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If you had asked Simon what he was doing tonight 3 hours ago, he probably would have said something along the lines of "Nothing" and "Well I don't know what are you doing," in that way of his that just made him sound lonely instead of trying to flirt with you. He definitely did not expect his night to be "running through an abandoned warehouse being chased by a pack of Shax demons."
So here he is, following Jace through corridors and halls that all look the same with shitty graffiti and random beer cans all over the floor. Simon can hear the scrabbling of the legs far behind him, but getting closer and closer. He can start to feel his legs burning and feel the taste of iron gathering thick in his mouth, and he knows that he can't keep up for much longer.
Then, the universe decides to flip him the biggest bird possible and run them both into a dead end.
Simon can't hear anything over the pounding of his heart and the heavy pants coming out of his mouth but judging by the look on Jace's face, the Shax demons are getting pretty close. And there're no other halls to go down. And there's no windows for them to jump out of.
Fuck.
Jace turns to him and those eyes have a mix of fear and anger and they're darting all over the walls looking for some way, any way to escape.
They're standing there, Simon coming to terms that they're both probably going to die when Jace puts his hands on Simon's shoulders and shoves him backwards so hard he falls flat on his ass.
"Dude! Come on, I know you're just a generally angry guy but is now really the time?"
Jace just turns around and shuts the-oh.
The door. To the closet. That is very small. And very dark. And also very free of Shax demons.
Simon watches from the floor as Jace presses his ear against the wall and listens for the demons to pass them. After listening for a while, Simon gets up and stands next to him, so he can listen too. He doesn't hear anything that sounds demon-y, but he's concentrating so hard he doesn't see the expression on Jace's face.
He immediately walks as far away from him as possible.
See, ever since that day at the Institute 2 weeks ago, Jace and he haven't exactly been on great terms. Whenever he walks into a room that Jace happens to be in, he'll immediately stop talking and speed out of the room as fast as he can without breaking into an actual run. Simon's not sure what he did wrong, and it's really starting to get to him. He misses the sarcastic remarks and jibes that he'd grown to almost love that came out of Jace like clockwork. Now, Jace just stares at him like he's got blood on his chin. 2 months ago, he'd have loved nothing more than to have him ignore him. But now...with everything that happened between them...Simon's really tired of whatever this is.
"What the fuck?"
Jace just looks at him with those fucking eyes and Simon has really had it at this point.
"Okay, okay listen. I know that the past 2 weeks have been weird between us and I know that we've had this like unspoken agreement to not talk about what happened at the Institute with Valentine but. I, I don't know man I just don't know what the fuck is wrong man?"
It's quiet for a moment.
"Simon, can we please not do this here?"
"No. No, we are doing this right fucking now because if we don't its never going to happen because you're just gonna keep ignoring me and I'm fucking tired of it man so just tell me what is wrong."
"Simon, I really do not want to do this."
"Well, tough, because I do."
Jace slowly takes a step, 2 steps towards him and suddenly Simon can feel the whisper of breath across his forehead because he is so unfairly tall and he can see the blue-brown of his eyes that always seem to look like fire and ice at the same time.
"I have my reasons"
"Is that the best you can come up with? I have my reasons for staying in a fucking boathouse, but that doesn't effect you. This effects me. And I wanna know your reasons, okay? I'm just tired of this awkward silence bullshit and just...Jace, just tell me what I did. Please."
Jace's eyes are flicking between the wall and the floor and the shelf over his right shoulder and he is absolutely not going to look at Simon.
And then he does, and his eyes are devoid of that fear and anger and replaced with just...sadness? Pleading?
"Simon. Please, just...I can't do this right now. Please just, just shut up."
"Make me."
And that's it really? All of that 6 year old stubbornness that Simon is so good at using to get what he wants and Jace is at his breaking point because Simon's right, if he doesn't do this right now he's never going to do it.
So Jace brings his hands around Simon's neck and kisses the living shit out of him.
Simon is understandably surprised. And he knows he should pull away, he knows that this is wrong and he shouldn't do this to himself because Jace is probably just losing his mind but you know what? Simon doesn't exactly care about that right now.
So he starts kissing back. He brings his arms up to grab Jace's waist and pulls him closer because he's so unfairly tall and Simon doesn't know how to feel about all of this but right now all he can feel is the warm mass of Jace pressed against him and the feeling of his hands cupped around the base of his neck and that's enough for him.
Jace wanted this to be a little sweeter than this. He's a romantic at heart, so of course he wanted their first kiss to be slow and sweet and shy and this is not that but this is just as good. Because Jace is just so mad at Simon. Not for any real reason, he's just mad because for the past 2 weeks every time he saw Simon he saw the way he looked at him in Valentines office. He felt the felt blood leaving his arm and he remembered how good it felt. Jace hasn't able to get Simon out of his head for the past 2 weeks, for the past 2 months and God, what has this fucking vampire done to him.
So he pulls back. He doesn't want to. But he pulls away and just looks at him. Just looks at Simon because he cannot think to do anything else.
"You kissed back."
"It appears that I did."
And suddenly Simon's lips are on his again and oh.
--
It feels like it's been hours, days even before they finally pull apart to breathe as if they haven't been drowning for the past 5 minutes.
They just stand there. Breathing heavily, Jace's hands dropping down from where they tangled themselves in Simon's hair and resting on his hips, Simon's eyes opening to look at Jace's spit-slicked lips and eyes dilated to almost black.
He wants nothing more than to stay in this moment for eternity. They can deal with feelings and emotions and labels later but right now, he just wants this.
They stand like this for another small eternity until something pops into Simon's head.
"Hey. Um, we should probably get outta here. Like, now."
This seems to snap Jace out of whatever little world he was in, and he slowly pulls his head back and shakes out the cobwebs before replying.
"Oh. Um, yea."
How eloquent.
--
They burst out of the closet and book it as fast as they can to the door they came in through, running again past the beer cans and the graffiti, but this time it's less of a "we-are-going-to-die-holy-shit" run, but more of a "I really want to be somewhere else with you" run.
They make it out of the warehouse without ever crossing paths with the Shax demons, and stumble out of the door into the setting sun of the Lower East Side over the East River.
Slowly, they start to walk back to the Institute, less of a destination and more of an assumed ending spot, trying to collect themselves after everything that had happened in the past 30 minutes.
They both realize that they've been holding hands since the closet at the same time, but neither one of them wants to let go.
So that's how they go back. Fingers laced together loosely, pressing sides closer with every couple steps, walking into the setting sun and into something they don't know what to call, but something they know they've gone too long without.