s going to notice.

“I—uh…” I wiggle out of his grasp and watch his sleepy chin fall away from my shoulder. “I’m gonna jump in the shower. One of my patients had uh…gastro. Don’t wanna pass it on to you...”

That single fucking eyebrow. “I’m a vampire, Snow. I don’t get sick.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

“Well, still,” I mumble, pulling both of my hands behind my back and shuffling away. “I’m covered in other people’s fluids. Just wanna get clean—”

“Snow.” Baz’s words have an edge to them.

“Really, I’m just gonna—”

“Look at me, Simon.”

He takes a step towards me, and the urge to flee is so strong, it’s hard to stand still.

“What’s wrong?” Even in joggers and a loose t-shirt, he still manages to look ruthless.

My hands are in my hair, yanking at my curls before I can stop them. “Nothing—”

Grey eyes catalogue my details and I see it, the moment he realizes that it’s gone—I see it in his face.

“Your…your wedding band.”

“It’s not what you think!” I blurt. Fuck, defensive is probably not the best way to start this conversation.

Twin storms narrow as they hone in on my face. “What, exactly, are you expecting me to think?”

“I’m not sneaking around!”

Baz’s eye rolls could shake the ground beneath our feet.

“I just…I lost…I can’t find…”

“You lost your wedding band.” I can’t tell if that’s a question or a statement.

“Not on purpose.”

“You lost it,” he says again, quieter this time. I feel it, the moment his eyes release me, and drop to the floor.

“I didn’t mean to!” My words are explosive in a kitchen that is suddenly very quiet.

“Of course,” Baz says. Quiet. So quiet.

“Baz, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

One hand—the left one, with a gold wedding band that matched my own—puts an end to my rambling apologies.

“Please. Stop.”

“Baz—”

“I’ve watched you lose everything. Travel mugs, mittens, keys, and wallets. I don’t…” He still won’t look at me. “I don’t know why I expected our wedding rings to be any different.”

“Please.” My voice is hoarse.

“It’s fine, Simon,” he says, turning his back on me and starting to walk out of the kitchen. “A little thing. We can have it replaced. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed.”

The slump in his shoulders makes my world tilt. I hate seeing him like this.

Baz Pitch was never meant to be small.

I didn’t think so much leg could curl up into something so small. And yet, the evidence is laying on the very edge of our mattress. Baz. Wrapped in on himself, arms tucked into legs, folded into a ball of blankets and dark hair and shivers.

The moon is pooling in the valleys of his face and I can see him shaking.

Nightmare.

We’re not unfamiliar. This is territory well-trodden, but seeing him like this will never be normal.

The window is open and I can feel the thunderstorm thick in the air—I can almost taste the static on my tongue, the residue of a thousand volts shattering across the night. Baz is usually twitchy when the clouds rub shoulders and a storm rolls in.

I’ve always wondered if there was a connection, if whatever tumultuous relationship the moisture in the sky has with the roof of the world was seeping into Baz, stress via atmospheric osmosis. Something in the way that the air thickens or the sounds that boom in the windowpane.

That, or the storms scare him, and he’s too proud to say so. Until he closes his eyes, and his subconscious does the work for him.

I shuffle closer, bare skin rubbing against soft sheets, and move an arm under the comforter to untangle the fear that has his whole body tied up in knots. Literal knots, I think as I try to slip my hand around his waist.

“Don’t…” It’s a whimper, and Baz…Baz doesn’t whimper.

 “Shh,” I say, pulling him closer. Fuck untangling. I wrap every piece of me around every piece of him and just sit in whatever thing is making him like this.

“Don’t leave.”

He’s shaking in my arms. “It’s okay.” I push a strand of dark hair off his face. “You’re okay.”

His forehead is sweaty against my lips; I wonder if this is what fear tastes like? Baz is so controlled that it’s scary when he’s not

“Si—” I can feel him coming back to me. “Simon?”

“Yeah.” Baz is not one for pity and so I don’t bother with it. “M’here.”

I don’t ask. (Baz doesn’t want to be asked). I don’t pretend everything’s alright (it will be, but it isn’t right now). I wait (for his shoulders to unspool) and wait (for him to cast off the lines around his eyes) and wait.  

“You left,” he finally says it, his face pressed against my bare chest, mouthing the words into my skin.

I let my hands trace gentle lines though his hair.

“I was all fangs and blood and you saw what I was underneath all of what I pretend to be.” Baz is choking on his words. Somewhere, in the distance, thunder growls into the night.

I push a kiss into his hair. Will the meaning from my lips. Never. I’ll never leave. “Won’t do that. Not ever,” I mumble against soft strands.

“But—” He’s still reeling; the nightmare hasn’t let him go. “I’m monstrous.”

“No,” I say. “Your mine.”

“I’m a mess,” Simon moans.

“Yes,” I say. “But you’re mine.”

“Not right now!” Simon half howls through the bathroom door. “Right now, I need you to get the fuck away from me.”

