Simon
I'm excited to cook for Christmas. I've started drawing up menus and talking to local farms (through Baz, who of course is fluent not only in French but in the regional dialect spoken by the farmers. They adore him as a result, and save all their best produce and milk and eggs and meat for us. I love when other people love Baz.)
Daphne and the girls arrive. Baz has decided we need to stop calling them 'the girls' because they are all individual people. I don't laugh at him, but only because I'm nice. And because I like this Baz who thinks of his sisters as people. People named Mordelia, Philomena, Emmeline and Imogene. I'm not even supposed to refer to Phil and Em as 'the twins,' or call Genie 'the baby.'
It's nice to have them around. I liked being alone with Baz, but I like people (some people, at least) and it's fun to hear stampeding feet and gurgly laughs and snarky back-talk (Mordelia is experimenting with contempt, though she's only 7).
The little ones seem to know that something about Baz has changed. They used to leave a wide space when they had to walk by him. Now whenever he's sitting down, they find him and snuggle up to him and demand that he read them stories. Whenever he's standing, they climb on him and beg him to throw them high in the air or to let them put their tiny feet on his giant ones and give them a ride just by walking around. He still pretends to be bored but his eyes shine and his mouth is always smiling now.
Mordelia has amassed an impressive collection of magic trick paraphernalia and I spend hours showing her how to saw things in half and make rabbits appear. It's convenient that the countryside has so many obliging rabbits. And that the household has an obliging vampire. (Though at first Baz said he's had enough of magic rabbits to last a lifetime. I argued that since these rabbits weren't 10 feet tall and hadn't emerged with glowing eyes and poisonous fangs from a children's mural, he was safe.)
Micah
Penny insists that we're going to France to have Christmas with Baz and Simon. This is a terrible idea for so many reasons, not least of which is that it'll break her parents' hearts. Then there's the fact that Pitch is a vampire and Snow is a bomb waiting to go off (when he isn't busy being a walking magnet for every psychopath and dark creature in the realm).
Penny is way angrier with me when I express all this than I'm expecting. She goes into this whole thing about how last Christmas her mom wouldn't let Simon come even though she would've let Premal come. I point out that Premal didn't come home last year, not to mention the fact that Premal is her mom's son, and Simon isn't. She gets even angrier and says that's exactly the point, that now she's Simon's family too and she's not going to abandon him again like last year.
How is it abandoning him when he's with the whole Pitch clan in the French fucking countryside? And in what way is she Simon's family? She says that if Premal was married and living in the countryside no one would be upset if she spent Christmas with him. But Simon's not her brother, and Snow and Pitch aren't two newlyweds setting up a home in the wilderness. We're just a bunch of teenagers for fuck's sake.
But Penny is so upset with me that I back down. I don't want to lose Penny over Simon. I mean, I used to worry about that a lot, but more along the lines of them sleeping together. I'm now pretty secure that that won't happen. But Penny's so protective of him, it's like getting between an alligator and her babies. (Not lions and cubs. I'm from Florida. Deal with it.)
So, we're going to France and hurting her family so that we can hang out with the dynamic duo and pretend to be their family. I mean, I don't even celebrate Christmas (I'm Jewish) so I don't really care, do I?
(Great. Now I'm starting to end my sentences with rhetorical questions. Next thing you know I'm going to be drinking tea. Or eating marmite. Yuck and double yuck.)
Baz
I've gotten completely out of practice with maintaining a blank air of amused condescension. I never realized how much energy went into it. It was as natural as breathing growing up. (Not that my personal version of breathing is all that natural. I can't even fog up the glass when it's freezing outside and the fire is on inside. Simon thinks this is hilarious.)
Morphilemmogene (that's what I've come up with for referring to the girls; Simon's right, trying to say all four of their names every time I want to refer to them is mental) are transparently more at ease with me this way. But there's no way I'm going to spend time with Father with my face covered in feelings.
