December 20th
Simon
I don't know what to make of the fact that I'm dreading Christmas. I've always liked Christmas in NYC. There's a tradition of take-out Chinese and going to the movies that's just as sacred as Christmas trees and Santa Claus (if not more so). Half the people I know in school don't celebrate Christmas, so it's never felt weird to be a person who has no family to go home to.
Maybe I'm just worried because for the last two years, I've done kung-pao chicken and Christmas morning matinees with Agatha. But if I'm being honest, it's kind of a relief not to have to keep a dying relationship stumbling along. Aimee and Jonah and Annika and Sarayah all going to be around, and it's all going to be fine. Fun, I mean. Not just fine. Fun. Now I'm talking to myself. Great.
And I should be happy about getting my room to myself for a change. Not having to watch Baz out of the corner of my eyes to see if he's plotting something. Not having to keep track of when he eats and sleeps and showers and goes to class, to make sure he's doing ok. I mean, that he's not back on drugs. That I don't need to worry about pigeons nesting under the couch in the common room.
I won't have to listen as he sighs and stretches when he wakes up. I won't have to pretend to be asleep as he muddles around gathering his stuff and heading off to the bathroom down the hall. Not have to watch him sneak snickers bars when he thinks no one's watching, not having to notice how he chews on his bottom lip when he's studying. Not have to notice how his jeans hug his legs. Or the sliver of his back I can sometimes see when he reaches up to grab something off the top shelf of the wardrobe.
Fuck. I'm in real trouble, aren't I? When did this even happen? I don't even like boys. And I definitely don't like Baz. And I don't trust him and I can't stop thinking about how his hair would feel if I knitted my fingers through it. Ok, that was a weird thought. Fuck this. Im going running.
Baz
It's always a bitter relief when I get back to my room and Snow's not there. And I need the extra time today, to compose my face, to breathe in his scent without worrying about what he might see in my eyes. Not living with him for a week will be a relief. A lonely, sad, painful relief. There should be a word for that. It would make me feel less like I was lying to myself.
I'm pissed at him, too, for making my life so fucking complicated. I've finally worked up the courage not to go home for Christmas, and I can't even wallow in my own misery properly while he's still there. And I still don't know when he's planning to leave. Finals end tomorrow, though I think he already had his last one. Mine were all projects and papers this year, so I've been done since last Wednesday.
Whatever and whoever and wherever his mystery family is, he's made no mention of when he's going to see them. My luck, he'll be here til the 24th. I can't tell if that's good luck or bad luck.
I just have to fucking ask him. I can't spend the next five days wondering (hoping? dreading?) if it's the last day I'll see him until next term.
He gets back sweaty and flushed from running and I stare at him for a second too long before I turn back to my book and pretend to ignore him as usual. When has my life turned into such an absurd farce?
I feel his eyes still on me. Shit. He must have seen my face. He knows. He can't know. I wish he knew. He would hate me. More than he already does.
But when I glance up, everything is normal. Good. Better this way. He stumbles his usual clumsy way around the room, gathering his no-frills shampoo and Walgreens soap and threadbare towel. I never knew it was possible to be ostentatious about poverty. I don't even have to fake the sneer I rely on to cover the heat that overcomes me when I think of him about to shower, imagine him coming back steaming and shirtless other than that fucking towel that's too thin to give me the slightest peace.
I am so fucked. I let my head fall to my desk when he finally leaves the room, and count the minutes until he's back, smelling like a hospital and somehow still smelling so fucking good.
I'll ask him when he gets back. When he's leaving. I need to know. I can't go through another day like this.
Simon
The run helped while I was running. Well, admittedly, I was running and occasionally sort of not so accidentally smashing into walls and parking meters and street signs. But the minute I stepped into the room and saw Baz at his desk, hair down and shoes off, all I could think was how nice it would be to just walk over and rest my hand on his shoulder. How his body would feel under my fingers, through the smooth cloth of his pajamas. I can't believe he fucking wears pajamas. What kind of self respecting drug addict wears pajamas and bathrobes and flosses twice a day? Ex drug addict, I correct myself. So far as I can tell. It's been harder to follow him around during finals.
