Archive of Our Own ^beta

Part I: Descoperire

Sexuality had never really been a thing that was explained or introduced to him. It was just an unspoken expectation, an eventuality that was inevitable and either encouraged or discouraged by his parents when it finally happened for him. He was meant to find a girl one day, a girl he wanted to impress, hold hands with her, maybe kiss her, and the rest was supposed to fall into place. Like fate.

Lacey Brambrook had been a snappy little strawberry blonde who didn’t let Artie Lovelace bully her around. He remembers that Artie had pushed her over one afternoon, and she’d retaliated by smacking him in the ear so hard that he’d started crying, because he’d been picking on her more than usual and she’d had enough. She had screeched at the top of her lungs, angry tears rolling down her cheeks, yelling that he was a mean boy and no one will ever like you if you’re mean. In his search to see if she was okay, he’d found her by the lily pond at the end of the field behind the Academy, and she’d kissed him out of the blue, a messy, wet peck he felt on his lips for hours after. And all he could think was that if she was the girl he was to hold hands with and marry, he’d be okay with that. Just as long as they never had to kiss again.

The next day, it was like nothing had happened. Ah, the odd, easy life of a six year old.

Bridget Keytower had been a girl with a black, blunt bob and almond-shaped eyes. She had a dimple in her left cheek that he liked to prod because it made her smile, and she liked to rest her head on his shoulder because he was comfy. And he’d let her, even if the excessive amount of jasmine oil she’d started wearing would make his nostrils sting. He was twelve years old when she’d asked him to be her first kiss, and because he had no real reason to refuse, he did. When she’d asked him to put his tongue in her mouth, he did. When she’d asked him to touch her chest, he brought her hands to his instead. But when they’d parted, they couldn’t look each other in the eye anymore. That unspoken thing they were supposed to do and be and have simply wasn’t there.

At thirteen, he’d been in the same class as Declan Midwinter, a boy with chocolate eyes and chestnut bangs who liked to challenge people in hand to hand combat because he had the advantage of an instructor father. He remembers accepting the challenge, because Declan was the kind that bragged so much that no one wanted to be his friend, and he could tell under all the bravado that Declan was in need of one. So they’d sparred fist to fist, foot to foot before Declan had wrestled him to the ground, and then the press of Declan’s weight on him had felt too exciting to push off, so he’d halfheartedly pawed at him just to keep the fight from finishing. Declan had walked away crying victory, and he’d been left in the grass flushed from head to toe, throbbing in his pants for reasons he had no words for. He tried not to wonder how it’d feel to kiss Declan, because all the other boys wanted to kiss girls and he didn’t want to be the weird one who didn’t. Brady Whitelaw was laughed at for the gap between his two front teeth as it was. It seemed smarter not to invite that kind of ridicule to his own front door.

Then Noah met Sam.

It had been the summer of 99’. At the time, Noah’s father was the Clave’s Counsellor of Defense, and his mother worked as an Auditor under Consul Dieudonné, both high enough on the chain of command that their presence was a mere whisper around the family estate. With his friends scattered across the city and a strict training schedule to stick to, he was left largely to his own devices. Day in, and day out.

As the son of a strong military-driven family, his days had consisted of training drills and study, and writing whatever paper his father requested of him at the time. He’d eat food prepared by the house staff in an empty dining room. He’d navigate the estate like it were a vast castle of precious things he couldn’t touch. He’d be so focused and disciplined in his daily routine that he’d end up with enough spare time to fit in another training session. Just him and his seraph sword, scattering around the yard grass against some invisible foe. Daydreaming scenarios that would test him, his father’s voice in his head.

Idris summers were warm, dry blankets of sun and the sweet scent of marigolds on a light breeze, but that particular summer had been unusually humid. He’d discovered a secluded offshoot of Brocelind River after an argument with his father when he was ten - his very own secret water paradise under the sun, hidden from anyone walking by - so he'd taken his Bavarian Warmblood, Bosco, down the River for a ride and a swim. He’d had every intention of steering his horse down the tight, inclined trail he’d painstakingly dug out with his bare hands over several visits, the muggy air clawing at him enough that he would throw himself straight into the water, sweaty clothes and all. But he didn’t get that far, because he realized very quickly that his secret paradise, his own tranquil space, had someone in it.

Sam had been fifteen years old at the time, but he navigated the world with the roguish confidence of an old soul, the kind of confidence that allowed him to swim naked in other people’s secret places without fear of reprimand or attack. Noah learned later that they were only a matter of months apart in age, but the difference in their bodies was enough to make him self conscious. Sam had a warrior’s body, one that was muscled and broad from using heavier weapons. Noah was tall and gangly, struggling to fill out with each new inch he grew.

He remembers watching him for the longest time, just swimming and floating and humming a tune to himself down below, body prone on the water’s surface as naked and open as the day he were born. Noah would return to find him swimming naked, day after day like clockwork, and he’d memorize the runes wrapped around his skin, all the places his clothes might cover them. The Iratze to the right of his navel. Runes for talent and strength and memory. He remembers openly staring at his cock, soft and bobbing in the water, nestled in a thatch of dark hair. He’d watch the boy’s face, and found it handsome in the way it smiled even when it wasn’t smiling. He remembers aching at the sight of him, and being trapped between shame and curiosity, vowing not to return the next day and being unable to uphold his own word, because his secret paradise was a place he couldn’t be caught staring at things he shouldn’t stare at.

He remembers how his chest wanted to jump out of his body when Sam saw him, perched behind the bank’s shrubbery; how horrified he was to be caught, how heightened everything felt as he’d climbed down the slope at Sam’s beckoning, undressed and took up his invitation to join him. The days turned into weeks, of swimming and floating and sneaking glances, learning each other between the trade of questions and answers.

What do you dream about?

My mother, with the Angel.

Why’d you invite me in that day?

You’d been watching me for a week. Figured it was time.

What do you want to be when you’re older?

Full of happy memories.

As they became friends, they would laugh and splash and wrestle, dunking and pushing each other underwater, and Noah thrilled to every touch that strayed a little too far and lasted a little too long. Their thighs would brush, hands skimming, and they’d straddle each other’s backs, sit on each other’s shoulders. He would try to keep his distance when he grew hard between his legs, but then Sam would grab him in a headlock and flick him on the forehead and cackle, and Noah wouldn’t feel so weird because Sam would be hard too.

Mostly, he remembers staring into Sam’s green eyes for hours on end, made ever greener by his summer tan and the the sun-kissed threads of gold in the dark wavy hair he grew down past his ribs. He remembers wanting to fit his hands around the angles of Sam’s high cheekbones, wanting to rub his fingertips along his full blush-colored lips as they talked without pause. Noah always ravenously took him in, because looking at him up close felt like seeing all his favourite things at once.

