#silec brotp

[bytheangell]

Twist of Fate

(Advent Prompt: Costume) (Saphael, mentions of alcohol)  (Read on AO3) 

“You all know the rules,” Jace announces loudly. Simon looks at him with the amount of dread proportional to someone about to face their own death. “Each of you has a carton of eggnog, spiked with a little something special courtesy of yours truly.”

“Gross,” comes a voice from the back, followed by an equal mixture of groans and laughs.

“It’s alcohol, pervs,” Jace clarifies. They all know that, but Simon appreciates the reassurance now that there are so many worse options floating through his head.

“The last one to finish - or the first one to throw up - has to wear the costume at the party tonight,” Jace concludes. Simon glances over to where the ‘sexy elf’ costume hangs next to Jace for full effect. It’s a tradition at the music fraternity, and honestly, Simon knows he should consider himself lucky that the hazing and pranks here are pretty harmless after some of the horror stories he heard about the other frats.

Unfortunately, Simon isn’t thinking about it very rationally because the idea of anyone at school seeing him in that costume is enough to send his anxiety spiking. The idea of Raphael, who he has a ridiculously huge crush on, seeing him in it… Simon might as well drop out of the fraternity, or out of college entirely, and probably just spend the rest of his days in a cave because he isn’t sure he’d ever get over that embarrassment. Because of course, this is the one party Raphael finally agreed to show up at.

“I can’t lose this,” Simon mutters to Alec, who stands beside him. Alec hates all of this just as much as Simon does, and they bond over their dislike of these ridiculous competitions and challenges often. “I invited someone tonight…”

“Someone?” Alec asks, an eyebrow raised. “Or Raphael?”

Okay, so maybe Simon’s crush isn’t as subtle as he sometimes likes to think it is.

“Someone who may or may not be Rapahel,” Simon continues. “And if I have to show up in that I won’t even be able to say hi, let alone try to ask him out.”

Alec looks like he’s about to say something, but before he can Jace is counting down for them to begin.

Simon makes it through about half of his carton before he can feel his stomach start to rumble. He's never been great at chugging anything, let alone eggnog. One of the others is already done judging from a sudden round of cheers, and Simon looks around in panic as another finishes right after before going back to forcing down more of his own carton of thick, spiked eggnog.

“I’m going to lose,” Simon mutters to himself, chancing another glance to the side. “Maybe it’s fate. It’s definitely a sign, inviting him was a terrible idea...”

Alec hesitates beside him. “If you don’t lose, will you ask him out?”

“What?” Simon asks, taking the briefest second between drinking to respond, very aware of another person finishing next to Alec.

“If you don’t have to wear the stupid costume,” Alec emphasizes. “Swear you’ll finally ask him out and I’ll never have to listen to you moping and pining again.”

Simon’s brows furrow. “Sure. Why the fuck not,” Simon answers. “Not like it matters, because-”

A moment later Alec turns and, after a pause, puts on a good show of doubling over and looking queasy just long enough for Simon to realize what he’s doing and finish the last of his eggnog, leaving Alec the last one with eggnog left.

“Looks like Alec is this year’s Sexy Elf,” Jace announces, looking pleasantly surprised by the sudden turn of events at the end.

“Why did you do that?” Simon asks.

“‘Thank you, Alec.’ ‘I appreciate you saving me from public humiliation, Alec.’,” Alec says, in a higher-pitched, squeakier voice Simon realizes is meant to be him.

“I mean yeah, thank you,” Simon adds quickly. “But why?”

Alec shakes his head. “Because it’s halfway through our senior year, and as your friend, I cannot stand by and watch you make another excuse to not ask Raphael out. So now you have to follow through, because if I end up wearing that for nothing I will make the rest of this year a living hell for you, Lewis.”

Simon gulps, watching Alec take the costume and walk away without another word.

---

Simon watches Alec grab a drink with his boyfriend, Magnus, who in a show of solidarity came to the party in a sexy Santa costume to match Alec’s punishment sexy elf outfit.

“I’m a little mad at how well they pull that off,” Raphael says beside him, and Simon jumps a little in surprise. He didn’t hear him walk up over the music. “Don’t let Magnus know I said that, though. I tried to talk him out of it the entire time he got ready.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Simon says with a nervous laugh.

Alec makes very pointed eye contact with Simon and he knows it’s now or never. He’s not entirely sure what Alec might do if he chickens out again, and he doesn’t particularly want to find out. Especially not when what he could be finding out is if he has even the slightest chance with Raphael.

“Hey,” Simon starts, doing his best to sound nonchalant. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…”

“Ask me what?” Raphael prompts when Simon hesitates, falling silent.

“...out,” Simon says, realizing this is probably the lamest way to actually ask someone out, but at least he said the word. “Ask you out. Like, on a date. With me.”

Raphael looks surprised, and for a moment Simon is positive he’s going to say no before a small smile crosses his features. “I’d like that,” Raphael agrees.

“Yeah?” Simon says, sounding relieved. “I mean, uh yeah! Great! Maybe dinner after we get back from break?”

“Dinner sounds good,” Raphael says. “But I’d love to start with a dance right now,” he adds, reaching a hand out for Simon to take, which he does. He can’t believe he didn’t say something sooner, but he’s definitely going to make the most of the time they have left at school together… and hopefully a long, long while after that, too.

