Chapter Text
Simon thought about it very rarely, soulmates.
It didn’t particularly interest him.
Besides, he had other things to worry about, like his newbie vampire identity, or his radio silence that worried his mother, or his frail relationship with the Shadowhunters, most of who seemed to dislike him. A lot. Most of who were sitting around the table at the Institute right now and ignored him, plain as day. Except for Izzy and Clary. Bless Clary and her warm heart. And screw Alec.
Instead of listening to the others speak, which was after all what he was supposed to be doing, he pursed his lips and frowned down at his hands.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that his blood flow was minimal – only the blood he drank, really – , the veins on his hands stood out, just like they used to on a warm summer’s day. There was still no pulse. He checked twice, stupidly, holding the tip of his finger against the inside of his wrist.
But, back to the point: soulmates.
It was hardly surprising other people did think about it. A lot. Like any enigmatic phenomenon, the subject of soulmates was obsessively studied by doctors, both the well respected and the mad scientist variety, and by dusty professors with unmanageable theories, or by aspiring authors hoping to hop on the best-seller train for sappy romances. Unfortunately, most of the ‘knowledge’ out there was bogus. Not To Be Trusted™.
Amongst the sea of speculation, though, a few things were agreed upon. Simon wasn’t so sure about any of it, and he liked to pretend he knew nothing about it.
Meeting your soulmate – and effectively being able to see colour for the first time in your life – wasn’t bam and hey, all of a sudden your world’s Technicolor!
It wasn’t triggered by a small touch or a nanosecond of eye contact and oh, so that’s what blue looks like, huh? No, that would just be too easy. There were a dozen of factors that could impede you from ever meeting your soulmate –which, frankly, didn’t make a lot of sense. If there was such a thing as fate, why did it have to be a mysterious asshole about it? Who benefitted from that?
Simon scrawled F A T E ?? on the notepad in front of him and circled it three times. Opposite him sat a bitter-faced Alec, looking high-and-mighty. Simon quickly crossed out the scribble and tried to cover up the doodles in the margins, and then turned back to Izzy, who was leading the meeting with put-upon professionalism. She was still trying her very hardest to win Maryse over.
He peered around the room, as if scared Shadowhunter expertise also included mindreading, but saw that the meeting was nowhere near done and no one seemed to pay much attention to him. Alec had returned to frowning at the glass table. Clary was nodding at Izzy and resembled a bobblehead. Izzy was standing in front of a fancy clear-glass whiteboard, drawing out the details of –shit. Simon really didn’t know. A plan? Blueprint? She smiled at him briefly and turned back to the board. He nodded belatedly.
Anyway, there was a long list of reasons why Simon thought it was beyond unlikely he would ever meet his fated other, his soulmate, his heart’s desire, whatever the term was supposed to be. A kindred spirit?
He mentally summed up why it was impossible – impossible, goddamnit – for him to be seeing what he could only assume was Clary’s green shirt. At least, he thought it was green, which made him wonder why on earth people who lived in black and white would pay for dyed cloth. Oh, god, she probably thought he was staring at her breasts like a schoolboy or a pervert.
Reason number one, his heart was technically dead. Well, he died. That was ages ago. He wasn’t really sure if dead bodies were biologically capable of the reaction catalysed by meeting that one person. Then again, he argued, he was far from a zombie. Still experienced frustration, boredom, anger, longing and all that stuff. Okay, so his first reason was shit. Strike it from the mental record.
Secondly, not everyone carried the identifying gene around. And what a sad truth that was. A lot of folks tended to despise the lucky few who kept gushing about that gorgeous red dress, or, look at how blue the sky is today, it’s damn near electric! Most people spent their entire lives living in black and white.
Now this was a solid, good reason. Especially since he’d gotten tested for the gene when he was about thirteen years old, and the results came back decidedly negative. Zero chance. Indisputable.
What he hadn’t realized was that his DNA pool got sloshed around with the vampire venom. Rearranged, restructured, and he was unknowingly susceptible to being triggered by his soulmate.
Third reason, and a very valid one if you asked Simon, he wasn’t really convinced of the idea of there being one person who was going to —what, complete you? Maybe he wanted multiple people. Maybe he was already complete on his own.
And last but certainly not least, there was the fact that there were no blaring sirens screeching in your ears at the moment you actually did meet them. It could take up to weeks, even months – god forbid, years – for the colour to start seeping in.
And as if fate wasn’t enough of a bitch to make it near impossible to have any certainty, the colours didn’t even manifest themselves all at once. First came blues and greens, murky browns a few days later, then yellow and purple weeks or months later, and finally, red. Fiery, bold, burning red.
Simon had often read fresh blood was a vibrant scarlet colour that grew bland and boring and brown with time. As a vampire, Simon could admit he was strangely eager to see it.