I stare at him for a moment too long and then look away, horrified that he might have noticed. If he was unbearable now, I could only imagine how relentless he would be, if he knew the idiotic thoughts that were swimming through my head.
So I fumble around, grabbing my shit so I can leave and take a post-run shower, praying he'll be asleep before I got back. I knock at least three books over and bang into a chair while grabbing my soap and finding a towel in the pile of clean laundry I dumped at the end of the bed. I've never understood the point of folding laundry up all neatly when you're just going to get it dirty again within a few days.
I'm not always a clumsy ass but something about being around him makes me knock into things and forget what I'm doing. He rolls his eyes and sighs in exasperation at my oafish floundering and I remember with a flash of heat how much he hates me.
I'm halfway through my shower before I'm willing to entertain the thought that's been insistently trying to break through my consciousness ever since I got back from my run.
His face, when I walked into the room. For a second, I thought there was something there beyond the habitual derision and disdain. For a second, I thought I saw sadness flash across his pale features. And something else. Longing. Desperation.
Yeah. As if. I'm infatuated to the point of delusions already. Not a good sign. I have no hope of surviving the rest of the year. I cling to the thought that any day now, he'll be gone. At least for a couple of weeks. The thought comforts me the same way that pressing a finger deeply into a fresh bruise is comforting. The comfort of pain you know, against the pain you can imagine.
When is he going to leave, anyway? He's been done with finals since at least the weekend, maybe earlier. I hope he just disappears before I have to crash into any more walls. I hope he never leaves at all. I hope there's a point to all this confusion. I hope he's asleep before I get back to our room.
No such luck. He's sitting exactly were he was before I left. I could swear he's at exactly the same page in his book, too. He turns towards me as I slide into bed. That's new. He generally avoids acknowledging my existence at all costs. There's definitely something in his face now, but I don't think it's something good. My heart twists in an unfamiliar way.
Baz
He wafts in on a cloud of steam and the smell of antiseptic. He looks disappointed to see me still sitting here. Good. No reason I should always be the only one suffering.
I focus on the words swimming across the page in front of me and try not to think about him naked behind me, scrambling through his wardrobe for sweatpants and a t shirt. He always sleeps in more or less the same thing he'd wear to class. Probably because he's such a lazy ass in the mornings.
I try not to think about that either. About his golden hair spread in a stupid abundance of curls against his austere white cotton pillow case. His golden arm hanging off the edge of the too-small dorm bed. The smooth skin of his chest and shoulder where his worn t-shirt always pulls away from his neck.
I have to get a grip on myself. I have to know when the dreaded reprieve will start. I have to ask him. Now.
I turn as I hear him slip into bed. I'm rewarded by the look of wary surprise he gives me at this breach in our unspoken protocol. I try to pour as much venom into my voice as I can, to mask any longing or pain that may try to get out.
"Why the fuck are you still here, Snow? Surely even you have a family somewhere who can stand the sight of you. When the hell are you going home?"
I don't expect the look of raw pain that flashes across his face. It is gone so quickly that I can't be sure I didn't imagine it. It's replaced by his habitual look of martyred exhaustion. But it's enough to pull me up short. I may live to torment him, but that doesn't mean I want him to ever actually be hurt. I didn't think he could be hurt, he's so fucking invincible.
"We're not the Christmas types," he says enigmatically. "So fuck off. And what about you? Surely your parents' country estate can't possibly start the holiday festivities without the heir apparent on the scene?"
I'm unsure what to say. Which is seriously unusual for me. Whatever it was I'd expected from the conversation, it wasn't this. I guess I hadn't actually thought it through. I imagined he'd just say 'tomorrow' or something, and then we could go back to ignoring each other. But now it looks like we're going to be stuck together over break, with no classes or routine to organize the inner chaos.
I try to recover, but I'm too confused, and my voice is more honest than I'd like when I respond. "I'm not going home. I can't face it. I'm…" I finally manage to stop talking before I say anything even more stupid. "… not going."
I feel shaken, and not sure why. I have to get out of this room. I slip a pair of jeans and a coat over my pajamas and walk out calmly, as though it's what I've been planning to do all along. I don't know know if he buys it, and at the moment, I don't particularly care.