He would return home each night as the sky grew pink and the mosquitoes came out, fingers pruned from too long in the water, tingling from their brief meetings with Sam’s body. He remembers feeling like this thing - this friendship, this brotherhood, this other - was a gift from Raziel himself. Their afternoons together were the last thing on his mind as he fell asleep at night, and the one thing he looked forward to most when he woke up.

Then summer ended, and Sam returned to Romania where his father and three uncles awaited him at the Bucharest Institute. Noah had been quietly crushed - who’s going to bore me to death if you won’t? - but Sam promised to return. His mother had always understood how isolating an Institute could be and wanted her only child to experience a wider range of life. After her death, his father had followed through on her wish, and would send Sam to Idris each summer. It didn’t sound like the kind of thing he would lie about, especially about the parents he seemed to love so much. So his promise was a small comfort.

He doesn’t remember the months that separated them, only the scary, thrilling knowledge that he had a secret.

Noah was sixteen by the next summer, his growth spurt slowing enough to fill him with muscle. He had raced down the river and scrambled over the bank, nervous to see if Sam had kept his promise and being filled to the ears with relief when their eyes met once again. They came together on the water’s edge, groping at all the changes they saw in each other - broader shoulders, bigger biceps, longer hair, the way their heights seemed to be racing neck and neck for the finish line and how Sam had suddenly leapt into the lead.

Your jaw is sharper.

Your arms are thicker.

Your nose is bigger.

Your hair is curlier.

Still as charming as ever, I see.

Had to keep something the same, right?

I didn’t think you’d come back.

I promised you I would.

That summer flew by in a stream of daily swimming and shared stories, the sun browning his skin and bleaching his hair. He’d spent their months apart pondering this thing they had, the weight of its secret, unpacking and reboxing it into something that made more sense. Friendship. Boyhood. Sam was simply the type to be generous with his attention. Noah was only happy to have found something that felt effortless. When they were aroused, it was because boys their age were always aroused. It didn’t have to be anything bad. It didn’t have to be weird. It was only a secret because of their secret place. But seeing Sam again threw him headlong into old patterns too swiftly, and he’d missed the dangerous knife’s edge of friendship and something other so much that he got buried beneath its waves.

And all too soon, it was over again. He remembers being halfway up the bank, laughing off Sam’s demand for a parting hug. Because his infatuation had grown too big to control and he didn’t want to ruin what they had by hugging him and not being able to let go. That night he’d been restless and raw with sadness, facing the possibility of another eight months without him and lying in bed with no memory of a hug to keep his thoughts warm and wishing he hadn’t been so stupid to reject it.

The loneliness came, and it only deepened as the months passed. Down in the blue waters of their secret place, Sam Hawkstorm put thorns in him. And oh, they tugged when he was gone.

The next summer arrived, but the Demons came first. 

Idris’ wards failed in the Eastern sector, simply beyond their strength before replacements could be made, and those of Hell that kept close tabs on their motherland took their chance.

At seventeen, Noah was briefed for war in the Accords Hall. Teams of any able-bodied man and woman were being formed and distributed to drive the Demon scourge taking shape in Brocelind Forrest back behind the wards. He was assigned to Team Ambriel in the North East, close to where the hoard was entering as per his military academics. Team Metatron was always the Hail Mary of large scale missions, the team brought in for the last effort where success would be guaranteed but their survival would not. He didn’t want to think of all the Shadowhunters that wouldn’t come back, until he had no choice but to. Samael Hawkstorm - his head snapped up as the name reached his ears, and then his eyes were roving him like a thief taking his fill, cataloging all the changes in him because they hadn’t yet had a chance to meet again. This boy who had him by the gut, standing tall and proud and sharper, the curves of his boyish looks gone, ready to meet his fate for the sake of preserving Idris’ safety. And all Noah could think was that he hadn’t spent all those months thinking and dreaming and revisiting memories of him to lose him to a cannon fodder team he had no business being a part of.

But time ran out as Shadowhunters left for their posts. Sam didn’t look back as he rode away, because the mission mattered more than some blonde boy he met down Brocelind River every summer. Noah rode away on Bosco, his beloved horse, the heat of his father’s encouraging hand cooling on his shoulder. He fought that battle with the twists of knots in his heart, knots that only eased when Sam returned, against all odds, to the Accords Hall much later. He’d been sweaty, his signature battle axes splattered with the ichor of the Demons he’d slayed, face spotted with the blood of his slaughtered team. Overcome by the sensation of seeing him again after being so sure that he wouldn’t, Noah had cried.

He remembers trudging back to the family estate, warm but alone and heavy-hearted, because Sam was okay but his parents were needed in the aftermath, and his beloved Bosco hadn't survived the battle. He'd been grabbed and turned so quick that his heart had hammered on the tree trunk he'd been pressed to, and relief had found him before his weapons could, because it was Sam. His Sam, breathing against him in the evening moonset.

It's me. It's me, it's ME. Noah.

Sam?

Yes, it's me.

Raziel, you could have died.

But I didn't.

But you could have!

But I didn't! I didn't. Sunt aici. Sunt aici.

And then they were hugging, scrambling for purchase on the battle filth of each others bodies, pressing close and squeezing as if to melt their organs together. Noah remembers the slick swoop of fire rising from his belly, an intense shock of need at the touch of Sam’s panting lips on his neck, and then their mouths were mashed together, wet and messy and rough with his own inexperience and their combined desperation. It had been brief, so brief, too brief, but their secret place was safer for things like that, because Noah wasn’t sure the world was ready for the scope of their feelings. Their feelings. Because Sam felt them too, and that changed things.

He hadn’t sleep that night, too fixated on pressing his hands to his body in all the ways Sam’s had, so the touch of him would ache a little longer.

When the next day came, Idris was occupied in its recovery, which made slipping away earlier even easier. And Sam must have been thinking his thoughts, because he was already swimming down below by the time he’d peered to look over the bank.

He remembers how nervous he was, riddled with emotions too big to handle, as he’d undressed and slid into the welcome water, drifting to him, hovering for his next cue. Sam had moved forward, shortening the space between them until Noah could see his long, dark, water-clumped lashes and the tiny flat mole beneath his left eye under the rolling beads of river on his beautiful face.

And then Sam’s hands were on him, tentative but confident, fingers threading through the groves of his ribs, palms smoothing around his waist, and it felt different, dangerous, because it was all on purpose. They’d pressed closer, naked bodies meeting foggily beneath the water, and it was good, warm, his want and need pulsing like their own energies. They’d nuzzled, as if to give themselves a last path away from the line they were about to cross, but Noah hadn’t wanted one, and when Sam kissed him, soft and plush, daring to look him in the eye between the meet of their mouths, he knew he didn’t want one either.

