Archive of Our Own

         1. As a hello

(three and a half years)

Simon presses a swift kiss to the corner of Jace’s mouth when he arrives at the front door.

“Are you heading out?” Jace asks as he shrugs out of his jacket to hang on the hooks lining the wall. Simon is putting on his sneakers.

“Raphael called - he needs a consult on something that apparently can’t wait. I don’t know if it’s Downworlder Liaison related or something else but he really did not seem to be in a good mood.” Simon zips up the front of his jacket.

“Is Raphael ever in a good mood?” Jace asks as he starts undoing the laces of his combat boots.

“If you catch Raphael in a bad mood, you will know about it, trust me.” Simon leans in to kiss him again when Jace straightens up. “I love you, don’t wait up!” he says as he slips out the front door.

         2. With a hoarse voice, under the blankets
         3. A scream

(eight years)

It never gets easier, is what Jace had come to learn. They’re both active in the field (Jace moreso, but Simon has enough hours logged in his own right), so injuries are things they deal with. An iratze, a blood bag, some good old fashioned rest.

Getting back to the Institute isn’t a problem. Simon can walk on his own two feet, and he’s lucid though clearly in pain. The problem is that Simon is a vampire and has advanced healing and the only pain management they can safely offer vampires is magic, and of course it’s a day that Magnus can’t portal over and help as much as Jace knows he’d want to.

(Magnus has a soft spot for Simon, Jace knows. Maybe it’s just that Magnus adopts every down-trodden Downworlder he can within a ten mile radius, and Simon at the start of their acquaintance had just become one, but Jace gets it; over the years, he’s earned snippets and hints to Magnus’ past, of being lost and alone and afraid, as well as some awful things he was manipulated into doing by people he thought cared for him. Every time he meets a young Downworlder in Magnus’ apartment, it becomes even clearer to Jace that Magnus has a heart that does not give up and that he feels like he has sins he’ll never be washed of.

Jace doesn’t know how to say, and does know that it is not his place to say, that anything Magnus did or was made to do was wiped from the record a long time ago.)

The hardest part is Simon letting out a choked off scream when the medic has to break his arm again because vampire healing means it healed wrong in the time it took them to get back to the Institute from patrol. The hardest part is that the only thing Jace can do is hold Simon’s other hand. The hardest part is being able to heal his own broken fingers from Simon squeezing so tightly while watching Simon have to go through his pain unassisted.

The attending medic leaves them alone to get Simon a bag of blood, and Jace reminds himself to send her a fruit basket or something. A thank you for taking care of my husband gift. Simon probably knows what a good gift would be.

(They’ve come a long way in the last decade with how Shadowhunters treat Downworlders in the New York Institute, but some people are set in their ways. So the gift is also a thank you for respecting us gift, a you didn’t bat an eye when we came in gift, a I wish I didn’t still feel afraid gift. Thinking about it makes Jace feel tired.)

Jace kisses Simon’s knuckles from the hand still curled in his own. Simon gives him a little smile from his bed. It never gets easier. But it’s always worth it.

         4. Over a cup of tea
         5. Over a beer bottle

(minus one week)

Simon may not want to admit it, but in a way Jace has become a kind of anchor in this new scary world he lives in. He’s been a constant presence in his life as the tide of the Shadow World washed in and out around him.

In - Simon gets kidnapped by vampires. Out - Simon gets rescued. In - Simon dies. Out - Simon becomes a vampire. He’s seen it all now. (He most definitely has not seen it all but to assume that he has stops him from speculating and overwhelming himself. It’s a pretty foolproof plan.)

It feels like the Shadow World has tried to drown him at every turn, and yet here he is, still alive - or unalive, he guesses - and drinking the finest alcoholic O-Negative in Magnus’ apartment; it’s abuzz with life, filled with colourful characters in every genre of Downworlder, and he’s out on the balcony alone, waxing poetic about some dumb blonde.

There are a lot of things he doesn’t want to admit about Jace. He doesn’t want to admit that sometimes when he looks at Jace, he still feels hungry, like he can already taste his blood on his lips; it’s been months, but the feeling of flying towards the sun is just on the tip of his tongue.

Someone steps up to the wall of the balcony to interrupt his melancholy.

“How can you be a vampire and still be so easily startled?” says Jace, leaning with his elbows up on brick next to Simon. He’s holding a half empty beer bottle in his hands.

“How can you be such an asshole and, uh…” Simon starts, and in his peripherals he can see Jace’s eyebrows go up, his lips faintly betraying a smirk. “Yeah, I got nothing.” Simon swallows a mouthful from his glass.

Jace chuckles. He seems to be in a good mood. Simon watches him as he takes another sip, follows the swoop of Jace’s bangs falling into his face all the way down to where he drinks from the bottle, then down further to where his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Simon looks away quickly after that.

There are a lot of things he doesn’t want to admit about Jace. He doesn’t want to admit that sometimes when he looks at Jace, he still feels hungry, but not necessarily for blood - sometimes it’s that Simon wants to push up against him, hold on and touch and feel. Jace’s voice rings in his head as the man himself stands next to him unawares: no, never.

“It’s a nice night out,” Simon says, because he feels tipsy and stupid.

“That why you’re out here alone when everyone else is having a good time inside?” Jace asks, gesturing to the empty balcony widely with the neck of his beer bottle. Under the teasing, there’s something to it that takes a second for Simon to identify. Concern, it seems like.

Simon sighs. “I guess I’m not in the party mood,” he says, looking down into his glass of blood.

Jace hums for a second, head tilted up towards the sky as if he could see the stars. “Don’t tell Magnus that,” he jokes lightly. He seems so relaxed, much more so than Simon’s ever seen him; he keeps rolling the glass bottle between his hands like he can’t keep still, a small, casual and mindless movement. Jace spends so much time holding himself together, tucking in the fraying edges and hiding his scars; it’s nice to see him like this, loose and quietly jovial.

“I don’t know, I might just go home. I have a song I want to finish for my next gig.” Simon downs what’s left in his cup and sighs again.

“When is it?” Jace asks, taking another sip of his beer.

“Uh, Thursday night. Izzy and Clary are coming.” And then, because the alcohol makes him a little braver than normal: “It’d be nice if you came too.”

He looks at Jace, and he has that faint smirk on his face again and his eyes are bright and looking at Simon so unashamedly, like he’s really seeing him, seeing right through him, the way he always does -

“Maybe,” Jace says casually, looking away and out into the horizon. “If I’m not on patrol.”

“Cool,” Simon says lamely, but Jace looks back at him, and Simon feels a little bit dizzy when he meets Jace’s eyes.

