The end of their story began on a sunny summer day. Some birds were chirping outside their apartment building and through the open window in their living room Simon could hear his neighbour Cassandra sing in her bathroom:

"So shine bright,
Tonight, you and I
We´re beautiful like
Diamonds in the sky."

Simon, meanwhile, was doing his written assignment on the history of fanfiction for his contemporary art class that he only took because Clary was in it. The professor was an old crone and Simon was already crackling with glee just imagining her face when she began reading his essay, which started with an excerpt from the smuttiest Stony fic he had been able to find on AO3.

College was shaping up to be the best time of his life.

He heard the door open and falling back into its lock, which told him that Raphael had finally come home. Simon stood up – nearly falling down again, because his foot had fallen asleep while he had been sitting on it – and walked over to his boyfriend.

"Glad you´re here," he told the sourly looking Raphael and gave him a peck on the nose. He noticed right away, though, that something wasn't right. Raphael looked gloomier than usual, a certain tension in his shoulders, his hands still in the pockets of his pants, balled into fists.

"What´s happened?" Simon asked.

"I went to Magnus, a few days ago," Raphael told Simon. "You know, because of the pangs." Simon remembered well. For a few weeks already, Raphael had complained about a pressure behind his eyes that made it difficult to see sometimes, blurring his vision, and a lack of appetite. Simon had advised him to go to Magnus, their friend who also owned a medical practice to get a check-up.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Simon wanted to know.

"Because Magnus needed to forward me to a specialised friend of his and I knew you´d just worry too much," Raphael confessed.

"Of course I´d worry about you," Simon protested. "So, what did this specialist say?"

"Cancer."

Raphael continued speaking – probably trying to reassure Simon – but all Simon heard was static. He could see Raphael´s lips moving, but he couldn't understand what he was saying. It felt like someone had tied stones to Simon and thrown him into the coldest water there is.

"Simon?" Raphael´s face appeared in front of his.

"What´s the diagnosis?" Simon managed to croak out. One look into Raphael´s eyes was all it needed to answer that question. This time his legs couldn't hold him up anymore and he would have crumbled on the floor if Raphael´s hadn't wrapped his strong arms around him.

"I don't know how they call this kind of cancer," he spoke, "and I also don't care. But they say, even with chemo, I´ll have a year at max."

"How can you be so calm?" Simon wanted to know. He wanted to cry, to rage, to just take everything in their flat and shatter it. He wanted to crawl under his blankets and never get out again, but Raphael looked as if nothing had happened.

"I guess it hasn't sunk in, yet," he shrugged.

"I can´t lose you," Simon whispered as he buried his head in Raphael´s shoulder. He smelled like home, warmth, and Simon couldn't imagine – didn't want to imagine – a life without that smell. Without the person it belonged to.

"Don´t cry," Raphael murmured and Simon realized that he was, indeed, crying. "Maybe I´m one of those miracles healings, hmm? You´re always saying I´m special like that." And despite the tears that were blurring his vision, Simon couldn't help but smile.

Later that night, Simon woke up and didn't know why until he turned around and saw Raphael shaking violently beside him.

"Hey," Simon whispered soothingly as he wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and held him as close to himself as possible.

"I´m so afraid, Si," Raphael confessed.

"I´m with you," Simon assured the other man. "I´m with you all along the way."

"I don't want to die," Raphael spoke, barely above a whisper. "We still have so much planned."

"Then you just won´t die," Simon spoke with conviction. "Stick it to Death and his minions. He can´t have you; not until I´m finished with you, which will be, like, never." Simon didn't see it, but he liked to imagine that Raphael was smiling at his words. His shaking, meanwhile, had stopped.

They laid there in silence until Raphael spoke again.

"Si?"

"Hmmm?" Simon replied drowsily.

"I love you." That was when Simon knew that the graveness of the situation had finally sunken in on Raphael.

"You´re sure you don't want me with you?" Simon asked for the hundredth time already.

"It´s fine, really," Raphael replied. "They´re just pumping me full of poison to kill the other poison in my body. I´ll be fine."

Simon was woken in the middle of the night by the ringing of his phone.

"Raph?"

"Simon," Raphael wept into the phone. "I don't know where I am. There´s so much light, so many people. Please, Simon, please, come and get me." Simon was instantly awake and already at the door when Raphael had finished.

He found Raphael only a few blocks away from their apartment building, walking the street disorientated and mumbling incoherently.

"Simon, Simon, make the lights go away, they hurt so much, please, Simon."

