So Incredibly Stupid

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of City of Bones or its characters. All belong to the lovely and talented Cassandra. Clare.

A/N: So, I finished City of Bones, and I thought it was a dreadful shame that Alec and Simon only got stupid unrequited feelings, and no action. So I gave them some. This takes place the night Clary and Jace kiss in the greenhouse.

Parts of this are dedicated to Hoeun (and you'd better be able to figure out which parts, my fellow innuendo lover, once you actually get around to reading the book, and then this fic.) Gosh, what that I've written on this site isn't for Hoeun? It's because I'm bribing her so she'll give me my CD, you see…Anyway, on with the fic!

Alec slipped catlike down the stairs from the greenhouse, gritting his teeth. He stubbed his toe on the bottom step and swore under his breath. As if it wasn't enough that she'd come here in the first place, now she had to steal Jace away too?

It wasn't, as Isabelle so often teased him and now this Clary hurled at him as if it were a weapon, that Alec was in love with Jace. At least, he didn't think so. But they were parabatai, best friends, closer than brothers. Or they were until she came along.

Alec pushed his unruly hair off his face and ambled down the hallway, closed doors staring at him on both side, silent, as if watching a parade of one.

Some parade, Alec thought bitterly. It's just me, the boy no one wants.

Alec sucked in his breath, straightening. He was 19 years old, and he would not act like a baby just because Jace had finally found a girl it seemed he would like for longer than a week.

Alec took a closer look around him for the first time. He was in the guest wing. The room where Clary was staying would be somewhere around here. Surely it wouldn't hurt, just to take a look around. Alec ignored the twistings of conscience in his stomach as he continued padding down the hall. He only wanted to learn more about her, he told himself. Just in case.

Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably closer to fifteen minutes, Alec opened a door that did not reveal a neatly made bed in an empty room. Oh no, he realized as he stepped inside, a feral grin crossing his lips, her room was far from empty. Wouldn't Jace be surprised to learn that the girl he was kissing upstairs had another boy in her bed?

Alec stepped inside without turning on the light. The moonlight lit the room enough to see the features of the boy on Clary's bed, but of course Alec had known who it would be from the moment he'd opened the door. Simon. Who else?

Walking closer, until he stood directly over the bed, Alec studied his face. The mundane boy looked different somehow, softer and less guarded, a difference that couldn't be attributed to just sleep. Alec wondered at it until he saw Simon's glasses lying neatly on the bedside table. Of course.

Simon breathed out on a soft sigh, and for the first time, Alec noticed the shape of his lips, a gentle swell, and the way his uncommonly long eyelashes fluttered on his cheekbones. Alec was startled to realize that he was beautiful.

In a rather ugly mundane way of course, he hastened to alter his description. But all the same, he found his fingers drifting down, as if of their own volition, to stroke the boy's hair back from his forehead.

Alec hastily stumbled back as Simon drew in a sharp breath, then opened his eyes.

It took him a moment to get his bearings, and in that time, Alec had retreated back to the door. He had one hand on the knob, ready to turn it and escape from this situation suddenly fraught with the potential for embarrassment and humiliation when Simon's voice rang out.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, and Alec was impressed in spite of himself that Simon's voice didn't shake at all. Perhaps he's underestimated the boy's courage. But not his intelligence, he realized, when Simon's next question was, "I suppose you're after Clary too, are you? Well, you're too late She's gone. Probably off with Jace somewhere."

Alec raised an eyebrow, amused despite the umbrage he took at the scornful tone in Simon's voice when he said "Jace."

"You think I'm after Clary too?" he asked, trying and failing to control a derisive snort.

Simon nodded.

Alec shook his head, keeping his eyes pinned on Simon. "My dear idiot boy," he said. "I'm gay."

Alec had the distinct pleasure of watching Simon's jaw drop.

"Oh," he said in a small voice. He peered up at Alec through those long dark eyelashes. Their eyes locked, and Alec felt twistings of quite another sort begin in his stomach, like ropes of hot coals wound through his intestines. There was no judgment in Simon's eyes, no pity, no fear. In fact, Alec couldn't read him at all, as he could most mundanes. Their feelings were usually so near the surface, but Simon's were cloaked, hidden.

Alec felt a thrill as he discovered he'd like nothing more than find out what was behind Simon's eyes, to be closer to him.

He took a step, then another, toward the bed, and saw the first flicker of something ignite in Simon's eyes. He stood, and backed to the wall. Alec followed. He wasn't even sure what he was doing anymore, but he felt lured by this boy, almost as a demon to his prey.

