Chapter Text
Simon goes off the radar for weeks after he visits Rebecca in the hospital. He sends her the odd text to tell her that he’s okay, maybe accompanied by an emoji or a weird GIF, but altogether she hears very little from her creature-of-the-night little brother.
It turns out that this was because Clary (who was somehow also involved in all of this stuff) had been caught in some kind of demonic explosion and sent to Edom (Hell-adjacent, or something), and they had to both get her back and disconnect her from some kind of weird mind-control thing her brother had on her…
…Because Clary had a brother and he was a total psychopath. Oh, yes.
Rebecca Lewis doesn’t know this yet, however, when Simon intercepts her outside of a coffee shop near home. The weeks-long absence only makes the reality of Simon’s situation stand out more starkly when she sees him again. The first thing she does is throw her arms around him, because Rebecca Lewis is not going to let one near-exsanguination come between her and her brother.
Simon freezes up at the contact, inhales sharply and then stops breathing altogether. When she finally lets him go, he puts a step of distance between them before exhaling lightly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Hey, Becks,” he says in a strained voice. “How, uh…how are you?”
Instinctively, her eyes track to his mouth, where she knows there are (sometimes) really sharp fangs. Rebecca’s fingers twitch, aching to reach up toward the scars on her neck. It’s become a habit to reach for the injury, to press her fingers against the striated tissue whenever she’s uncomfortable or anxious. It had begun as idle scab-picking, but after she’d nearly ripped her stitches out while first returned home on bedrest, Rebecca had managed to divert the habit into less-harmful poking.
Vampire biting, as it turned out, was a much messier deal with more throat-ripping than the movies had made it seem. Or, at least, it was like that with young vampires whose sisters got right up in their business when they were starving, under intense duress, and also begging them to stay back.
Snap out of it, Becky, Simon really doesn’t need you being weird on top of everything else.
“I’m good,” she answers softly. She means it, too. Then, crossing her arms, she says, “I would have been better if you’d come and visited me more than once, though, you little asshole.”
Simon winces guiltily. Becky’s attempt at humour falls flat against the awkwardness that seems to have sprung between them with the moderately traumatic event of revealing his vampiric nature.
It’s been hard to think about anything else, really. Rebecca has vacillated between berating herself for not knowing sooner, guilt so thick she almost chokes on it, and being incredibly pissed with Simon for not telling, not trusting her, sooner. It’s mostly guilt, though, because she had known something was wrong with him. Rebecca and their mom had both known something was seriously wrong with Simon. Instead of confronting him properly, though, they had both just defaulted to the whole idea that if he had some kind of drug thing going on, he had to recognize the problem himself before anyone else could help him.
Up against his sketchy behaviour, Rebecca had assigned Simon’s changes in appearance to his apparent drug problem. The purplish bruising under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days, the unnatural paleness, the way the veins in his arms stood out more starkly than they ever had – to any normal person, those things just screamed substance abuse. He had become so twitchy and secretive, disappearing for days and weeks and then showing up acting like he’d missed them, like he hadn’t wanted to go away. It all screamed junkie, to them. Rebecca and her mom had even gone as far as researching rehab facilities before the whole…thing that happened.
God, she’d been so naïve and stuck in her own narrative of what must be wrong with Simon instead of what was actually wrong with her brother.
In-the-know Becky can detect the changes in Simon that aren’t human at all, that can’t be given any normal explanation. There’s the fact that he hasn’t actually paled per se, but actually has a strange-but-subtle grey pallor. There’s also the way that he shifts between that extreme twitchiness or preternatural stillness. His twitchiness is a problem unto itself: simply too fast to be normal, it’s Simon’s natural awkwardness manifesting against his vampire speed into movements and ticks that are indisputably supernatural.
There’s also that whole thing where, when his mouth opens, her neck twinges at the sight of canines that are just this side of too sharp. She knows that those canines can drop down to a frightening length, more akin to cat-like ripper teeth – a carnivorous predator’s teeth – than what a person should have.
Rebecca sighs. Snap out of it, Becky. “Simon, I’m seriously fine. Invite me over to your apartment so that we can hang out…unless you want to hang out here.” She gestures toward the window of the coffee shop that they stand in front of.
She’s being super bossy, but Simon’s got his back up and he’s not going to engage without a little harsh prodding. This suits her just fine, because Rebecca has had plenty of years of practice bugging him into submission.
