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Simon Lewis never expected to love again after Jace Herondale. Like everything that came with Jace, their love exploded shortly after the fuse was lit, a brilliant burst of excitement and color and adventure and passion. Most flames that burn as bright as Jace did would be expected to burn out just as fast, but he never did.
And he never would have, Simon was almost certain - too bad they never got the chance to find out before his light was snuffed out instead.
Jace worked as a bounty hunter, it was the family business, and they knew the dangers. They did what they could to mitigate the risks but it wasn’t enough. After it happened Simon wondered if he had it in him to take revenge - he and Jace were polar opposites when it came to a lot of things, a stomach for violence included, but Simon thought he might have it in him for this.
For Jace.
He didn’t get the chance to find out as Jace’s siblings took care of that for all of them. They also looked out for Simon during those first few weeks when he barely left the house, never answered his phone or texts, and was very obviously not doing great. When it was clear Simon needed a change of pace - or at the very least to start leaving the apartment again - they convinced him to take on a part-time bartending job with his friend Maia. They want him to be happy, he knows that - hell, he can tell they even want him to move on - but he knows the latter is impossible and he isn’t so sure of the former if he’s being honest.
He takes the job anyway if only to make ends meet without needing help from the Lightwoods. It turns out to be one of the best decisions he ever made.
New New York is too busy of a city for Simon but he can’t bring himself to move. Ever since it was branded as a centralized hub for Official Interdimensional Travel the influence of people passing through from other worlds nearly quadrupled. Simon is still weirded out by the common use of portals between worlds but many others take full advantage - some looking to start over, others to simply get away for a day or two. A lot of missionary sort of work from more advanced universes to struggling ones, which is cool and all. It’s just a lot, and not for Simon.
Until he sees Jace again.
It’s only been four months since the funeral when Simon catches sight of the familiar blonde hair walking away from him. He does a double-take and nearly brushes it off like he usually does - it wouldn’t be the first time he saw a stranger in a crowd and thought for just a moment it was Jace, knowing full well that it wasn’t - except there’s something more to it this time. Something about the way the figure carries himself, the style of that leather jacket, and when he drops something and turns around to pick it up Simon sees his face for the first time and nearly faints.
It’s actually Jace, but it isn’t his Jace - even from here Simon can see he’s missing a scar on his neck that Jace got when one of his bounties had a hidden knife they didn’t find when they searched him and tried to get free, managing to get one good swipe in before Jace knocked the weapon away.
So not his Jace, but still… Jace.
And then just as quickly he’s gone, lost in the crowd. By the time Simon manages to gather himself enough to try and follow there’s no sign of him anywhere, and Simon doesn’t stop thinking about it for a very long time.
---
The next time Simon spots him he’s coming out from the back with four plates of food, two in his hands and two balanced on his arms.
All four drop to the ground with an unceremonious clatter when the sight of Jace sitting on one of the barstools catches him off-guard.
“Simon, what the fuc-” Maia starts, fully ready to tear into him over the food that’ll have to probably be comped off that group’s bill and re-made on the fly, but when she catches sight of the blonde at the bar she softens immediately.
“Take 30, Lewis. I’ll clean this up.”
Simon stands there, unsure of what to do. Does he leave? Does he talk to him? How does he even begin to-
“Hey, you alright?” Jace asks, leaning over the counter a bit towards Simon.
“No,” Simon says immediately.
“It’s just… you’re looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A ghost. Close enough.
“I.. you…” Simon starts, but he can’t seem to find the words. “Jace, right?”
“Jonathan,” Jace says.
Jonathan Christopher.
“And you are…?” Jace - no, Jonathan - asks.
It hurts Simon to hear, to realize he doesn’t know, but of course he doesn’t. Why would he?
“Simon,” Simon says, with a small, sad smile.
“You’re still staring, Simon,” Jonathan points out.
“Shit, sorry. I should go-”
“Wait,” Jonathan stops him. “Why? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“You look like my ex,” Simon says, then cringes when he realizes how that sounds. “He, uh. He died.”
