All the ways you've changed (A KitTy fic)
(Chapter 16) (All previous chapters)
Chapter 17: If it means a lot to you
A strip of late morning sunlight worked its way slowly across the room, coming to rest directly in Ty Blackthorn’s eyes. He squinted sleepily, wondering what time it was. Surely it must be nearing eleven. He tried to check his watch, and realised he could not move his arm. It was numb, a heavy weight pinning it to the mattress. With a start, he half-sat, dragging his arm towards him.
“Mmm?” murmured a sleepy voice, and someone moved in the bed beside him.
Kit, Ty remembered with a pounding heart. He shaded his eyes against the morning glare and looked down to see a tousled blonde head pillowed on his dead arm. Carefully, he extracted himself, thinking back to the night before.
When Kit had suggested moving onto the bed, Ty had frozen up. He wanted Kit. Of course he did. But he was uncertain as to what that might actually entail. He knew the physicality of it, of course, he wasn’t ignorant, but in the moment there was just so much that was new to him, so much that he didn’t feel ready for, that he had felt himself clamming up. A dozen excuses had flitted across his mind, and a dozen accusations. If Kit wanted this, it was because Ty had kissed him, Ty had taken off his shirt, grabbed at his body, groped at his butt. Ty had sped this thing between them along, how could he pull back now?
But he hadn’t needed to. Kit had read his expression, seen his hesitation, and taken it in his stride. He hadn’t seemed upset – quite the opposite. He was either a terrific actor, or he was genuinely thrilled to simply spend the night curled up in Ty’s arms. Ty was inclined to believe the second.
Kit had dozed off immediately, but it had taken a lot longer for sleep to come to Ty. He was unused to sharing a bed with anyone but Livvy, and even then, they had stopped that when they were children. Ty had stared at the back of Kit’s head in wonder, trying to comprehend why this beautiful boy wanted to be sleeping beside him. He did not know how long he spent, lying in that dim room, thanking Raziel for bringing Kit Herondale back into his life. At last, after what felt like hours, he had buried his head in the crook of Kit’s neck and sleep had come to claim him.
Now, in the soft morning glow, Kit rolled onto his back, eyes still closed, smiling sleepily. Black eyeliner was smeared around both of his eyes, leaving smudges on the pillow, and there was a red dent in his cheek from Ty’s watch.
“Morning,” he mumbled, eyelids flickering. Ty pressed his lips to Kit’s forehead, making his sleepy smile widen. His hand found Ty’s cheek, and he pulled their faces together, softly brushing his lips over Ty’s. Ty let himself be wrapped in Kit’s arms, and Kit started rolling to face him. Then he paused, eyes opening wide. Giving a little cough, Kit bundled the blanket around his waist. “So, uh, how did you sleep?”
“I slept well,” Ty hid a smile. “What about you?”
“I haven’t slept that well in a long time. I also haven’t slept in this late in ages, either. What time is it?”
“Twenty past ten.”
“Woah, nice.” He was still holding the blanket with one hand, and Ty tried not to look.
“I’m gonna take a shower, then I need coffee.” He rolled out of bed and stood, glancing back at Kit. Would Kit ask to join him in the shower? Did he want him to? But Kit only smiled, and followed Ty across the room with his eyes.
..
When Ty emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, a towel wrapped around his waist, Kit was standing in the kitchenette, two steaming mugs of coffee in front of him. He was back in his grass-stained jeans, but above those he was wearing–
“Is that my hoodie?”
“Yep.” Kit looked smug. “It’s comfy.”
It was too big on him, the soft grey sleeves bunching up over his hands. Ty was dumbfounded. At home, Emma walked around in Julian’s clothes all the time. When Ty had asked her why, she had confided in him “Nothing on Earth is as comfy as your boyfriend’s hoodie. Ask literally anyone.”
Taking her at her word, he had asked this of Cristina the next time he saw her.
“Oh, yes,” Cristina had said with a grin. “And I’m luckier than Emma, because I have two boyfriends whose clothes I can steal. Although, Mark often steals my clothes right back.”
Ty stared at Kit, who looked completely at ease, and not at all inclined to take off the hoodie any time soon. His heart fluttered. Did that mean…?
“Do you want sugar in your coffee? I couldn’t find any milk in here, but there are some sugar packets.”
“Nah,” Ty crossed the room to wrap his hands around one of the mugs, inhaling the strong, familiar scent of instant coffee. “I prefer it plain black.”
“Oh, me too.” Kit raised the second mug to his lips and took a small sip, swallowing it down with a bitter expression.
“You don’t actually like coffee, do you?”
“No.”
Ty took a sip of his own coffee. Kit had made it quite strong, which he appreciated.
“What do you like to drink?”
“I like hot chocolate,” Kit admitted sheepishly. “With marshmallows.”
