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Part One: In Which Baz Contemplates The Multiverse
Baz
I wake up, my body stiff and aching from laying too long in the same position. I take a moment to adjust to the feeling of being awake.
Two things strike me.
One, I am much warmer than I usually am, especially as the window is once again wide open.
Two, I can hear Simon Snow’s breathing and it’s much closer than it should be.
I open my eyes, and Snow is right there, head half on my pillow, watching me with an odd look in his eyes. He’s in his pyjamas, which is a relief, because I don’t know that I could cope with shirtless Snow so soon after waking up. He smiles at me. I flinch.
“What the fuck are you doing in my bed, Snow?” I ask, my voice quiet and cracking from disuse.
“Don’t you mean our bed?” He gestures to where his bed has been shoved up against mine. The mattresses are touching, but we still have different blankets. I can feel the warmth radiating from where he lays, mere centimetres away.
I sit up. My head throbs.
“Why are our beds like this?” I ask. My hand brushes up into my hair, a nervous gesture I’ve picked up from Snow that I hate myself for. I hiss as I touch a painful lump near my temple. “What the fuck did you do to my head?!”
Snow leans back, eyes widening.
“What do you mean why?” He says. His face is doing something but I can’t quite understand it. “You said you wanted to cuddle. You hit your head and wanted me to… I was just trying to be a good boyfriend, I didn’t realise…”
“I’m sorry, what?!”
Have I died? Have I finally gone insane?
“I can put them back where they were, but your bed isn’t big enough for the both of us,” he says, fiddling with the blanket and not meeting my eyes.
“I’m so confused,” I whisper, closing my eyes. The sudden darkness helps with the throbbing pain in my head. “Fuck, my head hurts.”
“Oh, baby,” he says, rubbing my back. “Do you want me to kiss it better?”
Before I can even answer, his lips unerringly find the bump under my hair. I’m not sure if he spoke with magic, or pushed magic into the bruise, or if it’s just me leaning into the insanity, but it helps.
“Um, thanks?” I say. He just chuckles and squeezes my arm through my thin silk pyjama top.
“Come on, babe,” he says, scooting over to the end of the bed and reaching his hand out for me. “We’ve got to get up or we’ll miss breakfast.”
I stare at his hand blankly until he slowly lowers it, watching me closely.
“Are you ok?” He asks, voice unsure.
I nod, but it’s a lie. I’m not ok, not even close.
Or maybe I am? Maybe this is just a dream, in which case I should just take what I can get? I need time to think.
“You can use the bathroom first,” I say.
“Ok,” Snow says, and it’s sound like there’s laughter in his voice but he turns before I can properly assess his face. “I’ll be out in a few.”
What.
The fuck.
Is happening?
I allow myself a minute to hyperventilate before I decide fuck it. If Snow thinks he’s my boyfriend, who am I to complain. I might go and see the nurse about what is probably a concussion, but I need to get dressed. My boyfriend Simon Snow wants breakfast.
Penny
Simon and Baz walk into the dining room hand-in-hand. Simon looks very smug and Baz looks a little stunned. I roll my eyes at them.
“Morning Penny,” Simon says, pulling Baz into the seat next to him. Baz seems to be clinging on a little too hard.
Whatever they’re up to, I don’t want to know. They’ve become insufferable recently, and I’ve had to limit the amount that Simon can talk to me about Baz further, to only two minutes a day. Honestly, if I thought he was obsessed before I was dead wrong. I long for those days now.
“Morning Simon, Baz,” I reply, not looking up from where I’m putting marmalade on my toast.
“Bunce,” Baz greets hesitantly. I do glance up then. He’s staring intently at me, like he’s trying to lift the thoughts right out of my head. I raise an eyebrow at him, unimpressed, and he looks away.
We spend the rest of breakfast in silence, or at least as silent as it can get whilst Simon is eating. It is a little sickening how ardently Baz is staring at him, sipping his tea as if we can’t all see where he’s looking through the steam. I’ve seen love-spell victims less enamoured.
I put it out of mind. Not my circus, not my monkeys. (Well Simon is sort of my responsibility as his most reasonable friend, but there’s only so much I can do.) We have an end-of week test coming up first period and I need to get in the right headspace. I will be top of the class this year, and now that Basil is distracted it should be a clear run. Ha!