Part II: Explorare 

Sex wasn’t something Shadowhunters talked about. There was no sexual education or required reading, no lessons on contraception, just vague wisdom passed from generation to generation. Sex was a sacred part of love, and while the basics were known, the rest was left for two lovers to figure out for themselves.

Noah wasn’t lucky enough to have parents who were willing to talk him through it, so his knowledge of sex came from mouthy boys and gossipy girls and his own ideas of what his body wanted and how it liked to be touched. Sam had been blessed with three adoring uncles and a father he called his best friend, and they all wanted him to succeed in life, especially in love.

Their experiences couldn’t have been more different. While Noah’s mother had poked and prodded and adjusted him until he stood the way she thought he should, Sam’s mother had instilled in her son the fire to chase his happiness. While Noah’s father had bred him for a life of national service, Sam’s father had always told him to respect himself first. While Noah’s parents taught him that to cry was to waste time, Sam’s uncles taught him to always stay strong - and if he absolutely couldn’t, they would cry with him.

Sam’s father had been taking him on all of his official business trips since he was young, imparting his wisdom and filling his son with the kind of morals and values great leaders had. His mother, Angel rest her, had taught him about nature and people and energies and hearts, and that listening to them was the best way to navigate their wayward tracks. So while Sam had lived a very different life, one largely considered isolated and lesser for how separated it was from their motherland, it was Noah and all of his Shadowhunter friends who were the ones who had been raised isolated in the end.

He’d known Sam had kissed and touched girls for pleasure before, because he was always curious about the things Sam had seen, and Sam was gracious enough to answer his questions and keep any unrulier details respectively in his head.

Have you ever had sex with a girl?

Yeah. You?

Not yet. So what was it like?

Close.

Close?

Yeah. Imagine the closest and happiest you’ve ever been to another person.

Okay.

Then multiply it.

Okay.

Then add that feeling you get after you’ve rubbed one out.

Oh.

Yeah.

That sounds----

Nice, right?

So you like girls then?

Yeah. Why? Have you at least kissed one before?

Yeah. I didn’t like it, though.

Maybe you did it wrong.

I definitely did it wrong. But I also really didn’t want to try again.

Have you ever kissed a boy?

God, no. Have you?

Of course.

Of course?!

My mother always told me to follow my happiness.

And a boy was your happiness?

Briefly. For five minutes.

And you kissed him?

Yes, Noah. God.

And...you liked it?

I didn’t like the kiss. But I liked him.

So you like both?

I like anyone. Who they are to me is what matters.

What about you? You don’t like girls?

It’s okay if you don’t, Noah. I don’t think you’re weird or anything.

Noah?

Noah, it’s really okay. I promise.

It’s not okay to anyone else though.

But I’m not anyone else, am I? You’re safe with me.

You won’t tell anyone?

Never.

So when his body responded to Sam in ways he had no experience for, he willingly, completely handed himself over to him. He remembers kissing Sam in the water, pressed against him so close that their cocks were hard, and being mortified when he’d come with little besides Sam’s mouth on his neck and his cupped hands on his backside. But his embarrassment didn’t last because Sam had drawn him closer, stroking himself between them until Noah felt the warmth of his release brush down the inside of his thigh. He’d never been able to look Lacey Brambrook and Bridget Keytower and Declan Midwinter in the eyes again, but with Sam in their secret place, holding each other and buzzing with it, he hadn’t been able to look away.

That summer passed like a wet dream, full of talking and sharing but kissing and coming, and coming, and coming, because there were some afternoons where they only talked and swam until they were hard enough to go again. He remembers the day after a spontaneous, heavy rain, they chased each other around the riverbank in ankle deep mud, laughing and throwing watery slop at one another until Sam had caught him by the waist and hefted him against the bank slope, where they’d rutted off on each other’s bodies like lovers. They’d spend what felt like hours taking turns beneath the water’s surface, seeing how many body parts they could kiss before they needed to come up for air. Everyday, Noah found a new favourite place on Sam’s body to enjoy, and a new favourite place on his own that liked to be touched, and every day, Sam would kiss him a little deeper, and a little softer, like they weren’t just boys playing around but men falling in love.

When that summer ended, they spent their last day rolling on the sunbed - the little patch of grass that caught all the day’s sun down there - kissing and panting and losing their fingers in each other’s hair, trying not to think about the goodbyes they had to make.

What if we were Parabatai? I could take you home with me. Or I could stay.

You want to be my Parabatai?

It’d mean we could stay together. We could take the trials.

Not like this, we couldn’t.

No one would have to know about this.

It’s forbidden, Sam. Forbidden usually means no for a very good reason.

Pe dracu! What we have is considered forbidden. Do we not have good reasons?

It had been one of the first times they’d stopped to think about what they were really doing, and Noah hadn’t liked the way it made him feel. They’d grown up hearing the legend of Elisabeth Alderwood, a ghost story that had drifted down the generations so often that the premise had changed. She was a Shadowhunter woman who had fallen in love with a Mundane man. Until she wasn’t. Then she was a Shadowhunter woman who had seduced a married Council member into killing her father. Until she wasn’t. Then she was a Shadowhunter who had taken a Vampire lover. Until she wasn’t. Later, when Sam’s Idris housekeeper learned where he went every day, she’d said Elisabeth had been a Shadowhunter woman who’d had an affair with her handmaiden, as if to warn him of what she assumed he was up to. It didn’t matter what Elisabeth had been accused of doing, because it all ended the same way - with her runes ritually cut from her body, of which had plunged her into a deep shock and killed her.

But as with all legends, they got lost with time, diluted under hearsay. No one really knew if Elisabeth Alderwood had been condemned. No one really knew if she existed at all. But the fear that she might have still remained, and fear was the Clave’s biggest weapon. The message was clear. Anyone who dared to be scandalous was punished.

They hadn’t needed goodbyes after that. Noah felt sick to his stomach, because spending his summers touching Sam’s cock in a secret hideaway wasn’t what his parents had raised him for. You are the Clave, his father would say. You uphold its laws. You are its weapon. You are its legacy. Somewhere between his boyhood hormones and his lust for something he didn’t understand, he’d forgotten that. And shame was always a powerful motivator.

He remembers a fire message coming a week later, an I’m sorry and a Please, Noah and a Don’t forget me that he couldn’t concentrate on because the fear of being caught was too much. He didn’t keep it, and he didn’t reply, and when the next summer came, he stayed away from the river.

Then came the Uprising. 

The prestigious and much anticipated ninth signing of the Accords was disrupted by Valentine Morgenstern, who, with his Circle of discontents, turned traitor and slaughtered the Council, Clave members and Downworlders presiding the event. Everyone lost their minds as they attempted to find motive. Valentine had been a vocal antagonist against the Accords for months, preaching that the cons outweighed the pros to groups across the city, but while his party line had been about the greater good, the brutality of his slaughter was personal, hateful. The Mortal Cup had also disappeared, which caused widespread panic.