“Well then,” Ty leaned down to peck Kit on the lips. “We had better get you some hot chocolate.”
..
They wandered toward Cirenworth, Kit on his skateboard and Ty treading lightly beside him. It was mid-afternoon, and the hot chocolate and bacon and eggs from the diner sat comfortably in Kit’s stomach. Ty’s hoodie was soft and comfortable in a way Kit had never experienced; it smelled like Ty, and he kept wanting to hide his face in it and inhale deeply. He hoped Ty wouldn’t ask for it back.
“Are you sure Jem and Tessa will be okay with me coming over?” asked Ty anxiously, pulling at the strings of the wristband Kit had given him.
“Yeah, man, they’re chill. I do have some chores to do though, do you mind hanging out while I do them?”
“Chores?” Ty sounded confused. “Can’t Tessa just snap her fingers and make the house clean itself?”
“Yeah, she can, but she wants Mina and me to grow up to be ‘functional adults’” He drew the air quotes with his fingers, swerving his skateboard to avoid a pothole. He looked at his hands. “Aw, man, my nail polish is so chipped. How did that even happen? I’ll have to take it off.”
“I like it,” mumbled Ty.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I never really thought about nail polish on guys before, but it suits you. Same with whatever it was you had on your eyes.”
Kit had done his best to remove the panda smudges before they left the hotel, but he knew there were still smears of black that wouldn’t come off with water alone. Oh well, at least it looked like he’d had a good night. He was pleased that Ty liked his aesthetic. Part of him had been worried that being around so many traditional, masculine Shadowhunters would have made Ty turn up his nose at Kit’s more feminine choices. Kit firmly believed that gender belonged to people, not clothing or makeup.
When he had first started experimenting with nail polish and eyeliner, the guys at school had teased him, asking if he was gay. Kit was quite proud of his response. He had looked down his nose and told them, “If you ever thought I was straight, that’s your problem, dude.”
He had come up with it on the spot, but it became his standard clap-back, and eventually people got bored and left him alone. In fact, nail polish had slowly become more popular among his friends, and secretly, he was pleased. Rupert and Aidan never wore it, but they would defend Kit tooth and nail for his right to dress however he wanted.
The door of Cirenworth was open, and Tessa was on the front lawn with Mina, a trowel in one hand and dirt covering them both.
“Hey, Te-Mom!” Kit called, correcting himself. It was going to take some getting used to, but he loved the way her face lit up when he said it. Part of him felt guilty, though. Jem had not said anything about being called “Dad”, but even still, Kit had to wonder if it hurt him. But Kit had a father. Johnny Rook hadn’t been the greatest, but he could not imagine anyone else replacing him for that title.
“Hey, boys!” Tessa stood, dusting herself off. Mina raced towards them, crushing a colourful bunch of flowers in her fat toddler fists.
“Flowers!” she proclaimed, thrusting them at Kit. Then, seeing Ty, her eyes went wide. She snatched the flowers away from Kit and held them out to Ty instead.
“Um, thank you?” Ty stooped to take the bundle, which came apart in his hands. He held the crushed blossoms awkwardly, and Kit smiled to himself. Mina was not shy, and once she decided she liked someone, she would go to great pains to show it. She threw her arms around Ty’s leg, smiling up at him adoringly.
“Flowers.”
“Mina, this is Ty Blackthorn. He’s my, uh,” Kit hesitated, unsure how to finish the sentence. “He’s pretty cool. Ty, this is my little sister Mina.”
“Hello.” Ty gave an awkward smile. Mina launched into a torrent of toddler-babble, only half of which were real words. She could talk enough to make her wants and needs known, and she was learning new words every day, but sometimes she was content simply to spout nonsense at light-speed. Kit gave Ty a helpless shrug. Once Mina started talking, there was no stopping her.
“Did you have a good night?” asked Tessa, reaching them. Her gaze flickered from the hoodie Kit was wearing to his smudged eyeliner, and she raised her eyebrows. Kit felt his face growing hot.
“Yeah, Rupert and Aidan came around and we had some drinks.”
Tessa never minded Kit drinking, especially now that he was nearly an adult. Her only stipulations were that he wasn’t to drink on a school night, and he was to call her immediately at any time from anywhere if he felt unsafe, and she or Jem would come and bring him home. As a result, drinking had lost much of its appeal, and beyond the first few months when he had been completely lawless, Kit rarely did it.
“Oh, that sounds like fun! I do like those boys. Hello, Ty. It’s nice to see you again.” She turned her sunny smile on Ty.
“Hello, Mrs Carstairs.”
“Kit, your friend called,” Jem told him, coming out of the front door with a tea towel over his shoulder. “The tall one, I think.”
Kit rolled his eyes.
