🌃 Eruleum's King

• Chapter 23 • Love shots •

Why would it matter that a week passed? The aching feeling inside their chests remained. Everything seemed still too unreal, as if they couldn't distinguish truth from fiction anymore.

-A week ago I was teaching him the difference between Star Wars and Indiana Jones and now... -Simon watched his coffee cup, not sure if he should continue.

Jace looked at him sideways and left his coffee aside, already sick. He silently blamed Simon for not staying quiet.

-I know... This sucks... -Jace clenched his fist, looked through the window: heavy rain pouring in the middle of the night that for sure, will accompany them during the patrol. -Things are not going to be the same again... 

That was a fact Simon did not want to accept, not that  easily, maybe he was too naive for still believing the situation will improve, that Harry may be out there waiting for them. But then, those things could only happen in movies, right? And he wasn't a movie hero with the possibility of changing what had already happened or what may come.

-I'd like to do something for Matt and Magnus... -Simon's voice sounded painfully cracked. Not only he wanted to help those two, but also the rest, his Parabatai. In their own ways, hey were all grieving.

-There are some things we can't solve... Harry is not coming back, Simon... -It was hard to identify Jace's voice tone. In it, could be found anger, frustration, but at the same time, trying hard to be understanding. Despite empathy not being his best quality, he loved Simon, and giving him fake expectancies, would just make him suffer even more. -The best we can do is being there for each other... Learn to... Live with the pain until we don't feel it anymore...

-But... You can't contain emotions that much, you... You'll probably explode... -Even if he was a Shadowhunter now, Simon was raised as a mundane, his ideals were not the same, he couldn't portray locking those emotions inside him. His eyes, watched the golden ones.

-We were born Shadowhunters, it goes in our blood... We lose people every day because of demons... We learn to endure the pain since we are kids...

Simon felt that he had nothing to argue against that. Even if he didn't live by those ideals, he couldn't blame Jace for having them. As he said, everyone had different ways to endure pain.

-We should be going...

It was the last thing Jace said before leaving the kitchen, deciding that the conversation was over. Maybe his way of easying the pain was spilling blood, the demon one that consumed everything and everyone around them.

Matt watched from the window of his room how Jace and Simon got swallowed by the darkness and the heavy rain.
He wanted that too, he wanted the rain hiting his skin, water drops heavy on his eyelashes and sliding through his nose and lips, he wanted to feel something... But then, he had only gone patrolling once since what happened, and everyone tried to protect him as if he could break.
He hated that vulnerability, he hated the sensation of tje people around him believing he wasn't a good warrior anymore, or even capable of shooting an arrow.
But there he was, his stare back at his hands, which he interwined. One of them had Harry's glove. Maybe it was a way of tricking his mind and pretending he was holding Harry's hand.

Yet, it was curious how Harry's hand used to fit perfectly, better than his own. He may be able to trick his mind, but not a heart that recalled every touch.

-Sweetheart, it's me, mom... Can I come in?

And then his mother, being that nice, that gentle... He never thought he would miss their fights.

-Come in...

But he had no other options, Maryse would never leave if he didn't open, so he stood up, put a grey shirt on and went to open.
Maryse showed a gloomy smile the moment she saw her son and entered the room, with a white cup that already smelled like hell, or what it's the same: tea.