Baz
“Gents,” I say to Dev and Niall as I join them at the back of the class. I’ve always chosen desks further back, despite my teacher-pleasing attitude, so that I can unobtrusively watch my roommate. Right now, I am a little grateful for the distance.
“Baz,” Dev sneers. The vehemence in his voice takes me aback.
“Hi,” Niall says quietly. He doesn’t look at me.
I had been hoping that talking to my friends might shed some light on what exactly I have missed. I never even considered that in this weird alternate reality they wouldn’t even want to talk to me.
“So, uh, about Snow,” I broach anyway.
“Oh, would you just shut up about Simon bloody Snow,” Dev groans.
I sit in stunned silence for a moment before muttering, “sorry,” and getting out my books.
Niall is staring miserably at Dev. Dev is very violently taking things out of his bag, jaw twitching as he grinds his teeth.
Ok then.
I think I might be in an alternate reality, one in which I am dating Simon Snow, and because of it my friends hate me and his friend tolerates me. It’s the only viable explanation left. I thought, at first, that it might be amnesia brought on by whatever blunt force trauma bruised my head, but I’m not missing any days. The date today is exactly what I think it should be and, as expected, I have a test today, which I am already well-prepared for. Granted I don’t remember going to bed last night, which makes me wonder if a spell went wrong or perhaps I might be in a coma. I’m going to have to investigate after school is done.
Until then I just need to keep up with the pretence. I refuse to tell Snow that I don’t remember our relationship, because maybe then he’ll stop being nice to me. I know, I’m weak. So, I will play the happy boyfriend (which isn’t really playing at all) and figure out what has happened on my own. Should be easy, really, I’m one of the smartest people I know.
By the end of class, I have a completed test and a list of all the things I remember from yesterday:
- I woke up late.
This was suspicious, because usually Snow is obnoxiously loud in the mornings, getting up at a ridiculously early time to ensure he has first crack at the scones. But he was gone yesterday morning, leaving without waking me up.
- My shower gel bottle was empty.
This likely explains the first point. I know for a fact that I had just opened a new shower gel on Monday, so there’s no way it should be empty. But, on Wednesday I spelled Snow’s laces together while he was carrying a tray of dinner and I knew he was going to retaliate somehow. My theory is that he emptied it out yesterday morning then got out of there before I could notice and hex him into next week, which of course meant leaving quietly for once in his magic-forsaken life.
- I didn’t confront Snow during school, but instead went to Dev and Niall’s room to come up with some form of retaliation.
Snow was tense all day, jumping every time he saw me, which was admittedly hilarious. Then I remember distinctly going to see my friends. Dev laughed that it was like fourth year again, and that I was back to my evil scheming ways. And then… nothing. I don’t know what happened next, or even how or when I left their room that night.
I don’t write down that I don’t remember feeding, but I must have because I don’t have that irritating itchiness in my gums that I get when I haven’t had any blood in the last 24 hours. Snow may be on hand-holding terms with me right now, but I don’t trust him not to find this list and use it as evidence against me.
Granted it’s not a particularly long list. But there’s not much else that stands out about yesterday. It was a normal Thursday. School, lunch, football…
“Hi, babe.”
I jump, whipping around to see Snow standing by my desk, my bag already on his shoulder. I scrunch the list up and shove it in my pocket.
“I’ll walk you to your next class, yeah?”
Dev scoffs next to me then shoves himself out of his chair, stalking away.
“Uh, sure,” I say.
I stand, not really sure how to be next to him like this. I liked it this morning when he held my hand, with him leading the way, confident and solid. Tentatively, I take his hand in mine. He tenses, but almost immediately relaxes again. Interesting.
“Let’s go then,” I say, watching his face closely. “Darling.”
His grip tightens. Then he pulls me out of the class, trailing me along behind him as we navigate the closely packed corridor. I expect people to stare, but nobody does. Is this commonplace in this strange other-world? I want to ask Snow how long we’ve been dating but that would give me away.