There are a lot of things he doesn’t want to admit about Jace. There’s the lust and the bloodlust, but there’s also a part of Simon that always feels like he’s just been struck in the head when he looks at Jace. Like he’s flying further and higher than the blood could ever achieve.

         6. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair
         7. As a thank you

(five and a half years)

“I was thinking,” Jace starts, looking across at Simon in bed. He hates that his voice sounds nervous already.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Simon immediately replies, but puts down his phone where he was watching cat videos, and turns more bodily towards Jace. He then places his hand over Jace’s, and waits for him to talk again. Jace really does love him.

“When we get married,” he starts over, and Simon’s face gets a soft, dopey look to it. He always gets that expression whenever it comes up, and it makes Jace’s heart flutter. “We’re supposed to take each other’s names and -”

“- And you’re worried because I’m going to have to take so many names?” Simon jokes, interrupting him the way he always does. Jace is used to it by now - Simon interrupted him at the exact point in the sentence Jace expected him to because Simon is predictable and Jace is entirely too endeared to him to be annoyed by it anymore. “Hi, I’m Lewis, Simon Wayland-Morgenstern-Herondale-Lightwood-Lewis.” Simon gets that little glint in his eye that tells Jace he’s about to launch into a complete and utter tangent, and as much as Jace loves him, he does actually have something to say.

“Simon, listen to me,” he laughs, and Simon snaps back to reality, squeezing his hand for a second as if to apologise.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Instead of having that problem, why not just stay Simon Lewis?” Jace asks slowly, “And I could be Jace Lewis.”

Simon stares at him for a second. And then keeps staring at him. Rendering Simon speechless is a rare but enjoyable experience usually, but Jace starts to feel the trickles of doubt that Simon doesn’t want that, and that Jace is screwing it up -

“Are you sure? Is that what you want?” Simon asks, his eyes big and round. “I was joking but -”

“Simon,” Jace says, curling their fingers together properly. He can feel his own ring pressing into the skin of his finger. He takes a breath to compose himself and figure out how to explain it. “Every time I got a new name, it was someone else giving it to me. Valentine, my grandmother -” he sighs as he uses his free hand to push his hair out of his face. “If I take your name - and just your name, I get to chose. The names are - it’s about repute and prestige and I don’t need that. I don’t want to drag you into that. It’s pointless. But if I’m a Lewis? It’s because I love you, and I picked you.”

Simon is looking at him through his whole spiel like he’s the most beautiful thing in the world. “Well, then, I guess we’ll both just be Mr. Lewis.” Simon’s smile is bright and beautiful, and Jace gets to marry him, and he loves him so deeply that it almost hurts.

Jace leans across to kiss him, mumbles thank you against his lips so softly that if Simon wasn’t a vampire he probably won’t have heard it. Simon kissing him harder tells him that he did.

         8. As an apology

         9. When baking chocolate chip cookies

(eleven months)

Jace isn’t sure how their kitchen got commandeered for Izzy’s birthday surprise. Simon has flour in his hair, Clary has it all over her shirt, and their counters are dusted in a fine layer of it like fresh snow.

Simon can’t even eat.

“Why chocolate chip cookies?” Jace asks as he throws the dish towel over his shoulder, and joins the whole room in being covered in flour. It puffs out of the cloth like a rug having the dust beaten out of it. He doesn’t know why he didn’t expect it.

“Because Izzy told me she liked them,” Clary tells him as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. She pours even more chocolate chips into the bowl of sticky brown dough.

Jace rolls his eyes, and then sees what he thinks is flour on the ceiling. How do you get flour on the ceiling?

“How do you get flour on the ceiling?” he asks incredulously.

“Are you going to keep asking stupid questions or are you going to help us?” Simon asks, not looking up as he measures parchment paper to a baking sheet.

Jace shrugs and gets to work.

         10. Not said to me
         11. With a shuddering gasp

(five months)

“You’re so sweet like this,” Simon laughs into the crown of Jace’s head. Jace makes a noise that sounds like a disgruntled kitten, which does but reaffirm Simon’s point. Jace snuggles further into Simon’s chest.

“What, I’m not allowed cuddle with my boyfriend after we have sex?” He mumbles against his skin. “Stop being a dick.”

Simon presses his smile into Jace’s hair and just holds onto him tighter.

         12. When we lay together on the fresh spring grass
         13. In a letter

(after)

They’d forgotten to buy more post-it notes, so Jace had just written his note on a scrap of paper torn out of a lined notebook. He pinned it to the refrigerator under the simple Batman logo magnet Simon had impulse-bought about three years ago.

Si,
Alec called me in about an emergency in London.
I might not be home until tomorrow night,
Do not watch the next episode without me!
Love you,
- J

Jace doesn’t make it home. Simon never watches the next episode. The note stays pinned on the fridge for a very long time afterwards.

         14. A whisper in the ear

(eight months)

When Simon was a kid, young and still naive about the world, he liked to imagine that one day he’d live in a nice house with a white picket fence when he was grown up. He’d wear a tie to work like his dad, and come home to his wonderful, although faceless, wife and family - because at this time, he had not met Clary or figured out that he sometimes loved boys yet - two kids and unimpeded happiness.

His dad dies. His mom turns to alcohol. Somehow those things don’t change his mind.

Jace presses against his back in the little apartment they now share, which is mostly empty of furniture as of right now because it’s only day one of moving in and everyone is on assignment (Clary and Izzy) or working (Maia and Luke) or in Hamburg, Germany, of all places (Magnus and Alec). Simon keeps washing the dishes, and Jace doesn’t demand anything more from him than the flat of his back and the span of his waist. His breath just caresses the shell of Simon’s ear warmly, and his heart beat is steady and relaxed. It’s domestic, Simon thinks.

It’s not a white fence - they don’t even have a balcony, let alone a yard - and it’s a bit early to decide on kids, and he doubts he’ll ever have a true nine-to-five job, but - he’s happy. It’s a flighty feeling, and their lives are not the least bit stable but he’s happy. He’s happy.

         15. Loud, so everyone can hear
         16. Over and over again, till it’s nothing but a senseless babble

(two months)

Jace knew they’d have to tell the others, at some point - Alec was getting suspicious about who Jace was spending his free time with, and Clary had apparently starting bugging Simon about always being busy. Jace knew they were running out of time keeping him and Simon to themselves.

Telling them this way, however, was not what Jace had planned.