It's not really that late, but campus is already a ghost town. The only people I know who are still around are people I definitely don't want to see.
I head to the music rooms. My only real refuge in the whole city. There's nothing that can calm me when I'm like this as much as playing. I have a locked carrel where I keep my violin, and my feet speed up at the thought of holding it in the dark. Making it sing. Letting it say all the things I can't even admit to myself. Sublimating my voice into the vibrations of wood and string.
As I walk quickly through the cold December air, I try to piece together what just happened. What exactly did I say? Something about his family awaiting his return. The look in his face was that of a frightened child. A trapped animal. Pure pain, and fear. I've never really given much thought to his family before. He never talks about them, but then again, he and I don't exactly talk.
I'm usually so preoccupied by the need to cover up how fucked up my own family is, I just assume everyone else's family is more… Conventional. Messed up in the more mundane ways that all families are. People love to complain about how awful their parents are. And I have no patience for it because they have no rutting clue what they're even talking about.
But Simon never complains about his family, now that I think about it. There's no surer sign of a fucked up past than one that's never talked about. I should know.
But somehow I didn't know. Because it's so goddamn implausible. The wonder child, the relentlessly earnest defender of justice, the ceaselessly happy king of a band of loyal friends. Surely such a person could only emerge from a loving family who adored him endlessly and told him at every turn how proud they are of everything he's become. Surely that's how he grew up. Otherwise he'd be more… like me.
It hits me suddenly that his rosy-cheeked goodness is as much of a sham as my cold, impenetrable superiority. Did I really think I was the only one who might have a secret pain hidden behind a public mask? I'm disgusted with myself. I'm displaying the worst kind of self pity, to the point of self absorption. Indulging in the kind of myopia I hate in other people.
These are thoughts that generally herald a dangerous cycle of self loathing, and I force myself to let them go as I rub resin onto my bow, adjust the chin rest and take the violin to my heart. I forget everything outside the curtain of sound I weave around the silence.
When my arm is protesting and my neck is stiff from holding the violin in place, I finally give up and go back to our room. Simon's already asleep, and I let myself watch him. It's comforting, even though it probably shouldn't be. I know this is all I will ever get of him. All I should ever get, too. But at least I have this. And it's better than not having it.
I get ready for bed and then lie down on my side and watch him. His face is soft in the moonlight that pours in through the window. His mouth is open and his skin is smooth and he looks like something perfect, precious. Something to protect and hold and never let go.
He sighs and mumbles something and rolls over slightly and my breath hitches at the movement of his muscles underneath his shirt. It's ok to let myself feel like this now, when he's sleeping, and we're both safe, and I can pretend that he doesn't really hate me and that I don't have to always act like I really hate him.
He rolls over again and now his forehead is wrinkled and his fingers are grabbing at the edge of his sheets and something in my heart starts to beat too fast. He turns again, then back, thrashing softly and then shaking his head violently from side to side.
I get up and walk over to his bed, unsure of what to do. He's had nightmares before. The first time, I woke him. He was crying, and furious. I would've been too. "Are you ok?" I had asked. I was scared. Scared of the sounds he had made. Scared that I cared that much. Scared that I was revealing too much with my question.
"Fuck's it to you?" was all he had said that time, still half asleep, rubbing his fists into his red eyes and breathing deeply. I saw him dig his nails into his palms to calm himself down. I didn't know other people did that besides me.
I was hurt, and covered it with a cold "nothing. Except that I have to share a fucking bedroom with you and I can't sleep with you making that noise. So shut it." He got dressed in silence and left the room. I sat there for hours, not sleeping, wondering where he was. If he was ok. What made him cry out like that at night. I must have fallen asleep at some point. He was back by the time I woke up for class the morning. He never mentioned it and neither did I. We just ignored each other more fiercely than ever.
After that, I kept earplugs near my bed. My own dreams are bad enough. I don't need someone else's to contend with. Especially someone who hates me. And whom I nevertheless can't seem to help but love stupidly. Pointlessly. Endlessly.
He lets out a whimper so tortured I think I'm going to break. Then he whimpers again and starts crying, and I stand frozen. I should just put in my earplugs and shut him out. But I can't, after tonight. After the glimpse I've had into who he might be. When I know that the nightmare might be my fault this time.