Everyday following the massacre, Noah and many others reported to the newly appointed members of the Council and worked to reinstate order and security across Alicante. They were facing multiple threats with Valentine on the loose and Shadowhunters were unhinged at the idea of their home and creed being attacked by one of their own. Shadowhunters around the world were trying to get home and were blocked from entry until further notice, and Downworlders were barred from Idris permanently out of fear the Downworld would retaliate for the many numbers of their dead. Panic was something Noah had been trained to deal with, so taking it and turning it into solutions worked for everyone. It also kept him away from his yearning for Sam - a yearning that hadn’t stopped no matter the distance and time - and it distracted him from the grief of losing his parents. He’d lost both in the massacre.

Nineteen years old, and he was suddenly orphaned.

He remembers how empty he felt, because there were too many things he’d never had the chance to share with his parents. There were conversations about battle strategy he hadn’t had with his father, and job prospects he hadn’t discussed with his mother. There were chats about upcoming laws and introductory bills that were yet to come up over breakfast, and a stack of books his mother had lent him that he was yet to read or report on. They were never going to see him in a high ranking position, or married, or with kids. He wasn’t going to feel his father’s warm hand on his shoulder, or his mother’s lipstick on his cheek again. Too many things he’d never get to tell them, or experience with them, and it hurt so much that he couldn’t feel anything at all. They were never going to know him. Truly know him.

He remembers being at the end of his tether after a month of continuous work, and being set off into a tailspin by the door to his father’s office sitting ajar, because he’d closed it so he wouldn’t see, but then he could see and it wasn’t fair that his father was no longer using it. He remembers tearing that room to shreds with his bare hands, hurling the heavy leather desk chair until the legs snapped, shoving his boot through the painted portrait his father kept hung on the wall, smashing frames containing photos of his mother and his parents together and his Academy graduation, ripping pages out of books and notepads and journals until his nail beds bled. He was near catatonic, sitting on the floor for hours in the destruction of his grief, unfeeling of the tears that lined his face. And then arms had closed around him, warm and strong and completely unexpected, offering reprieve.

Sunt aici. Sunt aici. I’ve got you.

Sam had been trying to get into Idris for weeks - first terrified that he’d been killed, then worrying that he’d been alone after learning of his parents’ deaths. Noah had abandoned him months ago, but Sam hadn’t given up - he’d explained much later that he’d simply been waiting; waiting for him to think what he needed to think and do what he needed to do until he was ready to see him again. Because being with Noah was his happiness, and Sam’s parents had always told him to chase his happiness.

They had the night to be together, because Noah had things that needed to be done, and he knew if Sam didn’t leave, he’d wouldn’t move an inch. Beneath the light of the moon, they went to their secret place and swam again, finding solace and making up for lost time. Lying against the grass, Sam took Noah’s cock into his mouth until he came inside of him. La Mule, he’d called it. Blowjob. Noah had cried through the whole thing, beside himself with the conflicting pains of sadness and joy and moved by the tenderness of Sam’s affections, extra careful and slow, as if to draw it out and savor it. He’d kissed the taste of himself from Sam’s mouth until nothing remained, and he’d brushed the hair from Sam’s face, kissed and nuzzled him at his request as he brought himself off on Noah’s thigh.

Te iubesc.

I don’t know what that means.

It means I love you, Noah.

You can’t love me.

But I do. I do.

But we can’t be together.

That doesn’t matter to me. All that matters is that you love me too. Do you?

He hadn’t been able to answer at the time, because trying to give Sam an answer in his emotionally compromised state wouldn’t have been the pure honesty that he deserved. The kind of devotion Sam displayed for him was also powerful and powerfully scary, and he was too terrified to accept it.

Nestled against Sam’s heartbeat, Noah ached. Sam was meant for bigger things. Things that were far more important than their boyhood love. And Noah had a healthy fear of exile and a dead father to prove himself to.

If summer is all we get to have, then I will give you all the summers of my life.

I can’t do that to you.

When the morning came, they lied to themselves with promises to see each other again soon. Sam returned to his father, Noah returned to his work, and their secret place withered in their absence like a dying heartbeat. If it was fate, it was crueler than death.

Part III: Dor 

Noah had spent another few years in Idris, working for Priestly Whitelaw, his father’s replacement on the Council. He was a tough man with an unusual kind streak, and he had a lot of good things to say about his parents. Noah just couldn’t reconcile them. He knew his parents were dedicated and highly respected, but the closer he tried to grab for the imprints of the legacy they’d left behind, the further away he felt. So when Priestly hit him with a recommendation letter and suggested he take his knowledge out into the world, carve a new place for himself, he revolted. Because he was supposed to be there, doing his father’s bidding for the Council and one day, one day, sit in his father’s seat.

Priestly had disagreed wholeheartedly. You are your father’s son, he’d said. That means you get to take what he taught you and build your own life with it. It’s not your duty to live his life for him just because he’s gone. He’d fought the insinuation for the entire rest of that day, because that wasn’t what he was doing. Until his heavy heart made him realize he was. And when he asked Priestly Whitelaw for that recommendation letter, the man had sat him down and asked what he needed to feel okay. I need to fight. I need to be helpful. I need to be busy. So Priestly threw him out of his office with that recommendation letter and transfer papers to fill and a suggestion that America might be the place for him. An apex of ley lines and a tendency for demonic rifts was a constant source of stress for the Baton Rouge Institute, and it promised all the things he was after. Action. Distraction. Experience.

When he filed his transfer papers for Baton Rouge, he also filed a visitation form for Bucharest. Because showing up on Sam’s doorstep as a long, lost friend wasn’t scandalous. And they hadn't laid eyes on each other in three years.

A week later, Devlon Clearwater was set to welcome him into his new job in Louisiana, and Judah Hawkstorm, Sam’s father, was waiting in Romania for the young man his son loved.

He remembers the shock on Sam’s face when he’d portalled through to the Bucharest Institute, how awed he was to see Noah shake hands with his father. He remembers the sensation of his heart being stuck in his throat, because turning up on Sam’s doorstep when they’d never met in front of prying eyes before was ridiculously scary. But Judah Hawkstorm was as warm and proud as Sam had chronicled, and he wasn’t afraid of his son’s happiness.

The Hawkstorm family were an intense bunch. Sam’s father and his three uncles - Mihai, Ioan and Jeb - were large, hulking Shadowhunter men who had been raised in each other’s pockets by strong women, and had each found equally strong women to live out their lives with. Sam’s mother, Taliyah, had once been a Ravenblood, and each of his aunts had traded in their own family prestige for the love of their Hawkstorm men. Hawkstorms had been widely considered neanderthals in the greater Nephilim community, but they were also famous for how they killed things, solved problems and saved the unsaveable. They were unstoppable in their pursuit of the world’s safety, and in Noah’s eyes - and in the eyes of anyone that looked beyond mere hearsay - they were heroes.