Who am I kidding. There's no way I'm going to spend time with Father, full stop. But I can't see a solution. Daphne is adamant that she and the girls are staying through Christmas. Simon is over the moon about it. And it's Daphne's fucking house. Or her cousins' or something. Same difference.
Malcolm
Daphne is insisting that I apologize to Baz before Christmas. She has the hysterical notion that if I don't, I will lose Baz forever. That I may already have lost him.
I have nothing to apologize for. At every turn, I have acted only on behalf of Baz's best interests. As I saw them, Daphne amends. Perhaps. But am I to be blamed for what I did not know?
It is true that the photographs she emailed me of what the boys did to the mageling are repugnant. Leaving a child to starve to death, even one as objectionable as Snow, is reprehensible behavior not worthy of the Families. I will leave it to Dev and Niall to discipline their sons. It is not my place. And it is certainly not the Coven's place.
I discreetly compensate the two families for the damage my son caused to their property. We all know these country houses represent only a tiny fraction of their wealth, but the same is true of me, so I gladly pay it. With the understanding that they will rein in those miscreants, and make bloody sure that no word is sent to the Coven about Baz's condition.
I have my hands full negotiating Baz's safety. If reconciliation is indeed necessary, then Baz should initiate it. Fathers do not apologize to their sons.
Simon
It seems to be a problem without a solution. Daphne won't leave Baz for Christmas. Morphilemogene shouldn't have the burden of Christmas without their father. The mere prospect of Malcolm coming here has drained all of the joy from Baz's face. I can only imagine what his actual presence would do.
I don't want to be the one to uninvite Daphne, but I also can't stand seeing Baz like this. At first I thought he'd like having Christmas with the girls (I can call them that in my own head), now that they've become so close. But as the days pass and I watch Baz grow increasingly more agitated, I become convinced that Malcolm's presence here will cause more harm than good.
I find Daphne in the south field, developing spells that will keep the sheep contained and safe but not restrict their movement. From what I can tell, she has an unprecedented power in warding and protection. I can't understand why I've never known this about her.
Baz always implied that she was hopeless as a magician. I'd never gotten the sense that Baz dislikes Daphne or resents her role in his family, so I wonder what could have made him either blind or unwilling to acknowledge her power.
A mystery for another day. I'll ask Penny what she thinks when she arrives. I can't wait for her to come. Not having her around has been like missing my right arm. Or maybe my right brain. Or is it the left brain that's analytical? Anyway, I miss her.
Daphne notices me and walks over to where I'm standing. "What's going on, love?" she asks me. It's weird for her to talk to me like I'm one of her kids, but nice too.
"Why does something need to be going on?" I protest. "How do you know I'm not just here to practice my shepherding?"
Daphne smiles, and then says more seriously. "It's about Christmas, no?" Her French accent has gotten more pronounced while we've been here.
"Yeah," I nod glumly. "It's tearing Baz apart. And he would be just as upset if Morphi- the girls, I mean, if the girls have to wonder why they're not with their da for Christmas. You know we love when you guys are here, but, uh..."
Daphne looks at me but doesn't finish my sentence for me. I rather like that about her. She gives me the time to stumble and stutter as much as I need until I can come up with the right words. It turns out that with a little time, I can usually find the words.
"What I am trying to say is, I think it would be better if you had Christmas in London, and Baz and I stay here," I finally manage to say.
Daphne nods, as though she expected this. Which she undoubtedly did. "Let's give him a bit more time," she says, referring to Baz's father.
I surprise myself when I say "No, I don't think we should. I don't think it's fair to Baz. I think we should settle this now, so he doesn't have to keep feeling so torn."
"I'll defer to your opinion on this, Simon. Though I am going to continue to press Malcolm to reconcile with Baz before Christmas. Even if we don't spend it together, we shouldn't spend it like this."
I think about protesting, but decide it's ok. I'll help Baz my way, she'll help Baz her way, and when we make mistakes, hopefully they'll cancel out.
