Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

New Beginnings.

🌟

~Baz~

It’s started to drizzle, so I pick up an extra umbrella for Snow as I leave my flat. 

During the fifteen-minute walk to the station, my traitorous mind starts to craft thoughts of our reunion scene. Will it be unbearably awkward? Most likely. I’m not expecting him to run into my arms or anything (as much as I would like that). He might shift from foot to foot. He might look down and mumble something unintelligible. If I’m lucky, he’ll say my name.

Who am I kidding—have I ever been lucky?

I can scarcely believe this is happening. Maybe this is some kind of twisted, sexual-frustration induced hallucination and I’m going to end up standing alone outside the train station for hours like a numpty. That seems more probable than Simon fucking Snow deciding to come visit me in Florence. Alone.

(I’m the one who invited him. It feels like self-sabotage, now.)

Simon Snow. Here. In Florence.

My mind supplies a helpful fantasy of us frolicking arm in arm down Via de Tornabuoni, the crowd parting effortlessly as the afternoon sun shines down on us. I take him to my favourite gelato place across the bridge, and he gets chocolate on his nose, and he lets me lick it off.

I shove the image to the back of my mind. It stays just that—just a fantasy. (He’s not here for that. He would have said.) (Or maybe not. It’s Snow, after all.) (And why else?) (But I shouldn’t expect—shouldn’t presume.)

I quicken my pace to shake off the feeling that this is a dream, shoving my hands into my coat pockets, and curse out loud as I end up with a fistful of pins. This is what I get for rushing straight from the fashion studio. I wanted to have Snow’s suit done before he arrived—not that he’s actually going to wear it. I grimace and pluck the pins out, ignoring the tangy-musty scent of my own blood, and nearly trip over a loose piece of cobblestone. 

Shit. Thoughts of Snow have me more ruffled than I realised.

As I near the square, I smell him before I see him. I can’t smell his magic anymore, but the scent of his brown-butter blood is as overwhelming as ever. He’s sweeter and more familiar than anything else in this city. 

My pulse quickens, and as I round the corner to the station I feel a tangible tug in my stomach, like a hook behind my navel. Like the Crucible all over again.

I scan the crowd in the plaza but I don’t see him. I just smell him, everywhere. Pervading my senses—it’s like our room at Watford. I’m tingling with nerves and anticipation as I spin in a slow circle, looking for those familiar features. Maybe he’s not here after all.

I keep seeing flashes of bronze hair, but they’re not him. My heart leaps into my throat. Maybe there, to the left. I crane my neck—

And some buffoon comes careening into me from behind. Literally—I hear him trip and say “ouch, fuck,” and his wildly flailing arm catches me in the shoulder before his body smacks into mine. I stumble forward and my umbrella is knocked violently out of my hand. 

I right myself and turn around, scowling, ready to snark at the clumsy idiot.

“Sorry, mate—” He looks up. “Oh.” 

It’s a very familiar clumsy idiot.

I forget how to breathe.

I forget that I need to breathe.

For a moment, I forget everything except the fact that I’m staring into the face of my still devastatingly gorgeous, still resolutely moronic, ex-boyfriend.

It’s fitting that Simon Snow should come quite literally crashing back into my life.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

I don’t ask for much. I didn’t expect us to have a perfect reunion, or a not-awkward one, or even a mediocre one! I would have been happily surprised by a bad one! But these fucking cobblestones decided to fuck up my life once and for all by tripping me, sending me and my bag flying directly into none other than Baz Pitch.

Our eyes meet—his are a bright, cloud-grey today because of the rain—and suddenly I’m laughing hysterically. I haven’t seen Baz in five months and of course this is how it goes. With crashes and bumps because, well, we wouldn’t be us without that.

“B-Baz,” I stammer out, my face flaming. “Sorry.”

His lip curls into a sneer. It’s a familiar look on his face, though not the most flattering one. (He’s got a lovely smile, really, though I doubt he’s even aware—I picture him smiling at a mirror and it nearly sends me into another fit of laughter.) 

“Snow,” he says. “Still making a fool of yourself at every possible opportunity, I see.”

I swallow and stoop to pick up my bag, and when I look up again he attempts a small smile. It makes my insides go all kinds of soft and I punch down those feelings as quickly as possible. (They feel too big and too intense inside me. I don’t know where to put them.) (My therapist suggested out loud, when I told her I was coming here last week, and I laughed so hard I nearly fell out of my chair.)

Baz hands me an umbrella. I didn’t realise he was carrying an extra for me, and honestly I’m touched. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” he says with a cursory nod. “Your bag?”

I roll my eyes and hoist the bag further onto my shoulder. My jacket’s soaking wet already, and I give my hair a little shake, accidentally splattering Baz with raindrops. “I’ve got it.”

He starts walking and I follow. We cross the plaza and a busy street and pass by a McDonalds. Then we’re winding into a narrower street with uneven cobblestone sidewalks. I’m glad I didn’t bring anything with wheels.

Baz walks unnaturally fast because of his long legs (okay, and the vampirism) and I hesitate, wondering whether to scurry to keep up and risk looking like an overeager puppy, or fall behind and risk getting hopelessly lost in this maze of a city. I settle on walking half a step behind him; he doesn’t seem to want to compromise and fall into step with me.

Tosser.

At least I have a good view here. This city is positively gorgeous; it looks like it was made to be painted and hung on a wall. Every building is old and charming, and even though these cobblestone pathways have it out for my toes, at least they look nice. Everything is shades of cream and taupe and beige, like an interior decorator’s fantasy. 

I have a good view of something else, too. Baz is wearing jeans. (Did he do that for me, I wonder? He knows I like them.) (I shouldn’t read too much into this.) They’re dark tailored ones, and they cling tightly to the backs of his thighs. He’s wearing a grey woolen peacoat, so I can’t see above his thighs, unfortunately. (Fortunately?)

Finally, thankfully (I’m a bit out of shape these days), Baz slows down and falls into step with me. It’s not unnatural walking together like this, not anymore—what does feel unnatural is not holding hands. 

Because when we were together that’s about all we did, wasn’t it? Held hands, all the time—until the last couple of months, at least. I could do an artistic study of Baz’s hands. He has nice hands—long and elegant like the rest of him. He has attractive hands, if such a thing is possible. I remember being transfixed when he would use them nimbly—writing, playing the violin, raking them through his hair…

Nope. No. I need to end this line of thought immediately. His hand is curled gracefully around the wooden handle of his umbrella and—

“It’s about ten minutes more,” he says.

Thank fuck he said something.

Eventually, we turn left onto a street lined with double-door entrances to flats on both sides. I look for the sign: Via S. Gallo.

“Is this your street?” I ask.

Baz nods and starts to point things out along the way. “That’s where I go food shopping. Nice flower shop there. That’s my favourite cafe; they have free wifi. And that’s where I go when I’m craving the comfort of a salad.”

I nod along but pull up short at the last bit. Did he say comfort of a salad? Did he just use the word comfort and salad in the same sentence? Are my ears alright? Maybe the air pressure on the flight messed them up. I give the left one a tug just to be sure. “I– what?”

“What?” 

“Did… did you say—the comfort? Of a salad? What the fuck?”

A smirk graces his features. “A man can only eat so much pasta, Snow. It becomes mundane eventually.”

I could never tire of pasta, and I tell him so. He smiles at me again. (I know he’s trying to be friendly, but it’s a little weird, honestly. He acts cold and snarks at me but then he smiles, and smiles.)

Baz looks good when he smiles. (He always looks good.) He looks good here. It’s hard to believe he lives here—that he’s lived here, for five months. He has favourite cafés that he’s probably a regular at. He can walk these streets without a map. He’s settled in. 

He looks peaceful and warm. His skin is still touched with a grey pallor but his features look more relaxed, somehow. His hair’s got a bit longer. His jaw’s a bit softer. (Maybe it’s the pasta.)

We reach a set of wooden doors right along the street and his keyring jingles as he unlocks them. I fumble to close my umbrella as we climb a set of marble stairs, footsteps echoing. It’s dark and cool, the only illumination shining down from a skylight far above.

We climb another set of stairs. And another.

“Merlin,” I mutter, “how high up do you live?”

Baz’s hand slips along the banister. “Six storeys,” he says wearily. “No lift.”

For a moment, I genuinely consider popping my wings out and flying us up to his window.

We finally, blessedly reach a door on the sixth landing. I’m panting. Baz isn’t. The door has a complicated system of deadlocks for some reason, and I look around curiously as we step in. 

“Welcome,” he says flatly.

It doesn’t look like I expected Baz’s living quarters to look. The hallway is dim with no natural light, and I follow him down to a living room with a tiny kitchen jutting out the side. In between, there’s a dining table cluttered with papers and textbooks.

I linger, dreading reaching the bedroom. Baz’s roommate isn’t leaving until tomorrow night, but I’m here today because the flight was cheaper. And there’s no couch—Baz warned me about that, over FaceTime. There’s a beanbag sort of… thing. I can sleep there. 

Merlin—I’ll sleep on the floor. 

The only window is at the far end of the kitchen area. The overall effect isn’t too tasteful, but it’s charming in a shabby sort of way. I suppose I had expected some lavish flat, but this just looks like a typical uni student’s place.

“It was included with the program,” Baz says, as if reading my mind. He gestures down the hallway again, and I reluctantly walk towards the other end of the flat. “There’s the loo.”

Only one toilet for four of them—Baz must be going mental. He used to spend hours in our ensuite at Watford.

There are two bedrooms at the end of the hall. He ushers me into his room, where two twin beds are set up, one against each wall. Just like our setup at Mummers. I drop my bag heavily onto the floor next to his bed. (I know immediately which one is his—dark green duvet, hospital corners.) 

“What’s it like having a roommate again?” I ask, just to have something to say.

He casts a long glance over at me. “Well… it’s not you.”

My insides stir. 

I can’t tell if he means that his roommate is fantastic and never leaves the window open or his dirty underwear strewn about, or if he means… the other stuff. About me.

Don’t read too much into it.

“You’ll meet him tonight. He’s American.”

“Cool.” 

(Not cool—it means the other bed will be occupied.) (The beds are tiny.)

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Yes. Always.”

He laughs. “I did extra shopping this week.”

He did extra food shopping for me.

I’m about to follow him out when I feel a vestige of magic sparking at my shoulders. (Took them long enough.) I make a sudden jerking motion away from Baz. “Hold on—”

I barely have time to rip off my coat before my wings burst from my back brilliantly, popping through the magickal slits in my shirt. I let out a little groan of relief as I’m finally able to stretch them out. Baz stares mutely from the doorway. 

“Forgot about them?” 

He blinks. “Never. But you might need to— the hallway’s quite—” I’m flapping them, stirring the air above Baz’s bed, and it feels so good after all these hours. Baz shakes his head, and I feel abashed, suddenly. 

“Sorry. I can get rid of them again—”

But then he says, “I’ll just bring the food here.”

I poke around his things while he’s gone, folding my wings flat to my back. I know I’m probably being invasive, but I can’t help but marvel at the little home he’s created here. He has a wardrobe full of floral shirts, unsurprisingly. His shoes are lined up neatly at the door, all shiny and pointed. 

Crammed into the corner of the room, jammed between the desk and the wall, is a headless mannequin. It’s proper creepy, like something out of Doctor Who. (I’d half expect it to come to life and start walking towards me—if it had legs, that is. Thank Merlin it’s mounted on a pole.) 

Its torso is draped in a silky-looking silver suit jacket, so shiny it’s like liquid metal, with patterns cut into the arms like phases of the moon. There are sketches taped up onto the wall around it—sketches in Baz’s hand—a neat drawing in black ballpoint to match the jacket, notes that say cryptic things like toile in studio and lagenlook and fix hand??? and, the way I definitely know this stuff is Baz’s— see: gucci collection autumn 2012.

He has a whole life here. He has things he actually likes to do that aren’t plotting against me. I feel intrusive, suddenly. I don’t know what I thought, coming here.

I don’t know what I’m thinking.

And then I see Baz’s desk.

There are photos pinned above it. Four. 

I’m in all of them.

A class photo from Watford, sixth year. One from his Leavers Ball. Merlin, that feels like ages ago; a different life. There’s a selfie of us kissing shortly after Penny and I had moved into our flat, my wings forming a red backdrop behind us. (I wonder what it means that he still has that one up.) And a newer one that Penny took of us in London. I wasn’t happy, I doubt either of us was happy, but we were together. It hurts to look at.

Baz clears his throat, and I turn around. He hands me a covered bowl and a fork. “Leftover salad,” he says.

I don’t take it. “You’re having me on. My first meal in Italy is not going to be a fucking salad—”

He thrusts the bowl toward me. I pull off the lid and it’s pasta. Baz smirks. I hate him. (I don’t.)

“Thanks,” I say around a forkful. I think this is cacio e pepe. It’s good. 

“Nice to see your table manners have improved,” he deadpans.

“Not at a table,” I point out mid-chew. A noodle falls onto my shirt.

He sits down on his bed, crossing his legs, and I take a seat in his spinning desk chair. (I straddle it the wrong way round, so my wings don’t hit the back and my tail doesn’t get crushed.) Baz rolls his eyes.

“I have class in a few minutes,” he says. “It’s just down the street. If you want you can take a shower and then wander around, get a coffee or something. Go to Nabucco; they speak English there.”

“Okay. Um, I didn’t bring any… shower stuff,” I say. “I was—I mean, I didn’t want to impose, I was just—just gonna buy stuff. Here.”

I don’t add that it’s because I was too nervous to pack properly until this morning—and not just nervous. That I didn’t believe it was truly happening. That by packing my things, it would make it real.

“You can use mine. You’ll, er—” Baz clears his throat. “You’ll know which ones they are.”

Of course I know; it’s almost uncomfortable, knowing. We never tried to skirt around our history—we can’t, it’s interwoven with everything we are—but neither of us has mentioned it explicitly until now. 

“Okay.”

He stands up. “I can meet you there at five. I have another class after that, but it’s across the bridge so you can come along. We’ll take the scenic route. And my favourite gelato place is there.” He looks almost sheepish as he says it. (Baz doesn’t get sheepish; it must be something else.)

“Really?”

“Well, I have to show you all the best spots, haven’t I? You’re nothing if not a foodie, Snow.”

I shrug. “I s’pose so.”

He picks up his wand from the bedside table. “Do you want me to spell your wings off?”

Does he not know…?

I realise I’m staring when he raises an eyebrow, waiting. “Oh. Um,” I say. “You don’t— I mean. You don’t have to. I can do it.”

Baz jolts up straight. “You’ve got your magic back?” He sounds so hesitant. He’s also trying not to look too excited and failing.

“Merlin, no. I would have told you…”

He deflates. “I wasn’t sure.”

“I just.” I gesture to my wings. There’s a long explanation and a short one, and I’m not sure which one Baz wants to hear. (He deserves the long one, probably. But he has class, so…) “It’s a long story. The short version is—I can kind of… retract them at will, now.”

“How?” His eyebrows knit together. “They always seemed to have a mind of their own…”

“They don’t. Not really,” I explain. “They’re a body part, just like my arm or leg. Once I stopped thinking of them as temporary—” As something to deal with, rather than a real part of me— “I had more control over them.”

Not full control—I can only hold them in for so long at a time, and I have to concentrate. After a few hours, it starts to get kind of like the feeling when you have to take a piss. Bearable, if you’ve had enough practice holding it, but not quite comfortable. And they always pop when I’m sleeping. But either way, it’s better than before.

“They’re magic,” Baz says, eyes narrowing. “Aren’t they.”

I nod. 

Baz doesn’t say anything else, so I close my eyes. I like having my wings out, but this flat is cramped and so are the winding streets here. I don’t want to knock into anything. I focus on pulling them in; it feels like flexing a muscle. I feel their magic pulse and narrow to two points in my back. And then they’re gone.

The tail—well, I’m still working on the tail. Haven’t really figured out what it’s good for yet. At least wings have a use. The tail refuses to behave, but it usually tucks into my trouser leg easily enough.

When I open my eyes, Baz is gazing at me inscrutably. He looks like he’s going to say something, but then he doesn’t.

“Neat, right?” 

“Neat?” He’s looking at me, really looking at me, and it’s terrifying. I glance away just as he says, “It’s wonderful, Snow.”

Baz is all limbs and hair and cedar as he reaches across me to pick up his bookbag. He shoulders his grey coat on again and checks his hair in the mirror. Then he flashes me a strange smile. Again. “See you later. Don’t get lost.”

I’m too stunned to smile back. “I’ll try.”

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

I think about Snow using my shampoo.

And then I categorically don’t think about that. 

I think about his wings…

He made them disappear. He took them in, accepted them. 

I can do that with my fangs, now. Stop them from popping when I smell food or blood. It took a visit to the local vampires here—Fiona told me where to go. 

Florence’s vampire scene is mostly lavish partying and expensive wine. (A little bit culty, but I didn’t expect anything else with that much of a history and mythology here. They call themselves La Fratellanza— the Brotherhood.) They have a whole pocket of the city and a castle out in the countryside. A fucking castle.

Being there felt like something I’d been waiting for, but hadn’t even known about. At home my vampirism is cast to the side by everyone, myself included. It’s a problem to be dealt with. It’s something we don’t speak about, something everyone tries to ignore in the hopes they’ll just forget about it one day.

I’ve spent my whole life immersed in the World of Mages. Desperately shoving my vampirism down, but I can’t forget about it. It’s a part of me. A hideous part, or so I thought, but it’s there for good.

I think after seeing the vampires here, I can deal with that. It took being in a place where this part of me was seen as okay. Someone who finally said you’re a man, not a monster. Someone who offered to help, rather than condemn.

The vampires here are one hundred percent vampire. Nothing else to cover it up, so they wear it. They slip through the city and through time unnoticed, simply… living. (Unliving?) They’re glamorous, even. Alluring. 

And they’re not monsters. Not really. They drink human blood, but they do it gracefully and beautifully, somehow—they don’t kill anyone. They’re the same as me, I thought. Vampires. But… different.

I didn’t stay. 

The parties were nice, but I didn’t fit there as a mage—which I am, first and foremost, so deeply in my bones. They said I was welcome, but it was the same old trade-off: choose one or the other. You can’t be both. (No one wants to accept me as both.) You can’t be a vampire and speak with Magic. You can’t be a vampire who refuses to drink human blood.

I suppose I’ll know where to go if the World of Mages ever figures out what I am and decides to cast me out. And I suppose I’ve seen that this “evil” part of me… doesn’t have to be so evil.

I don’t know how Simon got control over his wings. Last I remember they were such a nuisance, and he was constantly agitated by them. Constantly wishing them away, yet they’d never go.

But I know they’re tied to everything he is. The night he defeated the Humdrum he poured the last of his magic into them. I wanted to be free, he said. 

And freedom, I’ve learnt, isn’t getting rid of the monster parts. Not at first, at least. I’d resented the way my fangs dropped of their own volition for so long that I’d never thought that I could be the one in control of this part of me.

That’s what Simon said. They’re a body part. 

Thank magic he didn’t get them removed. They’re— well, they’re everything Simon. 

And Simon’s here. Here, with me. Here, with his moles and his red wings and his overgrown hair. 

I’m determined to make this go well. By all means, it shouldn’t work, but he’s here, isn’t he? That means something. It means he wants…

I don’t know what he wants.

I thought Snow and I wouldn’t be able to repair anything. That there was no way for him to spring back from how far away he’d drifted. And for a while, we couldn’t. We were two sides of an elastic thread, stretching out—we nearly snapped.

And then we did.

Like everything had been since the Humdrum, it wasn’t some big dramatic fight. It was a quiet fizzle. We burnt out until there were only embers left.

Snow had been wading through years of trauma with his magickal therapist. He finally hit pause and the world smashed into him, the years catching up to him. I was trying to be there for him; I didn’t want him to go through that alone.

Except... 

Except he wanted to.

It was the January of our first year of uni, just after our one year anniversary. He’d changed. We both had. Simon’s always had a weight to him, the burden of so many hopes carried on his shoulders. But he was even more thoughtful then, introspective in a way he’d never been before.

He gave me an honest-to-Morgana speech. A painful one, that I wanted to believe for so long was uncharacteristic; but in truth, it was just true. In the same breath that he told me how much he cared about me, he insisted we needed time apart. He said he needed to figure out who he was. (I told him that was a load of tosh at the time—I said, you’re still Simon Snow.) (I regret it, now. He was right; he’s not the same.)

Because we started our relationship practically the same time as… well, everything. And he said he couldn’t isolate it. Couldn’t separate the feelings around me from all of the horrible ones—losing his magic and Ebb and the Mage all in one day. 

Crowley, if it was up to me, I’d hide Simon from everything bad in the world. We’d run away and I’d make sure he was never hurt again. But that’s not what he wanted. He wanted time.

And so I gave it to him. I have a little to spare, I think.

A break. Not a breakup. Just a break.

It felt like the same thing. Letting Simon go, and not knowing if I’d ever have him back… it was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.

It was terrible at first. It was terrible for a while.

Stilted, awkward conversations. The way we had to tiptoe around every other topic. The way seeing each other was physically painful, a cardiovascular nightmare. We had broken up but we’d kept up this vain attempt to be friendly, to stay in touch. 

But in July I left to study abroad. We stopped speaking to each other, and somehow, it healed something.

We had time to grow on our own for the first time in ages. 

Time goes by slower when you’re missing someone. It wasn’t long before he reached out again. And against all odds, we became friends.

I think it makes sense, in a way. We’ve always been surrounded by each other, wrapped up in each other. Simon Snow has consumed at least two-thirds of my mind since fifth year. (And I still graduated with top marks.) 

We’ve always been in each other’s orbits. We don’t know how to be apart.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

Baz wouldn’t risk six months in Italy without a full stock of his precious bath products. Sure enough, when I step into the shower I spot the familiar amber-coloured bottles of posh shampoo and conditioner. I take a sniff and have to press a palm to the tiles to steady myself as cedar and bergamot permeates everything. It’s like Baz but a thousand times concentrated; like a tequila shot of Baz straight to my senses.

It’s a familiar smell and it shouldn’t shock me as much as it does. I shared a room with him for eight years, for Merlin’s sake. He smelled like this today, ten minutes ago. But before that it’d been months since I came anywhere near this particular scent, and it sends me into a tumbling bout of nostalgia.

It doesn’t hurt to see Baz as much as I thought it might. It’s nice, actually. Maybe because we’ve been texting and Facetiming regularly for a couple months now. Before that… 

It’s not that he was holding me back from starting to recover; I’d never want him to think that. But having him around was a constant reminder of who I once was. He told me that he chose me, but I know what version of me he fell in love with. I can look back on that Simon in third person, as if it’s someone else.

I pour a bit of shampoo into my hand and start to massage it into my curls. I’m going to smell like Baz. He’s narcissistic enough that he might actually like that.

When he left, taking all traces of himself along with him, I was finally able to wipe the slate clean of everything from before. Purge my hands of the blood and rid my head of the nightmares and figure out who the fuck this version of Simon Snow was going to be.

I want him to fall in love with this version of me. Because I’m not the person I was at fifteen. I’m not the person I was two years ago. I want him to—I don’t know if he will. 

I’m at a point where I feel ready to start again. To show myself, finally. To allow myself to be seen.  

I just have to talk to him. 

Easier said than done.

I dry off, wrapping the towel around my waist, and walk back down the hallway to Baz’s room. I freeze when I see a figure stooped over the bed on the other side of the room. “Uh—hello?”

He turns around. This must be Baz’s American roommate. He’s a black guy around our age, with a friendly smile and large, gold-rimmed glasses. “Hi! You must be… Snow?”

I tuck the end of the towel into a knot. Water is dripping from my hair onto the floor. Baz is going to kill me. “Um, just Simon is fine.”

Baz is the only person who still calls me Snow.

“I’m Shepard,” he says. He sits down on his bed, where he has an old-fashioned looking suitcase open. It’s brown with lots of leather and buckles, and it’s absolutely covered in stickers. “Basil’s roommate, obviously. I’m from Nebraska.” 

He says ‘Basil’ wrong. Like bay-sil. Is that how all Americans say it? Maybe he does it just to get on Baz’s nerves. 

I’m still standing awkwardly behind Baz’s bed. 

Shepard smiles again. “Are you his, uh…”

“Friend,” I say quickly. “We were roommates back in school.”

Shepard glances down at my clothes on Baz’s bed, up to his wall of photos, and then back at me. (Still half-naked, and probably red as a tomato.) “Right.”

“I’ll just, uh—” I grab my clothes and walk backwards out of the room as fast as possible. I reach the bathroom, slam the door shut and lean back on it, taking a deep breath. 

Friends. Roommates.

I don’t think we were ever friends before we dated. Not until now. 

I think we’re friends now.

(Friends who share a bed. Merlin.)

Baz can spell the floor squishy for me.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Chapter Text

Sweet Dreams.

🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

When I finish class, I find Snow sitting at a table near the window at Nabucco, steaming coffee mug in his hands. He looks warm and comfortable. He’s wearing a soft-looking jumper, and the sleeves are too long for him.

He turns when I pull out the chair beside him. “The cappuccinos are only a euro fifty,” he says, and he looks so happy about it that I can’t help smiling.