Sitting in their company should have been intimidating. But he remembers their mouths bursting boisterously with mischievous stories as soon as food was served; tales of incredible hunts and adventures and funny little anecdotes from Sam’s childhood just for Noah’s ears. He remembers how loud it got with their proud replay of Sam’s first Greater Demon kill, their booming laughter, how warm the dining hall grew with affection as the Hawkstorm brothers playfully roughhoused each other, then doted on their adoring Shadowhunter women. He remembers how the men had all bundled the dirty dishes into the kitchen and washed them themselves, how it soon turned into a large scale water fight. The Institute was low on residents, but the Hawkstorm family made it feel full in the best of ways. They were unlike anything Noah had ever known.

He remembers seeing Sam’s face, alight with family love and home, and how his eyes closed in contentment when each of his family members finally left them to catch up, pressing strong kisses onto his cheeks and into his hair before turning in for the night. Sam’s big, beautiful heart made perfect sense with all the bigger, stronger hearts that had nurtured him.

They’d stayed up in front of the fireplace, curled into furniture, then lying close enough to touch on the rug. Their fingers skimmed each other where they rested on the floor between them, moved strands of hair out of each other’s eyes like they were simply doing each other a favor. They stayed there until the sun came up, because Sam didn’t keep secrets from his father but Noah wasn’t brave enough to share a bed. And they’d spent so long apart that he couldn’t bring himself to waste what little time they had.

Do you still love me?

Yes.

Even though we can’t be together.

Yes.

You could find someone else.

But I won’t. Shadowhunters only love once.

You really believe that?

You mean you don’t?

I can’t.

Why?

Because my love isn’t allowed.

And mine is?

You could find a woman and be happy. I would---

Noah---

I would let you.

I don’t want you to let me.

I can’t hold onto you like this forever. It wouldn’t be fair.

Noah. Noah-ul meu. Nu sunt eu fără tine.

God, I never know what you’re saying.

I’m not going anywhere. Stop pushing me away. Lasă-mă să stau.

He remembers being farewelled in the morning, being hugged and kissed by aunts and uncles and Judah Hawkstorm, the patriarch, like he was a part of them. And he remembers how sad he was to leave, but he remembers more how sick with guilt he felt for being too scared to kiss Sam goodbye in front of his family, when they all so clearly expected him to.

It was another brick in yet another road he was stumbling upon, if only to give Sam the distance he needed to love someone else.

They met again two years later, locking eyes in a Downworld bar on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. 

Sam’s long hair had been cut to his shoulders, his sharp jaw covered in stubble, green eyes glowing under the bar’s fluorescents. His clothes were soft and worn, his silver Hawkstorm ring on his beautiful, tanned hands, his mother’s leather cord necklace disappearing beneath his shirt collar. Everything about him had seemed older, bigger, unrulier, as if his body had levelled up with every Greater Demon he took down. Because there had been many, enough that his name was quickly becoming a source of excitement and grudging respect - and among many Shadowhunter women, lust. Noah had stayed away, but he’d kept track. His heart wanted the best for Sam, but it wasn’t above torturing itself for fun.

He remembers being hit by an intense wave of want, as if the full brunt of Sam’s beauty and power and overwhelming masculinity were a battering ram. He’d watched Sam’s throat as he’d sucked down the remainder of his beer in one gulp, and then Sam was slinking toward him like a panther through the bar crowd, slowing to a stop in front of him. The same plush, pink lips, tiny flat mole beneath his left eye, high cheekbones and smooth tan skin, all in front of him, and he was too afraid to touch. He didn’t have a right to.

What are you doing here?

Travelling. My feet led me here.

Why?

Why do you think?

That night, they’d ended up in Sam’s hotel room, taking out two, three, five years of self-restraint on each other’s bodies, breathing in ways they hadn’t breathed since abandoning their river spot in Idris. Sam’s absence in his life had left a gaping hole he needed to fill, because time hadn’t healed it and nothing else was mighty enough to fit.

Am nevoie de tine. Fă dragoste cu mine.

English, Sam.

Fuck me, Noah. Vă rog .

Of all the things they had done, all the kisses and touches, all the boyhood masturbation and fondling about trying to release some hidden part of themselves, none of it compared to that night. Their kisses were hard enough to draw blood, then soft enough to tickle. Sam’s eyes had smiled up at him as he took Noah’s cock and then his fingers in his mouth, and he’d groaned and grabbed at the sheets when Noah had spat on his hole, body gyrating in need as he prepared to home him.

Then Noah was inside, drilled deep in his guts, cradled between Sam’s thighs and sunk down in his embrace, their bodies rocking to the same unspoken rhythm. And all he could think was that Sam had been right. Being wrapped up in his big, heated body, cock pumping in and out, staring down into Sam's flushed, smiling face...Close was the word for it. Noah and Sam had always been close physically, because they’d pleasured themselves and each other together too many times not to be. But right there in that hotel room, buried in Sam’s backside, smoothing Sam’s dark, wavy hair from his open face and kissing him deep and slow like a man in love, he’d never felt closer to anyone or anything in his entire life.

And then Noah had come in him, and that felt closer still; primal and instinctual and draining, as if pouring his soul into him. But then Sam had come on him too, body locking down as if to keep a part of him inside forever, and then releasing, flying apart without breath or vision or bearing of the world around him, trusting Noah to tether him. And nothing, nothing had felt closer than that.

Fă dragoste cu mine, Sam had said when they’d grown hard again later. Just like their days by the river, they went again, and again, and again, the window’s moonlight shifting across their backs. And because he couldn’t ever imagine having this with anyone else, Noah took Sam inside himself too, and that was a heavier, deadlier closeness that not only filled the gaping hole in his life, but overflowed it. Dragostea mea este în tine, Sam moaned when he’d spent himself inside him, and Noah never knew what he was saying when he spoke his mother tongue, but he’d shivered anyway because he felt stuffed full of all the things he’d been missing. He remembers thinking later that if he wasn’t careful, he’d get greedy. And he couldn’t afford to be greedy. He wasn’t allowed to be greedy with this. Not with Sam, who waited helplessly and relentlessly for him to change his mind.