“No, um, that’s fine. My place is good.” He’s rubbing the back of his neck, looking so anxious that he’s going to give Rebecca anxiety. “Jordan should be there, which is probably for the best. I mean, I’ve eaten today, I promise, but-”
Rebecca closes the distance he’d put between them and grabs Simon by the shoulders. Simon shuts up immediately, biting the inside of his cheek. Simon goes from anxious to full-on deer-in-the-headlights, which is hilarious given that he is certainly not the prey here, out of anyone. It makes her want to laugh because Simon being scared of someone completely unthreatening is so very Simon.
Releasing his shoulders, Becky makes grabby hands in his face before making him turn around back the way he’d come. Simon lets her man-handle him easily. Both of them know that he’s way, way stronger than a normal person could be and that if he didn’t want to move, he wouldn’t. Weeks ago, when he’d grabbed her in his blood-frenzied state, it’d felt like being trapped in an iron vice. She had struggled, then, but it had been a pointless effort. His arms might as well have been steel coil, impossible to break through.
Things had gotten hazy after that. She’d relinquished herself to the beautiful floating feeling that apparently accompanied a vampire bite to make the one being bitten as compliant as possible. She can confirm that she was made very compliant, unwilling and unable to do anything because struggling seemed so silly when the feeling was so wonderful.
Rebecca Lewis really can’t reconcile her doofus brother with the literal ultimate predator that he’s become. She will never tell him this. He’ll take it the absolute wrong way.
“Lead on, Stupid,” she says instead.
So, he does.
The trip takes ages – although Simon doesn’t look winded at all, even after they’ve climbed three floors of stairs to his unit (rude). They fill the walk with inane conversation that's more than a little awkward and forced. It's hard to jump back into normalcy when she's spent months convinced that there was something wrong with her brother, and trying to figure out how to do something about it without sending him running.
Simon prods her about school, so she tells him that she’s taking the semester off except for the one online course she’d had. She doesn't mention that it's because she's supposed to be grieving and that their Mom actually is. Simon tells her that he’s been trying to keep up with some accounting classes, but he’s thinking he’ll probably end up dropping out with everything that’s been going on in the Shadow World, these days. Rebecca doesn’t ask for clarification on that but knows that she’ll probably have to eventually.
She tries to focus on what they talk about, but can’t help cataloguing all the differences in her brother now that she knows what he is. It’s the first time she’s really had a chance to talk to him since finding out about the whole vampire thing. She’s got a million burning questions that she can’t formulate sentences for, quite yet.
They both steer clear of the topic of their mom. Rebecca isn’t going to open up that can of worms anywhere but in a private setting. Maybe not even then, unless Simon asks.
When they reach the door, Simon fumbles for house keys like the dork he’s always been and nearly drops them twice before letting them both inside. Thinking of her brother as an ‘ultimate predator’ was probably giving him too much credit. It was almost laughable.
She knows better, though.
The living space they step into is basically Simon’s ultimate nerd fantasy. It’s all video games and rock n’ roll, and smack in the centre of it is Simon’s roommate – Jordan, apparently, who had been there the night Heidi attacked them, but Rebecca doesn't remember him in the slightest.
Jordan is tall and wiry and looks like that boy your mom tells you not to date in high school. His long hair needs a good brushing, but it doesn’t look gross, it’s that unkempt surfer style from any Californian’s wet dream. He introduces himself nervously (ooh, Aussie), eyes flickering to Simon, to her, and then down to her neck.
It’s the scarring that he’s looking at. Simon can see it, too. He probably thought that she wouldn’t notice the way he kept staring at it on the way over until she’d finally brushed her hair over her shoulder to hide it. Everyone has been staring – Rebecca can’t help but notice it, anymore.
“I’m Rebecca,” she says firmly, drawing Jordan’s attention back to her face. She catches Simon shifting awkwardly in the corner of her eye. She doesn’t want this to turn into a guilt trip visit, she just wants to get to know her brother, again.
Jordan guiltily meets her eyes. Yeah, buddy, you’ve been caught.
“Right,” he says. There’s a long, uncomfortable silence before the other man clears his throat and gestures absently toward a closed door. “I, uh, I’ll just be in my bedroom.”
