Disclaimer: No, i know it's a surprise, but The Dark Artifices still doesn't belong to me.

It had seemed like the perfect moment. Kit was telling Ty about a run-in his father had once had with some ducks that lived outside a certain hospital – he must be happier now, for a long time after he'd first come he hadn't wanted to talk about his father at all – and Ty explained just why the ducks had done that. Kit told him they'd never been back to that particular hospital.

And then Kit stopped laughing and looked at Ty, and Ty felt a thrill run under his ribs. Kit leaned towards him, and Ty didn't lean away. Kit pressed his mouth to Ty's.

An electric jolt rushed through Ty's nerves. It was the kind that was good, combined with the kind that really wasn't. Kit was kissing him! Kit was kissing him, but . . . his touch was overwhelming. Ty's skin crawled.

He let Kit kiss him for maybe half a second before it got to be too much and he had to push him away. He caught a glimpse of startled blue eyes. "Ty–"

But Ty was already running. Behind him he heard Kit call, "Ty, wait!" He didn't wait. He ran all the way to his room, and hated himself for it. He could have at least said something.

He wasn't sure how long he hid in his room. His feelings were a muddle of confusion, but one thought kept making itself clear. Kit had kissed him.

Kit had kissed him.

Kit had kissed him.

Kit had kissed him.

Yes, i got that part. What do i do now? But every time he tried to think of what he was supposed to do, his inner turmoil tugged him right back down. His fingers itched.

He lay there, and thought about it, and didn't hear the knock at his door however long later. He only became aware of the rest of the world again when a hand shook his shoulder. Ty blinked up at the space beside Livvy's face. "Wake up!" she said brightly. "It's dinnertime."

Ty groaned. The thought of moving, and in particular the thought of moving to the dining room where he'd have to face Kit, was not attractive. "I'll eat later," he said.

"No you won't, you'll forget again," Livvy told him. "Come on. Whatever you're thinking about, you can do it while you eat."

Ty was sure he wasn't ready to face Kit again, but Livvy was as stubborn as he was, and Julian would be upset if he forgot to eat, so he let her drag him up and out of his room.

He trailed into the dining room after his sister, and for a moment felt a reprieve. Kit wasn't there. Emma and Cristina were helping Julian serve, the girls bantering back and forth the way they did. Diego sat at the table, poring over a book. He did that sometimes, although he always put it away when the meal started. Unlike Ty, who always read through the meal when he brought a book to the table. Tavvy had already started eating without waiting for the others. Maybe Kit won't eat with us, Ty thought hopefully, because that made so much sense.

Dru came in behind the twins, looked around, and made a beeline for the empty seat to Diego's left. That was a strange word, beeline, since bees didn't fly in straight lines. Feeling better, Ty sat with Livia on the other side of the table.

And then Kit came in with his head down. Ty stared at him as directly as he could in something that almost felt like horror. Kit glanced at Ty for a moment, but then he looked away and sat with Dru to discuss some horror movie they both liked. Livia was quick to notice.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Did you and Kit have a fight?"

Ty wanted to tell Livvy – maybe she could help him figure out his feelings about this – but he knew she would misunderstand. She would assume from the way he ran off and was hiding that he didn't like Kit kissing him, but that wasn't true. He did like it, a lot. It was just . . . complicated.

But Livvy would feel like she needed to defend him, and go off to pick a fight with Kit and probably beat him up. Physical fights didn't bother Ty as much as arguments did, but he didn't want Livia and Kit to do either over him.

"Nothing," Ty said. He could work this out on his own. Surely it couldn't be that hard.

It was that hard.

Kit started spending a lot of time in the training room. He definitely wasn't hiding. He'd discovered since coming to the Institute that beating things up made him feel a lot better, that's all.

He was so stupid! Just because Ty seemed to like him okay, and hung out with him a lot, that didn't mean he was into guys. Kit should have paid more attention to what Ty was saying and doing, instead of thinking about how much he liked him. But no, he had to blunder in like some kind of asshole and ruin any chance of a friendship they might have.

"Hey," Emma said, surprising him with her entrance. Was that a Shadowhunter thing, to be able to come into a room without anyone noticing? "You ready to start Shadowhunting now?"

"No," Kit replied. This was just getting better and better. "Can't you just give up on that?"

