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The room is holding its breath when Ty walks in.
Kit barely looks up, rummaging through the closet. He tries to swallow around the invisible obstacle stuck in the middle of his throat as he pulls out a couple of old shirts and sweatpants.
His cheeks flush. Sharing a room with your boyfriend shouldn’t feel as awkward and exhausting.
“Your dad gave me clean sheets,” Ty announces. He comes closer to the bed, putting neatly folded fabric on top of the bed cover.
Kit nods, not even bothering to correct the fact that Jem is not his dad. It might start a conversation that Kit is not particularly happy to have. Besides, sharing a room with your hot boyfriend should be sultry and sexy. Not filled with emotional distress and trauma, for sure.
“Are you okay?” Ty asks. His voice is calm – it always is. That’s one of the things Kit loves about him so much. Amidst the chaos outside, Ty’s voice is his small island of peace.
“Peachy,” Kit replies. He feels Ty’s eyes focusing on him, but still doesn’t look up. “A bit nervous, maybe.”
Unable to resist, Kit’s eyes briefly snap up. He is rewarded with a soft half-smile and a careful gaze.
“About?” Ty asks, grin on his face spreading wider.
Kit shrugs. “It’s the first time you’re staying here. When we’re–you know–”
“Dating?”
“Not mad at each other.” Kit rolls his eyes, but returns Ty’s smile. “Though you did steal my snacks on the way here, I am kinda mad about that.”
Ty huffs a laugh. “Maybe I am mad that you kicked out my cat.”
“It’s a fucking lynx. They can’t stay inside the house.”
“That’s not how you win my pet’s appreciation.”
Kit can’t help but laugh. The tension in his shoulders eases up, and he rolls them back, exhaling. Perhaps this isn’t as awkward as he thought.
Ty’s long fingers circle around Kit’s wrist, and he shudders, instinctively trying to pull back.
Ty freezes. “Sorry, should I have asked?” There is a frown on his face – not angry, or exasperated. Just confused.
Still, it doesn’t make Kit feel any better.
“No, no,” Kit shakes his head. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”
Ty’s frown deepens. “That I would touch you?”
Something rises up to Kit’s throat. A wave of nausea that he tries very hard to push down. He swallows around it, but instead of disappearing, it just comes even further up, making it hard to breathe.
“Shit.” Kit covers his face and drops to the edge of the bed. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.” He rubs his cheeks and stares at his hands. They are a bit bigger than Ty’s, but, surprisingly, less scarred. Kit is awkward and clumsy, and sometimes manages to cut himself with a needle, while Ty is sharp and focused, handling everything with precision and care.
Kit feels the bed sag a little as Ty sits down beside him. Their knees are touching, and the warmth is grounding. “I don’t understand,” Ty says. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. And if you’re nervous, it’s completely okay. I just don’t understand why. We’ve slept together plenty of times.”
Kit blushes. “You should stop saying things like that. Especially around my parents,” he mumbles.
“You’re deflecting,” Ty points out. “You don’t like it when I touch you?”
“What? No!” Kit yelps, jolting in his place.
Ty’s face visibly relaxes. “Okay,” he nods. “So what is it, then?”
Kit opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. The place where their knees touch is suddenly burning through the fabric of his jeans, as if he is on fire, sending small heatwaves all around his body.
Kit sucks in a breath and tries again. “It’s not that,” he says, still not sure how to start. “It’s not that I don’t like you touching me, it’s just–” he looks up to the ceiling, pleadingly. Maybe, the angel would come down and strike him with lightning, or whatever that is that they use. “I like it too much, sometimes.”
It’s not the full truth, but it’s half of it, at least. Kit wants to bring up that it’s not a physical thing, that it’s his shitty upbringing, that he still flinches when Tessa tries to fix his hair. That the first time Ty did that, when they were fifteen, the touch burned through his skin and imprinted itself in his heart, like a brand.
But it seems like too much, too soon.
“Oh,” Ty exhales. His face must be close because Kit feels the puff of air on his cheek. “I don’t see a problem with that.”
“It’s not.” Kit grips the bed cover with full force, his nails digging into the flesh. “I just feel like it might be too much for you. That I am too– needy.” Kit spews out the word fast, as if it’s acid.
For a couple of minutes, it’s silent. Kit wants to bang his head against the wall and then leave through the hole that it left. But then, Ty’s hand grasps his knee, pulling on it with enough force that Kit has to turn his body towards him.
The drag that he feels in his stomach is not from anxiety, this time.
Ty’s other hand lands on Kit’s shoulder and travels up his neck, to his cheek. Kit’s head hurts from holding the oxygen in his lungs for too long as the weight of Ty’s touch settles.
