Chapter Text
Alright then, follow me.
Baz doesn’t make a habit of following handsome men down dimly lit streets in the wee hours of the morning and that’s just the problem isn’t it? He told Mordelia he was cool and this is what cool men do. They make terrible decisions motivated by a desire to bump uglies.
“Where are you taking me?” he asks because he can’t help himself.
“Dunno yet,” Simon replies with a shrug and absolutely zero eye contact.
The action doesn’t fill Baz with much confidence but he continues in his pursuit of adventure for one reason and one reason only: Jeremy. The promise of queerness. That Simon could potentially be interested in the uglies Baz has to offer.
Even though Simon is several paces ahead, it doesn’t take long for Baz to catch up. All he has to do is assert his own confidence in his decisions. He’s going to find answers. He’s also (hopefully) going to find Simon’s lips pressed against his own sooner rather than later. Armed with decisive resolution, Baz’s lanky legs take him the rest of the way to success.
In four strides, he bumps Simon’s shoulder with his own and asks, “Who’s this Jeremy character?”
Simon grunts and gruffly returns Baz’s shoulder check with compounded force. “Fuck Jeremy.”
It sends Baz into dizzy exhilaration, nearly knocking him over, but the resounding questions in his head keep him upright. Is this flirting? Violence? Perhaps both? Also, what connotation of the word fuck is getting employed here? Baz isn’t sure but he intends to find out in his riskiest attempt yet.
“Before I take that enlightening suggestion, I first need to see if he’s my type.”
Simon snorts a bitter laugh. “You’d actually get along like a house on fire. You’re both assholes.”
Baz has the sudden fear that perhaps Simon thought he was mocking him. That he thinks Baz might find the notion of sleeping with a man so ridiculous that its only use is as a cheap punchline when that couldn’t be further from the truth. He needs to be more forward, more vulnerable. And that’s the problem too, now isn’t it?
Mustering all the bravery kept in the reserves of his definitely not gauche soul patch, Baz channels his most biting flirtations into one potent and revealing sentence:
“Unfortunately, I only like assholes who yell at me over vegetables.”
Simon’s jaw clenches. Baz once again isn’t sure if this is a good sign or not. Believe it or not, aggression hasn’t played too big of a role in his sexual endeavors thus far in life. Not that he didn’t want it to be so. It’s part of the reason why his ex got dumped at that Seal concert. He was a banker—too boring, too corporate—and Baz is already too good at being safe all on his own.
But, Simon is the furthest thing from boring imaginable and his clothes are the furthest thing from corporate imaginable. And, when he suddenly takes those massive drummer arms and shoves Baz into a nearby alley, the latter is reminded that Simon could very well be the furthest thing from safe too.
Baz raises his arms like a man in danger of getting gunned down because for all his carefully curated grunge and popped buttons, he absolutely cannot hold his own in a fight. “Hey, I don’t want any trouble.”
“I call bullshit,” Simon growls.
Backlit by the street, Simon is nothing but an outline of baggy clothes and threatening imperception. But when he joins Baz in the shadows, Baz’s vision adjusts enough to see the situation—and the fire in Simon’s eyes—much more clearly.
They had been flirting all along.
Baz drops his arms and replaces his survivalist submission with cocky contrarianism. “And what makes you the expert, Snow?”
“This.”
Simon surges forward like a revved up sports car—quickly, loudly, brashly—but Baz anticipates it, latching his long calloused fingers onto the collar of that ridiculous Spice Girls t-shirt and pulling Simon in the rest of the way. Finally, they grant themselves permission to act on the real reason for their tense acquaintanceship. Lips. Hips. Teeth. Tongue. It’s urgent, inevitable, mutual arousal. Like magnets latching onto pure iron, they crash into each other with ferocious intensity.
Simon crowds Baz against the stained alley wall, the mass of him pressing filth into filth of different kind, and Baz rewrites everything he’s ever known about hookups and perhaps an entire decade of his life.