“Oh,” Jonathan says. “I’m sorry. I should go-”
“No, please,” Simon says, not intending for his voice to sound as pleading as it does. “I’d actually, uh… I mean if you’re going to sit for a drink, maybe we can just chat? Unless that’s too weird. That’s too weird, isn’t it?”
Jonathan smiles, and god, there’s that grin Simon fell in love with. “Not at all. I’ve got an hour or two before I have to head home.”
Simon takes the next hour off - Maia is very understanding - to talk to Jonathan about his life and where he’s from, but it’s over too quickly and soon he’s on his way, back to a universe without Simon.
A universe where he’s still alive and well and thriving.
Simon wonders how many more versions of him are out there.
He never expects to actually find out.
---
The answer is a lot. It seems like no dimension is complete without its own Jace Herondale, or occasionally Wayland or Morgenstern. Sometimes he goes by Jonathan or J.C.; sometimes he’s a chef, or a soldier, or a pianist; sometimes he recognizes Simon and sometimes he doesn’t... but at the core of him, he’s always just Jace.
Simon talks to one or two of them when they cross paths, usually stopping in for food or a drink during their travels. The only problem is that they’re always on the way to somewhere, and never stay long enough for him to really get to know.
He knows how absurd that desire is, the desire to have these other Jace’s stay, and-- and what? Because whatever Jace comes through isn’t his Jace - he has a job, a family, an entire life to get back to, he doesn’t want to stay and comfort Simon.
Until one does.
Jace Herondale is the grandson of Imogen Herondale, a well known and wealthy politician in the dimension he’s from. He travels for fun because he’s a bit of a troublemaker and his family decided it was better to let him wander and do his own thing if that’s what keeps the family name from being dragged through the dirt.
Simon knows this because they talk, and when it becomes increasingly apparent that Simon doesn’t intend on kicking him out of the bar Jace stays until close and then admits he doesn’t have anywhere else to be if Simon wanted to grab a nightcap.
They end up back at Simon’s apartment. Nothing happens, but they talk some more, and Jace stays the night on the sofa. He stays the night after that, and the one after that, too. Simon offers to trade-off and take the sofa, and when Jace refuses he hesitantly offers to share the bed instead.
Just to sleep, they agree - until sleeping together leads to, well, sleeping together, and Simon isn’t sure how he feels about it.
Simon is, however, sure how he feels when this Jace Herondale leaves a week later with murmured apologies about needing to do some damage control back home.
After that, Simon goes a little numb. It’s like losing Jace twice, in a way - he knows it isn’t the same, he knows he shouldn’t have hoped for this new thing to last, but he had. And now that it’s gone his heart breaks all over again at the cold, empty space beside him in bed.
He tries to ignore the next time he catches sight of another dimension’s Jace, except it’s one where Jace knows him, so Jace approaches Simon instead. Attempting to avoid him is one thing, but Simon can’t bring himself to brush off Jace once he’s standing there in front of him with that infectious smile and gleam of mischief in his eyes.
Simon can’t bring himself to grow too attached, so he does the only logical thing: he shuts down entirely. He tries to convince himself he’s fine with one night stands, forces himself to go through the motions with the constant reminder that it isn’t him, that there’s nothing there.
He hates it.
Perhaps the lesson he’s meant to take away is that he needs to stop trying. No one else is going to fit the mold of exactly what he needs, to know what he’s going through and what he’s missing. They can’t, and he shouldn’t expect them to.
The easy solution is to go back to passing acquaintances - little chats from behind the bar that end there with nothing more. No hopes to crash, no expectations to fall short of. Better than nothing, and safe.
He’s okay with it. Not the fake, forced okay he was with the casual hook-ups, but actually okay. It’s a taste of what he wants, of what he’s missing, and since he knows he can’t have it all it’s a realistic expectation to allow himself.
