Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Throughout the next weeks, the activity in the Institute had died down. Despite following a few leads still, there had been nothing substantial. Sebastian suspected his father was lying low, in preparation for the trial. He wouldn’t risk his plans being ruined when he was only a little more than a month away from stealing the Mortal Sword.

It was why he was surprised when he woke up to so much noise. There was the running of steps, and then Isabelle shouting from one room to the next that she couldn’t find her big makeup palette. He opened his door to Clary halfway into putting on her shoes. “Just use my one!” she said, “if we don’t leave soon we’re going to be late.”

“What if it doesn’t match the costume?”

“You’re supposed to be dead, Izzy, why don’t you just use the white make-up Simon has at his place?”

There was another reply, but Clary was already ignoring her and running up to him, instead. “Sebastian, good! I was waiting for you to wake up. Do you want to go to a Halloween party?”

“What?”

“I know it’s a little last minute. I told Simon I didn’t feel like going out and I’m too old for trick or treating anyway, but Maia said they’re throwing a party in Pandemonium, and I thought, fuck it, why be here and miserable when we could have fun?” He stared at her. She hadn’t stopped talking, not even to inhale. “If you don’t have a costume, that’s okay. We’re leaving early right now to swing by a store beforehand. I’m buying something for Simon, too, since he can’t go out in the sun. He says he’ll just go as a vampire because it’s free, but that’s so lame. I’ll buy him something, at least a cape so he can be Dracula.” Finally she turned, seemingly realising his silence. “So… do you want to go?”

He struggled to remember what the question had been. “To a… party?”

“Yes, a Halloween party.” She paused, awkwardly, at the cluelessness in his expression, and then her eyes widened comically. “Oh my God, do you not know what Halloween is?”

He shook his head.

“How do you not know?! Isn’t it supposed to be a myth, too?”

“I don’t think they celebrate it in France,” it was Isabelle, who was now returning to her own room, triumphantly holding a make-up palette. “We can’t possibly know all the myths in every country, Clary.”

“But it’s Halloween.”

“What’s Halloween?”

Finally she took pity on him. “It’s just a tradition. You dress up as a monster or something and they give you candy.”

“What? Who gives you candy?”

But already she was grabbing his hand and dragging him out of his room. “I’ll explain on the way. We gotta go, I want to have time to pick something. Last year we said we’d do Disney and I intend to make it come true.”

They were not all able to do Disney, whatever that meant, because Isabelle refused to go as Snowhite. She had instead picked up a green dress and proudly declared she would be Fiona. “That’s not Disney,” Clary objected, but she was ignored.

She was dressed with a flowy white shirt and a purple skirt, and was in search of a corset that wasn’t black. Sebastian had handed her a pink one, but she had pursed her lips and continued searching. 

“You’re going to be missing the tambourine,” Isabelle called from the changing room. “And you still need to pick something for the boys!”

“Simon will be Quasimodo, obviously,” she said this with her hand already full of a fistful of clothes. She was shoving them back in the bag they were in.

It was that comment that finally made it click in his head. “You mean the one from Notre-Dame de Paris?”

Clary blinked at him like he had spoken in gibberish. Isabelle emerged now, fully dressed. “Of course he knows the novel but not the movie,” she chuckled. “Yes, Sebastian, the one from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.”

“That’s not a good translation of the title.”

“But what is he going as?” Isabelle pointed in his direction, looking at Clary with both eyebrows raised. Clary started rubbing at her temples, prompting Isabelle to attempt to calm her down; “I’ll keep looking for a corset. Just get him something in the meantime.”

So Clary turned to him, her face twisted in a frown. “Have you seen any Disney movies?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“God, Shadowhunters are so out of touch. Okay, okay…” she ran over to the shelf where a bunch of masks and trinkets were on display. She plucked off one that was completely black, with spikes over at the top, and put it over his face as if to see. “You could be Batman. It fits you.”

He ducked away from the mask. “Do I have to wear something on my face?”

“Well, how about your head,” and she grabbed something else off the shelf. It was a pair of red horns attached to a headband. She placed it on him unceremoniously, and then shifted him around so he could look in the mirror.

He couldn’t help but see the irony. He scoffed. “I look ridiculous.”

Clary huffed out a breath, launching the headband back into a pile of discarded items. “Yeah.”

“Isn’t the theme… Disney?”

He had said it trying to be helpful, but regretted the instant her eyes lit up. “So you will do Disney?”

Her enthusiasm implied he would be reluctant if he knew what it meant. So far, all the reference he had was her half-cooked costume. “Just don’t put me in a dress.”

She laughed. “No, no. I’ll pick a prince. Which prince would suit you? Uh… there’s Prince Charming…”

“No.”

“Okay, okay. Prince Philip?” Her head disappeared behind a clothing rack. He could see the individual items being shaken as she rifled through.

“Like the Duke of Edinburgh?”

More laughter resonated behind it. “No! Like from Sleeping Beauty!”

He frowned. He had heard of the folk tale and read several different versions. “I thought his name was Troylus.”

“Oh, I got it!” And she appeared from behind carrying a pair of white pants and a purple vest. “You can be Aladdin!”

A French novel about a building, a European fairy tale and a Middle Eastern folk tale added into One Thousand and One Nights. He was completely lost as to what those three things had in common. “Just what on Earth is Disney?”

His question went unanswered. Clary walked up to him to shove the clothing in his hands. “Go change,” she said. “When we get to Simon’s we can cover you in fake blood. You could be bloody Aladdin.”

