You guys have asked and asked for this - so here it is! I have most of chapter one written, but expect the updates on this one to be slow, my dears; I'm definitely going to be staying mostly focused on Runed for the foreseeable future!
Let me know if it was worth the wait!
Thanks to itsjohnlockbitches/starry_nights88 for helping me build this verse!
A London night was never still, and never really silent. Even the suburbs, away from the drunken laughter that spilled out of the clubs and the growls and roars of urban traffic, had their own soundtrack that played all night long. There were the human-like screams of mating foxes, the muffled music of a television set left on, the plastic clatter of a bin overturned by a cat, and—tearing through it all like an electric guitar through a classical orchestra—the midnight car-alarm, set off by some idiot stumbling home after last call, and which incited all who hear it to murder.
In the West End the city was still awake, neon and glittering and buzzed. Piccadilly Circus never closed its electric eyes, and there were still mundanes moving in and out of the bars as the Nephilim princes tore through the square.
*Jace, circle around!* Jonathan ordered, and Symeon kissed his fingers to the statue of Anteros as they passed it. *We're driving her towards you!*
Jonathan's boot shattered the stillness of a dirty puddle, and in the trembling reflection it almost looked like Anteros blew a kiss back.
Symeon felt Jace's acknowledgement ripple through their bond, felt him triangulate the demon's position through his brothers. They moved like a pack of wolves, racing wind-swift and shadow-light through the streets, fully aware of every breath each one of them took. Symeon could feel the concrete beneath Jace's feet and the cool metal of Jonathan's blade where his fingers clasped it, and even after three years of this he couldn't forget how easy it would be to lose himself in it—to just slip under and let himself drown in them, in his brothers, in the shift of their gear moving over their skin and the adrenalin pounding through their veins—
The demon skipped left suddenly and Jonathan snarled, racing after her as she vanished down a side-street. Symeon caught a glimpse of Jace on a rooftop, the street lamps kissing the gold of his hair, and then he was seeing through Jonathan's eyes. There was a flash of Japanese kanji and the smell of fresh paint, and then Jonathan's frustration burst bile-bitter and chilli-hot in Symeon's chest.
When he caught up with his eldest brother, he saw why: one of the four story buildings just off Piccadilly Circus, a Japanese emporium and sushi restaurant, was undergoing renovations.
"She's in there, isn't she?" he asked, and Jonathan nodded tightly, his annoyance coiling like a snake through the bond. He would have gone right in after their prey, if it had been up to him, but their father had all but beaten the rule into them: never, ever go into an unknown enclosed space without back-up.
*I'll go in through the roof,* Jace sent, mind to mind through the bond and Symeon felt the rush of air against his own face as Jace leapt from the next building over, landing as lightly as a cat. *Work my way down.*
Jonathan laughed. *I'm sure our lust demon will enjoy you working all the way down her,* he teased, and Symeon's gut twisted.
*I'll take the basement,* he offered, hoping to derail that avenue of conversation. Before either of them could answer he traced an unlocking rune on the door with his fingertip, and slipped through it the moment it opened.
All the buildings in this area had basements, most of them used as another level of the shop or club rather than for storage. This one was no exception; as Symeon came warily down the stairs, he saw tables and chairs for diners, refrigerated display cases where shoppers on the move could pick up pre-made meals of sake nigiri, hamachi, and temaki sushi rolls, all neatly boxed and labelled. Half the space dissolved from a restaurant into a shop, a maze of shelves loaded with ingredients for Japanese cuisine and hard-to-find Asian treats.
Symeon pulled his seraph blade from his belt, holding it cross-ways over his body. "Satqiel," he murmured, and the blade extended with a soft snick, a shard of starlight in his hand. Its glow cast silvery shadows over the walls.
A box fell from a shelf, and Symeon snapped his head towards it, knowing that his brothers heard it too through his ears. The surety that they were coming made it easier to walk into the maze of stacked packages and cases, shelves and cardboard boxes, Satqiel held ready and waiting for the demon to show her face.
"Oh, you are a luscious one," a voice breathed, and Symeon whirled at the touch like a fingertip on the back of his neck but caught only a whisper of laughter, ruffling his hair like a breeze. "Such a delicious sweetmeat your Angel has offered up to me..."
"You may as well drop your tricks," he said coldly, scanning his surroundings. He couldn't see very far—the passage made of the shelves twisted and turned constantly. "I'm asexual. There's nothing you can do to me."