Noah dressed himself in the morning sun, devouring what he could of Sam’s naked, sated body laid out on the sheets, a planned final goodbye on his lips. Because Samael Hawkstorm had no future with him. Samael Hawkstorm had options. Noah knew he could marry and have kids, but he couldn’t bring himself to shackle some woman he couldn’t love in order to do it. Sam could have it all with his heart’s full compliance, because unlike Noah, women were an option for him. But then he’d seen the battle scars - some tiny, some the size of his palm, scattered across Sam’s skin in faded, shiny lines - and he’d felt insane with the knowledge that he didn’t know what caused them, who healed him, how close he came to death or otherwise; that he hadn’t been there for it at all.

So when their inevitable goodbyes came, Noah had relented. Because he didn’t like the panic he found in Sam’s eyes whenever he left the door open for him to escape. And he was a dreadful thief, hung up on a need he couldn’t fulfill anywhere else. As long as Sam kept finding him, he’d steal as many moments with him as he could.

The years passed by in a blur of missions, bloodshed and reports, but the heavens mercifully slowed time whenever they were together. Nights in Mundane hotel rooms so no one could see. Dinner dates spent in public, like two old friends simply catching up. Kissing and holding hands with their eyes and smiles because Noah was too paranoid for anything outright and Sam was always doing what he could to keep him happy. Fucking and panting and rutting like animals behind closed doors, until the initial need was quenched, and then it was rolling and kissing and lovemaking, because it was pointless to pretend they weren’t hopelessly in love.

He remembers the night he’d finally said it back, and how Sam’s eyes crinkled at the corners, how wide his smile stretched, how he’d demanded all of his words of love and adoration like he was starved of them. And Noah felt guilty all over again. If Sam was starved, it was he who starved him.

Tell me again.

I love you, you giant brute.

Say it softer.

I love you, you beautiful beast.

Whisper it in my ear.

I love you in all the ways I could ever love anything.

Tu esti inima mea.

What does that mean?

Buna inima mea.

Oh my god.

Te iubesc. Te iubesc.

That one is I love you, right?

But as the years went on, their need for each other only grew, and the secret little box they existed in was stretched to its limits. Noah would have given anything for the world to accept him as he was, but it didn’t. Every time he got closer to breaking out, something would come up, some murmur, some scandal from the motherland, and Idris’ elite would narrow in on those involved until reputations were sunk and whole families were shunned. And when he recovered from those, he’d think of his parents, and then the things they used to say would play in his head like old, scratchy cassette tapes on loop, full of nostalgia for the memory and guilt for having forgotten them. The world needs you, Noah. The Angel has blessed us for a purpose, Noah. You need to do your best, Noah. And he’d retreat again, push Sam away again, go months without seeing him again, until he’d cave and meet him in another Mundane hotel and fuck him because sometimes, most times, he couldn’t breathe without him.

Sam’s profile continued to grow with his famous kills and his expertise in demonology, which found him pulled to different parts of the planet to teach others what he knew. Noah was proud of him and his work and the deserved accolades that came with it, demanding details whenever they met again, keeping tabs on him through his usual channels and the grapevine of gossip that found its way to the Baton Rouge Institute’s staff. But he remembers how Sam would downplay it, brush off his accomplishments like they were something anyone could do, because he knew Noah would use his reputation as the Clave’s dark warrior to leave him for his own good.

I’ve heard your name going around too.

For what?

That stunt you pulled when Clearwater was killed. Taking charge of the entire Institute.

I didn’t have much of a choice. I did what I could to keep everyone safe.

Careful, Noah. You’ll make a name for yourself. And then I’ll have to leave you.

Don’t be an asshole.

Don’t tell me you haven’t wanted to jump ship on me for the same fucking thing.

I wouldn’t do that to you.

Pe dracu. You’ve run away on me for much less.

You think it’s easy for me? You think I want to leave you?

At what point do I get to think otherwise?

What are you even talking about?

You think you know what’s best for me.

I don’t.

You do.

I don’t.

You do. Because the only other reason I could have is that you don’t want me anymore.

You’re being ridiculous!

You’re being ridiculous! I love you, Noah. Stop telling me I’m better off without you.

What choice do I have? You know I can’t give you what you need.

And what is it you think I need, Noah? What is it you can’t give me?

A future, dammit!

Bou! Have I ever asked for anything you can’t give me?

Stop swearing at me!

Stop being a martyr! Let me decide what's best for me! Just stop, Noah! Lasă-mă să stau!

Bit by bit, year by year, they scratched at each others scars until they bled, stuck in a stalemate that wouldn’t end. What they had together had always been but a fraction of the dream they both dreamed of. Sam wanted whatever Noah could give him. Noah wanted to give him the world, but his world wouldn’t allow it without stealing everything else he had. Sometimes he’d choose to be selfish, and the fleeting happiness he’d find there would make him want to remain selfish. But then he’d think of the consequences. Public shaming. Exile. Deruning. A career he was good and capable in, gone. Sam’s career, one that provided the means to save hundreds and thousands of lives, gone. He’d wanted to believe that their love was strong enough to withstand the backlash, but he couldn’t imagine it would withstand the shame.

Sam’s uncle Jeb was killed in 2013, ravaged and suffocated by a swarm of Iblis Demons while trying to protect a small pack of Werewolves. Noah had immediately filed for bereavement leave with his superior, citing a family death, throwing a handful of clothes and his funeral whites into an overnight bag and portalled through to the Bucharest Institute. He remembers his heavy heart splitting down the middle as Sam waited for him on the other side, his handsome face reddened from tears already shed, his beautiful eyes glassy with more tears on the way. And he’d taken Sam in his arms without thought, holding him tight as Sam wept into his neck. His own tears had come, because the big, beautiful heart that loved him so much was broken.

He remembers the Rite of Mourning, and how loud the hall had been with the sobs of the bereaved. The Hawkstorm’s were a family that lived and loved loudly, so their devastation was crippling to watch. Jeb’s wife led the procession, tears streaming off her wobbling chin, doing her best to send her love to his resting place with the Angel. Everyone held each other’s hands, rested their heads on each other’s shoulders. But he remembers that he’d stood alone, wanting to reach out and hold Sam’s hand until their knuckles snapped beneath the pressure, and wondering - when Sam needed him most - why he still couldn’t bring himself to do it. Shame, fear, guilt had suffocated him. Even as he stood there doing nothing wrong.

He remembers reaching out and doing it anyway, because Sam needed him more than the mission did, and he loved Sam far beyond his capacity to do so. He’d slid his fingertips down the inside of Sam’s palm until his hand opened, then threaded their fingers together and clutched until his knuckles grew white. And the world didn’t implode. He remembers Sam had looked to him, his questioning gaze giving way to hope and overwhelming love, and Noah’s shame and fear were quashed behind its weight. His guilt disappeared entirely.

He remembers making love to Sam later that night, with the Hawkstorm family just down the hall, under no illusions as to what they were doing tucked away in the bedroom Sam had grown up in. They’d spent hours just kissing and sharing space, breathing each other in, reacquainting their hands with all the hard slopes and soft spaces of their bodies. Hours of Noah engorged and embedded inside him, unmoving, unhurried, just happy to be home, until their need became too great to hold back.