“I am also needy,” Ty says. He looks Kit right in the eyes as he says that, and it knocks everything sane and rational out of him.
Ty’s fingers move from his cheek to his lips. A brushing touch that is barely there, but the whole world seems to focus on a single point where their skin meets. Kit exhales, his lips parting on instinct.
Kit’s brain is hazy. He looks into Ty’s eyes, and in the dim light of Kit’s room they seem almost black, a light gray sea swallowed by darkness. But it’s not just lust that Kit sees inside – it’s tenderness, and care, and love.
Kit swallows, and the next thing he knows, he takes Ty’s wrist, pulls it away from his face, and brings their lips together in a kiss. It’s an odd combination of softness and desperation, heat and precision. Kit’s hand grasps the back of Ty’s head, fingers threading through his dark hair. Ty’s mouth opens, and Kit wastes no time pushing his tongue inside. Ty lets out a noise, a small whimper. He fists Kit’s shirt in his hand and tugs, dragging both of them onto the bed.
Kit barely manages to straighten his arm to steady himself against the mattress. Ty laughs – his beautiful, open-mouthed laugh that only Kit gets to hear – and pulls Kit back into the kiss. Despite Kit’s unnerving confession, this feels less heavy. Less loaded than it was before. There is no anger, no bitterness laced in it.
Ty clutches Kit’s shirt with such force that it rides up to Kit’s ribs.
Kit chuckles into his mouth. “You want it off?”
Ty blushes, small patches of red blooming on his cheeks. “That would be efficient,” he says. The tips of his fingers are brushing against Kit’s sides, absentmindedly.
Kit reaches over his shoulders, pulling on the hem of his shirt. Once it’s off, Ty’s hands move up from his sides and to his ribs. Still soft, but with more precision.
The voice comes to Kit as if from the dense layer of noise. “Kit, you forgot the pillow– oh my god!”
Kit yelps as Ty pushes him off, rolling on his back. The door closes as fast as it opened. “Sorry!” Jem’s voice rings from outside the door. “I should have knocked. I am leaving pillowcases on the chair next to the door.”
Kit groans, covering his face. Near him, Ty’s body is shaking from laughter.
“Not funny!” Kit mutters into his hands, his voice muffled.
“It is, a little bit,” Ty says. He rolls over, peeling Kit’s hand off his face. Ty’s lips are red and glossy, and it doesn’t do any good to the pressure that builds below Kit’s waistband. “We should probably reconsider making out where your parents can walk in at any time.”
“But they can make out when I am around just fine,” Kit rolls his eyes. The walls in their house are regrettably thin, and Kit doesn’t go to sleep without earplugs anymore – he learned his lesson the hard way.
Ty smiles, tracing his fingers over Kit’s cheek. It’s not as burning and demanding as before, a steadier touch. “We should sleep,” he says.
Kit nods. “Probably.”
“You want me to read to you?” Ty looks over Kit’s head at the nightstand and the stack of books there. “Your selection might be a bit more entertaining than my textbooks from Scholomance.”
Kit frowns. “Did you bring them with you?”
Ty shrugs in reply.
“Nerd,” Kit places a soft kiss on Ty’s knuckles.
Jem laughs when he sees them both the next morning, and it takes a lot of strength from Kit not to scowl in return.
**
Touching is fine.
It’s good. It’s supposed to be healthy. It’s not always sexual, but sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s a steady presence on Kit’s body, keeping him grounded. Kit tries very hard to get used to it. Not to flinch or stagger from it, like a crazy person.
The visit to the New York Institute should have been restorative. With the war over, Jace wanted a bit of quiet time with Kit, and insisted – demanded, even – that he bring Ty along. It was supposed to be a short, nice vacation.
It started as one. Clary orders breakfast, and Jace makes coffee for them, and the morning is filled with soft laughter and teasing conversations. The sun shines through the kitchen window and warms Kit’s face. He feels good.
“Only you would view a vacation as an opportunity to train,” Kit rolls his eyes, and Clary laughs.
“He views dates as a perfect opportunity to train, too,” she says, and leans down to kiss him on the cheek.
Kit should find it cute, or a bit disgusting at the very least, but instead, he feels as his whole body stiffens.
“Training can be romantic,” Ty points out with a smile. Jace yells out something like thank you, and Ty grins even wider, placing a hand between Kit’s shoulder blades.
Kit jolts, almost knocking down his coffee. The pressure of Ty’s hand disappears, and Kit gets up, mumbling an excuse of needing to use the bathroom. He doesn’t look back at Jace, or Clary, and specifically avoids looking at Ty.
