Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

SIMON

I guess it started with the ball. I found it in a park one day, just lying in the grass, practically shining, just begging me to come get it. I was a kid, I didn’t have anything of my own, not really, and so I treated it like the most treasured thing in my life.

In retrospect, I was probably too attached to that ball. 

I took it with me everywhere. It sounds mental, but that ball was like my best friend. I would bounce it when I got anxious — which was a lot back then, way more than now — and it was kind of cathartic. I was bouncing the ball when I went off the first time, actually. Just bouncing it over and over trying to get rid of some of the nervous energy inside of me.

I took it to Watford with me when the Mage came to get me. It was pretty much the only thing I brought, and when I realised that Baz hated it, I loved it even more. 

I didn’t hate him immediately that year. I really grew into it. The ball was part of it, like a physical manifestation of everything about me that pissed him off. Probably because it was so mundane, just like me. 

After that, it was small things. A pencil that wasn’t mine showing up in my hand. Once an apple that was partially eaten appeared at the bottom of my bag, and I didn’t notice it at first, so it rotted and I had to throw the bag out. I knew that wasn’t mine. I would never have left food half eaten. Then a pair of sunglasses. A really nice pair of Wayfarers. I assumed they were Baz’s, and I just left them on his desk, and he never said anything, and I saw him wear them once, so I figured I was right.

Then it was books. So many books. Those started in third year. They would just show up on my desk or in my bag, or I’d knock into them while eating. I didn’t know what to do with them or why they kept finding me, so I just dropped them off in the library whenever it happened. It seemed like the best way to make sure they got back to their owner. 

Then one day it was too much.

“What the fuck?” I shouted. I’d just gone to get up from my spot in the grass, only to trip on another book. Fucking Charles Dickens. The thing was like a brick. 

“Why are you swearing like a Normal?” Penny asked me. She was asleep in the grass next to me.

“Where the fuck are these books coming from? Did I fuck up a spell or something?” I growled. “I swear to Merlin, I find like four of these things a week. Can you help me? Is there an unsticking spell or something to make this shit not find me?”

Penny sat straight up. Her hair was frizzy from lying in the grass and it stuck out wildly, with bits of twigs in it. 

“Simon, you’re finding books? How long? What else have you found? And I mean found, just out of the blue, waiting for you, things you know aren’t yours?”

I stared at her, my face scrunched up. I know I looked like an idiot.

“Uh… I found a rotten apple once.”

I thought she would make a face, but she just got more excited.

“Simon! This is incredible. What books? Crowley, she must be smart. I wonder who it is. I wonder where she is. Have there been any kind of geographic markers? I think mine is in America.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked her. This was total gibberish.

“Your soul mate?” Penny stared at me like I was mental. I felt like I was. Then the pity kicked in. “Oh, Simon. Don’t you know about the soul mate spell?”

I shook my head. There’s loads about the world of mages I didn’t know. That I still don’t know.

“It started as an accident, actually. It wasn’t supposed to be so….universal. But the mage who created it was wickedly powerful. He was trying to find a spell to make sure his lost items all went to the same place — so they wouldn’t be lost anymore. Anyway, he picked his wife. Seems logical, right? But it went wrong. Really, really wrong. It lit up the whole filament, so now it applies to all magicians.”

“What does?” I’m sometimes thick. I’m big enough to admit it.

“The soul mate spell! When you lose something, it finds its way to your soul mate. It happens to all mages. Everyone is always desperate to find their soul mate, but it can be really hard to piece together the clues. You can’t exactly plan to lose something, you know?”

“So these books…. belong to my soul mate?” Penny nodded eagerly and grabbed the book out of my hand. 

“She has good taste. What other books has she lost? Where do you keep them?”

I flushed. “I’ve been dropping them off at the library….”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to do. Penny really laid into me then, about how dumb that was, how I should be keeping the books so I could confirm one day if I ever met my mysterious soul mate. I tried to make her understand just how many books we were talking about, but she wouldn’t listen. Penny always kept everything. Her soul mate lost loads of stuff, all kinds of tickets and notes, and homework. So much homework. That’s how she knew he was in America. I guess it paid off for her, because one day she learned his name from an essay he lost, and when the American exchange students got introduced in fourth year, she marched right up to him. He knew who she was immediately, because she had lost her phone two years earlier, and there were loads of selfies on it.

I always sort of hoped that one day a book would show up with a name in it. I didn’t keep them, but I would flip through them sometimes, just to see if there was anything important in them. Other things showed up too — some hair ties, which helped me know she must have long hair. Some more pens and pencils.

One summer it was house keys. I felt really bad about that one, actually, because I imagined her stuck outside her house, unable to get in, because I had her keys. And loads of scarves. At least four, every winter. I don’t really have a use for scarves, since I don’t get cold, and it felt weird to keep all these nice scarves, so I would just leave them in public areas, or in the lost and found.

By fifth year, I became convinced that it was Agatha, because a Watford schoolbook showed up. I know it wasn’t mine, because my copy was sitting right next to me. I flipped through it, and there was a copy of the homework I’d just been given. 

My soul mate was at Watford, and took Greek. Probably with me. It could have been someone in one of the other classes, I guess. But it just seemed so fitting that it would be Agatha. She’s perfect. 

I was too chicken to just ask her though, so I took the book back to the classroom and left it there in case she came back.

Eventually we started dating, and I wanted to ask, but I was still too scared. And she didn’t ask me, so it just…went unsaid. My soul mate stopped losing big things that year. The books stopped showing up, but I still found a few pens. A few more hair ties. (Those were pretty useful, actually. I always had one on hand for when Aggie or Penny needed one.) 

Once I found a football, but I’m not entirely sure it was for me, because it just sitting in the middle of my room when I turned around, right in the middle of the floor. I was going to take it, but then Baz showed up, and he stared at that football for so bloody long before he picked it up and put it in his wardrobe. I figured it must have meant something to him, from the way he stared at it, so I figured it belonged to his soulmate. Even though I was pretty sure mine was Agatha, I was a little jealous. His soul mate was a footballer? I would have killed for a footballer soul mate. Not that lacrosse is bad, but…you know. It’s not football.

By sixth year, I was desperate to prove it was Aggie. I used to write notes and then leave them around, deliberately trying to lose them. I finally stopped when Baz laid into me about it.

“Why the fuck are you leaving love notes to Wellbelove around the room?” he snarled. I flushed a bit. They weren’t love notes. I wouldn’t know how to write a love note. But they were definitely soul mate related. 

“They’re not to Aggie per say,” I muttered, because it was true. I left them vague, just in case it wasn’t her. If it was some other random girl, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. 

“Hey soul mate, come find me. Cheers, Simon Snow,” he read out. He was grasping the sheet of paper in his hands so tightly he was almost ripping it, and I wanted to dissolve. He sneered at me, then adopted a fake nice expression. “Are they for me, Snow?”

“Of course not,” I growled. 

“Then stop leaving them around,” he snapped back, balling the paper up and throwing it at me. It bounced off of my forehead. “Why are you even doing this?”

“I’m trying to make sure my soul mate knows my name,” I spat back. “So I’m trying to leave notes.”

He just stared at me.

“You can’t just lose something on purpose, Snow. It doesn’t work that way. Not even you are that inept.” 

“How would you know? You don’t know how it works,” I snapped back. “This whole thing is fucking stupid. I can’t believe some numpty fucked up a spell and now it’s ruining my life.”

