Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Age 16

1. Bram knows he likes the way Simon looks. He’s known that since the first time he saw him. He likes the way he walks, how he tends to literally drag his feet when he’s relaxed. He likes that he has a habit of skating his tongue over his lower lip when he’s talking about something that really interests him. He likes the way he brushes his blonde hair out of his eyes, slender fingers dancing across his forehead. He likes how gray his eyes are. The few times Bram had summoned the courage to actually look him in the eye the only word to describe what they looked like was “alien”. Bram knows that doesn’t sound like a compliment but it is, Simon’s eyes look like they belong on something other than a human, something better. Something other worldly or perhaps divine.
2. But now? Now he thinks he just likes Simon.  As, like, a human. As an incredibly attractive human. He likes that he’s smarter than he lets on. He likes how he is with his friends, loyal almost to a fault. He likes that he’s so effortlessly funny, or at least it seems effortless to Bram maybe he actually puts a lot of thought into it. Bram wouldn’t know since he’s recently discovered that he doesn’t have the ability to put together something that even vaguely resembles a complete sentence in his presence. It absolutely does not help that the chorus to Whatta Man blares in his head whenever Simon walks into a room, like he’s stuck in some bad 90s romcom.  He knows Simon is just a boy, a high school kid just like him, not at all a “man” by any stretch of the imagination but his brain so does not understand this. So, he guesses now he should finally admit it to himself, he has an enormous crush on Simon Spier. Which for some reason makes him want to shout “I’M GAY!” from the rooftops on the off chance that Simon Spier will then magically be gay and fall lovingly into his arms. Which is just so stupid, so improbable, that he hates himself for even having the thought. But his body feels jittery and restless like he has to do SOMETHING, he types up a quick anonymous post on CreekSecrets about being gay and feels a little better.
3. Now that Bram’s been emailing Jacques for a few weeks he sometimes likes to imagine that Simon and Jacques are the same person. It’s sort of fun for him, the kind of fun that’s fun because of how reckless it feels, it even feels a bit dangerous mostly because the chance of that fantasy being true are so low and it feels like he’s playing hard and fast with his own heart. Still sometimes he’ll find a tiny overlapping thread that links Jacques’ life with Simon’s. Like the fact that they both have dogs and he’s pretty sure Simon’s lived in Shady Creek all his life just like Jacques,and that they both like Harry Potter, and it just makes something inside him feel like it could burst with hope, even though those three things could literally describe 70% of the male population at Creekwood. He likes it anyway. 