Simon, of course, gets kidnapped. They joke about it being a common occurrence, but it’s the first time in a while, and Jace swears his heart is going to hammer out of his chest. Alec keeps giving him these looks as if he can feel Jace’s heart palpitations; parabatai bonds don’t work like that, but these days it seems like anything is possible. It’s probably just the fear and anger bleeding across to him no matter how much Jace tries to quell it but he clearly isn’t succeeding.

The only reason they even know anything right now is because whoever got the jump on Simon did it while he was on the phone to Clary, and then didn’t dispose of his phone, leading them directly to the docks. Izzy proposed that they were just amateurs, Alec thought maybe it was a trap since Simon’s known to hang around Shadowhunters, and Clary suggested it was someone trying to get the secret to becoming a Daylighter.

Jace contributed nothing to their conversation because it felt like the rage in his chest was rattling. The part of Jace that’s been trained to be a soldier for twenty-something years is being overridden by the part of Jace that’s been in love with Simon for a few months, and he doesn’t care about the motive, he doesn’t care who did it - only that he can save Simon and kill any son of a bitch who hurt him.

The warehouse by the docks is condemned. They find Simon’s smashed phone on the ground, and Jace reminds himself to shake Simon for being so stupid to go for a stroll after dark on the docks in the direction going away from the Jade Wolf.

Naturally the warehouse is filled with demons. They’re ugly bastards but not that smart and clearly summoned by not the most powerful of beings. They scuttle on six pointed insect-like legs and surge towards them as soon as Alec pulls the door open like cockroaches suddenly exposed to light. Jace is really glad that these ones can’t fly.

Jace has barely just broken a sweat as he cuts through the last demon like butter, the whole thing disappearing into a cloud of dust, when one of the doors towards the rear of warehouse opens more fully and Simon steps through followed by Clary. He seems shaken and he has blood on his forehead from what was clearly a blow to the face, and Jace -

It’s like something in Jace’s heart breaks - smashes, really, and his emotions burst out and saturate everything. There’s blinding anger, and sweet relief, and slowly dismounting horror, but mostly it’s molten hot love.

If to love and be loved only ends in destruction, then he’ll have been honoured to go out messy for Simon; cut himself open every time Simon needs to feed; bleed out for Simon. It’s the most painful, beautiful kind of love he’s ever felt - and he told Simon before when it felt sweet like honey and soft as down feathers, he said it when he never thought he’d be able to, and meant it fully, and Simon knows, but looking at Simon limping out of a back room in the warehouse, holding onto Clary like a comfort blanket, Jace doesn’t think about his siblings and Clary standing there. He just acts.

He crosses the floor in a few strides and grabs Simon and smashes their lips together. It’s like coming home and a roaring fire and the adrenaline is still pumping through his body but this is what makes him feel the most alive. It takes a second but he realises he’s mumbling I love you, I love you, I love you against Simon’s lips, over and over again, not even kissing anymore. Simon seems just as content as him to stand there, with him in their little bubble.

Someone clears their throat behind them, and Jace knows that they’re going to have to explain themselves, but he really, really just wants to keep his forehead pressed to Simon’s right now. Jace sighs, resigning himself to many questions he doesn’t think he’ll ever feel equip to answer and pulls away from Simon.

Alec looks vaguely amused, and Izzy and Clary are trying to push down their smiles. Jace wraps his arm around Simon’s waist to steady him.

“Simon, do you know what the kidnappers wanted?” Alec asks, steady as ever. Part of Jace knows that Alec isn’t foolish enough to demand the details of their relationship while being out in the open, somewhat vulnerable to ambush, but he’d still been waiting for him to ask. He lets out a deep breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

Simon clears his throat. “Oh, yeah, uh - some vampires, not a part of the clan. They wanted to know if I really was a Daylighter. I think they heard you coming and got spooked since - they all seemed really young, they didn’t have the power to take on four Shadowhunters. They mentioned something about needing to pay a warlock? Who I guess summoned those demons, I don’t really know.”

Alec nods. He looks around the building, towards the rafters and then back towards the door they entered through. “If there’s a warlock whose willing to summon demons for fledglings, then we should probably leave. Anyone who does something like that shouldn’t be taken lightly.” Alec turns back and looks at Simon. “Simon, you should come back to the Institute and get checked out. I’ll check in with Magnus and see if he knows any warlocks who would agree to this.”

They start to head out, Jace holding onto Simon even if his steps seem less burdened by the second, when Simon mumbles under his breath, “That went better than expected.”

“What,” Jace replies, hand firmly clasped on Simon’s side, “You getting kidnapped, or us coming out to my siblings and our ex-girlfriend?”

“Both,” Simon tells him, far too positively. Jace represses the desire to roll his eyes at him.

         17. When the broken grass litters the floor
         18. From very far away

(four months)

Simon bites his lip. The hand not holding his phone to his ear is gripping the upper arm of the one that is, fingers just resting in the bend of his elbow. He looks out the window of Alec’s office as the rain flows down. It’s like someone is pouring one endless bucket of water over the glass, one unending sheet of wet.

It feels wrong that Jace isn’t here when things are starting to kick off. It feels wrong standing in Alec’s office, listening to Jace’s tinny voice over the receiver. It feels wrong, wrong, wrong, and Simon doesn’t know what to do.

“- And any approval from the Clave to take me off this mission will take hours to be processed,” Jace is saying, so far away in fucking Copenhagen and Simon can’t touch him or kiss him, or just - Simon doesn’t know. He misses him, especially now.

Alec slips back through the door, and Simon’s eyes stray from the window for seconds to take him in. Clary and Izzy don’t follow.

“Okay,” Simon says into the phone, nodding even though Jace can’t see him. He’s looking out the window again. The sky is a dark grey and it seems angry as the thunder rolls in the distance.

“I have to go, but Simon -”

“Yeah, don’t do anything stupid, I know,” he can’t help but smile fondly, relish in the familiarity of the sentiment just for a second like he can pretend that their world isn’t threatened once again.

“I love you,” Jace blurts out, voice quick and sharp. He sounds scared, almost desperate. It’s far from the first time he’s said it, but somehow it still feels like it.

“I love you too,” Simon replies. He doesn’t look back at Alec. It feels too urgent to not say it back, and Simon knows deep down that Alec is a man who understands that. All that he’s been through with Magnus, he has to.

His shoulders slump when the line finally goes dead, and he sighs as he turns around to face Alec. He doesn’t think he’s ever been alone in a room with Alec before, and he also feels uncomfortable standing in this office now that Jace isn’t in his ear.

It’s not the same office, but - it’s close enough. It has the same kind of chairs that Valentine tied him down to, and it looks the same. He wonders if they managed to get his blood out of the carpet and the seat, or if they just replaced them. He figures the latter.