“That numpty was my grandfather,” Baz snarled.

“What?” I just stared at him.

“My grandfather. My mother’s father. He’s the one that created the spell.”

Well fuck. I knew that Baz’s family was important and had a lot of magic, but I guess I hadn’t realised just how much magic. It’s actually kind of impressive. And almost unbelievable that a Pitch could fuck something up that badly. That’s the level of muck up that usually is reserved for me.

“Anyway, I thought Wellbelove was your soul mate. Why are you worrying about this?”

I just shrugged. 

“We haven’t talk about it, I just wanted to… prove it, I guess,” I said sluggishly. 

“Just ask her,” he snapped. Then he laughed. “Merlin, the Chosen One is too cowardly to confirm his perfect chosen girlfriend is his soul mate. You’re the bloody Mage’s Heir, she’s the prettiest girl in school, of course she’s your fucking soul mate.”

“You don’t know that,” I muttered. I was getting increasingly upset and flustered. He was poking straight through all my insecurities.

“Oh, please, Snow. Save it. Even you aren’t that thick, to possibly think—”

“Aggie doesn’t read!” I shouted. Just hollered it, and let it hang there in the air between us.

“What?” he snapped. But it was softer. It was surprised. I leaned over the edge of my bed and dug out that fucking Dickens book, the one I had tripped on. It’s the only book I ever kept, because it was from the day I found out just what it all meant, and I guess I was being sentimental. But then I chucked it at his head. 

“My soul mate reads a shit ton, and she’s really fucking bad at keeping track of her books,” I shouted. “But Aggie doesn’t read. I never see her reading. And I asked her if she’s read this, and she said no, it sounded boring. She’s got long hair, sure,” I shouted, holding up my wrist, where one of my soul mate’s hair ties was resting. “But she doesn’t read!”

Baz had caught the book (he has great reflexes) and he just stared at it. Just fucking stared, like he was going to light it on fire with the intensity of his gaze. It made me feel a bit better though, that he was as confused and alarmed as I was at the idea that Agatha wasn’t my soul mate. I thought for a wild moment that maybe it meant that Agatha was his, but then I remembered the football. Baz’s soul mate was a footballer. And Aggie hates football.

I kept waiting for him to say something, but instead he just threw the book back at me (I wasn’t expecting it, and he hit me again. I guess he didn’t mean to though, since the Anathema didn’t kick in) and stalked out of the room.

I stopped writing notes, because I didn’t want Baz to find any more of them and know just how pathetic I was. 

And to make things worse, my soul mate almost completely stopped losing things. It was kind of upsetting, actually. I always had the impression that she lost things a lot, because of all the small stuff that showed up (sometimes even a few pounds here and there, which made me feel a little guilty, but I always kept. I figured if she could afford to lose so many books, she could afford a note every few months). I liked the idea that she was a bit scatterbrained in that way. It made me feel better about being a complete clutz and fuck up sometimes.

But things just dried up. I guess she got responsible, because aside from the rare pen, everything stopped. Even the hair ties. Or maybe she just cut her hair. Everyone did that year — me, Penny, Baz, half the girls in our class. Everyone but Agatha. That was kind of the last big sign, before the phone. 

Just before we went home for break before seventh year, Agatha sat me down.

“I found a phone,” she said, and I knew, immediately, that she meant her soul mate’s phone. And that it wasn’t me. Because I didn’t own one.

I wasn’t as gutted as I had expected. I knew she wasn’t mine. And I had been fighting the feeling that I was being hurtful to my real soul mate by wishing it was Aggie. And I felt untrue to Aggie because I’d spent the year missing my soul mate, and wishing she’d lose things again.

“He’s American,” she said slowly, and I tried not to roll my eyes. Why were all of my friends matched up with Americans? It drove Penny’s mum crazy, and I was starting to agree with her. 

“That’s great, Aggie,” I said. And I actually meant it. She flushed a bit. I could tell she wanted to talk more about this new bloke. “Do you know his name?”

She shook her head, then flushed again. 

“No. There was a note in the phone though. For me. He’s….he’s not interested in meeting me. Says magic is more trouble than its worth, and he thinks the spell is stupid. He said he’s sorry, but he just doesn’t want to be part of this world and have his fate decided for him.”

“Oh, Aggie,” I started to say, but she shook her head. She was smiling. 

“No, Simon, it’s great. It’s perfect. I feel the exact same way. And now if I ever meet him, it can just be… real. Not because we feel like we have to. Not just because it feels expected.”

I didn’t get what she was saying. I still don’t really get it, but she seemed happy, so I smiled and hugged her and told her that was great. She was looking at me expectantly, and I know she was waiting for me to tell her about mine. We’d broke through that big, exhausting hurdle in our relationship. Were we breaking up? I had assumed we were, when this started, but she didn’t seem to bothered. 

“Mine… uh, well. She reads, a lot,” I said. “I think she’s really smart. And she’s pretty forgetful. Or at least, she used to be. She used to lose loads of stuff. Not so much anymore though. I guess she’s responsible now.”

Aggie just stared at me.

“And that’s all you know?” I nodded. It wasn’t a lot to go on. She looked like she pitied me. But I wasn’t the one whose soul mate didn’t want to meet me. 

“Do you want to meet her?” she asked, and I nodded. 

“I…I think she goes to Watford. And… Crowley Aggie, I wanted it to be you. But she’s stopped losing things, and I actually miss her. I miss learning about her life.” 

“She goes to Watford?” Aggie exclaimed. Then she grinned. “Next year, we’re going to find her, alright Simon? We’ll riddle her out.” I smiled back. I was so relieved. With Penny and Aggie helping me, I was pretty sure I could do anything. And once I met my soulmate, things would be perfect. She would be perfect.

But there’s a book next to me on the bed, right now, that wasn’t there when I sat down. I’ve only been back at Watford for an hour. I didn’t find anything all summer, but now, suddenly, after years of silence, a book. An extremely worn book. With pages dog eared, and sentences highlighted, and small thoughts written in the margins in impossibly perfect handwriting.

I always wanted to know more about my soul mate, but this isn’t the kind of information I expected to find. It’s kind of shocked me, actually. Because it had never occurred to me before. Never. But I guess it’s occurred to my soul mate. Maybe they already knew, or maybe I lost something that made them seriously start questioning. Maybe I’m reading into it too much. Maybe there’s a deeper meaning here, or a funny story. But I don’t think so. It seems pretty clear. 

I think my soul mate is a bloke. And I think he just lost his copy of a book about coping with being a gay man.

Chapter Text

BAZ

My soul mate never loses anything. I’m serious. Pretty much nothing. 

Once I found a pence on the ground and was thrilled. I was positive it had to belong to my soul mate, and it was the first thing I’d ever found, until Fiona told me she had dropped it as a trick. That was low, even for her.

For a long time I thought it meant I didn’t have a soul mate. It would make sense. I was basically dead. Do dead people get soul mates? Do vampires get soulmates? I was young enough that I wasn’t drinking blood yet, and I still thought that maybe the vampire thing was going to be a fluke. Sure, I had great vision, and was uncomfortably pale, and had to wear sunglasses. But I could just be a freak. Not a vampire. Maybe it wasn’t going to happen. So the biggest fear in my life back then was that I didn’t have a soul mate. 

