Chapter Text
When he was still human, Simon had a lot of questions about vampirism. It just didn’t make sense to him, especially because there were so many different approaches to it. In some movies they sparkled (though Twilight probably wasn’t the most reliable vampire source) and in others they burst into flames when they came into contact with the sun. In some movies their skin was as hard as stone and you could only kill them by decapitating them and setting them on fire, and in others a nice wooden stake would do the job just fine. Vampires feeding on themselves turned into weird Gollum-like creatures in Daybreakers and they could turn into bats in Dracula remakes. There were just so many inconsistent things about them.
Some of his questions were answered after his Turning, like the sun thing (“no, Simon, we don’t sparkle in the sun. Please don’t try it, or you’ll be a nice heap of dust in seconds”) and others he found out himself (like the erection thing, because, let’s be honest, if you’re undead, does blood still run through your veins? Can it still reach certain places? The answer is yes to both questions, thankfully).
He should’ve probably also figured that vampires are still capable of blushing. Naturally, if blood can run south it can certainly run north too. But he had never really pieced these two facts together until he saw Raphael all red and flustered, trying to hide his blush by ducking his head when he walked past Simon.
Simon doesn’t know why the concept of Raphael blushing intrigues him so much, but he finds himself in his room later replaying the events of the past night, trying to figure out what had Raphael so flustered.
They had gone to a meeting with a rivaling clan earlier that night. The whole clan was present because the leader of the Boston clan had insisted on it. Raphael had been reluctant to leave the hotel unattended, but the Shadowhunters promised to look after it. Raphael had even been more reluctant to leave the hotel in the hands of the Nephilim, but Simon had eventually persuaded him to just trust them and worry about the meeting instead.
It had all been very tense, sometimes even bordering straight up hostile. The Boston clan accused the New York clan of siding with the Shadowhunters and saw this as a war declaration against other vampire clans, and it had come really close to a full blown fight a few times.
But Raphael handled everything perfectly. He remained calm and stoic, demanded attention without even raising his voice. Not once did he yell or growl, not once did he threaten or say something wrong. Simon could literally feel the others around him relax under Raphael’s words, and even the Boston clan members seemed to show a genuine interest in what he had to say.
In the end, the Boston clan leader – a woman named Kali with dangerous eyes and an even more dangerous smile – believed Raphael when he said he had never intended to misinform them. They had shaken hands and reestablished their alliance in front both of their clans, and then the Boston clan had left back to their territory short after.
Magnus had been there too. Simon had only noticed because he had pulled Raphael aside when the Boston clan was gone, and had told him something that made him try his best to bite back a smile. When Raphael had walked past Simon, he had that blush high on his cheeks.
Which means Magnus is the reason for his blush. Or whatever he said, that is.
Simon can’t help but be curious. He’d never seen Raphael blush before (hell, he’d never seen any vampire blush before) and he kind of liked the way it made him look. It made him look less intimidating and more approachable, more human. It was a nice look on him.
So Simon really wants to see that look on him again.
He never really was the flirter. He normally aimed for the ‘adorkable nerdy friend’ thing and tried to woo people with his excessive knowledge of Star Wars and pointless history facts, like how Cleopatra’s ancestors were Greek. It never actually worked, but he stuck with the image anyway.
But being Turned into a vampire made him realize that you have to take risks in life. You have to step out of your comfort zone to achieve something, or else you’ll be stuck in your image for the rest of eternity. And as much as Simon likes Star Wars, he’d rather not be known as the Star Wars Vampire three centuries down the line.
So he flings all his doubts out the window and decides to do everything in his power to get Raphael to blush again.