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BAZ
The first time it happened was a surprise.
Let's be clear. I can't think of a scenario in which it wouldn't have been a surprise. Simon Snow could have sauntered calmly up to me, looked me dead in the eye, announced his intentions to kiss me with flawless elocution, and the feeling of his lips against mine would have still been a complete and utter shock.
My skin is still buzzing. Even now, hours later. I keep wanting to touch my lips, run my fingers over them. Make sure they're still mine. These lips that have touched his.
Crowley. He most certainly hadn't announced himself. The barbarian.
We'd been fighting between one class and the next, pushing through throngs of our peers to get at each other, to get close. (Everyone ignores us at this point, even the teachers.) (I'd ignore us, too, if I could.)
I hadn't been giving it my all, just peering down at him with one eyebrow cocked because that's all it takes to get his blood boiling when he's already in a strop. But then he'd stuttered around a well-worn insult, and the angry eleven-year-old that apparently still lives in me, curled up in my stomach like a pit viper ready to strike, seized the opportunity to be horrible.
He was in my face, with his dull blue eyes, and his moles, his soft golden skin and wild, fat curls spilling across his forehead. It was either fight him or kiss him.
Snow slamming me back against the stone wall didn't surprise me.
Well, it surprised me a bit. Enough that I let it happen. (Or maybe I just let it happen.) He pinned me with one meaty forearm across my chest and shoulders, head angled up so I could feel the wet heat of his breath on my face. Then his eyes, already dilated, glanced upward and went wide with shock.
There it was. Fucking mistletoe.
Suddenly, like flipping a switch, Snow's breathing went shallow. His heart rate, which had already been a little high, spiked as he leaned more of his weight on me. Crushing my chest.
Then he kissed me.
It was … gentle. And warm. And desperately brief. I don't think I kissed him back, but I did part my lips enough to let him dip his tongue between them. Just barely. A kitten lick.
I let him do whatever it was he wanted to do.
And then it was over. His mouth was gone. His breath, the weight of him, his warmth. I'd closed my eyes for the kiss, so he was already halfway gone once I'd managed to open them again. I watched him walk—no, sprint—around a corner.
"Must be Christmas magic!" someone shouted. I wanted to eviscerate them.
SIMON
Magick. That must be it. There's no other explanation.
There are magickal plants; we learned about them in third year. Plants that shriek and howl, plants with teeth, plants that dig inside your head and steal your thoughts. Plants that can bolster your spells or open pathways between your mind and another's, or even help you heal. So, why not a plant that makes you want to kiss a bloke?
A bloke, by the way, that you hate. That you have hated for years. An evil vampire bloke with soft, dark hair, a cruel mouth, and eyes like storm clouds. Who apparently tastes like peppermint and cold spring water and smells like an old house filled with heavy wood furniture, dusty books and mulled wine. Spicy and warm.
There! That's the magick talking. I can still feel it humming through me. Like someone shot electricity straight into my veins.
Fucking … mistletoe.
He's late coming back to the room. Really late. I've yet to shower because I figured once he got back, it'd give me an excuse to hide out in the ensuite until he fell asleep. Just in case he's pissed.
I mean, he didn't seem pissed, but I didn't really stick around long enough to find out for sure. Merlin, he must have been spelled, too, the way he went boneless. The way his lips parted for mine. How he'd sighed a little and I'd felt it, cool, against the back of my throat.
I run my fingers through my mussed-up hair, pinching it between my knuckles and tugging. It's nearly eleven, and I'd like to be asleep, not waiting up for my prat of a roommate.
Eventually, inevitably, I'm forced to give up. I pass out all keyed-up and grimy, tossing and turning through the night to fevered dreams of Baz's lips on mine.
The next few days are long and awkward, fraught with a very pointed lack of eye contact and careful avoidance in close spaces. Baz and I never touched in our room anyway, definitely not on purpose, but now there's an invisible barrier. It's all lit up with electric wire, and I can feel it sparking like a warning across my skin every time I stray too close.
For his part, he hasn't said a word. I don't know how it makes me feel.
Penny asks pointed questions, and Agatha glares at me from across the dining hall, which seems un-fucking-fair since she's the one that dumped me. Months ago. I can snog Baz out in the hall, out in front of the whole school if I bloody well want to. (I don't want to, but that's not the fucking point.)
The careful, awful avoidance doesn't do me a lick of good in the end.
The second time we kiss, Baz kisses me back.