"No." Emma surveyed him. "You look like a puppy someone kicked. What's up?"

"Nothing," Kit said shortly. He liked Emma, but he didn't know how she'd react to the news that he'd kissed Ty. He suspected she'd cut him in half. "I'm fine." He looked back at the practice dummy.

He could feel Emma's stare boring into the back of his head. Against his will, his shoulders clenched as he waited for her to press him for a real answer.

Finally she sighed and came over. "Look, if you want to punch someone, you need to hold your fist like this," she said, demonstrating. "You'll break something if you keep doing that. And i don't mean the other guy's face."

Well, that was nice of her to leave it alone. Kit rearranged his fingers and tried again.

Ty wasn't stupid. He knew about kissing and romance, and what it meant. He'd just never thought about it much. He'd never taken an interest, because there were so many other, more interesting things to think about.

Well, now he was thinking about romance. He'd never had anything against the idea, and now Kit was here, and Ty . . . Ty had probably ruined everything by running off like that.

What was he supposed to do now? Theoretically, according to Livvy's stories, he shouldn't have this problem at all, because he was supposed to have kissed Kit back with a passion. So much for that. Ty wasn't like the characters in the movies the others watched. To movie characters, physical contact never felt like needles pressing against his nerves. Ty couldn't use them as reference. And he couldn't even think about romance until he understood that.

This was stupid. He didn't mind touching Livvy most of the time. Why should touching Kit be any different?

The obvious answers were that Kit was a boy, and not family, and Ty liked him differently than he liked Livvy. But none of those explanations felt right.

So if none of those were it, what was the difference?

Livvy knew he didn't like to be touched, even if she didn't really understand why. Obviously she wasn't kissing him, but that wasn't the point. It was about contact, whether it was someone's hand accidentally brushing against Ty's or Livvy leaning against him while they read. It affected him the same way, except when it didn't. What was the difference? What connected the times touching was uncomfortable, but wasn't there when it didn't?

Was it because he knew Livvy? No – but it sort of was, it dawned on him. It was the difference between a surprise bump in the hallway and Livia pressing his shoulder in support. He knew when she was going to reach out to him, and it didn't bother him then.

Could it really be that simple? Ty ran through his memories of discomfort. As far as he could remember, whenever he was expecting a touch from someone he liked, he didn't mind so much. It was when he wasn't expecting it – or if it came from someone he didn't know well – that it jarred his nerves.

If it was really that easy, he'd need to get used to how relationships worked, but so long as he adjusted his mindset there shouldn't be a problem. He really should go and talk to Kit. He wanted to go and talk to Kit.

He didn't move.

Ty was getting frustrated. He really did mean to talk to Kit, but he never quite managed it. There were chances, but he always had something else on his mind, or he didn't know where Kit was, or he couldn't quite bring himself to face him. He knew it couldn't be good to let the kiss and his reaction lie between them for so long, but he couldn't do it.

When Ty almost ran into Kit in the hallway a few days later, it should have been the perfect opportunity. He had been on his way to the computer room, but when their eyes met, he hesitated. Kit's steps faltered.

Ty thought, Say something.

He didn't say anything. And then the eye contact was much too close, and Ty had to look away, and the chance was gone. Kit passed him quickly and disappeared.

Ugh. He was a terrible person. Why couldn't he just say it? It wasn't that hard. You opened your mouth and words came out. He knew what he wanted to say and how to say it.

So why couldn't he do it? Ty almost wanted to slam his head into the doorframe in frustration. He knew it wouldn't help, but on some inner level, it felt like it might.

Sherlock Holmes was calling. Ty went to go read in his room. Things were so much less difficult for Holmes, but then, he never felt this way about someone anyway.

He'd worked his way through His Last Bow and was trying to decide whether to go to the next chronological book or go back to some of his earlier favorite stories when there was a tapping at his door. Livvy came in before Ty had a chance to reply. "No, but really," she said. "I can't stand to watch anymore. You have to tell me what's going on."

Ty stared at the fall of hair over her ear. He could see her expression in his peripheral vision, and she wasn't going to go away this time. "You didn't wait for me to say you could come in," he said finally, pushing down his headphones.

Livvy sighed and came to sit at the end of his bed. "I'm sorry, i should have waited, but don't try to change the subject. What happened with you and Kit?"

