heavenfaced

They’d moved from the doorstep into a massive foyer somehow before Lennon realised it, and her hand reached for the hilt of her seraph blade as a comfort. Davon’s eyes ran over the both of them as if she could see through their skin, and the shadowhunter felt dirty. “We don’t need to hide, because they can find things that are hidden. We need to stop existing, and we have pretty good intel that you’re the warlock to find.” Len stood with her shoulders back, head high, daring the downworlder to question her authority. Though, when she tought of it, her authority was the authority of the Clave. Exactly what she was trying to strip herself of. 

Leon slightly rolled his eyes as his parabatai corrected him. This was the way Len always was, and he loved her for it — even if it did frustrate him at times. He could sense the anxiety rolling off her in waves and squeezed her hand to hopefully reassure her. He looked deep into Davon’s eyes, ignoring the warlock mark around them. “Please.”

The Warlock answered the door immediately, staring at them with wide brown eyes, the flesh that surrounded them scaled and dry like a snake. Lennon held herself back from the flinch that she wanted to pull. Warlocks usually hid their mark but Davon had clearly never seen the necessity. Suddenly though, all her menacing evaporated and she simply seemed blase and bored of the situation. 

“What can I be helping you with, Shadowhunters?” Her voice sounded as old as she was, displaying the wisdom of her years, and this time Len couldn’t help the shiver. She looked to Leon, swallowing hard. 

Immediately she pulled her hand away from his, her fingers balling into a fist to prevent him from taking it again. “Stop playing around, Leon. They’ll strip our runes, we’ll never see eachother again, don’t you get that?” She gesticulated with her hands as if to say ‘take this seriously’. Lennon knew that she was not actually mad at him in any way, but she couldn’t help the urge to escape the clave. 

“I’m sorry, okay? But we have got to go because I can’t lose you.” The brunette softened a little bit and held out her hand to him finally, her plump lips full with a smile. 

“Hey,” Leon said, bringing Lennon’s hand up to his mouth to brush his lips across her knuckles. “I promise, I get it. I know this is life or death. I just like when you smile.”

“Are we alive? Then shut up!” Len huffed exasperatedly at her parabatai and quickly rolled to wheel left so that they could catch the turn into her renovated upscale community. Davon, like all warlocks, was a flashy being who felt some incessant need to be ostentatious. Lennon parked rather roughly and wasted no time in getting out of the car. She was getting anxious and didn’t like the feeling crawling through her skin that they could find her at a moment’s notice. 

Leon could feel the waves of anxiety radiating off his parabatai — it was part of why he was fucking around with music and things that didn’t matter. A (probably futile) attempt to help her calm down.

Lennon couldn’t help but roll her eyes as Leon repeated the name back. It was such a normal thing, yet she’d never imagined she would be doing it with him. It all seemed surreal and the world that she had grown up in was fragmenting in ways that made it unrecognisable. Len slid into the driver’s seat upon his command and immediately got a feel for the car. She wasn’t a bad driver, just a crazy one, and her foot found the pedals excitedly. Clicking her seatbelt into place and reversing from the spot, she threw them towards the highway and their warlock destiny. 

Lennon loved the way that she felt safe with him, how he formulated his very actions around protecting her. She kept a firm grasp on his hand as she tugged him towards the sliding glass doors that he had pointed out. It wasn’t practical for them to be so close together, if anyone attacked they were at a disadvantage, but the brunette believed their intuition and battle keenness would work when they needed it to. Though hopefully they wouldn’t. 

Len gulped the fresh air as they exited outside, her pretty green eyes searching the parking lot for the least conspicuous car they could steal. “That one, babe” She nodded toward a little silver Renault Megane nestled in the corner of the lot. She flickered her gaze to him nervously, suddenly extremely conscious of the mundane pet name she’d just used. 

“How much further?” he asked Lennon, his hand reaching over to envelop hers.

Leon: What’s wrong?

Leon was generally an intractable human being, the type to beat a subject into the ground, particularly with her. So when he grew quieter as soon as they were safely inside the wards of the institute, Lennon assumed it was to protect the sensitive nature of their conversation. Instead he began babbling about her aunt-in-law. Len had never met the woman, so the name was merely another token of reminder for the things that Valentine had done to her and the entire world. “Don’t you start bringing up names like Jocelyn Fairchild, things didn’t exactly end well for her.” The brunette rolled her eyes, a smile peaking through on her lips, and she admitted to herself that this was comfortable. 