I roll my eyes even though I know he can’t see me; we’ve got three inches of heavy wood between us at the moment. “And you call me the dramatic one.”

“Not right now Baz!” His roar morphs into a groan mid-sentence. “I can’t argue with you right now.”

Simon Snow may have been the Chosen One and the greatest mage and the defeater of the Humdrum, but he is also quite sensitive when it comes to matters of the toilet. He has currently barricaded himself in the washroom because, and I quote, “My stomach feels like it’s stabbing itself and like I swallowed a bowling ball at the same time, Baz!”

I wish this were a new occurrence, that my sword wielding, goblin decapitating boyfriend had a stomach made of cast iron. Unfortunately, Simon’s twenties have wreaked havoc on his stomach.

It was red meat first. “Why am I so bloated?” he’d asked after every absurd helping of roast beef. “I feel like shit, Baz.” All things considered, Simon took his new beef intolerance in stride.  

It would not be the same when he started to have issues with the milk. Simon wept the day he discovered that dairy was the root of most of his gastrointestinal woes.

“To all the cheese I’ve ever loved,” Simon said, real tears (of frustration, but still) streaming down his cheeks. “I’ll miss you. So very very much.”

Simon’s self-control in the areas where cheese is cornered—specially, one very sharp applewood smoked cheddar he can purchase at the wine and cheese store on his drive home—will lapse more than occasionally.

Which, ultimately, leads us to—

“Fuck a nine toed troll,” Simon moans, and even though I can’t see him, I know he’s got his face in his hands.

“Simon, love,” I say, trying to keep the amusement out of my voice. “I’ve got your sweatpants folded outside the door. And a hot water bottle ready on the sofa. Come down when you’re ready.”

The pain in his guts is excruciating—I can see it in the way his face twists into gargoyles. Why he continues to do this to himself is beyond me, but it happens often enough that we have a system for riding out the stabbing pains in his intestines.

The bathroom, for private time and…processing.

Hot water bottle for the cramps.

A blanket, wrapped all around him.

And my fingers in his hair.

It’s a long time before he emerges, trackies hanging low in his hips, arms wrapped resolutely around his middle. His progress down the stairs in geriatric.

“Masochistic lump.” I shoot the barb in his general direction.

Snow lumbers over to the lengthier portion of our sectional and collapses, a mess of flushed cheeks and curls and soft groans.

“C’mere you,” I say, patting the cushion I’ve lain in my lap, ready for his golden crown.

“Nope, can’t move sorry,” he says in a rush, burying his face in the cushion. “You come here.”

Snow rolls over onto his back, ushering a fresh batch of pained moans. But he’s got his arms open, wide enough for the whole world, for my whole world of barbs and bullshit, and I go to him. Because I’m weak. Because he’s the only person on the planet that could take all that I am and make it warm.

He’s the only person I’ve ever met who could take all of the heat boiling in my skin and cool me down. The way he felt underneath me, where I could see him, where I could hold him and make sure he wasn’t plotting or hurt.

Fuck. The memories alone would’ve driven me mad. It’s why I had to go back.

I’ve run myself sick, until the slaps of my trainers on the sloppy shoulder of the motorway melted into a strange sort of cadence. We’d barely left, and the back of the car felt like a magical finger trap; the more I squirmed, the more I tried to figure out a way to escape the fucking colossal inconvenience of whatever the fuck had happened between us, the worse it felt. The farther away we drove, the more desperate I was to turn the fuck around. I’ve run myself sick—I’m still running—and I’d take this feeling every day of the week. Because it’s bringing me back. Back to him. To Baz. 

I need to go back. For a while, the red taillights of Agatha’s vehicle hovered in the distance. Waiting for me to change my mind, to turn around and climb back inside.

I need to go back, and the winter air is clawing around inside of my throat—the pain is sharp and cold and I feel like my lungs are bleeding. The slush clings to the backs of my trousers and, fuck, I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to run in soggy trainers.

I need to go back, because Baz shouldn’t be alone right now. Because I just found out he was locked in a coffin for six weeks. Because I’m worried that, if I leave him now, he’ll pretend that none of this ever happened. He’ll stand at the top of Mummers on the edge of our last few months at Watford, and he’ll never let me close the distance.

I need to go back because it’s always been Baz—my fucking vampire ex-nemesis nightmare roommate. The one person I’ve never been able to stop thinking about. I’ve never turned my back on him. I’m not going to start now.

I need to go back.

I needed to go back.

“But why,” I’d asked, standing in front of my Department Head, trying to pretend that I didn’t want to snap his grubby neck, “are we still having exams on December 24th?”

He’d tried to look down at me without success—I’ve more than six feet of height and a lifetime of good breeding. My posture makes me a mountain. “Bad luck, isn’t it? The exam season almost never extends this late—”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” I say through gritted teeth. I will not lose my cool. I will not. It’s also my anniversary. An anniversary I’ve never missed.

“Unfortunate that,” he’d said. “Shame you got the short draw with your schedule.” My second year Modern American Literature class was scheduled to write at, “7:00 pm on Christmas Eve is a dastardly time for an exam.”