But again, the chances of meeting the person, were slim. The simple fact was that a lot of people – mundanes, downworlders, shadowhunters, whoever –walked straight past their soulmates without realizing they’d missed something potentially life-changing. Unless they pursued that tiny, little flicker of interest – and most people were too cowardly, or too distracted, or too stressed to do it –, your chances were shot to shit.
Too damn bad. Fate didn’t come knocking twice.
Unless you were Simon Lewis, apparently.
It knocked once when that impulsive, arrogant vampire kidnapped him and derailed his entire plan of existence.
It knocked twice when Camille murdered him.
It knocked a third time when Simon clawed his way through a wooden casket and crawled through layers of dirt, only to be greeted by Raphael himself, this time less wholly arrogant as he shuffled on the grass and clenched his jaws, clearly shocked and remorseful at what he had set into motion.
And fate kept knocking, because, completely against his wishes, Raphael had apparently promised to look after him.
“—Simon, for god’s sake!” Clary yelled.
Simon nearly threw himself off his chair. “What? What?”
“Are you even listening?” Her shirt was still green. And upon closer inspection, so were her eyes.
“Yeah! Yes, totally! I’m taking notes!” He looked down at the notepad and tore of the sheaf op paper covered the doodles in the margins, turned it around and put his pen down. “Note-taking, it’s happening. You were talking about the, eh, nest of ehm—,”
“Why is he even here?” Alec cut in.
“Excuse me, I am the First Advisor to the Interim Chapter President of the New York Vampire Clan …” Simon objected. He trailed off lamely, realizing how moronic the title really sounded.
“Si—,”
“That was for real?” Jace asked.
Simon shot him a dirty look. “Yes. Anyways, I was going to say nest of demons down in that shabby depot. Raphael’s already gotten complaints about it.” He looked over to Alec.
Goddamnit. Alec’s eyes were blue.
This was not a fluke.
Simon was feeling increasingly antsy, and he pushed away the fake need to take a deep, calming breath.
“Right,” Isabelle said. “Well, keep him updated. If the looting continues, we’ll have to intervene.”
Simon looked down at his yellow notes and wondered, crap, what updates? what looting? In the last ten minutes of the meeting, he frantically scribbled down what was written on the board.
He felt Alec judging him from afar.
--
After saying goodbye to Clary, Simon walked back to Dumort.
It was still early to vampire standards, barely one a.m.
Simon wracked his brain. Had that doctor been a crook? Were his test results wrong?
He was briefly distracted by a bright green neon cross buzzing at the end of the street, and stood staring in the middle of the pathway until someone knocked into him while grumbling angrily.
Could it be Izzy? They’d gotten close. Somewhat. Or Clary?
He ignored the third option – the option that gave him a half-hearted greeting when he entered the living room in Dumort. The option he wasn’t remotely ready for.
“Ah, you’re back.” Raphael was alone. He got up. “Any news?”
Simon shrugged his shoulders and took out the bundle of papers, handing it to Raphael.
“Your drawing skills could use some improvement.”
“Eh…”
“If you’re going to spend all your time at the Institute trying to be the next Sparky, I’m going to have to strip you from your title.”
Simon sighed and plopped down on the couch. “I love Peanuts.”
“Not the point whatsoever, Lewis.”
“Right, sorry. I got a little distracted.”
“I bet,” Raphael replied in a clipped tone.
A painting hanging in the back of the room caught Simon’s eye. It depicted a small group of ballet dancers. A tutu stood out against the greys and whites. He got out of the couch as fast as he sat down on it and moved to stand in front of the dancers.
A blue tutu.
“Not my favourite,” Raphael commented, walking over. “I think it belonged to one of the old vampires, before I got here.”
Simon hmm-ed. “Right.”
“What’s up with you? Hit by a sudden urge to take in late eighteen hundreds French impressionism?”
Raphael crossed his arms. His cufflink had a blue-ish glint to it. His eyes were still dark as coal. Simon knew they’d be brown.
“Huh?”
“Degas.”
“What?”
“The painter. Degas.”
“Oh, nope. Just curious about the –eh, dancers. My sister used to dance. I prefer comics, anyways.” He grinned and went to shove his glasses further up his nose, forgetting he didn't wear any these days.
“Who could ever forget? You never stop talking.”
“Hey!”
It wasn’t undoable, to put the whole soulmate situation aside for a little while, but he tried.
Raphael crowding against him and kissing his lips raw and slipping a hand down Simon’s pants didn’t make it a whole lot easier, though.
Of course tonight of all nights Raphael, who usually wasn’t all too interested in physical contact, who most certainly barely ever initiated it, didn’t seem to want to let go.
Once Raphael was done torturing him, Simon sank down to the ground, defiled and slightly pink. He looked around for a hand to hold, but Raphael had already left.