“I know.”

His cappuccino has a milk-foam heart on top.

“How was your class?”

I had Fashion Design. We were supposed to have a field trip today, where I was to give a small presentation, but we got rained out. Otherwise I might have taken Snow along. I tell him so, then say, “Surprised you made it here without getting lost.”

“It’s just down the street,” he says defensively. His gaze has moved back to the window, where he’s looking out at the road in wonder, and the hazy grey light glances off the planes of his face. “Nice walk though. Weird to think that it’s commonplace for you.”

It is. I come here nearly every day for a morning coffee. Though I remember a time when this street was a novelty. It looked different, the buildings nearly sweating in the July humidity, and everything in the city was a mystery. Most of it still is; Florence seems to grow new streets like so many vines.

“Basilico!” Raffaele waves at me from the counter, and I excuse myself and walk over. It’s his idiotic nickname for me—basil (the herb) in Italian.

“Buona sera,” I say. I’d like to think my Italian has improved, but it’s likely still atrocious. You’d think knowing Latin and French would help, but it mostly confuses me; I constantly spit out words in either of those languages instead of Italian.

“Buona sera, il solito?” he responds. “Caffelatte con cioccolato? ”

I nod and hand over a few coins. Raffaele inclines his head toward Snow as he makes the drink. “È un tuo amico?” he asks.

“Sì. Dall… Inghilterra.” From home.

“È molto carino.” He gives me a knowing look, and I roll my eyes.

“Non è male.” Not bad himself. 

Don’t look, don’t look— I do look, back at Snow, only to find him already watching me. His gaze flicks back down at his cup as soon as our eyes meet.

My head’s going wonky, and I don’t think the coffee is going to help clear it up this time.

Raffaele grins. “Sit down,” he says. “I’ll bring the coffee.”

Snow’s resting his chin on his palm when I fold myself into the chair next to him. “What did he say?”

“About… my coffee?” 

“About me.”

The Italians are not a discreet people.

I purse my lips to hide a smile. “He said you look like a hapless tourist.”

Snow scowls at me. “No, he didn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“It was something nice,” he insists.

“Careful, Snow, if your head gets any bigger it’ll explode.”

Thankfully, Raffaele interrupts this line of conversation by dropping off my drink. 

But luck is not on my side today.

“Basilico,” he says. “Have you taken your friend to Via Roma yet?” His English is accented but sure from speaking to so many tourists and students.

“Not yet,” Snow pipes up.

Raffaele’s grin is a little too devious for my liking. “Make sure to visit,” he says. “It’s molto romantico this time of year, you know.”

Snow turns a lovely shade of pink, and I clear my throat loudly. Raffaele laughs and cuffs me on the shoulder before leaving.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Are we going to go to Via Roma?” Snow asks, his eyes wide. They look so pretty in this light, the blue dulled, like the sea on a misty winter morning.

He’s not mine anymore. Not mine to think these thoughts about, at least—not mine to love. Not any more. I shouldn’t let myself hope.

It hurts more now that he’s here, within my reach, than it did the past few months.

“It’s very pretty,” I say faintly.

“Then let’s go,” he says. Some of the old determination is back in his expression; that headstrong energy he used to have. He could rush into anything fearlessly without thinking about the repercussions. 

“Alright,” I say. “Tomorrow.”

I’ve never really been able to refuse him anything.

🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

It’s nearly dark by the time we leave the coffee shop. Baz says it turns into a wine bar at night, which actually seems like a smart business idea. It’s stopped raining, and the roads are black and shiny.

Baz’s roommate who I met earlier, Shepard, joins us. They have the same Italian class; it’s required for their program, apparently. They have two other roommates, but they’re in a different class.

Just when I thought this city couldn’t get more picturesque, we reach the end of Baz’s street and my jaw drops. We emerge into a plaza and I’m looking at a grand building—a cathedral? It’s magnificent white marble covered with green and pink trim in perfectly geometric lines. It’s huge—I can barely see the other end of the plaza past it.

People are milling about, looking up at it. A few bicycles zoom by us. Baz leads us around the side. “This is the Duomo,” he says.

Oh. 

“You can just barely see the dome from this side,” he continues, pointing. “But we’ll come back tomorrow.”

I think we’re looking at the back; this side is hexagonal, closed off. Behind that I can just make out the main entrance, which is tall, like a clock tower. It’s rectangular, and the carvings are much more intricate. Above that, the dome looms, rust-coloured. It’s all lit up with yellow streetlights, and the colours reflect off the wet pavement. The whole effect is rather breathtaking. And it’s stunning that Baz lives just down the street from something like this.

We cut to the left and continue down the street, toward the water. We wind through narrow alleys. Shepard does most of the talking; he points out his favourite spots and asks me a thousand questions about London.

“Did you and Basil get along when you were roommates?” he asks.

Baz and I look over at each other at the same exact time and make eye contact, and then both burst into laughter. He covers his mouth with his hand, trying to hold it in. I stumble on a raised cobblestone, which sends me into a second fit.

“What?” Shepard asks, clearly confused.

I exchange another look with Baz and start laughing all over again. Something warm bubbles up inside of me. This is the first time I’ve felt companionable with Baz, maybe ever. Like we’re in on something together. It feels good.

He regains his composure first, of course. “Not at all,” he says.

“He pushed me down the stairs,” I manage to squeeze out.

“Really?” Shepard says.

“No,” Baz says sharply. “It was an accident.”

“Keep telling yourself that, mate.”

“Stop bringing it up,” he mutters.

“Never.”

“And,” I continue, “he set a chim—” I remember at the last second that Shepard’s a Normal. “—er… rabid dog on me fifth year.”

I’m barely holding it together. Baz shoots me a look that says, That’s the best you could come up with? But his mouth quirks up at the corner.

“Youch,” Shepard says. “Basil, as your roommate, I’m starting to get a little worried.”

“Yeah, you should—” I start.

“You needn’t be,” Baz cuts in airily. “If I wanted to get rid of you, I’d have done so long ago.”

“Oh, nice, that’s super reassuring,” Shepard says. 

I decide that I like him.

“It wasn’t exactly one-sided,” Baz continues.

“You were always plotting!” I counter. “Trying to make my life miserable—”

“You know fully well why,” he hurls back.

That shuts me up for a second.

“Why?” Shepard asks.

Baz gives him a withering look. But Shepard doesn’t shrink back like a normal person would, he just smiles nervously.

I do know why. Because Baz was in love with me.

He was in love with me all along, even when I was an absolute knob to him—and he had to throw his feelings somewhere. So he threw them at me. Sometimes in the form of spells. Or footballs.

I’ve talked to my therapist about that. About how horrible we were to each other, even when I’m pretty sure we both had feelings for each other. (Even if I didn’t know it.) I think Baz should probably go to therapy as well. That wasn’t a very healthy way to deal with his emotions. 

Then again, I’m one to talk. At least he was self-aware; I didn’t even know I had the emotions.

I find my voice again. “Give me one example of something I did to you unprovoked.”

I can swear I hear a grin in his voice. “Existed in my general vicinity.”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“You broke my nose,” he says. 

“Yeah, and your face is still bloody perfect, so shut up.”

It’s a moment before I realise what I’ve said. I feel my ears go all hot, and I tear my eyes away from Baz’s and take a sudden interest in the building on my right. Baz casually unwinds and rewinds his scarf; only I’d recognise that as a nervous tic.

A bicyclist rings her bell as she passes by, and then it’s silent again.

“Well!” Shepard says, rubbing his hands together. “Cool! Great! So.” He clears his throat. “Uh, here we are at the Ponte Alla Carraia.”

There’s a river that runs through the city, just like in London. As we cross the wide bridge, I look to our left and right and see a few more bridges on each side. 

“This is one of five bridges that crosses the Arno River,” he continues, not seeming to care that neither of us are listening to him. “The most famous one is the Ponte Vecchio, over there.” He points to our left. It’s lit up brightly, pretty and golden, looking more like a series of squashed-together buildings than a bridge.

We emerge on the other side into a teeming crowd of tourists and students. Baz and I are jostled together. Even the short brush of our shoulders through our coats is enough to make me feel like I’m spinning.

At least the awkwardness has been broken. Baz glances at his watch. “Half an hour to class. There’s time to stop at S’brino.”

“What’s S’brino?” I ask.

Shepard grins widely. “Only the best gelato place in the city.”

“The best one we’ve tried, at least,” Baz says. “I’ve got a few more on my list.”

“You have a list?” I say.

“Of course,” he says. He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, his grey eyes serious as if we were discussing Elocution homework rather than gelato shops. “A spreadsheet, actually. I’ve been very methodical about it.”

“About…”

He arches an elegant eyebrow. “Sampling every single gelato shop in the city, of course.”

Same old Baz. Unrivaled sweet tooth. (The difference is that he doesn’t try to hide it anymore.)

It would be imperceptible to anyone else, I think, but Italy’s made him a little looser. A little freer. It’s a good look on him.

“That’s ambitious,” I say.

He pokes a tongue into his cheek, teasing. “Don’t think I can do it, Snow?”

Baz is good at anything he puts his mind to. At this rate, he’ll somehow find a way to become Florence’s Most Valuable gelato consumer. 

I turn my head slightly, and our eyes meet. “I never doubted you, Pitch.”

🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Your face is still bloody perfect—

Well, I know my face is perfect.

And yet.

It still feels a little different when it’s Simon Snow saying that, rather than me saying it to myself in the mirror. 

(It feels more than a little different…) 

The bell tinkles above my head as I pull open the heavy glass door of the gelato shop. I hold it open for Snow and Shepard as the employee behind the counter welcomes us in.

“They’re famous for the S’brino flavour,” I say, pointing out the card perched in front of the creamy swirls. Milk chocolate, white chocolate, & hazelnut chocolate, it reads. Not my favourite, personally—I tend to eschew any chocolate that isn’t at least 60% dark, and I refuse to acknowledge white chocolate as chocolate, preferring to describe it as an abomination—but I think Snow might like it.

He seems to be experiencing real stress over the decision. “Do you give out samples?” he asks the woman behind the counter.

“What?” she says.

He casts me a panicked look, then turns back to her with a shy smile. “Um… can I try one? Like, have a taste?”

Understanding crosses her face. “Just this once,” she says, holding up a finger. 

Snow can be charming when he needs to be. Situations of peril, you know, like fighting dark creatures. Or choosing gelato flavours. He ends up somehow convincing her to give him five different samples before he finally settles on two flavours: S’brino (I knew it) and Speculoos. I choose dark chocolate, of course, and chestnut—it’s new this week, for Christmastime—and Shepard gets lemon and raspberry.

We sit down on the tiny bench opposite the counter, all squished together. 

I’ve procured a tiny wooden spoon to eat my gelato mess-free. Snow has no such hang-ups and is licking at his cone in a circle. There’s chocolate all over his mouth. 

(I’m staring. I should stop.)

“We should probably go,” Shepard says. Thank magic. I stand up hastily and follow him out into the street.

“What do you think?” I ask Snow. I almost don’t want to interrupt him with how happily he’s slurping away. 

I slow down my paces so he can catch up. “It’s good,” he says. “Really good. Like, probably the best ice cream I’ve ever had.”

“It’s not ice cream,” I say, and he rolls his eyes hugely.

“I’ve only had gelato once before this, and it was a pint Penny bought at Tesco.”

“Anything would be an improvement.”

“Yeah, but you said this is your favourite place, so.”

“So?”

“So it’s really, really good,” Snow says, grinning. He takes another combination-lick-bite off the little pointed top… and gets a bit on his nose.

He doesn’t notice, and I pretend not to. We wind down the street and head a few blocks further south. 

“Here it is,” Shepard says as we come to a stop in front of the building. It’s just another building owned by our program, and it hosts our Italian classes; I have no idea why it’s all the way across the city. “You gonna be okay, Simon? You can come inside and sit in an empty classroom, or just chill out here.”

Snow glances at me, then up at the building. “I’ll find something to do. We passed like seven famous cathedrals on the way here.”

“Don’t they have a big Nativity scene set up at one of these…” Shepard says, gesturing about.

“Try Basilica di Santo Spirito,” I say, pointing down the street to our left. “That way.”

Snow gives a shrug, hands in his pockets. “How long’s your class?”

“An hour,” Shepard says. He starts heading up the stairs.

“Okay.” 

I spare another moment to look at Snow. His hair’s falling nearly in ringlets, dusted lightly with the evening mist, an echo of the day’s rain. He’s still holding his cone, his knuckles scarred and familiar. His jaw and shoulders are squared against the cold. He’s come here with a confidence he didn’t have a few months ago; he seems more… full.

“You have gelato on your nose,” I finally tell him, and then I walk up to class.

🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

I end up going into the Basilica that Baz mentioned, and it’s beautiful—all pillars and archways and gold-toned art. 

Then I wander around outside and poach a cafe’s free wifi. A couple messages from Penny chime in: How is it??? and Tell Basil hi from me and, later, Hope you’re having fun ;)

I decide to just call her instead, and the Facetime Audio call connects immediately. 

“How is it? How’s Baz?” she demands. She doesn’t even say hello. (I’m used to that at this point.)

“Hi. It’s good. He’s good.”

“Just good?” I can almost see her pursed lips. “Tell me everything!”

I tell her that Baz is in class and that we got gelato with his roommate, which reminds me… “Wait, Pen, actually. I might need your help with something.”

“Yeah?”

“Baz’s roommate doesn’t leave ‘til tomorrow and they don’t have a sofa…”

Penny coughs. “There’s— there’s only one bed?”

“There’s only one bed,” I confirm.

She bursts out laughing. “Looks like your trip is headed in the right direction.”

“Penny!”

“For Morgana’s sake, how can I help with this? Do you need cuddling tips? Are you the big spoon or little sp—”

“Shut up, shut up—”

She’s laughing too hard, and it sets me off as well. The situation is quite ridiculous. Baz’s bed is tiny— I think it’s even smaller than a regular twin. We really should have thought this through.

She finally catches her breath and says, “Just spell it bigger.”

“His roommate is a Normal.”

“He won’t notice.”

“He’ll notice.”

“Magick up a couch.”

“What? And no one will notice that?”

Penny laughs. “Then just do what Normals do. Put some blankets on the floor and deal with it.”

“Thanks, you’re a brilliant mage. You’ve been a great help.”

“Anytime.” Then, after a pause: “But really. Is everything okay with Baz?”

She told me before I left: It’s okay to get your hopes up.

I wondered what it meant. If she saw something I didn’t. Or if she just believed in me, maybe. But the thing is, she doesn’t expect anything—Penny never does. (Sometimes I think she’s the only person in the world who never expected something from me.) I know if I go home and tell her nothing happened with Baz, it won’t be embarrassing.

“Yeah,” I say. “Surprisingly…”

Or maybe not that surprisingly. I think back to the past few hours. Baz’s unexpected smiles, the subtle way he cares. The way things click with us. (They always have. Or, mostly always.)

“I think this was a good idea,” I say.

After I hang up with Penny, I find my way back to the classroom building, sit on the front stairs, and wait. 

I hear the door open behind me, soft chattering in Italian. Footsteps bump softly into my back. “Mi scusi— Oh. Snow.”

I look up to see Baz and Shepard, and I scramble to my feet. 

“Dinner?” Baz says.

“Not tonight,” Shepard says. “I have to get going—gotta finish up some homework and pack.”

“When are you leaving?” I ask.

“Flight’s a redeye tomorrow night. I think we’ll leave the apartment around ten.” He shoulders his messenger bag; the strap is covered in colourful jangling pins, including like, four different types of pride flags. (It almost makes me feel bad for wishing him away; he seems like a cool guy.) “See y’all later.”

Baz watches him go, then turns to me. “Hungry, Snow?” Before I can open my mouth, he seems to realise it’s a stupid question, because he laughs a little. “Come on.”

We end up at a quaint restaurant, Osteria Santo Spirito, right in the shadow of the Basilica. We sit outside under large red umbrellas—Baz takes the seat closer to the heat lamp. Small candles dot the surface of the sturdy wooden table. 

There’s a chill in the air, the promise of winter. I can hear chimes and voices chattering in unfamiliar tones and bicycle bells echoing across the plaza. It smells like pasta and rain. It’s all so wonderfully new and unfamiliar.

The only familiar thing here is Baz. And I feel like he’s anchoring me among the swirl of it all.

“Ever had gnocchi?” he says, eyes turned down to the menu. 

Baz has long eyelashes. They cast shadows onto his cheekbones in the overhead light.

“No. What is it?”

“Tiny pillows of happiness,” he murmurs, then casually resumes his reading as if he hasn’t just said the most un-Baz-like thing I’ve ever heard. Tiny pillows? Happiness?

I knew Italy’s been good for him.

“I’m in,” I say.

He orders a cheese gnocchi, a spaghetti dish, and the house wine—all in Italian—and when we give our menus back and have nowhere to look but across the table at each other, well. 

It’s right romantic, isn’t it?

The house wine arrives in a fat-bottomed bottle. Baz says it’s a chianti. I don’t usually like wine, but I take a sip and it’s better than I expected, rich and light all at once, so I let Baz pour me a full glass.

He clears his throat and asks about home and Penny. It should break the mood but it doesn’t. It feels like someone has put a spell on us. We’re talking, stumbling through like it’s a bloody first date. 

My mind is thick and hazy with rain and wine and Baz. I haven’t felt magic in a long time, but it was like this. This buzzing sensation in the air, in my blood.

Baz doesn’t cover his mouth anymore when he eats. I catch a glimpse of his teeth; no fangs.

He’s been able to have a life without me as a constant presence for the first time in nearly ten years. It shows—not that he’s better off without me, but that he had a piece of himself he still needed to get acquainted with.

Baz is looking at me over the gnocchi. His eyes are misty-grey like the fog outside. 

I’m suddenly reminded of sharing my magic with Baz. It felt like something striking deep within my bones. Like someone was taking flint and steel to my heart.

I don’t know how I ever thought I could be without him.

🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

It almost feels like starting over, but not quite.

It feels like an evolution. A revolution. A new version of whatever we had before—one that’s not quite so broken.

They leave us oranges at the end of the meal, and Snow pockets them.

He’s glowing more than he has in months, his shine not nearly as dulled as it once was. I can almost taste his magic, brimming thick and green. It’s not there, but it may as well be. I’m drunk on it, drunk on this. Whatever this is.

We head back to the flat, across the bridge, down main streets. Snow’s shoulder keeps hitting mine, the back of our hands brushing together.

(I want— but he broke up with me.)

I ball my hand into a fist and stuff it into my pocket.

Snow looks to be just as lost in thought as I am, because he hasn’t said much. 

“Alright, Snow?”

He shakes his head clear, confirming my suspicion that he’s not heard a word I’ve said. “Yeah, fine. It’s just…”

I’m walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Simon Snow. Walking in step. It’s strange and familiar all at once, like rereading an old favourite book you’d almost forgotten about. You know what’s going to happen. It still manages to surprise you.

“This is nice,” he says. 

“What did you expect?” I ask. “We’d spend five days insulting each other?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Did it for seven years, didn’t we?” His curls are still frizzy from the rain earlier, and they nearly obscure his dimpled grin.

“And then we spent one making up for it,” I say quietly.

Snow looks straight ahead down the street. Golden light from the streetlamps bounces off his eyes. “Yeah. And one…” He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “Well.”

“Do you regret it?” Do you regret breaking up with me?

He shakes his head no. “Are you mad at me?”

“Not anymore.”

I think I finally understand, Simon.

But you seem better now. Maybe you’re better off without me.

“Have you… met anyone else?”

“Snow— Simon. Crowley, no.”

“Good.” 

Good… 

He still won’t look at me. “Because I think I’d regret it if…”

“If?”

“If you had. If we—” 

A speeding bus honks us as we cross the street, and I yank Simon out of harm’s way by his collar. He stumbles back to the pavement, and it seems to break his pensive mood. “Clumsy oaf,” I mutter.

He blinks up at me, huffing a shocked laugh. 

“If we?” I press.

He shrugs, smiles. “Nothing,” he says. “Just—it’s good to be here.”

Despite everything, I smile back.

🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~ 

I was going to tell him.

I was going to tell him… I don’t know. That I wanted this again. That I’m here to—to be us again. Or at least to try.

But then the bus came, and I saw how confident he was, all sure-footed on these fucking cobblestones that are familiar to his feet after all these months. How he fits. And I suddenly felt like maybe there’s no space for me in his life anymore.

On a less metaphorical note, there’s seriously no space for me.

Because we’re back at his flat and there’s still only one bed.

Today’s gone okay—but okay doesn’t mean, like, immediately jumping back into bed together. Also, it’s definitely not wide enough.

Maybe we could fit in a very, very close spoon. Stacked spoons. Like in a bloody cutlery drawer. I don’t think we could even lay side by side on our backs. Or on my stomach, in my case.

“You didn’t think this through,” I tell Baz.

“I must have picked up that trait from you,” he murmurs. 

I elbow him, and he elbows me back. “You’re the mage here,” I say. “Think of something.”

“I don’t know a spell that would work.”

“Just make the bathtub squishy.”

“I would, Snow, except— oh right, we don’t have a fucking bathtub.”

I groan. “Magick up an air mattress.”

“There’s no spell for that.” 

“Once upon a mattress,” I insist. “Or You made your bed, now lie in it!”

Baz frowns. “How do you even know those?”

“I paid attention in school.” He raises an eyebrow. “Sometimes.” The eyebrow hitches up even further, and I huff. “Okay, no. Penny used them like, last week.”

“They won’t work here anyway.” He looks down his nose at me. “Go and wash up. I’ll figure it out.”

I roll my eyes and turn to leave. “I know you’re just going to Google Italian idioms—”

He purses his lips to hide a smile and points at the door. “Out.”

When I get back, dripping water from my chin, Baz has changed out of his bathrobe and is wearing a posh pyjama set in navy blue. He’s barefoot, and he’s brushed his wet hair, and—fuck. He looks at once alarmingly approachable and like he’s ready for a mens’ loungewear photoshoot. 

He gestures at the bed with a flourish. It’s doubled in width, and though it’s still small—smaller than either of our beds at Watford—it’ll do. “Voila.”

“It won’t shrink back in the middle of the night, will it?” I ask.

He rolls his eyes and picks up a sleek leather toiletry bag. “You wound me, Snow.”

When he leaves, I strip down to my boxers and rifle around my bag for my pyjamas. I end up pulling everything out and throwing all my clothes into a pile on the floor, but I still can’t find them. As the bag nears empty, it dawns on me with some measure of horror: I forgot them.

It’s the one thing I always forget to pack, almost without fail. I just sleep in my underwear or naked at home because of my wings, and because I get hot, so it never occurs to me that I’ll need them.

I didn’t even bring trackie bottoms, only jeans. 

One pair of jeans.

I toss everything back into my duffel and glance at Baz’s dresser. I know he has posh pyjamas in there somewhere. I can ask him when he gets back… 

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I stand up in just my boxers. (Red, with devil horns and angel halos on them—Penny’s idea of a joke.) My hair’s way too long. I’ve filled out a little in the shoulders and torso.

Baz would call it “clobbering weight.” Good for goblin-fighting , he’d say. (And I do have to still occasionally fight goblins. Penny got me a new sword for my birthday this year, a non-magickal one.) (Maybe I could summon the Sword of Mages if I really wanted to. But it reminds me too much of the Mage. The fact that I’m still the Mage’s Heir. It never works when I try.) 

I remember Baz’s face when I told him why I was always so thin at the start of term. Last year it felt like he made it his personal goal to fatten me up—he was always coming home with a bag from the bakery…

Maybe we can go to a bakery tomorrow morning. They’ve got to have bakeries in Italy, right?

I decide to just get in bed like this. It’s warm in here. And I don’t mind Baz seeing me like this, not anymore. (Maybe I even want him to.) I mean, maybe I shouldn’t I don’t want it to come across like I’m assuming anything—I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.

But also, I really did forget my pyjamas.

I lay on my side and pull the covers over myself. I take the left—I couldn’t care less, but I know Baz always has to sleep on the right. (Because it was his side of our room at Watford.)

Baz comes back a few minutes later. He’s flushed—he must have had some blood, maybe he keeps it in the fridge now. He shivers as he walks past the bed and stoops over a box in the middle of the room. “It’s frigid in here,” he says. “I’m turning on the space heater.”

“No, it’s hot,” I complain. “I’ll be your space heater.” I meant for it to be sarcastic, but it comes out horrifyingly tender.

“Ah, I knew you were useful for something.”

I smush my face into the pillow. “Fuck off.”

He strides back to his side of the bed, pulls the covers off delicately, and freezes. “Snow.” 

I turn my head to look at him, pushing a stray curl out of my eyes. He swallows, the cords of his neck tense. Then he just tears his eyes away, shaking his head, and turns off the light. 

He slips into bed beside me as I flop back onto my stomach. “You want your wings out, is that it?” he asks quietly. “I don’t mind.”

“Then I’ll have to be big spoon,” I joke.

He goes silent.

“I, uh. I was joking. But. Um. Won’t Shepard see…?”

“He’s currently out getting drunk, I don’t think he’ll notice. And it’s not like it’s the strangest thing he’s seen, believe me.”