Jace is one of the first few to bring it up later that day. “Were you hit as a child?” he asks.
Kit stumbles, and the knife he was about to throw clatters to the ground. Under any other circumstance, Jace would have already suggested a couple of harsh remarks, but he stays silent, waiting for Kit to reply.
“What? No,” Kit replies, looking at the ground pointedly. “Were you?”
“Well, yeah.”
Kit’s eyes snap up, but Jace simply shrugs. “It’s okay, it was a long time ago.”
Kit starts busying himself with knives again. “Why did you ask?”
The sound of a blade flying through the air is loud enough to deafen. Kit hears Jace’s footsteps approaching and tenses.
“Listen,” Jace starts. His voice is devoid of usual firmness, filled with more hesitancy. “It’s good for a Shadowhunter to be constantly on their guard. It's what keeps you alive longer. But you don’t have to be so tense whenever I try to touch you.”
“I don’t get tense,” Kit deflects.
Jace raises an eyebrow at him. “When Ty placed a hand on your arm today, you shook so hard that your shoulders hit your chin, and just now when I tried to pull your elbow, you almost threw me over your back.”
The retorts die down on Kit’s tongue. He opens his mouth, but soon enough it shifts into a scowl. He turns around and throws another knife.
“I am not trying to corner you, I am just trying to talk.”
Kit lets out a long sigh. “I wasn’t abused as a child. It’s not a– fear thing,” he flinches at the word.
From the corner of Kit’s eyes, he sees that Jace nods. “Then what is it?”
“Are you my therapist?” Kit snaps but then bites his tongue. “Shit, sorry.”
But Jace doesn’t look at him in anger, or even confusion. There is an odd softness in his expression, one that makes Kit uneasy. “It’s okay, kid,” he says.
Kit looks over at Jace again. “I don’t know, my dad wasn’t affectionate, you know?” Jace hums in reply, as if he does know. “There has always been this wall, or barrier, or whatever,” he rolls his eyes. “I just assumed it was because he was trying to keep me safe, but now it becomes clear that some part of him couldn’t fully love me.”
Jace’s face goes slack. “Kit–”
“You don’t have to say it isn’t true,” Kit cuts in. “I know it is. He loved my mom, a lot, but I think some part of him blamed me for her death, to an extent. I could always feel it, even when I hadn’t fully known what it was.”
Jace’s arm stretches toward him, but he jerks it away when Kit notices. Kit nods, and Jace carefully places his hand on Kit’s shoulder, squeezing.
It’s awkward. Kit laughs. Jace follows suit.
“I am also bad at this,” Jace says. “But I want to try. Sorry if this was unprompted.”
Kit shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he says, actually meaning it this time.
Ty catches up to him later that day. Kit stares at the sky stretching above the roof of New York’s Institute, trying to count the stars from the brightest to the dimmest. He feels Ty’s presence even before he sits down beside him. Kit always knows when he is near, like a steady hum under his pulse point.
Kit tilts his head to look at him. Ty’s hair is slightly damp, strands hanging low, almost sticking to his neck. The skin there is pale and spotless, except for a single tiny mole just below his chin. Kit loves kissing it, tracing it slowly with his tongue. A few people can notice those tiny imperfections in Ty, and Kit revels in a feeling of being the only one close enough to own them for a little while.
“It’s not about you,” Kit says, because he already knows the question that Ty would ask.
Ty’s posture relaxes. “Okay,” he says, leaning it at that. Kit appreciates that Ty doesn’t push further. “You know that I understand it, right?”
Kit nods. “But I don’t want you to think that I am embarrassed by you.”
“Affection can be embarrassing,” Ty shrugs. “I grew up with a lot of siblings, you don’t have to explain it to me.”
I didn’t get much affection as a child sounds very silly in Kit’s head. “I think it might be more about showing that I am loved to other people,” Kit admits. “I got better at this, after living with Jem and Tessa, and Mina constantly hanging from me like a monkey. But past few months just–”
Kit sucks in a breath. Words stuck somewhere on the way, as if choking him.
Ty reaches out, lacing their fingers together. The touch is warm, like sunlight, but heavy in the best way possible. It keeps Kit present, keeps him from running away, even if it’s just from his thoughts.
“Missing Livvy is odd for me. Some days it’s just an old scar that is a bit sore, and others make me want to curl around the pain in my chest because it’s so encompassing,” Ty says. Kit squeezes his fingers tighter. “Some things don’t leave us, no matter how hard we try. And sometimes they do leave, but the scar is too deep to become completely invisible.”
