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For most of Jace’s life, his assumption that he was straight went unchallenged.
After all, he did like girls — more than Alec did, at least — and he was pretty sure he liked them more than boys. So what if Jace also noticed how hot some boys were? Didn’t everyone? Wasn’t it, like, normal, to appreciate people who looked good?
(Alec noticed how hot boys were, which served as Jace’s proof that they were both totally straight until he finally figured out how gay Alec was. This realisation, sadly, failed to make Jace question his own sexuality.)
After all, he didn’t, like, particularly want to kiss a boy. He was curious what it’d be like, sure — who wasn’t? — but he’d always hook up with a girl when they went to a club. Some boys were hot, but more girls were hot, and that was enough confirmation for Jace that he was straight. Very straight.
The first time he questioned his firm commitment to hetrosexuality was thanks to Meliorn, who was — well — attractive. But Seelies didn’t exactly do gender the way that mundanes and Shadowhunters did; Meliorn was simply androgynous enough that Jace’s very straight perceptions noticed he was hot. That was all, right?
But then there was Simon, and, well — he was cute. Nerdy, and he definitely talked too much, but it was actually kinda… adorable. And when he was rambling, Jace now found himself wanting to shut him up by kissing him, which was — probably not straight. (Probably.)
Except Jace was straight (wasn’t he?) so it didn’t make sense. He was in love with Clary, not Simon — and anyway Simon was clearly caught between his crush on Clary and his crush on Izzy (he ignored the pain he felt at the thought), so it wasn’t like anything would happen. (Of course nothing would happen. He was straight.)
He did not have a crush on Simon Lewis, no matter how cute he was or how funny his Star Wars jokes were (now that Jace actually understood them) or how warm he felt when Simon smiled at him.
The thing was, he kinda… wasn’t in love with Clary anymore. If he’d ever been. When they’d first met, there’d been that instantaneous feeling of oh, it’s you, I’ve been looking for you — but that was more their shared angel blood than any sort of soulmate-y connection. They’d both translated it into a romantic love (or at least a crush), which had made it really weird when they’d thought they were siblings, but then they’d realised they weren’t and somehow they’d just — assumed that meant they were in love. And before they’d had a chance to breathe and think about what they meant to each other, Clary’s memories had been stolen, and Jace had spent a year in heartbreak and never questioned the idea that he was in love with her.
But then, she’d gotten her memories back, and while he was overjoyed she was back, he didn’t feel that all-encompassing attraction anymore. Perhaps it was partially because her extra angelic blood was gone now, but it was also that he simply didn’t love her like that anymore — he loved her like he loved Alec or Izzy, more like a sister than a girlfriend.
That was why, even when she was back properly and she remembered them all, they hadn’t really gotten back together. Well, hadn’t gotten back together at all — they hadn’t talked about it, hadn’t kissed. Jace was privately relieved, and immediately felt horrible because if Clary was still in love with him— but it wasn’t like she had tried to get them back together, either—
The longer it went on, the awkward if consensual not talking, the more certain Jace became that he wasn’t in love with Clary any longer. (And no, that did not mean he was in love with Simon; that was a ridiculous thought. Jace was straight, dammit. Straight. Liked girls. Didn’t fall in love with cute nerdy Daylighters. That was all.)
<hr />
So, when Clary came into his room and declared that they needed to talk, he felt a complicated mix of trepidation, guilt, and apology.
When Clary explained that she wasn’t in love with Jace anymore and that she’d fallen for Izzy instead, that was all replaced by relief. He grinned at her, told her that he wasn’t in love with her either, and accepted her hug with a perceptible loosening of the shoulders. (It had nothing to do with the fact that if Clary and Izzy liked each other, neither of them would start dating Simon. Nope. Not at all.)
She proceeded to explain that she’d just “accidentally” kissed Izzy — how a kiss could be accidental, Jace couldn’t fathom — and then panicked about Jace and ran away. Jace promptly had a revelation about the looks Izzy had been discreetly sending Clary for the last month or so, huffed, and informed her that if she didn’t go down, apologise to Izzy, and kiss her properly, Jace would assign her to train the new recruits for the next six months.
Clary blanched, grinned, and then took off — hopefully for the lab where Izzy was likely swallowing back heartbreak. When she showed up four hours later with messy hair, a shirt on backwards, and her hand held tightly in Izzy’s, Jace beamed as brightly as either of them.
But that still didn’t really resolve Jace’s problem. (Not that there was a problem — he was straight! Obviously!) He still couldn’t stop thinking about Simon, about how surprisingly brave he was beneath his constant chatter and jokes. If he was straight — which he was — why was he feeling butterflies in his stomach when Simon smiled at him?