Ty tried to think of a way he could avoid answering her, as that was worse than avoiding Kit. When he couldn't think of anything, he admitted, "He kissed me."

Livvy's eyes went wide and she covered her mouth with both hands. "And? What did you do?"

Ty was silent. He ran his fingers over the books on the nearest shelf and tried to decide if a particular volume would be better two spaces down.

"Ty?" Livvy prompted.

"I ran away," Ty admitted.

Livvy pressed her hands harder to her mouth and then slid them down to clasp them under her chin. "Was it that bad? Do you want me to talk to him?"

"No! You'll just make it worse."

Livvy flopped back onto his bed. "So what's going on?"

Ty ran his fingers back over the books, then forth again. Leaving the books, he separated a pipe cleaner from the mass on his bedside table and worked it through his fingers. "He took me by surprise."

"Well, yeah." Livvy stretched her arms over her head. "Did he just kiss you out of the blue?"

This was where Ty wasn't sure of the answer. He was well-read, he knew there were supposed to be signals that led up to a kiss, but he had no practice in how to identify them. "Probably not," he said. He was pretty sure they had been there.

Livvy looked over at him. "Did you see it coming or not?"

"I kind of had a feeling." He wished he could explain it better.

She nodded as if it made perfect sense to her. Maybe it did. "You kind of had a feeling he was going to kiss you, and you let him do it, and then you ran away?"

"Yes." When she put it like that, it didn't really make any sense. "I wasn't sure he was going to," he added, in case this helped.

"Okay, but if you don't want him to kiss you, it's only fair to tell him so."

Right. This was the part where he'd given the wrong impression completely. "That's not it."

Livvy lifted her head a few inches to get a better look at him. "You did want him to kiss you?" At Ty's nod, she propped herself up on an elbow and stared at him. "You like him? Like that? So why did you run?"

"I don't know, it was just . . . too sudden." Ty's fingers moved faster.

"Too sudden? And so you ran away?"

"That's what i said," he reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. "That explains everything. It's a big misunderstanding, and you two are too scared to talk to each other and sort it out. You need to talk to him."

"I know. I just . . . haven't yet."

"Putting it off isn't going to help anything," Livvy told him.

"I know!" he replied, nettled. "And i'm not scared of talking to him."

"So why haven't you?" she challenged.

"I don't know!" he exclaimed, exasperated. "I try to say it, but nothing comes out! I've been trying! Really, i have, but it's not working, and i don't know why."

Livvy looked at him in the way that meant he was getting too weird even for her. "You know he thinks you hate him now. If you keep avoiding him, he'll never know the truth."

Ty moodily inspected the tangle of wire in his hands. He had suspected that was what Kit would think, but Livia confirming it didn't help as much as she seemed to think it would. "So what do you suggest? I've had lots of opportunities, but i haven't been able to say anything."

Livvy looked at him as she thought. "What you need," she decided, "is a situation where you can't avoid talking to him. Give me your headphones."

"Do i have to?"

"Yes. Give me." She held out her hand. "We'll leave them here. You can have them back once you've talked to Kit."

Ty reluctantly unhooked his headphones from around his neck and passed them over. Livia coiled the cord around his player and left the bundle on his bed. "Now come on," she said, reaching out for him. Ty let her grab his wrist and drag him out of his room.

His sister knew exactly where she was going. "He's been hiding in the training room all week," she explained. "We've all noticed. Some of them are tricking him into letting them teach him to fight."

Ty had opinions about tricking someone into being a regular Shadowhunter, and whether Kit needed to be a regular Shadowhunter, but right now the inside of his head was buzzing with worry over what was going to happen. Was Kit going to hate him? Was he going to be able to talk? He wasn't sure he could do this after all.

Livia wasn't taking any second thoughts. She took Ty directly to the training room –normally empty this time of day – and turned to him. "Don't come out until you've sorted it all out."

That was all the warning he got before she opened the door, shoved him inside, and slammed it shut.

Ty stopped his momentum by freezing in his tracks. Across the room, Kit froze as well, holding a quarterstaff defensively across his chest. A back corner of Ty's mind brightened – he could teach Kit to use the quarterstaff – but mostly he was paralyzed by being alone with Kit for the first time since the kiss.

