#snowbaz growing older together

[letraspal]

Happy October everyone 🍂✨🍁

[you-remind-me-of-the-babe]

It’s high time I’ve done another rec post, so here I am, coming in hot with six WIPs you should be reading right now.

Before I get into the fics themselves, a word about reading WIPs. Look, I know it’s tempting to wait until a fic is complete. Not to mention the fact that there is an absolutely staggering amount of amazing fics out there. I’m a slow reader myself, and my TBR list, even after reading fics for nearly three years, is so damn long. I could easily sit back and only read older completed fics and probably never finish them all.

But. I love a good WIP fic almost like nothing else. Yes, binging a completed fic in one sitting can leave you flying high. But following a fic as it’s being written, interacting with said fic and cheering that writer on, gives me so much gratification. Getting that email notification for a new chapter, and feeling so eager to read the new update, is an absolute joy. I highly recommend.

Lastly, this is not an exhaustive list of current Carry On WIPs, but merely a small sampling. And if anyone has any good WIP recs for me, I’d love to hear them!

Only Creatures, WIP, currently 52k, rated E by @emeryhall

In this canon divergent story, Simon breaks up with Baz at the end of WS, leading Baz to become a recluse and a poet, growing a beard and hiding out in Scotland. When he finds out Simon is a camboy for a website called Only Creatures, they tentatively start wanking chatting again. Come for Baz’s Unabomber style, stay for the second chances and explorations of intimacy.

Everything Emery writes is amazing, and this fic is no exception. It’s a little absurd, incredibly witty and heartfelt, with a cast of OCs that quietly shine. This story has cracked my heart open and is slowly putting it back together. You won’t regret reading this one.

Hiding Out in the Open, WIP, currently 48k, rated M by @cutestkilla

Another canon divergence story, this time where Simon and Baz never got together after their truce in 8th year. After the SSR debacle, they meet again and this time start connecting over a shared interest in a psychology podcast.

This fic does an excellent job of having these boys dig into their trauma and issues via the podcast topics, letting them heal and connect, while also letting the reader marvel at the heavy Snowbaz vibes of every podcast episode. It’s so smart, I’m telling you.

I Knew A Boy, I Knew A Man, WIP, currently 83k, rated T by @shrekgogurt

This football AU has Baz and Simon ending up on the same premiere league team, years after playing together at school. The author gives us flashbacks in every chapter of their frought relationship as teens, before progressing the story in the present.

I can’t believe I haven’t done an official rec post for this fic yet. Mary writes the sports bits of this story so vividly, and the flashback bookends of each chapter so perfectly tie into the current narrative, you’ll marvel at the complex way it moves the story forward. Seriously, one of my all time faves.

Basil Pitch’s Diary, WIP, currently 32k, rated T by @bookish-bogwitch

Watford-era Baz starts a diary on January 1st, determined to record his progress on various resolutions, namely, getting over Simon Snow.

This fic has the incredible humor of Bridget Jones’s Diary and will introduce you to your favorite version of acerbic, self-depricating teenage Baz. He will own your soul. There is no other outcome of reading this fic.

The Eternal Life of Baz Pitch, WIP, currently 25k, rated M by @monbons

This story watches a three hundred year old Baz, cursed after desperately trying to find a way to be loved on his own terms, wandering aimlessly in present times until he finds a certain blue eyed barista who has an unusual reaction to meeting him.

This AU is based on The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but you don’t have to have read the book to become immersed in this achingly sad but thoroughly sweet story of hope and second chances.

Episode 6: Apres la Pluie, le Beau Temps, WIP, currently 10k, rated M by @artsyunderstudy

Another installment in the Star Trek series for the lovely @raenestee, this series is the epitome of following a good WIP story. Several authors have contributed to this sci-fi beast, and the progression of the story through several different writers’ hands is an absolute delight to watch. (And, as one of the authors, to participate in.)

If you aren’t yet reading it, this is a great time to join. We’re right in the middle of the story, leaving the four couples in Ashton’s very capable hands as she expertly guides them through various communication breakdowns. If you know nothing of Star Trek, don’t let that stop you from joining a thoroughly entertaining epic of a story.

[taramemberence]

The Heart Line: COC 2022 MASTERPOST

All my chapters are actually all in the same spot, but I think having a list of them all with summaries would be better. That way there'd actually be a reason to click on a fic with no summary on ao3.

