He knew this day would come. He fucking knew it.
"Hey, who do you think you are?" Golden curls licked with burnt caramel, jay blue eyes.
"I mean, honestly, what was I thinking, of course. Of. Fucking. Course. I-" He scuffed his hair back behind his head, roughly.
A sneer. "Who do I think I am?" He kicked back his feet onto the desk. "'A rose by this very name will always smell sweet.'"
One finger fell into the curling slips. A soft phrase cracked from the winter-blue lips.
"That's not right." He scrunched up his nose like he had sniffed orangutan.
A trail of liquid fuel bleeded into the nooks and crannies. He filled each separate spiral.
"Wow, must've taken a falling cow on the head to realize that one," he responded dryly.
The last curl held on to his finger like a weak butterfly, just emerged from his chrysalis.
He rolled his eyes. "What do you take me for, and what do you know about me anyway."
"Simon," Baz breathed.
"If only you knew. If only you knew the millions of heartsick shit I've memorized. The stupid prose and poems I know by...stone." Baz barked out a grated laugh. "I have no heart anymore. You'd laugh if you could see me now."
His eyes blurred and he was taking steps forward into time. When he had returned to Watford from numpties. When they had first kissed. When Simon had first touched him, and the burn made him gasp from a heat he had never known. When they had first danced awkwardly at the ball, and then later before a tiered cake that had some sour cherries.
"Simon. Oh gods, Simon, where are you?!" Baz cried, and that flame eating out his heart blazed. The words spat into flames.
"Simon Snow. Beloved husband, friend, father. 'The soul of Adonais, like a star,/ Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.'"