I was, admittedly, slightly dramatic about it. When I don’t know how to handle something, I turn to books. I’ll read everything there is to know about a subject, so that I can arm myself, to be prepared. But there’s not exactly a compendium of knowledge on soul mates, or how the spell works. It’s still relatively new, and besides, it was my grandfather who cast it. I was supposed to be the one with the knowledge. Or at least, my family was. 

There’s no how-to book on love or soul mates or partners. So I just started reading literature. I read through the great love stories, I read through the tragedies. In the back of my mind, somewhere, I reasoned that even if I didn’t have a soul mate, I could still at least experience love through a book. 

I read everywhere, while doing everything. At meals, before practice, in class. I was careless. I left my books everywhere. They would usually show up in the library though. I thought the librarian must have hated me — not that she knew it was me, leaving the books everywhere for her to trip over. But the fact that they were found and turned in, or collected, made it worse. They were literally just being lost. They weren’t going anywhere. Or to anyone. 

I’m forgetful with my things at the best of times; it’s probably my worst quality. I just get wrapped up in thinking about something, and then I will have walked away without my food, or put my pencil somewhere I can’t find it, or left my house keys on the bench at the club. That was the worst one. All I could think was that if I had a soul mate, they would have found my keys. They would have known I was locked out. They would have thought about me. 

I started being more careless with my belongings after the keys. Just in case.

Just in case I did have one, just in case they were finding my things and thinking of me. I thought, maybe, if they found enough of my things, I’d find some of theirs. But it didn’t happen. Eventually I stopped. It was ridiculous, and offensive to the books to be so careless with them.

And then it happened. The summer after fifth year, I finally found my first ever item from my soul mate. They were lying on the floor of my room, and I actually shouted when I saw them. And then I got pissed. After all this time, after all this anxiety, the first thing my soul mate ever fucking lost were pants.

It was a pair of plaid, sad looking boxers, bundled up on my floor. I knew they weren’t mine. I was wearing briefs by that point, and also I would never have let those things touch my body. They had to be my soul mate’s. 

I wasn’t surprised that they were boxers. I was a little pleased, actually, at least for a moment. I’d already figured out that I was gay by then, and while I wasn’t out, I was at least pretty confident in that knowledge. Knowing that I did have a soul mate, and that the soul mate was apparently male, was like a sudden bolt of vindication. I am gay, and I’m meant to be gay. It’s not a mistake.

But then I got angry. Really, really fucking angry. 

I’d given up on the concept of soul mates by then, and I was okay with it. I just didn’t have one, and it actually truly had stopped bothering me. I was far too concerned with real issues by then, like the fact that I had, indeed, become a vampire, and also that I was gay, which I discovered when I realised I was immensely attracted to and likely in love with Simon Snow. 

I knew I couldn’t be with him — Wellbelove was clearly his soul mate, anyway — but it felt good to love. To care for someone else like that, even if it ate me up inside. I was comfortable in my unrequited love, and then suddenly, out of the blue, my soul mate decided to show up and completely fuck with me. 

“Surprise! I know you’re just coming round to your monumentally shitty lot in life, and I know you’ve fallen for someone else, but after a lifetime of silence, I’m here to make you feel guilty about that!”

I fucking hated my soulmate. I hated him for his timing, and I hated him for the fact that all I ever fucking found of his were his used, ugly pants.

There were a lot of false alarms, though. Rooming with Simon fucking Snow made sure of that. His things are constantly everywhere. Each time I’d turn around and see a strange sock, it would be his. If I found a school book on the floor, it was his. And his wand. His fucking wand, which he would constantly throw on my bed and forget about. It was almost impressive, honestly. Snow doesn’t own hardly anything, so you would think that he wouldn’t have enough possessions to leave lying around on my side of the room, and yet, he persisted. 

The worst thing about it wasn’t even the jolt of joy I’d feel when I first saw the object, only to be crushed. It’s that Snow would lie about it. I’d throw his shit back at him and tell him to stop leaving around, and then he’d work himself up into a bluster and fucking lie to my face.

“How about you stop stealing my wand and leaving your fucking shoes on my side of the room?”

We were always fighting about that kind of shit. 

Sixth year, though, something massive occurred to me: my soul mate went to Watford. All those lost books — Merlin, hundreds of them — had wound back up in the library. For so long I had assumed the librarian had just found them, or that other students were turning them in. But when I lost (properly, properly lost; desperate, frantic searching for kind of lost) my Greek textbook, it showed back up in the classroom. 

He went to Watford. He was finding my shit. And he was trying to give it back, because he didn’t want it. 

That nearly destroyed me. How fucking dare he? He had a lifetimes worth of my things; children toys, baubles, definitely a decent amount of cash, my fucking house keys and my beloved books. All I had was a pair of fucking pants. And he just gave my shit away. 

The fact that he went to Watford that whole time was almost too much to even consider. What if he knew? What if I had lost something that indicated who I was, and he just didn’t want anything to do with me? Or what if he found something, like I did, that indicated he was gay, and he couldn’t handle it? Only I would be soul mates with a self-hating gay magician. 

I’d had suspicions that he was at Watford before. Impossible, fleeting suspicions, like the time I lost my football after practice, only to find it in my room, sitting right behind Snow’s chair. 

I actually shook when that happened. Did it mean what I thought it meant? Was Snow my soul mate, after all this time? Were all of our squabbles about missing socks and misplaced shoes actually the result of having our lost items find the other?

But his soul mate was Wellbelove. And after all the things I had lost, deliberately and accidentally, I had never, ever seen him with them. I would have remembered seeing Snow with a book. And so I tried to remember the last time I saw this ball, and if I had actually taken it to practice, and I couldn’t remember. So the most likely scenario was that I had just forgotten it. I picked it up and put it in my wardrobe, and Snow didn’t even blink.

It would be too good to be true. And it would be tragic, if Snow were my soul mate. Because I have to kill him. So I didn’t allow the thought to keep going. I could love Snow, sure. But I wasn’t fated to him. I couldn’t be fated to him. He was just the secret that I kept, the one I chose to love, the one who meant more to me than anyone, even my absentee fucking soul mate.

And then came sixth year. 

Snow and Wellbelove’s love was suffocating. His notes to her were everywhere I went. I’d step on them when I got out of bed in the morning. They’d get mixed in with my schoolbooks. Everywhere I looked, it was just another fucking reminder that Snow would never be mine, that my love for him was wrong, defied fate, defied everything correct and destined. 

Then one day I woke up from a nap and stepped on another fucking note, and I lost it. I went off on him. I nearly broke the Anathema when I threw the paper at his head. I didn’t believe him at first, when he said he was testing to see if Wellbelove was his soul mate. Of course she was. He wrote notes to her constantly. They were perfect for each other. 

But then —

“Aggie doesn’t read!” 

He caught me off guard. What did Wellbelove’s reading habits have to do with his soul mate?

“My soul mate reads a shit ton, and she’s really fucking bad at keeping track of her books.” He dug something out from under his bed and threw it at me — really threw it, so hard that if he had hit me he probably would have been expelled. I almost let him hit me. Serves him right. How dare he bitch about finding his soul mate’s things? Poor fucking Simon Snow. I’d have killed once upon a time to find my soul mate’s books.

“She’s got long hair, sure,” Snow was rambling, shaking his fist in the air. He was gesturing at one of the hair ties he was always wearing. Just one of the standard black ones, like the kind I use to pull my hair up for pratice. I always thought it was weird he wore one, but I figured it was for Wellbelove. “But she doesn’t read!”