At least it had been getting there until Alyssa emerged from the end of the hall. The woman looked like all Herondale’s, including Leon. Tall, powerful, exuding a demand for respect from the plebeian masses below them. There’d never been a shred of respect in their relationship and Len did not hide the scowl that crossed her features. Her generalised disrespect for authority had created pitfalls for her her entire life, though the disaster of her relationship with Alyssa Emberdown lay in another Herondale. Lennon’s eyes rolled over to her parabatai, he’d grown much stiffer, adopting the formality trained into him by previous generations. This was his worst look, she fervently believed, one that belied everything about the man he genuinely was. The man she loved. 

“Hi, Alyssa.” Lennon spoke softly, her voice brimming with sagacity. There were a great many things more that she wished to say, yet the younger shadowhunter held her tongue. In a display designed to piss the other off, she reached out and laced Leon’s fingers in her own. He was the source of their disgruntled nature, after all. They both loved him too much. and almost in a way she couldn’t control, Len giggled at the thought. Immediately she hid her features, knowing that Leon would be both annoyed and amused by her right then. 

Leon stiffened a little more as Lennon’s hand enclosed his, then forced himself to relax. His mother hadn’t been happy when he and Lennon had taken their parabatai vows — Alyssa was one of many who disapproved of non-sibling male-female parabatai pairings, given the Clave’s stance on parabatai who fell in love. Leon had found that most of their generation found this viewpoint to be outdated, partly for it’s assumption that men and women couldn’t be ‘just friends’ and partly for it’s assumption of heterosexuality. For his part, Leon had always dismissed his mother’s concerns as foolish. 

Well, he had. Until he had come to acknowledge his feelings for Lennon. Now, when he saw the way his mother looked at them, he felt something akin to guilt — even though he felt in his soul that there was nothing wrong with their love.

His mother eyed their clasped hands, arching an eyebrow. “You two are far too old to be carrying on like that. It was one thing when you were children, but now ...” She sighed. “People talk.”

Leon rolled his eyes. “Okay, Mom. The minute someone appears who might get the wrong idea, I promise to let go.” It was common for parabatai to touch — their bond made them stronger when they did, enhancing many of their powers. It was less common for parabatai to hold hands when not actively using those powers, but ... Fuck it.

Alyssa sighed like the weight of the world was resting on her chest. “There’s a briefing in fifteen minutes. Attendance is mandatory.” She sniffed, pulling a face. “And by the Angel, please clean that disgusting muck off first.”

She gave them one last look and walked back the way she came, leaving them alone once more in the corridor. Leon turned to look at Lennon, his eyebrow raised, one corner of his mouth turned up. “You little shit,” he said fondly. “I swear you wind her up on purpose.”

Leon spun a fanciful faerietale of what their life would be and Lennon was content to just let herself fall into the moment a little. The way his beautiful brown eyes bore into her own made the girl feel a warming sense of home, one that made her curl even closer into him. Len knew that this entire plan had a slim to none chance of working to begin with but she was stuck with it either way. “You want to just sneak out like two kids, wild and free and messing about behind our parents backs.” Lennon chuckled softly, though they weren’t in much different a situation than she’d just described.  Rocking back on her heels with a grace sapped from years of training, the brunette pulled away from her parabatai and began the short journey back to their institute. Knowing he’d follow, Lennon immediately began her diatribe. It wasn’t uncommon for her to lecture, and this was cooking up to be a good one. “You know that we’ll have to put a lot more thinking into it than that, Leon. They track us through our runes, I know you know that. Even if we flouted that somehow we still have to outrun an entire race of Shadowhunters. I mean, the idea is baffling. “  Len paused for a moment, swallowing some more air and tugging fervently at her braid. “Then if we escaped both of those two impossibly inescapable things we would still be faced with the final fact of being alone. No job, no life, no _existence _in the mundane world. We know our way around a blade, sweetheart, but I also know that you get cranky when you’re hungry.” A vibrant smile lit her features as they walked into the institute, one which she quickly lost when she realised they could never be them here. 