Daphne
I watch Simon walk back to the house. I see Baz meet him at the door, see them lean in to one another, and I look away before I further invade their privacy. They wouldn't expect that I could still see them.
I can see quite far, much in the same way Basilton can hear. My power lies in controlling charged particles, and my eyes naturally (if that word can be used) maximize the energy of every photon that falls within range of my retinas.
Controlling elements comes with many emergent powers; I can create nearly impenetrable wards, I can wipe out small organisms like bacteria or algae in waves. My parents realized early on that I would be a target if either side of the war knew what I was capable of, so I grew up learning both how to use and how to hide my powers.
It entertains me endlessly that Mordelia and all her friends are obsessed with a movie about a girl who has to hide her powers. At least in my case, I never had to hide from my own sister. Though I have hidden my power from my children, for their safety as much as my own.
I have mixed feelings about Simon. My goal has always been to look after Basilton. I was worried about how drawn he looked when he came to the house that Saturday, which is why I followed him to the Nialls'.
I was frightened as I watched him collapse after finding Simon. He should not have had to bear witness to such brutality, and although it was Edmund and George who had perpetrated the violence, I blamed Simon as well for inciting it.
And I shared Malcolm' distrust of the Mage's protégé. I was disturbed by the way Basilton hung on to the boy. Basilton had thrown himself into this romance with the blindness of the young, and he was more obsessed with the object of his affections than was healthy.
It's ironic, because Baz has always acted far older than his years. By the time I joined the family, a few years after Natasha's death, Baz was already a serious and reserved child, more like a small adult than a small boy. I didn't think much of it until Mordelia was born a couple of years later.
Baz was entranced by the baby. He would watch her sleep, sing to her when she fussed, read her books even when she was too young to sit. He would prop her up in her bouncy seat and read and read and read to her. She adored him, she would smile and gurgle and giggle at him. There were weeks when she would only stop crying if he came over to distract her.
His face when he was with her was open and soft. He smiled easily around her. I began to suspect that the distant seriousness I'd always observed in him was not his inevitable self. But then he left for Watford the next year. When he returned for Christmas and summer breaks, he was back to being bored and morose.
When Mordelia was still very little, I would occasionally find Baz in her room reading to her or crawling about on the floor playing with her, but only when he thought no one was watching. As soon as she could speak well enough to pose a danger to his secret, the secret that he could be silly and enjoy playing and being kind, he stopped. She was confused and angry and I was heartbroken to know that Baz felt he needed to hide his best self from us.
And now, over these past couple of months, I've seen that side of him again. And it is Simon who brings it out in him. Simon, who turns out to be a perfectly lovely young man in his own right. Mordelia adores the boy, and she does not become attached to new people easily. The littler ones take it as given that he is theirs to command as much as any other adult in the family. They demand stories, rides, tickles and songs. I trust my children's judgment more than my own when it comes to character. Children can sniff out any insincerity with a skill that is lost once they grow up.
Despite myself, I've become fond of Simon for who he is. I'm no longer protecting Baz from him. Now I'm protecting them both.
I had been concerned that Simon would be a barrier to Baz's reconciliation with Malcolm. It seems not to be the case. Though the fact that he won't give us more time before deciding about Christmas has reawakened my suspicions. I know they're unfounded, though. I too have noticed what Simon described, that as the deadline approaches for when Baz thinks he will be forced to see his father, all the light has drained from his face.
I didn't believe at first that Simon could really have forgiven Malcolm so easily, but it's become clear over time that Simon is completely sincere. It makes me wonder what the boy has experienced in his life, that he is so forgiving of a man who allowed him to go through that kind of suffering. Only someone who expects nothing but cruelty from the world could so unhesitatingly forgive those who could have protected them from it but didn't.
He forgives me too, without ever having really blamed me. I may have helped Baz find him, and I may have helped with his recovery. But he would have had far less to recover from if I'd told Baz as soon as I knew. And even less if I had bypassed Baz altogether and simply put a stop to it myself as I should have done.