Later Raphael told Simon that he had signed himself out against the advice of the doctors because he just couldn't stand being in the hospital any longer.

"It smells like death," he said. "Death and disinfect. Everything. And everyone is looking at you like they´re expecting you to drop dead at any moment. I couldn't stay there. I needed to get home."

From thereon Simon accompanied Raphael to each of his appointments.

He watched as over the months his boyfriend´s skin became whiter and clearer until blue veins showed through; watched as muscles and fat melt away from underneath Raphael´s skin until it looked like he consisted of nothing but skin and bones. He held Raphael when he threw up at night after he barely managed to stumble into the bathroom. He soothed him when nightmares and pain held Raphael tightly in their grip and wouldn't let him go.

Simon was there when the first clutch of Raphael´s hair fell out. He stood there when Raphael let out a scream of despair and shattered the bathroom mirror with his fist. He was the one who pulled every single shard out of Raphael´s hand and bandaged him up.

"Why are you still with me?" Raphael asked, desperateness tinging his voice as Simon wrapped a bandage around his injured hand. "I´m a wreck."

"No, you´re not," Simon told him, not taking his eyes off Raphael´s hand.

"Look at me. Look at me!" Raphael screamed. "I´m broken, I´m useless and I can´t figure out why you´re still here. I can´t be what you need anymore, Simon. My own body is killing me and there´s nothing anyone can do against it." Simon looked at Raphael: Skin, so thin that he could see the blue veins underneath, so strained that it looked like there was nothing underneath but bones. Lips that were dry and chapped, hair dull and thin, but Raphael´s eyes…his eyes held still the same spark as they had when Simon had fallen in love with him.

"I don't care," Simon replied and kissed the knuckles of Raphael´s injured hand. "You could be the most broken, useless person in the whole universe and I´d still love you the most. I love you, Raphael Santiago, only you and nothing – definitely not some stupid disease – can change that." And for the first time since Simon knew Raphael, he saw the other man crying. Big tears that looked to big on his frail body. Simon held him through every single of them and continued to hold him even when there were no tears left to shed.

"I won´t continue with the therapy," Raphael told him the next day. "If I´m dying, then I want to die peacefully."

One day Simon opened their door only to find all his friends on the other side.

"Hi, looser," Jace greeted him which only earned him a slap at the back of his head from Izzy. "I mean 'Hello, Simon.'."

"What are you all doing here?" Simon asked befuddled as he stepped aside to allow his friends entrance.

"We´re here to take you and Raphael out," Izzy replied. "You can´t stay holed in here all day, even if I did the decoration." She arched her eyebrows. "Not even I´m that good."

Jace and Alec immediately took Raphael aside and began to talk quietly to him, while Magnus was rummaging through their cabinets. Isabelle and Clary stayed behind with Simon.

"Why you´re doing this?" Simon asked.

"Do you really have to ask?" Isabelle retorted. "Raphael is our friend, too, and we just want…"

"We want to have our chance to talk with him," Clary finished and Simon knew what she really meant: They wanted their chances to say their goodbyes.

"There´s still a chance that he´ll make it," Simon replied stubbornly, even though each of them knew that it was an empty sentiment.

"Then it won´t matter anyway," Clary said, sadness lurking behind her green eyes.

"Are you ready to go?" Jace interrupted them. "We shouldn't withhold the glory that is me any longer from the countless single ladies that roam Central Park." A groan went through all people present and Simon could see Raphael roll his eyes. His heart was nearly bursting with thankfulness and love for his friends, because finally the flat was no longer filled with silence and dread but with the voices of people both he and Raphael loved.

"Ready when you are," Simon said and offered his arm to Raphael, reminiscent of a Victorian gentleman.

When they reached Central Park, the gang – or as Simon privately assumed Izzy and Clary – had even taken care to get them a blanket and a picnic basket filled with all kinds of foods. There was also a game of Trivial Pursuit in which Simon and Raphael soundly beat their opponents. For the first time since forever Simon felt free to breathe again without the weight of the world laying on his shoulders. The atmosphere around them was carefree and joyous, something he and Raphael had desperately needed. They traded jokes, barbs and old stories like they used to and it was the best thing Simon could have hoped for.

But you couldn't lock out reality forever, couldn't keep the world from turning and time from running and soon reality came crushing down on them once more.

"You don't need to look at me like that, Fray," Raphael barked at Clary when she had stared at him for just too long. "I don't need you pity. I´m not some broken thing that needs you to fix itself." Simon could see Clary tearing up.

