It's quiet and my eyes are closed so that I don't have anything interesting to focus on but the sound of Snow's breathing. He breathes slow and loud, it's calming and I hate him for it. I hate him for it because just listening to a boy breathe shouldn't be this all-encompassing. I'm a vampire, I hear people's breaths as clearly as anyone hears a passing car, it's not special.

I listen to him breathe and all I can think is, Alive, alive, alive. Simon Snow is so alive.

"Baz...?" he whispers, and my eyes flutter open, wide and staring up at the dark ceiling in surprise.

I almost consider not saying anything at all. Simon does not talk to me, not like this. Not in the middle of the night, draped in the dark, not without a sneer or a sarcastic bite. He does not whisper my name like he wants to hear something from me, like he cares that I answer. And neither do I. Neither do I.

The silence has stretched out for too long, and I hear him let out a long sigh, roll onto his side. He's given up. Blood pumps wildly through my veins, not my blood, but the blood of the rabbit I drained a few hours previously. I don't want him to have given up. I want to hear what he has to say.

I pull in a breath, I hear his falter. He's surprised. "Snow?"

He shifts again and I can feel his eyes boring into me. I want to to turn my head and catch my gaze on his. I don't. I don't because I know that if I do, my expression will be open and all of the things it can never be. Not for him.

"I didn't think you were awake." He's embarrassed, it makes me smile. More like smirk, I can feel the sharpness of it on my features.

Now I do turn my head to him, a lazy loll complete with a cat's grin. All sharp edges. I'm not soft, Snow. I'm not. Not for you. (Always for you.) "I wasn't."

His eyes narrow. Those stupid eyes. They're not even special, they're just blue. Not blue like the sky or blue like the ocean. Blue like certain shades of grey are tinted blue. Boring blue. They're more vivid in my dreams. "Your vampire senses wake you up?"

I scoff, "Snow, bats are nocturnal."

He pales, it makes me snicker.

And then his eyebrows furrow, "You just said you weren't awake, and now you're saying that you were. Make up your mind."

"I said that bats are nocturnal, never that I am," I sneer, and he scowls.

"Fuck off," he spits, which means that I've won.

I raise one eyebrow at him. It makes his scowl deepen. I want to kiss that stupid scowl right off his face. (It's ironic because I'm the one that put it there.) (That's part of the reason I want to see it gone.) (I'm a tragedy.)

I roll my eyes, "Is there any reason you're talking to me right now?"

He fumbles. He's not one for words. I can smell his magic in the air, simmering, but not enough to combust.

"If you don't have anything important to say, I think my time would be much better spent sleeping than arguing with you." It's such a lie. All of the best possible ways I could ever spend my time start with Simon and end with Snow. I turn over with a huff, facing the boring wall instead of his fascinating form. (His face is so beautiful. I just want to touch him. Trace paths between his moles. It's too much to ask. It will always be too much to ask.)

He growls low in his throat. Simon does that a lot when he's angry or frustrated. It makes me want to pin him against a wall and kiss him. Or maybe bite him. Maybe just suck on the skin of his throat and tell him to do it again, so I can hear it closer, closer and feel it vibrating against my lips. So I can think, for just a moment, that maybe we're both wild and hungry things.

Time passes. So much time. Too much to count. I'm listening to him breathing again, wanting to turn and watch his face in the moonlight, his hair. Curly and golden and wild. I want him. All of him. And I hate that I can't have him. I hate him. (I'm hopelessly in love with him.)

"It's Agatha," he says, into the air, into the night. It's not for me, not really. He's talking to me, but he doesn't think I can hear. "That's what I was going to talk to you about."

I squeeze my eyes shut. This is the last thing I need. The last thing I need is to hear Simon Snow babbling on about Wellbelove. How perfect she is. How her hair shines. How she's like porcelain. How she's everything he wants. How he loves her and wants her. (How I'll never be any of that. Never have him like she does.) (I don't think she even wants him.) (It's not fair.)

"I really like her. I do. She's going to be... She's mine. It's just..." My head is doing all sorts of things, things like, I know, Snow, I know. Simon bloody Snow, how could I ever forget. You don't– and then my heart stops and everything is, It's just what? Just what? Just me? (It could never be me.)

"I don't think she likes me back." His voice is so, so sad. "She doesn't kiss me like I kiss her. And I don't blame her." I'm torn between hating Agatha for not kissing him like he deserves and wanting to show him for myself exactly how he deserves to be kissed. Like he's the sun. (He is the sun. He could burn me right up. I'd thank him for it.)

I hear the rustling of sheets that means he's moving. I wish that I could face him and see his muscles stretching and lengthening, watch new moles appear as he turns. "I thought I'd tell you because you hate me and you could explain why... Why I'm not something that she..."

He takes a deep breath, it's unstable. "No one wants me, Baz. Not really. Except for Penny. And I can't blame them."

I want you. It's what I want to say. What I keep tucked inside of me like a thrashing, evil thing. Like sorrow. My chest hurts. My heart hurts.

I think he's done talking, because he's been quiet for quite a while, and I'm thankful for it because I don't think I can take much more. And then, "But is it something I'm doing? I know I'm a terrible boyfriend. I know. I just... I'm trying my best. She kisses me, but she doesn't. She's not there. I don't think I'm worthy of Agatha. I don't think I'm worthy of anyone. Except I'm fuzzy on the details, so just tell me Baz, tell me everything. Why I'm so horrible that you can't stand me, that Agatha can't stand me. Just tell me why you hate me and maybe I can be okay–" And then he gasps, jerks upward like he's trying to escape, because I'm suddenly straddling him, snarling.