“Okay.” 

I let out a sigh of relief as my wings unfurl. I feel Baz’s hand gently push one aside, almost on reflex, so it doesn’t smack him in the face. I fold them close to my back, then turn to face Baz. For over a year, it was too uncomfortable with the wings to fall asleep on my side like I always used to. It’s taken some practise, but I finally learned how to position them so I can.

He tucks his wand under his pillow, then tugs the covers over himself.

“Still cold?” I ask.

He’s on his back. Not touching me, but almost. It’s nearly stifling under the blankets, for me at least; I’m worried I’ll throw them off in the middle of the night. “A bit.”

“Did you feed?”

He turns his head. “I’m not going to bite you in your sleep, Snow.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I could lean forward and kiss him. He could lean forward and kiss me—

Baz turns his face back to the ceiling with a heavy sigh. “Yes. I get pig’s blood from a butcher here, mostly.”

I want to reach out and trace his profile. The bump at the top of his nose, the arc of his cheekbone. It’s familiar territory.

Maybe it’s the darkness or the way the moonlight’s filtering through the curtains, casting Baz in grey shadows. Or maybe I’m just tired and still feeling the vestiges of this evening’s magic. 

“Baz?”

“Yes?”

His eyes are closed. He looks serene and vulnerable. 

Not yet.

“I– I just.” 

This isn’t why I came here. 

Isn’t it?

(Why else?)

“What?”

I’ll wait.

“Can I be the big spoon?”

He smiles at me sleepily, and it sends me reeling. Then he turns around so his back’s to me and scoots a little closer so my body’s distantly cupping his. “Good night, Snow.”

I fall asleep faster than I have in ages.

Chapter Text

the sweetness of doing nothing.

🌟

~Baz~

When I wake up, I’m freezing. I blink my eyes open blearily and reach for the duvet, but it’s not there.

Then I realise belatedly that Simon’s not in the bed with me.

Simon’s not in the bed with me.

I reach out my arm for him, but it only catches air. I blindly roll over to his side and fall directly off the bed, landing on something warm and very alive.

“Hng,” Simon grumbles.

I try to move off him, but he’s half-asleep and makes a grab for me, pulling me into his warmth. I glance up at the bed. Shit. The spell didn’t hold—I don’t know what I expected trying to use Cheat Sheet in Italy. 

So embarrassingly, Simon was right. The bed did shrink back to normal size in the middle of the night, depositing him onto the floor. With my blankets.

I attempt to twist myself free, but he moans in complaint and hugs me tighter. When I finally give up and relax in his arms, he lets out a sigh and burrows his face into my neck. “Cold,” he mumbles.

“You’re cold?” I whisper.

“You.”

He falls back asleep within moments, his exhales landing hot against the back of my neck. He’s a heavy breather when he sleeps. Like he’s been running instead of just lying there. It’s annoying as fuck.

It’s a sound I fell asleep to for eight years.

But I can’t sleep now, because I’m in Simon Snow’s arms again.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to do this again. 

It’s too precious to miss. 

Simon’s naked chest against my back. (How I wish I wasn’t wearing pyjamas.) I can feel it swell and fall with each of his breaths. He’s soft and warm and insistently alive.

I’m crushing his right arm. His left leg is flung over both of mine, the blanket a twisted mess between us. The floor is hard and uncomfortable. I can feel the bones of his hips poking into my arse, and he’s so hot that his skin is a little sticky. My hair’s probably getting in his mouth.

It’s bloody perfect.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

When I wake up, I’m on the floor for some reason, and Baz’s hair is in my mouth. Baz’s hair is everywhere. I spit it out and push it off his neck with my left hand—my right is numbly trapped underneath him—then tuck my chin back against his shoulder.

How did we get here? Last I remember, we were on the bed, decidedly not touching. Even if I fell off, why is Baz in my arms?

Baz is in my arms.

Baz is dozing peacefully in my arms. He barely breathes when he sleeps; he looks like he’s carved out of marble. (If marble statues had a bloody nest of hair that gets everywhere.) Both of his arms are clamped around my left forearm, hugging it to him like a teddy bear. 

His skin is cool to the touch; holding him is always calming, refreshing.

It feels so nice. It feels so right. I’ve missed this.

Daylight’s filtering through the curtains, and I can hear birds chirping out the window and Shepard snoring behind me. I’m close enough to Baz’s neck that I could nudge forward and touch it with my nose. (If all his hair wasn’t in the way.) Cedar and bergamot and that sleep scent that’s settled heavily on him.

I go to adjust the blankets, and Baz shifts, pushing his hips further back into mine. And that’s when I realise… I’m hard.

Oh, Merlin. Jesus bloody fuck.

I mean, it’s not uncommon for me to wake up with morning wood. It happens all the time. But not today! Not right now!

I try my best to make it go away, but Baz seems to be waking up, and he keeps moving. It’s every shade of mortifying. I start to inch my arm out from under him, very slowly. Fuck, this is bad. I don’t want him to think I was taking advantage of him or anything…

I’ve managed to untangle our legs and my arm is almost free when—

Baz yawns and stretches, arching his back, rolling his shoulders, pressing his arse directly against me—and then he freezes.

On instinct, I jerk my hips and arm back gracelessly, sending Baz tumbling towards the bed in a heap of blankets. “Agh,” he mumbles, before rolling back over onto his back. The blanket swaddles him like a burrito, and he throws his pillow at me. “What the fuck, Snow.”

“Sorry,” I mutter. I turn so I’m face down on the carpet, so he doesn’t see anything. My entire body feels hot.

Baz frees his arm and rubs the sleep from his eyes. “You fell off the bed,” he notes.

I look up at it, then smirk at him. “I told you your spell wouldn’t hold.”

“Shut up,” he says, which is how I know he’s embarrassed and can’t think of anything witty to say. 

His face is so close.

I sit up so I can lend him a hand with the blankets—erection’s mostly gone by now, thank fuck—then stand up and innocently stretch my arms overhead and flare my wings out behind me. Baz glances at me, then turns away and heaves a heavy, dramatic sigh into his pillow. I hold back a laugh.

By the time I walk around the bed to get my toothbrush, he’s standing and seems to have composed himself. “Your hair looks like you stuck your finger in an electrical socket,” he says.

I look in the mirror. I do have an awful case of bed-head—my curls are springing loosely everywhere, seemingly with no heed for the laws of gravity.

It’s something he would have said at Watford. Except now I know that the insult is actually code for something like You look sexy like this, and I’d like to shag you until that hair looks even worse. 

I don’t really know what to do with that information. With all these blurring lines.

Baz’s hair always looks fine when he wakes up. As if even in his dreams, he makes sure nothing’s out of place.

Except today, because half of it was in my mouth. (Have we spooned before? Did this happen? Did he always have this much hair?) It’s a little skewed to one side. He smooths it out as he walks toward the mirror.

I pat my hair down, even though I know it won’t do anything. I’ll have to shower anyway; I’m all sweaty. “Thanks,” I say, because I don’t know how else to respond.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Simon looks sexy like this, and I’d like to shag him until that hair looks even worse.

I never used to be able to keep my hands off him in the mornings. When he was warm and heavy with sleep, his mouth soft and eager. When everything was lazy and slow. When everything was comfortable.

I keep forgetting that he can see right through me now. That when I insult him, he knows what I really mean by it. I feel strangely exposed; it’s my only defence mechanism. But I also feel strangely glad that it’s Simon who knows this, that my walls have been torn down and can, miraculously, stay down with him. (Only with him.)

I know I shouldn’t rush back into the wanting stage, but he’s really not helping. The way he stretched, earlier, flexing his muscles, his wings bathing him in a red glow. I thought I was dreaming. And he did it with a smirk, too, because he knows. He knows what he does to me, the bastard. 

Aleister Crowley, this is a disaster. (I’m a disaster. A horny, lovesick disaster.)

I’m dressed for the day by the time he comes back, a towel wrapped low around his waist, exposing the trail of bronze hair beneath his belly button. His wings are dripping water everywhere. I look away and tell him I’ll meet him in the living room.

We’re not eating here. I’m taking Simon Snow to a bakery.

It’s nearly ten, and the city’s bustling and alive. Little yellow open-air taxis and bicyclists whiz past us as we walk down the street. It’s cloudy and windy, the air humming with the promise of rain. I can hear a symphony of honking and chatter in Italian and bells from a distant church.

Simon’s looking around like he’s seeing it for the first time again. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows. “I don’t trust your surprises.”

“It’s not going to be a hive of flibbertigibbets in your shoe, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

He snorts. “Not quite what I meant, but okay— wait, that was you?”  

We turn off my street, and he freezes as he takes in the Duomo, in daylight this time. It’s splendid in ivory and green, the intricate details nearly glowing in the haze of morning. I watch as his eyes cross the plaza, taking in all of it. 

“It’s— wow,” he says.

It’s a marvel, truly. I see it almost every day and I still could look at it for ages.

He follows me to the ticket kiosk. There’s already a line outside the main doors to the Duomo. “We’ll go in later,” I say.

“You can go in?”

“And climb to the roof.” I buy two tickets for the 16:30 slot tomorrow, so we can catch the sunset from the top. (I’m nothing if not a hopeless romantic. It’s a well-known fact, at this point.)

One street over is Via Roma. It’s gorgeous right now in the morning light, the buildings ranging from the palest tan to the warmest yellow hues. Simon blends right in; the golden wash of his skin and tumbling curls against the stucco almost makes me request a photo shoot.

Not just almost.

“Do you want a picture?” I say.

He looks down at himself, then back up. “Just me?”

“Yeah.”

He smirks at me. “Do you want a picture, Baz?”

I roll my eyes. “We can do a selfie, if you’d like.”

He rakes a hand through his hair, sweeping his curls magnificently to one side. “Nah, I’ll pose for you.”

He’s standing there on the cobblestones, the city framing him, and he looks perfect. Square shoulders, square jaw. A dimple in his cheek and an amused smoulder in his blue eyes. He’s incurably handsome. Always has been. (But now he seems to know it—and I love that.)

A vision flashes through my mind, unbidden, of Simon in the suit. His suit. This is where I pictured it: him, here, wearing it. A fantasy, a dream.

It’s part of my final portfolio for my Fashion Design class—the star piece of the collection, in every sense of the term. I’ve designed a deep blue suit embroidered with golden constellations. It was made for him. (I made it for him. Wishful thinking.)

Simon’s leaning against the buildings and he’s the perfect model. Even in an objective way—this city complements him.

(I’m fooling myself if I think I can ever be objective around Simon Snow.)

I shove the image of him in the star suit out of my mind and snap a couple of photos in portrait mode, then regular. “Done,” I say. He takes his hands out of his pockets and snatches my phone. “Hey—” 

“Say cheese,” he says, and snaps a selfie before I’m ready. 

“Take another,” I tell him.

“What’s cheese in Italian?”

“Formaggio.”

“Formaggio,” he repeats in a horrendously bad Italian accent. I shake my head, but his next photo captures me smiling.

He catches me peeking at the photos I took of him as we walk down the street. 

I’m honestly past the point of caring.

We end up outside Gilli, a grand caffé and pasticceria —the oldest in Florence. The front is warm wood, gold-lettering, and large windows displaying a fantastic array of sweets. The doors lead in to a bakery with all manner of pastries. To the left, there’s a covered outdoor area where you can sit down for breakfast.

Simon’s eyes light up when he sees the offerings in the window. He looks like a child on Christmas morning. (Though I suppose he never had a proper Christmas as a child—the thought’s a bit sobering. I’ll have to make up for it this year.)

He steps up for a closer look at their seasonal display for the holidays. Nut brittle trees, meringue and nougat Santa Clauses, marzipan-wrapped gift boxes filled with fudge. Chocolate reindeer pulling sleighs made of pastry. Sugar-spun chestnut sweets and colourful candyfloss bows.

(Welcome to the land of your daydreams, Simon Snow.)

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Are we eating breakfast here?”

“There, where they have real food,” I say, gesturing to the sit-down cafe. “Unless you’d like to eat sweets for breakfast.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he says absently, still staring at the sweets in the window.

“We can buy something after,” I say, taking his elbow.

He reluctantly allows me to drag him away from the storefront. “You can buy this stuff?”

“You can buy as much as you want,” I assure him. “After we eat.”

He rolls his eyes at me as we walk. “Do you have to be so sodding responsible, Basilton?”

“One of us has to do it. Table for two, please,” I say as we step up to the hostess at the counter.

“It will be a fifteen minute wait,” she tells us.

She jots down my name. I look at Simon, raise an eyebrow, and tip my head toward the bakery front. I know just the thing to keep him occupied for fifteen minutes, and it’s the glass case inside. 

“Knew you’d come around,” he says, elbowing me before he practically runs into the shop.

I stroll after him and find him standing in front of the case, studying the selection as seriously as if he were contemplating an art gallery. His eyebrows are drawn down and he’s chewing his lip as he attempts to parse the names of all the items in Italian.

“Coffee?” I ask.

“Tea,” he says. “With extra milk.”

After Simon puts together a box of fancy sweets and probably empties half his wallet buying them, we go and get seated at our table. He opens the box and offers up a choice between a candied chestnut and and an almond-encrusted truffle. I take both.

“Hey,” he says in mock-offense.

“You should know better than to underestimate my sweet tooth,” I say. “It’s only gotten worse.”

Simon grumbles at me, shaking his head, and rips the head off a marzipan elf. 

After a delicious breakfast and enough sweets to make my stomach hurt, we emerge back into the bustling main street. It’s started raining again, and the city is a sea of multicoloured umbrellas. 

I’ve forgotten ours and we’re getting soaked, so I pull Simon into a sheltered alley, away from prying eyes. “What?” he asks.

“Just a little spell,” I say. “Is that alright?”

His eyes light up. “In Italian?”

“Yes.”

“Okay…”

I discreetly slip my wand into my hand and cast “Su questo non ci piove” on each of us in turn.

It’s a common Italian idiom meaning something like ‘no doubt,’ but it translates literally to ‘it doesn’t rain on it.’ It’s quite handy; it puts up an invisible bubble, ensuring we won’t get wet.

“Where are we going next?” Simon asks.

It’s so loud on the street he has to lean close to me; I can smell his blood, feel his breath warm against my face.

“Where do you want to go?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I want to see all the places you’ve loved.”

(I want to see you in every place I’ve loved, Simon Snow.)

I know just the one.

We cut through the picturesque streets for a few minutes until we find ourselves in a plaza shrouded by two grand buildings. The Palazzo Vecchio, an imposing fortified palace made of tan bricks, complete with a clock tower; and the Loggia dei Lanzi, an arched, open building housing Renaissance sculptures, including a replica of the David. 

And across the plaza, the landmark I’m truly here for.

Not that 14th century architecture and art history aren’t interesting. Simon’s staring at David like he’s never seen a naked man before, which I know for a fact is false. I’ve seen the real one—the real David, I mean. I’ll take Simon to the Galleria later. But right now, I only have eyes right now for my one true love.

Gucci Garden.

“Where are we going?” Simon asks as I start to walk towards it.

“An entire museum dedicated to Gucci,” I say.

Simon snorts, then steps in front of me, forcing me to stop. He reaches out and unbuttons my coat, and I swipe at his wrist. “What are you doing?”

He huffs. “Stop, I just wanted to see.”

“See what?”

He peers at my shirt—it has pink flowers and the signature bumblebees on it—and then grins knowingly. “If you were wearing Gucci, you posh tosser.”

I smile despite myself. “I’ve got a personal brand to uphold, Snow. Now let’s go.”

He heaves a dramatic sigh. “I’m going to regret agreeing to this.”

“Nonsense. We’ll have fun.”

“You’ll have fun.”

“I took you to a sweets shop for breakfast.”

“An eye for an eye,” he grumbles, and I laugh.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

I’ve rarely seen Baz this excited.

Like, he’s trying to hold it in, but if he started bouncing on the balls of his feet right now, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. His eyes are rapt, taking everything in as we enter the museum and start up the staircase to the first floor.

It makes me feel guilty, almost—when we were together, I didn’t often have the bandwidth to pay attention to things that mattered to Baz. I wanted to. (I’ll do better next time, if there is one.) 

(Maybe it’s this time. Maybe it’s right now.)

I couldn’t care less about fashion, but it’s worth being here just to see the look on his face. 

We emerge into a room entirely covered in a mural of naked bodies. Bold black and white line art set against a turquoise background. 

And at first, I almost pass it by—this city’s full of naked statues and art, after all—but then I notice that it’s not typical naked-body art. 

It’s people of all shapes and sizes and ages, some of them locked in some sort of amorous embrace, some of them standing in confident, bared-open poses. Queer couples, old couples, fat people, someone in a wheelchair, someone with top-surgery scars, someone with a prosthetic leg.

“The mural is by Italian street artist MP5,” Baz reads from somewhere behind me. “Themed around individuality and sexuality.”

I’m not sure why this art is putting a lump in my throat. 

I guess it’s because it doesn’t shy away from depicting things that are usually meant to stay hidden. That we’re usually told to hide. Things that don’t usually make it into giant murals, because no one wants to see them.

I like how it forms a cohesive piece; how these people who would normally be considered outsiders look completely natural, in this depiction. It’s almost overwhelming in its rawness, in its fearlessness, in its pride.

On/Off by MP5.

I’ve lost track of Baz, then I hear his voice from the doorway. “Ready?”

I’m rooted to the spot. I don’t know that I can look away…

Baz’s footsteps draw nearer. “Snow?”

If you put me up on this wall with my wings and my weird, nebulous sexual orientation, I wouldn’t even look that out of place.

“Hey.” His hand brushes my shoulder, then settles on it. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head clear. “Fine. Yeah. Let’s go?”

I pause in the doorway and snap a photo before we leave for the next room.

There’s a sign when we enter.

A real and imaginary place, the translation of a vision that stretches through the first and second floors of the Gucci Garden Galleria in Piazza della Signoria, Florence, is filled with history, objects, anecdotes and geographies. A series of rooms unfolds from a story that begins in 1921 to today, ready to be reactivated…

We’re in a room called Détournement. 

The House archive is transformed into living, incandescent material—

I stop reading when Baz cuffs me on the shoulder.

“What?” I ask. And then I look up, and instinctively jump back several steps, stumbling over my own feet. “What the bloody fuck—”

Baz is nearly doubled over in silent laughter.

It’s a fucking white hare.

A giant one, painted on the wall in stunning detail, surrounded by flowers and bees. Its eye is large and round and seems to be staring right at me. Following me.

“This is a joke,” I say. “A cosmic fucking joke.”

Baz is laughing so hard that he’s leaning into me.

“Seriously, what is this? Why is this here? It’s been four years, why are they haunting me—”

“Calm down, Snow,” he says.

“You’re one to talk,” I say as another inelegant kind of giggle escapes him. And I want Baz to keep laughing, so I keep playing it up, even though I’m half-laughing now. “This is ridiculous! Offensive! This is— I don’t even know—”

“Ironic?” he says. “Hilarious? Designed specifically to torture you, Simon Snow?”

“Exactly!”

“I don’t think it’s magickal,” Baz says, walking up to the art and running a hand over the design.

“Don’t touch it!” I hiss. “It could be. Looks just like the ones back at Watford.”

Baz rolls his eyes, but his face is full of amusement. “You found all six hares already. There’s no seventh hare.”

“There bloody well could be! I’m not going any further,” I say, planting my feet.

I think we had a conversation just like this in sixth year.

Except this time, Baz spins toward the security camera on the ceiling, wand hidden up his sleeve. “Occhio non vede,” he says, and the red light blinks out. Then he faces the hare, twirling his wand between his fingers. “True colours,” he says. He tries again: “Show yourself!” 

Nothing happens. He shoots me a sceptical look.

“Do friend or foe,” I insist. “And olly olly oxen free.”

“That won’t work here.” 

“Presto chango,” I say. “That’s… Italian, right?”

“You’re hopeless. Maybe… La verità vi renderà liberi. ‘The truth will set you free,’” he translates. Nothing. He taps his wand against his chin, thinking, then tries, “Da dove men si pensa salta fuori la lepre.”

“What’s that, then?”

He raises an eyebrow. “The hare comes from where you’re least expecting it.”

“Well, I’d hope it comes from the giant fucking hare painting — wait, it moved!” I could swear the hare twitched. And its giant eye… “Siegfried and fucking Roy, it’s looking at me.” My hand flies automatically to my hip, preparing to call a sword that probably won’t come.

Baz is laughing and not even trying to hold back. “It is not looking at you.”  

“Do you know any other spells in Italian? That’s the only one that worked.”

“Nothing happened, Snow.” He sighs dramatically and opens up the notes app on his mobile, then casts: “Mal si mangia le lepre, se prima non si piglia.” He looks back at me and grins ferally. “The hare is bad eating, if first you don’t catch it.”

“That sounds like a hunting spell.”

“It is. Why do you think I know all of these random Italian idioms about hares?” He gestures toward the next room. “Are you satisfied? Can we go now?”

I send another glare in the direction of the offending beast before leaving.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

These exhibits are stunning. Bagology; with a wall covered entirely in bags from throughout the ages; Cosmic Colours, filled entirely with bright pastels; The Jardin d’Hiver, a whimsical room with flowers on the wall and holographic hummingbirds flitting between them.

I wish I’d brought a sketchbook—I keep getting flashes of inspiration for my fashion design course. 

I’ve always enjoyed appearing well-dressed, but it’s only recently that I became interested in fashion as an art form, in creating it myself, in going a step further than simply putting together outfits. The designs in here are intriguing—subversive cuts, often toeing the line between classy and strange.

Best of all, Simon likes this place.

He’s mostly making fun of the outfits now, but at least he’s entertained. And the way he lingered at that mural… it’s near enchanting, watching him engage with this. (Or maybe pretend to, for my sake.)

He turns to me. “I don’t really get why most of these are fashionable,” he says, gesturing to the outfits in the room. He glances down at my phone full of notes. “Doesn’t seem like anything you’d wear.”

“Probably not, seeing as we’re in a room full of ballgowns,” I say.

“And that,” he says, pointing at a letterman jacket with a large, embroidered Donald Duck on the back. 

We enter the next room, and it’s filled with cases of accessories and historical photos. I walk around, feeling very much as if I’m inside a time capsule. There’s a video playing a time-lapse of recent menswear collections, and my fingers itch to draw, to capture the cut and flow of the garments as the models walk. It’s so different than a suit being draped on a mannequin. 

“Do you have a pen?”

Simon digs around in his coat pocket and, to my surprise, produces a ballpoint. I take it, then turn over the pamphlet in my hand and begin sketching loosely, showing how I’ll incorporate a new angular cut in one of the panels on the suit.

He looks over my shoulder. “What is it?”

“It’s a suit.” Your suit. “I’m designing it for my final project in my fashion class.” To your measurements. “I haven’t found a model yet…” 

His eyes drift away from the page, and I wait a beat before raising mine as well. Simon could be a model, with his tawny skin and generous curls. (Maybe not for Gucci—he doesn’t quite have that otherworldly look about him. He could do D&G. Or Armani.) 

He’s agonisingly approachable and untouchable all at once. Like the boy next door crashed into a shooting star and this was the result.

I don’t feel like I’m burning up anymore. I just feel like I’m being absorbed into it. Into everything Simon.

There’s a small room playing grainy film reels of old fashion shows, and I pause to read a small sign just inside.

In Italian, then English:

Fashion relates to time in a reckless manner.

Simon Snow is standing to my left, pausing to stare at a particularly strange, glittery piece. He shoots me an amused grin, and something bubbles up deep in my chest.

It imposes scaffolding, mystifies it, accelerates it or pushes it backwards and redesigns it.

He shrugs his coat off and steps up beside me, closer than we were standing yesterday. The back of his hand brushes mine. It’s comfortable and familiar yet thrilling all at once.

It plays with history, recovering its codes and giving them new meanings.

I don’t think I’m falling in love again—I never fell out of it.

It’s more like falling in love anew. 

We’ll get it right this time around.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Chapter Text

light of my eyes.

🌟

~Simon~

“Ready for the best sandwich of your life?” Baz asks. 

We turn the corner, not one minute away from Gucci Garden, and I spot the shop. A red and white glowing sign, lined with a wreath and tiny string lights: All’antico Vinaio. There’s a queue out the door and halfway down the street.

“Nothing can top the roast beef ones at Watford.” 

Baz raises an eyebrow, then points to a shop across the street, where the sign says… All’antico Vinaio? I look further down the street and spot yet another storefront. What…

“This place is so popular that they couldn’t keep up with demand with just one,” Baz says. “So there are three, right next to each other. If you don’t trust me, trust economics.”

“I hate economics.”

“Economics is fun.”

I groan. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Economics is fun…”

“Don’t—”

“...ctional.” 

I elbow him.

We take our places in line at the main storefront, the largest one. “The guys who work here like to take the piss,” he warns me. “So if you want a custom sandwich, not one of the ones from the board, just say, ‘Create my own.’”

“As opposed to…”

He cracks a smile. “Once I said ‘Make your own,’ and the bloke told me to go to a different shop if I wanted pasta.”