Both Simon and Rebecca watch the other man make a break for it all while trying to look casual, and Rebecca is instantly reminded of how ridiculous boys are.
Simon apparently can’t take the weird anymore. “Do you want anything?” he asks. “I mean, I don’t eat, but I think Jordan has some stuff. Want me to check? I can check.”
Rebecca doesn’t get to answer, because Simon speeds to the kitchen faster than her eye can track. He’s beside her one moment and in front of the fridge the next, trying to seem casual as he peruses what’s inside.
She allows herself to take a moment to be surprised, because as hard as she tries this stuff is all still kind of crazy. Then, she huffs. “Simon, I don’t need anything, it’s fine.”
Realizing that he’s just vampire-d in front of her, Simon goes ramrod straight. Carefully, tense hands shut the door before Simon’s whirling around to face her. “Oh my G- uh, sorry, that was weird. That was weird, wasn’t it?”
Did he just stop himself from saying ‘Oh my God?’
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, almost too quietly for her to hear him. He leans back against the kitchen counter. “This is – it’s still new. I mean, I’m usually too human, but sometimes it’s just…” he trails off, brow creasing as he tries to find the words he’s looking for.
“Sometimes you just can’t help but act like a vampire because you are one?” she asks, trying to inject as much teasing as she can into the question. She doesn’t want him to think that she’s afraid of him. She’s a little afraid of vampires, of what being a vampire will mean for Simon, but she isn’t afraid of him.
Simon bobs his head from side-to-side in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Yeah, I guess. I forget to breathe because I don’t have to, or I get really tired during the daytime because I’m supposed to be nocturnal now-”
“-You were nocturnal before, Si, you literally slept until like 3 p.m. if you could-”
“-and I move too fast. A lot.” He finishes, giving her the Little Brother LookTM that says that she’s being a dick, interrupting him like that. He’s not wrong.
Rebecca tries to hide her grin and fails. “Si-mon,” she says, emphasizing each syllable in his name for the dramatic effect. “I’m going to have questions. Obviously. But right now, I really just want to know if you’re okay. It’s been pretty much radio silence since you visited me in the hospital – so, can we start there?”
Simon takes a moment to process what she’s said. Then, at a much more human pace, Simon returns to the living room area with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. He’s looking everywhere but directly at her, and she’s having none of that crap.
Rebecca drops onto the couch, patting the spot beside her. “Sit,” she demands.
He does.
When she shifts her body so that she’s facing him as much as possible in their side-by-side position on the couch, she notices that he immediately leans away from her and then forward, bracing his elbows on his knees with his head angled down.
“You said you’re not hungry enough to eat me, what’s with the big personal space bubble?”
Simon blinks, like he hadn’t realized she was noticing, and then he makes an embarrassed face that probably would have included blushing, were he still ‘alive.’
“I just…you know,” he gestures at the space between them. She doesn’t, really. Know, that is. Finally, Simon explains with a ground out, “Last time.”
Oh. ‘Last time.’
“You mean when a crazy chick took a knife to my neck and had me get up in your face when you were literally starving, and I wouldn’t listen when you warned me to stay back?”
His head shoots up. Clearly, he’s surprised by his sister’s own version of events that Simon’s most likely been torturing himself with for weeks. He opens his mouth to say something – maybe to argue, maybe to ask what she means, but Rebecca stops him with a hand before he can get the words out.
“Listen, Si, I’m not here for either of us to act all guilty. If Hailey-”
“-Heidi-”
“-Whatever her name is hadn’t done what she did, none of this would have happened. She’s the one to blame, not you and not me. We clear?”
He listens, thankfully, as she speaks. His expression is mostly unreadable, until suddenly his face crumples and he hangs his head back down almost so low as to be between his knees. It’s something Si has always done when he’s trying really, really hard not to burst into tears. Because manliness or something.
Rebecca scoots closer and lays a hand gently across his back. It’s…it’s a lot like when she’d approached him weeks ago, and he’d attacked her. This time, everyone knows better. This time, the circumstances are so drastically different that she doesn’t really feel scared at all.
“Simon, I just want to be your big sister, again.”
He makes a soft little noise that’s suspiciously close to a sob. She wonders which one of them is going to lose it first.