I glanced down at the book that had nearly rebroken my nose and almost dropped it.

It was mine. 

I was positive of it. Charles Dickens, a green copy of A Tale Of Two Cities that had come out of my family’s library. It was one of the few books I had never gotten back, and I had always been a bit upset about that, because it’s a favourite and also because my father was blisteringly angry that it had disappeared.

But it didn’t disappear. Snow had it. All this time, Snow had it. 

Which means he’d had all of them. 

Which means that Snow is my soul mate. 

The socks. The wand. The notes. The fucking pants. They were his. I’d been finding his shit for years, and bitching about it. Simon Snow was my soul mate.

I had to kill my soul mate.

I threw the book back at him. I couldn’t stand to look at it, and I fled.

If I thought that working through the initial gay discovery, alongside dealing with being a vampire, had been bad, it was nothing on this. I became fastidious. I kept track of my books, my pens, everything. I cut my hair so I no longer needed my hairbands. I was determined that he wouldn’t find a single item of mine. I didn’t want him to be able to find out it was me. But I also wanted him to know how it felt, to have your soul mate go silent. 

As soon as I stopped losing things, I started finding his stuff everywhere. Things were making sense. Like why I never found things in the summer (he doesn’t own enough to lose), and why his things always migrated to my side of the room. We’d been tripping on each other’s things for years and tearing each other apart over it. I stopped yelling at him when his wand showed up on my bed, or his jumper was on my chair. When his socks showed up in my bag, I just put them back. I stopped talking to him completely, honestly. 

Snow didn’t know. He thought I was a girl, because he was straight. Or at least, he thought he was. Maybe he was. Maybe the soul mates thing was just a sick joke, and in reality it meant that we were fated to kill each other before we found love.

I tried to move on. I tried to not think about him. I went home, and I tried to find a boyfriend. That failed. I came out to Fiona, and she gave me the world’s most offensive book about living life as a gay man, which I ended up reading six times. I attempted to broach the subject with my father, but then decided to let sleeping dogs lie. I would likely be dead anyway, so what did it matter?

And then I lost the book. 

I knew it was gone as soon as I got to school. It wasn’t in my bag, and when I texted Fiona, it wasn’t at her place either. I would never have left it lying around at my parent’s house in Hampshire. Fiona found the entire thing hysterical. 

“Maybe it’ll be helpful for him too!” she said. I hadn’t told her who my soul mate was, just that I knew he was a bloke, and she had taken it extremely well. She thought that losing the book was great. But it wasn’t. It was a fucking nightmare.

I tried to remember exactly what I had written in the book. Did I mention him? Did I say anything about myself? I’d highlighted things, because that’s what I do. Bits about coming out, bits about staying in, bits about accepting my identity. I’d left notes, because I was studying the subject, the way I study everything I’m confused about. 

And now Snow had those notes. 

I don’t know what he’s done with the book. I’ve been looking for it since I got back to school, but I haven’t seen it anywhere. I’ve checked the library and the lost and found, because that’s where he’s ditched my stuff in the past, but it wasn’t there. 

There’s a part of my brain — the demented part — that finds this hysterical. Snow has been assuming his soul mate is some gorgeous woman with flowing long hair, and then one day an extremely descriptive book shows up that informs him that, no, in fact, his soul mate is likely a studious gay man. 

I’ve been watching him, to see if he’s suffering any kind of identity crisis, but he seems…normal. Still thick. Still awful at Greek. Still ravenously hungry. Still leaking magic when he sleeps. He’s stopped bitching at me about my things coming onto his side of the room, but I really don’t think it’s because he’s figured out I’m his soul mate. If he had, his damaged heterosexuality would probably have staked me through the heart by now.

It’s almost endearing how stupid he is. How has he not figured it out?

It’s one thing for me to have missed it; Snow doesn’t lose things. He has nothing to lose, so of course it took awhile. But I’ve given him so many clues.

He knows his soul mate is a bloke who goes to Watford. He knows the mystery man has — or had — long hair. He found my textbook, so he knows we’ve had classes together. He knows his soul mate reads, and that’s pretty much all I do other than plot. He knows what my handwriting looks like, thanks to the notes in that infernal book, and I am positive that at some point in the almost 7 years we have lived together, he has seen my handwriting. Who else could it possibly, possibly be other than me?

I’m relieved though. Or at least I was relieved, until he says it. Just fucking says it one night. I’m out of the shower, getting ready to get into bed, and he looks up. 

“Hey Baz? What do you know about your soul mate?”

Chapter Text

SIMON

Honestly, I think I’m okay with this. I don’t think that makes me gay. There’s nothing wrong with being gay, but I’m just not fully sure if I am. I don’t know if I’ve ever really been attracted to a boy before. 

There are boys that I think are beautiful. If that’s the right word. Baz is definitely beautiful. He’s an asshole, and a dark creature, but beautiful, in a really classic way. You know, with broad shoulders and slender fingers. His eyes are some colour I’ve never seen before, and honestly, they’re probably the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen. And he has great hair. He hates me, but he’s pretty fit. Penny’s boyfriend Micah is good looking too. His face is alarmingly symmetrical. 

I’ve decided to just worry about the gay thing when I meet him. 

Penny and Agatha call a soul mate meeting a few days after we’re back. I’ve never seen Agatha so eager and ready to plan and investigate before. Usually it’s pulling teeth to get her to make lists, but this year she’s leading the charge, and Penny is right there with her. It sounds like they hung out a lot over the summer, and they seem closer than they have in years. Agatha seems happier than she has in years. 

They’re convinced my soul mate is a girl in the eighth year, a redhead who’s always reading and once fell in the moat. I haven’t told them about the book yet. I’m not sure why, except that it just feels too private. It looks even worse than it did when I found it, honestly, because I’ve read it about ten times by now. It’s more information about my soul mate than I’ve ever had before. He — she — they — wrote loads of notes in the margins. Interesting ones, and some funny ones as well. Personal ones too.

They’ve given me a lot of insight about my soul mate, and what he’s been thinking and feeling. The book is annotated like he was studying it. There are highlighted sections about coming out to friends. A starred section about deciding to not come out to parents. Notes in the chapter with the personal essay about fighting with a guy you’re attracted to. 

My face turned bright red when I read one of the personal essay chapters, one where a bloke describes his first time. There’s no highlighting on that page, but it is dog eared, and there’s notes. “Interesting” is written next to a particularly descriptive paragraph. And another reads in perfect, tiny handwriting, “It would never happen like this. Everything is a battle.”

And there’s jokes. Loads of jokes. Little “lol”s written next to weird sections. A “no thank you” in small letters in the chapter about being religious. 

There’s one note I come back to, over and over. It’s a random thought, scrawled in a chapter break. “Love is a choice every morning, not some fuzzy feeling in a room.”

I thought that was the deepest, wisest thing I’d ever read. I was convinced he was some kind of incredible writer, and I actually quoted it to Penny one day. She just stared at me like I was mental, pulled out her (illegal) phone, and Googled it. Turns out, they’re lyrics. I felt a little dumb, but at least I was able to add “likes music” to my list of nebulous things I know about this bloke.

I think about him constantly. What is he doing? Is he still at Watford? Who is he? Who is he? Who is he? 