Baz’s nostrils flare as we finally reach the entrance, and I scan the menu board. It’s in Italian, but some words are familiar: prosciutto, salame, mozzarella. Inside, I can see huge hunks of cured pork hanging from the ceiling and various fillings inside a glass case behind the counter, where several guys are making sandwiches and shouting orders. The back wall features shelves stacked with loaves of fresh ciabatta.

“What’s ‘speck’?” I ask, peering at the board. The sandwiches are only 5 euros each, and you can choose different meats, cheeses, spreads, and vegetables.

Baz grimaces and takes a deep breath before speaking. His fangs must be straining to pop—it does smell heavenly in here, like warm bread and smoked pork. “Delicious,” he says finally. “Like fatty bacon.”

“What are you getting?”

“La Dante,” he mutters. He shifts, uncomfortable, taking a step away from me.

“We can bring them back to your flat,” I offer, and he nods gratefully. He looks strained, but his fangs haven’t filled his cheeks. I peer at his mouth, but they’re really not there. I suppose it is smart to keep them hidden with all the Normals around. Delicious bags of blood or whatever he calls them. But it can’t be easy. I wonder how he learned to do it...

“Il prossimo, next!” the man calls.

I step into the warm shop and up to the counter. “One ‘create my own,’ please.”

He gives me a quizzical look. “Create my own?” he asks.

“No, make my own—” I start to say, but he cuts me off.

“Create my own!” he announces with a grin. “No problem, signore.”

Baz is cackling from behind me.

“Wait—”

The man promptly starts slapping a sandwich together with terrifying speed. I can barely see what he puts in it—some sort of creamy spread, soft cheese, a stack of meat, a sprinkle of veggies, and a square slice of dimpled bread goes on top. He swiftly wraps the sandwich in parchment paper and hands it to me with a wink. “Let me know if you like it.”

“Uh—”

He gestures for me to take a bite, so I do.

It’s fucking delicious.

I pay up and go outside to wait for Baz. I barely even notice when he sidles up beside me; I only have eyes for this glorious sandwich. Merlin— I’ve seriously never had a sandwich like this one. I don’t even know what’s in it, just that it absolutely is the best sandwich I’ve ever had.

By the time we’re halfway back to his flat, Baz’s face has relaxed and he’s moved closer to me. “What smells better, me or the sandwich?” I say.

“Don’t joke about that,” he says.

I know I’m playing with fire, but I push on anyway. “I mean, I know I’m a snack. Then again, these sandwiches.”

That gets a smirk out of him, a sidelong look. “You smell more like dessert…”

He’s told me before. Brown butter and cinnamon buns and bacon. Which must be my blood, because I sure as hell don’t smell like that on the outside… 

I used to just smell like smoke. Baz used to smoke occasionally just to look cool, mostly at parties last summer. And because he’s stubborn as fuck about the whole being-flammable thing. He wasn’t proving anything to anyone but himself.

Even though every other person in this city has a cigarette between their fingers, I haven’t seen Baz with one. Maybe he finally grew a shred of a sense of self-preservation. Or maybe it’s for health reasons. (Can vampires get lung cancer? Probably not.)

“Even better,” I say.

Baz shakes his head at me. “I prefer gelato.”

“Liar.”

“I’d choose gelato over you any day, Snow.”

I take another bite of my sandwich. “I guess I can’t blame you for that. I’d probably choose gelato over you, as well.”

Baz looks unconvinced.

“Okay, maybe scones,” I amend. “Sour cherry scones.”

Baz snorts. “That’s a given.” 

(It’s not.)  

“Why?”

“People are fickle,” he says with an amused grin. “Scones are forever.”

I look down. “So are vampires.”

I don’t know why I said that. It shocks him silent. “You don’t know that,” he finally says, carefully.

I watch him for a minute. “Do you?”

“I… visited the vampires here.” He’s leaning closer, lowering his voice. “They’re ancient. Some of them. But I don’t know if—if I’m different.”

“You’ve been aging,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“But—back up. Visited the vampires?”

Baz half-smiles. “It’s a whole society. They’ve got a castle…”

He tells me about the Florence vampires, and his confidence grows as he talks. And I wonder if he’s ever been able to tell anyone about this before. Or talk about them like this—talk about vampires—in a positive way. It’s always something shoved down, pushed aside.

But I think Baz never looks so good as when he’s owning it. When he’s himself. Like when we walked into that bar to find Nicodemus. 

Like right now. It’s like a kind of magic, when he allows himself to be this way, openly; he goes all sharp and lovely and just a tinge unearthly. 

He said once no one chooses him as both; they want one without the other. 

I may have been the Chosen One but I’m choosing Baz now—exactly as he is, again and again. If I could have Baz again, really have him, and it came to an ultimatum between him and scones, or anything else… well. It wouldn’t even be a question, would it? 

I’ve missed him.

I’ve missed him like a home. If I ever had one, it was him. Can’t very well go back to Watford.

And now that we’ve had time to rebuild the foundation… 

Falling back into this feels as natural as breathing. It feels like my time trapped outside in the cold might finally end, and it’ll be there, same as always—a place where it’s safe and warm and comfortable and right.

I remember how, at the end of the summers, the door of Mummer’s House wouldn’t recognise me after so long. How I’d have to use magic or blood to get it to remember.

That’s how it feels now. Like we belong here, but we’re locked out. We have to get reacquainted first, refamiliarise ourselves.

And once we do, it’ll be easy. It’ll be like coming home.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

We eat and then I let Simon loose in the city for a few hours while I attend my last class before our holiday for Thanksgiving. (It’s tomorrow. We have the two days off because this is an American-run programme.) 

It’s my fashion design course, my favourite one. When I enter the studio, I pull out my wrinkled, rough sketch from earlier and my notes on the historical Gucci designs. 

I run a hand over my suit, which is currently draped on a mannequin. I’ve already done all the embroidery, constellations on a backdrop of deep blue. The trousers are almost done, with only the hems hanging loose. The gold waistcoat’s finished as well—I’ll just have to adjust the side seams. 

The jacket is a tuxedo-style. It’s still largely unstructured, since I haven’t sewn in the shoulder pads yet. (I’m not sure of the width I need.) I haven’t stitched on the dark blue velvet lapels yet; they’re draped over one shoulder. 

I picture Simon in the suit again and can’t help swooning. Internally.

The stars. They’re for him.

The Big Dipper, on the left breastpiece. Little Dipper, cradled in its embrace. On the right side, Orion, Perseus, Cassiopeia, the cluster of Pleiades. The North Star, right on the pocket. 

The back is scattered with the zodiac constellations. Simon’s split the middle: Cancer and Gemini. (I had to Google what his sign was—it would be embarrassing, except I don’t think cluttering one’s head with useless astrology dates is anything to be proud of.)

I pull the jacket off the mannequin and smooth the fabric out under a sewing machine. Professor Corsetti comes over halfway through to look over my shoulder. “It looks good, Basil,” she says.

Our professor is an older Italian woman who makes white hair look like it should be the newest trend. She’s always impeccably dressed, of course, in a style that’s at once classic and fresh. When we took a class trip to Milan Fashion Week last month, some of the designers knew her by name. 

“Thank you. I’m planning to incorporate this design,” I say, nudging over my sketch.

She makes a humming sound as she looks it over, and when I glance up, an amused smile graces her face. “Classy, yet unique,” she says. “I’d not expect anything less from you.”

Even in just a few months I’ve distinguished myself in the course. I asked Vera to teach me how to sew and spent the entire spring practising in preparation. I’m the only boy in the class, which means everyone already had their eye on me—so I planned to give them something to look at. 

My other pieces are complete, and I’ve completed all of their photo shoots as well. They’re mostly menswear, with a celestial theme. I had Shepard model two pieces a few weeks back. A sunburst red and orange suit, set against the backdrop of grey mountains outside the city. And a cloudlike garment with a suspended, gravity-defying look, all in white. I modeled one myself, as well: a silvery suit, with laser-cut phases of the moon engraved down the sleeves and lapels.

Our programme has a partnership with a few high labels. When we showcase our final pieces at the end of the term, one person’s collection is chosen by a panel of judges to be displayed at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. Right there in the window, for a whole week.

“Have you found a model yet?” Professor Corsetti asks.

“I think so,” I say, brushing my fingers lightly over the fabric. 

“Who?”

“A friend,” I say. “He’s visiting from home.”

“You said before you had someone specific in mind when you designed this,” she says. “Was it him?”

“Yes.” Stars. Deep blue. Simon’s own constellations on his skin. “It’ll look perfect on him.”

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Miraculously, Simon hasn’t blown anything up—at least not anything that would make the news—and his wings are hidden when we reunite in front of the Mercato. It’s a quarter to five and nearly dark already; the days are short this time of year. 

“You’re in one piece,” I say in mock-surprise. “And so is the city.”

He shrugs handsomely. “I went to the leather market. A lady told me I looked like a cherub.” He tugs at one of his errant curls. “Maybe it’s time for a haircut…?”

I reach out without thinking and pull his hand away. “It looks good like this.”

He stares at my hand around his wrist for a moment, then shakes it free. He reaches up into his hair again, pulling it up from the roots. “I was thinking an undercut.”

I only trust one person in this city to cut my hair, and I tell Simon so. (I don’t tell him how hot I think an undercut would look on him.) “I’m featured on his Instagram page. I can take you this weekend.”

He has his phone out already as we walk, pulling up my Instagram and going into the posts I’m tagged in. His eyes widen when he spots the selfie that Kostas took with me at the salon. “Is that him? He’s– uh…”

An insufferably attractive Greek man who looks like he could be my brother, but with shinier hair, greener eyes, and a beard? Not to mention a nice tan and no greyish vampire pallor?

“Sexy? Magnificent?” I suggest.

Simon goes red in the face. “I didn’t mean—”

“Entirely, completely your type?”

“Shut up, he just looks like an older version of you– Oh.” Simon pockets his phone and coughs. “Um. Then yeah, I guess.”

I’m delighted at the admission, but I decide to spare him the embarrassment and change the subject. “Are you up for a bit of a walk?”

“Only if there’s gelato involved.”

“Better.” As we near the water, I turn into a shop. Simon follows me to the wine aisle, bewildered.

“We’re buying wine? Since when is wine better than gelato?”

I have this romanticised vision of the two of us drinking wine on a hill overlooking the city, heads leaned together as we laugh. About what, I have no idea. 

In reality, the place we’re going will probably be clogged with tourists. But a man can dream.

“We’re getting wine and gelato.”

“Fine.” He stares at the wall of bottles. “But you’re choosing the wine. I don’t know the difference.”

I chuckle and pick out a medium-bodied Chianti. “Fine by me.”

We make our way towards the water, cutting east—toward the quieter part of the city—and cross a bridge. Then we turn off the main street into a mainly residential area. Off one street lined with houses, elevated past wrought-iron gates, is the pathway.

Rectangular stone bricks are laid together in a pattern on the ground, while the sides are flanked by low stone walls and trees. It looks like a trail to a secret garden, something hushed and hidden. The nearly full moon hangs bright overhead, lighting our way.

We emerge back up to the street, dotted with yellow streetlamps and the occasional car. The street is sheltered by the trees; they almost form a ceiling overhead, obscuring the darkening sky and the moon. 

“Looks like Watford,” Simon says, and I hum in agreement. This place has an intangible quality to it, close to the feeling of magic.

And there is magic in this city. It’s old. The very air buzzes with it, the cobblestones. I can feel it thrumming in me, always, like a heartbeat.

I don’t know if Simon can feel it. But he’s here, next to me, and he looks content. And I don’t want to break the spell.

The Piazzale Michelangelo itself is a stark contrast to the path—a bustling, touristy lookout point above the city. But it’s long past sunset and not tourist season anymore, so all of the buses have gone by now. Only a few people remain up here: stragglers, locals, and lovers.

We wind past the stalls selling souvenirs and a bronze cast of the statue of David (Simon spares him a double take, again) towards the terrace. A panoramic view of Florence greets us from the edge, drenched in moonlight. It’s splendid, capturing the heart of the city, the river, the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio. Bell towers and pillars and statues and cathedrals.

“Wow,” Simon says.

I lean my elbows on the wall and pop open the bottle of wine. (With magic, discreetly—I forgot a corkscrew.) I hold the bottle up, toasting to the city. “All tua salute,” I say.

Simon smiles at me.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

Is this a date? It feels like a date.

I guess this entire trip is one big date. Even if we didn’t intend it that way.

Maybe it’s the city. It’s spread out beneath us, sprawling like a forest of cream and rust. It’s well romantic. And it feels, I don’t know, magical—not magickal, just the plain old spark in the air that some places hold. Places with weight, with history, with whispers.

I don’t know. Maybe that is real magic, and most people never know it. 

Baz passes the bottle over, and I look at him as I take a sip. He watches my mouth when I wipe it off with the back of my hand. And suddenly the eye contact gets to be too much, and I lean over the railing like he’s doing, grasping the bottle in one hand, watching the city. I pass it back over to him without looking at him, and he takes a sip without looking at me.

We’ve lapsed into silence, but it’s companionable. I shift closer until we’re touching from elbow to shoulder.

It feels like we’re in our own bubble, in this corner of the world, in this quiet spot above the city. The voices chattering behind us seem to fade away and everything just narrows in on this.

On the winking city lights below us.

On the moonlit sky above us, clear now from the earlier clouds.

On my hand, floating out over the railing, inches away from Baz’s.

It’s an unspoken rule between us that we’ve honoured over the past two days—we don’t talk about what’s next. We don’t skirt around our history; we can’t. But we don’t say the other things we might like to. 

Like let’s try again. Let’s have this again.

Well, I did almost say that yesterday. I came close. I think we both want this again. Each other. I do. But I have to be sure that Baz wants it, too. 

Maybe he doesn’t. Want to be with me again, that is. Merlin knows I put him through enough the first time around… 

Baz glances at his watch. It’s 5:30. “Any minute now,” he says, breaking the silence.

“What?”

“A surprise,” he says. 

He keeps surprising me. With his smiles. With his words.

A few minutes later, I get my answer.

The moon’s been dipping lower and lower, and it’s setting brilliantly now. It’s huge in the sky, taking up more than its fair share of space, slowly turning orange in front of my eyes. The harvest moon. It’s beautiful.

It touches the city below with a bright, romantic haze. Casting new shadows and new colours on the buildings.

I glance at Baz and the sight of him makes my breath catch. He’s so close. And in the light of this moon, he’s shaded in mellow tones. He looks alarmingly human, his usual greyish tint overwritten by the warm orange glow gracing his skin.

I want to hold his hand. Or kiss him. Crowley, I do.

Instead I say, “It reminds me of that song.”

“What song?”

“You know.” I’m a horrible singer, but I attempt it anyway, quietly and off-key. “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie…”

I trail off. That’s amore.  

I know enough Italian to understand what that means.

Baz laughs, probably at my awful singing, and moves closer. “Do you know the next line?” And then he’s singing, in a lush, smooth tone, and of course his singing is perfect like the rest of him. Deeper and heavier than when he talks. “When the world seems to shine like you’ve had too much wine…” 

That’s amore.

He waggles the wine bottle in the air, and oh. He’s tipsy. 

He presses the cool glass to my lips, and I take the bottle from him and sip. “Have you had too much wine, Baz?”

“No,” he says. He leans into me and sighs. “But the world’s still shining.”

I love you.

I almost say it then. (As a sigh, as a whisper.)

Instead I reach out and intertwine our fingers.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

That’s amore.

Fuck, Simon. You still know how to do me in.

But this.

This is all I need.

This is everything.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

It feels right.

Like pulling on your old favourite jumper or settling into your spot on the sofa, the one with an indent for your bum.

I rest my head on Baz’s shoulder, and he leans his head onto mine. It’s a pose we used to fall into all the time when we were together. I used to resent his height advantage, but now it’s a perfect fit.

I feel warm and tipsy and young and infinite. Like when I was filled with magic, but it’s something else now, something close to the surface, sharper and headier. 

And here, in the most romantic city I’ve ever been to, standing beneath the light of the setting moon, we could be any two lovers. 

Neither of us move for a long, long time.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Chapter Text

Forever yours.

🌟

~Baz~

When we reach the landing at the top of the six flights of stairs leading to my flat, the door unlatches and opens before I even pull out my keys. 

“Hey, guys!” Shepard greets us with a goofy smile and an exaggerated toast with a half-empty bottle of beer. Terry’s leaning sideways against him, looking sleepy. He still hasn’t shaved off the stupid goatee. “Terry, Simon. Simon, Terry.”

“Er, nice to meet you,” Simon says.

“Terry’s another one of our flatmates,” I explain wearily.

Simon and I held hands almost all the way through dinner and dessert and all the way home. We talked, if only to break whatever fragile air was hanging between us. But not about anything important. Not about the future… 

He lets go, now. I was planning a romantic night in—or maybe a romantic night out, since I don’t have class tomorrow—but my flatmates seem to have other ideas for us.

“Come on,” Shepard says, ushering us in. 

“We have plans,” I say as sternly as possible. I grope around to my side for Simon’s hand again, but I can’t find it.

Shepard ignores me and bolts the door behind us clumsily. “Jeff and Maggie are waiting for us in the living room.” He glances back at Simon, who’s smiling in an affable sort of way, hands shoved in his pockets. “Jeff’s our other roommate. Maggie’s our, uh… friend. Sorta.”

I can barely stand Jeff. I can’t stand any of the three, really. Jeff has an offensive body odour—which I know isn’t reason to hate someone, but it’s like the man has never heard of deodorant. Terry’s a little too touchy for comfort, and Maggie is distrustful at the best of times. 

Shepard’s only bearable because he has an open mind, at least. And I’ve shared a room with much worse. (An open fire. A nuclear bomb.)

“Come on!” he says again, turning around in the hallway when we don’t immediately follow. He’s far too cheerful. “They really want to meet Simon.”

I sigh, resigned. Simon just looks at me and shrugs. “Why not?”

“We…”

“Just for a little while.”

(I’ve never been able to deny him anything.)

They’ve cleared the living room—not that there’s much to clear—and smoothed out the rug. Some kind of insufferable rap music is playing through a tinny speaker.

Maggie’s taking up a fair amount of space, red shawl pooled in a circle around her. Her bangles jingle as she looks up. “Basil,” she says. She narrows her eyes at Simon. “And who’s this?”

“Simon,” he says. “I’m Baz’s, uh. Friend. From home.”

Maggie’s eyes light up at the sound of his voice. “You’re British, too!” She glances back at me. “Friend, huh?”

I give her a flat look that says pretty clearly: Drop it. And she does. (She doesn’t like me much and would rather not speak to me when possible; it’s no secret.)

She pats the spot to her left. “Come sit down, Simon. Want wine? Beer?”

I don’t like the way she’s looking at him, but at least she forms a sort of human barrier between Simon and B.O. Jeff.

“I have wine for us,” I cut in before Simon can answer. (Because I don’t want him to get sick from mixing alcohols—and I don’t want him to have to drink whatever shitty beer they have on hand here.) 

Maggie jingles like a bloody field of cows when she gets up to fetch the drinks. I take a seat next to Simon. Shepard, rather than Handsy Terry, sits next to me—thank magic.

“Aren’t you lot leaving for Prague tonight?” I ask.

“Can’t wait to get rid of us, huh?” Terry says.

“Exactly.”

“We’re leaving in an hour or so,” Shepard says. “Figured we’d get drunk now, then sleep on the plane. Do you wanna hear our itinerary, it’s pretty cool—”

“No,” I say, just as Simon says, “Sure!”

I sigh as Shepard starts blathering on about all the sights they’ll see in Prague—the castle, the bridge, the astronomical clock—but I perk up when I hear him say something about vampires.

“What?”

He gives me a curious look over his glasses. “I said, I read online there’s a real vampire coven that hangs out there. Thought it might be cool to meet them.”

My blood runs cold. (Well, it’s always cold. Colder.)

“Why would you want to do that?” I snap.

He shrugs. “Seems interesting, and the sources were reliable—”

“Being hunted down and drained dry is interesting?”

I feel Simon’s steadying hand on my arm.

“Guys, come on,” Terry says. “Vampires don’t exist.”

“Wouldn’t be too sure,” Simon says jovially. I think he’s trying to keep the mood light, but I still feel like someone dropped a lead weight into my chest.

“Regardless of whether they’re real or not,” I continue smoothly, forcing my panic down, “my aunt got caught up in some dangerous business some years ago in Prague.”

“Sick,” Shepard says with a smile. “Was she looking for vampires?”

“She nearly died,” I say in my most menacing tone, but Shepard seems unfazed. “Don’t go looking for them.”

“I mean, it would be awesome to see a real vampire coven—”

“Just. Don’t.” 

I let my eyes narrow and flash dangerously. I must inadvertently push magic into the words, or maybe it’s a vampire thrall. (Do I even have that?) Either way, something works—Shepard throws his hands up in a defensive gesture. 

“Jeez, man, okay. We won’t look for the vampires.”

“Good.”

Simon squeezes my arm again, then lets go.

(Maybe I’ll take Shepard to meet the slightly-safer Florence vampires.) (Maybe.)

“Ready?” Maggie says. She tosses a few bottles of beer around the circle. “Let’s get fucking sauced.”

I barely hold back a derisive look. (I’m not sure I succeed.)

“We’re playing never have I ever,” Jeff announces. “Do y’all know what that is?”

I roll my eyes. “We live in England, not under a rock, Jeff.”

I stand up to fetch a bottle of wine for us; I’m committed now. (My competitive streak always wins out.) I whisper to Simon that we don’t have to stay, because the company is just short of hellish, but he just smiles and shrugs—he’s already made himself comfortable on the floor. I return with the wine, two glasses, and a real corkscrew this time and pop open the bottle.

“Alright, everyone hold up five fingers.”

Chomsky help me.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

Baz’s American roommates and their friend are a strange bunch, but I like them more than I expected. They seem… loose. Uninhibited. I’m not sure if that’s the American-ness or the alcohol.

Baz is wearing the expression he has when he’s nervous, but doesn’t want to show it. All pinched and sneering—people mistake it for haughtiness. Which I guess is what he wants. 

Anyway, I can tell—and then I think it’s funny that he’s nervous about a stupid drinking game. It’s not like someone’s going to say Never have I ever drained ten rabbits in one sitting and gotten a stomach cramp and made my boyfriend draw me a bubble bath.

Well. It is strange company. Anything’s possible.

The girl, Maggie, is looking at me like she already doesn’t like me by virtue of my association with Baz. And also a little like I’m something she wants to eat, which is unsettling. I think she’s our age, but she looks older—her hair’s dyed pure white. 

“I’ll start,” she says. She grins at Shepard and the two other guys—Terry and Jeff, I think. “Never have I ever used the condom vending machine outside this building.”

Condom vending machine?

They all drink, laughing, and Maggie raises an eyebrow and says, “Not like you actually have any use for them, though.”

“Could change that, Margaret.”

She mimes throwing up.

Jeff’s next. Baz is making a face at him—probably because he stinks a bit. It must be worse by tenfold with Baz’s vampire senses. 

“Never have I ever gotten drunk and almost fallen off the top of the Duomo,” Jeff says.

“You were there,” Terry protests as he, Shepard, and Baz drink. 

I shoot him a sceptical look. Baz? Falling off anything? Unlikely. He shrugs at me almost cheekily.

“I wasn’t drunk,” Jeff says.

“You’re the one who pushed us.” Terry rolls his eyes as he drinks, then looks at Shepard and says, “Never have I ever asked a waiter at a fancy restaurant if he was a fucking goblin.”

“He could have been a goblin,” Shepard insists. “His reflection was practically green.”

“Goblins aren’t real.”

“I know what I saw.”

Baz elbows me, so I grudgingly take a drink. It happened once. He smirks. “I’m on your side, Terry, but Snow can also swear he’s met a few goblin waiters.” I gape at him, and he raises an eyebrow. 

“Atta boy,” Shepard says. He leans over to fist-bump me, and I want the carpet to swallow me whole.

“Says they’re fit, too,” Baz continues. 

I hate him. I close my eyes, face flaming.

“Fit?” Shepard asks. “Like… muscular?”

Baz’s voice again, deceptively neutral. “Fit like handsome.” He takes a sip of wine, and he’s all trouble. “Staggeringly, unbelievably attractive.”

“I think you’ve had too much wine, Baz,” I say through gritted teeth.

I hate him.

“The waiter was,” Shepard says. “He looked like a movie star.”

“Maybe you should have hit on him, then,” Terry says in a sagely tone. “Instead of accusing him of being a dark creature.”

“But what if he was a goblin?”

Baz raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you’d prefer—?”

I snort.

“Shep’s right,” Maggie says. “You can’t be too suspicious these days.”

“Goblins aren’t real—” Terry says.

“We’re moving on,” Jeff announces. “Your turn, Shepard.”

“Fine,” Shepard says. “Never have I ever… um…” He takes a sip of his beer, stalling. “Uh. I’ve never…”

“There must be something,” Maggie says.

“Not a lot,” he says. “Uh.”

“Just do an easy one, like been arrested,” Terry suggests. “Or gotten kidnapped. Or met a wizard.”

Shepard takes his glasses off and cleans them with his shirt. “Yeah, so, uh, none of those will work. Actually, I have a story about that—the kidnapping, that is—so I was in Kansas last summer, and you know how summers are there, all dusty—”

Terry, Jeff, and Baz all groan at the same time and point to the kitchen table. 