[bytheangell]

Yesterday a kind, wonderful, Anonymous soul left me an ask with this amazing art of Alec and Simon playing Overcooked from this fic I wrote last week! I wish I knew who they were to give this the credit it deserves because it’s beautiful and they should get all the love for it! <3 Thank you so much, Drawing Anon!  (shared/posted with Drawing Anon’s permission!) 

[bytheangell]

Simon asks his boyfriend's brother to go ghost hunting with him for his youtube show after Clary ends up getting sick the day of the investigation. Cue non-believer Alec Lightwood and believer Simon Lewis going to a abandoned hospital to look for ghosts.

That’s the Spirit (Read on AO3)

Simon can’t believe it. “What am I doing to do?” He sighs, collapsing dramatically onto the sofa in Jace’s apartment. Jace lives with his brother, Alec, who is also home but pointedly ignoring Simon’s presence the way he usually does when Simon shows up, which is pretty often these days.

“Of all the days to get sick… and I know it isn’t her fault. Obviously, Clary doesn’t want to have the flu, but it took me ages to get the permit to go to this site. It was going to be my biggest episode yet, I know it!”

“Can’t you just do it alone?” Jace asks. “Or reschedule?”

Simon only shakes his head and sighs again, much more dramatically this time, as if the situation becomes more tragic by the second. “No, and no. There has to be a dynamic, a back-and-forth to the investigation. No one wants to just watch me wander around the dark and ramble for an hour,” Simon points out.

“He’s got a point there,” Alec chimes in, and Simon frowns.

“Harsh,” Simon says, but Alec doesn’t look particularly apologetic. “Plus, you don’t just show up to abandoned buildings alone at night, Jace. That’s how you get yourself killed.”

“Then you could be a ghost on someone else’s show,” Alec suggests.

Simon ignores him and continues. “Anyway, the construction on the building is set to start tomorrow night. This is the last chance to go. For anyone. Forever.”

Simon could cry if he weren’t sitting in Jace’s living room. Okay, maybe he has cried in Jace’s living room before, but for now, it’s enough of a deterrent to pretend to hold himself together.

“Sorry, Si,” Jace says. “If I could find someone to cover last-minute for me I’d do it, but…” he shrugs helplessly. Jace is a bartender, so weekend nights are too busy to bail on without notice.

“I know you would,” Simon reassures him, but the frown never leaves his face. There has to be something he can do, someone he can ask… Simon’s eyes drift to Alec, but he says nothing. Alec hates him. Alec hates everyone other than his siblings and Magnus, to be fair, but he especially doesn’t like Simon. There’s no way he can ask him.

Jace follows Simon’s gaze and gets a devious glint in his eyes.

“If only,” Jace says, looking very pointedly at Alec. “There was someone here, who didn’t have work tonight, or any assignments due tomorrow because it’s the weekend, and a boyfriend who is out of town so he definitely doesn’t have a date lined up, and no social life to speak of so he wouldn’t have any plans he’d have to cancel, and-”

It takes Alec an embarrassingly long time to pick up on the fact that Jace is speaking not only to him but about him.

“No,” Alec says, shaking his head.

“Why not?” Jace asks.

“Because it’s stupid. There’s no such thing as ghosts, and the whole thing is a waste of time,” Alec says.

“That’d be the perfect dynamic for the video! The grumpy skeptic and the excitable believer!” Simon points out. “I’ll even let you poke fun at it on camera if you want.”

“No,” Alec repeats.

“...not even if I take dish duty for the next week?” Jace offers. They split the chores in the apartment evenly and rotate, but Simon knows how much Alec complains because Jace makes 90% of the dishes with his shakes and smoothies.

Alec raises an eyebrow. “How about the next month?”

“Two and a half weeks,” Jace counters.

Alec looks at Simon, then back at Jace, and closes his book with a sigh. “Deal.”

---

“I can’t believe I let you two talk me into this,” Alec mutters, taking the gear Simon hands him.

“You won’t regret it,” Simon swears, beaming. “And seriously, I owe you one. Or two. Or twenty. I’ve been looking forward to this night for months, seriously, this means so-”

“Save the rambling for the camera,” Alec says, and Simon clamps his mouth shut.

The building they have access to is an abandoned hospital that has a ridiculously high amount of recorded paranormal encounters. The owner greets them a few hours before sunset to let them in and show them around, and Simon pulls out his camera to record some of the history the woman gives them.

“She’s not a ghost,” Alec says as if this is something Simon might not know. “Why are you recording her?”

“Because the people watching later will want to know some of the history,” Simon starts to explain, then frowns. “Have you never watched any of my videos?”

Alec shrugs. “I have to watch you get overexcited about things all the time in person. Why would I watch it online in my free time?”

Simon opens his mouth to say something but shuts it again, reminding himself that he needs Alec to at least humor him tonight, and he might not do that if Simon picks a fight.

“Right,” Simon says instead. “So it goes like this: we get some backstory from Ms. Loss, then we set up some equipment, we explore floor by floor the rest of the night until we go to sleep in room 502.”

Simon expects Alec to argue at least one part of that, but he just shrugs noncommittally. “Sure.”

“Anyway, Ms. Loss. Can you tell me more about the nurse people report seeing on the second floor...:”

---

“Okay,” Simon starts. “So I’m going to put the camera there, and we’re going to record a little opening bit. You don’t have to say anything.”