Day 1: The End

"This can't be the end."

Set after WS and before AWTWB. Simon is stuck to the sofa.

the rest of the descriptions are under the cut. the ones highlighted in pink are my personal favorites.

Day 2: AU - The Tingly Thing

"Don't tell them about the tingly thing."

Spider-Man meets Fangirl meets Carry On. A rewrite of the scene in No Way Home where MJ and Ned summon two different Peter Parker's.

Day 3: Expectations

"Still, Aunt Fiona keeps provoking him, and he keeps taking the bait, and the car is still sitting in the driveway, and neither of them can seem to see that I'm about to be back in that coffin again."

Simon finds out about the rule about who is allowed to sit in the front seat, and Baz has a panic attack.

Day 4: Cake

"We see smoke coming out of the oven again."

Simon and Penny make multiple attempts to bake Baz a cake for his birthday.

Day 5: Bloodlines

"If he never does it again, I want this to be the one good memory."

Baz finds himself at his mother's grave, feeling lost and suicidal. Simon finds him.

Day 6: Side/Alternative Ship - A World Without You

"Whatever happened between us, I'm going to need him to look past it and come back to me. I don't want to live a life without him."

Baz has a nightmare where Simon never survived America and he ended up staying there with Lamb.

Day 7: Veil - Love Me And Let Go

"I was the only one cursed to this life. Everyone I've ever loved and cared for is gone."

Simon has passed away, Visiting Baz every twenty years when the Veil lifts.

Day 8: Lyrics - End Game

"I wanna be your endgame," I tell him. He lifts his head, and his sleepy eyes meet mine.

"Simon, you already are."

Simon tries to analyze lyrics to a Taylor Swift song, and Baz is just trying to sleep.

Day 9: Staff

"I've insisted that it's probably just a product of growing older, but he disagrees. He's convinced that he's dying."

Simon takes a trip to the Wing and Knee specialist.

Day 10: Angst

"Shut up, Baz! Stop it!" He cries. This isn't enough. I'm not doing enough. Please Simon, forgive me later. Please.

Baz hurts Simon in order to save himself.

Day 11: WLW - Keep

"She's wrapping her arms around me, rocking me from side to side."

Fiona comes out to Baz and Simon.

Day 12: Devour

"I'm cold. He keeps insisting that it's warmer in the water, but I don't think I believe him."

Simon and Baz go on vacation together, and Baz has been lying about feeding. He hasn't fed.

Day 13: Devotion

"He pulls back and checks my face, wiping under my eyes again, hiding the evidence that I ever cried tonight."

All Baz wants to do is dance with his boyfriend at his father's New Year's party.

Day 14: Cryptid

"I kept insisting that I wasn't insane. Baz said I'm not insane."

Simon starts to have hallucinations.

Day 15: Fluff

"I wake up to Simon licking my face."

Snowbaz being cute and lazy in bed.

Day 16: Bridge

"I like myself better, knowing I'm carrying a part of him with me everywhere I go."

A continuation of chapter 13, but can stand alone. Simon pays attention to Baz's nose.

Day 17: Match

"I think I still have yet to find something that I wouldn't do for him."

Simon and Baz wear matching Christmas sweaters.

Day 18: Shepherd

"Shepard, of course, thought it was a brilliant idea. He's a complete buffoon, just like Simon."

Simon and Shepard dress as shepherds.

Day 19: Heal

"I gently touch his shoulders where his skin isn't mangled. I rub my fingers over his soft skin, leaning in to press a kiss there."

Baz still has bullets in his chest, so Simon does his best to take care of him.

Day 20: Fangs

"I'd bite my hand to stifle the sounds I'm making, but my fangs have dropped and I don't want to pierce my skin."

Every year, Baz has nightmares on the night of his mother's death.

Day 21: First Snow

"He puts his scarf back, covering my nose and mouth again. His face is red. I don't think it's because of the cold."

Simon and Baz go for a walk in the snow.

Day 22: Ritual

"The Mage carries me to my bed and sets me down, leaving without a word. It's okay. The look on his face is more than enough."

The Mage sends Simon on another mission only for Baz to pick up the pieces when he comes home.

