Chapter Text
-Baz-
I should have checked the forecast before we left London. Or at least before we agreed to stay out here last night instead of heading back home.
Snow is standing shirtless at the window, heavy velvet curtain pushed aside, gazing out at his namesake weather phenomenon as it whites out the Oxfordshire countryside. His hair still looks like spun gold, even in this cold, weak early morning sunlight, and it's standing up in random tufts. I slip out of bed, come up behind him and brush my lips over that mole on his neck, and he jumps slightly, startled.
"All right, Chosen One?" I murmur. His pulse is warm under my mouth.
"Crowley, don't sneak up on me." He turns his head slightly, just enough to give me a little kiss. He smells like sleep still, warm and cosy, with a hint of morning breath and now a little metallic spike of adrenalin, though that's fading as quickly as it came on. "Good morning, nemesis mine. I didn't think you were up."
"I am now." I smile at the phrase nemesis mine; he picked it up from the Internet somewhere and we both find it funny, so he slips it into conversation when he's feeling cheeky. I slide my arms around his middle and rest my chin on his shoulder, pressing close, trying to hang onto his body heat as long as I can. (It's ironic, that snow is so cold, but Snow is so warm.) "How long have you been awake?"
"I dunno, not long. Ten minutes, maybe." He looks outside again. "I didn't know we were going to get a blizzard."
"Yeah, neither did I." I can't help but heave a sigh that's slightly melodramatic. "We won't be able to go home today. Possibly even tomorrow, depending on the roads. Another forty-eight hours with my family who hate you."
Simon's hands come to rest over mine, and his wings flutter a little, like they're wrapping around me. "They don't hate me any more."
"But they don't like you."
"Baz, are you trying to put me off them?"
"You can't possibly like it here," I insist, and I'm aware it sounds like a child's whinge. "I mean, I guess Daphne likes you as well as she likes anyone, and my sisters are too young to really know, but my father's never going to forgive you for being the Mage's Heir, not to mention his only son's boyfriend."
Simon shrugs. "I don't really care what he thinks."
And there's the big difference between us. Simon's great at deciding to just not care about something if it's not important to him personally. But I can't do that so easily, and even if I could, this is my father. He was my hero growing up, and even though he and I don't see eye to eye on everything -- on a lot of things -- these days, I can't let go of the feeling that I really want to do anything to make him proud.
Maybe I should talk to that therapist.
Simon makes a little humming sound and squeezes my wrists. "I'm hungry."
That makes me giggle, and I hide my face against the side of his neck. "Of course you are."
"Can you spell my wings and tail before we go down?"
"You don't want to make my sisters cry again?"
He makes an amused huff. "Not really."
Yesterday -- Christmas Day -- we forgot and went down to breakfast with all his dragon parts au naturale and it caused quite a commotion. Dad and Daphne knew, of course, even if they'd never seen them before, but I don't think the girls even knew that Simon's got extra body parts that aren't usually visible. Mordelia handled it well, but not the others.
I give him another squeeze and reluctantly let go. My wand is still in the pocket of my dressing gown from yesterday morning, so I wrap up in it before I take care of Simon. He and Penny finally sat me down and made me watch Star Wars so I can cast These aren't the droids you're looking for, which is still the best one we've found to let him walk around in public without creating a scene.
He suppresses a shudder when my magic goes into him and his wings and tail disappear; he always does when I do spells on him. I try not to talk to him about it, I know it's to do with him having lost his own magic and that mine is always burning hot. Penny's isn't, her magic is soft and warm and grass-green, it's comfortable to him. She's his best friend, it ought to be. But mine is fire, and fire can't help but burn.
I try not to wish that he still had his own. It still breaks my heart, how much he lost. How much he gave up. I thought maybe time would dull the sting but it hasn't, so far, for either of us. After a year it's as fresh as ever.
He's stepped away now, leaving me standing in the middle of the room, lost in my own thoughts. He digs a pair of socks out of his bag and sits on the edge of the bed to pull them on, then steps back over to me and tucks my hair behind my ear. "Hey. You okay?"
I try to force a smile, but I'm sure it comes out more like a grimace. "Yeah, fine."
He tips his head. "Baz."
I look away and press my lips together. "Sorry, I just ... I don't like it when my magic hurts you."
The back of his hand strokes my cheek, rubbing on the stubble. (I need a shave.) "Your magic doesn't hurt me," he says gently.
I catch his hand with mine and hold it. "You're sure?"
"Of course."
"And you'd tell me if it did?"
He smiles, and he looks like the sun. My stomach flutters. "Oh, you would know," he says. "You'd be eating a knuckle sandwich."
I find myself smiling back at him. "I should get Bunce to cast some kind of Boyfriend's Anathema to protect me."
He laughs, then steps away and pulls a pyjama shirt out of his bag, which is on the couch on the far wall. (I'm pretty sure my parents put me in this room hoping he'd sleep on the couch and not in the bed. There are enough rooms in this house that we could have separate, but the first time we came he just sort of moved in here with me, so they didn't even make up the other room this time.) "Come on, let's go to breakfast, I'm starving." He picks up a hair elastic from the bedside table and shoots it at me, which catches me off-guard, and I drop it. "Tame that thing on your head," he says lightly, and I giggle.
"It's not half as bad as yours." But I'm running my fingers through it anyway, pulling it back into something messy that at least keeps it off my face.
"Yeah, but you're fancy," Snow says, opening the door. "I'm the fallen Chosen One, they expect me to look a fright."
I catch his wrist, and cast a quick Be our guest on him, just to be safe. I can see him try not to shudder again, and he gives me a bright smile. (I don't understand how he's still so brave, even after everything.)