“Perfect,” Alec says. “I like this already.”

Simon clears his throat and looks into the camera. “This week, we’re exploring The Institute as part of my ongoing investigation to answer the question: are ghosts real?”

Simon sees movement from Alec and looks over to catch Alec mouthing the word ‘No’ exaggeratedly at the camera while shaking his head.

Simon sighs, wondering if he might not have been better off just going alone after all. By some small miracle, he manages to record the rest of the opening without distraction.

By the time they have the motion sensors set up with cameras on them and a few voice recorders placed around the rooms with the most reported activity, the sun is nearly set. Usually, Clary helps Simon with positioning the equipment, but since Alec doesn’t know what to do with any of it the process took a bit longer than expected.

“Ready?” Simon asks, taking a deep breath as he shuts the door to the van and turns to face the building.

“As I’ll ever be,” Alec confirms, following Simon inside.

“Alright. Tonight we’re inside The Institute for what will be the building’s final night before demolition begins tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but if I knew my home was about to be destroyed, I’d probably be pretty upset. Are there any spirits here who have anything to say about the construction?”

There’s a few seconds of silence, broken almost immediately by Alec.

“How long do we stand here listening to nothing?” Alec asks.

Simon sighs. “You don’t know if it’s nothing until we play the tapes back! You can’t always hear it in person. But generally speaking more than 2 seconds.”

Alec winces. “Sorry.”

“No, you know what, this is good. To any spirits who might be here, I’m Simon, and this is Alec. Alec doesn’t believe you exist, so any proof you can give us tonight to show him he’s wrong would be great. We have a few motion sensors you can set off, cameras you can manifest in front of, or you can make a noise, or touch us-” “Touch us?” Alec repeats.

“What? If you don’t believe in ghosts then nothing actually exists to touch you, right?” Simon says. He can’t help the hint of a challenge behind his words.

Alec clears his throat. “Right. I don’t, so whatever. Yeah, come at me, ghosts! Touch away!”

Simon hadn’t expected him to go that far with it. “Alright, tone it down Rocky, we don’t want to upset them.”

“But I thought you wanted-” “There has to be a balance. Encouraging, not antagonizing,” Simon clarifies.

“I didn’t realize there’d be so many rules,” Alec says, rolling his eyes. Simon can’t see the motion in the dark, but he can practically feel it.

“Don’t worry. You’ll learn,” Simon says, meaning to sound encouraging. “You’ll be a pro at this in no time.”

“I’d rather not,” Alec mumbles as they set off again.

They make it out of the main entryway and into the first hallway before Simon slows. His whole body is tense as he swings his light around to catch graffiti warning people away, dark corridors lined with cobwebs, and what looks like a noose hanging from a rafter in a bit of exposed ceiling.

“Fuck,” Simon says, and even that single word held a significant tremor.

“It looks like something out of The Conjuring,” Alec points out.

“I don’t like this at all,” Simon says. “I have a terrible feeling looking at this.”

Alec hums. “I have bad news for you then,” he says. “Because I’m pretty sure literally every part of the building is going to look like this.”

Simon watches a goddamn smirk tug at Alec’s lips. How is he so calm about this? How is he not even the least bit on edge?! Simon was counting on Alec getting at least a little freaked out once they were here so he could swoop in and be The Professional with all sorts of ‘it’s fine, I do this all the time’ and ‘this is business as usual, buddy’ comments to make himself look cool.

Instead, Alec looks worried, but not for himself - he looks worried for Simon.

“You okay over there?” Alec asks, as a gust of wind from outside makes something creak above them and sends Simon half a foot into the air in surprise.

“I’m fine,” Simon manages. “I’m the professional,” he mumbles to himself, starting off down the first dark hallway.

---

“So,” Simon says, regaining his composure enough to narrate for the camera again. “We’re inside a building adjacent to the main hospital where the ‘Body Chute’ is-”

“Sounds fun,” Alec mutters, not entirely under his breath.

“-which is a 500-foot long tunnel they used to dispose of the bodies where the other patients wouldn’t see.”

“I’m so glad we have a tuberculosis vaccine now,” Alec says, just as they get to a gated door that Simon pushes open and-

“Oh my god, this is awful,” Simon says the moment his light goes down the very long, very dark, very horrifying looking hallway.

“Now this looks like a nightmare,” Alec admits.

“No, no, no, no. No way...” Simon says but stops when Alec has the audacity to chuckle from behind him at Simon’s reaction.

“I don’t think I realized how long 500 feet is,” Alec says conversationally, stepping ahead of Simon to go down the tunnel. Simon knows going to the end of the tunnel is the plan - it’s where they brought every dead body, if there are spirits anywhere there are spirits at the end of this tunnel, but… man, he does not want to go down there.

It feels like they walk forever, eventually hitting stairs that go down even further until they reach a spot blocked off by some kind of hanging plastic sheet. Simon, in an effort to both save face and also regain control, peels back the corner only to scream like a small child and run backward when a ‘whoosh’ noise passes him.

“Was that wind?” Alec asks.

“I don’t know,” Simon says. “But I’m not doing that again.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Alec says suddenly. “How about you stay down here, and I’ll go to the top of the stairs, and we can shut our lights off and sit in the dark and see if we get anything from either end of this death chute?”