Him and Alec have been silent and facing each other for about thirty seconds, and now Simon feels kind of awkward. “Where are Clary and Izzy?” he finally asks.

“They’re going to talk to Luke to see if the pack can give us any more information on these attacks. Now that we know that they’re related to the attacks on vampires in Bushwick, we think there might also have been attacks on other Downworlders that weren’t reported.” Alec sounds as no-nonsense as always, on the ball and ready to lead them into battle.

(Simon thinks it might be silly that he still feels in awe of Alec sometimes. He hasn’t known him for long, but it’s long enough that the feeling should have faded. It makes Simon feel a little embarrassed, to tell the truth. But he knows deep down that he managed to arrive just in time to watch Alec’s life turn around, a perfect spectator in the events that touched every facet of Shadowhunter society and made the Clave sit up.

He feels giddy when he remembers Alec charging down the aisle at his own damned wedding to kiss Magnus in plain view of the whole Institute. At the time it was just beautiful, but Simon sees the legacy of that every time he looks at Alec. Him and Magnus smashed that glass ceiling and laid the way. Him and Jace are lucky that they’ll only had to walk it after. Man and man, Shadowhunter and Downworlder.)

Simon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose for a second to try and offset the headache he can feel coming. “Okay, what will I do?”

Alec is standing at ease by the door. At first it always seemed so unnatural to Simon for Alec and Jace to stand like that, but over time he’s gotten used to it. It’s just a part of their body language, the unspoken signals of their day-to-day. Simon actually thinks now it’d be more unnatural for them to have bad posture. “You should go talk to the vampires in the clan, see if anyone has noticed anything unusual, if there’s been any transient or unfamiliar Downworlders in the area recently, anyone they didn’t recognise. That could help us narrow down a motive or suspect.”

“I’ll have to wait until sundown - no one will be awake right now.” Simon gestures vaguely towards the window, where the rain continues to pour.

Alec nods. “Magnus asked Raphael to relay how important it is for the clan to stick together right now and possibly avoid going out at all.”

Simon purses his lips. “They won’t be happy about a curfew.”

Alec acknowledges this with a slight nod. “It’s not a strict curfew, only a suggestion. They’ll likely be more cooperative this way.”

Simon nods, arms crossed, and turns back to face the window. It’s torrential; Simon can’t imagine how committed you have to be to your evil plans to still want to do your ill-will in weather like that. Simon would much rather be at home educating Jace on mundane pop culture, but then again Simon isn’t evil. Not being evil definitely puts a damper on your evil plans.

“You really love Jace,” Alec states all of a sudden. Simon looks back at him where he stands, still at ease but with his head tilted just so, like he’s considering Simon. He doesn’t sound angry or disgusted - which is great because Alec could kick him out of the Institute very easily, or even kill him. But it’s deeper than that because - Alec is Jace’s brother, his parabatai, the person he’s closest to in the world. Alec’s approval means a lot to Simon.

“Yeah, I don’t think - I’ve never loved someone this much,” he says, haltingly. “I thought I loved Clary for so long but - this is different.” He hopes that Alec gets it. “He’s just - he’s it for me, I think.”

Alec, as a man, does not mince his words and does not say more than he needs to say. He’s the stoic and silent type (except when he looks at Magnus, and it’s like he melts), and when he says things, it’s like he’s carefully plucked each word out, considered it carefully and put it on his tongue at the ready. Him and Simon are so different that way - Simon doesn’t think he could sort his words like that even if he tried.

So when Alec says, “I’ve never seen him love someone the way he loves you,” it’s kind of a surprise. The words are still picked one by one, Simon can tell, but they’re softer around the edges.

If Alec is stoic and silent, Simon is emotional and babbling. Simon grew up with a little too much self-depreciation to be healthy, has been left behind enough to know that sometimes people leave - if he has his doubts, and is sometimes weak to them, there’s precedent.

Which is why he says: “What about Clary?” He knows as soon as he says it that he’s being stupid. But still, part of his mind wonders in those moments when Jace feels a little too far away for comfort, for assurances.

Alec softens; he can’t explain it but it’s like the parts of him that seem so sharp suddenly soften until Alec isn’t Alec, Head of the New York Institute, or Alec the Shadowhunter. He’s just Alec. There’s no supernatural fighting, no war - he’s just a guy. He’s a guy who loves his brother so much he’d probably tell his brother’s boyfriend to his face if he thought he was in anyway unworthy.

“Simon,” he says, “Jace doesn’t love very easily. It takes him a long time to let people in. When he was with Clary - his heart wasn’t in it. He’s a lot happier with you. I can feel it.”

Simon lets out a breath he didn’t realised he was holding, and nods, looking anywhere but at Alec, who clears his throat as if to forget he said anything at all. He doesn’t look soft anymore, he just looks awkward. Simon guesses being bad at emotions is a Lightwood Family trait.

Simon finally looks at Alec, looks him in the eye, and says in a voice more emotional than he would have liked, “Uh - Thank you, Alec. That - that means a lot. To me.” He clears his throat too. Then he says, “I was expecting you to be the one to give me the shovel talk, but Isabelle beat you to it,” because he has to make a joke.

Alec laughs - or laughs as much as he ever laughs, barely an upturned lip and exhaled breath. Still, Simon feels like he earned it.

         19. With no space left between us
         20. As we huddle together, the storm raging outside

(minus two months)

Maybe Simon is thinking too hard along the lines of pathetic fallacy, but he thinks that the rain really is apt for the mood right now. The Institute is a sturdy old building, plus whatever shit that the Shadowhunters did upon moving in means it’s not in any danger of blowing away, but even at the centre of it, Simon can hear the way the wind whips against the old gothic spirals. It might just be the vampire hearing though.

The training room is filled with Clary’s grunts and strikes as she works on one of the bags, beating it mercilessly. Her hands are bound and swinging swift and hard like the bag personally offended her.

“Hey,” he says and tries to sound casual, failing completely.

She looks are him, chest still heaving, sweat soaking into her shirt. “Hey,” she says, also trying for casual and failing too. She moves to the side and drinks from her water bottle.

“So I just saw that Candyman 2 got added to Netflix,” he says, looking at her knowingly, eyebrows raised just the slightest. “Farewell to the Flesh.”

Her face curls into a grateful smile. She looks down and laughs before starting to unwind her hand wraps. “Is it bad?”

“It has twenty-nine percent on Rotten Tomatoes,” he says confidently.