Snow and I don’t share the next class. He dropped politics in favour of magical creatures. The Mage wasn’t happy about that, and I know that weighed on him, but he did seem to be enjoying the other classes more. At the time, I wished I could comfort him, tell him he needs to choose for himself, it’s his future and he should get to do whatever he wants. Instead, I told him that he was too stupid to get a career in politics, and that he should hang out with the goats who were more on his level. He then swapped out my toothpaste for lube (which doesn’t taste very nice at all).
“Here we are,” Snow says, then hands me my bag.
“Thanks, pumpkin,” I say. He barks out a laugh.
“Anytime, sugarlump.”
I frown. “That’s not very nice, calling your boyfriend a lump.”
“But you’re just so sweet!” He replies, booping the tip of my nose with his finger and then swiftly walking away. It tingles where he touched me, the sensation spreading over my face, and I’m sure if anyone looked closely they would see that I’m blushing.
I stumble into the politics classroom in a daze and thank Merlin I’ve already read ahead, because I don’t take anything in for the next hour.
oOoOoOo
Part Two: How Did We Get Here? (A Ham Sandwich Story)
Baz
The nurse says I don’t have a concussion. The bruise on my head has also disappeared. I think I might be losing my marbles.
“There you are!” Snow says, running his hands across the width of my shoulders as he perches next to me. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, you missed lunch.”
I’m sitting in the shade of the White Chapel, on a small bench that is consistently a little damp. No one ever sits here. We’re probably going to get algae stains on our trousers.
“Yeah, I was busy,” I say, rubbing at my face. Busy having an existential crisis.
“I saved you a sandwich,” he says, pulling a napkin from his pocket and giving it to me. Inside was indeed a sandwich, mushed up with a bite taken out of it. “I got hungry searching for you.”
I chuckle weakly. I’m not going to eat this in front of him: It’s a ham sandwich and pig always makes my fangs drop. I take it from him anyway.
“I feel like I should thank you,” I say, turning my shoulders to face him.
He’s closer than I though he would be. My eyes drop to his lips.
“Perhaps, as we’re boyfriends,” I breathe, “I could thank you with a kiss?”
Snow’s face does a complicated twitch.
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Of course,” he says, not opening his mouth properly to speak.
We stare at each other for a tense second.
“Then thank you,” I say in a low voice, and before I can second guess myself I push my lips against his.
He jerks back, making an odd wounded noise, but before I can react he lunges forwards again, grasping at the back of my head and clacking our teeth together. It’s odd and uncomfortable and I’m about to pull away when he turns his head slightly, his jaw dropping just a little, and starts to kiss me properly.
Now I understand.
This is what people sing about. This is what people spend their drunken nights chasing. This is fire and passion and blood.
He pulls a little at my hair and I groan. It’s embarrassing and guttural, but Simon swallows the sound down and keeps going. He’s devouring my lips like they are freshly buttered sour-cherry scones. Eat me up, Simon, I’m yours.
“Ahem.” Someone politely clears their throat and we spring apart.
“I do believe,” Miss Possibelf says, “that you are both supposed to be in class right now.”
“Oh crap!” Snow says, jumping to his feet. Miss Possibelf gives him an admonishing look. “Er, sorry.”
“Sorry,” I say, grabbing onto Snow’s wrist and dragging him away.
Once we’re out of sight, Snow starts laughing so much we have to stop. He’s fully bent over, his hands on his knees as gales of laughter rip out of his chest. It’s so infectious I start to laugh too.
“Oh my God,” he wheezes, attempting to wipe away a stray tear. “I can’t believe - ahaha – that Miss caught us!”
“I can’t believe you’ve made me late for class, you menace.” It comes out so unbearably fond. He looks up at me, the sun gilding his hair.
“Hey, you’re the one who suggested kissing!” He accuses, still grinning like a loon.
“I didn’t hear any complaints,” I shrug smugly, then start walking again. He has to run a little to catch up.
We walk side-by-side in silence. It’s restful, though, not the tense silence I’m so used to from having to share a room with him for years as enemies. Half-way to class, he captures my hand again, the tips of his ears reddening when I sneak a glance over at him.
I wonder what he’s thinking.
Simon
I can’t hear what I’m thinking over the klaxon sounding in my head.