"Hey," Kit said awkwardly.

That was an easy one. "Hey," Ty replied. It didn't start the rest of the words coming out, but at least it was something.

"Yeah," Kit said. "Well, i'm gonna . . ." He made for the other door on the far wall.

"Wait!" Ty exclaimed. His throat pinched on the word, but Kit stopped and turned back to him. He was beginning to unfreeze. "I need to talk to you."

Kit hesitated and looked back at the door. Ty realized he wasn't the only one having trouble with the idea of this conversation, and crossed the room to face him properly.

"Can't we just . . ." Kit started, but Ty cut him off before he could come up with a way to finish.

"I don't hate you," he blurted. This wasn't how he'd planned it, but it was coming out, and that was what mattered. "I'm sorry i ran away. I didn't mean to. I just needed some space."

"It's okay," Kit told him. His voice sounded tight. "It won't happen again."

"No, that's not what i meant," Ty said. "It wasn't because of you exactly."

"'Wasn't because of me exactly'?" Kit echoed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It wasn't because i don't like you," he tried to explain. "It's just, um, kissing."

"No, i get it," Kit said. "You don't want to kiss me. It's cool."

"That's not what i said!" Ty took a deep breath. "It was just really sudden." Kit looked at him skeptically, but at least he was listening.

"I don't like being taken by surprise," Ty told him, even though that wasn't really accurate. He had no idea how to explain the way it just didn't work, how his every nerve was set on edge when he didn't know what to expect. "And when people touch me, and i don't know it's coming, it feels . . . weird. It kind of hurts, but not really." That part was just as hard to explain. Ty wished he was better at this.

Kit stared at him. Ty met his gaze, fighting his natural instinct to look away. Julian knew to take Ty seriously when he looked his brother in the eye. Hopefully it would work with Kit too.

"So . . . if you knew what to expect?" Kit asked.

Ty took a breath, leaned forward, and kissed him on the mouth.

He felt sure as soon as he'd done it that he'd made a mistake and Kit didn't want to kiss him anymore. He started to pull back, but then Kit's hands came up to cup his face and Kit kissed him back.

He was being very gentle, as if he could break Ty, and Ty wanted to say that wasn't the problem, so long as he was prepared he was fine, but Kit was kissing him and so he didn't say anything. He wasn't sure he could remember how.

"Was that all right?" Kit asked when they broke apart. "I mean . . ."

"Yeah," Ty assured him. "It was . . . um, it was great. I told you, touching doesn't really hurt, it just doesn't feel right. And that's only when i'm not expecting it."

"Okay, so . . . so long as you know it's coming, you're good?" Kit clarified.

"Yes," Ty said. He felt like he'd explained this several times already.

"So is it all right if i kiss you now?"

Ty grinned shyly.

Later, Livvy cornered him. "So how'd it go?"

Ty grinned at her. He still didn't really know how to talk about this, but apparently his expression was enough.

"You talked to him? Got everything sorted out?"

"Yeah," Ty said.

"And the two of you are together now?"

"I guess." Ty wasn't entirely sure what that meant – obviously Kit wasn't here now – but he was pretty sure he had the general idea.

"Oh, Ty, that's great!" Livia held out her arms and took a step closer, but she waited for Ty to nod before she closed the rest of the distance and hugged him tightly. "I'm so proud of you!"

Ty wrapped his arms around her in return. "Thanks for pushing me," he said, and meant it.

A/N: I love the Kitty fandom. Firstly, i love that Cassie wrote an autistic character that wasn't just a bundle of stereotypes, and not only has a love interest (which is rare in fictional portrayals of autism) but one of the same sex (which is pretty much unheard of, despite the fact that many autistic people are queer). And i love that a disabled character became so beloved by readers. (I'm self aware enough to admit that it's partially that it's a character that's so much like me who's so popular.) But i feel like some things in the stories aren't always accurate to an autistic personality. So i decided to take matters into my own hands. Not that every autistic person would react to a surprise kiss by running, obviously; that's unique to this fic.

By the way, the reason Ty had trouble talking to Kit was because of executive dysfunction; it's a symptom of several mental disabilities, but most commonly associated with autism, in which communication doesn't flow between the part of your brain that gives orders and your motor nerves. So you're trying to do something, but your body doesn't receive the signals and you don't do it.