The story of pain that was written on the poor child's battered body when he emerged from his imprisonment would have been far shorter if I'd intervened. And that is something I will have to live with. Something I will have to spend the rest of my life making up for.
Simon is not the problem, and Baz is not the problem. I'm forced to face the fact that there is no barrier left but Malcolm himself. He hasn't been here with me to see the transformations that convinced me we should support Baz and Simon both, that we should give our blessings to this relationship. I text him photographs, but I know they're no substitute for being here in person. I am determined to get Malcolm here to see Baz, even if my deadline has gotten a bit shorter.
Malcolm
Daphne and the children have been spending more and more time in France. I don't in principle object to spending the holidays in France. But I am concerned for Daphne's safety. We have hidden her talents so successfully over the years, just as we have hidden Basilton's unfortunate affliction.
And I must admit, I don't know what I would even say to Baz if I were there.
Daphne has continued to send me an endless stream of photos. Of Baz, of the mageling (whom she insists on referring to by his given name, as though he is family). And the evidence she's presented about Baz's state is solid. The photos cannot speak to the reality of the situation. But they do attest to Baz's suffering when the mageling was ill, and his increasing joy as the boy recovered.
The most remarkable photo is this one of Baz playing with the girls. I haven't seen that look on his face since before Tasha died. It breaks my heart to see it now and realize it didn't have to be this way all these years. I thought his darkness was a consequence of his not being fully alive. But he looks completely alive now. It's rather startling. And I suppose if the mageling made this possible, I need to accept him.
I've always found it hard to gauge to what extent Baz's humanity is intact. That first Christmas after we lost Tasha, I didn't bother with gifts. I mean, who gives gifts celebrating the birth of Christ to a vampire? For all I knew, a Christmas gift would burn him like a cross.
Fiona was livid when she arrived later that day and discovered Baz despondent, believing he must be truly bad for Father Christmas to have crossed him off his list.
I was shocked to learn that Baz believed in childish things like Father Christmas, let alone that he believed in a mythical list that measured the truth of whether a person is good or bad. He always acted like a small adult around me, aloof and secure. Fiona brought him something later, but the damage had been done.
I don't want to repeat that mistake at a larger scale. To lose Basilton would be devastating. To lose him would be to lose Tasha completely. If I fail at this, I will lose Fiona as well, and quite possibly Daphne.
The remaining problem is that I haven't the foggiest idea how to go about reconciling with my own son. I suppose I will be forced to figure it out as I go along.
Malcolm
Basilton won't allow me near the mageling, or even near the house. I suppose he means for me to be kept at a distance until he is satisfied that I am truly repentant. Though I'm put out by his impertinence, I am also proud of him; protectiveness is a valuable quality in a leader.
So we meet in what passes for a restaurant in this forgotten corner of the civilized world. When I arrive, Basilton is already seated. He stands politely when I come in, but does not offer me his hand.
"You're looking well," I say. And it's true, he's looking better than I've ever seen him. Though the light in his eyes that I could see in the photographs is notably absent.
"Why are you here?" He asks. Forceful and direct, both traits I admire. I try to read his face but it is carefully blank. Everything about the boy is pleasing.
"Your mother suggested that I talk to you," I reply after asking the waiter for our tea.
"You're here as a favor to Daphne?" he asks with deadly calm, as he stirs cream into his tea once it arrives.
"Well, no," I reply just as evenly. "I suppose I'm here because I owe you an apology. I'm sorry to have hurt you." There. I've managed it. Apologizing to my son. What is this world coming to?
"Is that all?" he asks, his face calm but his voice too flat.
My first reaction is anger. Yes, that's bloody well all. What more is there?
I'm not sure what I expected to happen after I'd said those magic words, but it wasn't this. That apology came at great cost, it was an offering, and I expected him to respond with some level of joy or gratitude.
Then I realize how absurd that is, and grimace inwardly. Come now Malcolm - trumpets and fanfares for doing what's right? You're better than this. So I swallow my anger.