It’s not supposed to be like this! This wasn’t supposed to happen!
Baz is holding my hand. We just kissed. And I… liked it?
I think I might be well and truly fucked.
Thing is, this has already gone on way longer than it should have. Baz was up in our room last night and he was so angry, way angrier than he should have been from my silly shower gel prank. (I didn’t even throw it away, I just swapped his new bottle for the old one I found in the bin. His new one is in his bedside drawer.) He jumped so hard when I came in, straightening up out of my wardrobe, it was obvious he was up to something.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“None of your fucking business,” he had hissed in reply.
I looked past him at my clothes, and half of them were so small they barely fit on the hangers anymore, the rest trailing out of the wardrobe, sleeves far too long.
“Are you changing the sizes of my clothes?” I laughed. Objectively it was pretty funny as pranks went. He didn’t seem to think I was the one who should be laughing.
“You know what, fuck you,” he shouted. “I’m just evening up the score here. Niall is full of shit, what the fuck does he know?”
“Niall?” I was confused. What did Niall have to do with this.
“And if Dev wants to sulk, he can bloody well do so,” he continued to rant. I had no idea what he was talking about. “He’s a twat, just like the rest of my miserable fucking family. And if I want to go to war with you, Snow, I can do it by myself.”
“What?” I asked. “What are you even talking about?”
“I know you stole my shower gel,” he growled, stalking towards me with his wand still threateningly gripped in his hand.
“I didn’t, it’s in your drawer-“ I started to say, but he was in my space now. “Anathema!” I yelped.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he sneers, poking his wand into my chest. “Merlin, how did I get stuck with you as my adversary? You can’t even steal a bottle of shower gel properly.”
“Sorry?” I squeaked out.
“Up your game, Snow,”
He turned, his hair whipping me in the face he was so close, and I could smell his fancy shampoo and the dust from the catacombs. It must have been that that distracted me because I didn’t even try to catch him as Baz, graceful, elegant Baz, got caught up in one of my excessively long trouser legs and went flying headfirst into the corner of his desk.
Now this is where I might have been a bit of a dick. I did send a bird for one of the school nurses to come and check on him. She did some spells and said that he’ll be fine in the morning, to just let him rest and tell him to come by sometime tomorrow. She also said he’d probably be a bit confused. And that’s when I had an idea.
Once the nurse helped me fix my clothes and left, I shoved our beds together. If he was going to be confused, I was going to do something to confuse him further. I was going to up my game.
I was going to trick him into believing we were in a relationship.
oOoOoOo
Part Three: Can I Interest You In A Book About Multiverse Theory?
Baz
I’m in the library, staring at my crumpled list whilst eating the remains of a squished ham sandwich. I’m in my favourite spot, a secret little nook that exists underneath the stairs. You can only see into it if you know where the gap in the bookcases are. These days it’s quite a squeeze to wiggle my way through the gap, but I can just about make it with the help of some light spellwork. (There’s no way Snow would fit, he’s deliciously broad.)
I know that the whole Snow-being-my-boyfriend should be taking precedence, and don’t get me wrong it’s certainly on my mind, but the thing that is bothering me the most is the strange frostiness between myself and my cousin Dev.
I’m pretty sure Niall and I are ok, he just doesn’t like getting between Dev and I when we argue. Last time we had at, I had just turned Agatha down, and he called me a privileged tosser. Turns out, he had a thing for her and was mad at me for not jumping at the chance. I told him he was an idiot and that I was embarrassed to be associated with him. We didn’t speak for three days. Niall was a mess.
Of course, at the root of both the Dev problem and the Snow problem is the fact that I seem to be existing in a world that isn’t my own. Based on my reading (I’ve amassed a small hoard of books on parallel universe theory) I’ve either swapped lives with my counterpart in an alternate universe where I am Snow’s boyfriend, or I’ve somehow fallen into a pocket dimension that mirrors our own with slight differences. The trouble with the first one is that it might not be my fault that I’m here – it could equally be the doing of the other Baz. This is why I hope it’s the second, because I’ll have a better chance of figuring this out.
I look at the list again. It remains unhelpful.