“...how about you go fuck yourself,” Simon replies, a knee-jerk reaction he knows he’ll have to edit out later. “But that’s actually not a terrible idea,” he admits very, very grudgingly. Alec wastes no time going back the way they came, and once he’s in place they shut off both sets of flashlights.

 “I’m going to die here,” Simon laments to his camera in the dark, his voice echoing up to Alec who laughs again.

“Don’t worry, Jace would kill me if I let you die here,” Alec reassures him. “Now shut up.”

“You shut up,” Simon mumbles, but to himself this time. If it’s loud enough for Alec to pick up he doesn’t say anything back.

Simon holds his breath in the dark, listening for any sign that something might be down here with him when he hears Alec’s voice sound from the top of the stairs.

“Did you hear that?” Alec asks. Simon shouldn’t be as pleased as he is to hear an edge to the question, turning his light back on and taking the excuse to get the hell out of there and back up to where Alec is.

“No,” Simon admits. “What was it?”

Alec shrugs. “I dunno, just a… weird noise. Probably nothing, but I guess we’ll hear it on the tapes if it wasn’t.”

“That’s the spirit!” Simon says, thrilled to see Alec catching on to the routine. Then he pauses, and laughs. “Hah. That’s the spirit. Get it?”

Alec definitely gets it, but he doesn’t look particularly happy about it.

They head back up to the morgue. As one of the more active areas, Simon has pretty high hopes for it.

“Feel anything strange? Anything unsettling?” Simon asks Alec, turning the camera on him.

Alec looks around the room, tapping on an autopsy drawer and doing a full 360-degree turn. “I feel kinda cold? That’s a ghost thing, right? But it’s also just… cold in here in general, isn’t it? It isn’t like there’s heat, it’s pretty drafty.”

“How about you lay on the autopsy table?” Simon suggests.

Alec looks at it dubiously but agrees, shifting his gear in his hands so he can carefully lay on the metal table, his legs too long and dangling over the edge.

“If there’s anything in here, maybe someone who once laid where Alec is right now, can you talk to us? Tell us your name?” Simon asks into the room, then waits.

Alec moves his feet back and forth over the edge.

“Isn’t this the part in the horror movie where the demon reaches out from under me and grabs my foot? Anything out there want to grab my foot?” Alec asks, and Simon has to give him credit for at least trying with what little, clichéd knowledge he has.

“There aren’t demons here,” Simon tells him. “I don’t mess with demons.”

Alec swings his legs over the side of the table and gets down again.

“Pity. Now demon hunting is something I could get behind,” Alec says.

Simon furrows his brows and doesn’t bother hiding his exasperation as he says, “What is wrong with you?”

---

“Alright, so here is the elevator shaft where a homeless man and his dog reportedly fell down, or were pushed down, and died,” Simon explains as they get to the next active area. “People say they’ve seen both the man and the dog, separately, on multiple occasions.”

They reach the door to the elevator shaft which has a square hole where a window would probably be but isn’t anymore. Simon holds his voice recorder up to the window.

“If there’s an older man here who fell down this elevator shaft, please make a noise,” Simon says.

Silence.

“In a shocking turn of events, no noise,” Alec says. “Put your arm in more, it won’t record anything out here if he is in there.”

Simon moves his arm imperceptibly closer before immediately pulling it back. “No, nuh-uh, I do not like that. What if he grabs my hand while it’s in there?”

“...then you have proof of a ghost?” Alec asks. “Why is that a bad thing?”

“And if I say I feel something you aren’t going to believe me anyway,” Simon says.

“Sure I will,” Alec promises.

Simon hesitates, then puts his arm through the hole in the door to the middle of his forearm. Okay, he thinks, this is fine. This is-

Simon lets out a shrill noise and snaps his arm back within seconds.

“What?” Alec asks.

“It felt like something breathed on my hand,” Simon says, aware that his voice is shaking. In fact, now that he has his arm pulled back safe and sound against his chest, he’s vaguely aware that all of him is shaking.

“You mean like the wind?” Alec dismisses.

“See, I told you. I told you you’d do this and not believe me,” Simon glares at him. “Not like the wind. Like someone blew on my hand.”

Alec must decide to take pity on Simon and cut him a break before he has a meltdown because he drops the wind thing.

“Alright. The ghost of a homeless guy blew on your hand. So if he’s there we should ask him more questions, right?” Alec points out. Simon suddenly regrets wishing Alec would play along.

“Right,” Simon agrees, taking several deep breaths as he inches his way forward to put his arm through the window again, just not as far this time. His grip on the recorder is so tight his fingers start to go numb. Simon can’t bring himself to ask any more questions, still shaken up, so Alec takes the lead.

“So, if you’re the homeless guy who fell and died here… or were pushed… you must be pretty pissed, right? I mean, if someone pushed you, I bet you’d love to push someone back as revenge, wouldn’t you-”

Simon pulls his hand back immediately. “Are you trying to get us killed?” Simon whispers. “Alright, we’re done here. Goodbye, Mr. Homeless man. Please don’t follow us and push us.”

---

The fourth floor is the one that Simon is the most excited for. There are reports of multiple full-bodied apparitions, a little boy who likes to play with a ball, nurses, and just shadowy figures in general.

“Why are all of these hallways so long?” Simon asks. They stay at one end this time, lights trained down the hall, motion censors set up at the other end where the most movement is reported. They’ve been at this for about 20 minutes now, asking questions, trying to get flashlights to turn on and off, but so far all they got were a few inconclusive readings that leave Simon on edge and Alec consistently denying proof of anything.