I don't think he always cries in his sleep, but I don't really know. His crying gets harder and then he's shaking and saying no, no, no, please, no, please, I'm sorry, no, don't, I won't. Nonononononono.
My heart is beating frantically now and I hate myself for just standing there but I don't know what to do. I find myself kneeling at the side of his bed, careful not to touch him, trying to somehow think at him, urging him with my mind to wake up, assuring him in my mind that he's ok, it's just a dream.
Then he starts screaming. Actually screaming. This definitely doesn't usually happen. And I can't take it any more and I don't care what the consequences will be. I put my hands on his shoulders, gently, and I lean my face so my mouth is near his ear and I whisper to him that it's ok, that he's ok, that I'm here, that I won't let anything hurt him, that he can sleep and I'll watch and he'll be safe. And I wish so badly this it was true. That it could be true, that he could want that from me, that I could be allowed to give that to him.
I'm crying too now and moving my hand across his face, through his hair, smoothing it back. And he starts to calm down, his face softens for a moment but then twists again and he grips my hands so tightly that I think there will be bruises on them tomorrow. I put my arms around him and murmur quiet things into his perfect ear. I think he's still asleep. I stay where I am until he relaxes suddenly into me and I'm holding him and he's shaking and I keep holding him and telling him it's ok until he's fully calm and clearly sleeping deeply.
I hold him for a while longer until I feel myself falling asleep too and then I move back in a panic. I can't fall asleep here, at his side. I can't make things worse between us than they already are. I can't lose what little I have of him.
I have no idea if he'll remember any of this in the morning. Or whether he'll only remember my earlier words. My poking at the scab he's built over whatever it was that made him look like a lost puppy, when I mentioned his family. I'm not sure which I hope for, his remembering or his forgetting.
So I move quietly back to my own bed and fall asleep to the steady sound of his breath and the soothing sight of his chest rising and falling, rising and falling. Sleeping, breathing. Living.
December 21st
Simon
Baz is acting like less of an asshole today. I have no idea why, but it's nice, so I'm not complaining. He was almost chatty this morning, suggesting that if we're going to be stuck with each other over the break, we may as well make the best of it.
He left before I could ask him what exactly he meant. I shake my head and laugh at the idea of the two of us grabbing a beer or going out for cocoa. Then I try to stop my thoughts as they wander down other paths. The two of us holding hands at the movies, ice skating in Central Park, holding each other when one of us falls… I'm quite sure that's not what he had in mind, and I'm glad he isn't here to see the blush creeping up my face.
Baz
I don't know what I was thinking this morning when I proposed a truce over the winter break. A truce? After he's spent the past three months following me around, trying to catch me slipping up. It's bad enough that he was the one to get me thrown out of the dorm last year. Though I know that probably saved my life. Still. Self righteous do-gooder. With blue eyes that seem to look right through me. With long fingers and broad shoulders and… Time to stop this train of thought. I'm sure he's already forgotten that I said anything.
But when I get back to the room, Simon has a whole list of activities planned for me to choose from. He looks… nervous? Does he actually want to spend time with me? Doesn't he hate me? I start to make fun of his earnest list, but I manage to stop myself before I say anything more than "what the fuck is this, Snow?" I watch his face darken at my snide tone, at my sneering mouth and mocking eyebrow.
He blinks in the sudden silence that's left when I stop myself mid-insult. He was clearly expecting me to go on, he was prepared for my mockery. I feel hurt for a second and then indignant and finally amused. This was a test. To see if I meant it, about being friends instead of enemies for a week or two over the break. I didn't know he had it in him. And now I've called his bluff. Good. Let's see where he goes with this now.
Simon
He reacts exactly the way I expect, and I feel simultaneously smug and disappointed. But then he stops mid sentence, before he's actually said anything cruel. His sneer has faded too and he's looking at me strangely. Watching me. It's unnerving. Then he just says with a shrug, "sure. You choose."
Could he possibly want to actually spend time with me? Impossible. So what's he playing at? Fine. He wants to play? I decide to call his bluff. And that is how I end up with a date to go ice skating with my creepy snobby handsome brilliant ass of a roommate.