Ty looks up, his thumb still tracing patterns over Kit’s skin. “You are okay,” he whispers, like a secret shared between them. “You don’t owe me an explanation, but I do want you to know that I am here for you.”
Kit whines low in his throat and bumps his forehead on Ty’s shoulder. “How are you so good at that?” he asks, sound muffled by Ty’s shirt. It smells like mint soap and detergent.
Ty huffs, his breath fanning over the top of Kit’s head. “Usually, I am not. But I love you, so.”
Kit shudders. Ty always says those things so casually, not fully understanding what that does to Kit.
Or maybe he does.
“Love you, too,” he mumbles, clinging to Ty’s body as if the wind will make him drift away.
**
More often than not, touch is a craving. A scratching, clawing need in his stomach that likes to make itself known. Makes Kit reckless for it, drunk on adrenaline.
The bar is small, with the lights hanging low above their heads. The space is familiar, and Kit knows that Ty enjoys it. It makes his body relax, his smile a bit more open, his eyes brighter. It’s a good look on him.
Kit traces the lines of Ty’s cheekbones with his eyes, down to his jaw, the curve of his neck. He is wearing one of his stupid dress shirts that shouldn’t look as cool as it does in a shitty downtown bar. Over his ears, a few strands are curled from sweat.
Kit gulps, leaning into Ty’s side harder, their shoulders pressing.
“Would you agree, Kit?”
Kit’s eyes snap up. Dru looks at him with a glint in her eyes that Kit doesn’t approve of.
“What?” He asks, clearing his throat.
Ty rolls his eyes. “She was asking about bacon in ice cream. It’s a stupid question.”
Dru takes a sip of her drink, looking at Kit pointedly. “Yeah, very stupid.”
She wiggles her eyebrows, and Kit flips her off. Ty beside him laughs at something that Thais says, and unconsciously leans into Kit’s body even more.
Kit’s skin is on fire. It might be because he is tipsy, but Ty’s touch makes him feel more drunk than a cocktail in front of him that is ninety per cent soda. Their bodies are practically one as they are crowded on a small sofa, but all of a sudden, it doesn’t feel like enough. Kit’s hand lands on Ty’s upper thigh, resting there. Ty stops for a second, mid-conversation, before continuing – a gesture so inconspicuous that most might have missed it, but Kit doesn’t.
That’s how Kit finds himself with his back against the wall. They are outside, and it’s almost winter, the cold air being a sobering touch against Kit’s skin. They left under a pretense of getting some air – which they do need usually, especially in a place that crowded – but tonight it’s not about that.
Tonight it’s about hands, and kisses, and mingling breaths. Ty’s head is leaning back as Kit traces his jaw with his lips, down to the mole that he loves so much.
“You have a thing for moles,” Ty breathes out. It’s nice to hear him like this, for once, winded up. His sharp focus shattering at the brush of Kit’s lips.
It’s more than a little maddening.
Kit removes his lips from Ty’s neck, head against the wall. “I have a thing for you,” he says, a little drowsily.
Ty chuckles. “It would be weird if you didn’t.” The nonchalance in his voice doesn’t sound half as convincing with a fierce blush on his face.
Kit leans in to kiss him again. The heat has already died down, turning into a steady simmer. Ty moves his lips gently, cupping Kit’s jaw as if he were a precious piece of art. Shivers are running up and down his body, and Kit can’t imagine living without Ty’s touch ever again. Kit needs it like air, he needs to keep it deep in his lungs until it crawls back into his heart.
Ty detaches himself. “I like that I get to do this now,” he says, looking straight into Kit’s eyes, and it’s more dizzying than any kiss. “You’re so beautiful,” Ty adds, tracing his fingers over Kit’s cheekbones.
“Hey, that’s my phrase,” Kit chuckles. “You need to come up with something on your own.”
Ty hums, placing a soft kiss over Kit’s temple. “Stunning,” he whispers, and it’s a small hurricane in Kit’s chest. Ty’s breath is a molten heat on his face.
“Too fierce,” Kit jokes, his laugh choked up as Ty’s lips trace down the side of his face, to his jaw.
Ty sucks a patch of skin there into his mouth, and Kit gasps, hands clasped tight over Ty’s shoulders. “Dazzling?” Ty says into Kit’s skin. He lifts his head, eyes glassy but bright. “Ethereal?” Another kiss, in the corner of his mouth. Lighter and softer.
Kit’s chest is about to combust, and he breathes out, hard. “Shut up,” he says, but it’s so weak that even Ty seems to find it endearing.
Touch is a craving to Kit, an encompassing hunger, but there is at least one person in the world who can satisfy it, regardless of the intensity.