This is grunge. This is sleaze. This is that 99.9 degree heat Suzanne Vega sang about.
Simon kisses like someone who bangs around for a living. He moves with insane rhythmic understanding, execution, and stamina built to drive any recipient wild with overstimulation. It’s beyond simple competence; the man is every superlative in the book—hottest, broadest, most likely to leave you breathless behind a dumpster—and like fuck if it isn’t creating a supernova of energy in Baz’s core powered by awe and reverence and a burning desire to get jiggy with it. (Listen, he’s a neurotic violinist.) (He’s been classically conditioned to seek euphoria through prodigious excellence.) (It’s not his fault if along the way skill got mixed up with kink and eroticism.)
But, Baz is excellent too and refuses to let Simon forget it by pouring gallons of self-righteousness into his sneering reciprocation of Simon’s eager devorations. He seizes sweaty curls and yanks. A reminder. He bites and snarls. A reminder. It makes Simon go feral—even more frenzied and explosive, moving closer and faster. Gasping. Grinding. Groaning. And as Baz’s own roaming hands slide toward the waistband of Simon’s jeans, he’s abruptly reminded of who he is and where he is and what it could all mean for him if he’s not careful.
Condoms.
He keeps some in his wallet for emergencies.
Fuck, wait, no. They expired and he threw them out, forgetting to replace them because this night originally started as an evening concert with his teenage sister.
Against all bodily desire, Baz pulls his lips away and gently rests his head against the wall. Unfortunately, he also lets out an incredibly satisfied sigh which Simon takes as permission to chase a trail down Baz’s neck with his tongue which Baz encourages with a hip thrust or two. It’s extremely hard not to indulge in his own hardness, okay?
Shit. Focus up, Basil. Eyes on the prize. (The prize being…not scoring?) (That’s no prize at all.)
Nevertheless, Baz maneuvers a hand under Simon’s chin and suspends him in place. The problem is, now Simon is hungrily staring up at Baz with that square jaw compliantly tilted between Baz’s fingers. And he smells like sex and candy. And he’s somehow caught the pendant of one of Baz’s chains in his teeth—tugging it like it’s a pulley for more, more, more. And it’s…it’s making everything viscerally treacherous.
“Hold on…” Baz croaks, his voice far more affected than he intended.
And Simon does. He releases the pendant from his teeth, a string of saliva tracing a path from his mouth to Baz’s sternum as gravity gently thuds metal against bare skin. Somehow both indecent and respectful, Simon’s simple act of honoring Baz’s need to pause makes him want to take it all back. Throw caution to the wind. Let himself ravage and be ravaged regardless of the consequences.
But he also doesn’t want to die.
“I, it’s um...” Baz can’t figure out the words and he sounds undone and stressed and wholly unlike himself. (Well, the stressed part is still him but the lack of coherency is startling.)
“I’m sorry,” Simon mumbles. “I come on too strong sometimes.”
He drops his hands and takes a step back and Baz’s body screams no. This isn’t what he wants—Simon away, Simon embarrassed, Simon thinking Baz is rejecting him—but Baz’s brain is scrambled like an egg in more ways than one and effective communication is a struggle even on his best days.
How does Baz explain that he doesn’t want to stop, but he should because of his own frustratingly logical self-preservation? That he needs to ask when the last time Simon was tested and if he happens to be hiding a roll of rubbers in those egregiously large JNCO pockets. But that would ruin the moment. (Except Baz already ruined the moment.) And even though he wants this—God, does he want this—these sorts of things are usually discussed in advance when Baz is involved. And they don’t take place in alleys. And that’s why his emergency condoms expired and he didn’t bother to replace them.
There’s a perfectly good box in his nightstand drawer.
Maybe if he was in his own home…
Shit.
Fuck.
Mordelia is asleep in his bed.
Simon takes another step back. Dazed. Apologetic. A little kiss drunk. A little actual drunk. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand—still indecent, still respectful—and a horrible thought cuts through the noise in Baz’s head: this will probably never happen again.