Shepard looks affronted. “Come on, guys.”

“Jar,” Terry insists. 

Shepard grumbles and stands up, pulling a euro out of his jacket pocket and plinking it into a glass jar sitting on the table. It’s about half full of coins.

“What’s that for?” I ask.

“It’s like a swear jar,” Jeff explains, “but for any time Shepard starts oversharing with some unrelated story…”

“It wasn’t unrelated,” Shepard protests, plopping back down to the floor. He’s a chaotic flurry of limbs and denim. He frowns at his cuffs. “I’m going broke with this system.”

“Just do your turn,” Maggie says.

Shepard sighs. He puts his glasses back on and looks up, as if the ceiling’s going to tell him something he’s never done. “Uh. Okay, never have I ever… been to England.”

“Low-hanging fruit,” Baz declares. He lifts his near-empty glass, and I clink my own against it before we drink. “Alright. My turn.” His eyes cut over to me, and he smirks mischievously. “Never have I ever eaten an entire block of butter, like an animal.”

“Never have I ever gotten a stiffy just from watching someone eat a block of butter,” I fire back.

I hold in a laugh just as Shepard spits out half his beer and the others crack up. Baz sets down his empty wine glass with a clatter, the barest of indignant flushes on his face. “Unrelated events, Snow.”

“The grey joggers don’t lie, Pitch,” I respond, mimicking his patronising tone.

“Wait,” Shepard says to me. “You’re the origin of the butter thing?”

“What butter thing?!” I sputter.

Shepard bursts out laughing. “You really don’t know? When we moved in,” he starts to explain, then cuts himself off, laughing too hard to continue. 

Terry’s recovered. “Basil gave us a butter quota, citing some old roommate story involving butter.”

“We’re only allowed to have two blocks of butter in the fridge at any given time,” Jeff says.

“Baz, you’re joking,” I say.

“You remember what happened,” he says calmly.

I shake my head, and Maggie continues the game. She’s drinking white moscato straight from the bottle, and she waves it in the air like a pirate. 

“We have to spice this up a little, boys,” she says. Jeff’s leaning against her shoulder. He puts his hand on her knee, and she bats it off. “Not like that. Never have I ever…” She looks around for a moment, a calculating look on her face. “Had sex…”

“Maggie, shut the fuck up.” 

“Let me finish. With a guy,” she says with a proud flourish of her hand. She’s wearing multiple rings on every finger; I wonder how they stay on.

Sex. Does it count as sex if we didn’t— if we—

I wait to see what Baz does. He’s poured himself another full glass. I look at him, so he knows I’m looking— what am I doing?—and he downs half of it.

Okay, then. I reach for the wine bottle.

Well, but– maybe he had sex with someone else. In London, or here, at a club, or at uni…

He raises a coy eyebrow at me.

I drink. I only have one finger left up.

“Not fair,” Terry complains, pointing a wavering finger at Maggie. “Jeff’s the only straight one here.”

“That’s why I said it, dumbass. To get you all out.”

Shepard’s raising his hand. “Does it count if it was an immortal demon from the seventh—“

“Jar,” everyone says at once.

“It’s a valid question!” he protests. “I don’t know– well, okay, there was a Misgnomer once—”

Simon tilts his head with interest. “Misgnomer?”

Everyone glares at him. He shuts his mouth.

Shepard speaks up again, as timidly as I’ve heard him. “So does it count if—”

“Shepard!”

He sighs and takes a sip. “I’ll just cover all the bases.”

Jeff goes next. “Never have I ever threatened to bitch-slap someone outside the Gucci outlet.”

I turn left to look at Baz, who keeps a poker face as everyone else laughs. “Lies,” he says. “Slander.” But he drinks and puts down his last finger. “I win,” he announces.

“You lose,” Maggie corrects.

Shepard looks so pathetically confused and dejected that I want to reach out and pat him on the shoulder. “I’ve never lost this game before.”

“Still not how the game works,” Maggie says.

Baz crosses his legs the other way and pours himself more wine.

“Never have I ever made a very loud, uh, unsavoury sound because of a bowl of pasta,” Terry says.

“Man, it was one time. Just slipped out,” Maggie says. She giggles, and I notice her bottle’s near empty. “Couldn’t help it, that pasta was orgasmic.”

“Where’s this pasta?” I ask.

Baz hides an undignified snort behind his hand and Maggie says, “The Mercato.”

“We should go,” I tell Baz, and he ducks his head in what I assume is secondhand shame. 

“I like this one,” Maggie says. I think she’s talking about me.

Shepard hasn’t spoken in a minute, but it’s his turn now. He’s drained his beer and he looks a little somber. I wouldn’t have pegged him as a sad drunk, but maybe he’s torn up about Baz winning. He rubs his eyes under his glasses.

“Never have I ever… um, been in love,” he says.

My heart beats in my throat. I look down at my drink. Then look at Baz—I can’t help it. He’s looking back at me. And then he looks away quickly.

We never said it, but… 

But.

I’ve been in love with Baz for a long time. I never knew how to tell him.

I never stopped.

It’s been almost a year since we were together. I think it’s time to be brave again, and maybe a little stupid.

So I drink.

Our eyes meet again, and the moment is electrifying.

Baz isn’t in the game anymore, but he lifts his wine glass to his lips.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Simon smashes his face against mine the second the bedroom door shuts. 

He’s nearly attacking me, crowding me with his broad shoulders, pressing me to the door. His wings are out wide, filling my vision. 

And Merlin, Methuselah, eight snakes and a fucking dragon—it’s better than I remember.

It’s a rough kiss, aggressive and hot, sending pinpricks searing across my skin. Simon’s hands are on my waist, rucking up my shirt, callused fingers grazing my hipbones. He pushes, and I push back. He bites at my lips, tugs my hair, shoves his chest flush with mine. I shiver as I feel the all-too-familiar curves and edges of his body against me, setting fire to every cell.

It’s a kiss steeped in desperation, in something that feels like hope and hopelessness all at once. Like he’s trying to touch every part of me; to unearth the hidden rooms of my heart he knows he’s meant to inhabit. 

Kissing— I’ve missed kissing. I’ve missed kissing Simon. I’m dissolving into this feeling. My hands make their way to his waist without my permission, pulling him closer. A small sound escapes his mouth, and everything’s hot as his lips move against mine harder, deeper.

And fuck, it’s so good, it’s so good, but what the hell are we doing?

I wrench myself away with every ounce of willpower I’ve got. It leaves me dizzy. “Simon—”

He freezes and looks at me with wide eyes. “Oh, fuck. Did you not want…”

I want, I want.

“No,” I say. “I mean, yes. I mean…”

I mean, I love you.

“Sorry,” he says. He takes a step back and rubs at his jaw, embarrassed.

“No,” I say again. I feel the loss of his heat with a pang; my body craves to be connected to his again. I barely stop myself from moving forward. “No. Simon. It’s just.” 

I feel stunned, starstruck. My lips are tingling. And everything’s so fucking infused with magic and wine and love and heartsickness. And all I want to do is to stop talking and kiss his idiot face.

He looks crestfallen and I can’t bear it. “What?” he says.

“This is… ” I try to explain. Finding the right words and getting them out feels like trying to swim through honey. And my head is imploding with the image of Simon, drinking to being in love. To being in love with me. 

This is right. This is all wrong. 

Because I don’t know— I don’t know anything. What this makes us. What he’s getting at, here. What he’s saying. What he’s not saying. If he really wants me again or if he’s just being Simon Snow and charging full speed ahead without sorting out his feelings. 

If he’s going to pretend this didn’t happen in the morning.

“Kissing,” he says simply. “Just kissing.”

“Not just,” I say.

Not when it’s you, Simon Snow.

Not when it’s this important.

He blinks at me with stubby dark eyelashes. 

“Not just,” he agrees, softly. I meet his gaze dead-on. His eyes hold both a question and an answer. 

Yes, Simon. I’d give you anything you want. 

“We should talk about it,” I finally manage.

Simon finally comes closer, brushing his hands down my shoulders until his fingers twine with mine. It’s dark in here save for the soft light from the street outside, and every shape seems to blur together. “Right now?” 

“Tomorrow. Promise.” It comes out as a whisper. 

Promise this isn’t just for tonight. Promise to let me back in tomorrow.

He shifts forward, his forehead tilting forward to lightly meet mine. His curls tickle my brow; the mellow scent of his skin permeates everything. I lean into the embrace; I can’t tell where Simon ends and I begin.

The kiss is sweeter this time, syrupy. His mouth is warm and loose. Our lips slot together and it heals an ache I’d grown so used to harbouring. Something like relief drips down my spine at its absence after all this time. 

It could be like this. You don’t have to hurt.

He pulls back. He hasn’t answered; he hasn’t promised. “Baz, I—” He swallows, blinks, looks down. “Do you really want this?” he asks.

How can he be so unsure? How can he not know that I’d cross every line for him?

I smooth over the crease in his brow with my thumb. “Yes,” I say.

“You want me?” His voice has taken on a low, warm tone—it’s one that only ever comes out in the bedroom. His eyes are blazing into mine, with passion—and also with uncertainty. 

“Always, Simon,” I whisper back, and I don’t get to say anything else because he’s surging up to meet my mouth with his. The kiss is tender and soft this time, almost hesitant. As if we’re learning each other again. Memorising.

It makes my heart ache, the idea that I could have him once more.

But maybe I don’t.

You want me?

Because I don’t know if Simon meant that in an enduring way—(I want him back, I want him again)— or if he just meant right now.

Maybe I just have him for tonight. Just for this moment.

Simon is everything surrounding me, and we’re kissing and kissing. My hands are in his hair, his holding tight around my waist. We’re walking backwards and falling onto my bed, reorienting our bodies around each other. Closer, closer.

He fumbles with my belt. I lift up his shirt, press bruises to his ribs, set my bare hips over his. Clothes on the floor. My hands in his hair. His touch searing my stomach, the knobs of my back, the insides of my knees.

I’m kissing his face and his moles and his neck with an urgency and fervor I didn’t know I had in me. 

And he’s doing the same. Getting his fill.

So maybe it is the last time. Maybe it’s just this once.

Simon

I make love to him like it’s the first time. (It’s not.)

Baz

I make love to him like it’s the last time. (It might be.)

Simon

Like I’m going to lose him. (I can’t.)

Baz

Like I have him to keep. (I don’t.)

Simon

Like he’s still mine. (He’s not.)

Baz

Like I’ll always be with him. (I won’t.)

Simon

Like I want him with me, forever. (I do.)

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Chapter Text

we cross over.

🌟

~Baz~

When I wake up, blinking at the soft light spilling into the room, I feel warm and safe.

I’m naked. So is Simon—he’s splayed out on top of me, his stomach resting against mine, his wings stretched out over the sides of the bed. His cheek is pressed to mine, damp breaths falling into the space between my ear and my shoulder.

I can feel every bit of his exposed skin touching every bit of mine, but it’s not scary. It feels secure. Like he’s a weighted, winged blanket, and he’ll keep me safe from harm’s way. 

It feels right. Even if he is crushing my ribs.

I shake out one numb arm, then the other, being careful not to wake him. And then I loop them around his body and hug him to me. Tighter, if it’s possible.

If he thinks I’m ever letting him go, he’s wrong.

The fear and uncertainty of last night seems to dissipate in the morning glow, in the clear memory of what happened. I want to believe that Simon is mine again—I think he is. His actions, at least, seemed to say it…

It wasn’t just sex, that much is clear. It was more. Something infused with starlight and honey. Something achingly intimate; something real.

We need to talk.

But for now, we can cuddle. I can just have this.

It’s almost overwhelming, how consuming Simon Snow still is.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

I wake up in Baz’s arms. His fingers rest in the arch of my back, cool against my skin. One hand strokes up my spine, stopping to rest in my hair. He plays with my curls, explores the bones of my shoulders, the tender joints where my wings meet my skin. I pretend to be asleep; I allow myself to sink into the sensation.

He stops when he notices I’m awake. I don’t want him to stop. It’s been so long since he touched me like this, with so much care and attention. It used to scare me, being mapped out, being defined. But it’s better now. It’s just Baz, after all, and the way he’s touching me—like I’m staying, not like I’ll evaporate away in an instant—makes me feel grounded. 

I blink my eyes open. His fingers graze over my eyebrows, dance along my cheekbones. He looks at me like he’s unsure. I want him to be sure of me, but I don’t know how to tell him. (I could show him, in a million different ways. I don’t know if he’ll understand.)

“Baz,” I murmur, and I close my eyes again and relax.

He hasn’t started up again. “Yes?”

Keep going. (Never stop.)

“Mornin’,” I mumble. 

I feel his soft laugh vibrate through me. “Good morning, Simon.”

I want to nestle into where I belong, fit myself back where Baz’s body seems to hold spaces just for me. But he doesn’t continue, and the spell seems to have broken. So I reluctantly shift off of him instead—and fall directly onto the floor. Of course. 

Baz’s surprised, unguarded laugh is worth it.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

When I return from my shower, Simon’s scrolling through Instagram. He sets his phone down and looks up, finding my face in the mirror. “Happy Thanksgiving, Baz.”

I shoot him a dry look as I unravel my microfiber towel turban. “We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, we’re not American,” I say. “And it’s basically celebrating colonialism and genocide, so forgive me if I’m not all that interested.”

“You sound like Penny,” he grouses. “What about the food, though? We can do the food thing, right?”

I roll my eyes. “We can do the ‘food thing.’ Though I doubt we’ll find turkey here.”

He grins and bounces a little on the balls of his feet. “As long as we get to stuff ourselves silly, I don’t care what it is.”

“You stuff yourself silly anyway,” I drawl. “You don’t need Thanksgiving as an excuse.”

“Pasta!” he says as if it’s an epiphany. “Thanksgiving pasta!” He’s attempting to tame his unruly hair, but it’s a nest. (It’s partially my fault. Alright, mostly my fault.) He picks up my comb and runs it through, but it snags and only makes it worse.

“Pasta,” I agree. “Go and shower, your hair’s a mess. Use my leave-in conditioner.” 

Simon drops a kiss on my cheek as he walks by.  

I stare in the mirror like I’m in a dream. 

Sex and sleepy morning cuddles were manageable. Acceptable. Something I could understand and come to terms with.

But for some reason, the way Simon has just fallen into the casual, comfortable intimacy we once had is almost too much to bear.

It’s been so long since we’ve had that. We had it so fleetingly.

It speaks volumes to how far he’s come.

Maybe I should invite myself into Simon’s shower. Instead, I cross over to Shepard’s side of the room and wrench open the window. I dangle my hand out and it comes back wet with rain.

It’s late, by Simon’s standards; I wonder if he was awake already, only pretending to be asleep, enjoying the feeling of being in my arms.

I’d like to imagine so.

I get dressed, taking extra care with my outfit, since we’ll be taking a lot of photos today. I’m draping an emerald-green scarf around my neck when Simon comes back in, toweling off his legs as he toddles forward. He’s stark naked and dripping water everywhere.

He straightens up, makes brief, awkward eye contact with me, then says, “Um,” and wraps the towel around his waist again. 

It’s not as if it actually makes a difference.

But it is. Different, I mean. In the light of day. 

I clear my throat. But then I realise I have nothing to say.

“Are you wearing—” Simon blinks at me a few times, and I blink back. He’s so bloody distracting, always has been—and right now he’s all freckled shoulders and soft, broad lines and I’m just about ready for round two. “Um. That?” he finally asks.

I roll my eyes and adjust my leather trench coat. It’s a bit extra, but no more than my usual levels. “Are you wearing that?”

He grins in a lopsided sort of way. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you.” 

Where did this sudden cockiness come from? I hate it. (I love it.)

He stoops over to rifle through his bag, and I trace the ridges and folds of his wings with my eyes, the soft wrinkles of his bare stomach. “I only brought like two nice jumpers,” he says into his bag. “And one of them’s not even really mine.”

I’ve started to make my bed, and I’m losing what feels like a wrestling match with the tangled sheet. I give up and spell it flat instead. “What do you mean?”

Simon holds up a very familiar-looking blue and white Scandinavian jumper.

He tried to give it back when we broke up, but we’d already spelled the garment to accommodate his wings. He asked me to spell it back, but it didn’t work. (You have to actually want something to return to the way it was if you use Good as new. My heart wasn’t in it. He looks too delicious in that jumper.)

I’m surprised he still has it.

I’m about to open my mouth, but this marks the second time this morning (and possibly in my life) that I’m unsure what to say.

“Might clash, though,” Simon says. He gives my outfit another once-over, then picks up his second jumper, a soft-looking purple thing I’ve not seen before. Not quite Watford purple—a little less vibrant. (And less garish—I’m allowed to say that now I’ve graduated.)

“That’s perfect,” I say, because it is. And because I can’t believe he’s just said that. Simon’s never cared about matching or clashing—last year, he wore nothing but grey trackie bottoms with grey sweatshirts. Then again, I suppose that’s also a form of matching. A bad one.

It occurs to me he never cared about how he dressed because he didn’t have any clothes. He told me about that, once. How his Watford uniform was one of his first real possessions.

“Penny gave it to me for my birthday this year,” he says. He pulls on a white undershirt (I know. I’m shocked), then tugs the jumper over his head, setting his curls bouncing again. His wings fold, unfold, and push through the back. The fabric shimmers with magic, separating and knitting itself back together. “It’s charmed to fit perfectly.”

It clings to his chest in all the right places.

“You look good,” I say. Can I say that now?

“So do you,” he says, looking up at me, “but you don’t need me to tell you that.”

“I like to hear you say it, Snow.”

He grins at me. “Conceited git.”

Great snakes. Is this what flirting is supposed to feel like? 

This feels soft. Almost wrong. But Simon…

He used to be a fucking nuclear bomb. Something raw and untamed. You’d see it in his eyes, how dangerous he was. His stance: Don’t fuck with me. (I did. Incessantly.)

And what comes after that, when you’re drained of the very thing that gave you your hard edges, your confidence?

He’s put his trousers on. His hand brushes mine as he walks over.

He’s not the fallout. He’s not a hole. Or whatever’s left.

He’s just Simon.

(Not just. Never just, not with him.)

“Here. It’s cold out.” I pull a coat from my closet and cast Calza a pennello on it so that it’ll fit Simon—and make space for his wings, if he wants to have them out. He watches me as I do it, wide-eyed. 

“I have a coat.”

“It’ll match your new jumper,” I say. 

He rolls his eyes and grumbles, “This is a posh wanker coat, for the record,” but shoulders it on anyway, retracting his wings in a blur. The coat is a honey-brown, almost the same colour as his hair. A sliver of skin on his neck forms a barrier between the two. He turns toward the mirror and blinks up at me through his eyelashes. He looks so handsome that I have to turn away.

And then I remember that I don’t have to, so I tip forward and kiss him instead. He smiles against my mouth.

I still don’t quite know what we’re doing. Or what we are, right now. But I cast the rain spell again, and we leave to greet the day, hand in hand.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

We’re walking on Via Roma again, the main street that’s full of lights and Christmas decorations. (The romantic street—I haven’t forgotten. But we still haven’t been at night.)

As we walk down, I tick off the high-end shops—Prada, Armani, Louis Vuitton. Baz turns into a large department store. The building is completely draped in tiny white lights.

“Aren’t we going to breakfast…?” I ask.

“Oh ye of little faith.” He winds us through the clothing racks towards a lift at the back. We ride up to the top floor, emerging onto a rooftop terrace dotted with small tables, umbrellas, and chairs. We’re seated at a table near the edge, and I look out to see a huge plaza with an arched landmark-looking structure and a merry-go-round. 

“The food’s not the best,” he says, “but the view’s nice.”

“It’s– yeah. Wow.”

The square is so pretty in the rainy morning light; misty, with blurred lines and slick, shiny edges. The buildings form a perfect ring around the spacious cobblestone centre.

I hear a slight chattering as I read the menu and look up. There aren’t any heaters; Baz must be freezing. “Cold?” I ask.

“A bit,” he says, wrapping his coat tightly around himself. (I’ve shrugged mine off.)

I raise my eyebrows. “Oh. Pity you’re not a mage.”

He rolls his eyes at me, but covertly slips his wand out of his sleeve. I grin smugly.

“Nothing to see here,” he whispers. The spell doesn’t catch—people are still occasionally glancing this way. Baz groans. “It never works in this blasted country.” He frowns and consults his notes app. “Menefreghista,” he says, waving his hand in a broad motion, then glances around. “Did that work? I haven’t figured one out yet that works consistently.”

I shrug. 

Then I hand him my coat. (Well, his coat.) “Take this.”

He drapes it over his front like a shawl. He looks adorable. Like a numpty. (Though I won’t tell him that—it’ll definitely hit a nerve.)

“So… the magic’s weird here,” I note. 

Baz perks up, suddenly animated. Or maybe he’s just warmer. “Casting’s just harder in a foreign language. It’s different here.” He adjusts his coats, sitting up a little straighter. “Elocution-wise, yes, but the spells here are also unbelievable. Everything’s so steeped in history. And in terms of drawing power, it’s as if…” He catches my eye and cuts off mid-sentence. “Sorry.”

“As if?” I say. I’d been enthralled by his rambling. It reminded me of how he used to be at Watford—how excited he’d get about magic. Like that first time he and Penny started to become friends.

“Never mind.”

“Finish your sentence.”

He looks up at me with a measure of concern higher than what I think the situation warrants. “You never liked it when I talked about magic. After…”

I snort. “Baz, I live with Penelope Bunce. I can’t avoid it. I’m fine with it now. Really.”

“Really?”

I don’t think he needs to know that I still cry about losing my magic sometimes—or worse, stare numbly into empty space for hours on end, just trying to remember something, anything. I don’t need to tell him I’ve kept my wings and tail not just because I do sort of like them, now—but because they’re the last part of me that’s magic. (And that I feel, sometimes, like I pushed all my magic into them, and maybe it’ll flow back into me someday.) That I used to spend entire days calling the Sword of Mages over, and over, and over, hoping.

But he’s so excited about the magic here. I rarely see him like this. And it is getting better, and this is another one of those things—caring about what Baz cares about.

So I lean forward across the table, resting on my elbows. “Really. I want to know.”

He bites his lip, then finally says, “The English spells feel strange here. Further away, as if you’re standing in one sea and trying to catch a fish from another.”

“Have you even ever been fishing?”

He glares at me. “It was a metaphor.”

“Right, but you could’ve used a metaphor that actually applies to you.”

Baz rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “It’s as if… you’ve worked on a car, and you know you’ve done everything perfectly, but when you go to start up the engine, it doesn’t work. How’s that?”

“Better.”

“They feel… distant,” he continues. “And liable to slip through your fingers—I never know which ones will work.”

“What about Italian spells, then?” I ask.

He laughs dryly. “I don’t have mastery of the language. So it’s like trying to take an exam I haven’t studied for. Which you’d know all about, Snow…”

“Shut up,” I grumble.

“When they do work, it’s like drawing from a deeper well than usual,” he muses. 

“You’re really into the metaphors today.”

“How else am I to maintain my air of drama and mystery?” 

“You and I both know it’s long gone,” I tell him.

“I resent that.”

“You have designated pants for each day of the week,” I deadpan. “Sorry if I’m not intimidated.” 

Baz smiles like he’s trying not to. “Were you ever?”

“Hmm…” I pretend to think about it. “Once.”

“Only once? When?”

“In the vampire club.” It’s an honest answer. I’ve never seen Baz look so cool; so confident in the middle of what was actually a desperate situation. Smoking in a room full of vampires. 

It’s the night I was forced to face how attractive he really was.

I mean, I’d always known it—objectively—but when it was staring me in the face like that, in the form of Baz Pitch in a suit and looking more comfortable in his own skin than I’d ever seen—I couldn’t exactly ignore it anymore.

“I wasn’t so intimidating after,” he says, smiling a little wistfully. 

The first time I saw him cry.

The forest on fire.

The first time we kissed.

“No,” I agree softly. “You were— I…”

It’s when I fell in love.

Or it’s when I knew I was in love.

“You were everything,” I say, and it sounds kind of final and sad to me, but Baz looks up anyway and meets my eyes. “And it was easy back then.”

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Simon swallows and then rests his chin on his hands, as if holding his head up is suddenly too much effort.

It was easy back then.

Maybe for him. The old Simon who acted first and asked questions later. The old Simon who was so moronic he didn’t even realise he wasn’t straight until he kissed me—

It’s idiocy to mourn who he was. (Who we were.) If life had gone according to plan, somehow—if there had been another way…

There’s no use thinking about it. There’s no guarantee we’d have stayed together, even if Simon hadn’t lost his magic and Ebb and the Mage. (And any other way… it would probably have meant one of our deaths.)

This is going to be okay.

Maybe we’ll be alright. We’ll flirt and banter again and not speak about the things tugging at us beneath the surface. And maybe everything from now on will be laced with threads of grief, of longing for what could have been.

I’m used to that.

Or maybe there’s no use thinking about it. Having regrets. If I’d spent all my time wishing I wasn’t a vampire or wishing my mother was alive I’d never have lived; I’d never have grown.