And then for a while, he stops crossing paths with any other Jace’s, or J.C.’s, or Jonathan’s. He wonders if maybe they warned all the other dimensions about the weirdo bartender in New New York who talks too much and always manages to say the wrong thing, and maybe they’re avoiding him. Or maybe he just came across as many as there were, and that’s it. After all, there may be an infinite number of realities, or dimensions, or whatever out there, but it isn’t as if they have access to all of them. He should be lucky to have found as many as he did.
Days pass, and then weeks, and then months. It never gets easy, but it gets a little easier, and Simon finds himself falling into a pretty solid routine. He’s made some friends at work, mostly through Maia, but they still totally count and they all go out some nights after work. And work is actually going great - he’s an assistant manager under Maia now, which only comes back to bite him in the ass sometimes.
Sometimes like this night, in particular, exactly one year after Jace’s death, when he decides to cover for not only Maia who is on vacation but two other employees who called out sick. And of course, there’s some sort of bachelorette party or something that drags at least twenty customers to the bar who seem determined to order non-stop overly complicated mixed drinks and shots - on top of the entire rest of the restaurant’s worth of drinks he has to make. He wanted a distraction tonight, sure, but maybe he should’ve been a bit more careful what he wished for because he’s about to lose his goddamn mind, and--
--and then there he is. On this day, of all the days, it feels more like seeing a ghost than ever before. His blonde hair falls softly across his forehead and into his eye, and he pushes it away just as he looks up and makes eye contact with Simon. Jace. Of course, there would be a fucking Jace doppelganger here, tonight, right now, and-
“Si?”
Jace’s voice is soft, pained, and Simon’s thoughts stop dead. As does the rest of him. He has a million things to do and is in the middle of turning around with a bottle in his hand to make some shot with a name he can’t repeat with a straight face, but he just freezes at the way Jace is looking at him. Unlike the other times, this feels different, somehow. Like fate, a small voice in the back of his head offers, but Simon is quick to quiet it.
And then someone is literally snapping their fingers to get his attention and he doesn’t have much of a choice other than to give Jace an apologetic grimace before mouthing ‘sorry’ and going back to making drinks.
He keeps an eye on him, though, watching as Jace lingers before finally approaching the bar. Simon is still drowning in drink orders but since Jace is actually at the bar now he can at least go over for a second, even just to see what drink he wants.
“Can I get something for you?”
“What?” Jace asks, then shakes his head. “Oh. No,” he starts, but then seems to realize that means Simon is going to leave again so he quickly amends his answer. “I mean, yeah. I’ll take a rum and cola.”
Simon nods, and grabs for the bottle and the soda hose, pressing the ‘cola’ button and watching as the brown carbonated soda mixes with the bottle of rum he turns over into the glass at the same time.
“Sorry,” Jace says as Simon makes the drink. “About earlier. That was creepy of me. I didn’t mean to be- it’s just you-” Jace stumbles over his words.
“You have a Simon, in your world, don’t you?” Simon offers, and Jace looks relieved that Simon understands.
“Yeah,” he says, and Simon notes the way he hasn’t broken eye contact since he came over like Jace is afraid to look away and lose him even though Simon clearly isn’t going anywhere other than the other side of the bar and back.
“Hey, another drink down here, sometime tonight maybe!” An impatient man yells from the other end of the bar, and Simon winces.
It’s only then Jace looks away from him and down the bar. “Are you alone back there?”
Simon nods. “Perks of being the boss, I guess. Everyone else called out,” he admits. “It’s fine,” he adds quickly.
“Doesn’t look fine,” Jace points out.
“Fine, it isn’t fine. I’m dying. I think my wrists are going to fall off and if I have to make one more buttery nipple shot for that bachelorette party I might actually cry,” Simon admits in a rush. “Happy now?”
“No,” Jace says. “But I can help.”
Before Simon knows what’s happening Jace’s rum and cola is empty and Jace moves to the small opening at the end of the bar.
“You can’t come back here,” Simon says, but Jace only cocks an eyebrow.
