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Thing is, Jace isn’t 100% sure which one he’s dating.
He’s pretty sure he’s dating somebody. There were walks in the city and movie marathons and illegal post-gig drinks at whatever club Simon’s band is playing at. There were lunches together and walking each other to classes and waiting at each other’s lockers. There were kisses, too, small and playful and stolen, with both of them, though only when the other wasn’t there too.
One part of him is worried that maybe they aren’t so clear on it either, that they both think they’re the one dating him and that when they find out about the other kisses that he’d be booted out of this strange little group (because of course he wouldn’t drive a wedge between Clary and Simon; that’s so outside the realm of possibility that Jace fears the universe might collapse just from him thinking about it). But Jace figures he’s never been the sort of person who worried about little things like which one of a pair of terrifyingly co-dependent best friends he’s dating, and decides that he won’t start being one now. Besides, confronting the issue would mean talking. About feelings. So he just lets it lie.
Clary and Simon definitely don’t seem too concerned.
The three of them were on the top level of the grandstand, Simon and Jace sprawled on the floor. Clary was lying on her belly on the risers above them with her sketchbook open in front of her, now and then glancing over the railings at the soccer team practicing in the field below.
“Maybe I should take up soccer, if it means you’d draw me like that,” Simon says, and Jace stretches up a bit from his position on Simon’s lap to take a peek at what Clary was working on. It was a page full of sketches of his sister, in all her soccer team captain glory.
(Clary doesn’t draw Simon. Or rather, she doesn’t draw Simon anymore. She’s shown Jace the sketchbooks upon sketchbooks documenting their childhood together. Clary learned how to draw drawing Simon, so now she has to ‘expand her horizons,’ she says.)
Clary raises her eyebrow at Simon, appraising. “Somehow, I don’t think that would end very well for you. Jace, on the other hand…”
It’s an inane, normal statement, but Clary looks at him, and her gaze knocks all the wind out of him. He can feel Simon watching them, watching him.
“You can draw me anytime, honey.”
Clary smiles at that, leans over, kisses him. Jace is shocked, because Simon is right there, hell he’s practically in Simon’s lap, and Clary is kissing him, and—and then Simon’s hands are under his shirt and all rational thought is basically out the window.
And then the bell rings, and Simon laughs in his ear at the little desperate noise he makes as Clary pulls away. “Don’t worry, handsome,” he whispers, his breath cool on Jace’s neck. “We can pick it back up later.” Clary winks at him and Simon pushes him off. It’s all Jace could do to ignore their laughter and stumble down the grandstand steps to History.
He pushes the classroom door open and he can feel everyone’s eyes on him and Jace knows his hair is all messed up and his lips are red and that he looks, in all accuracy, very recently kissed. Any other time he’d be basking in the attention, ready with a quick remark, but he can still feel Simon’s hands on his abs and Clary’s lips on his, so all he manages is a lame “Sorry, I was, um, doing things.”
“Yeah, Thing 1 and Thing 2,” somebody in the back mutters quietly, but it carries in the silence. The whole class snickers and breaks out in low murmurs, but Jace doesn’t really hear that or Starkweather’s desperate shushing, because for the second time in five minutes he feels like the whole world is tilting out of orbit. The realization hits him like one of Alec’s arrows and he almost drops his bag, because Jace Lightwood doesn’t get blindsided like this, oh no. But apparently he has been. Because shit. He’s dating both of them.
Clary and Simon are waiting in the hallway after the class and Jace doesn’t miss the knowing smiles that his classmates aren’t even trying to hide. If Clary and Simon notice, too, they don’t really pay it any mind, just joking around with each other like nothing’s happened, not even alluding to the kissing or the ab-touching or the promise of later.
And well, ok. Jace may have been a little slow on the uptake on the fact that all three of them are dating, but it’s not like anything changes.
***
“So should I start calling you Dr. Seuss now?” Isabelle asks as they walk into school the next day, and even Alec snorts. Jace supposes he should be thankful that they didn’t start their needling at home.
“Wh-That doesn’t even make sense!”
Isabelle laughs. “Remind me to thank your things for reducing you to this mess.”
“How did you even know about that?”
“Oh honey,” Isabelle says, patting his head patronizingly, “it’s all anyone’s been talking about.”
And then they’re walking into Calculus, which all five of them share, and Alec’s full-on laughing now, and Jace just sort of asks the heavens why this was his life.
Because there, in the corner of the classroom, chatting like they didn’t notice the looks everyone was giving them, were Simon and Clary. In matching Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts.
Jace will murder that kid in History.
They sit down, and it’s Simon kissing him this time. Somewhere, someone whistles, and scratch that, Jace will murder everyone in this entire godforsaken school. Starting with his— his things, because Simon uses his kiss as a distraction to put a ridiculous red and white hat slightly askew on Jace’s head.
He’s about to protest, but Clary just pokes his nose. “Come on, you love it,” and dammit, Jace feels himself relenting already.
“I suppose if anyone can make this look good, it would be me.”
So he goes around the whole day, looking and feeling entirely stupid, with his stupid hat and his stupid friends wearing those stupid shirts, and he certainly doesn’t stop complaining about it, but really, he wouldn’t change it for the world.