I wish I knew someone who was still riddling out their soul mate. Most people in my year have figured it out already. Agatha hasn’t, but she’s distinctly uninterested in knowing her soul mate. Whenever she finds his stuff, she puts it in a box under her bed and forgets about it. Though she did try to deliberately lose his phone, so it would get returned to him.

I don’t know anything about Baz’s soul mate. Do vampires get soul mates? They must, since he has that football. If he had met his, and knew her, I feel like that would have been big news. Everyone talks about it when soul mates meet up. 

So I ask him what he knows about his soul mate.

He stares at me for a good thirty seconds before he sits down on his bed, grabs a book, and deliberately doesn’t look at me.

“Not much. I almost never find anything,” he says simply, and keeps reading. I sit up. 

“Really? Never?” 

I feel a small pang for Baz. Even though the books annoyed me, once I knew why they were finding me, I enjoyed it. I liked thinking about my mysterious soul mate. I liked knowing he was out there.

Baz doesn’t seem too upset though, he just shakes his head.

“Really. I was sixteen before I found anything.”

“Sixteen?” I repeat. That’s mental. That’s so long. “What did you find?”

Baz throws his head back and laughs. Actually laughs. This whole conversation is eerily friendly for us, but I don’t care. It’s nice to know at least someone else is going through the struggle of not knowing their soul mate. And it sounds like Baz might actually have it worse.

“Pants,” he says. “Dirty pants.”

Merlin. That’s….awful. But I laugh too. 

“Merlin fuck Merlin that’s horrible. That’s humiliating,” I say, and he nods. He’s grinning, his teeth are showing, and he looks manic — probably because I’ve never seen him this amused before. “Sixteen years of silence, and then a pair of used knickers. Crowley, mate, I’m sorry. Do you know anything else about her?” Baz considers me for a minute. 

“That’s all I’ve found. That and a melted chocolate bar. It was in my pocket this summer. It ruined a good pair of trousers.”

His voice is quieter now, and it sounds like he’s truly upset about the trousers. I guess I would be too, if the only time my soul mate showed up was to ruin my clothes and ditch me with his laundry. I feel a swell of appreciation for my soul mate. I’m glad he’s not like that, even if he does go quiet on me.

“Your soul mate sounds a bit shit,” I say. He laughs again and nods.

“Indeed. It has not been a promising start.”

“What about the football though?” I ask. Baz quirks an eyebrow. I gesture toward his wardrobe. 

“You know, the football you found last year in our room? I was a bit jealous. I’d love to have a footballer soul mate.”

Baz looks properly spooked, and I don’t know what I said to set him on edge like this. Was it not his soul mate’s? Did he not realise it was until now? 

“Maybe,” he says. He’s silent for a long, long time, and I assume he’s checked out of the conversation. It was too friendly, anyway. It was starting to get a bit weird. Then—

“What do you know about your soul mate?”

I face him. I was kind of hoping he’d ask. I like talking about my soul mate. 

“Smart,” I say, because it’s true. “Really smart. Reads loads.”

Baz looks away from me and snaps the book he was reading closed. 

“Sounds like an odd fit for you,” he sneers. Normally I’d be offended, but I just laugh. He’s not wrong. 

“Right?” I say. “Who would have thought? But also, careless. Loses stuff all the time. That sounds more like me, honestly.”

I lie back down on the bed to look at the ceiling and sigh. 

“Went silent on me last year, though,” I say, more quietly. “That hurts, actually. It been a bit lonely. I guess that’s what it’s felt like for you all this time.”

I can’t see Baz’s face, but I think he’s looking at me.

“You know a lot about her, then?” 

He sounds soft. Concerned. He actually understands what it’s like to have a quiet soul mate. I think about letting it slide, not correcting him. I haven’t even told Penny and Agatha. It would be mental to tell Baz, right?

But somehow, even though he’s a monster, and a villain, and an absolute prick, I don’t think he’d hold this against me. So I correct him.

“Him,” I say. 

BAZ

This is too much. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like I’ve been locked inside the catacombs and the air has been sucked from the room.

Snow obviously doesn’t know we’re having a conversation about me. About him. About each other. Crowley, he’s thick.

But he clearly likes his soul mate. His voice softens when he starts talking about them. About me. He’s missed me since I’ve stopped losing things. He thinks I’m smart. Obviously, because I am. But, still. It’s nice to hear it.

I’m playing with fire when I refer to his soul mate as a ‘she.’ I know he has my book. I know he’s got to have riddled it out by now, but I want to see if he’ll correct me. I want to see if this sudden revelation regarding his sexuality has upset or unhinged him.

Instead, he just says it. 

“Him,” he says. Just like that. My stomach fucking drops. He’s so fucking casual about it. Simon Snow, bastion of heterosexuality, walking ball of anxiety and insecurity, finds out his soul mate is a bloke and he is therefore queer, and he just…goes with it. 

I hate him.

“Oh,” I just say. What the fuck else is there? “I didn’t know you were gay.”

“Neither did I,” he answers. There’s an extremely uncomfortable silence.

“So how did you—“ I start.

“Context clues,” he says, cutting me off. Fair enough. That book was a pretty heavy clue.

This is almost unbearable. And he’s being so calm. He’s laid back down on his bed, his arms underneath his head, just staring up at the ceiling.

“So you really don’t know anything else about your soul mate? Nothing at all?” he asks.

I panic. What if he knows I’m lying? What if this whole time, he’s been trying to lead me to confess?

“Like I said, the things I’ve found haven’t been very illuminating. My soul mate seems like a bit of a disaster,” I say lightly. It’s not a lie. Snow is a disaster. He’s an absolute catastrophe.

But instead, Snow just laughs. 

“Yeah, really sounds that way. Do you want to meet her? Even though she’s been so quiet and weird?”

Crowley, do I want to meet my soul mate? I want him to know more than anything. But I’m also terrified and horrified by the idea. So I deflect.

“It doesn’t matter to me, honestly. I think this soul mate thing is a bit of a charade.”

Snow sighs. 

“That’s what Agatha says. I still want to meet mine though. I’d just like to… know him, I guess. Even if he doesn’t believe.” He sounds so whistful and hopeful that it’s breaking my fucking heart. I almost get up. I almost go to him. I almost hand him the fucking aero bar wrapper that’s in my desk drawer and tell him “I believe this is yours” and I almost kiss him.

But instead he just turns over and says, “night, Baz,” and I’m left alone in the dark with my heart shattering.

I wake up late, and Snow is already up and on his way out of the room when I get up. He gives me a friendly, silent wave when he leaves that almost causes me to trip. We never wave. We never acknowledge each other. Is this because of last night? We stay up late trading secrets like it’s a slumber party and now we’re…friends?

He waves at me again when I pass him at breakfast, and Wellbelove and Bunce look as thoroughly shocked as I feel. He asks me for a pencil when he sits down in his assigned seat next to me in Magickal History, and I’m about to tear his throat out when he smiles sheepishly.

“I’m going to try to write a letter to him and lose it,” he whispers. My stomach constricts. Are we in cahoots or something now? Why is he telling me this?

“It didn’t work before,” I say tightly, even though it absolutely did. Instead he just shrugs.

“Cant hurt to try,” he says. I hand him the pencil, and he spends the rest of the class drafting something in his notebook, completely ignoring the lesson.

It’s killing me not to read over his shoulder. He’s gone through at least four drafts, and I’m paying as little attention to the lesson as he is because I’m focused so intently on him.

When the bell rings, I’ve absorbed nothing.