He decided to talk to Alec. Alec would, of course, tell Jace that he was straight — which Jace already knew! He just wanted extra confirmation, that was all — and then Jace would be able to figure himself out and not worry about not being straight. (Not that he was worrying about that, because he was straight.)
<hr />
Alec looked up impatiently from his reports as Jace came into his office, but his features softened as he took in Jace’s expression. “What’s up?”
The story came spilling out. Clary, and the confusion of falling out of love; Simon, and the cute way he smiled and made Jace’s heart beat faster.
For a moment after Jace was done, Alec blinked at him in silence. Then, he said with absolute certainty, “You’re not straight, Jace.”
Jace was silent. He’d thought — he’d expected Alec would confirm he was straight, not deny it; he shook his head, almost unaware of what he was doing, head spinning. “No, I’m — I’m straight, I thought—”
Alec opened his mouth to say something else, but Jace reached blindly behind him for the door handle, turned it, and left Alec’s office at a run.
He didn’t know where he was going; his head felt like a mess, thoughts spilling out in random bursts that only confused him more. He was straight — he thought he was straight, he believed it, he’d always been straight; now the world was spinning because Alec didn’t think he was, and he felt that bloom of warmth in his chest whenever he thought of Simon, and panic was curling tighter and tighter around him.
Far enough away from Alec’s office, Jace sat down hard on the floor, back to the wall, legs curled up to his chest. He was breathing quickly, too quickly, but his thoughts were spinning even faster and he didn’t know what to think, what he was, who he was, who he wanted to be — or to be with.
He didn’t know what was wrong with him, why he was like this — Alec was gay, and that was fine; Magnus was bi, as was Izzy; Clary was lesbian. It wasn’t — it wasn’t that he thought it would be bad to like men; it was just that he’d thought, assumed, for so long — and now he knew he wasn’t straight, that he was bi or pan or omni or poly or something like that, he wasn’t — it’d been a part of him, a part of his identity, and irrational panic was rising irrepressibly in his throat.
And, he realised with a second burst of shock: he had a crush on Simon. He’d been vaguely irritated by the mundane-turned-vampire-turned-Daylighter at first, with his constant chatter and references that nobody else got except sometimes Clary, but over time he’d grown to know Simon better, to like him better; a reluctant affection had bloomed into something more, into an attraction that Jace could no longer deny.
It wasn’t just butterflies in his stomach, it was a warmth in his chest — it wasn’t that all-encompassing heat he’d found with Clary, driven by angelic blood and adrenaline; it wasn’t like any of the other girls he’d dated, either, quick and fun but not deep. Perhaps that was why it’d taken him so long to realise that he liked Simon that way — because it wasn’t like any of the other romantic relationships he’d had.
With Simon, he admired more than Simon’s looks. He admired his quiet bravery that so often went under the radar; his constant desire to cheer up the people around them, to comfort them if he could, to stay with them if he couldn’t; his determination to do what was right that nobody — not even Simon — seemed to notice because it was such a fundamental, simple truth. Simon was a genuinely good person, and Jace didn’t know what to do with that.
Because this wasn’t just a crush. This was more; it was deeper, warmer, longer-lasting; it was a glow and not an inferno, a quiet constant rather than a burst of sound that died away too quickly to see clearly, and shit, he was in love with Simon Lewis—
But Simon was probably straight, and didn’t he have a crush on Izzy, or Clary, or both? He’d never mentioned not being straight, and while Jace knew it was possible that he liked both boys and girls — like Jace did, apparently — that didn’t mean Simon liked Jace. And if he did like Jace, he would’ve said something, right? His crush on Clary had been clear enough; he’d never showed any similar signs with Jace, which meant that he probably didn’t like Jace back—
“Jace?”
A voice, one he recognised, but he couldn’t think to put a name to it because his head was spinning wildly with panic that wasn’t helping him figure anything out, at all, and he was fairly certain he was having an panic attack which he hadn’t had since he was six and Valentine had snapped him out of it with a dagger through the shoulder that’d taken months to heal since he was too young for an iratze; perhaps that was why his love life was doomed to failure, because he’d been raised by a genocidal sociopath—
“Jace!” The voice was sharper now, pointed, and suddenly there were hands on Jace’s shoulders, calming him, bringing him back to earth. “Shh, take a deep breath with me—”
“Simon,” Jace managed, and while Simon’s presence probably should’ve made everything worse — it was, after all, about the fact that he was in love with Simon that he was panicking — but instead, his voice was somehow soothing.
“In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four. That’s good, just keep breathing, you’re going to be okay.”