Day 23: Hurt/Comfort - Bottom Of The Ocean

"I'd never leave you," I promise him softly, "even if it took me out with you, I would never let you die alone."

Simon and Baz are caught in a battle that leads to a fight for Baz's life under the water.

Day 24: Showers

"He makes it better. Even though I’m not feeling better, he makes it better."

Baz is in the shower when all the memories catch up to him.

Day 25: Sleep

"I can just break his heart while he hears how broken I am. I'll let him decide if he wants to try and fix me afterward."

A nightmare wakes Baz from his sleep.

[confused-bi-queer]

Lamb’s betrayal towards Baz

I’ve been thinking about Lamb a lot and how he betrayed Baz, but I’ve been thinking in two things: why did he help Baz? and his betrayal and the result of it??

1. If I’m not wrong, Baz is 20 or 21, right? So, in 20 years he never really learned anything about being a vampire, but he learned some with Lamb. Like how to retract his fangs, something he didn’t know he could do, and he knows now that biting someone doesn’t mean he kills or transforms them. So, if Lamb was just manipulating Baz into trusting him because he had two magicians friends, why did he taught Baz these?? Why did he say real things to him? He could’ve just lied. I think because he had a certain crush on Baz (which is gross, because Lamb is waaay older), but it doesn’t click for me. Plus, I’ve seen people saying that vampires always drink their lover’s blood at some point and something tells me that maybe Baz will bite Simon, but because Snow tells him to do so or because Baz will be really thirsty or something or to prove their love, I need that kind of connection from them. And I think he even joked about it at some point, i don’t remember the quote well, but Simon was like: I prefer risking a bite, and Baz answers that he would never. And after Simon knew that Baz was indeed a vampire (in Carry On) and he was super curious about it, he asked Baz about why couldn’t he just stop sucking someone blood, without killing the person? And I think that might be a foreshadowing for AWTWB

2. Do you think Simon would ever mention that he was right about Lamb? I don’t think he will, because it’s like opening a wound for Baz because Lamb was the only one that told him anything about vampires, but I keep thinking about that. What did Simon think when the Lamb plan went to hell? Did he think “I fucking told him”? Or did he feel bad about being right about Lamb? And most important, how the fuck did Baz feel?? Because Snowbaz had a fight about this and Baz told Snow that he trusted Lamb? I just keep overthinking this...

One of the things that Baz just needs love and find himself in someone that he really trusts, like Simon. They find comfort in each other and they don’t know it. Both of them KNOW that they know each other more than fine. When Baz didn’t show up at first in their last year and they were trying to solve where he could be, Simon declared that no one knows Baz better than him because they were roomies. And Baz, in WS, points out that they grow up together. SO, they know it, they know each other, but they are just too hurt and too traumatized and too naive and the don’t have a break ever. Just that. They need each other but constantly push the other away... I love my boys.... and fuck you, Lamb

[theshrubbery]

Can I Be Close To You - snowbaz fake dating au ch1

I post this on ao3 but I fancied posting on here too ‘cause I really wanna start taking snowbaz writing requests and stuff but for that I figured I should post stuff first haha

SIMON

Baz is plotting something. I just know he is. I don’t care what Penny says, Baz is always plotting something and no one can persuade me otherwise. Understandably, after the last few times I’ve been sure that Baz was plotting against me and nothing actually happened, Penny has long since lost her faith in my judgement of him. Not that Penny really likes him all that much herself either anyways.

Baz is my roommate here at Watford, and he’s the poshest shitbag I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Though meeting really is putting it lightly, really we were forced together back in our first year, forced to become roommates for the rest of our careers at Watford. Fan-fucking-tastic that was, best bloody day of my life, as if I hadn’t already felt like I’d been thrown in somewhere I didn’t belong, I just had to be shoved into an eight-year rooming contract with the richest twat in the entire school.

Watford is a pretty elite school, I think it’s militant at times but Penny drools over the place, thinks it’s the bread and butter of the entire academic world. I only got in through a scholarship I didn’t even want. The headmaster of the school scouted me from care when I was eleven after news got around about my successive high marks in all my schoolwork. The headmaster all but adopted me then took me in as his young prodigy with promises of a better life and the expectation that I was probably going to grow up to cure cancer, or something like that.