They curl up in her bed with Clary’s laptop across their knees, making fun of the movie. Six months ago, this would be the norm. Now it’s a rarity, something he knows Clary undoubtedly needs; an hour and a half of bad slocky nineties horror, popcorn, and no questions.

He’ll ask why she broke up with Jace tomorrow. Tonight is just for them.

         21. Over your shoulder

(ten years)

It takes Simon a long time to reconcile the fact that he destroyed his mother’s life. Jace tells him he was protecting her, that getting her messed up into their world would have been worse for her, but even so, he ruined her life.

He made peace with that years ago. His mom thought he was dead by way of enchanto, Becky knew but kept her distance at Simon’s request after their mom completely flipped, and they moved to Florida to be close to his Bubbie in her retirement. It was what was best, but it tore him up inside when April came around and he couldn’t wish her a happy birthday, or spend a night drinking tea in their kitchen when he can’t sleep and talking about nothing at all, it always seemed. He misses her fiercely, deeply, like a tear that can never be sown or an ache that can never be cured.

Until.

Of all the ways to spend his first proper day-off from his duties to the Shadow World in literal weeks, he didn’t expect this one.

It starts with him watching the next episode of whatever amazingly-shitty scifi show him and Jace have been watching, even though Jace warned him not to watch on without him. It starts with him lounging in his most beat up sweatpants (that used to be Jace’s) on their couch, content to do nothing all day until Jace came home and they could curl up together. It starts with a furious pounding on his front door.

They’ve never been stupid - Simon working as a delegate or a diplomat or a liaison, whatever his title is these days since they keep changing it, his duties may make enemies of rogues in all genres, and the apartment is covered in wards placed and maintained regularly by Magnus, High Warlock himself. If this was someone with any true ill-intent, they wouldn’t be able to step ten feet within the door.

But still; Simon is cautious. He puts down his laptop, balls up the blanket over his knees and runs to the door. When he looks through the peep-hole, he thinks if his heart was still beating, it would have stopped.

“Mom?” he says, as he finally wretches the door open. There, in all her vaguely frazzled glory, stands his mother with her greying hair, soft cardigan and bright eyes, tracking him with a sort of wonder he’s never seen before. She’s beautiful. She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Simon?” she manages to say, still one moment and moving in the next. Her arms are like a vice around his ribs, holding on so tightly that she may never let go. Her face is buried in his neck, fists tangled in the back of his shirt and she’s warm, so warm, and she smells just like she used to - Chanel No. 5 and her fabric softener, and the salt of tears. He holds on fiercely, as tight as he can without hurting her and even maybe tighter but she doesn’t complain, just weeps into his throat like he’s just come home from war.

He has the wherewithal to drag Rebecca into the hug too, his big sister looking at him with the same kind of awe he saw on his mother, so grown up and yet so familiar. It feels like his heart could burst. He feels full, filled with something he didn’t even know he was yearning for. The ache aches even more, but in the best way, like a workout, like a prayer.

They all blubber in the door for a minute, shameless in their reunion, but eventually they go inside, wiping their eyes. His mom wipes her nose in her sleeve and a laugh bubbles forth from inside Simon somewhere, thinking of all the times she scolded him for doing the same when he was sick.

They sit around the couch, and take a few deep breaths to calm themselves. He doesn’t know what to say, just wants to bask in the glow his mom gives off, breathe deeply, purposely and burn her into his memories this way. He’s seen photos of her over the years, ones that Rebecca sent him, but to see her with his own two eyes, it’s like - it’s like home.

“What -? How -?” he tries to ask but everything he wants to ask seems irrelevant.

“I, uhm,” his mom starts, wiping her eyes one last time, sniffling until her voice is level, “I was doing some cleaning out, and I found one of your old shirts at the bottom of a pile in my closest and it hit me like a ton of bricks,” she tells him, her eyes wide and still wet but not spilling over. “You - you telling me that you died in an accident and the blood in your room and the rat,” both his mom and Simon shudder at the memory, “I just remembered all of it. And I knew I had to come and see you, and tell you how stupid you are!” She takes a deep breathe, and really seems to get fired up then, angry, and Simon knows she has every right to be upset. “You made me think that you were dead, you tricked me, Simon, how could you?” New tears spill over, streaking down her cheeks, as her breathing hitches again.

Simon hangs his head, grasping one of her hands in his. “Mom, I’m - I’m so sorry. I - I can’t apologise enough. It broke my heart to do that, but - if you’d stayed, you - there was a lot of bad stuff happening and if people found out where you lived, then they would have hurt you to hurt me. Killed you even.”

“Other vampires?” His mom asks, and Simon flinches. She doesn’t say it like she’s disgusted anymore, but coming from her mouth, it makes something in his stomach turn. He nods.

“And you were so upset when you found out, you called me a monster, Mom, you pointed a knife at me. You - you couldn’t handle it, and I couldn’t live with you hating me or being in danger, so I had to let you go. To keep you safe.”

She takes a deep breath, and nods. She puts the hand that Simon isn’t holding on Rebecca’s knee. “I guess we both did things we regret,” she says somberly. She pulls both of them towards her, Becky’s arm around their Mom’s back to hold onto Simon’s shirt, her cheek against the back of her shoulder on the soft pilling wool of her cardigan. Simon presses his forehead to his mother’s, her arm around his shoulder with her hand on the back of his neck, her other hand holding Becky’s. They’re just a tangle, so close that Simon can feel their heartbeats, and he never wants to let them go.

Simon’s not sure how long they sit there, just holding on, but he can hear the front door open (with no keys since Jace uses his unlock rune, that asshole).

“Hey, Simon,” he calls out as he shuffles out of his shoes. Simon can hear the crinkle of a paper bag, followed by the light waft of pad thai from the Jade Wolf. “I picked up some B-Positive on the way home. Maia says hi.” He’s sauntering down the hallway towards the living room. “I was thinking we could watch the next episode of -” He rounds the corner and stops dead in his tracks, looking caught off guard by the company.

“Jace, hi,” Simon says, sniffling. “My - my mom is here. And Becky.” He turns to his Mom, “Mom, you remember Jace, right?”

“Of course I do,” she gives him a somewhat watery smile, “Sorry, I’m -” she gestures vaguely to herself, referring to how much of a mess she must feel.

“No, it’s fine, don’t worry.” He finally budges from being frozen in the doorway and sits next to Simon. “It’s good to see you,” he tells her, soft and sincere. His mom melts a little. He looks at all three of them. “Will I make some tea?”

“That’d be good,” Becky says, looking from her mom to Jace to where Jace has his left hand on Simon’s knee, smiling a soft little smile. Simon nods.

