Coming out – via thorndale and their wonderful Anon's headcanon.

(Triggers? I'll put them anyway because better to be safe than sorry. So TW: angst and blood y'all)

"I…I need some advice."

Mark turned from where he was stood, staring out of his bedroom window at the Pacific. He'd missed waking up to a sea view, but he wouldn't trade it for what he had now. Turning over to see Kieran and Cristina beside him was more beautiful than any ocean vista. He already missed them terribly. He was only here for a few days to wish Ty well before he set off to the Scholomance. Mark had been half-hoping he'd be able to impart some sage brotherly wisdom upon his little brother – after all, he too had left home (if involuntarily) for the Wild Hunt when he was Ty's age. Thus, after being asked no questions at all for the past few days, Ty's nervous request from the doorway was unexpected but welcome.

He smiled, in Ty who was almost drowning in the dark material of his Scholomance uniform; he'd been trying to get used to it before he had to leave. Though he was tall, he was willowy and still younger than most would-be Centurions, so the heavy coat branded with the Blackthorn insignia seemed to swamp him.

"Sure, what is it?"

Mark was already guessing internally: What's it like living away from home? How do I cope with homesickness? When –

"How did you and Kieran start…?" Ty asked, trailing off. He'd sat himself down, crossed-legged, on the wooden chest at the end of Mark's bed. Mark felt his brows furrow in confusion and leaned his back against the cool glass of the window behind him, watching his brother's fingers worrying at the cuffs of his coat. Ty didn't just ask things like that, didn't ask things to be sociable, but Mark couldn't figure out what connection this could possibly have to his leaving for the Scholomance.

"Well, we met in the Wild Hunt, but you know that already. It was lonely and I was scared, but then I met Kieran and he made me feel braver. I was happy with him, and it didn't matter how bad the Hunt was, because we had each other."

"How do you think it would have been if you met…not in the Hunt?" Ty asked, keeping his eyes firmly on his lap. "What if you met…here? What if, hypothetically, he wasn't a faerie? What if he was a shadowhunter?" Mark glanced at Ty, saw his cheeks burning red under his hair. Julian had cut it earlier in preparation for his departure and Ty seemed acutely aware he'd lost a kind of shield. "Hypothetically," Ty repeated quietly. "If you weren't in the Hunt, how would you know if he liked you?"

"I think people get drawn together, like magnets," Mark answered after a moment of thought. "And it's about how people give in to or resist that pull. Maybe he'd want to be around and support me, or maybe we'd go do things together like…"

"Go to markets or something?" Ty suggested.

"Sure. I was going to say go to the movies or get dinner, but sure. It's less about what we'd do and more about how we'd feel. When you love someone, it's like being that magnet. You want to touch them and be around them. It's like finding someone who makes you feel more you, like you're a team, like…"

"Like finding a Watson to your Holmes?" Ty offered.

"Exactly like that."

"You said you'd want to be around them, that it's about not resisting the pull. What if…?" Ty's voice faltered a little and he dug his fingers harder into his knees, knuckles going white. "What if they leave?" he finished quickly, sounding broken. "Hypothetically."

All at once, the pieces came together and Mark understood. It was Kit. This was about Kit. He sat down on his desk chair across from Ty and put a hand over his brother's where it rested on his knee.

"It doesn't always mean you aren't right for them. I didn't leave the Wild Hunt because I stopped loving Kieran. You can still feel that pull if you aren't with them, and sometimes it feels like the strings that connect you are pulled so taut that they'll snap.

But they don't. It's just…complicated."

Ty nodded, sighing, and Mark ruffled his hair fondly.

"I love you, Ty."

"Even though you left? Even though I'm leaving?"

"Those are the times I love you most, because I get to imagine all the amazing things you're doing."

Ty stood up and gave Mark a small nod, though his shoulders looked tense, shutting the door behind him as he went.

Sometimes it feels like the strings that connect you are pulled so taut that they'll snap.

Ty had thought he understood that. It made sense when he and Kit were an ocean apart, or a country, or a time zone. But now he was only a few tables away, having breakfast with Tessa and Jem, and their daughter who was three encapsulated just how long they'd been apart. They were visiting, Ty knew, to talk about careers beyond the Scholomance. He hadn't even considered that Kit might come too. The Scholomance was like a high-security prison – visitors were few and far between and getting clearance for them was a nightmare. Ty would know; Julian was visiting this afternoon for the first time. It had taken Ty three years to earn that privilege. At eighteen, it seemed kind of anticlimactic to show Julian his vastly-underwhelming dorm room after Julian had travelled the world with Emma. He didn't even have a roommate to introduce his brother to – not that Ty was complaining; the idea of sharing a room with someone, of never having a moment of scape from people, was the stuff of nightmares.