"What more is there?" I ask. It's not intended as a rhetorical question, but Basilton takes it as such. His eyes close, he breathes deeply, and opens them again.
When he speaks, his tone is foreign. I am shocked when I finally place it. Disappointment. Mixed with disgust.
"Hurting me is the least of the things you've done. You stood by while people you consider your friends kidnapped and tortured a 17 year old kid. Because he loved me. You let them punish him for loving me. You would have let them kill him. You would have let him starve to death slowly, in excruciating pain, freezing and alone in the dark. Because he loves me. And because I love him. If this knowledge doesn't fill you with shame, if what you've done seems reasonable and just and you're merely sorry that it's complicated your relationship with me, then we're done here, Malcolm. There is nothing left."
He has never called me by my name before, and the message is not lost on me.
Baz
My voice betrays more emotion than I'd like, but so be it. I will not be talking to this man again as his son. I'm amazed that I can speak at all. Inwardly I'm destroyed.
My father's air, his words, his calm, all sicken me. I've admired and emulated this man my whole life, and he's as depraved and cold as his enemies say. I've always been able to make excuses for his faults.
When it was just me he was erasing, I could make excuses. No longer.
I want to stand, to turn around and walk out that door and go back to Simon, whose goodness (whose unbearable, insufferable goodness) has become my salvation. But I know that my legs will shake if I stand, and I will not leave this conversation in weakness. I will not stumble when I turn my back on my father.
I do allow myself to close my eyes, to have at least that respite from his face. His confusing, disappointing, frightening face. A face that I'm ashamed to discover I still love.
I don't want to leave. I don't want this to be how it ends. I don't want my father to be evil.
My eyes startle back open when he reaches across the table and takes my hand. His expression is one I've never seen him wear before. His eyes are filled with tears. This much emotion from my father is like other people ripping out their hair and gnashing their teeth.
I'm disgusted. He suffers this much to know I no longer consider him my father, but suffered not at all while Simon was entombed in a dungeon.
Then he speaks, and his voice is sad, urgent.
Malcolm
I sit stunned after his tirade. He is right. He is right, and I am terribly, terribly wrong.
Seeing myself through his eyes like this fills me with an unfamiliar and unpleasant emotion. It takes a moment for me to place it. Shame.
I did indeed allow an innocent child to be hurt, when I could have prevented it. Mageling or not, he was guiltless. He was punished not so much for loving Baz as for being loved by him. I don't know how I've become this man. It is not the man I ever intended to be.
I make no effort now to hide my feelings. I reach out and take my son's hand. I allow him to read the emotions on my face. On his face, I see only disgust. But I will at least express my guilt, even if I cannot make amends.
It seems Daphne was right after all. It seems that I've already lost him. But I don't have to lose myself. Whether he accepts me or not, I need to acknowledge that my actions were, as he has all but said, unforgivable.
I take heart from the fact that he hasn't yet left, that he still sits with me at this table. So I speak, as plainly as I can.
"You're right, Basilton." I say. "You're right, and I'm sorry. And the person I most need to apologize to is Simon. I should never have allowed him to come to such harm. Him or anyone. But especially the boy you love, the boy who loves you."
Baz looks at me with a mixture of confusion and determination. I've never said the mageling's name before. Simon's name. My penance can at least start with his name.
"I'm not letting you anywhere near Simon," he spits, and for a moment I see the full rage behind his eyes. He's so alive, it takes my breath away.
"I can understand that," I reply. "And again, you're right. I do need to earn that privilege. I was wrong about more things than I knew. And expressing my sorrow for the pain I've caused is only the smallest step towards that. But it's the only step I can take right now. I hope to have the chance to take more steps in the future. I'd like to be able to continue to see you. I want to be in your life, Basilton. Your lives. Yours and Simon's. If you'll allow it. I don't expect you to answer me now. But I do hope you will consider my request."
Baz
I'm confused. It was easier to feel shattered, to feel rage. My father's voice is direct and emotional. He doesn't make any excuses for his actions. He accepts that there are consequences. He says Simon's name. He acknowledges our love without judgment. He asks my permission to be in my life.
