Fire to Water

Sword and Saber

A/n: I do not know what canon gear looks like. I hope I am relatively close, but honestly if they were in gear I just pictured black jeans and a leather jacket, complicated with fasteners and fiddly bits. 

Ty stared at the door without knocking. 

He felt sick.

He had been avoiding Kit since their awkward introductions, occupying himself in the closet, or with Livvy. 

The gear was hard and ridged under his hands, and he ran his fingers over it, back and forth.

It probably wouldn't be that bad. He'd have to talk, but Kit was good to talk with. Kit never talked at him. Even Livvy and Julian talked at him sometimes, but not Kit.

Ty wouldn't even have to look him in the eyes.

It would be okay.

Ty knocked.

"Come in!" Kit called.

This was a very bad idea.

What if Kit still hated him? What if Kit ran away again, or slammed the door in his face? What if Kit thought he was weird and hated him and  never wanted to see him again and yelled at him?

Ty should go.

Ty did not go.

His feet weren't working.

The door flew open. "What now, Jace—" Kit snapped, and cut himself off.

"Ty," he said, in a completely different voice, much quieter, "What... what are you doing here?"

Ty held out the gear. "You... at dinner, you said you needed gear."

"Oh. Um. Isn't this... don't you need this?" Kit asked. His voice was very odd (it was more than just the accent) and Ty chanced a look up at his eyes. They were beautiful, as deep and infinite as the sky, and for a moment Ty forgot the question.

"No," Ty said, glancing away. "I don't, I have extra. You can have these."

"Thank you," Kit said. "Really."

Ty smiled, and glanced at his eyes again. Kit had lovely eyes. They were brilliant blue, the color of the sky on days when it was cold enough that the snow shone with ice, and looked deeper, like infinite pools of water, like looking up into the sky and seeing stars when the sun was up. 

Kit glanced away.

"Uh. Bye." Ty turned and all but ran away.

Kit was very glad the gear wasn't very complicated, because he could have spent hours attempting to put it on right. As it was, he only connected two buckles wrong, and put the belt on inside out only once. He was very proud of himself. The time Jem had attempted to get him to wear gear to train in, he had come back two hours later to find Kit trapped in the gear with his sleeve buckled to the thigh holster, all the armour on wrong, the chest plate backwards, and the belts tangled and wrong in a very complicated way that he still didn't understand. That gear had been Jem's from over a century ago, and much harder in the way of lacings and ancient fasteners. 

This was easier.

The jacket smelled like Ty, the specific books-and-sage scent he remembered from the Los Angeles Institute. It felt a little like coming home, and a little like a memory— here was a place he had once belonged, here was a place that used to be home. 

But home was England, now, home was across the ocean.

Someone knocked on the door, and Kit felt himself flush, just barely. 

Jace didn't wait for Kit to let him in, either. He sauntered into the room as if he owned the place (he kind of did, but Kit thought that was also just how Jace walked) and leaned on the wardrobe.

"I thought you didn't have gear," Jace said.

Kit hoped he was not blushing. "It's Ty's. He let me borrow it."

"Oh, nice of him. You were friends, weren't you?"

"Were, yeah."

"Ohh, of course," Jace obviously had the absolute wrong impression. "Since when? You should tell me this stuff, I'm your... uh... seventh cousin or some crap, but we're both Herondales."

"He isn't my boyfriend," Kit spluttered. "We aren't even friends." He was really blushing now.

"Oh," Jace said, and changed the subject. "Have I ever told you about Edward Herondale? Anyway, it was like the eighteen, I dunno, seventies..."

It felt like an aeon later that they found the weapons room.

"...and so she killed herself, and they say her ghost haunts the Herondale manor but they are lying." Jace pushed open the door of the weapons room. 

It was huge, and completely full of weapons of every variety. On the far wall were racks of spears with oddly shaped points, curls and facets that caught the witchlight and threw reflections in strange directions. A bucket held an assortment of swords and rapiers, and one wall was entirely daggers. Whips hung from hooks along the side, and a few carts held more swords. Quivers of arrows were strapped to the wall next to bows and crossbows and something that looked like a nightmarish blend of the two.

It looked a lot like a medieval torture room.

"Cool knives," said Kit, and immediately wished he hadn't, as his last interaction involving Jace and a great deal of fancy daggers ran through his head.

"Yeah. You'll find we keep pretty good track of these, too," Jace said, and Kit wanted to sink into the floor. "Try this." He threw a sheathed dagger to Kit, who waved it around awkwardly. "You like it?"

"Sure?" Kit said. It was a dagger. He didn't have much of a personal connection to a sharp hunk of metal.

"Great." Jace said, and proceeded to quickly apply several daggers to his person. 

Kit awkwardly stuck the dagger into his belt.

"Don't do that." Jace said. Kit removed the dagger. "That's what those two buckles are for. There are two on the sheath— not those. No. That one. And on the other side— no. There, yes. Awesome. Come on!"

Jace was out of the room like a shot, and Kit trailed slowly after him.