It’s unacceptable.
Baz can’t handle all this nothingness.
He needs something for the memory to hold onto. Something to show Simon that he’s distilled power and talent and the expanding essence of the universe bubbling in the body of a glorious disaster. That he’s everything if everything was a person.
Baz opens his mouth to speak, but Simon’s eyes hungrily consume the movement as if he’s trying to commit Baz to memory too. So, like Whitney Houston jumping off that plane, Baz indulges one last time. He dives in with desperate passion, sweeping Simon into his arms and the kind of kiss that doesn’t have time for sex. Precious like the fluttering of soft eyelashes. Gentle like the lakeside breeze. Warm like the blood oozing endorphins through Baz’s veins.
He wants to hold Simon here forever. Locked in his embrace. Respected in return.
It isn’t a kiss meant for this context—an alley, a near stranger. It’s too cinematic, too romantic. But if Baz wants to be remembered, this is the kind of kiss he has to give—something unbearably real.
Something unbearably him.
Simon lets out a small whimper, pawing at Baz’s back like a kitten that wants up, and Baz lets out an equally pitiful sound. Guileless. Defenseless. An admission of feeling. And Baz knows it’s just brain chemistry, but when he nuzzles his nose against Simon’s, he swears a botanical garden blooms in his chest.
Their lips break apart. Their eyes open. And they stare at each other for a moment. Curious. Confused. Suspended in unaddressed time.
And then Simon’s stomach growls, slicing through whatever cosmic event just occurred.
“Taco Bell,” Simon says, extricating himself from Baz using some very smooth shoulder work.
Baz cocks an eyebrow, hoping it’s enough to grant him a proper explanation.
“That’s where I’m taking you,” Simon clarifies.
Baz smirks, reassuming a much more comfortable mode of operation—snark. “And did you come to this decision before, after, or while you were humping my leg?”
Simon lifts his cap off his head, smooths down his wild curls, and then jams it back down exactly like he had it before.
“It was more than just your leg.”
Baz knows. He was there. But Baz is also afraid that if he addresses the first kiss further, he’ll have to answer for the second. So instead, he adjusts the fit of his tailored jeans—quickly, with dignity—and turns on the heel of his boots.
“Wait, where are you going?” Simon asks, gripping onto Baz to keep him in place.
Baz eyes flit to the hand clamped to his forearm and then back to Simon’s face. A bead of sweat runs down Simon’s freckled cheek, dodging several moles in its path. But the stench of the dumpster is finally getting to Baz, so he shakes Simon off before he does something rash like remain in this alley until he’s nothing more than a decomposing food scrap.
“Taco Bell, you dolt.”
“Well don’t say it like it was your idea.”
They walk on Main Street, until it morphs into W 25th and Baz briefly considers heading south. His home isn’t far from here—only about a mile or so further—but the nearest Taco Bell is in Lakewood. It’s also six miles in the opposite direction and by the time they get there by foot, it will probably be closed. But Baz heads west anyway to cut through the Metroparks because Simon wants Taco Bell, and Baz wants Simon.
As the area turns more residential, Baz realizes how late it’s gotten. Hardly any windows are illuminated. Most porch lights are off. It’s quiet, except for the sound of tree frogs and the occasional comment from Simon.
“Do you live around here?” he asks.
“Kind of,” Baz answers, scanning the road for hazards.
“Do you think your neighbors will miss this?”
Baz catches movement in his periphery and whips his head toward Simon, deciding that’s where the real hazard lies. Afterall, it only took a few seconds of Baz’s attention directed elsewhere for Simon to venture deep into a stranger’s front yard and burglarize a tandem bicycle.
“Put that back!” Baz hisses.
“This will be faster,” Simon says, wheeling the bicycle down the stranger’s driveway.
“Yes, but it’s also a crime.”