So I say, far more calmly than I feel, "I will consider it." And then I leave him on steady legs and go to find Simon.
Simon
Baz wouldn't let me come with him to meet with his father, and I wouldn't let him walk into that situation alone, so we compromised. I could drive him and wait in the car nearby, and if he hadn't come out after two hours I could go in.
He was gone maybe 20 minutes. That doesn't seem like a good sign. Surely reconciliation takes longer than boiling rice. But his fangs aren't out, which does seem like a good sign.
He gets into the car and reaches for me. Good sign or bad, I'm glad for it. I hold him for a moment and then hold his hand and drive us a bit farther out into the countryside so his father doesn't happen across us on his way back to the train. Finally I shut off the car and turn to him.
He reaches for my shoulders and kisses me and then sinks into my chest and cries. I try not to act surprised while I stroke his back and let him cover my shirt in tears and snot. I'm glad he lets me see him like this, and that he lets me comfort him. I'm pretty worried though, because I haven't seen Baz like this in a long time.
I'm furious with Malcolm. How can he do this to Baz? How he can hurt him after all that's happened? I don't know what happened in the restaurant, but I hate him.
I don't want to hate anyone anymore. I don't want to think about anyone I hate anymore. I was able to put away all hatred for the man who left me to rot. But I cannot put away my hate for the man who did this, the man who cracks Baz down the middle like a broken eggshell.
Baz cries and cries and cries but doesn't say a word. I hold him and kiss his forehead and wipe his tears and tell him that it will be ok. That I love him. And I let him cry while I imagine all the terrible things I want to do to Malcolm.
Baz is finally still, and leans back in his seat with his face drawn and his eyes closed. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now. I still have no idea what actually happened back there with his father. I'm not risking bringing him back to the house, where Daphne and the girls are waiting.
So I drive to a little path I've found that runs along a stream in the woods. Walking always helps me, so for the lack of any better ideas, I bring him there.
I forgot how cold it was, though. And how easily Baz gets cold these days. There's a kind of shelter along the trail that's a step above a lean-to, and that's where I take him.
My heat quickly fills the small space and Baz starts a fire in the fire pit and we sit together hand in hand and quietly watch the flames. He rests his head on me and I put my arm around his shoulders and we just sit.
"You ok?" I ask at some point, and he nods. "Want to talk about it?" He shakes his head. "Ok then," I say. And we sit. And it's ok.
Daphne
Mal and I arrange all the paperwork and spellwork. We will have it executed as soon as our barrister is back from the holidays.
We've set up a trust for Simon identical to the one we've established for all our other children. We've extended all the family wards and magickal protections to apply equally to him. We've included him in our will and added him as a dependent and successor to all of our funds and accounts.
He has access to all our properties, our planes and boats, our emergency hideaways on three continents and an advanced facility in Antarctica that could survive any natural or magickal disaster and provide two centuries of protection following it. Our extended network of legal, political and intelligence assets will be instructed to include him in any arrangements that must be made going forward.
We've made sure there are no dependencies, and that the allocations will remain in place regardless of the status of his and Baz's relationship in the future.
Baz should be familiar enough with our systems to notice the changes on his own, and we have no other plans to tell him about it. He will think we are trying to buy his forgiveness. But we're not. We're putting as much in place as we can to concretely establish our commitment to them before we try again to broach reconciliation.
There is one thing I might have to tell him about though. Something I hadn't even planned. The house has chosen him. Him and Simon.
The house has been in my family for nearly a thousand years. It's not just a warded house. It's The Warded House, the original one, built to protect our family during a particularly vicious war with the demons and goblins. It worked so well that it sparked a secondary war in the next generation, as all the descendants of the original builders fought over who would inherit it.
So the elders of the family enchanted the house to choose its own occupants. The chosen group could open it to the rest of the family, but they couldn't be forced to. In years when the house didn't think any branch of the family was particularly in need of protection, the deed would become blank until it had chosen new owners. It's been blank for the past sixty years.