Jace stands up and grabs the bag of pad thai from the end-table beside the couch. Simon looks at his Mom and says, “I’m just going to -” gesturing weakly. Both his mom and his sister nod, and he follows Jace into the kitchen.

Jace is filling up their one and only teapot, given to them by Magnus as a wedding present. He places it in the microwave and sets the time, before turning towards Simon and leaning back on the counter. Simon opens the cupboard where Jace keeps all his assorted teas and brushes them aside to find the forgotten box of earl grey just behind the varieties of peppermint and chamomile that Jace prefers. He holds it for a second like it’s precious, considering the box as his thumb smooths over the slightly raised lettering. Maybe he always knew his mom would come back.

“Have you fed?” Jace asks quietly, and Simon looks over his shoulder at him, takes in his relaxed posture, his loosely crossed arms, his eyes as vivid as the first time he saw him. They’ve been together for ten years, but Simon doesn’t think he’ll ever be over the fact that Jace loves him back.

“Not yet,” he tells him, crossing the kitchen to take the pot out of the microwave. He puts the teabags in the pot and swirls, watching them diffuse into the water as Jace takes out an opaque cup with a lid and fills it from the bag. Generally he’d drink straight from the bag, but he doesn’t think his mom or Becky could handle that yet. Jace is clearly on the same page.

Jace wraps his arms around his waist for a second, face tucked into the nape of his neck. “I’m so happy for you,” he says, whispers really, into the skin there.

Simon closes his eyes and breathes in for a second, Jace and earl grey and pad thai and Chanel No.5 and just savours all of it. “Me too,” he whispers back. Jace pulls away after a second and takes the tray out to the living room.

It never felt like he was choosing Jace (and the Shadow World) over his mom and Becky, but now he’s quietly hopeful that after all this time, he will be lucky enough to have both in his life, have everyone he loves again, after spending so long thinking he could only have one.

         22. Muffled, from the other side of the door
         23. Through a song
         24. Without really meaning it

(minus three months)

He doesn’t even realise he’s been stabbed at first. It feels like he’s been punched, and Valentine has his hand around his shoulders to cradle his neck, and time seems frozen, just for a second. Then he looks down, and sees the knife sticking out from over his heart, buried all the way to the hilt.

Valentine looks apologetic, calls him son in a tone of voice that bleeds guilt. What for, Jace isn’t sure, because it can’t be for this. It can’t be for the stab wound in his chest. Valentine doesn’t have the capacity for regret anymore. He’s a monster; you forfeit regret when you stop being a person.

It starts to hurt when he pulls the blade back out, and Jace knows that he’s going to die on the shore of Lake Lyn. His hands are slippery with his own blood when he touches his leather jacket.

Clary hovers over him, and he takes a moment to wonder when exactly he came to be lying on the ground, and she’s talking with her eyes so wide and brimming with tears, trying to be calm but utterly failing as he nods. He isn’t listening to her. Everything is fading.

“I love you,” he mumbles, because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. He doesn’t know that it’s true, only that he should say it.

His eyes close. The void swallows him, dark and empty, and blessedly quiet.

Clary screams but he cannot hear her.

         25. In a blissful sigh as you fall asleep
         26. Broken, as you clutch the sleeve of my jacket and beg me not to leave

(four and a half years)

He’s not sure what changes, or when it changes, or if anything even changes at all. Both him and Simon were good, they had everything they needed. They have their apartment, they have their jobs, they have each other.

It’s just that - neither of them have been sleeping great, they’ve been so busy the last few months, is what Jace keeps telling himself. They’re fighting demons, they’re training new Shadowhunters, they’re convening with Downworlders, they’re consulting, they’re advising, they’re -

They’re exhausted. That’s what Jace keeps telling himself.

He comes home from the Institute early. Alec said he dismissed Simon already and told them he’s putting them both on leave for a few days. He doesn’t have it in him to argue because he knows deep down that Alec’s right

“You look exhausted,” Izzy had told him when he came into the armoury at around noon. He was expecting her to chew him out for breaking his stele again, not for her look at him with her big eyes filled with concern. I’m fine, he told her.

“Magnus said Simon looks exhausted too,” she added delicately. She’d put her perfectly manicured hand on his wrist and kept going. “If you and Simon are having problems,” she had said, “You’re allowed to talk about it. Simon’s my friend but you’re my brother, Jace.”

Alec had called him into his office soon after that.

Being home in the middle of the day is a bit bizarre to him. He hasn’t been in a while, and he guesses that the given situation might be why. It makes him feel guilty - but guilt doesn’t help them right now.

Simon is lying on the bed. Fully dressed but for his sneakers which are kicked to the floor. He has his back to the bedroom door, on Jace’s side of the bed. Jace’s heart is already aching, but seeing him on Jace’s side makes it feel like a fissure is running down the centre of his heart. It’s like he’s trying to be close to him, but he doesn’t know how anymore.

He sits down on Simon’s side and unlaces his boots. Then he lies down, curled up facing each other but not quite touching, just looking.

“Alec is giving both of us some personal days,” he tells Simon. He tries to swallow. He doesn’t succeed. Simon just keeps looking at him with tired red-rimmed eyes. “To - figure this out.” Simon nods, but doesn’t say anything. “What going on, Simon?”

Simon opens his mouth, and tries to say something but can’t get the words out; Simon Lewis not being able to talk sounds like the cruelest irony of all.

“I don’t know,” he whispers eventually, barely audible. Tears leak from his eyes. He curls his fingers into the sleeve of Jace’s leather jacket like its a life line, like he might fly away, like he might drown. “I don’t know,” he repeats, now with a crackle in his voice. “I just feel - hollow. It’s like everything I do - I’m just fading away. Like one day I’ll reach out and nothing will be there anymore. Everyone will be gone.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jace promises him, earnest and sincere. “I’m right here, Simon. I’m right here with you.”

Simon’s face twists and twists and then crumples, and he lets out a sob. Jace hauls him close, and prays to the angels, prays with every ounce of his being, his soul, every drop of Ithuriel’s blood in his body, every drop in Simon’s, that for once Simon could just have some sort of peace.

         27. A taunt, with one eyebrow raised and a grin bubbling at your lips

(seven months)

The training room is bathed in diffused early morning light from the window at the rear.

They’re using the whole floor-space to train as they go back and forth, side to side, almost like a dance - a dance of clashing batons and near hits and crouchs. He’d been hesitant when Jace suggested they trained together, though now he can’t imagine why; he’s hardly the best or most elegant fighter, but it’s definitely a lot of fun.