"You want to know why I hate you so much, Snow?" I ask, and our noses are touching and my voice is broken and he is so, so confused beneath me, but he nods. "Because I don't. I hate you because I don't. Because I'm meant to, I'm meant to, but I don't. I hate you because despite everything, no matter how hard I try, I love you. And I don't even try that hard to hate you because loving you is so much worse."

"You--" he gasps, eyes as wide as the sky itself. (But not as blue.) (They're more like a storm, hazy and bleak.)

I snarl some more, "Yes. Yes, I love you. And I hate it. So maybe that's why Wellbelove doesn't..." and my breath falters because I want him so much and she doesn't, but she has him anyway. "Because kissing you would be like self-destruction."

He looks like he wants to cry and I hate that. "Baz... do you really think..."

I pull away slightly, features falling into something shocked and sad. "No..." I tell him, because it's true and I hate myself, now, for telling him something that wasn't true for the millionth time.

"No?"

I shake my head, my hair is falling around both of us. "Not kissing you is self-destruction. I want you so much. You're destruction."

His fingers curl softly around my face, tentatively, and then he's kissing me.

Aleister Crowley. He really is.

I think he's going to pull away, make some sarcastic, cutting comment, but he doesn't. He doesn't, and I melt. It's like dying. No, it's like being born again, like being remade.

His lips are so soft and his fingers brush over my cheekbones lightly, like I'm breakable, like he cares if I break. It's too much, it's not enough. One of my hands moves to brush over his hair, and it's like I trigger something, because he makes a noise low in his throat, a hollow echo of his usual growl, and flips us so that I'm beneath him.

I gasp his name, he catches it in his mouth, and I reach up to snag my fingers in his hair, twist the curls through them so that I'll never have to let go. I pull him closer. Nothing is close enough and I am so afraid that he's going to leave, so I tangle my legs around his waist to hold him there, closer. (Not close enough.)

This is the one thing Snow isn't clumsy at. He kisses like he's trying to pour out all of the thoughts he's never been able to hammer into words and that scares me or excites me, because he kisses me like he wants this.

Simon nudges my lips apart with his own; gently, carefully. He licks my bottom lip and I curse softly, barely audible. He slips his tongue into my mouth, slides it against my own. It's like living. Alive, alive, alive.

"I hate you..." he tells me, it sounds like a moan, like a mantra. His teeth graze my neck, I am so lost.

"I don't," I say, because I'm tired of lying.

He raises himself up, looking down at me, eyelashes fluttering, pulse beating rapidly in his throat, a few moles are scattered over his face. I push myself up on my elbows, legs falling away from his hips, to press a kiss to the mole in the middle of his left cheek.

I whisper it again, pulling him down so that I can brush my lips against the one hiding under his hair, right underneath his ear. I've just discovered it, "I don't."

"Baz..." He says it like he meant to say please.

I kiss the corner of his jaw, revel in the way he sighs like he's been waiting for this. He doesn't even protest when I roll so that I'm straddling him again, because I need to see him. To have full access to him.

Simon reaches up and touches my face carefully, he looks amazed, like he's studying a famous piece of art. "Tyrannus..." He says this like he meant to say,why?

I just stoop to capture his lips again, sucking on his bottom lip and making him gasp and clutch at my hair. I say, "Simon," and I really mean, I love you.

"You've never said my name before," he whispers it against my neck, pushing himself up and pulling me down to get at it. He waits for me to answer and busies himself by working a mark onto my skin, licks it carefully when he's finished, like he's apologizing, treating an injury. My head is tilted back to the ceiling.

"You've never said mine." It sounds more like a whimper, barely a breath.

He massages circles into my hips, he's smiling when I look back down at him,"Tyrannus. It makes you sound like a villain."

"Simon," I breathe, and move my hips against his, once. Slow and careful.

He growls, it's half-strangled and now I have the privilege of kissing his neck while he's doing it, just like I wanted to before. We're both wild and hungry things.

I'm slipping a hand under his shirt, head still bent low over him, breath hot against his neck, and he keeps sighing beautifully, stretching out beneath me. Like he trusts me. Like he wants me. But as soon as my fingers brush against his ribcage he gasps "Baz" and he says it like he means, wait, and so I pull back, look him in the eye worriedly. He's panting and his hair is splayed out across his pillow. It's so much better than any dream I've had, he's so much more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.

He reaches up, brushes his fingers over my cheek, "Agatha," he says, and I flinch backward. Of course. Of course.

Simon catches at my shirt frantically, stopping me from climbing away from him just yet, "I have to tell her," he explains, and my eyebrows furrow.

"Tell her what?" I'm leaning closer now, wanting to kiss him again.

He swallows. (It's a whole show. Everything about him is a show.) "That I don't think I want her."

My breath catches in my throat, hope is building in my chest and I have to smash it back down. Hope is a dangerous thing. "Why?"

He's brushing hair from my face fondly-- fondly, I'd never thought I'd get that from Simon Snow, "Because I want you... and this doesn't feel anything like... like Agatha."

I want to cry. I don't cry, I just lean down and kiss him. Slow and soft. He tells me that I have to get back to my own bed now, that we can continue this after he's told Agatha.

I want to hold him in my arms while he sleeps, bury my face in his curls, but I can wait until tomorrow. One miracle at a time.