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Simon was laying in the crook of Jace’s arm sweaty but content, his head pillowed safely on Jace’s naked chest. With lazy strokes Simon covered Jace’s chest in random patterns, feeling the soft fuzz under his fingers while Jace traced shapes along Simon’s spine. It was nice like this, sharing body warmth in silence after very intimate activities.
On his way down he brushed the black ink on Jace’s hip and his hand remained there for a long time, a solemn expression.
“You can ask, you know?” Jace stroked through Simon’s hair with his free hand.
Simon’s face brightened up and the questions quelled instantly, “why did you get it? Is it some kind of Chinese letter? What does it mean?”
Jace’s chest rumbled under Simon’s ear as he hummed and thought about where to start. “You know my brother Alec?”
“Hmm, I’ve met him. I’m a bit scared of him to be honest. His stare was so intense and I thought he was about to deck me or something when he realized I was with you,” Simon blushed, still tracing the tattoo on Jace’s hip.
“You’ll grow on him. He likes you already, you should’ve seen what he did to the poor bloke who dated Izzy a few years back who he did not like at all.” Simon swallowed audibly. “Anyway, he has the same tattoo on the same spot.”
Simon perked up at that. “Never pegged him for a tattoo guy. He seems so serious and I don’t know, just didn’t expect that.”
Jace snorted, “yeah right. Alec has more than just one. His whole chest and back are inked up. What? Don’t look at me like that Simon and close your mouth I can see your stomach contents.” Simon slapped Jace’s hip with his flat hand for that which just made him chuckle.
“Don’t laugh at me. Continue with the story.”
“Alright, alright. So when I first came into the family Alec and I had some trouble bonding but once we got our shit together we were basically inseparable. And we invented our own handshake and stuff like that.” Jace’s eyes were gleaming and Simon was in awe with how happy his boyfriend looked. “Izzy would try to join in whenever she could and we let her most of the time until Maryse would pull her back inside but we invented a secret sign that only the two of us knew. We used to put it everywhere, on secret letters, everywhere around the house and in our hideout. I’m pretty sure everyone knew it actually, we just thought we were sneaky.”
“Let me guess, it’s the tattoo?” Simon asked, looking closer at the tattoo.
Jace nodded, “yeah, we got it together after I turned eighteen as a reminder that we’ll always have each other even when life separates us.”
“That’s a really nice sentiment.”
“He’s my best friend in the entire world and I know he’ll always have my back and he knows I’ll have his.” Jace’s eyes got a bit clouded while he said that and he was staring at the ceiling.
“You know that it kind of looks like a man standing up flexing his arms and a second dude on the floor hugging him with his legs.” Simon said with a thoughtful tone but regretted it instantly when Jace launched himself at him tickling him without mercy.