'Go say hi,' Livvy urged from beside him. He gave a miniscule head shake. No one else could see Livvy, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be seen interacting with her. Well, no one else but…

Kit turned like he'd heard Livvy's voice and gave an awkward wave to Ty, who cast a panicked look at Livvy without thinking, stood up, and hurriedly shoved an apple into the deep pocket of his cloak before he left. He cast a look behind him to see where Livvy was, not feeling her presence anymore, and turned back to the dining room. He felt his heart drop when he saw her hovering around Kit, laughing to him about something. Kit was smiling, doing a good job of pretending a ghost wasn't speaking to him. What was she saying? He had to stop this. Walking over, Ty gave Livvy an imploring look and she mouthed something to him: 'Talk to him and I'll leave you alone for the rest of the day.'

Taking a deep breath, Ty looked at Kit shyly. He could feel his heart beating in his throat. It was never like this with Kit before, but this wasn't the Kit he'd known. This new Kit had broad shoulders and muscled arms that were tanned light-gold. This Kit had hair that swooped in fine waves that Ty wanted to run his fingers through. This Kit had freckles littering his face and one arm propped up on the table, chin on his hand, in a way that made his bicep tense. Ty tried to make a mental checklist of all the ways he'd changed since he was fifteen. Did he measure up to this new Kit? Had he even changed at all? He'd gotten taller, he knew that. Any lingering roundness of childhood in his face and limbs was gone, replaced by gently carved angles. He knew the girls at the Scholomance looked at him a certain way, pushed their hair behind their ears with intent, nodded along to his points in classes like he'd said something worthwhile. But he was still…Ty. He was still the same awkward, quiet boy Kit had met in L.A. He wasn't cool, not like this new Kit was. When he spoke, he cringed at how quiet it was in the noisy meal hall.

"Hi."

Kit looked up and gave a small side-smile, his blue eyes raking Ty in a way that made him feel like he was being pinned in place.

"Hey, long time no see." He turned to the little girl beside him who was tugging impatiently at his shirt. "Oh, this is my little sister, Cordelia."

Ty hesitated, eventually putting his hand out towards her. "Nice to meet you. I'm Ty."

Cordelia looked at her brother, who nodded.

"Go on, Cordy. Shake his hand. It's okay."

Cordelia reached out and wrapped her whole hand around his thumb, shaking it.

"You…I know you! Ty!" she said suddenly, beaming.

"You do?"

"Kit told me about you. You know everything about animals and read lots and lots of books about a police man."

"Technically, he's not a police man," Ty corrected gently. "Sherlock Holmes is a consulting detective, but he works with the police sometimes. They aren't very good at their job."

"You're smart," she giggled happily. "Kit said you were smart."

"Okay, okay. That's enough," Kit cut in quickly with a laugh, seemingly embarrassed. His freckled cheeks were flushed pink with a blush, and he stood up. "You stay here with Mum and Dad, Cordy. I'm gonna go catch up with Ty. I haven't seen him in…in a while."

Mum. Ty's ears pricked. That was it, the thing he couldn't quite pin down that made his skin tingle. It was the slight echo of a British accent in Ty's L.A. lilt. He bit down on his lip to stop himself smiling like a lovesick idiot.

"Sorry about that," Kit said when they got into the hallway. He was still shorter than Ty, so as they walked along their hands didn't brush. Ty wasn't sure whether to be glad to avoid that small awkwardness or disappointment that the magnet wasn't working on Kit like it was on him.

"I…uh…" Ty mumbled, before his words came out, falling over one another in their haste. "Does the string ever feel like it's going to break to you?"

Kit burst out laughing fondly. "That's the Ty I know,=. What are you talking about? What string?"

"It doesn't matter," Ty said. His hands were writhing uncomfortably, and Kit stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," he said, and Ty froze, shrugging the hand off his shoulder on instinct, ignoring the way Kit's face fell. "Can we just…be us? I know with everything that happened it's kind of…weird. But all I want is to be Kit and Ty again, you know? Can we try and be like we were before?"

Ty nodded, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and smiled. "Do you want to see my room?"

"Sounds good," Kit said, sounding relieved. "Lead the way, Centurion."

A knock on the door made Kit and Ty turn from their conversation. It must have been hours, Ty realised, just sitting on his bed and talking and talking and talking. Kit's hands were slowly working their way closer to Ty's knee and Ty could feel his muscles tightening with every inch towards him. When the knock came, Ty and Kit leapt apart, laughing at themselves as the springs bounced and creaked with the movement.