If we reset—no expectations, no thinking about the past. I don’t know if it’s possible. 

But the past has trapped us so hopelessly before.

(There must be a happy medium. Somewhere.)

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

I feel horrendously vulnerable. I wrap Simon’s (my) coat a little tighter around myself. (I feel like a numpty, complete with stony expression.)

He presses, without a word—with his squinty blue eyes.

“Italian spells,” I lie.

“No.”

“Do you really want to know the gory details of my emotional chaos right now, Snow?”

“Simon,” he insists.

“Simon,” I huff, and he’s still glaring at me, and he’s still so endearing. “I think we shouldn’t… talk about the past.”

He shrugs like he used to, sending a pang of nostalgia through me, and nods. “If that’s what you want.” He grabs my hand, suddenly, and starts running his thumb over my knuckles. He smiles, and it’s something made of fragile hope. “Tell me more about the spells, then?”

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

I can’t believe I’ve suggested magic— again— but I needed to see that light return to Baz’s eyes. And it really is working to distract him. And even I’m feeling better.

“So in summary, Italian’s older and more closely related to Latin than English.” Baz is rambling on now like a professor at a lecture. (He’s been going for ten minutes.) “It makes for some exceptionally powerful spells.”

“Like what?”

“You can kill someone with a word,” he murmurs. “Bring holy lightning down from the sky with a prayer.”

“But you can’t warm yourself up,” I say, smirking.

“Like you could,” he snaps. 

I flinch back without meaning to. 

Baz’s face falls into panic. “Oh, Crowley. Sorry– I didn’t mean–” He presses fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, Simon.”

He called me Simon. Again. (He did last night, so many times. Moaning and whispering and whimpering my name until it barely seemed like a word anymore…) 

“Stop that.” I tug his hand away from his face. And then I keep it, threading my fingers between his. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not.” His eyebrows knit together. “It was rude. And insensitive.”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s helpful.”

“No,” I say. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, it was, but– it’s still fine.” He arches a brow, but doesn’t say anything. I continue. “Because…” 

Because secretly, I’m glad he could say that. That he felt comfortable enough to tease me. Because before it was all walking on eggshells. Nothing but sensitivity, and it felt awful. Like everyone was tiptoeing circles around me. 

I don’t want that anymore. Not with Baz, where the most comfortable place is us griping at each other.

“...because it’s good,” I finally say. I’ve never been good at putting these complicated feelings into words. “That you can say things like that. Freely. Without worrying about me. If I’m going to… have a meltdown or something.” I shake my head. “It’s still not the best, thinking about my magic. But it’s… better than before.”

Baz squeezes my hand, still looking concerned. “Talking about feelings? Who are you and what have you done with Simon Snow?”

I laugh. “I’m serious.”

“You keep surprising me,” he says softly, and it’s funny because I’ve been thinking the same thing about him. And then he smiles loftily. “And I swear to do nothing but insult you for the rest of the trip.”

I scowl. “That’s not what I said.”

His smile just grows wider, and it’s beautiful. I bridge the gap between us, leaning over the table to kiss him.

No one’s looking, anyway.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Breakfast takes longer than expected, because we end up sitting and just talking for half an hour before either of us realise that my earlier spell actually did work, and that’s why no one’s coming to take our order.

I’m afraid to ask him outright. Do you love me, Simon? Will you break my heart again?

He drank, last night. Who else would he have been in love with? Agatha, I suppose…

He watched me drink. Even though I was already out of the game. He knows it was about him. He knows, and it didn’t scare him off.

Simon showed me all of him last night. His body and his wings and his soul. He’s beautiful naked—like an angel. If I could make a marble statue of it, I would. I’d do a study of the place his wings meet his back, the way they flow from him as if they were always meant to be there.

Last night was… vulnerable it was compared to how it used to be. How open it was—effortless, even. I’m not naive enough to believe that everything’s fixed. Like he said… it hasn’t ever been that easy for us since that first night we kissed. Since everything began. 

But now… 

I never stopped loving Simon. And I hope with all I am that he, too, has loved me all along. But we seem to have found something, now. The key, the magic word. 

Promise to let me back in. 

I think he finally has.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

Baz thumbs through his phone. “No service,” he says idly.

“What do you need?”

“The itinerary.”

I stare at him. “You made an itinerary?”

“Of course I made an itinerary. You couldn’t have a proper visit without one…”

It shouldn’t shock me that he’s so prepared, but it still comes as a bit of a jolt that he put time into planning my visit. I don’t know why I keep letting it surprise me that he actually cares about me. That he thinks ahead, when it comes to us. (Though I suppose there’s good reason for why that’s a tough one to swallow.)

“What’s next, then?” I ask.

I follow him back down to the plaza, then through the busiest part of the city, alive with sounds and awash in mid-morning light. We walk past the carousel, more designer clothing stores, tourist shops selling postcards and trinket versions of the Duomo and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

The buildings are yellow and brick, everything fitting together like a matched set. It’s stopped raining, and the cobblestones are slippery beneath our feet. Baz’s hand is cold in mine, his fingers brushing along my knuckles. I shove both of our hands into my coat pocket so his can be warm.

He’s telling me about his boring economics classes (because I asked. I regret it) and I finally find an opening when he pauses in the middle of something about demand curves. 

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going, then?”

He grins. Slyly. “That would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?”

Plotting. It’s what he does best. Plots a whole itinerary, then won’t even tell me his plan. “If you’re taking me to buy clothes, I swear…” 

Baz laughs, pressing his shoulder to mine. “I promise I’m not deceiving you into a visit to a clothing shop.”

His hand’s warming up in mine, and his arm feels so solid against me, and his laugh is so sweet and familiar, and I’m suddenly overcome with… something. 

I stop walking abruptly and yank him bodily into a tiny alleyway to our right. We crash into a hedge, lose a fight with the hedge, and eventually come out the other side in a secluded space between two buildings.

Baz glares at me in annoyance. He spits a leaf out of his mouth. “What is it?”

“I need to stretch my wings out.” 

It’s a pathetic excuse and a bad lie. But now I’ve said it and I can’t take it back, so I make sure we’re hidden from view before pushing them out of my coat. (Baz’s coat.) I flare them up, then draw them down to my back.

“Is that seriously all—?”

I kiss him.

Baz blinks at me. “Simon—”

I kiss him again, because I’m a cliché and I like shutting him up with kisses. I don’t stop until I accidentally back him into the brick wall of one of the buildings and step on his toes, sending us both stumbling across a few cobblestones and right back into the infernal hedge. And then I lean us into the prickly fucking hedge and kiss him again.

Baz is trying not to laugh and failing miserably. “You’re incorrigible.”

His lips are cold. I need to warm them up. 

I stand us up, push him back against the wall. It’s hotter than it has any right to be, the way I have him pinned, the way we’re so close I need to tilt my head up to reach his mouth. I take his hands in mine and shove them into the folds of my coat. They land on my arse. (I don’t mind.)

When he pulls back, he’s looking at me with rapt eyes. “You never kissed me in public before,” he says. A bit breathlessly. I try not to feel too smug about it and pretty much fail. 

But it never felt like this before, I want to say. Like kissing was a release rather than a suffocation. 

I never felt this light.

Not for a while, at least. Since we first got together, maybe…

Like it was something I could do in public, and know you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me.

“Never kissed you in Italy before, either,” is what I decide to say.

“You literally kissed me last night,” he counters. “In Italy.”

“Never kissed you in an Italian alley behind an evil, possibly sentient hedge,” I correct. I try to lift an eyebrow like he does. “How’s that for never have I ever?”

“Evil, possibly sentient hedges are few and far between,” he agrees. “I’ll bet even Shepard hasn’t met one.”

Baz’s hands slide into my back pockets, and our noses are touching. (His is so cold it almost feels wet. It should be gross, but I can’t bring myself to feel gross about anything Baz.) He makes no effort to move, so I just close my eyes and let him kiss my forehead and my eyelids.

My wings melt back into my shoulders. Baz’s hands move to catch the point of connection, rubbing over my angel bones under my coat.

“Let’s go,” he murmurs.

“Do we have to?”

I could do this all day. Kiss Baz in a hidden alleyway awash with golden light, chill wind in our hair, the chatter and music of the city surrounding us. But apparently he has to do sensible things like have plans.

We battle courageously with the hedge and emerge victorious on the other side. Baz untangles his arm from beneath my coat. I snatch his hand up again and lace our fingers together. I like my thumb on top, he likes his on the bottom. (It’s not a euphemism.) (Okay, it’s kind of a euphemism.) 

The point is, sometimes it’s those little things, those seemingly insignificant things that work out perfectly—and they reassure you that yes, this is right. See, even this small thing is right.

It feels so right. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

We end up at the water. Near the Ponte Vecchio, which we cross, peeking into jewelry stores as we go. Halfway across, we pause under large stone arches. Sunlight pours in, sparkling across the water, casting pools of oval-shaped light on the flagstones of the bridge.

Simon drags me to the edge. “You live here,” he says, shaking his head in wonder. We’re literally bathed in white-gold light. It’s stupidly beautiful, like I’ve walked into some inanely cheesy romance film and this is the morning after scene.

I peck him on the cheek, because I can.

We practically skip down the rest of the bridge. (Me, skipping—it’s pathetic.) Hooking a right, we stumble across a small garden along the water, spilling over with purple and white flowers. Simon falls into a flurry of them, laughing. He looks so bright—so alive— all his colours match. I feel silly, but I snap a photo of us anyway.

(I didn’t get dressed up in a fucking leather trench coat for nothing.) (And if I’m going to lend clothes to Simon, I may as well reap the benefits.)

Simon tugs me. He’s always tugging me places, like he’s forgotten how to say “come over here” or “this way.” I think it’s how he shows affection.

So I let him tug me, though it’s abundantly clear he has no idea where he’s going. It’s even more clear when he finally stops in the middle of the street and says, “Where are we going?”

“Boboli Gardens,” I answer.

“Booby what?”

I choke on a laugh. “They’re landscaped gardens, with terraces, fountains, and an outdoor museum.”

Simon pulls a face. “I thought you said no more museums.”

“When did I say that? I’d never promise that.”

He heaves a sigh. “Can’t say I didn’t try.”

“You won’t fool me that easily.” I raise my eyebrows. “Anyway, you can fly there, if they’re empty enough.”

Simon perks up at that. “All right, I forgive you for the museum.”

He smiles and shoves our joined hands into my coat pocket and lets me lead the way, and I’ve never been more in love.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

As it turns out, I was right—at least, if the amount of statues of naked women is any indication. I point this out to Baz (“And here I thought they weren’t Booby Gardens”) and he seriously looks around in surprise, as if he hasn’t noticed we’re surrounded by naked breasts. (I mean, maybe he hasn’t.)

We’re strolling down a trail surrounded by perfectly rectangular hedges, passing a literal palace to our left, and Baz nods at an obelisk we’re approaching amidst a ring statues inset in the circular walls. “That’s more… aligned to my preferences.”

I choke on a snort so loud a nearby pigeon startles away. Baz tucks in his lips, holding back a laugh.

We continue down winding paths, passing the occasional tourist or ivory statue on a pedestal. It feels like a maze, like something from a video game. We walk down paths flanked with trees so high and so thick they feel like hallways. A few stubborn leaves cling to the branches, while the ground is a blanket of brown and orange.

Eventually, we emerge into another cleared, manicured area featuring a circular pond and a fountain. (With a naked man, this time.) (Maybe a Roman god?) 

Baz is doing this thing with our tangled-together hands. Running the tips of his fingers lightly over my knuckles, back and forth. It makes me shiver. His fingers are callused from years of violin, an unexpectedly rough part of him. I wonder if he still plays.

“Simon,” he says, just as we walk up large, sloped stairs and enter another hushed pathway. I watch him carefully; he looks just shy of saying something, like he had a thought then stopped himself. 

“Yeah?”

This garden is an actual maze. We pass another clearing decorated with ivory statues, then a secluded area with nothing but a giant, creepy wooden face in the corner. Golden light shining through half-barren trees; fairytale paths to nowhere.

“What’s the long story?” he finally says. “With your wings. When did you find out you could do that?”

I answer the easy part first. “Not too far back. September, maybe…”

We crest another little paved hill as I tell Baz about therapy, about how I had to set a timer and stare at myself in the mirror for one minute, then two, five, ten. Let myself be seen, be known—but not by Baz. By myself.

It’s a relief to finally talk about this with him. 

“I just… had to stop thinking of my wings as this ‘other’ thing,” I explain. “These things that made me horrible or less.” It’s not hard to tell Baz all of this. It’s just hard to find the right words. “I mean, they do make me different—not fit into anywhere, with Normals or mages.”

We’re amidst hedges like walls, trees touching the sky. It feels so secluded. Baz is all dappled in the shade; his face is open and soft in a way I’ve rarely seen.

“But even then, they’re… mine,” I continue. “Like, I gave them to myself for a reason. I can fly,” I say, huffing a laugh. “It’s not just that, though. I think there’s a reason they stayed, and there’s obviously something magic about them. And now they’re just a part of me. I can’t be Normal, not like this. And I started to realise that I didn’t want to be.”

I glance over at Baz, waiting for him to say something. He almost never lets me talk for this long at a time—until we broke up, and I monologued therapy-speech at him until he agreed.

And then he does say something. 

“You thought of them as something bad,” he says, carefully, “because they came to you on… probably the worst day of your life. They remind you of something horrible. And there was no one you could talk to, because no one else has them.”

I almost stop walking. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly it. How did you know?”

He does stop walking, then, to look at me. There’s a deep kind of sadness in his eyes—he’s always had it, hides it behind coldness and witticisms—but there’s softness, too. “I went through the same, Snow,” he says quietly. 

Something to hide. Something that makes you a little less than what you think you are. Where you could fit in, if only.

It’s not that I forgot. How could I? Pinched-up rats and shouted accusations in the hallways and watching him sleep. It was all I thought about for years. But despite that… I don’t know. It never felt the same. To me, Baz has always seemed like a mage, first and foremost. A Pitch. He blends in seamlessly with magickal society. 

I guess it didn’t occur to me that he’s actually gone through the same ordeal as me. Being something he didn’t want.

Half this, half that, not enough of either.

“My whole life,” he continues, with a bitter little smile. I kind of want to hold him—or fold him up in my wings, but I can’t do that here. “I became a vampire when my mother died. My vampirism is a constant reminder…” He shakes his head, swallows. “And then, it’s not like there was an instruction manual on how to be a vampire and have fangs.”

“And there aren’t any other vampire-mages,” I realise. “Well, besides Nico, but I guess he wasn’t much help. But– you did figure out how to control your fangs. Right?”

He nods. “I think it was what you said—recognising that they wouldn’t just go away if I ignored them for long enough. Or rather, seeing that they’re a part of me, not a problem to be dealt with.”

I don’t know how I ever thought Baz didn’t understand me. I think it’s because at the time, even I didn’t understand me. 

“Same for me.”

Baz smiles, slowly, cautiously. It’s kind of breathtaking. “We match.” He’s said it before, but this time I maybe believe it. “In all the ways that matter.”

“We match,” I repeat, and then I kiss him among the protective trees and the cool, whispering winds, and I don’t care if there’s anyone around to see. 

I kiss him until I’m out of breath and he pulls back and grins and asks, “And what about the tail, then?”

I wind it up between our coats, wrap it around Baz’s waist like a rope and pull him in tighter. “It has its uses.”

He smiles with his fangs.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Simon still has that infernal tail wrapped around my waist like it’s his bloody arm when we get to my favourite part of the gardens: Giardino degli Ananassi. 

The ground is decorated with a mini maze of short hedges, forming geometric patterns. Twisting vines crawl up an old, tan building on our right. It’s slightly gnarled, unkempt; orange and green leaves creep over the low stone walls, and damp moss litters the ground below them. It reminds me of an abandoned house, like something lonely and forgotten but still tremendously beautiful.

We step up to the railing on the back wall, a tangle of vines bursting through. Rolling green hills, autumn trees that match the rust-coloured tops of the buildings. 

Simon’s hand worms its way into my coat pocket to take hold of my hand. He leans into me, warm and sturdy. This feels like… something. Not all the answers, but surely… an answer. 

He looks out over the city, touched by the sun, eyebrows drawn down. And then he turns and leans in, finding my lips with his. His fingers tenderly brush the back of my neck. I don’t quite know how to feel right now, all split in half like this. I pour everything into him. I give it back.

It’s a hopeful kiss. Mournful, too. A bit like a promise and a bit like an apology.

Simon pulls away, just slightly. He whispers the words against my lips. “For all the times I called you a monster. I know it’s been so long since then, but still.” His thumb skates along my jaw and he kisses me again. “You’re not.” 

He’s cupping my face. All the times…

 It feels like a lifetime ago. 

But this time I let him in. I have to. (I always will.) Last time he thought he was forcing his way into my heart—little did he know the path was already carved out and hollow, waiting for him. This time I’m the one who concedes. I have to be the one to show him the way.

“I suppose if you say it with such conviction, I have to believe it,” I say weakly.

“Do you?”

“This time I do.”

“Good.”

“And you, Snow?”

“What about me?”

“What do you believe about yourself? What you are?” I ask. I touch his shoulders, feather-light. The place where his wings should be.

There are questions and questions behind mine.

He shakes his head, shrugs. Some parts of Simon never change. Some parts are different—solemn, more still. Somehow softer and hardened all at once. “Dunno if I can answer that. But I’m okay with… me. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’ve always been okay with you. More than.” It slips out, unbidden.

Simon doesn’t get trembly when he’s uncertain, not most of the time, anyway. He darkens. He furrows. He does it now, narrowing in on me with a blazing blue gaze. “Even now, like this?”

It’s more loaded than he makes it seem. A thousand unspoken feelings behind the question. His deepest fear; the reason he made me go, in the first place. (The reason he thought he had to let me go.)

“Especially now. Especially like this,” I say. 

I kiss him and I don’t stop until it feels like I’m sparking at the edges, until it feels like I’m spilling love and magic into him. He smiles and I kiss his smiling mouth. 

When we finally pull away, still both leaning against the railing, he looks out over the rooftops and sighs. The city sighs back, all wind and bells and warmth. 

“So,” he says. “About flying…”

We meander through the gardens. I have to promise him that this is the last fountain, I swear when we come upon La Fontana Dell’Oceano. 

We pass into a circle of tall hedges and trees, a secluded haven. I cast a useful little spell on the entrances— Inversione a U, literally U-turn— then turn to Simon. He’s shed his coat and is stretching out his arms behind him like he’s preparing for a race. It’s ridiculous.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

Baz approaches cautiously with his wand. “Can I… cast on you?”

“The spell you did at the restaurant? It’s like nothing to see here, right?” I ask.

“Similar. It means someone who’s indifferent.”

“Do you know how to reverse it, when you’re done?”

He looks down his nose at me, and I brace myself, expecting the imminent snark. Instead, one side of his mouth curls up. “Er… maybe.”

I laugh and square my shoulders. “All right.”

He comes closer than he needs to, touching the tip of his wand to my chest. “Menefreghista,” he murmurs.

“Th- thanks,” I say. I’m suddenly flushed. Maybe from the spell. Maybe because Baz’s magic is all over me, curling into my pores like smoke. I can taste it dry on my tongue; it’s like licking a fireplace. 

I’ve missed it.

I step back, leveling my gaze with his. He squints at me like I’m something blurry. “You want to come with?”

Baz lets out a surprised sound. “Crowley, no.”

So I step back again, into a crouch, and then shoot into the sky.

Not too high, mind—I stay just below the tops of the trees and hedges. It’s wonderful. The wind tangling in my hair, the sun on my face. Even from just ten or twenty feet up it feels closer, warmer. I spread my wings and let the air catch under them, buffeting me upwards.

It was my therapist who recommended I make a trip out to the countryside and go flying. She said it could help me get reacquainted with my wings in a new context, start associating them with something joyful. 

I didn’t want to at first. I didn’t even want to look at them, let alone use them. But it made sense, in a way, so the next time Penny went home for the weekend she took me with her and we drove out to South Downs for the day. 

I hadn’t flown since… since everything happened. Since I got them, really. Which seemed a shame, but I couldn’t. It was like Baz just said—they felt like abominations. Like something that didn’t belong. Something I should hide away.

And most of the time, in London, I had to.

But once I started flying—once I spread them wide and let the wind fill the space beneath them, once I was in the air, soaring over green that stretched further than I could see—I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t done it before. They were useful. They were… good.

I started going almost every weekend when I could muster up the energy, trying to find parks sheltered by trees close to the city. I’d hide my wings under a big coat and suffer a taxi ride. (Cabbies really don’t blink at anything.) 

Amidst the hedges of Boboli Gardens, I fly in a huge circle, twisting sideways to skim along the tree trunks. White birch and white statues. I nearly crash into another obelisk, but swoop upwards at the last moment.

I feel boundless. I’m doing loop-de-loops and smiling so hard my face hurts. I wave at Baz, and he blows me a kiss.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Simon Snow is beautiful.

He’s always been beautiful, but right now—soaring above my head, laughing with joy—he’s pure magic. 

Chapter Text

Begin Again.

🌟

~Simon~

“I can’t believe there’s a queue to climb stairs,” I grumble. 

“Stop complaining,” Baz grumbles back, “we got you gelato, didn’t we? Even though it’s freezing.”

“I don’t see you skipping out on it.”

He takes a bite of his gelato—with a spoon, because he’s a sociopath—and shivers for dramatic effect. I roll my eyes, but wrap my arm snugly around his shoulders like I know he wants me to.

“Drama queen.”

“Insatiable glutton.”

“I’m sorry, am I the one with a gelato spreadsheet?” 

Baz burrows into me as I take another huge bite of my gelato. (Berries and cream on the bottom, stracciatella on the top.) He smiles with his eyes, like we’re in on a secret—and then digs his spoon into my gelato.

Wanker.

You can walk inside the main entrance freely and view the inside of dome from below. Colourful marble floors; high, graceful archways. Dappled blue light filtering through circular stained-glass windows inset just below the painting, lighting it up magnificently. We just went in and came back out, and now Baz has tickets for us to go all the way up. It’s a separate queue, a snaking thing mostly made up of German tourists with large cameras. 

Getting gelato to pass the time was Baz’s idea, but he’ll pretend it was mine until his last breath.

The outside of the cathedral is more detailed up close than it looks; ivory carved in intricate patterns, inlaid with veins of dark green and pink. The almost-setting sun is washing it golden, throwing the details into sharp relief. Baz makes us take a selfie. (“I’ve learned to appreciate golden hour—” “How long have I had gelato on my nose?” “...a while.”)

At the front, he presents our tickets. “Ready?”

I shove the rest of the cone into my mouth and crunch out an agreement. 

We end up in a low stone stairwell with weird, shadowy lighting. Round and round we go in spirals; it’s dizzying. I focus on Baz’s leather coattails, on his muscular calves and posh boots. He stops at the next landing, turning back towards me as I trudge upwards. “That’s two hundred. Really puts my flat into perspective, hm, Snow?” 

I’m embarrassingly out of breath. Baz, on the other hand, looks as fresh as a daisy. “Maybe,” I pant out. “Or maybe you’re just a show-off.”

“Now, what makes you think I have any advantage here?”

“Very funny.”

“You have no proof.”

“What is this, fifth year?”

I grumble as he darts up the next spiral effortlessly, leaning into his vampire speed. He crosses his arms at the top as he waits for me, attempting to look bored. (He does—and he looks hot, all nonchalant and eyebrowy.) I want to push him into the stone wall and kiss him until he’s out of breath, too.

So I do.

It doesn’t work, but it was a good effort.

“It’s a world away from fifth year,” he says quietly, cradling the back of my neck. “And I, for one, have no complaints.”

“This is a little better than stalking you,” I admit.

“Just a little,” he agrees with a wink, and then he’s slipping away and we’re off again.

Up and up and up.

Why the fuck did I agree to this?

“Three hundred,” Baz announces somewhere between Leg-Burn Hell and Arse-Burn Hell. 

“I hate this,” I tell him. 

“Come on,” he says, and he grabs my hand. There’s a branch in the stairwell, and he steers us to the right, down a short hallway. We emerge into the light. I look down and see the pews on marble floors, the center a stark red inlaid with ivory. Baz tugs my hand, and I look up.

Wow.

We’re right beneath the painting on the ceiling; right at the spot where the edges of the walls meet the beginning of the dome. I hadn’t even noticed there was a balcony here, but now I can see it wrapping around the entire base of the domed portion. The painting is almost close enough to touch.

Baz is still holding my hand. He slips his fingers between mine and starts walking. “You know, I gave a presentation to my class here last week.”

“What was it about?”

“It was art history, so… well, the history,” he says. We make a clockwise circle along the railing. Baz pokes a finger into the flexible plastic barrier attached to it. “The Duomo took over 200 years to complete. The dome came 100 years after the original building. And the exterior designs were finished almost 500 years after initial construction.”

“Talk about procrastination.”

I catch a hint of his dimple as he looks up. “And,” he says, “it’s Gothic.”

“Just like your mansion!”

“No, that’s Victorian. We’ve been over this.”

“Same thing.”

“Really, no.”