Jace obeyed almost automatically, inhaling and exhaling on Simon’s pattern, feeling his heartbeat slow and his head clear. He opened his eyes and looked up, black spots he’d barely noticed fading from his vision as he took in Simon’s concerned frown, the cute little divot between his brows, his pursed lips, his brown eyes looking at Jace with worry, but not pity. Simon didn’t pity people, and Jace was infinitely grateful for that.
“You alright?” Simon asked him, hands still on Jace’s shoulders, and Jace felt abruptly, viscerally aware of how close together they were. He decided to blame his too-fast heartbeat on the panic attack.
“Fine,” Jace said reflexively, and Simon arched an eyebrow.
“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you don’t seem very fine.”
For a moment, Jace hesitated, but the words came tumbling out before he could make up his mind that he didn’t want to. “I — I’m just… having a minor sexuality crisis, I suppose.” He huffed self-deprecatingly. “I… don’t think I’m straight.”
There was something complicated in Simon’s eyes, but Jace didn’t have the brainpower to decipher it before it was gone again. Simon shifted to sit more comfortably, hands falling away from Jace’s shoulders, and Jace did his best not to mourn the loss of contact. “Uh. Congratulations,” Simon offered, slightly hesitant.
“Thanks,” Jace returned dryly. “You deal with my panic attacks better than Valentine.” He didn’t almost say my father this time, which was progress, but the name still brought a complicated mix of emotions — fear and hatred uppermost, of course, but Valentine had raised him, and it could never be that simple.
Simon huffed, leaning back on the wall of the corridor facing Jace. “That’s not very high praise, you know.”
Jace shrugged. “Probably not. Still — where’d you learn how to calm me down?”
“I used to have panic attacks all the time,” Simon replied. “Notably, one over the realisation that I’m pan” — Jace kept his face carefully blank at the reveal, quashing the hope that rose almost automatically in his throat — “but I had them over other stuff, too. You know, school, bullies, stage fright, being nerdy, having a crush on Clary, band stuff, no reason in particular — or actually a bunch of them at once, that happened a few times too, especially when my band had a performance at the end of term so I also had a ton of schoolwork—” He cut himself off. “Sorry, I’m rambling.” (Jace rather wished he could punch everyone who’d ever made Simon think he needed to apologise for talking.) “Point is, Luke used to help me deal with them, so I’ve got an idea what it’s like, and how to deal with it.”
They were both quiet for a moment. Jace wasn’t sure what to say; the panic was abating, but it wasn’t gone yet, blurring his thoughts. Having Simon there was calming, though, and despite the silence, he relaxed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Simon offered, only slightly hesitant.
Yes, actually. Jace usually didn’t like talking about feelings, but was happy to talk about anything else; with Simon, oddly, it was the reverse. Silence was comfortable — especially odd, seeing as Simon talked a lot — but Jace was also comfortable talking about more… private things. He usually resisted the urge, if only to keep up his cold-hearted persona, but sometimes — like now — he didn’t. “I always just — assumed I was straight, I guess. I mean, I do like girls, and I never really… thought it meant anything, that I sometimes also liked guys?” He shook his head. “It sounds dumb now, because I’m — I mean, I do like boys, but I didn’t… didn’t think it meant anything, you know?”
“Yeah, I get that,” Simon said amicably. “Heteronormativity and all that. You don’t question it until it comes and slaps you in the face.”
“‘Slaps you in the face’ sounds about right.” Jace managed a small smile, hoping Simon wouldn’t ask what that slap in the face had been, because it’d been Simon himself, and pan or not, Simon didn’t like Jace that way, and everything would get… awkward.
Thankfully, Simon went on without asking. “For me, it was this guy in my band — he left a little while later, moved somewhere else, but while he was still playing with us, I kept noticing that he looked really cute with a guitar. And I was crushing on Clary at the time, so I didn’t really think about it for a while, but at some point I realised that I liked him in, like, that way. So I had a bit of a crisis — Luke found me, I came out to him, he reacted pretty well, gave me the courage to come out to my mom. And she didn’t really get it, she’d heard of being gay but not really being pan, but she figured it out and she was pretty supportive by the time I got involved with—” he gestured around them, as if to encompass their whole lives, the Shadow World and all that it entailed “—all this.”
Jace knew that Simon hadn’t been able to talk to his mother since he’d become a vampire. She thought he was dead, and while Jace hadn’t known her at all, he felt a dull stab of sympathy for Simon’s pain. Right now, however, didn’t seem like the time for him to bring that up; there was a touch of melancholy in Simon’s voice, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to linger on it. “Seeing as Izzy’s bi and Alec’s gay, I doubt I have to worry about not being accepted.”
