"Here, do something," she told him.

Clary gave Jace the white spray paint, passing him the torch. She had already detailed the face on the wall, made the eyes almond shaped and dilated. She was trying to remember the face of the boy who had been sharing his stash with the whole club earlier, and for the most part, she'd managed to capture him here. Part of her wondered where that little bag of pills had gone to, if someone had found it and put it in their mouth. Maybe she should have held onto it. She could have hid it somewhere, for a rainy day, for if she was in the valley of the shadow of death and wanted to know what real ecstasy was like.

But this was pretty close to ecstasy, being pretty close to him.

He approached the portrait like it was wild animal, slowly, with the paint lowered at his hip. Clary pressed her fingers to her lips to warm them, and watching him was making her want to smile, so she hid behind her hands. He spread his legs a bit and in a quick movement, pressed down on the nozzle. He swiped white onto the boy's hair, it was stark against the blue. He drew swirls, long lines that wiggled and curved out from the boy's head madly. He stopped and ran his hands through his own hair, looked back at Clary, and waved her over to him. He's a natural, she thought. Somehow, it didn't surprise her that he could paint. He could probably do anything.

She still had the can of black, so as he drew skeletal lines across the boys lips, Clary fixed one of the eyes with reaching eyelashes. When he was finished drawing a plume of steam blowing out of the ear, Clary added a long streak of water coming out of the other. Jace laughed and then he drew a heart in the middle of the boy's nose.

In the end, it was a distorted face, neater in places Clary had painted, and cruder, more animated where Jace had added. It took up most of the space on the crumbing brick wall, some old apartment building they stumbled upon.

"We're weapons of mass destruction," Jace said.

"I guess so."

Clary had never thought of herself as that. Paintings were growth, they made the world grow. But someone had laid this brick once, to be red and plain, not to be covered in someone's weird artwork. Perhaps she was a weapon of mass destruction, and she was tearing up the city with her paint, and her long hair, and this great looking guy. She felt a surge of joy, just to be standing here with him.

"We should get out of here," she said, glancing around. There were no cops that she could see, but there was also no way she'd be able to handle long distance running like last night- her limbs still pulsed every time she took a step.

"What next?" Jace asked.

Clary felt strange, like she didn't know what to say, and then she wished that they had someone here to laugh with, to cut the tension. Someone like Simon.

An idea came to her, and maybe it was just her good mood, but she wanted her best friend. She thought of Simon, at home, with his video games and his mother who worried herself grey, and she missed him suddenly.

Last year, when Simon had been given a brief grace period between chemo treatments, he had told her that he loved her. She had blushed as much as she could, given her pale state, but couldn't help but kiss him because he was so cute and so healthy. Dating him was a weird few weeks, during which time they grew more and more awkward. Then his grace period ended and he got sicker, while Clary got healthier. At some point, they just stopped trying to kiss and resumed their normal friendship without ever really talking about it, just both knowing that they were better that way. This was the extent of her dating life, and maybe that's why she felt so superhuman here with Jace, because it was progress in her pathetic little life.

Simon was dating Mia now, the volunteer nurse assistant who always hung out in Oncology because that's where the hot doctors were, apparently. She had no idea how Simon had managed to seduce her, and he hadn't given her many details. Mia was curvy and often dressed up as a candy striper, and said that she had "a thing for Jewish guys". Whenever the three of them had hung out together, Clary spent most of the time drawing while they played video games and made out. Whatever had been between Clary and Simon was long dead, but sometimes she felt an alien twang of jealousy. She imagined that Simon would feel the same when he saw Jace, for some reason.

"I know where we can get some really potent medical weed," she finally said. Maybe it wasn't a good idea, maybe it was wrong. Maybe Jace would see the cancer and get weirded out, and she would have to tell him that she was sick, too. For some reason, she didn't want that. Did she really want to scare the guy off so soon? One day she'd would have been to him this normal artist he was hanging out with, and the next she would be the sick girl he felt sorry for. She wanted to hold onto normal for as long as possible.

Jace's face was splayed with a great smile, all teeth and humour.

"Hell yeah."

She smiled to herself on the inside and got out her cell phone. In a flurry of button pressing, she texted Simon.

Coming to drag you out of your cave.

Take your pills and bring your stash.