“Says who? You’re the boss, aren’t you?” Jace grabs a nearby white towel and drapes it over his shoulder, already rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Want the help, or not?”
Simon knows that Maia will have his head for this but right now he can’t be bothered to worry that far ahead. He just needs to survive until close. “Ask me if you can’t find something, or don’t know a recipe, or-”
“Relax, Simon. We got this,” Jace promises, and Simon can already feel the panic and tension fading at the reassurance.
They do have this. In fact, they work together so well anyone watching would think they’d been doing it for years, and by the end of the night they’re calling out for bottles closer to the other and tossing them back and forth without a second thought. Simon doesn’t know if Jace is just good at making things up as he goes or if he really knows his stuff, but he doesn’t ask about a single order that comes his way, and they clear out the last customer minutes after closing.
Simon counts out the register, takes well over half the tips they made that night, and folds the bills over to hand to Jace.
Jace looks at the money like he’s never seen it before. “Keep it,” he says.
“You just saved my ass,” Simons points out. “It’s the least I can do.”
Jace only shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Just… being here. This? This is more than enough. You have no idea-” he starts, but the words catch in his throat. “Sorry, I should go.”
“Wait,” Simon says, instinctively reaching out to grab Jace’s wrist to stop him. He knows he shouldn’t - just passing acquaintances, he reminds himself. But there’s something different about this time, about this Jace. “What is it?”
Jace hesitates, and then in a voice so quiet Simon almost doesn’t hear it, says, “I lost you.”
Jace realizes the slip-up the moment it leaves his lips. “Him,” Jace is quick to correct. “I lost him. My Simon.”
Simon isn’t sure what look crosses his face at that, but whatever it is has Jace shaking his head back and forth. “Yep, that’s too weird. I knew it would be. It’s just… it’s been a year, and you aren’t the first Simon I’ve run into from another place, but when I saw you here, tonight, it was like… like…”
“Like fate,” Simon offers, voicing the thought he had previously. “It isn’t too weird,” Simon adds because he doesn’t want this Jace to leave, not yet at least. “I lost you, too.”
Simon wraps up his shift faster than he ever has before, moving fast despite the exhaustion he feels starting to settle in. Jace sits at an empty table while Simon finishes everything he has to do to close the bar down, having a drink or two while he waits, and then Simon makes a drink of his own before joining him.
The longer they talk the more Simon knows the similarities are too specific to not mean something. It’s been a year to the date for both of them, they both had an Alec and Isabelle and Maia of their own to help them through, and Jace was a bartender before he and his Simon met.
“I actually haven’t poured a drink since,” Jace admits, swirling the liquid in his glass around a bit. “It was a totally random robbery-gone-wrong, and Si was playing a set at the bar that night. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“My Jace’s was an occupational hazard. He was a bounty hunter,” Simon admits, and the Jace in front of him spits out his drink in shock.
“I what?” he says, eyes wide. “Fuck that’s intense.”
Simon laughs. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
The hours pass and soon it’s late, they’re both a little on the other side of sober, and it’s obvious that Simon can’t send Jace off alone like this, not that Jace seems to have any inclination to leave on his own. Simon waits for the little voice in his head to tell him to send Jace back home anyway, that this is all just going to lead to awkwardness and regret and disappointment… but the voice never comes.
Simon can definitely feel that it’s different this time, and he’s pretty sure Jace can, too, because they get each other in ways that the others never had. It isn’t that Jace’s Simon broke up with him, or that they never dated, or that they never met each other at all. This time each knows exactly what the other needs because, for the first time, they’ve both been through the same loss.
They get back to Simon’s apartment and Simon tosses Jace a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt to change into. Neither of them says anything but Jace has to realize it’s a pair that used to belong to Simon’s Jace with how perfectly they fit him.
“I can sleep on the sofa,” Jace offers, but Simon shakes his head.