Leon knew he was the optimist of the pair — he always had been. Some people saw it as a failing or a shortcoming, like he was deeply naive; he saw it more as an extension of his stubbornness and determination. He was positive because he was positive he would make it work out. There was something about running headfirst at a brick wall with a smile on your face that always seemed to make a dent, or at least that was his experience. But, despite all that, he knew that this time Lennon had the clearer eyes of the two of them. As she laid out every obstacle, the weight in his chest got heavier and heavier.

Not that any of that was going to stop him.

“Okay, okay, you’re right,” he muttered as they walked through the glamoured front doors of the Institute. He knew that any mundanes walking by would just see the two of them walking into an abandoned old plague hospital. He made sure to keep his voice quiet enough that only someone with enhanced hearing right beside him could hear — and even still, he kept his eyes peeled for anyone paying more attention than they should. “It is technically impossible. But when has that ever stopped us?” He bent down, his voice growing even quieter. “Jocelyn Fairchild hid from the Clave for years. We just need to ... get creative. Maybe enlist the help of a warlock.”

Leon quickly snapped his mouth shut as an imposing woman appeared at the end of the hallway. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight bun, her skin a few shades darker than his marked on every spare inch with runes. Alyssa Emberdown rarely, if ever, smiled, but today she looked particularly displeased. He swallowed, resisting the ridiculous urge to clutch for Lennon’s hand. “Mom. What’s up?” he called out.

When Leon came down on the creature, Lennon immediately let go, sliding off it with a learned grace until she fell into a crouch on the floor. The beastly thing vanished with an explosive power and she was faced again with the man she loved. There was always a moment of relief after a battle, the first second that she saw him again and knew for sure he was fine. It was somewhat ridiculous given the fact that she’d know immediately if anything where wrong with him, nevertheless she felt that same rush of calm now as she stared into his eyes. 

Len tipped her head closer into his hand, savouring the way it felt to be able to do even that. Somehow in between fighting the demon and admitting she loved him the woman no longer felt the reservation to not express her love for him. “You’re right.” Lennon murmured as she pulled back from his touch, looking back over towards the square. Gently nudging past him so that she could make her way out into the open, the woman held her blade out before her, prepared for virtually anything. 

When she scanned the area and found that they were alone, Lennon turned back to Leon. “Thanks for saving my life. Again.” She murmured, reaching out to trace gently stroke the edge of his jaw. “We gotta get out of here. How exactly are we going to do this? Run away?” Len giggled softly, finding that the idea itself seemed so impossibly silly, but she wanted it so very badly. 

Leon joined Lennon in the scan of the area, looking up on the nearby rooftops. He wasn’t just looking for demons — he also had eyes peeled for any of their peers. It was dawning on him just what they were in the middle of signing themselves up for, and he didn’t want to be caught off guard. He knew that soon they’d be public enemy numbers one and two for the Clave. He’d rather be paranoid than dead.

When they were both satisfied the danger had passed, Leon let out a tight breath, his shoulders easing as he tilted his head into Len’s hand. He reached out for her waist, pulling her backwards into an alley, until his back hit the wall. He held her for a moment, just enjoying the thrill of having her in his arms. How many nights had he laid awake, imagining this moment while pretending the thought had never crossed his mind?

With a sigh, he leaned in to press his forehead to hers. “If that’s what it takes to be with you, then that’s what we do,” he replied, his voice as serious as hers had been light. It was a ridiculous thought — running from the Clave — but more ridiculous was the thought of ever being apart from her. “We go back. We plan our exit for our next hunt. We kill whatever it is, and then we go.” He opened his eyes, looking deep into hers. “We run like fucking hell into the sunset and find somewhere to do a happily ever after. Just us. Like it’s always been.”

Leon was a force to be reckoned with even at the worst of times and watching him now it was easy to deify him, each of his muscles rippled with force as he struck out at the creature. Lennon’s head undulated with pain but the brunette Shadowhunter didn’t take time to readjust herself; instead she swung herself back onto her feet and brought her own blade down with a sharp metallic ringing against the demon’s armored tail. Black ichor sprayed at their feet and Len’s featured twisted in disgust as she stepped back from the creature roaring in pain before them. “I’m always with you.” 