That’s when Simon sees the shadow.

“Oh my god did you see that,” Simon says, his voice barely above a whisper, his body rigid.

Alec’s silence is answer enough.

“Of course you didn’t,” Simon mutters. “There, at the end of the hallway, there was a shadow…”

Simon watches Alec look more intently down the hallway. “Let’s go down there, then. Might as well throw a little shadow hunting in with the ghost hunting.”

They do, but nothing seems out of place and the motion sensor they set up hasn’t been activated.

“I think your eyes are just playing tricks on you. We’ve been staring into the dark for half an hour now. Eventually, you’re going to start seeing things. Your mind wants to see things.”

“I guess…” Simon agrees. “I’ll have to check the camera later, see if it picked anything up.”

“What if we throw the ball for the ghost kid?” Alec suggests. “That’s this hallway, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Simon acknowledges, reaching into his bag to pull out a blue ball. “Which doesn’t make me feel better about the shadow, to be honest.”

This hallway, much like all the others, has walls full of graffiti and chipping paint. Mentally, Simon reminds himself to look into some nice, modern haunted hotels or something for his next video. Clearing his throat he tries to focus back on the task at hand.

“I brought a blue bouncy ball with me,” Simon says into the darkness of the hallway. “We heard you like to play ball. We’d love it if you played with us!”

Simon gives it a gentle toss down the center of the hallway, listening as it bounces until the echoes fall silent. Simon frowns. Those bounces didn’t sound right. They were irregular, and-

“Did that sound like it… stopped, then started again?” Alec asks, sounding reluctant to admit he heard anything strange at all.

“Yes!” Simon exclaims, finally glad that Alec heard something he did. “Like someone stopped it, then dropped it again!”

“You’re not going to roll it back to Simon?” Alec asks into the darkness, but there’s nothing except still air and silence. Alec sighs. “Guess we should go find it, right?”

They both go down the hallway, flashlights trained on the ground in front of them, occasionally sweeping off to the side to glance down a few side hallways and empty rooms until Simon’s light lands on the blue ball. It’s resting on the floor down a small side hallway to the left of the main one.

“Found it, over--- no way. Oh no.” Simon’s light moves up to some graffiti on the wall directly in front of where the ball stopped - graffiti that says ‘Simon’. “What are the chances… how did it even roll this way? What the- no. No, no, no.”

“Simon… the ball did roll to you. They know you,” Alec says, clearly taking joy from the existential crisis Simon’s having and making sure to film every moment of it. His eyes are wide, heartbeat racing as he paces back and forth along the small, graffitied side hallway.

“Shut up, Alec. Just… you know this is weird. First the shadow, now this? You have to admit this is weird,” Simon practically begs, needing Alec to take this seriously for at least a second because he’s freaking the fuck out right now.

“You know you have to do it again, for comparison,” Alec says, and Simon wants to snap that of course he does, he’s the one who told Alec that if something strange happens you have to try and repeat it to see if it has a reasonable explanation. Like maybe there’s a dip in the floor and the ball always goes this way. Simon really hopes there’s a dip in the floor.

“Right. Yeah, okay,” Simon says, picking up the ball and heading back to the start of the hallway again. Simon repeats the action, careful to stand in the same place and throw it with the same force.

Instead of filming down the hallway, Alec’s camera is trained on him. “I’ve never seen anyone look so upset to throw a ball before,” Alec says, laughing lightly.

“Yeah, well, it isn’t your name the ball stopped at,” Simon points out.

“Maybe it will be this time!” Alec offers, but when they find the ball again it’s in the dead center of the main hallway.

“See, that’s where it should’ve landed the first time,” Simon insists.

“So you think it was pushed the other way last time?” Alec asks.

“Don’t you? First the shadow, then the ball moving, on the floor people repeatedly see a kid playing with a ball?” Simon can’t believe Alec is still denying this.

Alec shrugs. “I’m going to need a little more than some air in a drafty elevator shaft and a ball that rolled weird to believe ghosts are following us.”

Well, Simon thinks with another sigh, at least he’s honest.

They move on to one of the rooms a nurse is often seen in, each taking a chair in the center and putting motion sensors by the two doors into the room.

Simon asks a few standard questions, but he can’t keep his focus. His flashlight flits around the room unsteadily.

“You don’t like this room, do you?” Alec asks. For once he doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of Simon, but genuinely curious.

“No,” Simon admits. “I feel… off, in here. It’s unsettling. I’m not getting any responses, why don’t you try?”

“Alright,” Alec agrees. “Is there anyone in here with us? Or anyone nearby who would like to join us? We-”

“Alec,” Simon says, pointing behind where Alec’s sitting and Alec turns to see the light of the sensor going off.

“Looks like we got ourselves a ghost!” Alec exclaims. “Finally. Okay, uh, if you’re in the room with us, can you go to the other door and set off that sensor?”

Simon, surprised to find Alec taking charge while he freezes in his seat, holds his breath. The other sensor flickers, just barely, but it does.

“Thank you,” Alec says. “We have this… recorder if there’s anything you want to say. Maybe to the people you tried to save? Or to us? Do you like us here? Because we’re spending the night, so if you don’t like that, now’s the time to tell us to go.”