Carefully, so as to avoid spooking him, Rebecca leans forward and snakes her other arm around his front, clasping the two hands together just below his opposite shoulder. She leans her cheek against his back, absently noting that he’s kind of cold to the touch, even through the fabric of his jacket. Well, not cold, but maybe more like there’s an absence of warmth from his body?
Simon’s fingers brush against her arm, feather-light and so, so unsure. Without the barrier of clothing, she notes that, okay, he’s actually pretty cold to the touch. Dare she say, corpse-like. But not…gross, or anything. It’ll just take some getting used to.
Becky starts sobbing pretty much immediately when he shows that responsiveness to her hug – well, it answers the question of who loses it first. It’s not cute film crying, either. It’s that gross full-body weeping that releases all the stress of these crazy past few weeks, of having to live with their mom thinking that Simon is dead, of having to cope with the fact that he had actually died sometime this year and Rebecca hadn’t even known it.
She hadn’t realized how broken she’d been over everything until this moment, where she feels her heart starting to heal a little bit.
He lets her cry it out for a while. Then, Simon gently extricates himself from her grasp, unclasping her hands so carefully, and turns toward her so that he can wrap her in his arms. She needed this so badly – really, really badly. It feels like Simon’s coming home, like she’s getting him back after spending months afraid that she was going to lose him forever to some terrible street drug.
Becky buries her face into the neck of his jacket, her forehead pressed against cool skin, and proceeds to snot all over his clothes. He smells like the drugstore soap he’s been buying since Mom had started letting him buy things like that on his own. It makes her smile into his shoulder despite the fact that she’s still crying, because this is her little brother and she loves him more than anything.
Simon slowly squeezes her to provide some comfort. “Tell me if it’s too tight,” he mumbles, because he probably has to ask about things like this. She thinks it must be awful to have to be that careful with everyone you touch, lest you accidentally break them because you’re that strong. She can’t imagine having to be so aware and attentive to her own strength all the time.
Wetness seeps through the shoulder of her blouse. Becky’s heart feels both full and broken at the same time when she realizes that Simon’s definitely crying, too. It’s a healing kind of hurt. She’d spent months thinking that she was losing her brother, somehow, and couldn’t stop it. Then, she’d found out in the worst way that she actually had lost him, and worse, that she had been none the wiser. Learning that he had died alone and scared in that terrible way he’d described back at the hospital – even if she got him back in the end – is a stark reminder of the mortality that’s been a festering open wound in her heart since Heidi attacked them. It’s been years since she's been consumed with the thought of losing Simon. When their dad had died, she'd gone a little nuts with the worrying about the loved ones she had left dying on her, too. She wonders if she'll spiral back into that.
The thought pulls a question to the forefront of her mind. It’s a really horrible question and she doesn’t want to ask it. Still, she thinks that she kind of has to.
“Simon,” she says quietly, shifting so that her words aren’t muffled by his shoulder. “Si, are you immortal, now?”
Simon goes completely tense, and that’s pretty much an answer unto itself. His arms unwind from her and he pushes them apart. They stare at each other, eyes both red-rimmed and faces covered in tear-tracks. Rebecca wipes her nose with the sleeve of her shirt.
He swallows. Takes a breath. Then, in the most broken voice she's ever heard, Simon replies with a choked, “Yes.”
Becky has read a lot of YA. She thinks that anyone with a brain would figure that real-life immortality would actually be terrible, no matter what literally every trashy vampire romance would lead tweens to believe. Growing up, she’d wondered how characters didn’t go crazy when they lived one, two, three hundred years, stuck standstill in the constant stream of time. Becky had never seriously considered the possibility; however she realizes now that this is the absolute last thing that she ever wanted for Simon.
Simon wipes his eyes, but it’s kind of pointless because neither of them are apparently done crying. “I won’t…I can’t age. I’ll look like this forever. Or until someone kills me, I guess.”
Rebecca’s hand fists in his jacket, hard enough to almost tear the material. “Don’t,” she hisses. “Don’t say things like that, Simon, I swear to God. I’ll beat you up.”
He goes totally blank-faced, and Becky thinks for a split-second that she’s gone too far and he’s going to have a total breakdown. Then, opposite to her expectations, Simon’s face splits into a big, watery smile.
“Becks,” he warbles, “I’m really glad that you know.”
Rebecca laughs. She’s really glad, too.
She still punches him in the arm, though.