After completing the circle, we reenter the stairwell and start the trek to the top of the dome. The tunnel narrows and steepens until we practically have to crawl. 

Then—462 fucking stairs later—we reach the top.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

We’re on a platform built in a circle around the peak of the dome. The wind blasts us in the face from every direction as soon as we emerge, a forceful gasp of fresh air. And all around us, below us, the city is sparkling.

It’s magnificent. Panoramic views of the red roofs and tan bricks of Florence; of the clock towers and churches and swirling green parks. I lead Simon to the railing, where he leans over as far as he can go, letting the wind play with his too-long curls. He glances over at me, smiling.

The wind howls around us, whipping my hair into wild shapes. “You’re so beautiful!” I tell him, but the wind swallows it up.

“What?”

“Nothing…”

I’m teasing. He attempts to raise an eyebrow. “What’d you say?”

I lean closer and kiss his temple. “I said, you’re beautiful.”

“And you look like a guy from a hair metal music video. You know, in the ‘80s.”

“Is that meant to be a compliment?”

Simon laughs. He hugs me to him, one hand finding its way into my back pocket. (I’m more than alright with sneaky arse-squeezing.) I watch the city and Simon and lean into the wind. 

The setting sun drapes itself over the buildings. I’m perched atop Florence’s landmark with Simon Snow and everything’s golden and gorgeous. The wind is blowing so hard we might fall off—it’s pushing me against the cold railing, pushing my shoulder into the metal telescope next to me, one of the tourist ones you can operate for a euro or two. 

“Will you save me if we fall off?” I ask Simon.

He shrugs. “No promises.”

I shove his shoulder. He grins and makes a crossing-heart gesture. 

“Heard you almost fell off of this once,” he says.

“I was like this.” I lean out even further over the railing, stretching my arms wide. “And drunk. And didn’t have a winged boyfriend to save me… come on, try it, Snow.” 

“It’s almost like flying,” he says, putting his arms out as well. (He doesn’t react to me saying boyfriend.) The wind whips his coat back. “Not quite.”

“I bet nothing can compare.”

He shakes his head. His hair’s all over the place. 

The city fades, slowly, then blinks back to life. Thousands of streetlamps below us like so many stars. 

I feel young and endless and a bit giddy with it all. 

And there’s barely anyone else up here. So I grab Simon and I kiss him, hard.

He wasn’t expecting it, and he jumps and laughs into my mouth and stumbles a bit. We crash into the railing. He bends me backwards over it, and I let him. That is, until we start teetering dangerously and nearly tumble over it. My stomach jumps into my throat. I flail to right us and pull us back to solid ground.

Simon laughs again when I pull away to stare at him with wide eyes. “I would’ve flown us,” he says, gripping my shoulders. My heart’s pounding in my chest—he’s laughing so hard he’s wheezing. “Really, I would’ve. Promise.”

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

462 stairs. 

I mean, that should be proof enough to Baz that I love him. I shouldn’t have to say it… (But I do want to. Tell him, I mean.)

But now we’re kissing at the top of the city (and managing to not fall off the edge), so maybe it was worth it. The view is grand. Different than last night, when the city seemed small and contained beneath us. This is immersive—Florence fills in the spaces in every direction around us, like something alive. 

The clock tower chimes next to us and Baz points it out, throwing an arm around my shoulders. The city is glowing beneath us in gold and red, a haze settling as the sun dips below the horizon. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

“The bell tower,” I say, pointing it out. “There’s the river… the Ponte Vecchio… and there’s my flat,” I say, gesturing in the approximate direction of the building.

“Don’t you get lost here?” Simon asks.

“All the time.”

There are maps and phones and guides. But I’m not talking about that kind of lost.

I often ask myself why I feel so alone here. And why I feel so free. I think I found something valuable, and as my time here draws to a close I find myself grasping desperately for it, trying to pin it down and hold on to it.

Maybe it’s only found here. The loneliness settles in—there’s magic everywhere, but the mages are spread out and disorganised. I miss the World of Mages. I miss home. Well, not home exactly. I miss Watford, but it’s not as if I can go back. 

I miss Simon. 

(Sometimes it feels as if I can’t go back to him, either.) (But I want to believe, now.)

The lostness here is twofold; because it’s forced me to leave everything behind, and it’s allowed me to leave everything behind. Without the labels—Pitch, mage, vampire—(Simon Snow’s nemesis, Simon Snow’s boyfriend)—I’ve had to come to terms with the more essential parts of myself.

I always had something else to distract me; something else to focus on. And something to hide behind. But my Italian isn’t advanced, so when I communicate here, I can only speak simply, without the wall of sarcasm and snark I usually put up. I lose all semblance of personality to the people around me. 

I’ve willingly immersed myself in the unknown, only to discover things I should have known all along.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

I’ve never really travelled before this, and it feels like being lost and being found all at once. Out here, in a country where no one knows me… I can finally see clearly. 

Because here everything’s been distilled down, hasn’t it? I’m no one here, not the Chosen One (not the ex-Chosen One), not the Mage’s Heir, not the Simon Snow. 

I’m nobody to anybody here but Baz. 

And so I think I can finally see myself in relation to Baz, too. Who I am to him. Who he is to me. What it all means, apart from… well, everything.

And I can see Baz, too. The way he’s grown into himself. His eyes are a little brighter, his complexion a little less grey, his hair a little silkier (if that’s even possible). But not just physically. He looks… I don’t know. He looks wide open. Like whatever was holding him back before is gone now.

Except I think what was holding him back… was me.

Baz glances over at me, all earnest eyes and dimpled expression, and I’m wondering—how much of this was Italy, and how much of it was his freedom?

“Are you happier here?” I ask Baz. 

Are you happier without me?

He considers this for a long moment. “It’s hard to tell. I’m… different.” He glances at me. “It’s been lonely. And strange.”

“You just seem like…” I hesitate. “Like you fit in. Like you don’t have to hide anymore.”

He looks back out at the city, trails a hand across the railing. “I’ll always have to hide.”

“There’s fewer mages here,” I insist. “Less pressure. Less scrutiny.”

“There are mages everywhere.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” He’s a statue in profile, eyebrows drawn down just barely. “I do.”

“So you would be happier here,” I say. It’s not really a question.

He turns, then, to look at me fully, and I recognise his expression so well—it’s his Simon Snow, you are an unbelievable moron face. He cups my face in his hands, and his eyes are soft and intense all at once, the way he gets when he’s about to speak an unquestionable truth. 

“Simon,” he says softly, “Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?”

I blink. “Baz—”

“I could survive it. I know that now. But I’d never want to.” 

“But you seem so… I don’t know. Good.” 

“You know I’m better at pretending than anyone.” His hair’s flying between us—he reaches up and tucks it behind his ears. “At hiding. But Simon, I am happy—I’m happy now— because you’re here. With me.” 

He looks down. “It’s more than I’d have dared to dream a few months ago.”

A few months ago… I thought Baz didn’t want me. I thought I was doing him a favour by breaking up with him. And maybe I was. Or maybe I did myself one, unknowingly. 

We were in love.

We’re still in love.

The painful lesson I’ve had to learn these past months is that there’s a difference between loving each other and being able to have a real relationship. 

Now we’ve had time to change. Time to know ourselves. I think we’ve figured out the difference.

I’ve never loved anyone like I’ve loved Baz. How could I have thought this would be forever—that we wouldn’t find our way back to each other? 

His uncertainty breaks my heart; and in the same breath, his conviction strengthens it. And so I say, “I’m not going anywhere, Baz,” and I kiss him.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Simon’s kissing me again, bending me backwards over the railing. (More steadily, this time. Maybe with wings at the ready.)

Maybe he feels it, too; the strangeness of being away from everything you’ve known, the way it shoves you into the present and holds you there. 

Finding yourself, finding anonymity. It’s almost like being in love—you don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t know the language, and you’re pulled deeper and deeper still into the inviting mystery. They’re the same in that you’re certain you’ve fallen in love, but you don’t quite remember how or when.

(But I know the moment I fell in love with Florence—when Simon Snow arrived, and set the city alight.)

It feels like I’ve been in love with Simon forever. There’s never been anyone but him—there never will be anyone else. I couldn’t pinpoint how it happened, because it feels as inevitable as life itself. Every part of me is inextricably tangled with every part of Simon Snow. 

There’s only ever been us. 

His face is cold, but he’s warming up as I kiss him back. I’m warm, for once. Full to the brim, full to bursting.

Call it a cliché, but he makes me feel alive.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

462 fucking stairs back down.

I’m starving, and Baz seems to sense it; he’s taking the uneven stairs down two at a time, practically flying down them. (I offered to actually fly us off the Duomo—he said no.)

But I’m also so happy. (And that almost overshadows how hungry I am.)

The inside of the dome is luminous now that it’s dark. All the gold highlights in the paintings are set alight from the lamps below, the green details thrown into sharp relief. Baz takes about a million pictures of me with everything.

Pushing through the door into the plaza feels like stepping back into time. The tourists and the city surge around us, chattering and warm. “Did you get into photography or something?” I ask Baz as he practically pushes me against the huge gold-gilded side doors of the Duomo to snap yet another picture.

“No,” he answers. “Tilt your head. Not that way; the other way.” I tilt my head like he says. “I got into fashion design. Photography was an extension, I suppose. Put your leg up, there.” 

I obediently put my leg up on a gold stile-thing even as I say, “Does this make my arse look good?”

“Yes, that’s the point,” Baz says, matter-of-factly. 

I laugh. “And is this your way of calling me fashionable?”

“Never,” Baz scoffs, then reconsiders. “Well, you’re wearing my coat, so—just for today. Maybe.”

“I can live with that.” I lean back against the shiny facade, crossing my arms. “Are you going to show me your collection, then?”

“I’ve booked some studio time, tomorrow. You can come along,” he offers. He tucks his phone away and holds out his hand, and I take it. “I’d… actually like you to see what I’ve been working on,” he admits, after a moment’s hesitation. 

“Oh?”

“You’ll see.”

I warm his frigid hand between both of mine as we start walking again. “Can we get food now?”

The Christmas lights are up already, casting colours on us as we walk a short distance across the plaza and into a large building. “Oh, is this the Mercato?”

“The very one,” Baz says. “Home of—”

“Margaret’s pasta,” I finish breathlessly. Baz laughs, but he should understand why I’m excited. Any pasta described like that is one I want to try.

It’s bustling and cheery inside. The ground floor is a mess of stalls and tents in misaligned rows, selling all kinds of food: fresh cheeses, hanging meats, bundles of flour-dusted pasta. It smells like freshly baked bread (and a little like fish). 

“This way,” Baz says. We follow colourful signs promising a food hall upstairs.

It’s airy, with a peaked industrial ceiling and large windows letting in twinkling Christmas lights from the streets outside. Lamps dot the metal pillars and supports, exposing all kinds of options—pizza by weight, coffee and pastries, gelato, salads (Baz’s favourite? I’m still baffled), and of course, the promised pasta. 

It’s called La Pasta Fresca, and the sign features little cartoons of different pasta shapes. I pick out the coolest shape I can find for mine— gemelli, tiny spirals. Baz explains that fresh pasta only requires two or three minutes of cooking, and we watch as the chef pours a scoop of the pasta into a shallow pan with simmering water and shuffles it swiftly. As the water boils off, I point to various toppings and he tosses them haphazardly into the pan, along with sauce. He lifts the pan with a grin and does that cheffy thing where he tosses all the food and it does a flip. 

Less than thirty seconds later, I’m handed a steaming, heaping bowl of pasta. Three minutes later, Baz has his meal as well (with pesto sauce—he’ll do anything for a basil pun, I swear, you’d think he likes it) and we make our way to a table in the centre of the Mercato.

“That was fast,” I say, stabbing my fork into the pasta.

“Some of the best food here is,” Baz says. “Like the sandwiches at All’antico. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving dinner, I guess. Try it—”

He’s interrupted. By me. “Oh, Merlin,” I moan. I relish in the flavour, then shove another bite of pasta in my mouth. “Oh, fuck— ” I think I’ve died and ascended. I haven’t felt this much ecstasy since… 

(Well, since last night.)

“Siegfried and fucking Roy, what’s in this, Baz?” I ask through a full mouth. 

He’s half-blushing, or at least I know he would be if he could. He twirls his spaghetti elegantly on his fork and takes a careful bite. “So Maggie’s stunning review was accurate.”

“God, yes—” I let out another little hum of happiness. Or maybe a moan that sounds dangerously like a sex noise. “Honestly, this is the best pasta I’ve ever had.”

“You’ve said that about every meal we’ve had.”

“Yeah, but this is the best one.”

Baz grins at me, then tucks his falling hair behind his ears and takes another bite.

“Can I try yours?”

He slides his bowl over obligingly, even though his fork is still buried in the pasta. I pick up a couple pieces with my own fork and take a bite, but of course we’ve got the same strand and—

And we’re doing that romcom film thing. (Did Baz plan this, somehow?) (No—he looks as surprised and amused as I do.) I pull my spaghetti into my mouth, and he does the same. We inch towards each other, half-laughing, until our lips meet.

It’s quick and chaste, since we’re kind of kissing around spaghetti and laughing too hard to kiss properly. I bite down on my end, separating my spaghetti end from his, and then go to kiss him again. (His pasta is equally amazing, for the record.)

“Did you plot this?” I ask, smiling up at him.

One end of his mouth quirks up in an amused smirk. “When am I not plotting, Simon?”

“Romantic sod.”

“Guilty.”

“Cheesy, too.”

“Just like your pasta.”

I love you. It almost slips right out. I’ve never felt like it might slip out before—like it was that natural. But now it feels as normal as breathing. It feels like I have to tell him, because I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t. 

Because it’s that much a part of who I am. Because it always has been.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

“One more surprise,” Baz says. 

We step out of the Mercato, down the street and into a sea of light.

It’s brilliant. Lights are strung up between the buildings, bathing everything in a golden-and-white glow. Huge gold ornaments and snowflakes swing in the wind. Down the street, the lights continue as far as the eye can see, illuminating the arched storefronts, shuttered windows, worn flagstones. There are so many lights up ahead that as the street continues, it looks like one huge explosion of gold.

“Merlin. Baz, it’s— it’s amazing.”  

Baz smiles almost bashfully, and we stroll through the streets. I’ve never experienced anything like this. Watford had Christmas lights, but not on this scale, and the Wellbeloves decorated tastefully in only winter whites and silvers.

Last year around this time, I was too depressed to venture out into London and see the Christmas lights. And besides I couldn’t go out without someone spelling me. I don’t want to think about that time. It feels like an age ago, but also terrifyingly close, like I could slip backwards at any moment.

I try to ground myself here and now instead. Focus on Baz’s hand, the familiar spaces in between his fingers where mine fit. Baz, next to me. With me. Illuminated with twinkling lights from above. Smiling enough that his dimples show. 

(I love him, I love him, I love him.)

We pass a giant gift box made completely out of red and gold lights; you can step inside and be engulfed. The next street is strung with blue and white lights, featuring glowing ornaments to take pictures inside of. 

I marvel upwards at the hanging silver stars, golden orbs, every shade of radiance. We’re surrounded by lights. 

It feels like magic.

Like a familiar magic… like our magic.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

“Like stars,” he says, as if I can’t see them.

I’m watching him under the lights now. 

Under the stars. We’re surrounded from every direction.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Simon kisses me as we climb the six flights of stairs. He noses my jaw distractingly as I work open the strange, complicated system of deadbolts. (I’ve been this close to spelling the door, so many times.) (But I’m afraid my intention behind a spell would be too frustrated, and I’d simply pull a Simon Snow and blow it up.) 

He cradles my arse through my back pocket, bumps my side with his own, practically manhandles me into my bedroom.

His proximity is overwhelming. I’m almost drunk on it. I’ve craved it for so long. This—not the big things. Not sex, not grand gestures—this. His constant closeness. Simon Snow, being in my space. It sets the very atoms of the air abuzz. 

We kiss against the door. We kiss against my desk. We fall into a heap on the bed and kiss some more, and more. The night passes as nights do when you’ve found love anew: in a dreamy, timeless, rose-tinted haze. 

The Italians would call this minestra riscaldata —reheated soup. An idiom that implies once a relationship’s gone cold once, it’s never the same again. (It’s a useful kitchen spell, too.) 

But I don’t think it’s true. I don’t think we even made soup, last time. 

We’d barely even begun. 

Simon rucks up my jumper, warm, broad hands sliding against my chest. He asks the question with his eyes before pulling it off me, taking my shirt with it. I smirk a little as, seeing me for the first time in the light, he stares shamelessly. 

“What the fuck,” he says.

Oh. That’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting… 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

Baz still has washboard abs. “What the fuck?” I repeat.

“What.”

“How are you still in shape?”

“I run.”

“This isn’t a running city,” I deadpan. “It’s an ankle twisting city.” 

His eyebrow hitches up in amusement. “Not the streets, Snow. The stairs.”

“The stairs? These stairs?”

“All six flights of them,” he says wearily. “Five reps. Twice a day.” 

I’m suddenly overcome by a burning desire to see his thighs. 

“That’s ridiculous.”

He looks affronted. “Why?”

“I don’t know, it’s just—” No one is supposed to have abs in uni! I’ve toned up a little since last year, but not like this. Not like I’m still Watford’s star football player—which is how he looks. Christ. It would be offensive, how fit he is, if I didn’t believe he was mine again. (Almost.) (Hopefully.)

Baz laughs as I peevishly undress him. I’m scowling as more swaths of perfect skin are revealed. (I hate him.) (I love him.) 

“C’mere,” I say as I take off my own shirt and pull him to me. I fit myself against him, close enough that I can feel his heartbeat. (Slow. Steady. But still very much alive.)

And then I kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

It’s a quarter to nothing in the middle of the night when Simon and I finally blink out of our haze. Witching hour, it feels like. Something untouchable.

I’m not wearing my watch, so I fumble for my wand instead and cast a soft, “Non vedo l’ora.” It’s an idiom indicating anticipation, but since it literally means, “I don’t see the hour,” it’s a handy little time spell as well. 

The letters hover in front of me, glowing green. And… it’s only nine o’clock.

“Whattimeisit?” Simon nuzzles into my collarbone, sounding sleepy. His foot strokes up and down my calf.

“Nine.”

He frowns, a scrunching motion that engages his entire face. “S’early.”

“Yeah. What should we do?”

He yawns hugely. “This.” I smile. “Or could watch a film. Or… I could go for something to eat, honestly.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

He blinks puppy-dog eyes at me. “Gelato?”

Let this moment be proof of our compatibility. 

“Gelato,” I agree, and begin the lengthy process of extricating myself from Simon and the blanket. It takes a while, mostly because every time I try to get up he grabs me around the middle, yanking me back down to the mattress with a bounce, and laughs. 

It’s raining again, so we end up racing down the street, arms over our heads, laughing. We end up at a hole-in-the wall place a few doors down, warmly lit with rickety little folding stools. I kiss gelato off the side of Simon’s mouth. 

Back in my flat, I find myself alone in my room while he uses the bathroom. And I find myself staring into the mirror again.

It’s almost like how I felt the day after the first night we kissed. I remember freezing in the middle of brushing my teeth and just starting to laugh—and maybe crying a little bit, as well. One of those surprised, stifled, half-hysterical sounds.

Because I was still catching up to the fact that after all that time, I’d finally gotten what I wanted. Impossibly. And shouldn’t I look different for it? As electrocuted on the outside as I felt on the inside?

I give myself a small smile in the mirror now, scarcely allowing myself to believe what’s happening. I take a deep breath, overwhelmed. It is happening. Again. 

I push Shepard’s bed over to meet mine and toss my duvet over both. Might as well not face a shrinking bed mishap again. Spare me the embarrassment. 

I slip under the covers carefully, hesitantly. I’m not worried Simon won’t come back (where would he go, anyway?) but… there’s still a small part of me that can’t make this real. Can’t stake too much on it. Can’t let myself believe, because that also means letting myself be hurt again.

I sit against the plush seat of my pillows. I stare at my hands, picking at an old violin callus. Eventually, I open the book sitting on my bedside table, though I don’t make it past the first sentence.

After a few minutes, Simon comes back, unfurling his wings as he approaches the bed. (Still in  his pants—a small mercy of the moment.) He slides under the duvet and fits himself against my hips and legs, resting on his side. He’s cradled in red, wings framing the edges of his body. He blinks smilingly up at me, kisses an exposed bit of my hip.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been so worried. (It’s still there, though. That thudding, half-panicked feeling in my chest.) (The feeling that says, how long until I lose you, this time?)

I school my breathing and try to be present. Try not to overthink it. (I won’t lose him, not this time.) (I want to be sure.)

“Tired?” I ask. He nods. “Want your phone or something?” 

He shrugs, managing to complete the gesture even lying down. “Never learned to fall asleep with any of that.” He pauses. “Only with you.”

“You barely slept at Watford,” I argue, mainly to mask whatever disgustingly soft thing was threatening to let loose from my mouth. “Too obsessed with me.”

“It was still the best sleep I ever got.” Simon yawns. (He doesn’t even bother to refute the ‘obsessed’ thing.) “Couldn’t sleep in the summers—I usually had my own room in the homes, you know…”

“I couldn’t either.” I close my book and set it aside, scooting down the pillows a little. Simon rolls over—there’s enough space now—and puts his head in my lap. It’s a warm, comfortable weight. “Not without you there.”

Simon turns his face up. “You must’ve been more used to it. You were at home—you grew up in that mansion.”

I run a hand through his curls. “I grew up at the top of a tower,” I say. “With you.”

He’s hugging me around my middle, kissing my stomach, letting me play with his hair. And I feel an unbearable fondness come over me—the kind that tugs at all the deepest, most profound parts of you, telling them to break free.

“Missed you in the summers,” he murmurs. “I thought about you all the time… thought I was lonely. Or hungry. Or bored, maybe.” He tilts his face up again. “You weren’t even on my list of things not to think about. Couldn’t help it, could I?”

Simon missed me. It hurts to think of how awful I was to him—and even through that…

“Do you still miss me?”

He just looks at me, all handsome and sprawling. “I mean, not right now.”

“You know what I meant.”

He smiles. “No.”

I slide all the way down the pillows until we’re face to face. I smile back, because I can’t seem to help it. Our bodies tangle together; our fingers lace and rest between us. I kiss him until the tastes of gelato and toothpaste fade and it’s just Simon, underneath it all, sweet and familiar.

“Simon,” I say, because it’s warm, and safe, and it’s time to be certain of things. 

“Yeah?” 

His tail swishes around, so I hold it and let it corkscrew around my wrist. 

“Do you think,” I start, and then restart. “I want to ask if you’d want to try being boyfriends again... now that you’re all better?”

I know they’re the wrong words as soon as they leave my lips. Simon turns his face away and runs his thumb over my knuckles, brow crinkling. 

“Baz, I’m not. All better, I mean. Maybe I won’t ever be.”

“That’s okay,” I say, too quickly. “That’s not what I meant.”

His eyebrow crease deepens, momentarily, and then it smoothes out and he just looks wry, and defeated. He breathes out a sad little laugh. “Baz… I want to, I really do, I wanted to— but you shouldn’t have to settle, you know?”

“I’m not.”

“Baz—”

“I’m not.”

Simon shakes his head. “This has been… amazing. Really,” he says, insistently, nodding his head as if he knows I’ll try to argue. “But I realised… it’s not reality. I came here to see if we could—if we could work— but this like a holiday. It’s not what it’ll be like, day to day.”

Day to day.

Every day, with Simon. How can he still not know that it’s all I’ve dreamed of? That with him—no matter how he is, because he’s always enough and more— my days are full of light? That without him, they’re just shells of days, as if I’m wasting time looking for something I’ve left thousands of miles away?

“It doesn’t always have to be grand,” is what I decide to say. 

“It’s not this easy. I’m serious.”

“So am I.” Our eyes meet, and I lean forward the smallest bit. He’s all my senses; freckles filling my vision, rough hands on mine, familiar heartbeat and familiar browned-butter blood. Something is swelling and threatening to burst deep within me. 

Something that says, Don’t let this go a second time.

Please.

“I don’t care if we spend our days doing nothing, as long as they’re ours. We don’t have to gallivant around European cities—I promise I make good pasta at home, too.”

The tiniest of smiles tugs at the corner of Simon’s mouth. “Not as good as the Mercato…”

“I’m afraid I can’t top that one.” I stare at his lips, the bow I’ve kissed (and wanted to kiss) so many times. And then I do kiss it. “So?” I ask. 

Simon shakes his head. “You can’t possibly… Baz, you can’t want—”

I catch his face in my hands, cradling it, and kiss him breathless. Because I want to. (And to stop him from finishing that sentence.) “Don’t tell me what I want, Simon Snow,” I whisper. I touch my forehead to his, like this is something sacred. (Maybe it is.) “I want you. All of you. And if there are parts of yourself you can’t bring yourself to love yet…” 

At my words, his tail wraps itself more tightly around my forearm, like a hug. I stroke along the top of his wing with my other hand. “Then I will love them for you until you can,” I promise. “And even after that.” 

Foreheads flush, noses touching, clumpy lashes in my blurring vision. 

