BAZ

No matter how long this lasts, I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that I'm allowed to kiss Simon Snow. Honestly, I'm encouraged, if only by Simon himself. (Bunce thinks we're gross. She accused us of acting like lovestruck teenagers. When Simon pointed out that we are lovestruck teenagers, she replied, "Yes, but that doesn't mean you need to act like it.") (Yes, it does.)

Kissing Simon is like nothing else I've ever experienced. It makes me feel alive, more than anything else in this world. And I still can't believe I get to have this. Me, Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, vampire and definitely one of the villains of the story of Simon Snow. I got a happy ending. I got the boy. (Or did the boy get me?) It's more than I deserve, but I'm so, so grateful-

"You're thinking too much," Simon whispers. He's straddling me in his bed (Bunce is out, thankfully), and his tail is wrapped around my leg. I love that tail. I'm so glad he decided not to get rid of it.

"Yes, Snow, some of us do that," I reply dryly, because even though I've gotten nicer, I'm still not entirely defanged. (Literally and figuratively.)

"Bet I can make you stop," Simon says with a smirk, wiggling a little on top of me. I silently curse the fact that I went hunting last night, because I've got more than enough blood in my body for my face to go bright red.

"Oh really?" I say, desperately trying to sound like I'm still in control and not, well, desperate. "Prove it."

Simon leans down with a wicked grin, and I think he's going to kiss me again, but instead he lowers his lips to the side of my throat. At first, I think it's just a kiss, and then he starts to suck, and every drop of borrowed blood in my body goes ice cold.

SIMON

Baz goes deathly still the second my lips seal around his neck, so I go still too. I've never actually given a hickey before (Agatha didn't like them), so I'm relying on my internet research to know if I'm doing it right. I'm pretty sure I'm doing exactly what the Cosmopolitan article said, but I'm also pretty sure this isn't the reaction a hickey is supposed to get.

I take my mouth off his neck and sit up a little. "You okay?" I ask cautiously. Baz looks distant, but at the sound of my voice, his eyes snap up to me. His expression is unreadable, which I'm pretty sure is a bad sign. When Baz is happy (or aroused), I can normally read his face pretty well. When he gets like this, it's normally nothing good.

"Baz?" I ask, because he's looking at me but he still hasn't said anything. "Are you okay?"

Baz swallows. I watch the line of his throat as it bobs. There's a slight reddish mark where I tried to give him a hickey, but it's definitely not going to stay for long. Maybe he just doesn't like them, like Agatha, but I think there must be more to it. This seems like a weird reaction to something you just don't really like.

"Don't put your mouth on my throat," Baz finally says. "You- Please."

"I won't," I promise without even really thinking about what I'm promising, because I'll do anything Baz asks if he says please. Then I think about his request for a moment, and I'm about to ask why he doesn't want my mouth on his throat, when-

Oh. Duh.

"It's a vampire thing, huh?"

Baz flinches. It's subtle enough not to be noticeable unless you happen to be straddling him. Maybe I shouldn't have said it so bluntly. Baz is weird about being a vampire sometimes, almost like he's embarrassed about it. I'm never quite sure how to talk about it with him. I'm not just going to pretend he's not a vampire like his family does (that's stupid, it's not like refusing to talk about it changes anything), but maybe I shouldn't bring it up. It's too late now, though, and I am curious, so...

"Is it a vampire thing? I mean, it makes sense. That's where they..." I snap at the air over-dramatically. Baz, to my relief, rolls his eyes at my antics. I can always trust Baz to laugh at me being an idiot.

For a moment, I think the eye-roll is all the response I'm going to get, then Baz says, slowly and almost cautiously, "It's... uncomfortable. I think it's instinctual. You're human, I'm... not, and this feels... backwards."

"You want to give me a hickey instead?" I ask, tilting my neck slightly to give Baz better access.

And Baz... Baz recoils. He looks horrified for the split second it takes him to get his expression under control, and then he just looks carefully blank.

I'm guessing the answer is no, then.

"You don't have to," I say, hoping to smooth over the awkward moment. "We can just have a hickey-free relationship. I don't really care about them either way, so if you don't like them, that's fine."

(Although full-on recoiling away does sort of seem like overkill.)

"It's not that," Baz rasps. His eyes, I realize, are fixed on my neck. He seems to realize that at the same moment, because he tears his gaze away, meets my eyes for an instant, and then ducks his head down. "It's just- Not your neck."

"Cause you don't want to..." I snap at the air again, but the trick doesn't work this time. Instead of amused, Baz looks sick. I consider getting off him, since I've clearly ruined the mood, but I have the feeling Baz will see it as a rejection of some kind. He does that sometimes, thinks I'm rejecting him when I just think I'm doing something harmless. I think he convinced himself so thoroughly and for so long that I'd never return his feelings that he can't quite believe that I do. And even though I clearly return his feelings (honestly, how much clearer can I get?), sometimes he seems to be almost expecting me to pull away.

Well, I'm not going to, and he's just going to have to get used to that. Even if I've ruined the mood, I'm going to stay right here.

Then I remember something else from the Cosmopolitan article, and it occurs to me that maybe, if I'm very careful, I can salvage the mood after all.

"So," I say, "are you against hickeys in general, or just the ones on your neck?"

Baz looks up at me, clearly a little puzzled. "It's not hickeys that are the problem," he says, "it's... the neck thing."

"What if I gave you a hickey somewhere else?" I ask, sliding my hands down his sides.

"Where were you thinking?" Baz asks, keeping his voice almost completely calm. There's a hint of a waver in it, which makes me think my plan is working. Time for step two.

Carefully keeping eye contact with Baz, I flick the button of his jeans open.

BAZ

Simon Snow is unbuttoning my jeans.

Simon Snow is unbuttoning my jeans.

Okay, clearly I must have died and somehow made my way into Heaven, because there's no way this is actually happening. There's no way-

Aleister Crowley, he's pulling down my trousers.

"Some people like getting hickeys on their thighs," Simon says, his voice almost conversational. How is he this smooth? I'm supposed to be the smooth one, how is he doing this? "Do you like the idea of that?"

I make a highly inelegant noise that no Pitch has probably ever made before, and I should probably be embarrassed by it, but honestly, my brain isn't working well enough for coherent thought right now. I do manage to nod, probably absurdly eagerly, and Simon grins as he slides down my legs. He pulls my trousers down with him until they're down below my knees, then he lowers his mouth to just above my thigh.

"If you want me to stop," he says, "just say so," and then he locks his lips against the inside of my thigh, and I'm pretty sure my mind whites out. I guess Simon was right, he can get me to stop thinking after all. My vampire instincts flutter slightly, more confused than anything else, but unlike having someone suck at my neck, I have no bad memories associated with this. This is purely pleasure.

This is so. Much. Pleasure.

When Simon finally pulls his mouth away, I make a frankly pathetic keening noise. Simon grins wickedly and presses a kiss to the newly-sensitive spot. My hips don't buck up into him, but that's only because I dedicate basically all of my willpower into making sure they don't. Unfortunately, that leaves me with no willpower left to keep my mouth shut, so I let out another embarrassing whimper when Simon kisses my thigh again, a little higher up.

"You like this?" he asks, looking up at me with a satisfied glint in his eyes.

"You think?" I counter, aiming for sophisticated and composed and missing by about a mile.

Simon chuckles, then he leans down again and presses his lips to my thigh.

Aleister fucking Crowley, I love Simon Snow so much.

SIMON

So it turns out Baz does like hickeys after all. Who knew?