"Let's go." She stuffed her phone back into her pocket and walked ahead, anxious about everything, but strangely at place. Jace abandoned the empty black paint and she heard it clatter and roll on the pavement. She still had the blue paint, so she tucked inside to green jacket. He caught up to her in only a few long strides.

They were still in the relatively quiet suburban neighbourhood, only three blocks away from where Simon lived, in one of the more urban Jewish districts of New York, where you could always find a gorgeous abandoned synagogue to tag and the best bagels in the city. Simon's mother was very religious, always taking him to see the Rabbi for "spiritual guidance", but Simon himself always acted ambivalent toward his Jewish heritage. He just wanted to ease his mother's mind as much as he could, so he humoured her with the God stuff. His dad was dead and he was all she had left, he'd said.

They passed through the silent street, and Clary felt that she should whisper.

"How long have you played music?" she decided to ask quietly. She didn't want it to seem like small talk; she was really curious.

Jace shrugged.

"I got a guitar from my old foster dad when I was eight."

Foster dad? She mentally took the scrap of information and blew it up to a higher magnification. He was a foster kid? She tried to quickly think of what that could mean in terms of who he actually was, which was still a mystery to her.

"And you've drawn forever." His hands went deep into his pockets, the wind picked up.

"Yeah, but don't all kids draw scribble when they're little?"

Jace shrugged again, saying,

"We didn't have many crayons lying around."

Clary wondered how poor he was, or had been. She didn't want to dare ask him, though. She got the feeling that it was a thick subject. It would be just like her to ruin a good thing.

"You're not so bad at it, you know?" she told him.

"At scribbling?"

"Well, you didn't spray the paint into your eyes, at least." She laughed, she bumped his shoulder with hers.

They were silent for a few steps. Clary nestled into her coat a little tighter as the chill bit her, and the cool metal of the paint can pressed against her side. Then he said,

"I can tell you've been drawing forever. You're good. I bet you see everything like a picture."

She felt bashful, wary of compliments. They were rare, except for the fake pleasantries that nurses always felt the need to spend on her. You're looking great today, kiddo.

"I bet you can hear everything like a song. I've never heard anyone play like you," she said, emphasising the you. "I don't think you're just in it for the fame."

"Oh, the fame. I didn't realize that we had a fan base." She saw him roll his eyes a little.

"Who knows, maybe I'll start the fan club," she said, smiling.

"Rock bands don't have fan clubs, they have groupies."

Clary blushed as thoughts of naked chicks, cocaine, and tour buses flooded her mind. She almost walked right past Simon's house, trying not to look up, but she noticed the hand and footprints indented into the cement. Simon had no clue whose hand and footprints they were, but the initials E.S were engraved next to the hands, and they had always been outside his house.

She stopped and Jace did with her. She took out her cell phone again and fired out another haste text.

Rapunzel, let down your hair.

She looked up at the window that was Simon's bedroom and waited. Once, she had tried to be movie quality and threw rocks at his window to get his attention, but ended up breaking the glass. His mom had screamed and yelled about it, but Simon took the heat for her, like a real gentleman.

The door opened, and the flash of movement brought her eyes back down to the front, where Simon was coming from.

"My hair is falling out, you insensitive asshole."

Simon strode over to them, floppy hipster hat covering his shaved head, and two sweaters zipped up over his Zelda t-shirt. Jace sniggered, having no clue what the discourse was for that remark. Simon and her were nothing if not diligent cynics, poking as much fun out of cancer as they could, and bald jokes were not above them. She decided to change the subject, though, not wanting to fall into cancer talk so soon.

"Want to be delinquents?" she said, pulling out the can of paint.

Simon looked from Jace to the paint in momentary confusion. He probably hadn't expect her to have someone with her, especially someone who looked like this guy. She introduced them,

"This is Simon, he's got a medical marijuana license," she said. "And this is Jace…he's in a band."

"That's all you can come up with? He's in a band?" Jace said, with a look that could only be described as sly.

"What about me? You're just here for my pot, aren't you?" Simon said with mock hurt.

Clary held out the paint can to him.

"And your mad skills."

Simon looked pensive for a moment or two, in contemplation. Then he reached into his pocket, retrieving an expertly rolled joint, and stuck it in his mouth. He took the paint can, shrugging.

"Alright."