“Rupert. You should know his name by now, he’s only been coming over here for two years.”
“Rupert. That’s it.” Jem snapped his fingers. “He wanted to know why you aren’t answering your phone.”
“It’s flat. I forgot my charger.”
“Well call him back soon, he sounded worried.” He glanced at Ty, as if noticing him for the first time. “Hello, Tiberius. Raziel, you’ve gotten tall.”
“Hello.” Ty looked as though he had no idea what to say. Wanting to save him from the awkwardness, Kit took his hand, pulling him towards the door. He took an odd, uncomfortable-looking step, and Kit realised Mina was still clutching his leg.
“Hey Mom, could you grab Mina? We’re gonna go hang out in my room for a bit. And before you ask, yes I will do my chores.”
..
Kit lay on his bed, watching as Ty wandered around his room, running his hands along the shelves and picking things up at random.
“Who’s this?” He held up a framed photo of Kit making peace signs with both hands, his arms around a pretty girl with strawberry-blonde ringlets.
“Nicola.”
“Oh.”
“That was our six-month anniversary. I kept the photo because I was happy there, and I like to keep reminders of good times, even if they go sour later on.”
“Is that healthy?”
“I don’t know.”
Ty set the photo down and moved on, stepping over a pile of dirty clothes. Kit’s room wasn’t the cleanest, but he did his best to keep it fairly neat. Tessa told him that it was his room, so he could keep it however he wanted as long as he was happy living in it. At first, with no one screaming reminders to tidy up, he had let it become filthy. Slowly, though, he had learned that having a neat room actually felt good, and keeping it sort-of-clean for himself was infinitely more rewarding than keeping it spotless for somebody else.
His walls were plastered with band posters, post-it notes written by his friends, and a bunch of printed-out photos of his friends and family. Ty eyed these for a moment, then made a choking noise in the back of his throat. His hand reached out to trace the edge of a picture, and Kit stood to see what he was looking at.
It was a polaroid, taken on Emma’s retro camera. Livvy was in the centre of the frame, pulling a silly face, her arm around Kit’s neck. Kit was rolling his eyes like she was choking him, but he was laughing. Behind them, Ty was balancing a lizard on the palm of his hand, squinting to inspect its markings, completely unaware that he was in the shot. Behind them was an endless expanse of L.A. sky.
“I didn’t know this photo existed,” murmured Ty. “And if I had, I wouldn’t have expected you to keep it.”
“I told you,” Kit replied softly. “I keep reminders of times where I was happy.”
They smiled quietly at one another, lost in memories of years before, an ocean away. Their world had been on the brink of war then, and Kit’s life had been thrown into turmoil, but he had found a bubble of calm and safety in Livvy’s warm smile and Ty’s strange grey eyes. He would never forget that.
“Kit!” Jem called up the stairs. “Is your boyfriend staying for dinner?”
Kit’s eyes went wide. Ty looked away, blinking rapidly. From downstairs, Kit could hear Tessa admonishing Jem for using the word “boyfriend” without waiting for Kit to say it first.
“So uh, are you?” asked Kit.
“Am I what?” Ty’s voice sounded odd.
My boyfriend, he wanted to reply, but he didn’t have the courage. “Staying for dinner?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Of course.”
“Then yes.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
“Uh, I’d better charge my phone. See what Rupert wanted.”
“Okay.”
Kit called out to Jem that Ty was, indeed, staying for dinner, then dug through his pockets for his phone. When it blinked to life, he found eight missed calls from Rupert. He hit redial, and Rupert answered on the first ring.
“Kit! Thank god!”
“You okay, man?”
“Yeah, I just got freaked out after all that ghost stuff when you didn’t answer your phone this morning. I was worried she came back or something.”
Livvy had indeed returned, right as Kit was falling asleep. She looked unbelievably smug, but he was so happy and sleepy that he couldn’t form the words to ask where she had been. By morning, she had vanished again.
“Nah, we’re both fine. Are you all good?”
“Yep, I’m going to try and meet up with my great uncle to ask him some questions about the whole thing next week. Mum can’t find out about it though, she would go nuts.”
Kit was well aware of Rupert’s mother, and was inclined to agree that keeping it from her was a good idea. They chatted for a few more minutes before Kit excused himself, telling Rupert he had chores to do.
When he hung up, Ty was smirking at him.
“Chores, huh?”
“Yep. And don’t look at me like that, I actually do have to do them.” He went to the linen closet in the hall and pulled out a dustcloth, lobbing it at Ty. “And you’re going to help.”
…………………………………..
(Chapter 18)
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thanks @sandersgrey and @amchara (whose username i have been pronouncing wrong this entire time) for bouncing ideas around with me for this fic!
chapter title song: If It Means A Lot To You by A Day to Remember