He tears the note out of his book, folds in into fourths, opens the window next to us, and just flings it out.

“That’s not losing it, that’s throwing it away,” I snap at him. 

“Trial and error,” he says, then meets up with Bunce at the door and leaves.

I want to go stalk around outside and find it, but I wait. If he truly lost it, it’ll find its way to me eventually.

It does. Almost immediately. In the next period I open my Greek book and find the note, haphazardly folded, in between the pages.

He’s several rows behind me, and I I glance back at him to see if he’s noticed, but he’s oblivious. So I unfold it with excruciating care and read it.

“Hey soul mate. So, I know you’re a bloke. I don’t care. If you don’t believe in this stuff, that’s fine. But I’d like to be friends, at least, if you’d like to. I’m not going to sign my name. If you want to know it, lose a note or something. Cheers, your soul mate.”

How is everything so fucking simple for him?

I want to answer him, but I feel that would be extremely inadvisable.

But then, what’s the worst case? He finds out it’s me, and he kills me? He’s going to kill me anyway. I can be a coward and keep hiding, or I can take a risk.

An absolutely mad risk. It’s playing with fire, but that’s my specialty. 

I think I’m going to answer him.

Chapter Text

SIMON

I find the note when I’m at breakfast. I go to drink my coffee and it’s there, sitting next to my mug, waiting for me. I actually shout when I see it, and it scares Penny and Agatha so badly that Agatha spills juice on herself. Normally I’d feel guilty, but I don’t care. I’m too happy.

“He answered!” I hiss. “I wrote him a note and he answered!”

“He who?” Penny asks. I freeze. 

“Oh. Uh. My. Uh.”

They’re staring at me.

“My soul mate.”

I see them glance at each other, then look back.

“I see…” Agatha starts as Penny goes, “How?”

I glance around the hall and then reach into my bag and pull out the book. Penny and Agatha stare at the book, then stare at each other, then stare at me.

Penny is the first to pick it up and flip through it. 

“So…when did this….” Agatha starts. 

“First day back. I sat down, and it was right there.”

Penny is still reading. Something makes her quirk an eyebrow, and then she laughs. And then she blushes. I blush too; the book is extremely descriptive at points. I go to snatch it back, and she lets me.

“And you’re alright with this?” she asks as I shove it back in my bag. I shrug.

“Mostly? It’s a bit of a shock, but I guess it depends on who he is. I’ll decide from there.”

Agatha is staring at me in wonder, like she’s never seen me before, and then she laughs.

“Honestly, that would explain the obsession with Baz.”

I freeze.

“What?” 

Penny is glaring daggers at her, but Agatha doesn’t even blink.

“I’ve always kind of thought you had a crush on Baz,” she says with a shrug. “This would explain a lot.”

“Baz?” I say. I’m sputtering. “Baz?” I say it too loudly, and he hears me. He looks up from the table across from us with an eyebrow quirked. I’m blustering, I can feel myself flushing and my magic starting to leak a bit, so I just wave. He stares at me quizzically for a moment before giving me a curt nod and going back to his conversation.

“I’m not in love with Baz,” I hiss. I glance over at him. He’s still watching me out of the corner of his eye. 

Agatha laughs. 

“Okay, well I never said you were in love with him, those are your words,” she starts, but I shake my head.

“No, no. Why are we talking about Baz? My soul mate answered me, guys. He might have signed his name. He’s far more important than Baz right now.”

“What does it say?” Penny asks. She reaches over to take it from me but I hold it out of her grasp. I don’t want her to read it first.

“Read it, Si,” Agatha says eagerly. “I want to know.”

I look around again — I don’t know what I’m searching for — and unfold it. It’s his handwriting. I recognise it immediately. Neat, tiny, impossibly perfect. It’s his.

“I know your name already. I’m just not sure I want you to know mine. It’s not because you’re male; I’m gay, and I’m comfortable with that. (I’m sure you figured that out from the book.) (Sorry, by the way. It was given to me.) I’m not sure if I’m ready to face this. But I would like to be your friend.”

I drop the note and stare at Penny and Agatha, and before I can stop myself I’ve pushed back from the table and I’m standing, staring around the hall at the students gathered for breakfast. He could be here. He could be in this room, right now, watching me look for him. He knows who I am, and he doesn’t want to face me.

That hurts. More than I would have expected.

Baz catches my eye and lifts his eyebrow again, but I shake my head.

Penny has read the note, and she’s looking at me with the most pitying expression, and it’s too much. It’s all too much. I grab the note out of her hand and storm out of the hall.

I’m sitting in the grass next to Mummer’s House when Baz finds me.

“You look more emotionally unstable than usual,” he sneers. He’s standing in front of me, blocking out the sun, looking down on me.

I don’t even think. I just shove the note at him. He stares at it for a long moment before he takes it gingerly. He barely even glances at the words. Fuck, he reads fast.

“The Chosen One’s soul mate is afraid to meet him,” he says. Then, to my eternal surprise, he sits next to me. I’ve never seen Baz sit on the ground before. “You’re the most stupidly courageous person I know, and your soul mate is a coward. Incredible.”

“Rather a coward than absent,” I snap, grabbing the note back from him. I feel like I’m on the verge of either breaking down or going off. 

Why doesn’t he want to know me?

“He said he wants to be friends,” Baz says from beside me. “Maybe he’s in awe of your immense reputation.”

He’s sneering. He’s being nasty, but it makes me feel better.

“What would you do?” I ask him. I see him startle. 

“Play his game, I suppose. Maybe you’ll get to know him and discover he’s a twat.”

I shake my head.

“I don’t think he is. I think he’s probably brilliant. That’s what makes this suck so much.” I sigh, then look at him. “I don’t know why you’re being nice to me, but thanks. Sorry, about this. Me bitching about my soul mate writing back when all your soul mate does is lose shitty things.”

Baz stares past me, toward the moat, and I see his lip curl. He probably spotted a merwolf. He hates them.

“Don’t mention it, Snow,” he says, standing up. Then he turns to me. “Seriously, don’t.”

BAZ

I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’ve started something, and I have no idea what to do next or how to contain it.
I just kept thinking of his voice in our room, wistful and wanting to meet his soul mate. Meet me. And then when he sent that note….

I’ve discovered that I can’t deny Simon fucking Snow.

I tried to be honest, to not lead him on. The last thing I wanted was to hurt him. And then when he asked me for advice, I didn’t know what to say.

Why is he trusting me? Why is he opening up to me?

I find his note almost as soon as I get back to the room. Merlin, he’s eager. As soon as I respond, there’s more. There’s always more.

Snow agonises over all of them, and shows half of them to me for advice. We trade dozens of notes — comments about my books, jokes about the Minotaur, questions about how I knew I was gay.

“I developed feelings for my roommate,” I tell him. It’s the boldest thing I’ve written him yet. “That must have been really difficult for you,” he responds. He has no idea.

He tells me in the notes about his fear of no future after Watford, and then he tells me in real life, leaning against my desk with his arms crossed, staring off into space.

I tell him in the notes that I feel the same way, and then in real life I tell him I haven’t thought about what I’ll do after I tear his heart from his chest. He just frowns at me when I say that.

“You’re extremely dramatic, Baz,” he said. And then hurried off to write me.

I start trying to convince him that he’s writing to Dev.

“Dev didn’t have long hair last year,” he retorts. Then he stares at me, and I think I’m done for. “Why did you cut your hair? It looked better long.”

