Author's Note: Hey again to our wonderful readers! Sorry this took such a long time to update again, been busy prepping for Halloween :). As you know, all characters and original plot ideas belong to the brilliant Rainbow Rowell. A bucketload of credit to my talented co-writers demonoa and .olive! Keep calm and carry on reading!
Simon
I was always the sun, apparently. Baz told me once that he was circling around me, always feeling that he was the one fated to burn out, like the way a star slowly fades from existence. But I guess fate changes when you start snogging your vampire nemesis.
It turns out that even though I lost my magic and stopped being the sun - or whatever metaphor Baz likes to use - I haven't lost the ability to set things on fire. The smoke alarm goes off just as Baz begins to knock furiously on the apartment door.
"Snow?" He hollers over the ringing. "Snow, are you okay?"
"Yeah, be with you in a sec, love." I have this secret suspicion Baz likes it when I call him that. Hopefully that'll lessen the blow I'm bound to receive when I actually open the door. I'm a bit preoccupied right now, desperately trying to clear the smoke hanging lazily around the kitchen ceiling with fashion magazine, a product of the burnt rice. Baz's pounding grows louder against the oak, doing nothing to help my steadily aching head.
"Open the bloody door, Snow, dammit!" Merlin, is he shouting? Baz never really gets angry with me anymore, just a bit frustrated, (this usually happens when I beat him at FIFA). I remember the one time I actually saw him get truly mad - it was back at Watford, in our 5th year. His father had come to take him away for Christmas break early for some reason, and Baz went mad. You could hear the screaming from the pair of them in every corner at Watford. But taking into consideration that I'm running around and waving my arms, desperately trying to stop the beeping instead of opening the door, he's probably more than annoyed right now.
I glance at the stove briefly. It's starting to worry me how the rice keeps smoking, despite how tired my arms are from swishing the haze around. Then it occurs to me that turning off the stove might help, so I chuck Vogue onto the floor, move the dial to zero, and fill the fiery pot with cool water. Less than five seconds later, I have my second big aha moment of the evening - smoke alarms probably have an off button, although Baz might not. I wipe my forehead and run for the laundry room, my best bet for where the broom is.
"Open the door, or so help me I will open it myself!" I doubt Baz will ever forget his set of keys again. The broom is exactly where I left it, jammed in the back behind our tiny drying rack. I say a silent thank-you to the Holy Cleaning Gods that Penny didn't move it to wherever it's actually supposed to go. It takes a few seconds of wild stabbing at the ceiling (and quite a few chips in the paint) to hit the button labelled 'POWER', but eventually the smoke alarm makes one final, defeated screech and goes silent. I sigh, then remember the smoke and my throat switches mid-exhale to a sharp cough. A moment later, another throat clearing comes from behind me.
"Snow." Baz is standing in the open doorway, wand in hand, grimacing in disbelief.
"Oh. Hey. Baz." I pause, not sure what he's thinking of the disaster in front of him. "I was thinking, do you want to eat out tonight?"
Baz
Of all the damned days I could forget my key. Well, Penelope's key. I've been staying in their apartment for the past week, keeping an eye on Simon. Clearly he needs constant supervision. I can see why we were never allowed to have a hot water kettle in our room back at Watford.
I can't even begin to piece together the catastrophic scene before me. Simon's standing behind our kitchen counter, curls standing at all angles, hanging limply, smoke swirling around him. His leathery tail is slashing through the air behind him, the hiding spell worn off. If I hadn't seen what happened when he used up all his magic to defeat the Humdrum, I would've thought that he'd been attacked by some rogue goblin and gone off. But the air around Simon isn't shimmering with power, and he looks dazed rather than angry.
"Baz, how did you-,"
"Bend it like Beckham." I reply curtly, nodding at the bent lock on our front door. I want to ask him what the hell he was trying to do, but Snow's standing there with such a pitiful expression that I think it would break him. Or he could just collapse onto the floor, I think as Snow leans against a wall and crumples, head tucked into his knees. Seeing him like that makes this cold, scared part of me snap. As I stride over to Simon, I take in the pots and pans scattered around the kitchen, as well as the soggy Mary Berry cookbook propped open to dry - the twit must of managed to drop it in the sink. Almost to him, I stop and he lifts those round blue eyes up to me.
"Were you… were you trying to make dinner for me?" It seems absurdly obvious now, the embarrassed flush on his flour-dusted cheeks. He shouldn't even have needed flour for any of the recipes he was trying to attempt. A minute ago, before I spelled the door open I was worried. I know better than anyone what a tragic past Simon has with fire, and for a moment I was back in the forest outside the Pitch manor. Except this time Snow really was on fire, and there was nothing I could do to save him. It's possible I overreacted, and Bunce'll be ticked off about the broken lock, but it honestly took all my limited self control not to burn down the door. And I swear I'm not a pyromaniac.
A tear begins to glisten in the corner of Simon's eye, and his wings have drooped around him like a protective shell. Because I'm just as disturbed as I was during my days of unrequited love, I begin to laugh. Maybe I'm over-tired, or giddy from the adrenaline still coursing through me, but a cackle racks my body. Simon clearly doesn't know what to think, his expression shifts from confused to apologetic, and finally settles on the timeless 'he's plotting' face. Eyes narrowed, Snow looks identical to my fifth year nemesis (that's when I fully realized how far I'd fallen for him, explains why he looks so attractive now).
"What's so funny?" I expected a basic remark like that, he was The Chosen One after all and never knowingly under-clichéd.
"You made me dinner." I reply, finally too out of breath to continue laughing, so I settle for a smirk instead. Simon unclasps his knees to gesture to the fleshy chicken still laying in the pan. I doubt he's even washed it.