BAZ
The second kiss is only marginally less of a shock than the first. Only because I spotted the magick-forsaken plant before Snow sat down.
There's mistletoe everywhere at Watford, hung off doorframes, throughout all the halls, over the library benches positioned just beneath the massive, arched windows.
That's where we are now, the library. There's sunlight filtering through the hazy glass in warm streaks, catching the edges of the dark wood shelves and the dust motes floating in the air.
I've been sitting on this bench for a while, a well-worn copy of Wuthering Heights in my hand and a nearly empty cup of tea behind me on the windowsill. It's close enough to the winter holiday that there's hardly anyone around, so I wasn't expecting to see Snow. Wasn't expecting him to stride over to me, all rosy-cheeked and determined. Shoulders squared and jaw fixed. I'm still unsure why he's here. Whatever the original reason, it's lost now.
My book is on the floor.
Snow's hand is in my hair, and he's pushing into me, working that fucking infernal, incredible chin like his life depends on it.
I push back. I let myself feel him, map out the shape of his mouth with mine. I've never done this, I've never … but I can learn. I'm a fast learner. Snow slips his tongue between my lips, and he tastes like sweet honey, cinnamon spice and Darjeeling, and his cross is rattling in my throat like static. A constant reminder that this isn't meant to be mine.
I want to ask what's going on, what this is, what are we doing, Simon? But I might break the spell.
(Is this a spell? He seems possessed.)
I would ask if he weren't clinging to me. If I couldn't feel the weight of his thigh pressed into mine, his wrist against my neck. The heat and magick rolling off him in intoxicating waves. I could think if his fingers weren't combing through my hair, making it wild and his for the moment.
"Christ," he growls into my mouth, pulling back just enough to talk. Our foreheads are still pressed together, and I'm breathing hard. Snow's rubbing his thumb along my hairline at the back of my neck, brushing the faded scar he can't know is there. "Fuck."
He sounds a bit like he does at the end of an argument. Like he's reached his limit, and all that's left is poorly-directed bluster. My heart sinks to my stomach as he pulls away from me, simultaneously trying to suppress a shiver as his hand combs through my hair in the extraction.
"They shouldn't hang this shit around everywhere," he mutters. Angrily. The tips of his ears are pink. "Are they mental?"
"What?" I ask, disbelieving. Is he talking about the mistletoe?
He meets my eyes, and there's bare emotion in his gaze, his brow all knitted together in frustration, or confusion. Or suspicion. Whatever tenderness he allowed himself in the kiss has passed. I can't say it's surprising, any of it. I straighten my back, lift my chin, and lower my brow. Whatever regret he feels, I've decided I'm not in the mood to hear about it.
I take my book and leave the teacup.
SIMON
It's fucking everywhere. The devil plant.
I'm compelled to kiss Baz between our exams, the two of us shoved into a corner outside the Elocution classroom. Then again, briefly, heatedly, at the base of the stairway in Mummers. It's mostly been a quick thing, aside from the time in the library where there was nothing to force us apart, to break me free from his pull.
We never acknowledge it.
He's been nicer, though. Well, not nice. Baz is never nice. (Christ, I wouldn't even know what to do with that.) But, the same night we kissed in the stairwell, he saw me struggling over my Greek textbook in a weak attempt to prepare for my last exam. He just sighed, called me hopeless, and then sat down next to me to correct all my botched conjugations.
I suppose his criticisms are easier to stomach when he delivers them in that gentle, low tone and then offers me helpful guidance to improve. Like he actually cares.
The magick must not have worn off yet because I wanted to kiss him then. In our room, him in his soft black cotton shirt and tartan pyjama bottoms. His thickly socked feet bumping against my bare ones.
The next time I kiss him—really, properly kiss him—it's on our way out of the dining hall a week before Christmas.
The mistletoe hangs from the arched wood frame above the doors, tied up in a silky red bow. Red and white berries are scattered among the droopy, rounded leaves, bits of frost clinging to the edges.
Most other students have cleared out for the night, many already gone for winter break. It's quiet and late, the moon risen just beyond the line of the trees, flurries of snow falling lazily onto the stony path just beyond the entryway. Warm light illuminates it from the double doors still hanging open at my back, and I see Baz's shadow on the ground as he approaches me from behind.
He's forced to move past me, knocking his shoulder against mine. I feel it again. Like the first time we met, that hook in my gut, the Crucible's pull, drawing me closer to him. (Baz. It's always Baz.) This desire, the burning need to keep the contact, to press myself against him and keep him with me, is overwhelming.