The laughter came again, rich and throaty. "You wish that were so, little Nephilim princeling," she purred, and Symeon's spine turned to ice. "But I am not like those lesser incubi you have faced, no. You cannot lie to me." He felt a mouth at his ear, soft and full, the tip of a tongue gently tasting his pulse and he was frozen, trembling, his fingers weakening around his seraph blade. "I can taste it on you," she whispered, and her voice was deepening, turning rougher, into something infinitely familiar. "Your twisted, toxic need. It bleeds from you, Shadowhunter, you stink of it. Oh, no, you are most certainly one of mine."
"Symeon!" Jace cried, and Symeon almost stumbled as Ashmadia vanished like a ghost. "Are you all right?"
Symeon swallowed hard. "Yes," he managed, his heart pounding in his throat. "I'm fine—she was here, but she's fled—"
Jace ignored that, stepping close with a frown. Symeon flinched as his brother grasped his chin and raised his face, looking him over carefully, his topaz eyes forest-fire wild.
"Thank Raziel," Jace breathed, some of the frenzied look fading from his face as he satisfied himself that Symeon was in one piece. "When I felt you find her, I thought—I was afraid—"
"You?" Symeon joked, swallowing hard because only some of the wildness had left Jace's face, there was plenty left to make knots of Symeon's insides. "Fear doesn't apply to you, remember?"
"It does where you're concerned," Jace said raggedly, his voice gone hoarse and intense and Symeon's heart skipped a beat, his blood turned to electricity in his veins. "By the Angel, if anything ever happened to you, Symeon—"
"Neither of us would survive it," Jonathan murmured, and Symeon started as his brother's hands curled over his hips from behind.
"J-Jonah," Symeon stuttered, trying to catch his breath, trying desperately not to melt into the contact. "What—what are you—"
He forgot what he was trying to say as Jace's quick fingers settled above Jonathan's hands, warm through Symeon's leather gear, and when he glanced up Jace's eyes were hot, shimmering like a heat haze and wholly intent on him.
"Jace," he whispered, exposed and caught and Jace grinned wickedly, Jonathan laughed softly and Symeon's knees went weak, gave out completely as they both pressed hard against him, crushing him between them, and Symeon whimpered, helpless and broken by the unmistakable bulges between their thighs.
"Oh, God," he moaned, eyes falling closed for a moment even though he couldn't bear not to see them and he was boneless, melting, vibrating hard enough to come apart.
"I don't think you realise," Jonathan murmured, low and husky as he stroked two fingertips up Symeon's throat, torturously slowly, and Jace's hands were skimming over him, over his hips and thighs and he, and Jace, was sinking to his knees and Symeon couldn't breathe as Jonathan coaxed his head back, tilted his chin up, "just how much we need you, baby brother."
And Symeon was lost, completely and utterly as Jonathan's mouth came down on his, as Jace opened Symeon's trousers with his teeth. Satqiel tumbled from his fingers, chiming like glass against the floor and Symeon buried his hand in Jonathan's hair desperately, touching Jace's hair and the side of his face with trembling fingers. Jace turned, kissed his wrist and Jonathan coaxed his lips open, his tongue slid into Symeon's mouth and Jace gently pulled his cock free, stroking his callused fingertips down the length and everything was molten, everything was ozone. Jonathan's arm wrapped around his waist and without it he would have fallen, too weak to stand, helpless, defenceless against them and theirs, theirs until the world burned and after that, standing in the ashes he would still be theirs, would still need them more than air—
Jonathan ground his hips into Symeon, dropping magma into his belly and Jace's tongue lapped at the head of his cock and Jonathan, Jonah swallowed every desperate, keening sound Symeon made as if each one were ambrosia—until he broke the kiss. Symeon twisted in his brother's grip, trying desperately to follow Jonathan's mouth, shuddering as Jonathan's husky laughter ran down his spine like the caress of fingernails. Jonah's lips dropped to his jaw, trailing down his neck like white fire, blazing and incredible, and Jace closed his mouth around Symeon's cock and, and Symeon didn't even have names for the noises he was making, ripped raw and bleeding out of his gut. Jonathan's arm hugged him tight, kept him from bucking into Jace and Symeon felt teeth brush his shoulder, felt Jace tug his trousers further down his thighs and something was building, pressure like the air before a storm twisting through his belly, something amazing just out of reach—
"Please," he heard, and that couldn't be his voice—hoarse and wrecked, destroyed and begging, there was smoke in his lungs, smoke full of embers glowing like stars and, and, "please, please, please—"
Jace slid off his cock, and Symeon's protest shattered into a sharp cry as they both bit down, Jonathan's teeth sinking into his throat and Jace's his hipbone, hard. The blunt pain shocked through him like lightning, burning bright and beautiful and his skin broke under it, under them, the warmth of blood trickling down his neck and thigh and he was shaking, bleeding, breaking apart, something like a scream caught in his throat because it was them, it was them and it hurt rich as wine—
"Hayliel!"