Lennon adjusted her grip on the hilt of her blade so that she held it with the blade facing herself. Her green eyes darkened with a withering glare at the monstrosity and she charged at it, weapon raised high. The cobblestones felt familiar beneath her feet and Len used the little crevices to propel herself forward, the steel edges of her blade flashing in whatever dim light it could find. The muscles in her leg flexed as the woman launched herself higher into the air than conceivable for a mundane, bringing her heavy combat boot around to kick the demon in it’s head. Lennon landed on it’s neck and sunk into squishy flesh, her features twisting in disgust. 

“Leon, now!” Loosing her repulsion, Len wrapped both legs around it’s neck and held on as tightly as she could. The demon thrashed wildly, raising it’s now barbless tail in an attempt to sting her. Though it’s main weapon had been unequipped it still hurt to be whipped at with the muscled limb and she let out a huff of pain as she wrestled with it. “I can’t hold it for long” Lennon implored her parabatai as she felt herself slipping. 

Leon was ready the moment Lennon called out to him — this was a routine they’d perfected over the lifetime they’d been training together. Sometimes, it felt like he’d think about moving and then Lennon’s body would respond; they were like liquid, mirror images of each other. And she was a thing of beauty — strength and control and power and rage. She was the most extraordinary being he’d ever come across. He could stare at her forever.

Her second shout shook him out of his momentary reverie — a dangerous thing to indulge in at the best of times, let alone when a disgusting monster was about to murder the love of his life. Leon grimaced and launched himself at the creature, his blade swinging down to slam into the thing’s heart. He grunted as he pulled the blade down, gauging a huge slash in its chest. A moment later, it exploded with a wicked scream.

Leon reached up to wipe some muck off his chin, taking deep breaths to calm his panting to a normal rhythm. “You good?” he asked after a moment, moving closer to Len, to brush some hair out of her face. “We should check the area, make sure it really was alone.”

The night bled away as Leon found her mouth, his kiss consuming her and all the rationality that she’d been trying to do something with. instead, the girl found herself curling impossibly closer to her partner, lips seeking the warmth of his. The taste of him flooded Lennon’s tongue and she felt intoxicated by his taste, his smell, every sensation of him drowning her. There wasn’t any way for them to go backwards any more. “Run? From the Clave. From your family. We’d be traitors, Leon, stripped of our runes if we ever got caught.” Fear was a cloud on her judgment and Len traced the runes that decorated his tawny skin, leaning closer to place the smallest kiss over one of them. 

It wasn’t until it was already too late that she noticed the demon approaching them. Lennon saw his hideous, deformed features before he really came into view. The scaled creature stood taller than the pair of them, its tongue lolling out of its mouth as it drooled in desire. Almost immediately she grabbed for Leon and pulled him backwards with her as a barbed tail swung their way. “This is what I get for finally opening up to you, huh?” Len peeked over at him from the corner of her eye as her body wound itself up, spoiling for a fight to release the energy he’d empowered her with.

The brunette charged straight towards the creature without any of the paranoia that crippled her decisions regarding him. Ducking low to avoid its dangerous tail and sharp claws, she slammed out with her seraph blade and met empty air. An attitude that nearly resembled playfulness filled her and Len smirked at the creature. Their fighting quarters were cramped in the little alley and she barely saw one of the strong arms as it slammed into her head and sending her toppling backwards into Leon. “Son of a bitch..” Lennon whispered as a sharp pain reared up behind her eyes.

Leon was about to reply with his typical optimism, shooting down every one of her objects (he wasn’t about to let her get away that easy), when his thought process was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the very thing they were out here to track. His entire stance shifted in an instant, adrenaline flooding his muscles like a long lost friend. It had been far too long since they’d been on an actual hunt. Well, it’d been a week and a half. That was an age, as far as he was concerned.

“Yeah, sure, blame me,” Leon said as he pulled his weapon from the sheath at his side. It was an ancestral seraph blade of his mother’s family, the Emberdowns; it was known as Lualgri and every time he wielded it it served as a reminder of everything he needed to live up to. Or, usually it did. It seemed a little like since he’d told Len how he felt, his family had less of a hold over him.