"I´m sorry," she wailed. "It´s…It´s only, we´ve just managed to get along." Understatement of the century; Clary and Raphael had disliked each other from the moment they had first met and had only managed to treat each other civilly for about an hour the last time. "And you´re so great with Simon and you don't deserve this, none of this." She hiccupped. "It´s just not fair." And then she threw herself at Raphael and clung to him while she cried into his shoulder. Raphael looked like a deer caught in the headlights and if the situation wasn't so grave Simon would have laughed himself silly.

"You shouldn't have to live through this. I was just beginning to like you…a little bit," Clary sobbed, not loosening her grip on Raphael even in the slightest. The man itself just looked at each of them imploringly, before he patted Clary awkwardly on the back.

"You´re not that bad either, Fray," he confessed and his expression while he said it looked like someone just had told him that Robert Downey Jr. wouldn't play Iron Man in any upcoming Marvel movies anymore. Clary let go of him, still sniffling and wiped away her tears.

"I´m sorry," she apologised. "I´m such a mess. I promised myself that I wouldn't cry, but look what I just did."

"Don't think about it," Raphael replied and for the first time there was a genuine smile on his face as he looked at Clary.

After that, business continued as usual, only that every few minutes one of their friends would take Raphael aside and venture a few meters away from their spot, talking with him quietly. Simon knew what they did. They told him all the things they never though needed to be told. A sorrowful pain drove through Simon´s heart as he watched Raphael and Alec standing at the bank of the small lake, staring out on the water.

"We´ll be there." Simon turned around to see that Clary had stepped beside him. "Until the end." Simon swallowed.

"I never doubted that," he finally managed to say. Clary grasped his hand and laid her head on his shoulder and for that moment they were just best friends who had found themselves so many years ago in kindergarten and decided that they needed the other in their lives.

"It isn't fair," Clary repeated.

"I know," Simon replied. "Life rarely is."

"It should be," Clary answered back and in her eyes Simon could see a thirst for justice burn that would probably lead her into politics one day. Clary was never one to let injustice get away unanswered. Simon squeezed her hand.

"I have you, after all."

It was late when the gang delivered them back to their front door.

"Don't let them go," Raphael said as they waved them goodbye. "Don't push them away. You´ll need them…"

When I´m gone.

Their outing in Central Park was the last time Raphael was able to leave their apartment. Simon knew that he hated it, how the disease slowly robbed him of all his freedoms until he could barely leave their bedroom, but the pain was too much. Never, though, not even once, Raphael regretted stopping his chemo therapy.

"It was worse than this," he confessed to Simon. "Knowing that it didn't help, that it was only killing my body off in a different way. It´s better this way, believe me." And Simon did. After all, he had witnessed how the treatment had affected Raphael.

Sometimes, though, when Raphael was in so much pain that Simon had to fixate him to their bed, he wondered if it had really been the best choice. A small flicker of doubt when Raphael forgot where he was – 'Mamá, where are you? It hurts so much. Mamá, please make it stop!' – and Simon felt like the world was crashing down on him.

He prayed sometimes. Please, Yahweh, take his pain. He´s dying anyway, so why does he have to suffer so? But his God stayed silent and so Simon fell silent as well.

There were times when Raphael was still lucid. When the man Simon had fallen in love with on a rainy Sunday afternoon still shone through the husk that he had become, when there were no shaking fits wrecking his body, no pain clouding his gaze and sometimes even a smile on his face.

These times were short and in-between, but Simon cherished them the most. He would lay down beside Raphael, snuggle his arms around him and just bask in the other man´s presence. There would be no words exchanged between, because there was just no need for it. Simon had told Raphael often enough how he felt – how much he loved him – and even though Raphael was one to hold his emotions close to his chest, Simon knew that he felt the same.

He could feel Raphael´s heart beating slowly underneath his fingers, could hear the rain steadily falling against the window, creating a faint rhythm that echoed through the otherwise silent room.

"I don't feel any pain," Raphael confessed. Simon craned his neck to look at his boyfriend.

"That´s good," he replied. "Isn´t it?"

"I don't know," Raphael mumbled, burying his head into Simon´s chest. "It won´t last anyway."

"One can always hope," Simon said as he stroked over Raphael´s head. It spoke volumes of the other´s state of mind that he allowed Simon to mess his perfect hair. Raphael had been lucky – Simon snorted internally when he thought that, because Raphael was still dying after all, so where was the luck, where was the justice, the fairness of it all? – but his hair had grown back after he had stopped with the chemo therapy.