Age 20

4. Bram likes that they’re still together. That they seem to be doing a thing that most other people thought would be impossible. He likes that they’ve figured out how to do it successfully, doing this balancing act of school, social life, and this long distance thing. That’s not to say it had been easy. It hadn’t.  All of freshman year had been a complete disaster, Simon had a gay roommate who had the unlucky fate of looking a little too much like Cal Price for Bram’s comfort.  It wasn’t just Bram though, Simon would always get really short and quiet with him whenever Bram brought up his new friend Sean (who was basically just the black, gay, version of Garrett. No Joke.).  Which, just...it just bothered him because for both  Bram and Sean  it was a hard no, never going to happen, zero attraction, no as in he may as well have actually been Garrett, no.  All this went unsaid for an entire year, on both sides, until it exploded and ended in a 12 hour breakup, which turned into Simon showing up at his dorm at 1 am on a Thursday, red eyed and tear streaked. It was awful, but they worked it out, made out, made a plan.  Bram was good with plans. He liked them, followed them and thats how they got here now. Or maybe they both had just grown up, grown more secure in themselves, in each other, in their “Us.” It was good now, better than ever really.
5. Things were so happy. Simon was so happy and it was impossible for Bram to be anything but happy when Simon was like that. Every time he got off the train in New York Bram could see him nearly skipping when he finally saw him. It really wasn’t a skip more like a small hop every third step and then they’d meet in a hug and a kiss. That was another thing Bram liked, he liked that in most parts of the city and Philly he could sort of flaunt his affection for Simon.  It had taken awhile to break the habit of barely touching in public, but once it broke it felt like something being set free inside the two of them, some PDA bird that wanted everyone to see that he was with Simon and Simon was with him. It was often hard to put the bird back in the cage when they returned to Georgia on breaks. It sometimes felt like it was fighting with the two of them, beak and talons clawing at them as they struggled to put it back in captivity.  It was actually painful. Like how it feels when they ask him to please check just one race on a form. Like he was denying a whole part of himself.
6. Bram liked that Simon never described his skin or his eyes using food as was so common in books and movies when describing black bodies.  His skin was never chocolate, his eyes were never the color of coffee.  Rather Simon would tell him his skin was beautiful, that he liked the way his skin and his hair smelled like coconut (which, yeah, was a food technically, but he actually did smell like coconut because he used this coconut oil/Shea butter mix since he was a kid) , that it always made his own skin feel dry and cracked in comparaison (“that’s because you don’t moisturize, Simon.” Bram would tell him). Rather Simon would tell him his eyes were soft and expressive, that they were soulful.  It helped bring home the fact that Simon saw him as a whole person, complete, that he saw beyond the sum of his parts and that his parts were some how more than just parts.
7. Bram liked the way Simon looked when they were in bed. Even when he was just sleeping, but especially when he wasn’t. He liked that he always held eye contact until he was almost to the very end until it seemed like he just couldn’t possibly keep them open any more. The first few times they had gone to bed together in high school it hadn’t been bad necessarily but it couldn’t really be described as good.  It didn’t help that they had to sneak and get it done before a parent or sibling came home or that they were both nervous, and it definitely didn’t help that neither of them had a single clue as to what they were doing. It took time, and research, and it definitely took a lot of awkward communication.  They’d certainly figured things out now and everything was just very, very good.  The first time Simon had put his mouth on him and didn’t let his eyes stray from Bram’s he had let out a series of swears that he had never let slip out loud before and he finished in an embarrassingly short time.  Except at the time it wasn’t embarrassing, he’s pretty sure the proud look on Simon’s face killed his embarrassed feelings before they even had the chance to breathe. So, he liked the way Simon looked in bed, before, during, after.  Sometimes he thought Simon looked best after because he’d give Bram this satisfied smile and look at him like Bram had just given him some kind of precious gift. That...yeah, he liked that. A lot.

Age 37

8. Bram likes that they’re married now. He likes that they only really got married because it was basically necessary in order to foster and adopt, to have the family they both had desperately wanted. It’s not that they didn’t love each other, or that they weren’t monogamous they just didn’t feel they needed the state, or a piece of paper to validate their relationship it just felt unnecessary (much to the chagrin of their mothers).  They loved each other, they lived together, they had a life, they didn’t need anything else. Except they both wanted children and that meant marriage.  They had done the whole big wedding thing with tux’s, dancing, and a sit down dinner, mostly to appease their mothers, but also because once they were engaged, they both realized they wanted it too. That they both maybe, sort of really, really wanted to be married even if they hadn’t wanted children.  Bram likes that after they were married and on their honeymoon that Simon used the word husband as often as he could.
9. Bram likes that Simon does all these voices when he reads books to the kids. It’s cute, it takes him back to high school theater Simon.  They have a 6 year old daughter and a 3 year old son, plus they’re emergency foster parents when a kid shows up at the police station usually only staying with them a month or two but sometimes longer, sometimes only a few weeks.  He likes that Simon makes pancakes on Sunday mornings, and stands at the counter in his pajamas, singing along to Kidz Bop, and trying to make the kids laugh. Something about watching him be a father, makes Bram able to see the whole picture of him, of how he got to this point, how he became the man he is.  It helps that at 37 they have been together longer than they’ve been apart. He likes that too.  He likes that Simon brings him flowers once a month.  He likes the way it makes their children giggle every time Bram kisses him still holding the flowers.  He likes that when he sees pictures of them all together as a family, that it just looks sweet, domestic, and normal.  He likes that Simon doesn’t think twice about having photos of the kids who have only barely passed through their home hanging on the walls.  If anyone dares to say anything about it  Simon gives them a hard look and says “They were still apart of our family.  Im not erasing them from our home.”  Bram loves that.
10. Bram likes that after all this time he’s still living in a bad 90’s romcom, and every time Simon walks in the room he still hears the chorus to Whatta Man playing in the background, he feels like the volume has even been turned up on it. Probably because they’re both actual men now so it applies. He likes that Simon still holds eye contact with is alien gray eyes. He likes that he moisturizes now, too.  Thanks to Bram.