This entire school is entirely out of my league, full of rich, elitist people from rich, elitist families, who’d all likely burst an artery if they knew I was here—the headmaster had kept it under wraps, had secretly enrolled me a few days before term started and sent me on my merry way to the Hell that is sharing a room with Tyrannus Basilton Grim-Pitch. Yes. That is his real name. What a git.

Back to my point, though, I am actually, genuinely, positive that Baz is plotting something this time. He’s always watched me when he thinks I’m not looking (seriously, who does he think I am to leave my guard down around him, my sworn enemy, of course I notice him staring at me) but now it feels like he’s watching me with a purpose. His face twists up as though he has something to say but he just can’t get it out. It looks painful enough that I almost want to snap around and face him when he looks at me like that, I want to demand to know what he’s thinking if only to put him out of that misery. Or something like that, I guess.

“Baz isn’t plotting anything, Simon,” Penny says as we sit down at a table in the cafeteria for breakfast. I roll my eyes and pick up a small roll of bread, biting a chunk out of it with my teeth and replying with my mouth still full of food. No matter how many times Penny tells me off for this, I just can’t seem to break the habit. Although that seems to imply that I try—which I don’t.

“You don’t see the way he looks at me, Pen.” I swallow my mouthful of bread and lather a thick chunk of butter across the remains in my hands, then I eat that, too. “We’ve only been back a couple weeks but I can already feel the murderous intent. I keep catching him staring at me like he’s just waiting for the right moment to take me down.”

“Simon, are you sure Baz sees you as his enemy?” Penny asks me, raising her eyebrow skeptically as I reach for another bread roll and begin to slather it in butter. I’m ravenous.

“Of course,” I say, probably a little too loudly. “Literally, Pen, how many times has he tried to take me down? Remember when he pushed me down that flight of stairs?”

“I mean, that was kind of both your faults, really, Simon.” Penny gives me a pointed look and flips her thick hair over her shoulder. “I literally don’t know what you were expecting, fighting at the top of the stairs like that.”

“I mean the fight started in our room,” I tell her. I can’t understand how Penny doesn’t realise how blatantly obvious it is that Baz is out for my blood. “He’s the one that pushed me through our door and onto the landing. I bet that was his plan all along! To get me to the edge of the stairs and then punch me so I fell down!”

“Yeah. Or, he just got in a lucky punch. You didn’t see how sick he looked after he realised what he’d done.”

“Probably thinking about the court charges and prison sentences when he realised he actually almost killed me.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Simon.” Penny pats my arm across the table from where she sits opposite me almost sarcastically. “I’m sure he has better people to kill than you.”

“I don’t understand him at all,” I huff, reaching to pull a plate of bacon sandwiches towards me. I’m halfway through my second one when I see Baz enter the cafeteria through the heavy-set wooden doors at the far end of the room over Penny’s shoulder and I almost choke at the surprise, coughing embarrassingly loudly. My eyes burn and water as Penny runs around my side of the table and begins thumping me, way too hard I shall add, on the back in an attempt to get me to breathe again. The chunk of sandwich that was lodged in my throat flies back up into my mouth and I take a deep, heaving breath as I chew and swallow it down properly. Penny looks at me with the most hilariously disgusted face I think I have ever seen.

“You are actually disgusting, Simon Snow,” she says as she sits back down. I give her a smile in apology but Baz catches my attention.

Baz looks at me and snickers, quite clearly, at my reaction to his entering the room, though when he realises I’m watching, he immediately tampers down and pretends he’s simply amused at something one of his minions said (because I highly doubt a guy like Baz has anything other than minions, forget friends). For a moment I think Baz is going to ignore me after that initial surprise of seeing me staring straight back at him, but instead he chooses to sit the table behind ours, facing me, clearly in my line of vision. It’s as though he wants me to see him, or he wants to see me. For more of his fucking creepy stalking, I presume.

It’s a nightmare to go to class after that, knowing full well that Baz was going to be there and knowing full well I’d be sat right next to him at my desk. I suppose it’s better than it used to be in the younger years, when the tables were pushed together to form groups of six students at each. Now we’re older, they’re arranged in straight lines down the room, so rather than bashing elbows with Baz we now have an arms-length between us.