Baz searches for any sign of a home security system. He sees no obvious cameras, no blue ADT signs on the lawn nor the neighboring properties. Have the people who live on this street never seen Home Alone?
Simon pauses for a moment and his face lights up. However, it’s too much for Baz to hope Simon changed his mind. Instead, he deposits the bicycle in Baz’s hands and jogs back up the driveway.
“A crime you’ve now implicated me in,” Baz qualifies.
Simon hops up onto the stranger’s stoop and scribbles ‘thanks’ into the layer of dirt coating the front door.
“Chillax,” he says, fishing for something deep within his back pocket. “I’m not stealing. I’m shopping.”
“I don’t see any stores around, Snow.”
“That’s because you lack imagination.”
“I don’t lack imagination,” Baz argues. “I lack a death wish.”
Simon finally finishes fondling his own ass and victoriously pulls out a Ziploc bag masquerading as an adult man’s wallet. “Aha! Got it!”
God in heaven.
How has Simon survived this long?
“Who raised you?” Baz needles.
Simon’s jubilance hardens into something fierce and protective.
“The foster care system,” he says, flashing Baz a look that challenges him to make something of it. So, Baz doesn’t. He keeps his face impassive as Simon continues his answer. “Then Ebb. You don’t know Ebb, obviously, but yeah. Ebb.”
Baz didn’t grow up in foster care, he grew up with a household staff and four half-siblings in Highland Park, Texas. But he recognizes how Simon says Ebb like most people say mom. Baz does it too.
“I have one of those,” Baz says.
“An Ebb?”
“A Daphne,” Baz clarifies. “Mordelia’s mom.”
Simon stares at Baz for a moment, visibly reaching a conclusion he voices aloud.
“Yours died.”
It’s a fact and Simon says it like one.
“Yeah,” Baz confirms.
“Same. Ebb is still around though.”
“So is Daphne.”
Simon doesn’t mention a father so Baz doesn’t mention his either. It’s better not to get into all the ways Malcolm Grimm would disapprove of Baz's actions this evening. (Something something glass closet.) (Something something ‘When Doves Cry’ by Prince.) So, Baz decides it’s best to just resume the rhythm they had going before vulnerability slipped through the cracks again.
“Not sure how that excuses your lack of a proper wallet though,” Baz says. “Nordstrom didn’t require proof of my birth mother’s life at checkout.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
Simon reaches into his Ziploc bag, pulls out an irresponsibly large wad of cash, and sets it next to an overgrown hedge like it’s nothing. Like it’s a normal thing to do. Like the wind doesn’t exist. Nor opportunists. Nor robbers.
Is this what he means by shopping? Leaving behind cash to pay for things that aren’t for sale?
Baz may come from money, but that also means he was taught how to manage it. He would never casually carry around that many dead presidents. Instead, he has meticulously balanced books and squeaky clean credit and a piece of plastic he flashes at waiters to prove it.
“The fuck, Snow? Do you not have a bank?”
Simon shrugs, bouncing back down the front steps. “I’m on the road so much, it’s easier to just cash my checks as they come.”
Baz’s eye twitches from sympathetic stress. Incredulous. Insane. This man plays too fast and too loose with his life and Baz still wants him. Badly.
“What if you get mugged?”
Simon grins dangerously. “I’ll mug them back.”
And Baz believes him. He can actually picture it: someone pulling a weapon on Simon and Simon automatically fighting back. Simon carries himself like someone who has fought and won and isn’t afraid to do it again. (That’s probably how he’s survived this long.)
“I’m glad I made it out of that alley unscathed then.”
“Did you though?” Simon says, keeping that dangerous grin as he lifts his eyebrows in one effortlessly suggestive motion.
Baz is a little astounded at how quick Simon is with his responses. Funny, clever, and seemingly genuine with it all. Like the comedy is incidental, an afterthought. But that can’t be so. Baz would know. He’s been wielding wit for as long as he’s understood wordplay, kind of like Simon and those fists (presumably.) It’s hard work thinking all the time. Proving his intelligence. Making every word count.