Crowley, he’s thick.

I think I might grow my hair back out.

I’m in the library helping him with Greek homework one day when I find one of his notes while he’s sitting next to me. I nearly fall off of my chair in an attempt to hide it, and when I look up, Bunce and Wellbelove have joined us, and I suddenly find myself in a Scooby gang meeting about the Humdrum, which turns into a discussion on whether Wellbelove should dye her hair, which then turns into a debate about Snow’s soul mate.

“Do you know who your soul mate is, Basil?” Bunce asks me. I start to answer, but Snow cuts over me.

“Baz’s soul mate is the worst. She lost her knickers!” he exclaims. I glare at him until he stops laughing, and then I leave.

“My roommate thinks you’re Dev,” he writes that night. “Your roommate is a twat,” I respond. Around this time he stops showing me the notes and asking my opinion, because around this time, he starts writing about me.

“He didn’t hear anything for sixteen years, and then a pair of dirty knickers and a melted chocolate bar? I can’t imagine how awful that must feel. No one deserves that.”

He talks about me all the time. About my shitty soul mate. About my elitism. About how annoying it is that I take an hour to shower. About how he used to follow me fifth year to see if I was a vampire, and instead found me drunk. (That was a humiliating note to receive.) (I’m glad I’m his soul mate, at least so that no one else will find out about that.)

Then one day he writes, “I think Baz knows who you are.”

I’ve stopped trying to convince him it’s Dev, and I’ve begun making odd, cryptic statements, like, “your soul mate would hate that jumper.” (I did actually hate it.) 

“Why do you think that?” I write back.

“Because he’s brilliant. He probably figured it out immediately. You can’t hide anything from him. I kind of dread our final showdown, because he’s so smart, and he’s going to wipe the floor with me. (Hey, you’re not Dev, are you?)”

I assure him I’m not Dev. 

I’ve been haranguing him to show me the latest notes, but he refuses (obviously). I’ve begun teasing him about his true love.

“He’s not my true love, he’s my soul mate,” Snow growls at me one day while we’re working on Politickal Science. “I only know this idea of him. Sometimes I think that if we ever actually meet in person, it’s going to be wildly disappointing.”

“I’m sure it won’t be,” I answer. I’m on the far side of the room, holding my notebook away from his view. I never let him see my school notes, just in case he recognises my handwriting. “You’re going to feel like fireworks have gone off, and ‘She’s Like The Wind’ will start playing.”

He turns to glare at me. He’s particularly stroppy today.

“Love is a choice every morning. It’s not some feeling in a room,” he snaps.

I almost drop my book. 

He just quoted me to me. Or at least, he just quoted a song that had been stuck in my head last summer to me.

Snow and I start sitting together at breakfast some days to study. Bunce and I begin talking; she’s suspiciously intelligent. We play football with Dev and Niall, which was less enjoyable when Snow stopped staring at Dev suspiciously. It gets colder and colder and closer to Christmas, and the notes become less frequent. 

“Hey, do you want this?” he says one day, digging a scarf out from under his bed. My scarf. I must have lost it years ago.

“What is that?” I snap, even though I know. 

“Soul mate lost it awhile ago. He loses loads of them, sometimes I think he must be a numpty. Anyway, you’re hunched over there shivering. Just take it.”

“You know who’s always cold?” I ask him as I accept my own cashmere scarf.

He tilts his head to the side. I love it when he does that. 

“Dev?” he asks.

“Bingo,” I say, and pass him my bag of crisps.

Just before Christmas, I get another note. It’s been almost a week since the last one, which isn’t surprising, considering that Bunce and I have been tag teaming Snow’s days in an attempt to drag him through his finals.

“I feel like I need to be honest with you about something. I’ve been putting it off, but I think you of all people will understand,” it says.

“That sounds ominous,” I respond. I fold up the note and throw it out the window to the merwolves. It’s become my default method of “losing” notes.

When I come back from the bathroom ten minutes later, there’s a response waiting for me on my chair.

“I think I’ve got feelings for someone.”

Chapter Text

SIMON

Fourth year, my soul mate lost the same book over and over. I must have returned this thing to the library at least five times, and I kept thinking, “She’ll never get to finish it at this rate.”

Penny loved it. She said it was her favourite book, and she used to quote it at me all the time, until I finally told her that she had to stop talking about Pride & Prejudice and focus on more important things, like the fact that Baz might be trying to kill me.

There was one line in that book which I never really got, until this year. It was at the end, and highlighted. (My soul mate always highlights his books.) (I wish I had paid more attention to the things he marked as special back then.)

“I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

That’s pretty much how this thing with Baz happened.

He shared his bag of crisps with me one day, and I just thought, “Merlin, I love him.” 

In a normal world, the one I existed spitefully in for six years, that idea would have caused me to up and fucking run. But the thought crossed my mind and instead of feeling violently ill, a part of me went, “Yeah, that seems about right.”

I guess Agatha was on to something after all.

It crept up on me in small and sudden moments, like the morning when Dev and Baz sat down next to me for breakfast, and my hand jerked and spilled juice everywhere because every instinct in my body had almost reached out to put my arm around Baz’s back. Baz just sneered at me, magicked the mess away and then slung his arm over my shoulder for a moment.

“Are you capable of functioning on any level?” he asked, his face way too close.

I tried to be cool, to play it off like my skin wasn’t on fire, but Baz definitely noticed, because on the way to Greek he leaned over and whispered, “Dev’s looking fit today, don’t you think?” and I laughed far, far too loud.

It was easier than I thought it would be to get past the fact that we’re on different sides of the war and sworn enemies and all. Sometime between when he brought me coffee and when I caught him and Penny trying to make a spell to freeze time I realised I didn’t want to fight him. And that he probably didn’t want to fight me.

It should have been insurmountable. But it just…wasn’t. One day we were enemies, and the next day I was arguing with him and Niall about whether Manchester is better than Leeds. (They aren’t.)

Sure, he’s still a vampire (he’s basically confirmed it.) (Sometimes I’ll ask if he’s going out, and once he said, “No, I’m in, I’ve already eaten for the night,” which, you know, sounds like a vampire affirmation). But weirdly, it doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.

Maybe it’s because at about the same time, I somehow realised Baz is my soul mate.

Baz said when I discovered my soul mate, it would feel like fireworks were going off and I’d hear “She’s Like The Wind.” But instead I laid in the darkness of our room and felt suffocatingly hot (the window was closed) and all I heard was Baz’s soft crunching as he ate the crisps he had hidden under the bed (because he thought I was asleep).

It’s dead obvious, when you think about it. It’s been there the whole time. And if I consider that Baz might be gay, it’s like there’s a sign hanging round his neck saying “I’m Simon Snow’s soul mate!”

And even if he isn’t my soul mate, I don’t think I care. Baz is real, and Baz is here. My soul mate is brilliant, but he’s a mystery. He won’t tell me his name, and he hides from me. He may be destined for me, but, if given the opportunity, I would choose Baz.

I don’t think I’m going to have to choose between them though.

“It’s Baz, isn’t it?” I ask Penny two days before holiday. We’re in the library studying, and Baz is in the room. He and Penny have been splitting my time and taking turns shouting at me to study. 

Penny sighs and turns to me and runs a hand over my hair. It’s getting long.

“Yeah, I’m pretty positive he is,” she answers seriously. I’m glad she doesn’t make fun of me for taking so long to get there.