"We should celebrate," Simon suggested after a while.

"What is there to celebrate?" Raphael snorted. "That I left the bed for a few minutes today? That I didn't nosebleed all over my shirt again? That I had a few minutes without pain?"

"Yes," Simon replied steadfast. "We´re celebrating that you can still complain like a pro. That you ordered me to do the dished yesterday. That you finally made me paint over that black spot on the kitchen ceiling." He looked at Raphael and hoped that his boyfriend understood what he was trying to say without needing to speak it out loud. We celebrate that you´re still with me. That I can wake up with you next to me. That I still know how your eyes look when they shine with mirth. That I´m still allowed to see how your brow creases when I do something you don't approve of. We´re celebrating us, even if we´re just a small candle in a sea of darkness and I won´t let anything take that away from us.

Raphael seemed to understand anyway.

"Alright," he agreed. "But I want something Mexican. Something from my mother´s cookbook." Because it could be the last time that he tasted it, hung unsaid between them, like a ghost that was slowly sucking out any joy in their life.

"If you wish so, My Majesty," Simon agreed, and for a moment – a small piece of eternity, insignificant and small in the currents of time – everything was alright as the rain continued to fall.

"Raph!" Simon called out when he opened the door to their apartment. "I´m back and I got all the stuff to make the perfect dinner of the century." He had to struggle in order to close the door behind him while not losing grip on the countless bags he was carrying. He got rid of his shoes and skidded them against the wall without properly putting them on their right spot (Raphael would read him the riot´s act for that) and put the bags in their small kitchen.

Raphael still hadn't answered.

"Raph?" Simon shouted again. Fear gripped his heart, a cold poison that he couldn't shake off. What if something had happened while he was way? "Raph?!" Panicked, Simon went through their apartment – living room: empty, bedroom: empty – until he stood in front of the closed bathroom door. Without waiting Simon opened it and gasped in horror at the sight that greeted him behind it.

Raphael was lying on the bathroom floor, unconscious. His face was deathly pale, his eyes rolled back and from his mouth, eye and ears blood was streaming, dropping on the white floor like on freshly fallen snow. Without thinking Simon sank down on his knees and took his boyfriend´s head between his hands.

"Raph, come on, Raph, can you hear me?" he babbled. "Please, don't do this to me, please, wake up." There was no reaction. Like on autopilot Simon fished his phone out of his pocket and dialled Magnus' number.

"Bane."

"Magnus, Raph broke down in the bathroom, bleeding and I don't know what to do," Simon cried into the phone.

"I´m coming over," Magnus replied instantly. "Look if you can get him into your bed, but try not to move him too jerkily." Simon nodded, but then it dawned him that Magnus couldn't see him, so he made a sound of agreement and hung up.

Simon didn't know how, but when Magnus knocked on their door Raphael was laid out in their bed in fresh clothes, because Simon couldn't bear to look at the bloodstains on the ones he had been wearing. It was too much of a crass reminder of Raphael´s frail mortality.

"Where is he?" Magnus asked. Simon just pointed at their bedroom door, simultaneously too exhausted and too agitated to speak. Magnus rushed by him and went straight to Raphael while Simon was left standing on the hallway. As much as it shamed Simon, right now he couldn't be in the room while Magnus doctored around his boyfriend. He felt like he was suffocating, like waves of fear and anxiety were trying to drown him. There were black spots dancing in front of his eyes and the only thing he could hear was the sound of static.

Simon barely managed to close the door, before he sank down on the ground and buried his head between his knees. He closed his eyes and tried to block out the world. He thought about Raphael, Clary, Magnus, Alec, Izzy and Jace when they had all been in Central Park together and how Raphael´s face had lightened up just being with his friends. Reminded himself that, even though it sometimes felt like it – at night, when Raphael´s breathing became irregular, and Simon´s chest felt like it was imploding from all the fear and he could hear the neighbours next door fighting through the walls – that he wasn't alone.

The panic receded, his vision cleared and Simon managed to stand up, albeit still shaking, and sat down on the couch, waiting for Magnus to come out and tell him what´s going on.

When he finally did, though, his grave expression told Simon everything he needed to know.

"He´s not gonna make it, isn't he?" he whispered.

"It´s bad," Magnus replied. "I used some medication to stabilise him, but it won´t change the fact that his body is slowly shutting down due to the excessive damage." Simon´s head dropped.