“You don’t have to. I mean, if you’d rather, that’s fine. But… I wouldn’t mind the company.” Simon doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath in anticipation until Jace nods and makes his way towards the bed, and all of the tension and anxiousness eases out of Simon at once. Jace goes to the left side - his side - and Simon goes to the right.
He doesn’t have to ask as he moves forward at the same time Jace shifts back toward him, their bodies fitting together perfectly, and Simon begins to drift off with his arm wrapped around Jace, lulled to sleep by the steady rise and fall of his breathing.
-------------
For a few moments, Simon forgets where he is. He’s wrapped around the warmth of another body, just like he dreamed of so many times - except this isn’t a dream. In fact, this is more than he let himself even dream of lately. For a moment Simon forgets and it’s as if nothing bad has ever happened in his life.
But then Jace stirs beneath him and he’s forced to acknowledge the reality of his situation - that this, like all the other times, can’t stay forever. Simon just waits for the other shoe to drop while they wake up, and eat breakfast, and spend some more time talking and even watching some mindless reality tv show; until Simon has to go to work and has an awkward moment where he expects Jace to leave with him, except Jace stays on the sofa.
“I’m… I have to go to work,” Simon says, not for the first time that day.
It seems to click very abruptly in Jace’s head that this isn’t his place, and of course Simon expects him to leave when he leaves.
“Oh. Right. I’ll just…” Jace starts, and only at that moment does it become apparent to Simon that Jace hadn’t planned on leaving.
“You can stay, if you want,” Simon is quick to tell him. “I’ll be back in a few hours. There’s plenty of food, and the tv, and video games and stuff?” He sounds unsure, but Jace almost immediately eases back into the sofa.
“Thanks,” Jace says, and Simon realizes he’s relieved that he can stay.
Jace also stays the day after that. And the day after that.
And Simon realizes, slowly but surely, that Jace doesn’t plan on leaving.
Simon brings up the fact that Jace has an entire life he just casually up and left- not because he particularly wants to, but because he knows they have to talk about it eventually - but Jace just shrugs.
“I told Alec and Izzy where I am. I think they’re actually kind of relieved to know I’m at least out and about” Jace says, settling back against Simons’ shoulder while they watch a movie on Simon’s day off. “But whenever you want me to leave just tell me. I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”
That’s just it - Simon doesn’t want him to leave. Ever. But he also can’t bring himself to say it, so instead, he just mumbles something noncommittal and turns back to the movie.
It’s nearly a week later when Jace tells him he’s going back home to check in with his siblings. Simon doesn’t expect him to come back at all, figuring this has to be it, this is Jace’s way of sliding off without making a scene and the inevitable heartbreak Simon feared all along.
Jace leaves, and Simon fully expects to never see him again.
So when Simon’s getting ready for bed that night and he hears a knock at the door, his heartbeat races at the implications. It can’t be… can it?
When he opens the door to see Jace on the other side, suitcase in tow, he doesn’t know what to say.
“Hey,” Jace starts. “I know this is… well, Alec said it was ‘incredibly presumptive’, but… I’d like to stay. If you’ll have me. And if not, if it’s too much, or too weird, I get it, and just say the word and I’ll go back-”
Simon steps forward to close the space between them, cutting off Jace’s rambling by pressing their lips together for the first time. It doesn’t feel like the first time, though - it feels like this is where he’s always meant to be. Jace kisses him back, leaning into the motion easily.
“Only I can nervous-ramble that much,” Simon informs him matter-of-factly after they pull away.
Jace laughs, and it sounds like the sweetest music. It sounds like hope and happiness; like everything Simon worked so hard to keep himself from feeling for the better part of the past year.
“You’re welcome as long as you’d like,” Simon reassures him, stepping aside so Jace has more than enough room to come in and make himself at home.
And Jace does. It isn’t long before it feels like their home again, the way Simon hadn’t realized he missed as much as he did.
Simon knows that true second chances are rare - he had enough ‘almost’s pass through his life to recognize this one for what it is. It isn’t going to be the same as before, but it doesn’t need to be: he has a second chance at love, and he plans on taking it.