"Baz …" I breathe. I don't have a plan. He turns, and his lips are parted, pale and chapped.
My breath makes clouds in the air. His doesn't.
He glances briefly at the hanging plant above us before looking back at me, first at my eyes, his stare razor-sharp and searching, and then lower, down to my mouth. Every other time we've been here, I just barrelled forward. I gave in. This time I wait. I watch. I want to ask the question, but I'm still unsure what I want the answer to be.
That's a lie. I know there's only one answer that'll satisfy the ache in my gut. It's just—
"Can I?"
He nods, and that's all I need.
I press him into the doorframe, one leg slotted between his, both hands on his jaw. He's so cold, even though he was just inside. I feel his fingertips icy against my bare stomach when he grips the hem of my shirt. I push in closer until his hands are trapped between us. I like him cold; I'd burn up otherwise. I open my mouth wide over his, coaxing his lips apart with my own. I'm slow, so slow, touching my tongue to his. It's a gentle thing, a caress.
He's still clumsy at this, more hesitant than I'd ever imagined. Baz isn't hesitant about anything. He's always in control. He always knows what he's doing while I fumble, trip, and stutter through everything.
Not now, though. It … does something. Baz's obvious inexperience, his vulnerability, and the way he lets me see both. Trusts me with it. It twists me up, everything I'm feeling tightened to a dense ball in the pit of my stomach. It makes me want to cover every part of him, hide him away, bury him in my chest. Between my lungs and against my heart.
I just need him. I need to kiss him. I …
I can't think.
The longer I kiss him, the more I want. It has to be magick because wanting like this doesn't seem right. It can't be. You can't want something like this because it's impossible to hold onto, impossible to keep. It's overflowing, it's unstable, it's going off.
I could take and take and take from him, and I'd never be satisfied.
"Baz," I whine into his mouth, sliding my hands back and back until they're tangled in his dark hair, thumbs pressed to his temples, holding his face to mine. "Baz."
His breath hitches. His hands are balled into fists, tugging at my shirt so hard the collar is digging into my skin.
I bite his lower lip, then suck it into my mouth. I kiss him with everything I have, slow and deep, our breaths shared between us. All the time just hoping it'll be enough. Enough to be done with this, to eventually pull away. Because I have to. We have to. He can't want this. And I don't… I don't know what I want.
Kissing Agatha was never like this.
It has to be magick.
"Simon," he says, between kisses, rubbing his nose into mine, fucking whimpering. It makes me want to kiss him more. I try to, I do, but he's pushing me back. It feels just like the crucible, that fucking hook, when all I needed to do was take his hand and he just stood there and … I needed him, and he just—
"What is this?" he asks very seriously. His eyes are wide open. "What are we doing?"
"It's—" I take a breath. "It's the magick, innit?"
"What?"
"Magick." Does he not know? "What else could it be?"
"I don't understand. What does that mean, Snow?" he snaps. It lacks the bite it normally does, half frustration and half desperation. Like he really doesn't understand. "Surely you can't… is it that?" he asks, pointing at the mistletoe dangling above our heads. His voice is getting haughtier, the way it does when he thinks I'm being particularly thick, and it makes me bristle. "Crowley, you think that plant has got some sort of magickal sway over us? Some sort of compulsion?"
"What else could it be?" I growl.
Something flashes in his eyes before he shuts it down. Before he goes blank. "You tell me."
What has this meant to him, if he doesn't think it's magick? What's he getting out of all this? I realise my hands are still in his hair, so I pull them back. The silky strands slide between my fingers. His hands are gone from my shirt, too, and now I'm the cold one.
There's a hook in my gut, and it's threatening to tear a hole in me, and I just want it to fucking stop.
"It's a compulsion," I insist, frustrated. "There's no other reason I'd ever want to kiss you."
BAZ
The walk back to Mummers hours later is fucking frigid. There's a proper layer of frost on the lawn, dampening my trousers' ends. My hair's a mess, which is Snow's fault.
Mistletoe isn't magick.
You might think it would be, what with the Normal's fascination with it, the ritual surrounding it. But it's not infused with magick. It isn't a spell. Magick doesn't fill things the way it does words. If it did, the staff wouldn't dare dangle it above every doorway, like horny teen catnip.
Hell, maybe I'm wrong. Fuck if I know. Maybe someone's cursed the damnable things, maybe it is magick, and I just can't tell the difference because I'm already mad for him.