Alec banished that thought almost as soon as it crossed his mind. Really, it wasn't right that this mundane, this mere boy, should have such an effect of him. But still Alec felt himself drawn inexorably onward.

Alec was a thinker. Even when fighting with Jace and Isabelle, even on the spur of the moment, he thought about each action before he performed it. But now, when he was a scant six inches away from Simon, feeling the shorter boy's warm breath on his neck, he didn't have any idea what he was going to do until he did it.

Alec grabbed Simon by the wrists and pinned them to the wall above his head, then laced his fingers through Simon's, whose breath hitched. Simon's face was ever-changing. All in shadow now, he looked dark and different and altogether ravishable.

Alec bent his head, a few dark curls falling onto his forehead. Simon looked up at him suspiciously.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Mundanes are so incredibly stupid," he said, and then he kissed him.

It was surprisingly easy. Simon's mouth was right there, mere millimeters away, and Alec's lips descended on it. With rather more force than he'd intended, he pressed his mouth to Simon's, amazed by the force of his own need spearing though him. He parted his lips, which seemed to jerk Simon out of his stunned paralysis, and he twisted. Alec moved his head back, breathing heavily, but did not remove his hands from Simon's.

"What was that?" Simon asked, and Alec was pleased to note that his breathing was rather ragged too. Simon took a breath, then frowned. "Wait, what do you mean, incredibly stupid? I resent—"

He was cut off by Alec's mouth covering his again. When they broke apart for air, Alec said, "I was trying to seduce you, you idiot, and you were being dense."

"Oh," said Simon, almost ponderingly. Alec looked down at the boy before him again. The moon had shifted, spilling its light onto Simon's face, and Alec could see him clearly, and read the emotions that now played openly across his face.

The shock must have brought his guard down, Alec thought as he watched puzzlement, then uneasiness, flicker in Simon's eyes. Then they turned hard and resolute and before Alec knew what was happening, Simon had pushed his face up to crush their lips together again.

This time, when Alec opened his mouth slightly, Simon didn't move away, but parted his lips with a tiny sigh that tickled the back of Alec's throat. A few gentle probings later and their tongues were battling for dominance, and as Alec pressed himself even closer to Simon's body and moved his leg between the other boy's, he noticed an uncomfortable problem making itself known.

Alec disentangled his right hand from Simon's and slid it down to ease the thing currently poking him in the upper thigh.

His hand went lower and lower, grazing Simon's stomach before reaching its goal.

He closed his hand around it and gave a gentle tug, then yanked harder.

Simon gasped as Alec pulled his stele out of his pocket and it flew up, hitting Simon in the chin and effectively breaking the two boys apart.

"What's that?" Simon asked interestedly. "I mean, I know it's one of your weapons. I saw Jace use his with the vampires. But what does it do?"

Alec smiled, tracing the stele along Simon's cheekbone, and then up to his temple. "We use them to write runes. Watch." And he turned slightly away from Simon, while still keeping his left hand firmly clasped in his, and traced a simple protection rune onto the wall. "Now this place is special," he breathed in Simon's ear, and felt the other boy shiver. "It will be forever."

Alec scraped his teeth lightly over Simon's earlobe, and trailed kisses along the line of his jaw. Simon threw his head back, and his Adam's apple bobbed, so Alec kissed that too. Simon had one hand clenched in Alec's hair now, the other firmly around his waist. Then they stood still, quivering, as the sound of soft footsteps came from the hall.

"I should go," Alec whispered, and Simon nodded and released his various holds.

Alec leaned forward once more and pressed a swift kiss to the corner of Simon's mouth, in too much of a hurry to aim properly. "You're not what I expected, mundane," he said.

"And you intrigue me more than you ought to, demon-slayer," Simon replied, and Alec put his hand on the doorknob once more, twisted it, and slipped through the door and around the corner, out of sight.

Walking down the endless hallways back to his own room, past the endless silent doorways, Alec didn't know what to think. Even though he'd said he intrigued him, Alec still had no idea how Simon really felt about him. Hell, he had no idea how he felt about Simon. Alec wasn't used to this uncertainly, this feeling of not even knowing how he felt or what he was going to do next. But, with his lips still tingling from Simon's last kiss, he though that the next night might find him sneaking into the mundane boy's room for another…encounter. And that was perfectly fine with him.

With a sigh, Alec realized that maybe he didn't mind uncertainty all that much after all.

Fin