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[bytheangell]

Want the Same Things

( @shadowhunterbingo​ prompt: Drunken Confession) (Read on AO3)

Simon shouldn’t be drinking, but after everything that just happened at the Seelie Court he’s upset and frustrated, and can’t get out of his own head. He has the ridiculous idea that maybe getting drunk is the answer - maybe then his thoughts will be hazy enough for him to forget, at least for a little while. At the very least it might help him fall asleep, and he can’t suffer an existential crisis if he’s unconscious… he hopes.

Simon’s at the Hunter’s Moon because he doesn’t know anywhere else a vampire can go to get drunk. He wishes he had some sort of shady underground plasma connections and makes a mental note to get some in case the need ever arises in the future. Here and now, however, Maia takes one look at him and doesn’t ask any questions, only slides him over a drink. He’s grateful - at least if he can’t be somewhere he isn’t recognized he can be somewhere he’s mostly ignored.

That doesn’t last very long before he feels the presence of someone approaching and sliding into the stool next to him. Simon doesn’t have to look up from where his gaze rests firmly on the glass in front of him to know that it’s Jace. Jace Herondale, The Best Shadowhunter of His Generation. Jace Herondale, who is the very person Simon came here to try and drink away.

Jace motions for Maia to bring him a drink with a subtle hand gesture - Simon thinks idly that he must be a regular here if he can order without saying anything. Simon isn’t sure he likes the silence any longer, not when he knows it’s just building up to the inevitable, so he breaks it.

“You don’t have to be here,” Simon tells him coldly. “In fact, I’d prefer it if you weren’t.”

Jace takes a sip of his drink instead of replying immediately. “Clary said you weren’t answering her calls. I just wanted to make sure you were-”

“Please don’t say ‘okay’, Jace,” Simon pleads. “Nothing about this is okay.” Simon knocks back the rest of his plasma and orders another.

“I know I’m the last person you want to see right now,” Jace says. “But you have to know… Clary never meant to hurt you. You can’t be too hard on her.”

Simon closes his eyes, remembering the pained look on Clary’s face as she realized what she had to do, the regret he saw her direct at him before she turned to kiss Jace in front of him. The pain when he said he needed some time after they called things off... for now? For good? He can't think about that right now. 

“I hardly think ignoring a few calls is being particularly hard on her,” Simon points out. “I just need some time. And some space. I think I deserve that much.”

“But you’re alright?” Jace asks, and when Simon turns a pointed glare in his direction Jace has the audacity to smirk and say “What? I didn’t say ‘okay’.”

“I’ll survive. You don’t have to worry about me flinging myself into a fire or anything,” Simon reassures him. “I just want to get drunk and forget this entire day and deal with it later.”

Simon takes a sip of his drink rather than knocking the whole thing back this time. The sounds around him are muted a bit, and his vision blurs slightly at the edges. He can feel the haze set in and it’s nice. It’s the nicest he’s felt since it happened.

“Alright. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I knew better than to let you go along in the first place, I could’ve stopped all of this before it ever happened. And I should’ve. That was my call to make and I fucked it up. Also, for the record, Clary doesn’t know I’m here, she didn’t ask me to come or anything. In fact, she’d probably kill me if she knew I came to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. I just wanted to make sure you were as relatively alright as possible right now… and I guess you are, so I’ll go, then.” Jace says what he came here to say and stands up, the bar chair pushing away from the counter with a scratching sound along the floor.

“You can tell Clary I don’t hate her,” Simon tells Jace as he gets up to leave. He looks back down at the table and mutters “She wouldn’t have been the kiss I wanted most, either.”

At least, Simon thinks he’s muttering that, but his voice is louder than he realizes and Jacee stops in his tracks

“What was that?” Jace asks.

“Nothing,” Simon says quickly. Perhaps a bit too quickly, because Jace sits back down and Simon curses.

“Simon…” Jace says, turning to face him, and Simon averts his gaze. “What are you saying?”

Simon knows he won’t get rid of Jace now, not until he explains himself. He could lie, make up some girl from school, or one of Eric’s friends or something, but he’s too drunk to think of anything convincing and just wants Jace gone.

“If I had to pick,” Simon says, still not looking at Jace. “I would’ve kissed you, too.”

Maybe now he can be alone - now Jace can leave in disgust or confusion or whatever, and Simon can get the peace he came here for. Simon braces himself for the inevitable fallout and instead finds Jace’s hand wrapping around his wrist and pulling him unsteadily off his barstool and toward the door.

Simon, who hadn’t quite braced for this reaction, is helpless to do anything but allow himself to be led outside and around the corner into the small alley next to the bar.

“If you’re going to hit me-” Simon starts, not sure why Jace would hit him for that but not sure what else he would want to drag him into an alley for.

“I’m not going to hit you,” Jace says. “I just didn’t want to do this in a room full of people.”

Then, in another move Simon absolutely never would’ve predicted, Jace brings his hands under Simon’s chin, tilting Simon’s face over and up ever so slightly to look directly into his eyes. Whatever Jace is looking for, he must find it, because a moment later Jace leans forward and kisses Simon.

Simon wonders if he’s hallucinating. Maybe there was something off with that plasma, or maybe he got too drunk and fell asleep at the bar and this is all just a dream. But the brick behind him feels real enough, and so do Jace’s lips on his which now move to return the kiss eagerly.

When Jace pulls away Simon blinks at him a few times, the shock settling in properly now in the aftermath of their kiss.

“You can’t be too surprised after all the flirting I did this morning,” Jace points out.

Simon thinks back to little moments he wrote off as Jace just teasing him.

“I said you had a pretty face. I talked you up to the Seelie Queen,” Jace adds for emphasis, in Simon’s silence. “I don’t say nice things about anyone. Ever.”

Simon starts to smile. “But you did about me.”

“Now you’re getting it, Lewis,” Jace says.

“As much as I’d love to hear more nice things about me,” Simon says hopefully. “Maybe we can go back to the kissing?”

Simon watches as Jace laughs with a smile that lights up his whole face before leaning in again, wasting no time complying with Simon’s request.

Suddenly, Simon doesn’t want to forget a single detail about this night.