Because he's right about one thing—what else could it be?
"There's no other reason I'd ever want to kiss you."
Snow's already asleep when I get back in the room. He hasn't showered, hasn't even changed out of his uniform other than to strip off his shirt and blazer. They're both lying in a heap on the floor. He's on his stomach, facing my bed, drool pooling on his pillow. The bloody window is open.
I sigh, moving to shut it before changing in the dark.
I watch him for a while once I've made it to bed, staring at his mouth, still pink from kissing me. That was probably the last kiss, the last tender touch. I never expected it to last. I'm not a fool. I never expected anything from Snow, so I can't really mourn it.
Though, as I drift off to sleep with two fingers pressed against my lips, I find I can't really help myself.
SIMON
Penny is gaping at me across the table. "You think what?"
"The mistletoe," I say, feeling more and more foolish by the minute. "It's magick, like a compulsion spell. Every time I see Baz beneath it, I feel like I have to kiss him."
Penny takes a large bite of her roasted chicken and mash just so she has something to chew on while she thinks it over. I can tell she's trying not to look at me like I've lost the plot. She's failing.
"Simon," she says, swallowing the last of her food. "Say it is a spell. Have you been compelled to kiss anyone other than Baz?"
"No, but—" I hesitate, tapping my empty plate with my fork.
"Okay," she says, placing both hands on the table in front of her, palm down. "Let's operate under the assumption that you haven't had a single opportunity to test this out with anyone other than Baz. Come with me."
I don't have time to react before she grabs my wrist and hauls me around the table and out of the nearly empty dining hall. She stops outside the double doors, the same spot where I kissed Baz last night. My chest feels tight, and I gently touch my lips with the tips of my fingers.
"Do you want to kiss me?"
I drop my hand. "What?" I can't stop myself from making a face, and she rolls her eyes back at me, both hands on her hips.
"Well, that was easy," she says, poking me in the stomach. "I think you have your answer."
"Penny, you … you don't understand," I say, scratching my nails through the short hair at the back of my head. "It's like I can't help myself, like I'm … possessed."
"Simon, I can't tell you how you feel. Only you can do that. I can tell you that this is just an ordinary plant. No magickal properties whatsoever. Do you think the staff would be daft enough to hang it all over the place if it magickly compels students to just start snogging each other? Whatever's going on between you and Baz has absolutely nothing to do with this."
I shut my eyes, and I think I knew this because even days after the first time I kissed him, I still felt like my chest would explode whenever I thought about it. I just …
"Does that mean Baz …" I can't finish the thought, but by the look on Penny's face I can tell she knows what I'm getting at.
"I can't tell you how he feels either, Simon. I think you've got two options." She holds up a hand, two fingers extended. "Either you both pretend like this never happened, which you seem to have been doing already." She lowers one finger. "Or you talk about it." She lowers the other.
"Christ, Pen."
"I know."
"Jesus fucking Christ."
BAZ
I'm nearly finished packing. I could have left a few days ago, but I think Snow's staying at Watford over the break because both Wellbelove and now Bunce have gone, and he's been storing snacks in his wardrobe for the past week like he's a squirrel gathering food for the long winter.
I shouldn't feel anything about it, it's none of my business, but I don't like the idea of him being here alone.
I'm flipping the locks on my luggage when I hear the door open.
Usually, Snow smacks the wall with the knob, even when he comes in late because he doesn't care if I sleep, but today he's oddly tentative. I don't turn to look at him, but I can feel his eyes on me. Pinpricks on the back of my neck.
"What do you want, Snow?"
He doesn't say anything, but I can hear him shuffling closer, the slightly elevated beat of his heart stark in the silence. If I'm listening for it, I can pick out the sound in a crowded room.
"Baz," he says quietly, and I feel his fingers brush my shoulder. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to shudder at the touch, to keep my face bored when I turn to look at him. His eyes are bright, and his hair is thoroughly scrubbed. He's got one hand still outstretched, and the other—
"Why do you have that?" I ask, staring at the bundle of mistletoe clutched in his fist.
"Baz," he repeats, moving closer, though he's already far too close. "Why did you let me kiss you?"
I feel myself go rigid, refusing to meet his eyes. "Why the fuck does that matter?" I ask. It comes out wearier than I mean it to. "You said it yourself. It was a compulsion. Magick. There's no other reason you'd ever—" I feel my throat constrict, and I can't finish. And I shouldn't have to because, unless he's suffered a head injury, he knows exactly what he said. "It doesn't matter."