Not that it was my choice to sit here, stupid schools and their stupid seating plans, it’s a wonder I ever survived English with Baz breathing right next to me the entire time, writing in his posh, cursive handwriting and making my scrawl look illegibly pathetic.

Now, as I enter the class, Baz is already there, sitting straight at his desk and managing to look somehow both attentive and bored. He notices me as I enter, I see one of his crossed legs twitch beneath the table and his jaw suddenly clench. I see it from the other side of the room when he swallows and looks pointedly away from me.

I don’t know whether he’s humiliated at me having caught him laughing at me, or whether he’s finally got tired of trying to plot against me but whatever it is, I feel oddly lost without it. Having an enemy like Baz, someone always a step ahead, gives me a reason to get up in the morning. Because if I don’t get up I’m almost positive Baz would smother me with a pillow and my death would be pathetic rather than heroic. And although I don’t really think that Baz would murder me, I don’t like to take chances like that where I can help it.

The lesson passes the same as usual, in a hazy blur. I take notes but only because if I don’t keep my grades up I’ll lose my scholarship and be sent back to a god-awful care home, but I barely take any of the information in, I’m far too conscious of Baz today, even-more-so than usual. Something just seems off with him, though I don’t have the slightest idea what. He keeps glancing over at me, fidgeting, writing out notes only to stop mid-sentence and push his pen hard into the paper of his glaringly empty page.

Baz keeps running a hand through his hair, too, and I can’t help the swirling of anger in my gut when I think he must be copying me. I’ve known Baz for eight years, lived with him for nine months of the year each time, but I’ve never known him to be the type to fidget and muss his hair up. The great Basilton Pitch was always exceptionally put-together, if only to lord it over the rest of us peasants, always neat and tidy and always making out like nothing was wrong, even when I hear him sobbing in our en-suite shower at the end of the day when he thinks I’m not in the room.

At the end of the lesson he’d looked over at me like he’d forgotten I had eyes and could look right back. His face had coloured, a deep red against the bronze of his skin (Baz had inherited his looks off his mother, apparently, and she was Egyptian), and he’d gathered his things, stuffing them in his leather satchel, and left the room in a hurry.

I don’t see Baz for the rest of the day until last lesson, history, though he doesn’t sit anywhere near me, thank God. Despite this though, I still can’t concentrate, not with the knowledge that Baz is in the room. It doesn’t matter how many other people fill up the room, Baz is pompous enough to make me feel like it’s just the two of us. Everyone else feels like an extra in our on-going battle. I make as many notes as I can, fill out the worksheets the teacher hands out to the best of my ability despite the churning in my stomach that tells me something is wrong, probably warning me that Baz is going to have me as soon as we’re out of lesson, he’s probably itching to fight me like we haven’t in years. We’re long overdue, really. But instead, rather than a fight, Baz volunteers to collect the worksheets for the teacher, and he leaves me until last.

My heart thrums as he gets nearer, the adrenaline beginning to surge through my veins at the prospect of another fight with him. Baz stands there, in front of my desk, the stack of stapled worksheets cradled in the crook of his arm and balanced on his hip as he looks uncomfortably down at me. Baz is taller than me, by at least three inches, so he loves to remind me, and to meet my eyes he has to lower that smug chin.

“Snow,” Baz says, pursing his lips. I panic and try to come up with something clever.

“Actually it’s raining,” I stupidly say instead. Baz huffs at me, shifts where he stands, and sucks his lips into his mouth as he looks out the window to confirm, letting the lower one slip through his teeth as he releases them. He looks back to me.

“Astute observation, Snow, you complete bloody moron.” Baz’s voice is flat and biting and it makes me want to punch him.

“What do you want, Baz?” I ask him, leaning forwards in my chair.

“Your worksheets,” answers Baz, holding out a well-cared-for hand. I make to give him my sheets but then yank them back at the last second, enjoying the grimace Baz gives me. I’m pretty sure I almost hear him growl.

“No,” I smirk. “What do you actually want?” Baz looks almost dumbfounded for a moment, like I’d asked him to reveal all his deepest darkest secrets, like I’d found something out he didn’t want me to know. Then his features settle again and he snatches the paper out my hand.

“Just meet me back in our room after lesson, I need to talk to you about something.”

“What do you mean? You’re not meant to tell your enemy your plans for murder, that just takes all the fun out of it.”