“Decapitation was a common form of capital punishment in pre-modern Islamic law.” 

Her lips pushed together. He realised she was trying not to mock him out loud. 

“What? It’s true.”

“Great. It’ll be historically accurate then.”

“Clary!” It was Isabelle. “I found a blue corset! Better than pink, right?”

“Go,” she pushed him inside the changing room. “Go, now. Yes, Izzy, thank you!”

They left the store about forty minutes later, after Isabelle insisted on getting costumes for Alec and Aline, even though Alec had already declared he wasn’t going to the party. Sebastian suspected she had gotten something for Jace, too, but she wouldn’t say so in front of Clary; they were still not exactly on speaking terms. So far he had only seen them exchange tense glances in the hallways.

He had thought it would make him happy, but it didn’t. Whenever it happened he would feel momentary relief, yet it was only followed by a deep-set nausea. He couldn’t stop noticing it, couldn’t stop looking for signs that Clary was still unhappy with Jace. It made him hate his presence even more than before. It made him miserable.

Isabelle left them in order to go fetch some “prettier heels” from the Institute, and Clary and him wandered the city until they reached Red Hook. They stopped near a restaurant called “the Jade Wolf,” and a plain white, wooden building right by the docks. She walked up to it and banged loudly on the door. “Simon!” she said, “I’m coming in!”

He heard no heartbeat, but he did hear a voice yell “ready!”

Clary pushed open the door, and waved him inside. He immediately noticed the vampire hiding in the shadowed corner, as the darkness grew when Clary closed it again. The room was illuminated only by a hanging lamp that gave off fluorescent light. 

The whole place was a singular room. The windows were blocked with wooden boards and boats were placed to one side in rows. The walls were decorated with posters. There was a desk, a guitar, and clothes piled on a drawer. It was clear that someone lived in it, and also that the place wasn’t originally meant as a residence.

“I got you a Quasimodo costume,” she handed the vampire the bag, who took it with a big grin.

“Ah, sweet! Thank you, dear Esmeralda.”

Sebastian couldn’t help but stare at him closely. He seemed around their age, but he could not be sure. He had messy brown hair, and pale skin. He was, like most people, shorter than Sebastian.

He looked harmless, yet he could not relax. He had not dealt with many vampires before, only knew the theory of it. There was plenty of wood around to make a stake, but he would have to be fast.

“Who’s your friend?” he motioned to Sebastian. His tone was friendly, just as his appearance would have him believe. Sebastian resisted the urge to step back in distrust.

“This is Sebastian. Sebastian, this is Simon, my best friend.”

Best friend. It was one thing to be allied with a Downworlder, but another entirely to regard them so highly. “There must be a story behind that,” he tried to keep tension off his voice. “I thought you had been kept from the Shadow World until recently.”

“And I’ve only been a vampire for like, what? Six months?” He said it casually, like a joke. In Sebastian’s mind it only served to blare alarms. Newborns are deadlier than any kind, Valentine had said. They retain the vitality of when they were human, but they have lost their soul. They will do everything to get a taste of your blood.

“It’s a long story,” Clary grimaced, but it was still a nonchalant gesture. “We’re childhood friends. When Valentine found my mother and we got separated, Simon stood by me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without an anchor of normal.”

He felt a pang of pity for her. Of course she would be attached, and of course she would not know better.

But he did.

“Alright, let’s get ready. I bought more spooky make-up, just in case.”

Clary sat him at the desk, and rummaged through her belongings. Sebastian did not take his eyes off Simon, but he was only met with another smile, devoid of any hostility. He was a good pretender.

“I think,” Clary took out the palette she had offered Isabelle, and a small brush. “You would look great with eyeliner.”

He had only planned to divert his gaze to her momentarily, but the moment he saw the small point on that brush, he fixated on it. “You're not getting near my eyes with that.”

“Oh, come on,” she was already dipping it into black. “I won't get it in your eye. I have practice.”

“Clary, I mean it—”

He backed away from her until his back was leaning on top of the desk and his head reached the wall. She was holding onto his shirt and leaning forward just the same, laughing. “Come on! I swear I'm not going to stab your eye!”

All he could think of was that, as much as he hated them, he really did not want to end up blind. Clary grabbed his chin to hold him in place and he shut them tightly in response. It only caused her to cackle harder.

“Okay, okay,” she muttered between giggles. “You can close them. Just relax them. Your eyelids are all scrunched up.”

He obliged, if only to make this end quicker.

He had the paranoid thought that he couldn't sense Simon like this. He couldn't hear any movement past her. It was the perfect moment for him to strike.

Yet the longer nothing happened, the less panicked he felt. Clary was touching his face with strange care. She shifted, causing her hair to tickle his nose. He couldn't help but flinch away from it, and she made a sound of protest that was just as coated in joy as before.

There was that feeling inside his chest again. The one that was pervasive, but it wasn't pain. It wasn't nostalgia, either, but it was close.

He knew it was a sign of weakness. He knew he ought to block it out, but it was more comforting and addicting than anything else he'd ever had. He couldn't give it up. He knew once it was gone, the void it left behind would be far worse than before he knew the feeling existed at all.

“There.” He felt her move away. He opened his eyes.

Simon was still sitting idly, examining the work just as Clary was.

“You look handsome,” she said.

“He looks like the singer from Green Day.”

He didn't know if that was a compliment or an insult, but Clary seemed happy. “Girls love Green Day,” she informed him. “The cool ones, anyway.”

“He doesn't look scary, though, does he?”

She grinned. “That's what the blood is for.”