The distance between us had never felt so far.

“I’m sorry,” I’d said through a screen. “I will get the first flight out in the morning. Home for Christmas, like the songs say.”

Simon was shifting in his chair, staring in a dozen different directions, and speaking too loud. FaceTime is a step too far for Simon Snow and he has made no secret of how much he hates it these past four months. “You hate Christmas music,” he half shouted, and even at that volume, he managed to sound sullen.

“Well, their points still stand, in this specific instance.” My humour felt stale, even as I tried to make light of the situation.

We’ve never missed an anniversary. In ten years, we’d always been—

"S’okay,” Simon mumbled, staring at his knees. Managing eye contact during a video call was difficult at the best of times. This was not the best of times. My feelings were thick in my throat, frustration cloying, and apologies that just wouldn’t come.

I’m sorry, Simon. I’m sorry I moved away. I’m sorry I’m not going to make it. I’m sorry that the reason won’t be good enough. I’m so fucking sorry, I could drown in it. I am. Drowning. In how much I miss you.

“Simon, I’m—”

“Look, I gotta run. Send me your itinerary once you get it and I’ll be there to pick you up.” My doctoral dissertation may have focused on the homoerotic subtexts of early Victorian literature, my life has been a study in Snow. He was hurt, I had caused it, and there’d really been only one thing to do.

I’d stowed all of my things in the boot, gassed up before pulling into the university car park, and left as soon as the last student passed in their exam booklet.

“Have a nice holiday, Dr. Pitch,” they’d said. It had taken everything I had not to dash from the room after them. If the weather held and if I did the limit, I could make it back to Simon in just over seven hours.

Seven hours, twenty-two minutes, and one anxious vampire. The snow is still falling as I turn off onto our street, swaying gently in the din of a thousand coloured Christmas lights.

I turn off the headlights before I ease into the driveway and try to tamp down the anticipation roaring in my chest. My key slipping into the door is an old friend, and Crowley, I’ve missed this—coming home.

Home.

Because home, I’ve realized, isn’t a place, or a city, or a job. It’s where Simon is. Snow. It’s always Snow. 

I didn’t expect him to be awake. I don’t know what I’d expected. I had seven hours on the road to think about what I would do when I pushed open this door.

“Who’s there!” He still booms with the confidence of a chosen one.

“Something monstrous,” I say, dumping my leather weekender on the hardwood in a gesture uncharacteristically messy.

I hear Simon’s feet collide with the floor and he’s storming across the living room, still thundering with the enthusiasm of a marching band on parade.

I barely notice his bare feet or the coasterless mug, the keys on the floor or his wallet hiding under the coffee table.  

Because he’s standing in front of me with his tawny skin and his moles and when Simon Snow looks at me like this, the rest of the world feels two dimensional. This feels so much like the first time—that first anniversary—that it makes my dead heart throb with want and familiarity.

Anniversaries twist and turn, take shape and reconnect. Toothpaste and long drives and tea bags and nightmares and showers and distance and reaching—always reaching. Miles on the highway with my hand on his knee and miles trudged through snow as he landed on my doorstep.

Inches, between his face and mine as the forest burned around us.

And inches right now. The three I hold above him, the space between his mouth and mine.

I hover over him, to see.

If he’ll reach for me. I watch his blue eyes flash in the firelight.

He does.

I do.

I always will.

For the rest of my life.

“You came home,” Simon says. He’s so close, I can feel his breath ghosting over my mouth.

“Of course I did.” I should pull away. Should move to the sectional and collapse into something more comfortable than seven hours of my Lexus’s leather seats. But Simon’s body is flush against mine for the first time in months and I’m sure that, if I let him go, I will go up in flames.

“Why?” The question is raw and vulnerable.

“On a few, very rare, occasions,” I say, kissing the tip of his nose, because he’s here and I can, “you have an idea that’s worthwhile.”

“Tosser.” He breathes the word into me as the fire glows behind us.

“You said that we should always try to be together on our anniversary,” I say, running my long fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. He shivers. (Still.) (Even now.)

“It’s stupid,” he says, but I can hear his heart skip a literal beat.

“No.” I’m suddenly feeling very serious. I pull back and take his chin in my hands. “You,” I say, echoing words almost a decade old, given to me by a man in love, “are worth it. Don’t you ever forget it.” I wonder if he remembers saying this to me, a thousand anniversaries ago.

“Who’s sentimental now?” Simon says, those blue eyes simultaneously defiant and soft, answering my unspoken question.

“Me,” I whisper, and I disappear into the urgency of Simon’s lips on mine, disappear into a thousand little things, a thousand reasons to love this goddamn man.

In the way his chin still turns my knees into melt.

In miles travelled.

In hands on top of hands.

In the way his arms feel around me.

In how he breathes into my neck

In coffee.

In shower and towels and tea.

And kisses.

And the way he moves beneath me.

How he shudders when I say his name.

“It’s the little things,” I whisper and feel him brushing tears from my cheeks. “It’s all these little things.”