"I'd better get going," Kit said and paused. He turned back and Ty saw the subtle dip of his blue eyes towards Ty's lips before he looked back up, blushed, and left.

"Hey, what is it?" Ty asked the girl who'd knocked on his door. It was common for first years to run errands and pass messages for upper years, though Ty was used to scowls of first years who were his age or older delivering his messages.

"Your brother is here. He's waiting in the foyer for you. He needs signing in."

Ty thanked her and set off, feeling shaken. What had just happened? What was that look supposed to mean? He was so distracted by the fluttery feeling that was spreading from his stomach to his hands that he turned down halls he'd never seen before, pulled from his reverie only by a loud alarm sound that made him wince and put his hands tightly over his ears. He couldn't hear anyone over the noise, couldn't even remember which way he'd come, could hardly think straight with all the noise in his ears. When the sound finally died down, he set off back down the corridor, only to almost walk into someone else who'd presumably found themselves equally lost. He'd been here three years and new halls seemed to appear every day.

"Oh, sorry," Ty said, and froze. The person tugged down the scarf Centurions often wore when they ventured outside in the cold mountain air. But this was no Centurion – at least, not any more. "Manuel," he breathed.

Manuel Villalobos stood before Ty, in a uniform that wasn't his own, grinning a twisted sideways smile.

"Tiberius Blackthorn," Manuel purred, closing the distance between them. "How's Scholomance life? I'm surprised someone like you lasted this long. It's helpful though, I suppose, being a Blackthorn though. In a family of faerie half-breeds and incestuous parabatai disgraces, you seem almost normal by comparison." Ty opened his mouth to yell for help and Manuel grabbed him, spinning him against his chest and pressing a razor-sharp throwing knife blade against the base of Ty's throat. "Yell, even move, and I will kill you."

"How did you get out of Idris?" Ty gasped, and he felt the pressure of the knife against his neck as it moved with his words. He felt a drop of liquid run down his shirt and hoped to Raziel it was sweat, not blood.

"It turns out not all of Consul Alec Lightwood's council are as mindlessly loyal as his inner circle," Manuel said quietly. His laugh in Ty's ear sounded deranged in a way Ty couldn't reconcile with the cool, charismatic, controlled man he remembered from the Cohort. "And now the Scholomance won't know what's hit them. You are meant to stand for knowledge and logic," Manuel hissed, saliva hitting Ty's ear. He fought not to squirm against the knife. "That's what I did. I stood up. And how did this farce of an institution thank me? By ripping my Centurion status off me, confiscating my uniform, burning my diploma."

"Whose uniform…?" Ty began before Manuel pressed the flat of the blade into Ty's windpipe and he choked.

"Let's just say they won't be coming back from their mission," he grinned, bearing his teeth. "It was a mercy killing. They wouldn't have survived an hour in that temperature without all these layers. So, Tiberius, why didn't you run like the rest of the little Centurion rats?"

"I got lost," Ty said tightly, heart racing.

"How unfortunate. Well then, I guess you're free to go," Manuel said, his voice changing entirely. He sounded like the Manuel Ty remembered from all those years ago. "Go. And don't tell anyone you saw me. Enjoy watching your academy burn from the inside out. There's a disease at the heart of this place." He shoved Ty away from him and bent in one fell swoop, driving his knife into Ty's leg. "It needs to be given the change to rise like a phoenix. But first, it has to burn." He grinned as Ty dropped to the ground, hot pain shooting through his leg, searing through his limb. "I hope you can walk on that, Blackthorn. You never know, it might be nice; to go the way your sister did, I mean."

A thud and a scream made Ty look up. Manuel was pinned against a wall, scrabbling at his neck. His brown sugar skin was reddening, and his breath was gurgling sporadically from his mouth. Ty realised suddenly what was happening.

"Livvy, stop!" he yelled, and Manuel slid to the floor.

Ty put a hand to his own neck and thanked the Angel there wasn't much blood. His leg, however, was a different story. The fabric of his stirrup trousers was torn at the thigh, where the knife handle protruded, and he felt dizzy and breathless. Now the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain was setting in and Ty gritted his teeth as he yanked one of the runed elbow patches from his jacket to staunch the blood. He was unwilling to pull the blade out but seeing it in his leg made him feel sick and he looked away as he wiped around the edges of the wound. He could hear laboured breathing and Manuel pushed himself to his knees, drawing a stele from his stolen uniform that presumably belonged to his victim. His hands and voice shook as he croaked his words to Ty.

"Ave atque vale to us both, Blackthorn. Hail and farewell."