Leon let out a puff of air as Lennon was thrown back into him, unprepared for the force of her body slamming into him. He didn’t pause to ask if she was okay — he knew she was made of stronger stuff than that. Instead, he eyed up the alleyway they were in, and launched himself against the wall, using it to kick off and slam down on the demon, bringing his blade down into its shoulder. “You’re an ugly fucker, aren’t you?” Leon remarked as he leapt off the creature, pulling his sword from the deep wound he’d managed to carve, wincing as it caught his leg with its tail. “Still with me, Len?”

Lennon was afraid, realistically, of everything that came in the territory of loving Leon. From the moment that she’d met the striking, dark haired man the girl had felt like she was where she belonged. That didn’t stop everyone around them from creating a stigma between the pair, telling them that they weren’t supposed to have the bond that they did. Len laughed very softly at the thought, her mind a cacophony of ideas that wound her into a tight ball of fizzling, electric energy. It wasn’t until he touched her ever so gently that the magnetism between the parabatai exploded inside her. The woman stepped back from his tender hold on her as he spoke, his voice rich and warm. 

The Shadowhunter pulled uncomfortably at the black turtleneck that clung to her figure, looking anywhere but at him. “You think I don’t know I’m wrong? That being away from you doesn’t kill me inside? That I can’t FEEL you through this damned rune that binds us.” Lennon had become slightly frenetic and it reflected in the words pouring from her full pink lips. She stepped forward and reached out to him, dark green eyes rolling over his gorgeous face as she reached up to graze her fingers softly along his jawline. Being close to him filled her with a strong sense of rightness, she felt more powerful when they were together than she ever would without him. Still she ground her teeth together and stepped back with difficulty. 

“I just can’t put you in danger that way, damn it.” Len whispered under her breath as she grabbed him by his shirtfront and pulled him along down a narrow alleyway so they were less visible. They stood pressed chest to chest and though she was at least 6 inches shorter, Lennon could feel his soft breathing on her cheek. He smelled divine and she was losing a tentative grip on the fading reality. “I love you, okay. We’re in love and that fact is going to destroy a lot of things for us, so I need us to come up with a plan here, because I can’t be apart from you anymore.” 

This close to Lennon, Leon finally felt like he could breathe. For days now he felt like he’d only been able to take shallow breaths, just enough to survive. Now he was gulping down huge lungfuls, her scent in his nostrils, her fingers on his skin.

He’d dated before. Well, he’d been sent on supervised walks around the Institute with suitable matches. He knew the day was coming when his parents would heavily encourage him to marry the daughter of some political ally, to further cement their place in society. He’d always accepted it as an inevitable eventuality, assuming that a passionless existence was his fate, that love, of a kind, would grow. 

Now ... now he knew there was no way he could ever take that road. He knew what it was like to be alive, to feel every nerve ending buzz. And worst of all, he knew she felt it to. There was no going back, no opting out. No matter how long they tried to fool themselves.

As Len pressed into him, he once again gave into that uncontrolled part of himself. His hands settled on her lower back, and he leaned down to cover her mouth with his. This, somehow, was safer than at the Institute — here the only ones who might see them would be the downworlder they were out here to put down. After a moment, he lifted his head slightly, his nose still brushing the side of hers. “We could run. We’re strong, we know how to survive.” He swallowed. “I’d burn the whole thing to the fucking ground if it meant we could stay together.”

All of his blase attitude lately made her annoyed, but she was generally used to being annoyed at him. Nothing in the past several weeks had really inspired outright ire from her, not until just now. Lennon froze in anger, wanting to lash out and hit him. The woman had always had a rotten temper, but that was mostly reserved for demons, now she was ready to turn it on her other half. “That’s fucking rich coming from a Herondale. Your first words were ‘I surrender to the power of the Clave’.” Len huffed heavily at him, reaching out to grab onto his arm and pull him to a stop.

Every fiber of her being was on red alert, her body on autopilot fight mode even as she focused all of her attention at him. “And don’t you talk like you give a damn either way. It isn’t like you’ve come trying to find me either, Leon.” Lennon turned at the faint clacking sound of feet on cobblestone, her eyes scanning the blackness as she activated her night vision rune. When she found nothing in the dark, Len returned her attention to her gorgeous partner. The inspired annoyance suddenly faded away from her.