We discovered that it had changed when we were going through all our property records to prepare them for Simon's inclusion. The deed now reads "Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch and Simon Salisbury Snow." (I'm not sure what to make of the Salisbury part.)
The house has never chosen non-blood family before, so it hadn't occurred to me to try and give it to them, even though the two of them were clearly the most in need of protection. But now we can rest easy that they'll remain safe. The house has never failed its occupants. Not in a thousand years.
Simon
My life has fallen into a peaceful pattern. I don't care about traveling anymore; there's nothing that I need to run from. Our days blend together, become indistinguishable. Every morning, Baz sleeps late, though he no longer has the excuse of being up hunting every night. He just likes sleeping late. (He still hunts. Just not every night. And it doesn't take all night, not when we're hunting together.)
In the mornings while he sleeps, I practice with my sword. When I get back, sweaty and reeking from hours of hacking at things, he's still in bed. Most days, I shower and then join him. Sometimes I don't bother with the shower.
Life with Baz has become a sensual grammar lesson. We conjugate prepositions: on, under, over, around. In. We practice the syntax with our fingers and tongues and lips and teeth. We discover new ways to string the phrases together to form ever more pleasurable sentences written in the language of our bodies. If I didn't make myself a list of things to do outside the house, I don't think I'd manage to go more than ten minutes without tumbling into bed with him.
He is endlessly alluring. His tall frame blocks everything else from my sight. His black hair contrasts with the unearthly white of his face, and I can't leave a single strand of it untouched. I used to think his beauty came from being a vampire, until I met some other vampires. They're a hideous lot.
All except him. He's perfect.
So every morning, he sleeps until I come wake him. Every day, I get to take my sweet time drawing him up from sleep. Sometimes we don't get out of bed until well past noon. I smile at how lucky my life has become. Then I feel like an idiot for thinking of myself as lucky. It's not like I don't realize how fucked up my life is. It's just that right now my life is so removed from everything else, so filled with wonder and love that I can't help but feel like the rest of it didn't matter.
Baz
Simon's come out his ordeal with Dev and Niall remarkably unchanged.
That's not quite right He has changed. Just not for the worse. His eyes are less haunted. He doesn't bluster about the way he used to. His ribs don't show through his skin. His arms and back and chest have become thicker, roped with muscles from hours practicing with his sword or playing football with me and some of the blokes from the next farm over. (He's still a clumsy oaf on the pitch. That hasn't changed.)
His hair is longer. He doesn't shave it any more, and the curls tumble in an unruly mop around his face. His face is softer, less vigilant. He doesn't look like he's always waiting for the next catastrophe. His appetite is as big as ever as he eats and drinks with abandon, as if he'd never heard of flatware or crockery.
In short, he's sexy as all hell.
It's confounding to me that with every new nightmare life throws at him, he emerges filled with more good and light than ever. I used to think his openness, his bravery and honesty, were signs of weakness. That his integrity was a side effect of being too thick to understand how nasty the world actually is. I'm chagrined to discover that I have been the naive one all along.
Now that we spend every waking (and sleeping) moment together, I realize that Simon knows better than anyone how full of malice people are, and how fleeting happiness is. He tells me that he chooses happiness. It's an act of defiance. It's the ultimate fuck you to everyone who's ever hurt him. They can't hurt him anymore, because he refuses to stay hurt.
I never guessed that cynicism and joy could go hand in hand. I never knew that my own darkness was a concession to those who would erase me, not a defense against them. I never thought of anyone as being wiser than me, or stronger than me. Let alone Simon.
I'm skeptical at first, but I come to realize that it is somewhat heroic to insist on happiness when the world offers you nothing but misery. It's stunning, and a bit frightening, and regrettably humbling. Simon in a nutshell.
Handsome, simple, fuckable Simon. How did he ever put up with me? Ah, but he didn't. He hated me for years. Now, I can almost understand why.
