#and it wasn't just because teen me enjoyed imagining izzy being on top of me in that button up o7

[bookishjules]

Best Sizzy moment in your opinion?

it's the bite scene. it has to be the bite scene.

the thing is.. this is the first truly intimate moment we have between the two of them. up until this point they've both been almost dancing around each other like a whirlpool, slowly moving closer and closer, leaning on each other, protecting each other, etc., but in ways that don't necessarily have to be acknowledged as indicative of just how much they mean to each other, yk?

and if isabelle hadn't gotten drunk the night before. if she hadn't let down her walls enough to invite him over just to sleep, and if that night hadn't set a precedent for this one where they are both sober and awake. if simon hadn't been hungry.. it's just one thing after another that strips the layers between them until it's just simon and isabelle. and the bit of forced vulnerability on simon's part leads izzy to give him pieces of herself as well. admittedly it's babysteps.. but that's still huge for izzy. she doesn't like seeing him like this. doesn't want him to put off prioritizing himself and his needs out of fear.. of himself, of izzy's opinion of him. because she does trust him. she does want him. so she shows him that. and as she does so she reveals, at minimum, the implication of her own insecurities in this situation. and those willing cracks in the facade of fearlessness she clings to are like the flecks of gold simon notices in her not-as-black-as-he-thought eyes.

the fact that the scene starts with the two of them awkwardly trying to fit together and ends with an easily achieved comfort, and that between those two moments sits a conversation dipping into vulnerability and intimacy.. i could hurt you. let me see your face. you're not nothing. nothing about you is ugly. they're a part of you. i trust you. i want to be with you. it scares the hell out of me. you are a heartbreaker. maybe you'll break my heart. ..it says so much. so much about what a shift this night is, even if its intangible, even if the result isn't that obvious. the shift toward ease and simplicity and security is there.

and don't even get me started on the metaphor of simon siphoning the output of isabelle's heart into himself. of izzy letting him. the acknowledgement that this is different than it has ever been before. in so many ways this is just a physical representation of everything they achieved through their conversation. it's izzy saying you need me. let me be here for you. let me let you use me. which is itself a reciprocation of not only the night before, when izzy needed simon and he came just for that reason, but also of moments like that in cog when he comes to her after max, and he lets her use him because it was what she needed. but it's deeper. it's vein-deep. and the pleasure they both get in the act of sharing blood is just proof of how right they are together. of how scary this whole thing is but also how worth it.