I sigh and put it in my bag, instead pulling out some homework. Perhaps if I work on other things for a while something will come to me.
And then something does come to me. Or rather someone.
“Baz, what are you doing in there?” Snow asks, frowning through the gaps in the bookcases.
“How did you find me?” I ask, shoving my books aside and scrabbling to my feet.
“Gareth said he saw you going to the library, and I know you hide here sometimes,” he says with a shrug. He’s so nonchalant as if he’s not flaying me open. He sees me. He knows me.
Why would the other Baz ever want to run away from this?
“Oh,” I say. What else is there to say?
We eye each other through the gap.
“Is there something you needed?” I ask.
“No, not really,” he says, tugging at his hair. “I just… never mind.”
Then he just stands there, kicking at the floor with his scuffed shoes. I watch him for a moment then start packing up my books.
“You could fit a bus through there,” I cast, squeezing myself back out of the nook. Snow watches me, mouth-breathing. (I know what that mouth tastes like.)
“Alright then,” I say, taking his hand in mine. He flushes a brilliant scarlet. “Wanna get out of here?”
“Yeah, ok,” he croaks, wide eyes dropping to my lips. I smile and take a step closer, my body touching his.
“We could go and make-out somewhere?” I suggest, and his eyes flicker up to mine before landing on my lips again. “Find an abandoned classroom or- umph!”
His lips are like burning brands against my own, I fear they will scar me forever with the mark of him. I grab onto his hair, determined to claim him back. My back is against the bookshelf. My tongue is pressed against his. I tangle myself around him, trying to fuse our souls together.
Then, as abruptly as it started, it ends.
“I can’t do this,” he pants.
And then he runs away.
Simon
There’s a goat currently nibbling on my hair, but my hands are full of biscuits and tea so I can’t push it away. It doesn’t matter anyway, whether the ground eats me or a goat does, at least I’ll be put out of my misery.
“And you say he’s been kissing you,” Ebb clarifies, loudly sipping at her own mug.
“Yeah,” I mumble. “I think he’s trying to turn the trick against me, make me uncomfortable so that he wins.”
“And you’re upset because it’s working?”
“No!” I burst out. The goat skitters backwards. “That’s the problem! It feels nice. Like I can’t stop thinking about it…”
“So, you’re upset because you like kissing the boy, and he… keeps kissing you?” She tries, face crunching up. Then she shakes her head with a sigh. “Oh, I’ll never understand you kids.”
“But he’s kissing me because he hates me!” I shove a biscuit in my mouth. It does nothing to soothe me. “I want him to kiss me because he likes me.”
Ebb rolls her eyes and pointedly brushes the crumbs off her jumper, the ones I had just sprayed all over her.
“Have you tried talking to him?” She suggests.
I groan. “I was gonna, but then he kissed me again.”
“And instead you’re talking to me.” Ebb gets up, stretching out her back. “I don’t know what to tell you Simon, sometimes you just have to bite the horse… No wait, that’s not how it goes. What’s the saying? Bite the… Oh never mind, my point is if you like kissing the lad, you should say that to him.”
“But I can’t speak properly when he’s there, my tongue gets all twisted,” I whine.
“Then write a letter,” she says. I go to reply but she cuts me off with a look. “You should be getting back, I don’t want you to miss dinner.”
I look out the window and see that it’s getting dark. She’s right. This whole prank war may have gotten the best of me, but that’s no excuse to skip a meal.
“Ok,” I say, draining the rest of my tea. “Thanks Ebb.”
“Don’t be a stranger now, Simon,” she says, shooing me out into the cool evening.
I wave goodbye and set off towards the dining hall, praying I don’t bump into Baz out here before I’ve had time to get my head on straight. Luck seems to be on my side.
Penny has saved me a seat at our usual table and there’s still plenty of gravy left. (That’s not always guaranteed, Watford gravy is to die for and everyone here knows it. I would drink it straight from the gravy boat if no-one was watching.) I eat my plateful, carefully watching the door for Baz. He’s not in the hall already, as far as I can tell.
“Did Baz already leave?” I ask Penny. She looks up from her book.