"I didn't mean that," he says softly, and now he's not meeting my eyes. "I'm sorry, I just didn't think. I never think ... I knew it was shit the minute I said it. I wanted—" he sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "I want you."
His eyes are pleading. He reaches out to touch me again, and this time his palm closes over the side of my neck. He traces the line of my jaw with his thumb, and I can't suppress a shudder.
"Why did you let me kiss you?" he asks again, leaning in. He's near enough that it would take nothing for me to close the distance between us. There's something missing, too, the static that buzzes in the back of my throat whenever he's near.
"Where's your cross?"
"Got rid of it," he says offhandedly. Like it hardly matters. As if any part of this could be simple or easy. "Baz, please. Tell me why you kissed me back."
He wants me. He got rid of his cross.
"I—" I let out a breath. "Simon, I wanted to. I've always—"
The soft, muffled thud of the mistletoe hitting the floor is the only thing I hear before his lips connect with mine.
He's holding my face in his hands, stroking my cheeks with his thumbs, kissing me hungrily. As if he hasn't been kissing me for weeks, as if it's the first time. Except now I know how to kiss him back, or at least I'm getting better. I've got my hands on his hips, and he walks me backwards until my legs connect with the edge of my bed. I pull him down until he's on his hands and knees, hovering above me, chasing my mouth the moment my head's settled on the pillows.
"You're an idiot," I tell him against his kissed-pink lips. "A complete twit."
"A twit you wanted to kiss," he laughs back.
I shake my head against his. I'm thinking about pulling his hair, but then he collapses on top of me, slotting us together from thigh to chest, kissing the breath out of me.
Suddenly, I'm not thinking anything at all.
My fingers shake when I touch his bare stomach beneath his shirt, and again when he touches me back. We undress one another down to our trousers, and the simple contact, skin-to-skin, feels incredible. Overwhelming. With his soft, freckled chest pressed flush with mine, I'm warm inside and out.
We kiss until we can't anymore, until it turns quiet and gentle, the barest brush of lips. Eventually we're just breathing the same air. His mouth hovers over mine, breath sweet and hot. I want to sink into him, maybe I already have. My arm is around his waist and his is around my shoulders. His hands are surprisingly tender as they explore me, fingertips ghosting along the shell of my ear, across my cheekbones, over the bend at the tip of my nose.
I almost fall asleep like that, beneath his careful touches, but his voice brings me back to the room. To him. The solid, steady weight of him in my arms.
"When do you leave?" he asks, hardly more than a whisper.
"A few hours," I sigh. "I'm all packed, so we can stay like this. For a while, at least."
He nods, and there's a pang in my chest thinking again about him holed up here, waking up alone on Christmas morning. Eating his way through a wardrobe full of pilfered crisps.
I close my eyes and rub my nose against his. "Come with me."
He goes still, but his mouth is close enough to mine that I can feel the small, unsure smile there. Tight at the edges. "Your family would kill me."
I shrug pointedly. Snow kicks me in the shin, and I laugh.
"I'll cast a spell," I say. "You'll be a guest. No one will hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you." He looks unimpressed, and I can't help but grin. "I mean, perhaps Mordelia will, the terror. Especially if Vera snuck her too many sweets again. Last year she was bouncing off the damned walls, demanding we all stay up to catch Father Christmas in the act, and we couldn't get her to bed until after two in the morning."
"You're really selling me on this idea," he chuckles, leaning in to steal a soft kiss. I smile into it. It's so easy to get caught up in all this, in him, and he kisses me a while longer before he finally relaxes, nosing at my cheek.
"Yeah," he continues softly, a touch uncertain. "All right. I'll come with you. I'd love to see what sort of Gothic, haunted mansion you grew up in."
"It's not Gothic," I counter. "It's Victorian." That makes him laugh outright, and Crowley, what I wouldn't give to make him laugh like that all the time. (I won't ruin the surprise for him by admitting that 'Victorian, haunted mansion' almost perfectly describes Pitch Manor. That's a treat for later.)
"What's the difference?" he asks. I scoff as he kisses me again. He hasn't stopped smiling. "I think you and Penny were wrong," he says against my mouth, running his fingers through my hair and tucking loose strands behind my ear. "I do think mistletoe is magic."
"Mistletoe isn't magick, Snow."
"It helped me realise I wanted you," he shrugs, pulling me against his chest in a hug. "It helped get us here. So. Feels a bit like magic to me."
And, well, I can't really argue with that.