Magnus sat down beside him and took Simon´s hand with his own while he slung the other around his shoulder. There was nothing romantic about it – nothing sexual – it was just two friends comforting each other. And Simon needed it – oh, he needed it so much – just a rock he could cling to, because he had to be that rock for Raphael. Simon did it gladly and wouldn't have it any other way, but sometimes he felt like he was about to shatter if somebody didn't take care of him for once, so Magnus presence was a relief.

"Simon, I don't even know if he´ll even wake up again." Simon could taste something salty on his lips and with puzzlement he realised that tears had started to trail down his cheeks while he had just been sitting there. He couldn't stop them – didn't want to – so they just continued to flow, but Simon didn't care, because through the veil of tears he could see that Magnus' eyes weren't dry either. "You should say your goodbyes."

"I can´t, Magnus," Simon sobbed. "I can´t."

"But you need to," Magnus replied. "Because if you don't, it will haunt you for the rest of your life. In your quiet moments, it will sneak up to you, even when you think you´re happy. It will keep you awake at night even when there´s someone you love sleeping in your bed next to you." Simon looked at Magnus and realized that his friend knew loss like none of his other friends. Remembered that there was a darkness in the otherwise so happy and carefree doctor that he tried so hard to conceal. "Don't make the same mistakes I´ve made."

"Thank you, Magnus," Simon said and he didn't just mean for the advice. Thank you for being there, for making sure that I don't fall apart at the seams, for being there for Raphael when I couldn't. It was so much rolled in two words that Simon didn't speak out aloud, but that Magnus knew nevertheless. "Go home to Alec. You deserve to be with someone you love."

"Are you sure?" Magnus asked hesitantly. "I could stay here."

"I´m sure," Simon replied firmly. "Besides, as you said, I need to say my goodbyes." Magnus just nodded.

Simon was sitting next to Raphael, holding his boyfriend´s hand and watching him slowly breath when his eyes fluttered open.

"Si…" Raphael mumbled and instantly Simon was crouching down at his side.

"I´m here, Raph," Simon said. "I´m here and I´m not going anywhere."

"I don't feel anything," Raphael uttered.

"That´s probably the morphine Magnus gave you," Simon told him. He tried to say something – anything at all – but found that he couldn't utter a single word. It was as if something blocked his mind from actually forming the words, from grasping them; as if a fog had fallen over him.

"It´s that bad?" Raphael asked. The expression on Simon´s face must have been answer enough.

"I don't want you to die," Simon finally got out and then the tears were there again, falling from his eyes like waterfalls. "We had so many plans. We wanted to travel the world and see all the cool stuff. I wanted to take you out on a really corny date in Paris, I wanted to snorkel with you in the Great Barrier Reef, I wanted…I wanted…"

"You still can do all these things," Raphael reminded him. "And I want you to do them. I want you to name a fish after me – a colourful one. I want you to stand atop the Eiffel tower at night and think about how I´d have acted as if I hated all this romantic nonsense. I want you to eat real Italian pizza." He swallowed, the strain of speaking through his drug induced stupor forcing him to stop for a moment. "I don't want you to give up your life for me. I want you to continue to be the spastic, clumsy, annoying idiot who ran into me on first day of college and with whom I fell in love with. And I know it´s gonna be difficult and that you´re gonna hate me for it, but, please, promise it to me?"

"I could never hate you," Simon stated. "I love you so much sometimes, that it hurts."

"Simon," Raphael urged.

"I promise," Simon relented. "I promise that one day I´ll be fine again." It was a lie. Simon could never be fine again. Raphael´s death would brake him – shatter him into thousand pieces, like diamonds in the sky – unmake him, destroy him, but for Raphael´s piece of mind he said the words, made the promise he didn't intend to keep and he hated himself for it. Hated himself for lying to Raphael in his last moments.

"That´s all I could ask for," Raphael said. "'M so tired."

"Sleep," Simon told him. "I´ll be watching over you."

"Like you always do," Raphael mumbled as he closed his eyes. Simon didn't let go of his boyfriend´s hand as he kneeled next to their bed. He watched Raphael – every single hair, every mole on his skin, every crease, every wrinkle – and tried to burn it into his memory. Because there was nothing Simon was more afraid of than waking up one day and not knowing what shade of brown Raphael´s eyes had been or how his lips had quirked up when he tried not to smile at Simon´s antics.

As long as Simon remembered Raphael he would be still with him.

He didn't know how long he watched Raphael, but as the time passed, Simon´s eyelids became heavier and heavier until he, too, fell asleep.

When Simon woke a few hours later, Raphael´s hand was cold in his grip.