The only way Simon can describe their training sessions is cheeky; they play fair most of the time, but even then it’s flirtatious and spent grinning and talking smack. There’s opportunistic gropes - or even moreso, strategic gropes to throw the other off.

Jace holds the stick against the side of his neck with a smug grin, having gotten the upper hand.

“You know, I’d have kicked your ass already if you’d let me use vamp speed,” Simon tells him when he breaks out of the hold, gesturing at Jace with one of the sticks.

“You’ve gotta learn to fight correctly first,” Jace tells him, reorienting his weapons in front of him, “It’s not all about speed.” With that, they’re fighting again, the air filled with colliding sticks.

Isabelle joins them for her own morning session, and they keep the radius of their fight smaller now. Simon manages to catch Jace on the ribs and he’s far too pleased about it.

“Jace, stop going easy on him,” Izzy calls from over where she’s set up with a punching bag. “You obviously let him win that one.”

“I did not!”

“Simon spent that whole fight favouring his right side, you had so many chances to get a hit in.”

“Oh, so you’re going easy on me, Lightwood?” Simon taunts, his mouth pulled up in a grin. He takes the opportunity of Jace looking back at Izzy with a glare to jab the stick lightly into his stomach. “C’mon, for real this time.”

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” Jace says as he turns back to him, a glitch of something in his eye, and he’s so fucking cocky; a year ago it would have irritated Simon to no end - but now? Simon is not nearly as ashamed as he should be admit that it’s kinda hot.

“Come at me,” Simon dares him, batons extended from his body, his bent elbow level to his ribs.

Jace gives him a mean smile, and they’re back into the fray.

         28. When I am dead
         29. Slowly, the words dripping from your tongue like honey

(ten months)

Having an apartment just to themselves is still kind of novel to Jace. He’s spent the last eleven or so years living in the Institute, and to spend every day there and then go home to Simon, to their own little space they carved out together away from demons and Clave politics and so many people.

Technically, active Shadowhunters are supposed to live in the Institute, but Jace is grateful every day that Alec managed to work something out for him. It probably helps that Alec moved into Magnus’ as soon as the dust fully settled after Valentine’s death and Jace’s quiet resurrection, and knows how much better it is to live outside the Institute with your loved one.

It means that he gets to wake up like this: Simon is curled up against his back, one arm under Jace’s neck and the other draped over his hip, breathing softly in quiet little snores. Simon refuses to acknowledge that he snores, absolutely steadfast in his denial, and something about it is so funny to Jace especially in these moments when he’s met with unquestionable evidence.

He rolls over, slowly, careful not to jolt Simon awake. He’s wearing a laundry-soft faded Star Wars shirt, ratty but very loved. Jace still doesn’t really get the whole Star Wars thing but it clearly makes Simon happy.

Simon is always so adorable while in the middle of waking up, all fluttering eyelashes and unintelligible words. Jace’s heart feels filled with something thick like honey and just as sweet, cloying and perfect.

Jace pushes his face into Simon’s neck and breathes the smell of laundry detergent in deeply, and decides five more minutes.

          30. Too quick, mumbled into your scarf

(minus two years)

He’s pretty sure he doesn’t even make the decision to do it - it’s like the decision’s already been made by the time he’s getting out of his van, like it was never even his choice to begin with. He’s rash, this is rash, he knows - but if he doesn’t do it now then he may never do it, and Simon is not brave.

The closest he’s ever gotten was when he knocked Tommy Weismann out with a blow of his elbow in the fourth grade, but even then - he wasn’t brave; he was just trying to protect his new glasses, but he became King Of The Nerds in the process. He doesn’t think he can ever admit to Clary that it was an accident, because she looked at him like he was a hero, like he was worth something, like she was seeing him for the first time. That doesn’t make him brave - it makes him a coward.

So bursts of bravery? Uncommon. Nearly non-existent for a guy like Simon Lewis. He unlocks his front door with a kind of buzzing confidence, rattling defiance, like he could vibrate out of his own skin. He’s seventeen, dammit. He can come out to his mom.

Of course, she’s home, and standing in the kitchen drinking earl grey as has become the routine, and she looks at him bowling in the front door with the same kind of look she gives him every time he does something a little clumsy. But then her expression twists when she sees his face, and he’s frozen in place, and Simon isn’t brave, he isn’t, but maybe he can be, if he just tries -

“I’m bi,” he manages to blurt out. He had a speech planned that he wrote in his head on his way from Clary’s house to here, but it’s gone now. It’s the bare bones of the thing, that’s all that matters. “I’m bi, and I like boys too and I’m the same person I’ve always been and -”

- And his mother’s arms are around him, tight and firm, and he’s not sure when he started crying but he is, just a little.

“I love you,” his Mom is mumbling into his shoulder, into his scarf, because it’s winter in New York and he couldn’t put off his emotional coming out moment long enough to take off his winter layers. “I love you so much,” she’s repeating.

It’s like a wall has broken, a floodgate, a dam, an entire ocean is spilling endlessly out of him, crying on his Mom’s shoulder in the hallway of his childhood home, and wondering when he got so tall, when he grew up.

He pulls away after a time, his nose running and skin blotchy. His Mom cradles his face in her hands so carefully like he could break, uncaring of his wet cheeks because hers are wet too. She looks him in the eye, and tells him, “I love you. Nothing could ever make me not love you.” He wraps his hand around her wrist and just holds on. She wipes away fresh tears with her thumb. “Thank you for telling me.”

His breathing is still uneasy, but he feels so free. He feels brave.

         31. In awe, the first time you realised it

(one month)

It dawns on Jace slowly, over the days and weeks that he spends with Simon. They do nothing and everything; they see movies that Jace doesn’t really understand but enjoys nonetheless, and they go to bars where no one knows them, and they have sex. Over the month, it feels like something in Jace’s chest is blooming.

When he was a teenager, bitter and angry - meaning, really, traumatised and angry, yes, but mostly deeply afraid in the exact same way that Alec must have been - people said that Shadowhunters loved for life. They said it with such sureness, such conviction like they were trying to convince themselves, and Jace, ever his own personal cynic, condemned them the only way he knew how: by deciding to never fall in love. It doesn’t make sense now, like how most teens’ spiteful plans never really do, and paired with the lies Valentine beat into him, he was sure he’d never love, never marry, never do anything of the sort.

Things change, as he’s come to learn.