And right now, Baz has nothing witty to say. But he knows that they’ve long overstayed their welcome trespassing on some random person’s lawn. At any moment, the owners of this tandem bike could wake up and call the cops because they’ve witnessed two smitten men committing bicycle theft—not even to mention how they both would fail a drug test right now—and Baz would prefer not to get arrested for being light-loafered, light-fingered, and light-headed. (Oh look, he’s thought of something witty to say!)
Baz mounts the front of the bike. “Is there a reason we’re sticking around the scene of the crime?”
Simon swings his leg over the back of the bike. “Not a crime if I paid.”
“I didn’t take you for the type of person to throw money at the courts, Snow.” Baz begins pedaling but the bike wobbles incongruently.
“Woah! Hold on!” Simon firmly plants his feet on the ground, stopping all motion and almost sending Baz flying. “Have you ever ridden one of these before?”
“A bike?” Baz snaps, frustrated. “Yeah, I’m not three.”
“No, a tandem.”
“It’s a bike. How different could it be?”
“I’m going to take that as a no,” Simon says. “Gareth and I used to dick around on his parents’ tandem back in high school. There’s a trick to ‘em. You gotta be perfectly in sync and I’m not talking the band.”
“Considering it was the 80s, I didn’t think you were.”
“Shut up and listen,” Simon orders. “You’ll be the pilot since you’re in the front and I’m the stroker since I’m in the back. Pilot leads. Stroker provides the power. But we both have to pump in time or someone will get hurt.”
Baz cranes his neck over his shoulder for the sole purpose of raising an eyebrow at Simon. “Can you hear yourself?”
“Yes, now on the count of three we’re going. Balance on your right and push off with your left. Got it?”
It takes a few tries, but they eventually get the hang of riding and Simon is able to drop his militant orders of left, right, left, right . Baz almost misses it though. He would probably follow Simon into battle, if it ever comes to it, but they’ve both aged out of the draft so they’re probably safe. However when they reach their first steep incline, Simon brings back out the drill sergeant metronome, and Baz changes his mind.
“Fucking Christ, Snow, were you involved in Desert Storm?”
“Fuck Bush,” Simon grunts through heavy breaths. “Penny says he’s a war criminal.”
“Attagirl.”
“What about you, Texas boy? You ready for a dynasty?”
“If W somehow wins the 2000 election, I’ll either kill myself or move to Canada.”
“Great, so we’ve gotten the politics discussion out of the way.”
They crest a hill and then coast back down into a valley. It’s not an easy ride, but it’s better than walking. The tandem bike cuts their travel time down by eighty percent yet Baz refuses to admit aloud that Simon’s ‘non-theft’ thievery was the right call. Or, that it actually gives them something to drive through the drive-thru.
“Welcome to Taco Bell. Can I take your order?” asks the purple box next to a very large and very bright menu.
“Yeah, could I please get a 7-Layer Burrito and a Coke?” Baz answers.
“Anything else?”
“A Supreme Gordita, a Fiesta Gordita, a Santa Fe Gordita, and a large Mountain Dew please,” Simon adds.
“Anything else?” the box repeats.
“Nope.”
“That’ll be $9.04 at the second window.”
They pedal past the first window, closed because it’s pushing four in the morning, and stop in front of the (thankfully) unphased worker in the second window. Baz supposes they’ve probably seen worse on the graveyard shift than two paying costumers with the late night munchies, regardless of their mode of transportation. He takes out a ten (a normal bill to carry around) out of his leather wallet (responsibly bought on sale at Nordstrom) and hands the cash through the window.
“Keep the change,” Baz says. (His necklaces make him jangle enough.)
“Your food will be out in a minute,” the box replies but this time the voice very clearly comes out of a very tired human being.
They also don’t bother shutting the window in the interim which allows Simon and Baz to hear the sounds of the kitchen, most particularly—the soundtrack.