Even though she didn’t actually desire a fight, the brunette kept her emotions well clouded from him, letting nothing slip through. Inside she was close to a tragedy, emotionally stunted by the taxing events consistently taking place. Lennon felt hidden from him in a way that made her want to cry, though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually done so. Nevertheless, nothing was going to convince her that risking both of their lives for love wouldn’t be a grave mistake.

Lennon’s words stung — that was what the people who knew you the best could always do, stab you where it was most tender. It was true that his family were loyalists, incredibly powerful and well-respected. It was one of the reasons he’d always held himself so tightly, so carefully. When he and Lennon had begun to bond as small children, it had been clear his parents didn’t want him associating with a Morgenstern. To date, remaining dedicated to her was the most rebellious thing he’d ever done. Len brought out something in him — a fire that no one else could light.

“I was giving you space,” Leon retorted, his words losing some of their snap as he followed her gaze. He activated his night vision rune as well, glancing up to see if there was anything on the surrounding roofs. When he was satisfied they hadn’t stumbled on their quarry, he turned back to Lennon, surprised to see a calmer, colder visage had replaced the ire of the moment before. She’d always been better at him than this part — the hiding of her emotions. He had never seen the point.

He’d never had anything to hide before.

Leon sighed and reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder. “I hate this,” he muttered, half to himself. “I hate feeling this ... whatever is in between us now.” He hadn’t realised until the words came out of his mouth that it had felt, for days now, like there was a physical barrier between them. They had always been easy with each other’s physicality — they had to be, to learn to be each other’s shadows and mirrors — but now it felt like every touch was might opening Pandora’s box. “I ... I am yours, Len. I will almost always follow your lead, you know that. I would — will — follow you into hell. But ... you’re wrong about this. And I won’t ever pretend you’re not.”

Lennon hadn’t been as close to Leon as normal since they’d kissed the other day when they’d been sparring. The girl needed to keep a healthy level of distance between them in order to repress her own feelings for him, a necessary concession if it meant protecting him. Although he had already made his feelings clear, Len knew that he was frustrated on where they stood even more so now than before. That frustration was obvious in their interactions, so she limited the exposure. Logic, cold and factual reality, that was how she coped. 

Regardless of any opposition they would ever be in, though, she’d never let him go hunting alone. The pair of them pattered down a backstreet of the Paris city center, eyes peeled for any sign of the shax demon they were hunting. It had already killed twice in the past three days, and they had a duty to protect. Being this close to him was making Len feel warm and unbidden, yet in the same strand she was afraid. Lennon didn’t know what to say to him right now, she wasn’t used to having to choose her words so carefully with him. 

“Leon… can we talk about whatever the hell is going on?” She shrugged her shoulders a little in aggravation, though she truly had no right to already be annoyed. Lennon was actually just on edge, which generally manifested in brute displays of her unexpressed agitation. “Look I know that we can’t just be us again, okay? I’m not stupid. But I also think that you’re purposefully staying away from me and it’s counterproductive. To us training together, to us taking missions together, and just to being parabatai. We shouldn’t be apart.” 

The truth of the matter was that the distance between them had been slowly killing Leon. Before this mess, they’d been inseparable, spending nearly every waking moment together. Others around the Institute had noticed — his sister, in particular, wouldn’t shut up about it. She’d convinced herself that parabatai pair were in a massive fight, and he’d had to bribe her not to spread rumours around the place.

They could not afford to have people speculating about something being up with them, analysing their movement even more than the already were.

All his life, Leon had felt nothing but pride at his position in their world. Sure, he’d listened to Lennon’s critiques of the way things were run, and he could see her side of it. But he was content, for the most part, to just focus on what was right in front of him.

For the first time in his life, the runes on his skin felt like a prison, and it was scratching at him. Making him irritable and unpleasant.

Leon snorted at her comment. “I couldn’t agree more. We shouldn’t be apart.” He shook his head, pausing to glance down a side street for any sign of their quarry. “But, you made your choice.” He turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised. “Just never picked you for a Clave suckup, y’know?”