“I want it to be him,” I tell her. She smiles and leans her head on my shoulder. 

“I want it to be him, too.”

I don’t want to have been his shitty soul mate; he doesn’t deserve that. But I want him to be mine. I want my notes to have gone to him.

I want our friendship to be something real, something deeper, because I like this more than fighting.

“It doesn’t matter to me if he’s not,” I say quietly. “I think I’d choose him anyway. I just…If he’s not my soul mate…I don’t know if he’d return those feelings.”

“Maybe you should tell him?” Penny offers. I nod. 

Baz once said I’m stupidly courageous. He’s not wrong. I don’t like to overthink; I like to act.

So I write my soul mate. I pray I’m writing to Baz.

I tell him I have feelings for someone. 

And I wait. 

I make it about four minutes before I go running out of the library, across the lawn, and up the steps to Mummers House. I’m sick of waiting on Baz to act.

When I bust into the room, he’s leaning against the window, one hand in his pocket, one hand holding my note. My note. My soul mate’s note. He doesn’t even try to hide it, he just turns to face me, all limbs and swagger, always.

He just gives me a small smile. His smiles are fucking devastating. 

“It’s Dev, isn’t it?” he asks.

BAZ

I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

It’s freezing in this fucking room, and I’ve been standing at this goddamn window since I got Snow’s goddamn note, just trying to wrap my mind around how to answer it, when he comes barging in like the absolute nightmare that he is. 

His face is pink from the cold and he’s panting a bit, and his hair is sticking up in a thousand directions and he’s smiling so brightly I feel like I may catch fire and turn to ashes on the spot.

I’m still holding his note, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because he’s playing this so cool, he’s being so calm, and he won’t stop smiling. It’s up. I’m dead in the water. 

“It’s Dev, isn’t it?” I ask in a desperate attempt to right this ship, to cling to something I can understand, but Snow just shakes his head and walks toward me.

“Nah,” he says. His fucking smile is getting bigger, I don’t know how. How can one person have joy so limitless? “Wrong Pitch.”

Wrong Pitch.

There’s a right Pitch.

He’s talking about me.

Of course he’s talking about me, who the fuck else would he be talking about?

He’s closer now. He’s so close I can smell him, so close I can taste the soft wood smoke of his magic that’s rolling off of him, and normally I’d be terrified to be so close when he’s spilling magic, but I feel drunk on him, drunk on this, and I can’t get my body to listen to every nerve and muscle that’s screaming at me to run.

He’s stopped right in front of me, and his hands are in his pockets too, and he suddenly looks less confident. He looks nervous. He looks scared.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” he asks. He breathes out and looks down at the floor. “I wanted it to be you.” His voice is so small. It’s too small. It’s too contained.

Nothing about Simon should be contained. 

I nod, and go to speak, but my mouth is dry and the words are almost impossible to find. He looks up at me (always up, thank Merlin for my height) and gives me another smile.

“Is it…is it okay if I kiss you?” he whispers. 

Every part of me screams yes, wants to take him in my arms and tell him please, please, kiss me, love me, never leave me, but instead I just look back down at him and fix him with my most withering look. 

“You better,” I snarl, and then he’s reaching up, reaching for me. And he kisses me.

I lean into it. I let him capture my bottom lip with his, I close my eyes and I feel his warmth wash over me and run through me. We’re both still standing like idiots with our hands in our pockets, and so when he breaks away we both sway back dangerously in an attempt to catch our balance. 

“Simon,” I start, but I forget what I was going to say because he smiles, and so I lean my forehead against his and smile back. 

I can’t believe this is happening, finally, after all this time, and I can’t handle being apart from him a second longer. Just as I go to cup his face and pull him back, he’s there, his arms reaching up around me, and he’s pushing into me.

He’s fighting me, challenging me, and I match him blow for blow and allow him to walk me backwards through the room, back toward the bed, and I think he’s going to push me onto it and I’m praying that this is where it’s going, when he—

He bends down, reaches under his bed, and pulls out my book. That infernal, offensive, awful fucking book.

“I believe this is yours,” he says with a shit-eating grin. I snatch it from him, call up my magic and set it on fire. 

“I hate that fucking book,” I say, and push in to kiss him again.

I do end up on his bed, lying sideways as he curls himself into me, kissing me until we’re both breathless and his lips are chapped and pink, and then we start again.

“I’m not giving you back your pants,” I say in between kisses. He doesn’t even stop, just makes his way down my jaw and says, “I don’t want them.”

“Good,” I pant, “because I burnt them.”

He pulls away and frowns at me. I want to kiss the creases from his forehead.

“You have an unhealthy relationship with fire. You’re flammable.” he says. I don’t answer; I just reach up to kiss one of the moles on his neck, and he forgets what he was saying.

I want to say it’s all a blur, that it blends together and was a haze of limbs and kisses and whispers, but that’s a lie. I remember every second. Every word and touch and breath is burnt into my memory, and when we finally part, I replay it in my mind.

Snow gets up to use the bathroom, and when he comes back I reach for his hand and try to drag him back to his bed, back to me, because now that I’ve gotten a taste of this, of us, I’m greedy and obsessed. (Even more than I usually am.) (If that’s even possible.)

“Come to Hampshire for Christmas,” I say, running my fingers along his knuckles. My other hand plays at the pocket on his trousers. 

“Wouldn’t that be weird? We’re enemies,” he says. 

“Well, no,” I answer slowly. “We’re also soul mates.” He moves toward the window and I watch his movements hungrily. “Bring the rest of the Scoobies, just say you’ll come.” He grins lazily at me and nods.

“I’ll come,” he says, and then stretches. He looks so comfortable, so content, that I can’t keep watching any longer. I get up and advance on him. It’s so cold, and I want to envelope myself in him.

“Baz! It’s snowing!” he exclaims suddenly, breaking the peaceful silence of the room as he points out the frosted glass of the window. It’s darker now, and even with my enhanced eyesight I struggle to see the flakes that have stolen his attention away from me. I’m utterly uninterested, but he’s entranced, and I’m not letting him be away from me for a second.

I come up behind him and put my hands on his hips (Merlin, I can do this now) and press myself gently up against him as I lean down to kiss his neck. I can feel him relax into me, and he tilts his head a bit to reveal more of his skin.

“Frozen rain,” I say dismissively. “Lovely. Thrilling.”

I kiss his neck again and tighten my grip on his hips as I press myself in even closer and tuck my chin on his shoulder. He leans back for a moment and closes his eyes, and I think that I’ve won, but then he steps away and swats at me gently.

“Look, you’re being really sexy, but I’m starving,” he says sheepishly.

The look I give him must be absolutely wolfish, because he laughs and moves faster toward the door.

“Seriously, I’m so hungry, I need food.” He puts on his duffle coat. “Do you want to come?”

No. I don’t. I want to grab him and never let him leave this room. But I’ll never be able to get between Snow and food, and I don’t want to stop touching him, so I sigh (he’s right, I am dramatic) and get my coat.

“Come on then,” I say, slinging my arm around his neck and leaning in to kiss his bronze curls, which have become matted and frizzy. (I did that.) 

He looks back up at me and grins.

“I like this better than fighting,” he says. I can’t help myself. I nuzzle his hair like the besotted fucking sap I am.

“Me too,” I murmur to him as we make our way down the stairs and out into the snow. “But Dev’s going to be gutted.”