When Clary and Simon basically fell into their world with their hearts on their sleeves, they changed something irrevocably in all of them. Alec defied his own destiny, Izzy became stronger in the face of the things that threatened to drown her, and Jace - he learnt many things but mostly that to love is not the weakness he’d feared it to be but a well of untapped strength he didn’t know was there.

Love doesn’t overwrite all the pain he’s endured, all the years spent hurting, but it does soothe it. It’s the cast on a badly broken bone - even when it heals, it will always will have been broken at some point or another, but love is the thing that helps it to heal.

As it slowly crept up on him, he can’t say it was a surprise, or a shock, or that he didn’t expect it. He hurts like a smile, he hurts like blinking awake, he hurts like a meal after training - which is to say that right now, it doesn’t hurt at all.

So when he says, “I love you,” aloud for the first time, interrupting Simon babbling about the movie they just saw, caught between the streetlamps in the dark, it’s perfect. Simon gives him that shining grin, and kisses him right there in the street.

“I love you too,” he mumbles close, barely a breath between them, and that? That’s all Jace needed to hear.

         32. In a way I can’t return
         33. On a post-it note

(two years)

It’s still dark out when his phone goes off. He knew it would be because, y’know, vampires. He should be used to it - him and Jace keep odd hours a lot of the time.

Simon rolls over, still half asleep and stares for seconds at the ceiling, the darkness only broken only by the electric tinge of the streetlamp across from their apartment. He’s alone, he realises. He puts his hand on the mattress, towards the bedroom door and feels the cool bed sheets on his skin. They forgot to draw the curtain again, even though they nag each other about it all the time, and the light outside casts across the sheets in distorted squares where Jace’s hip usually would be.

It’s not unusual for him to wake up alone - sometimes Jace gets called into the Institute for emergencies. Not like emergency-emergencies, but things that can’t wait until morning. Time zones really are the most fun thing in the world.

He eventually gets out of bed and throws on the clothes he picked out for the meeting he needs to attend. He’s a responsible adult who leaves his clothes out the night before and sets alarms and goes to important political meetings at ass o’clock. A real grown up.

(Being twenty-one is fucking terrifying to Simon, rest assured.)

He can smell recently brewed coffee when he enters the kitchen, and something about it feels so homely. He doesn’t miss coffee as much as he used to, but he does wish they’d gotten up together so that he could steal a sip from Jace’s mug and watch the little furl in his brow as he does it because Simon takes pride in annoying him in the smallest, most meaningless of ways.

On the door of the fridge is a little post-it note, stuck with a magnet to insure it stays up because Jace bought the kind of post-it notes that have shitty adhesion.

Incident at the Dublin Institute.
Should be home by dinner.
- J

Simon smiles at it, holding the paper between his fingers. It’s a lurid yellow and pinned by what was apparently the tackiest magnet that Magnus could find in Alicante; the Spanish city, not the Shadowhunters one. Magnus has a great sense of humour.

He folds the little square up and puts it in his pocket, then opens the fridge for a bag of blood.

         34. Before we jump
         35. As a goodbye

(one day)

Jace thinks he feels so happy he might burst out of his skin. He feels warm and pleasantly sore and content just wrapped up in Simon’s bedsheets, the man himself half draped over his body.

It’s simple like this. They could be anyone, any two guys who found each other, at any time or any place. It feels like they would have always ended up here - in every world, the two of them always find each other (and he’s seen the proof of that first-hand too).

So of course it’s the perfect moment for his phone to go off. It takes a lot of effort to reach across to the crate that’s been repurposed as a bedside table without disturbing Simon, but when he does, he sees that Alec is the one texting him. He lets his head drop heavier into the pillows and sighs.

Simon looks so peaceful on his chest that he almost doesn’t want to wake him, but he doesn’t want to just slip out quietly. He thinks that would look bad, especially after confessing his feelings for Simon last night.

He reaches up to brush some of the curls out of Simon’s face, then he places his hand along Simon’s jaw, thumb gently caressing his cheekbone. Simon shifts and pushes into the touch, slowly surfacing from sleep before his eyes finally blink open. It takes a second for his gaze to focus on him, but when it does Simon’s face splits into a massive bright smile, his eyes crinkling and bright. Jace can’t help but smile back at him, in the glow of Simon.

Simon drops his forehead down to Jace’s chest, the smallest laugh escaping him. “You didn’t leave,” he whispers quietly, beautifully, gratefully. Then he stretches up and kisses Jace softly, oh so sweet, in direct contrast to how hurried they were last night. Then he kisses Jace’s chin, and then his jaw, the underside of his jaw, all the way down to the hollow of his throat, and Jace loathes to make him stop.

“Well,” he says and then sighs softly when Simon keeps going, “I have to go back to the Institute. Alec’s already bitching me out for not being back yet.”

“Tell him to fuck off,” which is very brave of Simon to say since he’s still kinda afraid of Alec. He keeps kissing his skin softly. He’d be worried that he’s so zoned in on his neck if he didn’t trust Simon completely.

Jace laughs, putting his hand on the nape of Simon’s neck to get him to look up. “I really have to go,” he says biting his lip.

Simon looks up at him, sighs. “Okay, okay,” he says as he pulls away. Then he ducks down to press a few more little kisses in rapid succession onto Jace’s throat.

It takes him a while to find all his clothes, which are littered all over the boathouse. Simon comes back with a to-go coffee and some breakfast for him as he’s lacing up his boots.

When he stands he takes the paper cup, and pulls Simon in close by the shirt and kisses him, savouring the last bit of peace he’ll probably have for the rest of the week, given the way his life tends to go. Simon’s free hand settles open-palmed on the small of his back, and it makes Jace’s stomach jolt the tiniest bit.

“Just -” Simon starts to say when he starts to pull away, “What will we tell the others?” He licks his lip and looks into Jace’s face with an open and raw kind of honesty. There he is; Simon Lewis with his heart on his sleeve.

Jace takes a deep breath and pushes in closer to Simon, his free hand going from being fisted in Simon’s his shirt to resting on the side of his neck. “They’ll want to know everything and this is just - it’s new, and we still have to figure it out.” He looks at Simon, searching his face. “We’ll tell them. I just want it to be you and me for a little while longer.”

Simon nods and presses his forehead into Jace’s. “Let’s be selfish,” he agrees.

Jace’s phone goes off again, and he sighs. He pecks Simon on the mouth one last time and pulls away, taking his breakfast and walking towards the door. “I’ll call you,” he promises before he leaves, and Simon smiles at him, crooked like he’s trying not to, radiant in the dim light that shines through the upper windows of the boat house.

Jace slides the door shut behind him, and he thinks, hopes really, that this is the start of something beautiful.