Alec seems properly energized by the sudden activity and Simon’s equal parts glad to see him finally getting a little more into it, and slightly horrified by the way he seems determined to turn any spirits in this building against them.

Unfortunately, the lights don’t go off again after that, and they don’t hear anything in the room.

“I wasn’t going to use the spirit box, but… now I kind of want to,” Simon admits.

“Spirit box?” Alec asks. “Is this like Ghostbusters where you try and trap the ghost in a box?”

“What? No,” Simon says, bringing out the small electronic device. “It searches through any nearby radio frequencies really fast, and spirits can tap into the white noise to form words for us, like a name, or to answer questions.”

“How scientifically accurate is this?” Alec asks skeptically.

“Debatable,” Simon says. “But I’ve gotten some cool results from it before, so… let’s give it a try. Oh, fair warning, it’s really loud.”

Simon turns the spirit box on and Alec visibly flinches back, covering both ears at the sudden noise in the otherwise silent room.

“You weren’t kidding,” Alec says after his ears adjust a bit to the loud static and shifting noises from the frequency changes, and he brings his hands back down.

“Alright. I’ll ask again - if you’re in here with us, and have anything you want to say, you can… use this box, I guess, to talk to us. Sorry, it seems a little gimmicky, but you weren’t talking before, so-”

“It isn’t a gimmick,” Simon cuts in, getting himself back in control enough to cut off Alec before he can antagonize the spirit further. “Can you tell us your name?”

The spirit box continues to make white noise until there’s a break, and he hears, very clearly, the word “spaghetti”.

They’re both silent for a moment, processing the word.

Then Alec bursts into laughter. “Maybe it’s hungry,” he says, barely managing the words between bursts of laughter.

Simon turns the box off. “Alright, let’s just move on.”

“Are you sure? We haven’t heard from Lasagna or Pizza yet,” Alec says.

Simon does his best to ignore him.

---

Upon reaching the balcony-esque landing of the roof attached to room 502, Simon leans over the ledge, just the tiniest bit to look down.

“Careful,” Alec says from behind him. “Wouldn’t want the homeless guy and his dog to push you now.”

Simon swears he feels a cold wisp of air at the nape of his neck that makes the hairs there stand on edge, but he refuses to admit that out loud.

“Ha-ha,” Simon says instead, though he does move back quickly. They have sleeping bags to set up to spend the rest of the night in the room behind them. Ms. Loss told them earlier that strange deaths occurred more than once in this room, and that others who stayed in it heard kids giggling and had things hit their tents throughout the night. The fact that they only have sleeping bags doesn’t make Simon feel great, but, as always, Alec hardly seems bothered.

“Goodnight, Spaghetti,” Alec calls into the dark once their flashlights are off.

At least he’s enjoying himself now, Simon thinks, which is a step up from the start of this whole thing. Simon doesn’t believe that Alec hates him half as much as he pretends to…

At least, that’s what Simon thinks until he wakes up an hour later to the feeling of something gently prodding his face. Only someone who hates you would wake you up in the middle of the night in a haunted hospital by touching you. Simon tries not to give him the satisfaction of reacting, attempting to pretend he’s still asleep, but after it happens a few more times Simon finally rolls over to tell him to stop.

“Seriously, dude, just-” Simon starts, except Alec isn’t anywhere near him. In fact, he’s several feet away, arms inside his sleeping bag, completely asleep.

Now Simon reacts, grabbing the flashlight next to him and spinning wildly in a circle, trying to catch sight of something, anything, that would explain what he just felt.

“What are you doing?” Alec grumbles, woken up by the sudden light that Simon accidentally shined in Alec’s face a few times during his repeated scans of the room.

“Something was touching my face. I thought it was you until I looked over and you were completely asleep. There’s nothing up here I can see, but I swear to God, something touched my face.”

“Go back to bed, Simon,” Alec mumbles, rolling over.

Simon could laugh at the suggestion, his heartbeat racing so fast he knows it’ll take at least an hour to calm down enough to consider sleeping again, not that Simon intends on even considering it.

Between the ghost touches and the fact that Alec’s snores fill the room within minutes, Simon knows he’s in for a long night.

---

Simon has never been more relieved to see the first rays of sunlight creep in through the window and immediately shakes Alec awake.

“We made it. We’re done. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Alec takes in the bags under Simon’s eyes. “...did you ever fall back asleep?”

“What do you think?” Simon replies with a yawn. “Also, you could’ve warned me that you snore.”

“I do not snore,” Alec insists.

“The video I set up in case that ghost came back says otherwise,” Simon smirks, and Alec just glares.

It doesn’t take long to gather the few things they have with them, but Simon keeps his camera out for the walk back down to his van.

“Last chance, ghosts! Any last words? This is your moment!” Simon calls into the halls, which are a lot less horrifying in the daylight.

“Last chance to shove Simon down the stairs, you wimps!” Alec adds, and Simon turns to level him with a glare that loses a lot of its fire when his eyes nearly close from exhaustion instead of narrowing menacingly.

“Simon Lewis 1, haunted hospital ghosts, 0!” Simon calls out triumphantly the moment he hits that final stair.

“So, Alec, before we leave, do you think this place is haunted?” Simon asks, shifting the camera over to Alec.

“No,” Alec says, and Simon’s face only falls for a second before he shifts the camera back to himself.

“Well, I think it is,” Simon says. “I guess our viewers will just have to make up their own minds.”