Simon chuckled, though Jace’s words barely counted as a joke; at least it was light-hearted enough to distract Simon from his mother. “That is an advantage. I remember, when I first got here, I thought everyone would be straight, and now…”
“Yeah, we’ve all come out as some sort of queer over the last two years,” Jace agreed. They’d all grown as people, too, from irresponsible children to adults (Jace, Clary, Izzy, and Simon) or closeted teenagers to confident Inquisitors (Alec). There was probably a metaphor somewhere in there. Between Clary, Simon, and Magnus coming into their lives with a bang and the numerous near-death experiences of the last two years, there’d been plenty of reason and time to mature.
“What about you? I mean, are you pan, or bi, or omni, or—?” Simon asked, tilting his head to the side.
“I… don’t actually know,” Jace said thoughtfully. “What — I’m sorry, I don’t really know what the… difference is, between those?”
“Depends who you ask,” Simon said. “Some people distinguish between them — like, bi people are attracted to both men and women but in different ways, while pan people are kinda attracted to everyone regardless of gender, and poly people are attracted to multiple genders but not necessarily their own — but then a lot of people just choose whichever one they like best. I mean, the fact that there’s a ‘pan’ in ‘panda’ definitely factored into my decision, plus I like the colours better. And I’ve known people who’re omni because they like the flag better, as well as people who really think one of the definitions fits them best.”
“Huh.” Jace considered that for a moment. Izzy and Magnus were bi — they’d both dressed up in pink, purple, and blue at Pride, complete with colourful makeup and skimpy clothing which, in Magnus’ case, had made Alec blush — but that didn’t quite feel right for him; he liked the splash of yellow across the pan flag, standing out sharply against the other shades. Like Simon. “I — I like pan, I think.”
“That’s great.” Simon grinned encouragingly. “And you can, like, change your mind or whatever if you decide something else fits better.”
Jace nodded. The panic that’d risen so sharply in his throat was nearly gone now, soothed away by Simon and their conversation and Simon and the settling of his thoughts and Simon. Mostly Simon.
“If I may,” Simon said, an odd note of hesitance in his voice, “what made you realise you weren’t straight?”
Shit. Jace barely managed to keep the swear from spilling out of his mouth, because this was exactly what he’d hoped Simon wouldn’t ask. He’d just — lie, make something up about seeing one cute guy too many—
But Simon was looking at him with something almost like hope in his eyes, something tentative and uncertain but there, almost like Simon was hoping for a particular answer, and that gave Jace the courage to answer honestly.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t beat around the bush a little. “Well, I talked to Alec, expecting him to confirm that I was straight, and he told me I definitely wasn’t. That was what brought on the realisation and minor panic attack.”
Simon hummed, that strange hope/wish/desire in his eyes that Jace couldn’t quite decipher, and Jace went on. “But I — the real reason I started questioning it, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself, was because of you.”
He’d lost the courage required to look at Simon properly, eyes falling to his hands in his lap, and he didn’t know what face Simon was making. “It’s because I realised that I’m in love with you — have been for a while, really, though I was too steeped in denial to recognise it at first. I’d convinced myself I was in love with Clary, but I’m — I’m not, I don’t know if I ever was, if it was anything but adrenaline and angel blood that pushed us together. When you and Clary were dating, I told myself I was jealous of you, but I was really jealous of her.” He hesitated, but Simon still didn’t say anything, so he went on. “I love the way you ramble when you’re excited about something, and I hate that you’ve been told so often that you talk so much, because I like listening to you talk. I love how much joy you get from Star Wars puns or jokes that nobody but Clary and me really get. I love how brave you are, even when you don’t think you’re being brave, just doing what’s necessary.” The words seemed to flow almost without Jace’s volition, all the feelings he’d denied or holed up in his soul coming spilling out of his lips. “I have no idea if you feel the same way, but I can’t — I can’t lie about this any more. I love you.”
He finally dared to look up, and found Simon staring at him with wide eyes and a smile dancing at the corners of his mouth. “I love you too,” Simon said.
For a moment, Jace blinked, and then he felt the hope in his chest burst into joy that brought a grin to his lips. “Of course you do. I’m irresisti— mph.”
Simon cut him off with a kiss, and Jace’s brain went blank at the touch of his lips. His hands came up almost automatically to cup Simon’s face, to pull him closer, and Jace thought for a delirious moment that he wanted to stay here, like this, forever.
Unfortunately, breathing was a necessity — if only for Jace, thanks to Simon’s vampirism — and he eventually had to pull back. Jace met Simon’s eyes, warm and brown and full of love that he scarcely believed he could ever deserve.
“I love you,” Simon said again, and Jace’s smile brightened almost involuntarily.
“I know,” he replied, and Simon blinked at him for a moment in surprise.
“Did you just quote Star Wars at me?”
“I listen when you talk,” Jace told him, “and your jokes are a lot funnier when I know what they’re referencing.”
Simon beamed and kissed him again.