“ You'se a fine motherfucker, won't you back that azz up.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Simon says.
Baz tries not to smile and fails, receiving their meal with a dopey grin.
In a stroke of brilliance, the previous owners of the tandem bicycle attached a basket to the front handlebars. Baz places the food in the basket and passes the Mountain Dew back to Simon. The taste of Baz’s own soda is a relief, the combination of physical exertion and humidity has dehydrated him to a vaguely concerning degree. But it’s fine. He doesn’t need to keep cool. He’s being cool.
“Where to next?” Simon asks between sips.
“Picnic,” Baz replies.
Simon counts them off and Baz guides them back east. Half of a proper picnic is the scenery and Baz refuses to be anything less than stellar. However, that means he also directs them further north than is wise considering the location of his townhouse.
But fuck it.
Lake Erie is right there.
Edgewater Park is technically closed, but this is socially acceptable trespassing all things considered. It’s not like they’ve got car headlights blaring their presence. (Come to think of it, Baz’s dark clothes and lack of helmet aren’t exactly conducive to riding a bike at night, but he’s already in this deep.)
They dismount at the Cleveland sign and roll the bike the rest of the way onto the beach. They pass a wayward wheelbarrow the landscapers must’ve left behind.
Baz points to it. “Is that where you woke up last time you played Blossom?”
“Jeremy was at Red Rocks.”
“And was it the altitude or the acoustics that got you all riled up?” Baz says, very proud of himself for managing to tease Simon and remain upright while intoxicatedly walking on sand.
“Did I ever tell you you’re an asshole?”
“A few times,” Baz says, bringing the bike to a stop a safe distance from the shoreline. “But not what made Jeremy one.”
“He stole my lucky drum sticks.”
“Is that a euphemism?”
Simon reaches around Baz, retrieving his trio of gorditas from the basket. “I only have one dick.”
“And am I wrong in assuming Jeremy made it two?”
Baz is well aware that his comments are crude but if Simon could sing on Top 40 radio about how the opportunity to burst over him is a man’s wish, then carrying on this penis to drum stick metaphor is fair game—even if Baz is vaguely implying that a (presumed) former lover who left Simon in a wheelbarrow also castrated him. It’s whatever. Baz conveniently blames the remnants of the Appletines and weed for his statements. If this all goes south, maybe Simon will blame the color green too. (It’s a slutty hue.) (Just look at that m&m.)
“You’re not,” Simon says, biting into his first gordita and sitting cross-crossed applesauce on the ground. “I have a type.”
Baz worries what that means for Simon’s past. He also worries about what that means for Simon’s present opinion of him. (Which by all accounts cannot be a positive one.) He plops down on the sand next to Simon, butthurt but refusing to let it play out on his face.
“What about you?” Simon asks. “Who’s your Jeremy?”
Baz unwraps his burrito and takes a well-portioned bite. “Myself, if I’m honest.”
“That’s ’cause you’re an asshole,” Simon says through a mouthful of taco meat. “Although you did pay for my food.”
Baz swallows before speaking. “Only because I didn’t want to see your sorry excuse for a wallet again.”
Simon crumples up his wrapper and dives into his second gordita. “And what’s your excuse for kissing me like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca?”
“I’m a cinephile .”
Simon grins, cheeks puffy from shoving half a gordita in his face. “Nah, you’re secretly a softie.”
Baz looks at Simon without turning his head and decides it was the correct decision. He wouldn’t have survived the full weight of how Simon is looking at him with gooey eyes. The kind that happens when someone sees something or someone they adore.
No one has looked at Baz like that in a long time and doesn’t know what it means. Well, he does, but he doesn’t know what it means for the next few seconds, or minutes, or hours, or days. He’s too trapped by double butterflies—anxiety and excitement—yet determined not to let the opportunity pass by while he still has it.
“I think you just want me to kiss you again.”
“Yeah, maybe I do,” Simon says, his voice husky and close.