“Fuck—Snow, just—” Baz shakes his head and slams my paper down into the pile at his hip, already turning to storm away as he composes himself. “Just be there, okay? This is important.”

Baz doesn’t catch me giving him the middle finger as he walks away, but the teacher does, which is really just my luck, and I’m glad that Penny isn’t in this class with me to laugh at my misfortune.

“You want me to what?” I shout, incredulous. Did I actually just hear what I thought I heard with my very own two ears? I know that I’m prone to idiocy, I zone out a lot, mishear, all of that, but seriously. If I thought being caught giving Baz the finger was misfortune, I must have been stupid. This right here is misfortune.

“You heard me,” Baz says, leaning back against the door with his arms crossed as though he expects me to try and break free, escape, run and never come back. Honestly, I really am fucking considering it.

“I swear to God,” I say with a humourless laugh, running a hand down my face, the other propping me up on the bed. “I knew you were plotting something, Baz, but this? This just takes the fucking cake. Are you serious?”

“Yes, Snow, I am serious, and I’d appreciate it if you’d start treating it as such.”

“You told your dad. You have a boyfriend. To get under his skin. And it completely backfired?”

“Correct.” It looks like it pains Baz to admit it. Good.

“And now you want me  to pretend to be your boyfriend over half term at your house?”

“I always thought you were ignorant but I guess your ears do work after all, very well done, Snow,” Baz says patronisingly. The sound of his voice irks me and I all I want to do is refuse. But… there’s something in Baz’s face that tells me there’s more to this than meets the eye. I hate Baz, really I do, but I can’t stand to see him looking so vulnerable. I still don’t know how to answer him though, and the silence in the room is making the atmosphere heavy.

“You’re gay?” I ask instead of replying. I never considered that Baz could be gay, he always has girls fawning over him. My own girlfriend, Agatha, left me for a shot at Baz last year though that wound is long closed, I’m not sure me and Agatha were ever meant to be together in the first place. Still, though, having her leave me to throw herself at the enemy was a kick to the balls. I never understood why Baz had always turned all these girls down, he could probably have his pick of any of the girls in our year if he so wanted to (except Penny, because Penny both hates Baz and already has a boyfriend, Micah, who lives in America) so this really would explain it.

“Entirely,” Baz confirms with a nod. “Absolutely, one-hundred percent. You?”

“I…” I’ve never actually thought about it, and I can’t think of the right answer to say before Baz interrupts me.

“If you do this I promise I won’t kill you in your sleep.”

“Like you’d kill me anyways, it would be too much paperwork and shame to your family name.”

“Simon,” Baz says, and I can’t help but give him my full attention at that. “Please. Just do me this one favour. I’ll do whatever you want after the week is up, I’ll leave you alone or whatever the fuck it is you want from me. Just do me this one favour and don’t make me a fool before my father.”

“You’re a fool anyways,” I murmur under my breath, unable to help myself. I look up at Baz, really taking him in, and I realise just how serious this is to him, it feels like unnecessary cruelty to say no. Who knows what he might do to me if I refuse to help him. And besides… how bad could it really be? Jesus Christ I can’t believe I’m even thinking of doing this in the first place, what the fuck is wrong with me?

“I’ll do it,” I say, and Baz’s head snaps up so fast he hits it against the door. He looks at me, wide-eyed, like he’d already been planning his escape from his family and which country to start his new life in. I don’t know why this is such a big deal to Baz, but I suppose I’ll find out. At least I’ll get to see if he lives in a stupid mansion like I’ve always pictured he does.

BAZ

My stomach bottoms out when Snow agrees. I’d never actually expected him too. Christ above, I’m fake-dating Simon bloody Snow. I almost feel guilty that he doesn’t know how badly I want him, that he’s giving me everything I’ve ever craved in the cruellest way possible. It’s selfish, really, that I’m taking him for granted like this, but there’s no-one else I can trust enough. Maybe that’s because I’ve been hopelessly in love with Snow for years, but it doesn’t matter. At least for a week, I’ll have a taste of what could be, in a different life, I can look into those blue eyes and stroke that golden hair under the guise of fake-love, and when the week is up, I can come back to Watford and die of heartache over what could have been.

[carryonsimoncarryonbaz]

Love them 💚

Happy October everyone 🍂✨🍁