"I wouldn't exactly call that dinner." The annoyance is thickly spread over his reply, although his cheeks are beginning to dry.
"I'm a vampire, remember? I wouldn't put uncooked meat past me. And we've still got that tasty egg rice you made in my honor." My sarcasm clear as I go over to survey the damage done to Penelope's metal pots, to which Snow replies by curling back into a ball and moaning.
"Just go away and let me die of embarrassment in peace."
"Fat chance of that. I feel another bout of laughter coming on." I counter, glancing back to see him draw his cornflower eyebrows together in obvious frustration. The smokey flavouring of the air is beginning to creep it's way into my lungs, so I walk over and unlock the balcony doors. Gently pushing them open, I startle a dusty gray pigeon into flying down to the London streets a few stories below. The sun has drifted behind a far off building, creating a lighting edging on the side of melodramatic. It's actually quite breathtaking - the sunset streaking the clouds in an array of pinks and oranges. I pull myself away from the scene outside and back to the one that clearly needs more attention. Simon's become an even tighter huddle against our white cabinetry and stainless steel fridge. He peaks his head up again and poses the rather ironic question of what we should eat tonight.
"Oh, do you not want this?" I reply in mock surprise, holding the slimy chicken up to him before throwing it in our stainless steel compost bin (Bunce's mother was adamant when she helped plan her daughter's apartment that they must have a color palette).
Snow groans and thumps his head back against the fridge. He's resorting to his usual language of grunts and snorts. It takes all of my small amount of willpower to resist saying "That's it Snow, use your words.".
"I'm sorry, alright?" It's not my fault I can't cook." It's unlike Snow to get upset over some burnt food (not that he's ever had a chance to burn food before). Perhaps there's something bothering him underneath that pretty face.
"You know I'm just taking the mickey, right?" Sometime he feels so much that he misinterprets every other feeling he comes across, even his own. Snow pulls his face into a grim smile and continues his previous apology.
"I… I guess…" He stammers, struggling for the right words. "I guess I'm just kind of embarrassed. I mean, I wanted this to be perfect, you know?" Simon legs slump down in resignation and he waves his arms at the kitchen and then down to himself, flour on his jean and a toe poking out of his llama socks. "And this, this is a long way off perfect."
Suddenly I'm filled with the urge to roll Simon up in the fluffiest blanket I can find and recite one of the poems I wrote in my head about him back in sixth year. Sometimes I whisper one silently and it helps me deal with him during his more exasperating moments. There are times when I feel like Simon is always hurting, always needy. That's the part of me that I'm learning to let go of, the hate that kept me from burning up at Watford. But like I said, I've become a part of the sun now. So I kneel down next him, then turn with my back against the wall so I'm sharing the space with him. My hand finds it way into his soft palm and begins to trace circles with my thumb. Head tilted back, eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar, Simon could be sleeping. But I know he's not by the way his mouth tilts up at the corners when I drop my head onto his shoulder.
Almost five years after the Christmas when everything changed, I still find it hard to do this. Expose myself, be vulnerable. When it's kisses and hands up tangled in hair I get lost in the blush of his cheeks and the moles on his neck, and I can be brave like I am in my head. But this is the part where I screw this imperfect balance up. I get uncomfortable and my mind wanders back to the memories of watching, always wanting, never knowing how long I could keep it up. Thousand-mile stares. So I just say his name.
"Simon." I love you's are hard. Sometimes silence is harder.
"Baz." He squeezes my hand and rests his head on top of mine. We just sit like that, fingers entwined, wings flopping around, necks aching. And when the silence starts to fill me up, and the old anxieties start to crawl in, I repeat his name.
"Simon."
"Baz."
At some point his chest starts to heave higher, and he smothers a cough. I pull away as he continues to clear his throat, only to breathe in more of the smoke still hanging in the air. My legs cramp when I stand and pull Simon to his feet and together we walk out onto the wide balcony, stopping to lean against the metal railing.
My mouth curls into a smile as I take in the scenery again. The sky has darkened to a more dramatic magenta and fiery orange, framing the muffled bustle of the streets below. The wind is swirling around us, drowning out distant car engines, accompanied by the twittering of birds. I like this silence more. It's comfortable silence, like when we go out for cherry scones in a thunderstorm, the rain making a beautiful excuse for quiet. It gives me time to contemplate the box that has been burning a hole in my pocket for a month. Then I open my mouth and face him.
"You're not perfect." He sighs and leans his elbows against the railing, running his fingers through his golden curls. Then Simon turns to me, the fading light dancing across his freckled cheeks, like he expects me to say more. And I do.
"You're not perfect. But none of this was perfect. Not Watford, not the defeating the Insidious Humdrum part, and not this. Let's face it, you hated me from the bottom of your heart for about seven years." I pause, accepting the ache that comes with acknowledging that. "You were the sun, Simon. It would have been a bloody perfect story if I'd crashed into you and burned like I was supposed to. But we're both still here."
"Yeah." The light finally reaches his eyes. "You never did what you were supposed to do."
"Says you. You fell love with the vampire you were supposed to kill." We're bantering, but I can tell by the way Simon's facing me now that we both know the truth behind that statement.
"Glad I did."
"Me too." A pause.
"Imperfect. I like it."
I answer with a grin. He reaches for my left hand and encases it in warmth.
"I love you, Baz."
"I love you too Simon." Sometimes the love can come easily to my tongue. Another pause and then he slips his palm out of mine and turns away. Disappointment floods through me. Did I do something wrong? I shift around to face the other way and as I stare at the setting sun on the horizon, it hits me. It's the right time, the right setting. I slip my hand down into my pocket and touch the velvet box. My hearts thuds in disbelief of my own bravery, as I bring it out and spin around to face him. Inhale, exhale. He's there, beneath me.
Simon Snow on one knee.