“How should I know, he’s your… whatever you two are now,” she says, then points a shrewd finger at me. “And don’t think that because you’re snogging him you can talk about him more.”
“I’m not…” I trail off. I mean, technically we have snogged. Twice. “It’s just a stupid prank.”
Penny gives me a very unimpressed face and I rush to continue.
“No really, I thought it would be funny to pretend to be his boyfriend, but then he went along with it and now things have gotten weird and I don’t know how to stop.”
“Simon,” she sighs, but I carry on talking.
“And now I don’t want to stop, but I want him to like me and I think that maybe he’ll never forgive me.”
“Simon!” She says more forcefully. “First of all, that’s your two minutes. Second, you’re an idiot. Of course he likes you! What have you been doing all this time if not a really messed up version of flirting? Everyone already knows you’re obsessed with each other.”
I blink at her. “Really?” I ask. “Everyone knows?”
“Everyone except you two, apparently,” she shakes her head and opens her book again. “And to think I was so pleased this morning that you’d figured it out.”
“Penny,” I began, but she just shushed me and, somehow, started reading her book more aggressively. Right.
I look mournfully at the gravy before deciding I should just get it over with. Merlin, I hope he’s in our room, I don’t think I could survive a manhunt with my stomach flipping and flopping the way it is.
Baz
Simon barges into our room, no fanfare and no regard to the door hinges. He’s lucky they’re spelled solid.
“I need to talk to you,” he says, face already a splotchy red.
“Well that’s good because I need to talk to you too,” I say, leaning back against my headboard and putting down my book on cross-dimensional travel. That seems to draw him up short.
“You do?” He squints at me suspiciously.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about me experimenting with multi-dimensional travel, would you?”
He looks like I’ve hit him over the head with an iron skillet. I don’t know what he expected me to say, but clearly it wasn’t that.
“Based on your expression, I’ll hazard a guess that’s a no,” I say. Pity. I thought if anyone would know what was going on, it would be my supposed boyfriend.
“What?” He says, then shakes his head, like he’s clearing an etch-a-sketch. “No, never mind that, I need to talk to you.”
“So you said,” I say nodding. “Go ahead, love.”
“That!” He exclaims, pointing at my face. “Is this revenge? Do you think I’m so homophobic that it would bother me? Because I’m not!”
Now it’s my turn to be confused.
“Why would you be homophobic?” I ask. “You’re my boyfriend, aren’t you?”
“No!” He yells, stomping in frustration. (I didn’t think anyone over the age of four did that.) “It was supposed to be a joke! A little prank because you shrank my clothes! Then you turned it into this mess and now I – I…”
“Wait, what?” I sit up, staring at him intently as he flusters uselessly. “So you’re not my boyfriend?”
“No!”
“But then why is Dev mad at me?” I ask, floored. “Why has nobody said anything? Did you somehow turn the whole school against me?”
“I didn’t, I swear,” he says, and I believe him. “You hit your head last night and I thought it would be… I just thought I’d pretend for a bit and then you’d catch on and then it’d be over. But then it kept going, and I thought you were like playing gay chicken or something, I don’t know, and Penny says that everyone thinks we’re snogging anyway so…”
“Everyone thinks what?” I squeak. It’s not my finest moment, and I’m grateful that Snow is so confounded by the days events that he doesn’t laugh at me. I clear my throat.
“I know,” he says miserably, plonking himself down on his bed so we’re sat facing each other, knees almost touching.
I take a moment, trying to sort through everything Snow has just said.
“Let me get this straight,” I say. “You’ve been kissing me today as a prank, and the only reason no-one has said anything to me about it is because they thought we’d been kissing this whole time anyway?”
Snow shrugs.
“You’ve been kissing me because you don’t like me?” I reason, then realise what I’ve just said.
Oh no. I can feel my undead heart breaking. I never realised it would actually feel like my chest has been gouged out with a rusty spoon, I thought it was just a pretty metaphor. I think I might throw up.
“No, you’ve been kissing me because you don’t like me,” Snow says, his eyes watery and wide.
“I’ve been kissing you because I thought I was in an alternate dimension where you were my boyfriend and my own friends hate me,” I say before I can think it through.
“Wh- uh, what- Why would you think that?” He stammers.
