Fire to Water

Illegible

Alec had long since melted out of the room, leaving the three of them them to systematically search Clary's things. Kit was not optimistic. If her own friends, her own husband, had searched her stuff and found nothing, how likely were they to?

Kit flipped absently through a sketchbook. Ty and Livvy, mired in the closet, were fussing with fabric and hangers, and Dru had long abandoned the sketchbooks to scour the bookshelf, so he was free to let his mind wander a little.

Had he really told Ty that?

You don't have an English accent because you weren't in England.

What had happened to his brain?

Clearly, it had melted into the floor, because here was Ty, and he was very real, and very beautiful, and very here. 

And Kit was a raging idiot.

 Not like you would, because you weren't in England.

He didn't, though. He sounded like home, like LA and California and that odd precise shadowhunter cant to his words, they way they all sounded, like they thought they were so much better than you and knew they could prove it. On Ty, it was charming. On Ty, it just sounded old, like a recording from the turn of the century, or somebody reading a classic book well. 

It was unfair.

Everything was unfair. How dare  he. How dare Ty drop back into his life with no warning whatsoever. How dare he look so pretty doing it.

Ty looked just as he remembered, only taller, and, somehow, even more beautiful. He seemed like he wasn't even a part of this world, like something magic, more magic than should be real. Something Faerie, perhaps, but not even faeries were this ethereal, this impossible. He looked like a ghost, like Livvy, hands darting quick as moths among the clothes, pale and thin and strong. His hair smudged upwards over the clothing as he leaned down, black into black like shadows on jet, like fine charcoal dusted over the ivory of his neck, a portrait painted in starlings and snow. Ty was...

...staring straight at him.

Kit glanced away.

"Did you find anything yet?" He asked, to cover his blush.

"No," Ty said, voice muffled. He ducked back into the closet.

Kit looked down at the sketchbook and realized the pages he was looking at were blank. He hastily flipped back until he found the last picture, an unfinished sketch of a man from the back, light haired, but too harsh in the lines to be a picture of Jace, or if it was, it was wrong. The sword was too sharp, the movement too stiff. There weren't legs, just a scratchy haze of lines.

Something about it was very disturbing.

Kit shut the book and put it aside.

"Wow, you're still in here?" Alec said.

"Yes." It was kind of a stupid observation, but it was late, and if somebody had maybe-kidnapped Dru Kit would probably also be saying things like that.

"It's pretty late. You want to come down for dinner or something?"

"What time is it?" Dru asked.

"Uh, six? Six thirty? I don't know. Did you find anything?"

Kit shook his head, and Dru did too.

"Hm. It was a long shot. Do you want dinner? Simon made it, so it's— decent."

Kit did not want to ask why the qualifying factor for food was that it was decent. 

"Sure," Dru said, slowly.

Ty poked his head out of the closet. 

"Go on," Livvy said. "I'll stay and keep looking."

Dinner was quiet and awkward. The table was far too large, and it was very obvious that the room had not been used in a while.  Seven places places were set, rather haphazardly, with one empty. A plate of something that may have been meatloaf was somewhat set in the center, and two people (getting closer, Kit recognized them as Simon and Izzy) were already seated besides each other.

They looked up as Kit sat down, and passed Alec the meatloaf. 

"No luck?" Izzy asked, in a way that made it obvious she wished someone would contradict her.

No one did.

Dru shook her head. Kit didn't know when Dru had become the spokesperson for their little group, but she was glad she had, since he felt like he was intruding. Dru was always so confident, though.

Izzy visibly wilted. Simon patted her arm and passed her the meatloaf.

"Where's Jace?" Alec asked.

Simon squirmed. "He's in the weapons room."

"Ah," said Alec, as if that immediately clarified things.

It did not.

"Oh, I forgot cups," Simon said, and all but ran from the room.

Dru passed Kit the meatloaf, and he took some before setting it down in the middle again.

Someone flung themself down into the chair directly to Kit's left, and he tried not to jump. It wasn't the drama of their entrance, but the fact that they had walked up Shadowhunter-silent and Kit hadn't noticed until they sat down.

"Jace," Alec said, like he didn't know whether to be relieved or not.

"'Sup," said Jace.

"Simon just left," Izzy said.

"Yes," Jace said. "Oh, Kit. Tessa told me you we going to be here. Sorry I didn't come say hi earlier."

Kit silently handed him the meatloaf.

"Izzy. You didn't...?"

Izzy flicked a pea at him. "Jerk. No, I didn't, Simon made it."

Jace forked some onto his plate. "So hey, Kit, as long as you're here, do you want to go out hunting with me? Family bonding experience. I can tell you stories about old Herondales."

"Uh," Kit said. "I don't have gear?"

"You can borrow some," Jace offered.

"Okay? Sure. Thanks?"

"Oh, Jace, hey," Simon sat down and handed out the cups. None of them matched, either.

"How about after dinner?" Jace said, as if Simon hadn't entered the room.

"Sure?" Kit said. 

"Oh, Simon, hey," Jace mimicked, accepting a cup.

The conversation slowly lapsed into silence again.