Before Ty could even draw breath to yell, Manuel had scrawled a shaky but serviceable ignis rune that bloomed a burst of fire at the tip of his stele, igniting the war beneath them.

"Well," Manuel said, struggling to his feet. "Maybe it's just hail for me."

"TY!"

A bright white light cut through the flames like a ray of sun through cloud and Ty blinked, wincing at the illumination. The smoke was thickening, the tongues of flame close enough to lick at the trailing tails of his Centurion robes. He tried to push his way back on his hands but cried out at the searing pain it sent through his leg. The inhale it took him to yell meant he breathed in a lungful of smoke and he choked as it scratched his throat and nose like the gas contained gravel.

"Ty! Fireproof rune!" a familiar voice shouted.

Kit.

He kicked Manuel's stolen stele through the flames to Ty, who clutched it tight even as the adamas burnt the skin on his palms and drew a fireproof rune on the floor. The flames vanished in a hot bright blaze that made Ty fall back, shielding his eyes with his arm. At the same time, a white light grew until it encompassed all Ty's vision and an ear-splitting crack wrought the air as the windows throughout the Scholomance all shattered at once.

The light faded, the smoke dissipating through the empty window frames, allowing Ty to finally see the chaos. The floorboards were blackened and singed, flaking away in places. Manuel was frozen like a statue, eyes wide in perpetual horror, mouth open in a silent scream more haunting than any audible cry. And lying there in the fragments, hands glowing a faint white, was Kit. The pain in Ty's leg was unbearable but it didn't stop him crawling his way to Kit, laid prone and motionless, tiny shards nicking at his hands all the way. The knife wriggled itself loose and Ty didn't even notice.

"Kit?" Ty said, pulling his sleeve over his hand and brushing some of the grey smoky dust from Kit's cheeks. His face was covered in tiny pinpricks of blood where pieces of glass had caught him and lodged themselves in his soft skin. "Kit, please," Ty begged, and he could hear his smoke-irritated throat break on the words, splintering like the wooden floor beneath them. "Please, Kit. Please. Please please please ple…" He was rocking now, Kit's head in his lap, only stopping from his pleading mantra when the sobs took his voice, replacing it with inhuman sounds of pain.

"Kit!"

"Ty!"

Ty didn't look up, though he recognised the hands when they touched his shoulders as Julian's. When Tessa pried Kit's body from his arms, Ty couldn't hear what she said, could only hear himself screaming, an animalistic, guttural yell.

"Ty, Ty," Julian said softly, pulling Ty into his arms as if he was no older than he had been in the Dark War. "Ty, it's okay. It's okay."

Julian's arms were tight, holding him in place as he stroked Ty's hair, shushing him like he was a child. He might have been eighteen, but Ty couldn't help feeling like he had at the lake in Idris, shaky and heartbroken and shattered.

"I can't lose him," Ty sobbed. "Not again. Not again. I can't. I…Julian…I love…"

"I know," Julian said softly, putting his chin down onto the top of Ty's head, the black hair tickling his nose. "I know, Ty. I know. You don't need to tell me, Ty. I'm your brother. I know. I've always known. It will be okay, Ty. It'll all be okay. I promise."

Things felt different at home in L.A. The Scholomance had been temporarily evacuated, so Ty was home for now until they got the all-clear to return to their dorms. Kit was okay. Helen had told him the next day – after an agonising sleepless night – and Ty's wounds had been fixed easily with a few iratze and amissio runes, though a faint white scar still ran along his thigh. He'd given Julian permission to tell the others everything and, though no one said anything, he'd been told his family loved him enough in the few days afterwards to know they were supportive. Helen – being Helen – had cried, leading Ty to accept her hug gratefully but retreat to his room as fast as possible.

He rolled over to grab his phone and beamed. It was an unknown number, but that didn't matter. It was the first time he'd messaged.

'Hey, so apparently I'm recovered enough to porta. Care to show me how L.A. has fallen from grace in my absence?'

'Absolutely. It's in ruins,' Ty texted back. 'I'll be downstairs by the portal in 5. I just need to change.'

By the time Ty got downstairs, Kit was waiting, surrounded by Blackthorns. When he saw Ty, he stopped talking and smiled, wide and genuine and beautiful.

"What was that you said to me once?" he asked Ty, with a wry half-smile. "That I may not be luminous but I'm a pretty good conductor of life?"

"Close enough," Ty grinned, and threw his arms around Kit, holding him so tightly his mind went back to the night where Kit had held him for what felt like hours on the roof of the London Institute. "I love you," he said quietly into Kit's shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier."

"You were worth the wait," Kit promised, feeling Ty relax in his arms. Finally, the L.A. Institute felt like home again.