He remembers after, how warm with love and sleepiness he felt as the dawn began to lighten the sky outside the window. How content he was to have Sam stroking through his hair, twirling the golden curls around his ears with a finger, his heartbeat strong and calm beneath his cheek. How unprepared he was for what came next.

Noah.

Hmm?

I don’t think I can do this anymore.

What can’t you do?

What can't you do, Sam?

I don't think I can chase you anymore. It’s been fourteen years. And I’m so tired.

Are you saying you don’t want to be with me?

I will always want to be with you. But I’m tired, Noah.

So that’s it then?

God. Is that really all you have to say? I’ve done everything you’ve ever needed. I’ve given you space. I’ve never forced you. I’ve even loved you through all the times you pushed me away because your stupid, kind heart thought you weren’t doing enough for me. I’ve never once expected anything in return, just your love. But now I need you, Noah. I need you. I want us to be together. I want us to start a life together, before we’re both too old to enjoy it.

But what about the Clave?

What about the damn Clave, Noah? I don’t love the Clave, I love you. And I miss you too damn much, all the time. I’m so tired of waiting for our chance to be who we want to be. Aren’t you tired of being afraid? Aren’t you tired of not having what you want?

God, he had been. Constantly worrying about touching, or getting too close, or slipping up was the cruelest kind of exhaustion. Noah hadn’t come out because he’d been afraid of the consequences, and afraid of judgement, and afraid of the Angel and afraid of his parents. Hell, they’d been dead for years, and he was still terrified of letting them down. So he’d been indulging himself in the smallest ways he could.

But Sam hadn’t come out either. Because he didn’t want to tell the world he liked fucking men. He wanted to tell the world he loved Noah Underhill. And he didn’t get to make that choice for him.

Stalemate.

I need you to stop running, Noah. I need you to let me catch you.

Lasă-mă să stau.

And if I can’t?

Then I need to bow out.

So Sam did.

Part IV: Acasă

By the Angel, tell me you heard.

Heard what?

Alec Lightwood.

What about him?

Apparently he spends his downtime doing the Downworld.

Who doesn’t, honestly.

No, no. The male population of the Downworld.

You’re kidding.

Celeste heard it from Barry who’d heard it from his mother’s aunt back in Idris.

Lightwood is gay?

And fucking flaunting it.

Wow, the balls.

Right?

Wonder how Maryse is taking it.

I’d say it’s karma. That bitc----

A year later, nineteen year old Alec Lightwood was the talk of Idris. For having sex with Downworlders. Male Downworlders.

Noah had never been the type to give idle gossip any brain space, but talk of a supposedly gay - and publicly gay - Shadowhunter felt deeply personal. He remembers wanting to know everything he could, like a stray dog forriging for scraps. Was everything they said about Alec Lightwood true? Who was he sleeping with? What did his family think? What did his coworkers think? Was the Clave coming for him? Had he lost his job? Was he being punished? Was he to be exiled? Deruned? Was he happy? Angry? Scared? Safe? Had he fallen in love, like Noah had all those years ago?

Alec Lightwood was the eldest child of Robert and Maryse Lightwood, one of the oldest Shadowhunter families around. Which meant the scandal was big news. So big that Shadowhunters on his security team in the Baton Rouge Institute were discussing the vaguest of rumors in great detail, for weeks on end until the well of new information inevitably ran dry.

Three years later, Alec Lightwood was a regular staple in the shared gossip of Noah’s colleagues, but for different reasons. Noah had seen statistics on the Clave’s database with Alec’s name attached. High percentages for completed work. Signing off on reports a kid his age had no place touching, all because he was the one with the knowledge. He was clearly a brainbox, and people were either making him do their work for them, or he was the only one in the New York Institute with any experience. He remembers eavesdropping on updates when they came, wondering what the hell the kid was trying to achieve. Seelies, Werewolves, even Mundanes were on his growing list of sexual conquests, but he was also working hard, and being allowed to. He hadn't been fired, he hadn't be punished and he hadn't been exiled. Instead, he was proving successful. Noah had been at such a loss, trying not to fall under the creeping horror that he'd wasted his entire life being afraid for nothing. He'd made Sam miserable. For nothing.

Then Alec Lightwood was named proxy Head of the New York Institute on behalf of his parents, and Noah knew he had to see the guy in action for himself. He remembers filing a transfer request of residency, hoping to slot in somewhere once a space was available, because if Alec Lightwood was living openly in an Institute of people who accepted him, he wanted to be there too. Perhaps it would be everything he had been waiting for. A chance to be himself. A chance for him and Sam to finally get the beginnings of a life they wanted.

He remembers talking on the phone to Sam, between missions and timezones, because they’d both been hearing about the mysterious gay Shadowhunter in New York and they’d kept in touch regularly. Two actors playing friends with a script that said everything but.

I’m terrified.

Terrified of what?

I think I may have spent the last twenty years making us both miserable for no reason.

Hey, no. Don’t do that to yourself.

But what if it’s true? What if we could have been together all this time?

You weren’t ready, Noah. It’s okay. It worked out this way for a reason.

What reason is that?

I don’t know.

God, I miss you.

Nu pot respira fara tine.

I can’t breathe without you, Sam had told him, believing at the time that he wouldn’t understand the words. Not realizing that Noah had been doing everything and anything to keep himself occupied, which included spending the last few years learning Sam’s mother tongue, if only to comfort himself with a happiness he once had. Because Sam didn’t just speak another language. His heart did, too.

Noah-ul meu.

(My Noah.)

Nu sunt eu fără tine.

(I’m not me without you.)

Tu esti inima mea.

(You are my heart.)

Buna inima mea.

(My good heart.)

Te iubesc.

(I love you.)

Lasă-mă să stau.

(Let me stay.)

When Alec Lightwood became the newly appointed official Head of the New York Institute and offered him his vacant Head of Security position, it felt like the universe was finally conspiring on his behalf. So he’d said yes over the phone, without hesitation. For Sam. For himself.

For all the years they’d lost.

Alec Lightwood is an astute, no-nonsense young man with a solid handshake and a genuine smile, who knows what he wants and makes clever, cunning moves in order to get it. He’s also a man with hopes and dreams, a ten year plan and a stubborn streak a thousand miles wide. Exactly the kind of combination needed to change the game. 