“Because I ruled everything else out!” I exclaim, throwing my hands up. “And while I did consider that this was some kind of stitch up, I know you wouldn’t have been able to get my friends on board, and they are currently mad at me for unknown reasons that seem to have something to do with you! Except I can’t remember what.”
“You were pretty angry with them last night,” he says, frowning in thought.
“What did I say?” I press. Finally some information.
“Something about doing things yourself?” He says, then shrugs. “You also said Dev was a twat. I don’t know, you weren’t making much sense.”
“Maybe they were the ones that hit my head…”
“Ah, no,” Snow says. “You tripped over and faceplanted the desk.”
I cover my face with my hands. Will the embarrassment ever cease? Snow reaches over to pat my shoulder tentatively. I let it happen.
“So this was all just one big joke and my friends are mad at me for other reasons,” I mutter.
“There, there?” Snow tries.
“I don’t need your pity,” I snap, finally batting away his hand. “You don’t have to be nice to me anymore, the joke is over, you won.”
“But I want to be nice to you,” he insists, leaning into my personal space further. “Tell me something. Why did you kiss me? When you thought I was your boyfriend, why did you go along with it and kiss me?”
I go cold with panic.
“B-because that’s what boyfriends do,” I stutter. It doesn’t sound convincing.
Snow looks victorious.
“Do I have to be your real boyfriend to get you to kiss me again?”
My head snaps up.
“What?” I ask. I hope this isn’t another joke. I don’t think I could stand it.
“I want to kiss you again,” he whispers, coming closer still.
Then my mind goes blank and my body takes over. I don’t know who moved first, but we were kissing again. And kissing and kissing.
And nothing has ever felt more right.
oOoOoOo
Part Four: Get These Loose Ends Out Of My Porridge
Penny
Simon and Baz walk into the dining room hand-in-hand. Simon looks very smug and Baz looks a little stunned. I roll my eyes at them and feel a sense of déjà vu.
“So you sorted yourselves out?” I ask, pushing over the tea pot.
“Yep,” Simon smiles, leaning over to kiss Baz’s cheek. Baz flushes a very delicate shade of pale pink. It’s the most colour I’ve ever seen on him.
“Well, good,” I say, then get back to my porridge. I have a lot of homework to get through today and I’m not going to let their drama distract me.
I’m just finishing up when Dev and Niall walk over. I sigh. No drama on a day ending with a y? I should be so lucky.
Baz
Niall comes up to our table, dragging a reluctant Dev by the sleeve of his jumper.
“Dev has something he’d like to say to you,” Niall announces, pushing my cousin forward.
Dev clears his throat. “I’m sorry for getting mad at you for not telling me that you were gay or that you were shagging the chosen one,” he says drolly. Niall elbows him in the ribs. “It’s not my place to say when you should come out, and I get that being family makes it harder for you to tell me.”
Ah.
A memory stirs.
“…and then I was thinking maybe I should shrink his clothes. Can you imagine!” I laughed, and Dev laughed with me. Niall, however, just rolled his eyes.
“Fucking Circe, Baz, just shag him already,” he had said.
“What?” I asked. Had I been found out?
“Yeah, what?” Dev echoed. “Why would Baz want that? He’s not even gay.”
“You still haven’t-“ Niall slapped his hand over his mouth before he could say anything more, his eyes apologetic.
“Actually, Dev…” I had said.
“Thank you for your apology,” I say to him now, then punch his arm. “I really did want to tell you, but you know how our family is.”
“Yeah I know,” he says, taking a seat. “So you actually are shagging the chosen one? You’re not just parading him around to rub it in my face I didn’t know?”
“Is that what you thought I was doing?” I ask, ignoring Simon who is currently choking on his orange juice. “No, we’re actually dating, as of yesterday.”
(I don’t tell them that it was yesterday night that things became official. No need to complicate the matter.)
“I’m happy for you, mate,” he says, slapping me on the back a little too hard.
“Yeah me too,” Niall agrees.
“Me three,” Simon whispers in my ear, lips brushing against the lobe.
Dev makes a gagging noise, but I don’t listen. I’m too busy kissing my boyfriend, Simon Snow.