Baz turns his head just in time for Simon to take him by the neck and pull him in for another expert kiss. It’s hot and open-mouthed, but not more than what it is—a kiss. They roll around in the sand and Baz only thinks once about how he’s going to find grains in the cracks of his skin for weeks. And then he decides he’s grateful for the reminder that this isn’t a dream. It’s real. It’s happening.
The kiss concludes when they roll directly into the Taco Bell bag and Simon remembers he still has another gordita.
Lake Erie stretches for miles over the horizon. During the day it looks like it could be an ocean and at night it’s an endless void. As Simon finishes up eating, Baz stares out at the water, the silvery moonlight sparkling across gentle waves, and fights off the drowsiness finally beginning to hit him.
A yawn escapes.
“We oughta get you home,” Simon says through a lopsided smile.
They pedal in silence for most of the ride, passing West Side Market as the first signs of dawn begin to break. It’s a good thing it isn’t the weekend or vendors would be arriving soon and Baz isn’t ready to share the morning air with anyone but Simon.
“I bet you get all your groceries from there,” Simon snorts.
“I do,” Baz confesses.
“You and your damn fresh produce.”
“It’s socially conscious to buy local and in season.”
Simon lets out something between a groan and a laugh. “Shut the fuck up.”
Baz racks his sleepy brain for a witty response but before he can think about anything other than Simon Snow’s fingers occasionally brushing his hips. It’s wonderfully distracting. But then Simon leans forward and captures the back of Baz’s shirt in his teeth.
Baz nearly crashes the tandem. It also wakes him right back up.
“Menace,” he grumbles.
“Buttmunch.”
Baz smirks even though Simon can’t see his face. “You wish.”
“I really do, yeah.”
A few cross streets more and they reach Baz’s condo. “This is me.”
They pedal to a stop and dismount. Simon walks Baz to the door, wordlessly lingering and boldly invading Baz’s personal space.
“My sister is inside,” Baz reminds him.
“I know,” Simon says, inching closer. “But I wanna give you a proper goodbye.”
He catches Baz’s lips a final time under the milky morning twilight. It’s the sweetest kiss yet. Lazy and sleepy and Baz is very grateful for his front door because it’s keeping him from swooning like a sap.
“Can I see you again?” Simon murmurs.
“You leave in two hours.”
“I’ll call.”
“You don’t have my number.”
Simon nips at Baz’s ear. “I’ll get it from Trixie.”
“Careful, Snow, or I’ll think you actually like me.”
“I’m counting on it,” Simon says between soft kisses along Baz’s jawline.
It’s a fleeting bliss, always meant to be temporary, but it’s the sound of Baz’s next door neighbor leaving for his morning jog that ultimately pulls them apart. Because it’s a Wednesday. Simon has to travel to Michigan and play another show. Baz has rehearsal at ten and a teenager under his care. Whatever this is can’t exist beyond the night.
But, Simon promises to call.
And, Simon says he likes Baz. (A miracle within itself.)
So, as Baz turns his doorknob, he tells the sinking dread in his stomach to shove off.
“Good,” he whispers. “Because I like you too.”
And then he slips inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Fucking finally,” Mordelia says from the stairwell, scaring the shit out of Baz. “I didn’t want to have to tell dad you were the one that died.”
“Go to bed,” Baz says dropping his keys on his kitchen counter, suddenly very wobbly.
“I already went to bed. You woke me up with all your stumbling,” Mordelia says with crossed arms and an imitation of Baz’s best eyebrow raise.
“I did not stumble.”
“Tell that to a breathalyzer,” Mordelia snorts.
Baz doesn’t need to take this from a teen. “You’re too young to know about that.”
Mordelia rolls her eyes. “Where even were you?”
“Out.” Baz flops onto his couch and sinks into the cushions, exhausted, but not too exhausted to finish answering Mordelia’s question exactly the way he planned it. “You know, being cool.”