A/N: This takes place just a few short days before the events of City of Bones.
To anyone peering in the wide windows of Java Jones, the sight would seem utterly ordinary. A boy and a girl drinking coffee side by side, comparing chemistry notes, the girl lounging with her feet propped up on a plush armchair, the boy leaning his arm next to hers. They might chuckle in amusement watching the boy's clumsy attempts to wipe his glasses off or the pen splattering on the girl's frayed jeans, but they would dismiss the two as normal teenagers. Just friends, content with each other's presence. Nothing more.
Only someone with the gift of true perception would notice that the girl's eyes appear glassed over and her laughs halfhearted, that her fingers drum restlessly on the rough wooden table and her feet rock back and forth slightly, as though there is a stirring in her blood that urges her to be someplace else. That begs her to find a different destiny.
If one were to look even closer, they would notice that the boy's gaze, masked behind oversized classes and a long mop of hair, never wavers from the direction of the girl, that his eyes follow every turn of her fiery red hair. They would see that his arm, so close to hers, shakes slightly at the contact, that his hands are sweaty. Maybe they'd even spot the furrowing of his brow at his failed attempts to make his best friend smile, the worried stance of his mouth.
They might see all those things. But they could never know the story of the boy and the girl, how it is just beginning and just ending, how the world will someday crash down upon them and force boulders between them. They'll never know that they are staring at legends, at the foundations of a great and terrible future, that chapters of history will open and close and these teenagers will be on every page.
But on this day, fires does not rage outside the coffee shop and fate is not lurking around the corner. It's not time yet. Destiny isn't ready for them.
"Simon," the girl says suddenly, her eyes brightening. The boy's heart leaps when she says his name, the sound like a melody to his ears. "Let's go to Pandemonium tonight."
He groans, rolling his eyes. "You've got to be kidding me."
"It'll be fun!" the redhead pleads, laughing at his doubtful expression. "There's something about that place. It's got a really cool vibe."
"A really cool vibe?" he mocks, his tone teasing. "When did Clary Fray become the expert on the inner workings of sleazy clubs?"
"When did Simon Lewis become so completely, totally, irritatingly boring?" she retorts, smacking him with her sketchbook. He laughs, but the sound is strained.
He can feel her slipping away from him. Maybe he knows, on some subconscious level, the horrors fate has in store for them. He's been having nightmares lately, dreams of shadows that will chase his best friend away and take his soul with them.
Simon Lewis doesn't want a grand destiny.
He only wants her.
"Not tonight, Clary," he says softly, his tone making a valiant attempt to be casual, but even the girl, oblivious to most of his obvious attempts to get her attention, notices the underlying pain in his voice. "I'm tired tonight."
She looks at him for several moments and, after a long pause, nods and returns to her chemistry notes. He watches her mouth droop downward slightly and cringes. When she's unhappy, so is he. He knows their souls are knit, stitched together by some greater power.
He must also know that those bonds were made to be broken.
But fate isn't ready for them yet, not today. Simon is left to clutch at the straws of the friendship that once was and the only love he'll ever know, and Clary is left feeling empty, drained somehow, as though there is something she's misplaced and she can't figure out what it is.
They can't know what is coming. The world around them is spinning on its axis, shifting toward a new future for them both. A darkness is sweeping over New York City and they will be at the center of it. It is the way of fate. It is the way of destiny.
When those who document this history write about the calm before the storm, the peace before the war, they will speak from the outsider's perspective. They will talk about the boy and the girl before they were the future's pawns, about their friendship and its importance in the events to come, but they will forget to tell the story as it happened.
They will forget the boy's bass guitar and the hours spent writing love songs for a girl he'll never have. They will forget the girl's doodles in class, the way she sketched the boy's messy hair and joked about cutting it off herself. They will forget the agony and the tears, the laughter, the smiles, and the love story left untold. People see what they want to see.
They see a boy and a girl.
I see a fading light.