"Zachiel!"
The warmth of his brothers ripped away and Symeon fell, fell like an angel from paradise—cast out for sinning and just as shocked, just as cruelly broken by the harsh kiss of reality like icy water. He crumpled to the floor, his ears ringing with Ashmadia's shriek of rage and his body on fire—he could taste her venom on his lips and he was such a fool. Such a pathetic, worthless little fool.
He wondered if Lucifer had felt this crushing loss when he crashed into Hell. Or, in Symeon's case—back into it. Back into the place where the people he loved more than anything in the world would never love him back. Back into reality.
"Symeon? Are you all right?"
Jace's concern echoed the vision Ashmadia had created so closely that tears burned in Symeon's eyes. He swallowed hard, shoving himself up onto his elbows. "I'm—I'm fine," he managed. His voice was as rough as sandpaper. "Did you get her?"
"Not before she got you," Jonathan interjected smoothly, moving into Symeon's line of sight. His eyes glittered with amusement. "Looks like someone finally melted the Ice Prince."
Symeon flushed—was already flushed; he flushed more, and scrambled clumsily to tuck himself away and do up his trousers, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His lips felt swollen, oversensitive, the bites throbbed with shuddering pleasure-pain and his cock ached. His gut twisted painfully, and he avoided looking at either of his brothers. If he didn't—if he glanced at them—he shivered. His nerve endings still thrummed like plucked harp strings; his whole body pulsed, delicious and agonising.
He'd never felt like this before. Didn't know what to do with it.
"Don't be embarrassed, baby brother," Jonathan smirked, kneeling down beside him. His fingers gently examined the bloody mark on Symeon's neck, and Symeon flinched to hide his shiver. "This is good. Maybe you can take advantage of some of the pretty girls at your birthday tomorrow, hm?"
Symeon stared at him blankly, despair clogging his throat like clotted blood. "Yeah, maybe," he whispered. He felt Jace probe him gently through the triquetra bond and slammed down on it hard, bluntly shutting his brother out. Both of them; he narrowed the bond down to physical awareness, and let nothing else flow through it—no thoughts, no emotions.
Jonathan's eyes turned sharp as Symeon cut them off, but, unexpectedly, he didn't demand an explanation. Maybe Symeon was that obviously shaken. "Come on," he said, taking Symeon's hand and pulling him to his feet; Symeon bit back a whimper at his brother's easy strength, swallowed the sound like lead. Raziel help me. Raziel help me. "Let's get back to the Institute. The Portal's opening for us first thing in the morning, and I, for one, would like to get some sleep before it does."
Jace proffered Satqiel wordlessly, and just as silently Symeon accepted it, careful not to touch his brother's fingers as he took the seraph blade and tucked it back into his belt. "It's not far," Jace said softly, and Symeon nodded tightly. He wanted to cry, wanted to throw himself into his brother's arms, wanted to find a warlock to raise Ashmadia again and drown in her visions. In the end, as he climaxed, her illusions would kill him—but he didn't know how he was supposed to live now, after the tiny taste the demon had given him. A tiny taste, and the knowledge that it was all he could ever have.
Jonathan's tongue sliding into Symeon's mouth, Jace's fingers stroking him... He breathed out shakily.
"Are you really all right?" Jace asked gently.
"I probably need holy water," Symeon answered instantly. He'd had the answer ready. "She—her venom. Might be a little like vampire blood."
"You're supposed to spend your birthday drinking, not the night before it," Jonathan commented. "But if that's what you want, who are we to deny the birthday boy?"
There's only one birthday wish I want, Symeon thought, as he outwardly rolled his eyes and scoffed at his brother, turning down the iratze Jace offered, playing his role as his heart twisted. There's only one thing I've ever wished for.
For the two of you to love me back.
NOTES
Anteros is the Greek god of requited love.
Ashmadia is a splinter/facet of Asmodeus, one of Hell's Princes and the demon of Lust.
Satqiel is the angel prince of the Fifth Heaven.
Hayliel is the angel prince of the Seventh Heaven.
Zachiel is the angel prince of the Sixth Heaven.
The boys' seraph blades reflect their positions in the court hierarchy - in traditional mythology the Seventh Heaven is the greatest, so the Crown-Prince's blade is linked to it; Jace is second-heir, so his is one step down; and Symeon's is named after the third most powerful angel prince.