They ended up at one of the usual places, an old synagogue that had become a midnight hangout at some point. The Star of David hung precariously from the threshold, and the doors groaned when Simon tried to shimmy them open. All three of them leaned their weight onto the door until it budged. Sometimes, homeless people crashed in here, but Clary surveyed the inside and saw no menacing shapes hiding behind anything.

Jace looked up at the high ceiling, at the beams that were haphazardly rotting above them. Bats slept here in the daytime, but at night the Synagogue was eerily empty and quiet. The silence was disturbed only by the sound of Simon's lighter flicking and the sharp intake of breath that followed. He muttered something in Hebrew and blew a large plume of smoke up to the rafters.

Jace chuckled deep in his throat, coming to join Clary where she stood, facing the far wall. There was a mural there that she'd done when she was fourteen. It was her attempt at the Mona Lisa, when she was going through a pretentious art history phase. Of course, being done in spray paint and by the hands of her fourteen year old self, Mona Lisa was more edgy and made of hard lines. Her long black hair came down in sharp spikes, and her eyes were less detailed, but still followed you. Clary had replaced her robes with tattooed bare arms folded and a leather bra. At the bottom was her signature, Clary's tag; a weird twisting, sharp, eye-like rune that she'd seen in one of her mom's textbooks. It had always stuck with her for some reason.

"You did this?" Jace asked, pointing at Mona.

"Better than the original, in my opinion," Simon chimed in. He gave Clary the joint, which she pretended to smoke, and handed it to Jace.

Jace's eyes were fixed as he took an experienced, long drag. He was intimidating the hell out of Clary. Why was he so focused?

Simon tucked his face into his elbow protectively, and he started painting something farther away from the mural, grabbing her attention away from Jace. While Clary liked to draw pictures, Simon was all about social commentary. In blue, he'd written,

Milk and honey or soy and splenda?

"We had a run in with the cops yesterday," Clary decided to say.

"Remember that time when I got caught at the old Duncan Donuts on 8th?" Simon shook the paint and passed it off to Jace, who crouched low and started painting waves that came up out of the floor and bordered the bottom.

"You were lucky they didn't find the quarter of weed under your hat," she said.

"I played the cancer card, they had to let me go."

She nervously watched for Jace's reaction when Simon said it, but either he didn't care, or was making an effort to look like he didn't care. It was pretty obvious to everyone that Simon was sick. She wondered if people could tell yet that she was. Maybe not yet, but soon, she would have bags under her eyes and hats and scarves instead of her current mane. People would look at her for a second longer than they should on the street. Then it occurred to her that she still hadn't told Simon about her appointment yet. Everyone in the room with her thought she was healthy, that she was normal. It was almost enough for her to believe it herself. Almost, but not quite.

"I think I'm gonna crash. It's not decent for a poor boy like me to be out all night," Simon said. She knew he was probably tired, probably worn out from the short walk here.

Clary promised to call him as he handed her the nearly empty spray paint. He gave Jace a salute before he left. And when he did leave, it got suddenly quiet and suddenly warm. She inhaled the smell of burning weed and mustiness from the untreated wood, and cautiously turned back to Jace. She expected him to ask her something about Simon, something about his sickness. He didn't though, and she was glad, because if he had, she probably wouldn't be able to stop talking. She'd probably have to tell him who she was. Death walking. A sick girl. She realized that he knew as much about her as she did about him. Why weren't they chatting about their lives, their parents, whatever? It wasn't normal, but she didn't care that much. It wasn't even awkward. He didn't feel that much like a stranger anymore.

Jace came over to stand beside her. Outside, she heard distant sirens and normal sounds. Inside, she heard him breathing, abnormal and new.

Bravely, she reached out her hand. For the two seconds that it hovered there, in between them, she felt fear unparalleled to anything else. He doesn't want to hold my hand, she thought, alarms sounding in her head. Then, when she was about to slink away into the shadows, she felt him take it, she felt the fingers that she'd come to admire so much.

"I have to go. But I'll see you soon," he told her.

She looked up at him through the thin smoke of what was left of Simon's joint. He let it fall to the ground, but his eyes didn't leave her. His eyes were really fucking something, weren't they? Something struck her, deep inside like a gong.

Then she kissed him, simply because she could.

A/N- I don't really know much about New York's medical marijuana laws, but for story purposes, weed for everyone, okay?