My "Rosebud" Boy(friend)

Rosebuds and Chat Rooms

Baz

Tuesday, December 21

This is the beginning of your chat with S.O.Snow and Penny

S.O.Snow-11:13am: hello

S/B-11:14am: hi people

Penny-11:14am: Hi, Simon. Hi, Baz.

S.O.Snow-11:15am: how are you guys?

Penny-11:15am: Meh. I accidentally restarted my computer, and it turned out that it needed to update. However, most of my tabs on Chrome were still open...

S/B-11:16am: wow. You sound like me on a normal day.

S.O.Snow-11:16am: how are you, Baz?

S/B-11:17am: Utterly disgusted.

S.O.Snow-11:18am: why?

S/B-11:18am: well, a) old town road just started playing on my Spotify for some reason

S/B-11:19am: and b) I just had a flashback to the first day of school. You know, the one where you ate butter by itself?

S.O.Snow-11:20am: \(^w^)/

S/B-11:20am: WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU SIMON SNOW??

Penny-11:21am: *pulls you two apart* remember, anathema! You hurt your roommate in your (chat) room, and you'll get kicked out.

S.O.Snow-11:22am: good one, penny. What does S/B even stand for, anyway, Baz?

S/B-11:23am: *grumbles* something/bad is going to happen to you today.

S.O.Snow-11:24am: really? Like what?

S/B-11:26am: *sighs in annoyance* I know that I'm technically already dead, but you are going to be the death of me, Simon Snow.

-Penny has left the chat room

-S.O.Snow has left the chat room

-S/B has ended the chat

I show up at his apartment with his present hidden behind my back. It's a bouquet of roses. They're a red-gold colour, the shade you would get if you mixed the colour of gold and the colour of brick. When I knock, I hear a door opening inside the apartment, a crash, and Penny casting an "As you were!" on whatever fell. When the front door finally opens, I look up and see Snow standing just over the threshold of the foyer. He's holding a box, the type that you would store files in, and he looks pretty embarrassed, probably from whatever incident he just caused.

"Hello, Baz," he welcomes me. "You can go ahead and come on in if you want." As I pass him, I shift the bouquet to the side of my body opposite him, and then I hold it in front of me. Closing the door, he asks me, "How are you today?"

"I'm doing pretty good," I tell him. I wore a simple grey suit for the occasion, but the outfit still looks formal, even though I'm only wearing grey and white.

"You smell nice today. Like roses," he says, which is my cue. I take out the flowers and spin around, turning to face him. Holding it out, I announce, "Happy anniversary, my rosebud boyfriend. I love you."

His smile grows until he's squinting, and he looks joyful, but I can see some sorrow in his expression as he takes them. His voice sounds a bit heavy, but he's beaming as he says, "I love them. Thank you, Baz."

Now it's his turn to hand me his present. He presses the box into my hands and tells me eagerly, "Open it!" I oblige him, removing the lid, and I see papers packed in. I pull the first one out, and I realise what they are.

I happily exclaim, "You found the transcripts of our Christmas chat room discussions!" I've been searching for these for two months now. "When did you find them?" I inquire, wondering whether or not he recruited Penny or Claire to help him, and, if he did, how many "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"s it would have taken them. He furrows his brow, trying to recall the detail, and responds, "I found them three weeks ago when Claire and I were moving things from storage into the apartment."

Laughing, he asks me, "Do you remember the Christmas when Penny and Claire first started dating?" I nod, not knowing where this conversation will lead. "When I was organising the papers into the box, I noticed that, during our chat from the Saturday the week before, they had a separate discussion window that they used to decide where to go for their first date," he concludes, and I start laughing with him.

"Well, we now know when their actual anniversary is," I joke, and then I kiss him on the cheek. "Thanks."

As I stroll over to the counter to set down my bag and the box of transcripts, the door to Penny and Claire's bedroom opens. Penny walks out first, grinning and hugging a book to her chest, her eyes shining with laughter behind her glasses. Claire follows her, closing the door behind them. Her shirt has a picture of a blue fountain pen lying on top of an open notebook. Under the notebook, there's writing that says "I'm magic, just like my writing" in bold lavender calligraphy. For her, the shirt speaks the truth, which is not what it would do for most other people. She's a gay magician who writes gay fantasy. She pretty much writes about herself. Her eyes are twinkling with delight as she proudly announces, "I am officially a published writer!" Penny holds out the book that she has to show us. "It arrived today," Claire tells us, beaming. The cover has an image of a teenager, who looks to be around fifteen. She's facing backwards and it looks like she's walking into a wall of smoke. The title reads, "Easy Come, Easy Go" in raised, bold type, with the name "Claire Millers" below it in lowercase handwriting that looks as though it's made of vapour.

Impressed, I ask her, "Nice cover. Who designed it?"

She blushes, her cheeks turning the colour of the rosebuds that I brought Simon, and, avoiding my gaze, she sheepishly divulges the information. "I did," she admits.

"Wow. That's amazing, that you drew the picture all by yourself. That takes a lot of talent," I compliment her, and she turns as red as the sun at sunset.

"It was pretty hard to get the wings and the wand hand right," she tells me, trying to brush it off as no big deal. I can tell she's embarrassed by all the attention, so I instead focus on the cover, and, sure enough, right above the title is a set of smoky grey wings that are sprouting out of the girl's back, right in between the shoulder blades. And at the girl's left side is a hand that's holding an intricately carved wand. Also, her hair looks a lot like Snow's...

"Okay, did you base her on Simon?"

"Yes? I just take what I know and start from there," she says, laughing. "I had to tell the editor that it was what I wanted my life to be like, instead of what it is like, since she's a Normal. I accidentally told her that it was my life story, but I was able to fix that mistake." She smiles fondly at the cover and tells us, "You know, this book is a lot of the reason that me and Penny were out all last week. I was doing publicity events, and she wanted to come along, so I called the organiser and he said that, yes, he could arrange for Penny to travel with me."

"It's amazing," Simon says, and I know he means it.
"Thanks. We just wanted to show you guys, now that Baz is here." She and Penelope turn and walk back into the bedroom. The door closes, and I realise that I never put my stuff down. It doesn't matter now, anyway. I have a reservation at a restaurant for me and Snow, and I don't want to miss it.

Simon starts going to the pantry, but, since I already have our anniversary dinner planned out, I tell him, "Snow, you don't need to cook dinner. I'm taking you out somewhere special tonight." He turns and grins at me. "Really?" he asks me hopefully. "Where are we going?"

I respond with the answer that my mother always used when she didn't want me to know.
Smirking, I say, "Crazy."