“I swear it,” I whisper hoarsely. My arms loop around his neck, and his are holding me to him, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. “Simon, I love you.”

His blue eyes blink open, and I pull back the slightest bit. But when he smiles, infinitesimally, I know I’ve finally done at least something right. It feels like floating, like something unbound. Like I’m on love’s light wings.

“All of you,” I repeat. “I always have. And I will, for as long as you’ll have me.”

Simon closes his eyes and murmurs, “For a long time.” 

My words, from what feels like a lifetime ago. 

Ricominciamo. We begin again.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Chapter Text

love finds a way.

🌟

~Baz~

My favourite thing about sleeping with Simon is the way he comes alive when I kiss him. He moves, surging up, surrounding me from every angle. Pulling me further into him, enveloping me in closeness and warmth. 

So very alive, so everywhere. 

I wake up in his arms, and I never want to leave. His wings are wrapped around us, leathery and warm against my skin.

He kisses me until I think I might lose my senses.

He kisses me until I lose touch with reality. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

My limbs feel heavy. And I’m tangled up with Baz—even my tail is behaving for once, curled neatly around his waist. He’s pressing kisses to my face, so tenderly I could cry. So carefully, as if he’s afraid I might still leave.

I’m not going to leave. I feel peaceful.

And loved.

Baz loves me.

I think I knew it, but still—it’s different to hear it. And after everything—even through everything…

He loves me.

It’d be easier if he didn’t. Easier for both of us, maybe. But then, it feels like the only true thing.

I turn, pressing myself to every inch of Baz. I kiss him back. 

I give it all back. (I’d give him everything.)

I could stay like this forever.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Crowley knows what time it is when we finally extricate ourselves from the bed. The rain has been pitter-pattering on the windows all night, but it’s stopped now. Everything feels hazy and lovely.

Simon’s standing in front of the mirror and scowling. He closes his eyes, and his wings shimmer away, folding into his shoulders. I let myself drink in the expanse of freckles. (I’m allowed to, now.) (Not that it stopped me before.)

But then—

Then his tail zips in, as well. As neatly as a coiled rope.

Simon jumps.

I stand up. “Your tail—” I say.

“I know.” His eyes are wide. He turns around, slowly, and peeks over his shoulder. “Where’d it go?”

“Well, there’s really only one place—”

“Baz.”

I smirk.

Simon blinks and swallows. He spins around again and again in disbelief, looking very much like a puppy chasing its own tail. (Or lack thereof.) I haven’t seen the small of his back smooth like this in so long—it makes me want to kiss it.

“It went away,” he nearly whispers. He scrunches up his brow, poking his tongue out, and the tail pops out again, flicking around. “I always try, out of habit, but I didn’t think…”

I step up next to him, and his tail wraps automatically around my wrist. Simon smiles at me in the mirror.

“You love it, don’t you?” he asks softly. “The– I mean, my. My tail.”

“Of course I love it,” I tell him, giving it a little stroke with my thumb. “It’s part of you.”

He takes a deep breath and retracts it again; it unwinds around my arm and slips away. Simon pats his own arse, and I laugh. And then I do bend down and press a kiss to the small of his back. “That’s it, then.”

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

I think Baz promised me at some point that he wouldn’t drag me shopping again, but I should know by now that he’s a bloody liar. He’s so excited that we can only be going out to buy clothes. We’re dressed, in the kitchen, and he’s making Nutella on toast for us. (Italy has changed him.) 

“Baz,” I say, and when he doesn’t turn around, I say it again, more forcefully. “Baz.”

He turns, butter knife in hand. There’s a bit of Nutella on his cheek, and he’s smiling, all soft, about the least intimidating he’s ever been. 

I swallow. “I just… I never said it back. Last night.”

Baz frowns. “You don’t have to.”

I stand up and take a step forward. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Settling,” I say. “Taking what you can get.”

“I’m not,” he insists. “And even if I was, that’s what I want. As long as it’s from you.” He says the last part to the bread, so quietly I barely hear it.

I reach for his shoulder and tug; he lets me turn him back to face me. “You shouldn’t have to.” 

I look away, because it was my fault, wasn’t it?—the way I pulled away and pushed him away. The days spent feeling like I’d lost myself, and feeling like I deserved to lose Baz in the process. 

“You shouldn’t have had to, before,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

He brandishes the Nutella knife at me, almost petulantly, but his eyes are serious and sad. “Don’t apologise.”

“I am. I should’ve said it so long ago. Before…” I wave my hands. “All this.”

Baz lowers the knife and starts fussing with the plates again. “It wasn’t just you.”

“Mostly.”

He shakes his head. “Maybe if I’d have been able to tell you how I felt, maybe we wouldn’t have…” He looks up, and his sad little smile nearly breaks me. “Simon, do you know how long I’ve loved you?”

I shake my head, mutely, even though I know the answer.

“Fifth year,” Baz says.

I hold his gaze, even though I don’t really want to.

“When I thought you hated me,” he continues, with a huff of a joyless laugh. “When you were with Agatha… when I thought you were straight.” 

I don’t know what to say. I don’t say anything.

“When I thought it could never, ever happen. Through everything.” He’s closer now. He brings a hand up to cup my face, and I reach out and wipe the Nutella off his cheek with my thumb. He grabs hold of my hand and kisses it. “So when you were finally mine… it wasn’t settling. It was a miracle, love.”

It hurts my heart to think of Baz holding the burden of loving me, just because he thought I was a miracle. (I’m not. Not Chosen—not a miracle. Not anyone’s miracle.)

“I couldn’t tell you how much I felt. I was afraid it would scare you,” he says. “But maybe I should have, so you’d never have to doubt.”

“I should have, too.”

I say it fiercely, so he knows. I’m not that person anymore. I’d lost everything—I thought maybe there wasn’t enough to give to Baz. That he deserved more than I could give him. (And maybe he thought what I was doing to him was all he deserved.)

Then I realised he already had a part of me. He’d had it for a long time.

“I’d love you anyway,” he says, and he looks weak and vulnerable and I can’t stand it.

“So would I!” I burst out, before I even think about what I’m saying. 

Baz freezes. And then I look at his face, really look, and I realise… he really never did expect me to say it back.

And fuck, if that doesn’t break me in two.

“I did,” I say, horrified at how watery I suddenly sound. I pull him as close as I can, hold his face between my palms. “I do.”

He shouldn’t have had to love me so hopelessly. 

I should have told him, so long ago. I wish I’d known all along…

“I love you, Baz,” I say.

Baz blinks. 

It’s a heartstopping moment before the shock gives way to the corner of a smile. I smile back and kiss him. 

I repeat it until he believes me.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

I could probably fly right now if I tried hard enough. I could On Love’s Light Wings myself across the entire continent.

I could cast any spell, and it would come out perfectly. 

I could hang the moon.

As it stands, it’s daytime and we’re still in my flat. So I settle for eating Nutella toast across the rickety little table from Simon and smiling like a dopey idiot.

He’s enough. He must know that. I don’t think it’s something he’ll listen to if I just tell him. That I’m never settling, not if it’s him. That I love him unconditionally.

He came here because he felt confident enough to do so. To be with me. To believe in his own worth—that he was worthy of me. (Oh, how the tables have turned.)

“Thoo you hab—” Simon swallows a massive bite of toast, grinning in response to my eye roll. “Do you have something planned for us today?”

I think about the suit, about fitting it to his dimensions, photographing him with the city as a backdrop. “Studio,” I say. “Then I’m taking you shopping.”

“For what?”

“Clothes. It’s Black Friday, after all.”

He scrunches up his face. “I hate Black Friday shopping. All those crowds.”

“You haven’t been to the Outlets here. They’re nice.”

“For you. Isn’t that where you clobbered someone outside Gucci?”

“I did not clobber anyone. ”

He grins. “We can go. But only because I want to see you in action.”

“I will not be fighting anyone at the Gucci outlets.”

“That’s what you say now.” 

“Keep goading me and it’ll be you I’m threatening,” I say.

“Well, maybe I like it.” 

I snort. 

“Hey,” he objects, waving his toast in the air, “we plotted to kill each other for years. Maybe it was a massive turn-on. You don’t know.” 

“I do know.” 

Simon just shrugs and grins in response, and I whack him halfheartedly on the shoulder. 

“Only you’d be turned on by that,” I say, and I kiss him. “Only you.”

“It explains the goblin thing,” he supplies, and we both burst out laughing. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

After breakfast, I lead Simon to the studio by one hand. His presence beside me is warm, comforting; it seems to make the very air of the city sweeter. I’ve walked this path a hundred times, and yet it’s never felt like this—like every step’s imbued with meaning and light, like I’m crafting memories with each footprint.

When we arrive at the studio, I knock on the double doors to get Professor Corsetti’s attention. Her long white hair glints in the studio lights as she glides to the entrance and lets us in. “Buongiorno, Basil,” she greets. She turns to Simon and nods formally. “I’m Ana.”

“Uh, Simon,” he supplies, looking mildly terrified. I suppress a smile. 

“You must be Basil’s model.”

“Model?” He sends me a confused look, but I’m already striding to the back of the room. 

I glance at him over my shoulder. “Come on, then.” 

The centre of the room features a long wooden table with baskets of supplies in the middle, while the edges are lined with individual workstations, sewing machines, and mannequins. I smooth out Simon’s suit, running my fingers reverently along the seams and gold stitching.

Simon jogs to meet me. “What’s she mean, model?” 

I wait for him to notice the suit.

“Oh– oh,” he says quietly. “You made this for… me?” 

I lift the material off the mannequin and finally look at him. He reaches out a tentative hand, traces the constellations on the sleeves with reverence.

“I wanted to share the stars again,” I say. 

(art by subparselkie)

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

Baz made me a suit.

He’s obsessed with suits. It’s the Baz Pitch equivalent of a love declaration—if he hadn’t already done that. (We’re a step ahead in the communication department, for once.) 

There’s something weighty about this. I think it’s the fact that he made it, really made it—like, he sewed this together by hand. There’s no magic in it, no shortcuts. He stood here in this studio and thought of me and made it.

One of the first things we learn at Watford is that magic comes from everyday things. It comes from Normals, from phrases, from life—without those, magic doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Maybe that’s why the fabric does feel like magic between my fingers; because of the mundanity of it. Because of the fact that Baz is the most magic-obsessed person I know, but he did this the Normal way.

I peer at the embroidery, at the painstakingly tiny golden stitches.

Stars I can wear. Like a little magic to carry around with you. Like a little bit of us.

“I love it,” I tell Baz.

“Stand still,” he says, and then he pulls a measuring tape out of nowhere and draws it along my shoulders. 

He takes all my measurements without writing anything down, and then peers at the suit. He reaches for a set of small colourful pins stuck into a cushion shaped like a tomato and starts pinning the suit in seemingly random places. His process is swift and precise and it’s over in a matter of seconds.

“How’d you get so good at this?” I ask, crossing my arms.

Baz spits a few pins out of his mouth, jabs them back into the cushion, and wrestles my hand into his own. “I’m just really, really obsessed with clothes,” he says, and then marches us out of the studio.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

Simon’s disappointed that I don’t bitch-slap anyone at the Outlets.

He passed the bus ride here with his face pressed to the window. The countryside of Tuscany really is gorgeous; still barely green at this time of year, dappled with just a hint of autumn orange and red. We pass rolling hills with misty edges and neat rows of wine grapes.

We’re at Gucci now, and he won’t let me buy him a tie.

“It’s expensive,” he protests.

“It’s actually the least expensive thing in the shop,” I argue. “It’s even discounted for Black Friday. And look, this one’s got dragons on.”

“I don’t need a dragon tie,” he says, even as his eyes slide over the pattern for the fourth time. “I’m not a dragon.”

“Didn’t say you were.” I hold up the tie to his neck. The bronze and red tones look glorious against his skin, still touched with fading leftover freckles from the summer. “Just that it would look nice on you.”

He grumbles, but it’s half-hearted. “I don’t need—”

“Consider it my Christmas gift.”

“I didn’t get you anything.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” I pick up a new tie for myself as well—dark blue with silver wolves. The faces kind of look like merwolves, and it’s been long enough that I can find that ironic now. Or something.

Simon rolls his eyes and follows me to the checkout. “That was cheesy, Baz.”

“I’m cheesy now. Haven’t you heard?”

His eyes light up once we get in line. “If I keep arguing with you, will you knock someone out?”

“For the last time, Snow—” He seems to get even more excited that I’m irritated, so I try to tone it down—“I only threatened it. I didn’t actually hit anyone.”

“Bet it was over a suit.” I don’t say anything, and he grins. “Ha.”

(What else could I have done? He was the devil incarnate wrapped in a charming smile and Tiffany blue.) (We weren’t even the same size!)

“He had an extremely punchable face,” I say.

Simon’s face turns grave. “Violence isn’t the answer, Basil.”

“Says you. Swinging your sword at anything that moves.”

“I think I managed to hit the trees more often than anything that moved, actually,” he comments lightly, and we both start laughing.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

We’re out dancing.

Proper dancing, like in a club—I think it’s called Space Bar? (Baz is really committed to a theme here.) Everything’s white and shiny-looking, and the lights are flashing blue and purple.

Baz is pressed up against me amidst a crowd of people, lips locked to mine, and it’s sweaty and gross but I wouldn’t let go for anything. I can feel his hipbones and his breath and his sticky skin. I think to myself that we couldn’t have done this, before—couldn’t have danced like this, even surrounded by strangers.

The bass is vibrating in my chest. My ears are ringing, vision’s blurring. The lights flash all around us, casting us in cool tones, and my whole world narrows to Baz. He’s in his element, molding himself comfortably to my body, folding himself over me almost as if to protect me from everything around us.

The club would be overwhelming, usually. I usually hate places like this.

But I’m with Baz, and we’re in love. (We’ve been in love for so long.) We’re in love and we’re dancing, which is what we should have been doing that night we had to go find the vampires in Convent Garden instead—and it feels something like full circle.

Like we’ve grown up—maybe—finally. Grown up and out of the old days. And here, where no one knows us, we can just be. We dance and feed each other gelato and take bad selfies and it’s everything we never had. Everything we were never given the chance for, among magic and wars and unsolved mysteries.

I think all we needed was a new context.

I’m in love with Baz— just Baz, not his history or his family or his magic. I never thought I’d feel this impossibly free in such a stifling crowd. But maybe, just maybe, he feels the exact same way about me.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

We stumble, drunk, out of Space Bar at three in the morning and chart a zigzag path back to my flat. We end up passing by the Duomo, where Simon decides that he needs to hoist me onto his back so I can see it better—never mind that I’m taller. We wobble as one, and then he trips over a cobblestone and down we go.

It doesn’t hurt—the view is nice from down here. And the plaza’s empty anyway. He looks at me and giggles and points up at the dome, and I’m so in love I feel like I could float to the top right now if I wanted to.

I don’t float. I kiss Simon on the ground. It’s dirty and a pigeon waddles over and squawks at us, so I drag Simon to his feet just as he says “oh, fuck off” to the pigeon. (Or maybe to me—who knows.)

“Are we going on an adventure?” he says.

“We’re going to bed.”

“Nooo.” He looks around the square. “‘M hungry.”

“‘Course you are.”

We get McDonalds because it’s the only thing open, and then I half-drag Simon down my street. He pulls up short in front of the condom vending machine. “There it is! Been looking for you,” he says seriously, nodding at the machine.

“I have some,” I say, tugging his arm. “Anyway, I think we’re too drunk to be doing anything related to condoms tonight.”

“Could make balloons out of them,” Simon says, nodding to himself. “Water balloons. Not too drunk for that.”

“What’re you, five?”

“Five year olds don’t get condoms,” he mumbles. He peers at the vending machine, apparently studying the different varieties. “Baz. Ha– Baz, look.” He tugs me, and I lean sideways into him so I can see. He catches me—he always does.

“What?”

Simon points up with utter glee. “Jeans condoms, Baz.”

I poke his cheek. “Why. Snow, why?”

“You look good in jeans,” he says, eyes wide. “Love you in jeans.”

“I know,” I say, because I’ll never forget that look on his face. “Jeans, though. Not… not jondoms.”

He turns his head and catches me in a smiling kiss. “Jondoms,” he says.

“I hate you,” I grumble.

“I love you,” he declares, depositing a euro into the vending machine. “Love you so much that I’m buying you a jeans condom.”

“Technically you’re buying yourself a jeans condom,” I point out. How did we get here? Why are we arguing about condoms that are literally decorated with a jeans pattern? I feel like I’m forgetting something. What was it…

Simon holds up the jeans condom, triumphant.

Oh, yeah.

“I love you, too,” I tell him.

And honestly? His smile is so bright that I just might be willing to let him use the blasted jeans condom sometime after all.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Simon~

December dawns bright and cloudless. I push Baz’s window open and smell rain, hear church bells signaling the hour, feel the clamour of the holidays in the air. I think I can smell chocolate. It’s lovely here.

I sit up and groan. It would be lovely, except I’m so fucking hungover.

“Get dressed, we’re going to a Christmas market,” Baz says from the bed. His head’s under the blankets. I chug his water bottle and try to scrub some glitter off my face. (Don’t know how it got there.) Then I find the jeans condom in my trouser pocket and chuck it at him.

Baz, hypocritically, sleeps for another half hour before finally dragging himself half-awake into the shower. He’s put on a fuzzy wool hat because his hair’s wet, and he keeps scowling whenever I laugh at him. (Can’t help it—he looks like one of the seven dwarves.) (Soggy?)

“Which way?” I ask once we’re outside.

“Wherever the coffee is,” he grumbles.

“There’ll be coffee at the market.”

December. It’s windy and there’s a bite to the morning air. It brings a rare pink to Baz’s cheeks; he looks almost cheerful like this, all bundled and blushing.

The market is set up in the shadow of a church—Basilica de Santa Croce, Baz supplies—and it smells like cinnamon and cloves. It’s bustling, with chatter rising up throughout the square. Baz gets coffee and I get a hot chocolate so thick it’s like drinking ganache. 

We hold hands inside Baz’s coat pocket. He sneaks kisses as we walk through the stalls, and I let him.

There are reindeer magnets and tiny Nativity scenes; ornaments featuring miniature wooden-carved colourful houses; stalls set up like Santa’s workshop, with toys covering every surface. There’s an entire row of tents selling Haribo candy by weight.

“Poinsettias,” Baz says at one point, wandering over to a flower shop. 

I frown, following him and throwing out a hand to stop him from touching them. “Those are poison settias.”

He rolls his eyes. “There’s no such thing, Snow.”

“There is,” I argue. “This is one magickal thing I’m actually sure about. And you should know—the napkins at your Christmas dinner were tied up with them.”

“If they were poisonous, they wouldn’t be at my house.”

“Penny and I went on a whole mission about this—look at the leaves.” It’s hard to tell if you’re not looking for it, but the veins on the leaves branch the wrong way round on poisonsettias, making triangles instead of V shapes. 

“I don’t see anyone dropping dead.”

“Poisonous if you eat them, Baz. Trust me.”

(Not that I know firsthand.) (Not like the mission required chewing up the leaves to create a paste and then painting a magickal ward or anything.) (On the bright side, Penny said my too-strong Get Well Soon staved off her period cramps for a year.)

Baz buys the poisonsettia anyway, just to be contrary probably, and presents it to me with a mocking little smile. “To Christmas memories,” he says.

I raise my eyebrows. “That Christmas? Are you sure?”

“This Christmas, you numpty,” he says, thrusting the plant into my arms. I hold it gingerly as if it might bite, but then he squashes it to my chest anyway when he leans forward to kiss me. “To new memories.” 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

~Baz~

If I wasn’t already dead, I think this is what would finally do me in.

Simon Snow with a fresh haircut, modelling the suit I designed for him.

Fucking Kostas must have it out for me, because he’s done Simon’s hair so much justice. (Too much. Aggravatingly much.) Short and clean on the sides, with a generous spill of curls left over the top. They’re conditioned to a glorious shimmer that Snow could never achieve himself. (I think he still uses 3-in-1.) They catch the light at every angle, spiraling, bouncing. He looks ethereal.

He’s wearing the stars.

The sun is setting and with the backdrop of the city at night, he fills in the gaps. The constellations you can’t see from here. He’s celestial. Divine.

Calza a pennello . It fits him like it was painted on.

I’d take this view over a brilliant night sky any day.

He squares his shoulders and looks right at me. It’s obscene. The dark blue of the suit brings out the darker tones in his eyes, those sultry shadows that only show up when he’s being particularly intense. “Ready?”

I’m not even holding the camera. I nod mutely.

Simon tilts his head. “Are you okay?”

I’m literally starstruck. My first instinct is to shove the feeling down, not show him an ounce of vulnerability. I fight it away. Crack myself open by force.

“You look gorgeous,” I say.

“You said that already.”

“I know.”

“Like, two minutes ago.”

“Shut up.”

He smiles. “Tell me how to pose, will you?”

I take his shoulders and position him right in front of my face. And then I lean back and enjoy the view. “Right there.”

“Baz,” he laughs.

“What? This is the perfect spot.”

“The camera is still in your bag,” he points out.

I think somewhere deep down, I didn’t really expect Simon to end up wearing this suit. I made it for him, but he was never going to be the model. He was never going to be here, willing, standing in front of me—letting me look. (Wanting me to look.)

Designing the suit felt like a last stand. One final, desperate grab at near-empty air. Emergency flare from a deserted island. Lit beacon of a dying man. (A languishing, hopelessly gay man with a penchant for dramatic metaphor—only then could it be a fucking suit.)

I took my last hopes and poured them into panels and embroidery. Infused the garment with my deepest unspoken wishes. 

Simon wearing it now feels like him acknowledging that. Accepting it. I didn’t think anyone could read the words my heart spilled onto this fabric but I can tell, somehow, that he sees and knows.

Against all odds, here he is. 

Simon Snow, choosing me, despite it all.

I dig the camera out with fumbling hands.

“Like this?” he says, leaning against the building.

“Gorgeous,” I proclaim again, because he deserves to hear it.

“I know you’re just talking about the suit.”

“My handiwork is stunning, but no. You could wear a Tesco’s bag and I’d still be attracted to you.”

He pretends to think about it. “What about a boater hat?”

I laugh. “Highly debatable.”

We continue to wander Florence as dusk falls. Twilight colours seep into the shadows between buildings. The city is a brilliant set, but I only have eyes for Simon. It fits him, I think—a beautiful city for a beautiful boy—and he molds himself so well to its bones and its nuances. 

I love you, I think between clicks.

“I love you,” I tell him, out loud. (I’ll tell him every chance I get.)

And he laughs and says “Baz,” abashed and blushing, but he always says it back.

“Let’s get one with your wings,” I say. “Go on, the suit’s charmed for it.”

He looks like an angel.

He looks like he’s mine.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Darkness draws itself softly over the city like a final curtain. Simon glances up at me as we fall into step. The streetlights blink on, one by one, all around us.

“What now?” he says.

I kiss the mole on his neck. I finally let myself run my fingers through his hair. “Gelato?” I suggest.

He grins. “And then what?”

“What else?” 

We turn down Via Roma, suddenly showered in a brilliant display of Christmas lights.

“We carry on,” I say.

“You said that before.”

“I did. But I think we actually will, this time.”

He swallows. “I’m going home tomorrow.”

“I’ll be back. In two weeks.”

“I’ll miss you,” he says.

“Simon…”

“Really,” he says, laughing a little. “I’d stay if I could. This feels like…”

I can tell he doesn’t want to say it. I’m not sure it is the right thing to say.

“Magic?” I ask, quietly.

Because I can’t help but think that this is magic. Not a wand or a belt buckle or even a needle and thread. It’s found here. In the spaces between fingers and the distance between freckles. Enveloped in red or covered in stars. This is what magic is made of.

“No,” Simon says, eyes flickering away. And I worry for a moment that I’ve gone too far. That this was too much for me to want. That what we had together was inextricably linked to magic, and it’ll never be the same.

(But I know that. I don’t think I’d want it to be the same.) 

But Simon’s still smiling, and he brings a hand up to my cheek. He looks into my eyes imploringly, like he’s trying out telepathy, and I resist the habitual urge to tell him to use his words.

“It’s not like magic, because my magic never felt like it was mine,” he finally says. His eyes are reflecting the streetlamps. (Little stars.) “Magic never felt like something I could choose.”

My throat goes tight. I watch him with too-soft eyes as he looks around, lights glimmering off his golden curls and the embroidery on his suit, then back at me, voice infused with breathless wonder.

“This is different,” he says. Insists. “Baz, I can– I can choose you again and again and it’ll never be a burden. Is that what magic’s like to everyone else—that easy?”

Easy. “I’m not easy to love,” I say.

Simon shrugs. “Are to me. And for the record, neither am I.”

Maybe he’s right. But loving Simon Snow has always been an inevitability for me. My most unwavering truth.

It’s also probably something I shouldn’t leave poetically unsaid. (Not this time. Not ever again.)

“Simon,” I say, and it’s better than any magic, the way he looks at me. I kiss him, just to seal in the memory. (Just because I want to.) “It is literally impossible for me to not love you.”

It’s better than any magic. More certain. More hopeful. More enduring.

(It’s ours.)

I thank my lucky stars.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