After one last sweep of the outside of the building, Simon shuts the camera off, and his entire body seems to relax.

“Congratulations, you survived!” Simon says, grinning at Alec. “I might have you do a few voice-over things, maybe a bit of commentary, if you don’t mind. But other than that, it’s just me and my editing now.”

“Cool,” Alec says, taking his bag and handing it back to Simon to put away in the van.

“Thanks again for doing this,” Simon tells him. “I know you were doing it for Jace, not for me, but I still appreciate it.”

“It ended up not being so bad,” Alec admits. “And I know I give you a hard time, but I don’t hate you. Anyone as good for Jace as you are is alright in my book.”

Simon beams. “Really?”

“Don’t tell Jace I said that, though. Then I won’t get two weeks of dishes out of him the next time you need a stand-in,” Alec says.

Simon only smiles wider at that. “Next time?!”

Alec seems to realize his mistake a moment too late. Simon takes the win and decides not to press his luck by pushing the subject.

“For now, how about breakfast on me? I’m starving,” Simon offers. After being stuck with him all night Simon isn’t sure Alec will agree. He’s pleasantly surprised to see Alec already nodding. “Taki’s? They have surprisingly good coffee.”

“Sure,” Alec agrees. “Think your spirit box can tell me if I should have pancakes or waffles? It’s a bit early for spaghetti…”

[bytheangell]

Hello Elle, after our lovely convo on discord, Alec's Friday nights suddenly got busy. For an hour he disappears and doesn't tell anyone where he goes, just stating he's just going out for a bit. What the others don't know is that he's been going over to Simon's and the duo have been trying to get through *insert generic coop video game here*. You can decide if the others find out or not (*^3^)/~☆

What Friends Are For  (Read on AO3)

Alec shrugs on his jacket and grabs the messenger bag from where he casually tossed it by the door on his way in that morning. He has this timed down to the second - being Head of the Institute has a few perks, including when the best time to sneak out during shift changes and while the cafeteria is open for dinner is to avoid anyone noticing him as he slips out. It worked well for a while… until it didn’t.

Lately, it feels like his family and friends must have some sort of tracker on him because this is the third week in a row one of them stopped him just shy of the front doors while he attempts to sneak out unnoticed on a Friday night.

“My big brother, going somewhere other than patrol on a Friday night? I don’t believe it.” Izzy teases good-naturedly. “Date night?”

Alec considers saying yes, but he can’t risk someone needing him or Magnus for something and discovering the lie.

“No,” Alec admits. “Just going out for a bit.”

It’s the same thing he said two weeks ago when Clary assumed he was going to grab a coffee and asked him to bring her back one, too, and the same thing he told Jace last week when Jace tried to get Alec to cover for him so he could go clubbing with Izzy.

Izzy raises a skeptical eyebrow, but Alec’s already turning back towards the door with a dismissive, “Sorry, gotta run!”

That’s the trouble with Shadowhunters - once they notice a pattern, they can’t let it go. It’s ingrained in their training to pick up on things like that, normally in a battle or tracking sense, but it can be applied everywhere. And unfortunately, Alec’s friends seem to have their minds set on applying it to him.

That’s a problem for another day, though, because he’s already out the door and on his way before he can worry too much about it.

---

The following Friday, Alec is halfway through the ops room when he hears a voice speaking behind him loudly enough to get his attention while he walks with his eyes down, determined not to make eye contact with anyone who might try to stop him on his way out.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Alec hears Jace’s voice say. “I’d think you’re cheating on Magnus or something.”

“That’s absurd,” Alec says, rolling his eyes.

“Of course, it is. That’s why I said ‘if I didn’t know any better’,” Jace points out. “The problem is, I don’t really know better, because you keep disappearing every week without telling anyone where you’re going. And I’m not saying you aren’t entitled to your privacy or anything but… it’s just weird, for you.”

Alec’s glare softens a little. They usually don’t ask, and Alec doesn’t offer anything besides out for a bit’, but he should’ve known that could only last so long. He supposes that’s what he gets for suddenly changing his habits after two decades of always being around. “I swear, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Once it’s clear that’s all Alec plans on saying on it, taking Jace up on the ‘you’re entitled to your privacy’ comment, Jace looks resigned for now. “Alright. See you in two hours?”

Alec shakes his head a little, cursing that knack for routine catching. Or maybe he should just stop being so predictable. “See you then.”

---

In the back of his mind, Alec knows that he should’ve left a while ago. He isn’t sure how much longer than his usual hour or two he’s been here because he can’t take his eyes off of the screen in front of him. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion, first one thing goes wrong, then runs into another, and soon everything is backed up and piling on top of one another in an inevitable train reaction. Alec’s strategy training should be enough to get him through this, but there’s no accounting for the people you have to work with, and-

Alec is so in the zone that he barely registers the sound of the knock on the door until Simon’s moving in a blur away from him to open it and back, all barely in the blink of an eye. Alec assumes it’s Raphael, because who else would it be?

He assumes wrong.

“You know, for someone with vamp speed, you’re moving PRETTY SLOWLY ACROSS THE DAMN KITCHEN,” Alec says, his voice tense, doing his best to unclench his fingers when he sees the tips of them pressed so tightly they’re whiter than usual.

Simon practically growls beside him, “Yeah, well, for a Shadowhunter, you have a SEVERE LACK OF COORDINATION. How did you drop that?”