Noah arrives at the New York Institute on the tail-end of a Forsaken attack, one he’s all too ready to jump in on. That Valentine Morgenstern is back and hovering around the area is a twist of fate that scratches him on a deeper, angrier level, so he fits seamlessly into the adrenaline still pulsing in the building when Alec walks him through the system. The place is a haven compared to his last posting, with new security upgrades, Stele-coded locks, a digital camera backlogging system with over sixty eight individual feeds and its own storage server. Even an app for his smartphone, so he can oversee his entire team’s dash from anywhere in the world. The Institute’s Wards are also some of the most impenetrable in the country, built over a hundred years ago by New York’s High Warlock. Alec introduces him to people of interest - his sister Isabelle, his Parabatai Jace Wayland, Valentine Morgenstern’s former wife Jocelyn and daughter Clary, who are both in protective custody. Alec also runs him down a list of local Downworlders who have visitation rights, and Noah’s surprised to learn that he plans to host the majority of them on a regular basis. Because on top of living his best life, Alec Lightwood wants to tackle the old prejudices between Nephilim and Downworlders too.

He’s a good kid. He’s confident and capable, and not at all deserving of the snark and spite he quietly receives when his back is turned. The vast majority of the Institute’s residents respect him and look to him for guidance, but the few naysayers in his orbit have poisonous barbs. Noah makes notes to keep an eye on them, because anyone out to harm his new boss will have to go through him first.

Alec had placed subtle emphasis on the local High Warlock, Magnus Bane during his orientation, and Noah’s a week deep into the routine of his new job when he finally figures out why.

He gets his first glimpse of Magnus when he shows up one afternoon. Isla goes through one of the system’s many manual overrides to allow him into the building without obliterating any eardrums, and Magnus waltzes through the Institute like it’s a second home, swagger in his shoulders and hips, saluting and winking at those who stare. Seeing Alec stepping down from the viewing deck, Noah moves to run a question by him, but pauses when Alec wanders past him unseeingly, needed elsewhere. Elsewhere, as it turns out, is in Magnus Bane’s embrace.

He tries his best not to stare, because there are enough around them that do. But watching the two of them meet halfway at the edge of the Ops Center, hands easy and familiar as they bring each other close for a soft, brief kiss, one that quickly falls away into smiles and domestic murmurs, is staggering. Even more staggering is how effortlessly Alec appears to do it, as if he knows there will be ridicule but isn’t about to waste his energy on it. Noah’s never seen such a display before, of two men openly, proudly expressing their love for each other, with or without fear. It’s warm, and beautiful, and normal, despite how completely alien it is to see.

Oh, how it stings.

What’s he like?

Alec Lightwood is kind. And brave. And ballsy. And giving. And so clearly proud to be in love.

He's everything I wish I was.

Don't, Noah. Don't do that.

God. I'm so sorry.

You have nothing to be sorry for. Alec would have had his own battles. Just like I did, just like you did. Everyone is different.

He sobs.

It's not your fault. There's nothing wrong with not being ready.

And sobs.

Noah?

And sobs.

Noah, it’s okay. What's done is done. There’s no point in dwelling on the past.

And sobs.

Please don't cry, lubirea mea.

Noah has learned a great many things throughout his life. He’d learned social cues from his peers. How to defend himself and fight for others from his numerous mentors and sparring partners. How to navigate greater society from his mother. How to filter urgent information and solve problems on the fly from his highly knowledgeable father. How he had to exist in order to be accepted, from the Clave.

Being with Sam had taught him how to kiss, and fuck, and love and be happy, and Sam’s wonderful family had taught him all the things that really mattered most. That one had always been a work in progress, because fighting his own upbringing was an ongoing battle.

But he’d never really learned how to face himself. He learns that from Alec.

Alec’s attraction for men is a small, vital part of him but not his defining trait. It doesn’t impair or improve his ability to make the hard calls. It doesn’t affect the strategies he lays out for his staff. It doesn’t help or deter him when filling out his impressively thorough reports. It doesn’t make him any more or less of a leader, or a brother, or a man. It doesn’t touch his bloodline, or his purpose, or his connection to the Angel. It neither makes or breaks him, and Noah realizes, rather reluctantly, that he’s allowed his own sexuality to do just that.

He observes his superior at great length, taking in the way he holds himself, how he addresses people, how he smiles, why he frowns. Noah knows Alec hears the snide comments and sees the eye rolls, but they don’t seem to affect him for long. In some cases, he removes those responsible entirely with careful, professional means, because he prefers people that want to do the work he needs done. Alec is also holding nothing back in his drive to mend bridges with the local Downworld, and Noah watches the bitter few request transfers out of the Institute. He can see it grating Alec’s last nerve, but it’s not stopping his motivation.

He sounds amazing.

He is. He’s punching above his weight with this new policy, though.

He’s creating a safe space for people to be who they are. The fact that some still don’t want that in this day and age blows my fucking mind.

I know. I hate it too.

He’ll be going up against the Clave with this.

He already is. But this kid...he’s something. I think he can do it. He just needs some support.

What do you have in mind?

Your name is a heavyweight. He would do well to have you in his corner.

You mean in New York?

Yes.

You’re asking me to move to New York.

I’m suggesting.

For Alec Lightwood?

For Alec, yes. He’s trying to change the world, Sam. Raziel knows it’s long overdue.

And what about you, Noah? Are you asking for you, too?

I have no right to ask you for anything.

Ask me, Noah.

I can’t----

Ask me. Feel what we both know you’re feeling and ask me.

Noah.

I’m tired of running. Will you catch me?

Of course I will.

Why? Why would you wait all this time? After everything?

How could I not wait for you, Noah? After everything?

He fills out Sam’s transfer request himself, and offers it to Alec. He also finally comes clean about who he is, because Alec deserves to know that he’s not alone. That his bravery and his work matters. That it’s taught him what he needs in order to save himself. That he’s glad to be here with him. And Alec Lightwood - beautiful, brave, compassionate Alec Lightwood - tells him he’s glad to have him here, too.

And it’s everything.

Sam transfers in on a Monday afternoon, having finished up his demonology workshop at the Brisbane Institute. Noah’s eyes rove him as he and Alec finally meet and shake hands; his heart pounding, stomach all aflutter like he’s that boney teen kid seeing him swim naked for the first time all over again. He looks healthy and happy and glowing, and his handsome face is devastating to look at. But then Sam is moving toward him, hand outstretched, and Noah holds it like a lifeline because he’s here, and he’s here with him, and they’re finally, finally doing this. 

He feels his face flushing beneath the graze of Sam’s beard as they exchange greeting kisses on the cheeks. And then they’re looking into each other’s eyes and smiling, beaming with the unsaid. He sees Sam’s heart in his softly heated gaze; a little battered, a little bruised, but up and ready to fight another round. Noah has never, ever loved him so much.

“Salut, iubirea mea,” Sam says. Hello, my love.

“Hey you,” he replies, giddy with want.

Alec knows. Alec sees. And Noah doesn’t feel guilty, or ashamed, or scared.

He feels free.