“Who the fuck cooks sushi at the same time as burgers anyway?” Alec demands. “This is absurd.”

“...because the rest of the game where you cook food hopping between two sides of a river or on a hot air balloon is not absurd. Got it,” Simon huffs, and only when Alec decides to spare a glance to the side to level Simon with a proper glare does he realize it is not, in fact, Raphael who came to the door.

Izzy, Jace, and Clary all stand just inside the front door, fully gaping at the sight of Alec sitting on Simon’s sofa in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his bare feet curled up underneath his legs, holding a video game controller.

“Alec? Alec! What the- great, we lost,” Simon sighs, glancing around at the lot of them. “If I knew you were going to save some sort of existential crisis at the sight of your siblings, I would’ve left them in the hallway. Wait, is something wrong?”

Alec opens and shuts his mouth because he doesn’t have an answer to that. Nothing is wrong in the sense that they’re probably not here because the Institute is on fire, but…

“Oh. My. God,” Clary laughs.

“This is where you’ve been sneaking off to?! We thought you were in some, like, underground fight club or got mixed up in some Ifrit drug ring or something,” Jace says. “Especially when you stopped answering your phone.”

Alec fishes his phone out of his pocket to see that it’s off and doesn’t turn on when he hits the power button. It must’ve died on him since he hadn’t planned on being away from the Institute this long and forgot to charge it before he left.

“I can’t believe you never told me Alec’s been playing video games with you,” Izzy rounds on Simon, sounding betrayed.

“You never asked!” Simon defends.

“I did ask you,” Izzy points out, turning on Alec.

Simon frowns. “You lied about hanging out with me?” He sounds a little hurt.

“No!” Alec insists. “I just said I was-”

“-going out for a bit,” Clary, Jace, and Isabelle all finish in unison with Alec.

Simon seems slightly more comforted by that answer, at least.

“It was just supposed to be one time,” Alec says. “I was just going to help him get past one level, but he got stuck on another the next week, and it just… turned into a thing. I know everyone hates the Friday patrols, and I didn’t want to get shit for skipping out on them to play games.” The guilt at getting caught is enough proof of that. Every week he told himself it’d be the last one, but in all honesty, he didn’t want to stop. They were fun, and Alec didn’t know how to deal with actually wanting to ditch out on work to have fun every so often.

He barely realizes he’s already thinking of it in the past tense because now that they know there’s no way he’s getting away with keeping this Friday night routine up in the future.

“And now you’re best friends with Simon,” Jace smirks.

“We’re not friends-” Alec says. “I just come over once a week to play video games. Well, every week except last week - we watched an episode of some cop, comedy, thing?, so I’d understand a reference he kept making.”

“Every time I said ‘Noice’ instead of ‘nice’ he looked like he was going to have an aneurysm,” Simon supplies, mostly for Clary’s benefit, and Clary snorts out a laugh.

“Yeah, you’re best friends now,” Clary confirms.

“I-” Alec starts to insist that they’re absolutely not, but stops, looking confused.

There’s a lull during which everyone levels Alec with the same look.

“...have you never had a friend before?” Clary asks, not unkindly.

Sure, Alec visits Simon once a week, but he sees Raphael once a week when he comes over to Simon’s after sunset, and that doesn’t make the two of them friends, Alec’s sure of that. The only difference with Simon is that they play video games when they meet up, and sometimes Simon orders takeout for him, or have a drink if Alec doesn’t have a patrol to get back to, and they have occasionally been texting lately, but--

“Raziel, we’re friends, aren’t we?” Alec realizes.

“Not with that attitude,” Simon huffs.

“No, sorry, it’s not-” Alec flounders. “I haven’t, really. Had proper friends.” It sounds sad to admit it like that, but there’s no way around it. Izzy and Jace are his siblings so they hardly count, even if they did the sort of things he’d probably do with actual friends.

“I guess we are friends, then,” Alec admits finally.

Alec is a little embarrassed for Simon watching how intensely he beams at that statement, and that’s saying something coming from the guy who just admitted he never had a proper friend before. Still, Alec can’t deny the bit of warmth he feels at knowing Simon wants to be friends with him, too.

Alec clears his throat. “Great. Now that we got that settled, I guess I should go back and actually, you know, run the Institute since you two are incapable of covering for me for a few hours.”

“Not a chance,” Izzy says, shaking her head.

“You never take time off, or have fun, or-”

“Okay, okay, I think we get it,” Alec cuts Jace off.

“Do you know how long Iz and I have been trying to get you to take time off for yourself? In fact, from now on, I’ve got the Friday night shifts. You two enjoy your game nights. Have a beer or something. C’mon,” Jace motions to Izzy and Clary. “Let’s let them get back to their video game bonding.”

Alec’s sure there’s some sort of catch here, but honestly, the idea of a full night off instead of going back to finish paperwork or clean up any messes is too tempting to pass up just then, so he takes it.

“Just don’t forget to do the dishes this time,” Alec pleads, the others already forgotten as Simon restarts the round.

It’s only later, when he finds out that Izzy, Jace, and Clary have been drilling Simon for anecdotes of Alec being ‘adorably normal’ (in Clary’s words) that he momentarily wonders if it’s worth it.

It doesn’t take him long to decide that it is. So what if the others give him a bit of good-natured harassment for it once and a while… after all, he’s quickly learning, that’s what friends are for.