#hmdiscord

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“Hey! Mister… blondie!” Jace hears the voice behind him and stops, turning to see none other than Mr. Lewis rushing to catch up with him. “Sorry, I didn’t actually get your name yesterday.”

“It’s Jace,” Jace offers, obviously not thrilled about being addressed as ‘blondie’.

“Jace. Great. Hey, Jace. I need help,” Simon says.

Jace grimaces. Already? Day one and the poor guy can’t handle his-

“Any chance you know some local music stores I can swing by? This place is like… really underfunded. I have a few things I want to pick up, and I heard you play guitar so I figured you might know a place.” Simon says the last bit with a slight smirk, and Jace doesn’t have to wonder who gave him that particular bit of information, making a mental note to yell at Izzy later.

But mostly Jace is surprised that Simon’s so quick to dump personal funds into this position. Most of the others were trying to figure a way out by day one, not investing money into the place.

“Yeah, I know a place. What are you looking for?”

Simon shrugs. “Odds and ends. A few replacement strings for a few kids who can’t afford to buy them from the school, maybe some sheet music that’ll actually, you know, interest them.”

Huh. Maybe Jace didn’t give Simon enough credit at first. Jace digs into his messenger bag for some scrap paper and jots down a phone number, name, and address. “Here. If they don’t have what you’re looking for they’ll probably know who does.”

Simon takes the piece of paper and grins. “Thanks. I really appreciate it, man.”

“Sure thing,” Jace says, watching Simon turn and practically run back off in the other direction towards the music wing.

---

“What is that godforsaken noise?!’ Jace asks Alec, scrunching his entire face up in displeasure at the sound coming from the music wing.

It’s only been three days, but that wouldn’t be the fastest the students managed to overpower their music instructor by creating chaos during class.

“Looks like we may need to go rescue Mr. Lewis,” Alec sighs.

“You’re just mad he lasted this long - you only had two days in the pool,” Jace points out.

“Shut up,” Alec mutters as they approach the door to the music room and look in through the window to see…

Well, for a few seconds Jace doesn’t know what they’re seeing. The children are all seated, and there’s no mutiny to be seen. In fact, Simon stands at the front of the room and seems to be intentionally encouraging the horrible noise coming from the kids in the seats.

That’s when Jace notices what the kids have in their mouths - kazoos. One of the kids shouts “A, B, C, D, E, F you-” at the start before falling in with the kazoo like the others, causing several of the students around her to giggle into their plastic instruments.

“Well, that explains the noise,” Jace mutters. “This is awful, Alec.”

“Yeah, but look at them-” Alec says, motioning back to the window. Jace turns his gaze back to the classroom to see the students end the “song” - a term Jace uses liberally here - and fall silent, attention fully on Simon as he explains what they’re going to do next.

“I can’t believe they fell for that,” Jace says, but there’s an unexpected fondness in his tone, with just a hint of how impressed he is at the sight.

“Looks like they might not be the only ones,” Alec whispers with a wink.

Jace sputters, backing away from the door quickly. “No! Not a chance.”

“Uh-huh,” is all Alec says before heading back down the hallway the way they came. To Alec’s credit, he doesn’t say anything when Jace hangs behind to watch Simon teach through the window a little while longer.

---

“You can just sit in next time, you know,” Simon says, sidling up beside Jace in the teacher’s lounge later that day.

“What?” Jace asks even though they both know this can only be about one thing.

“I saw you at the door today. I’d love more feedback at this point, honestly, so just pop in next time! Maybe you can even pick our next song!” Simon adds enthusiastically, and not at all like he’s annoyed with Jace spying on his class uninvited.

“I didn’t even know your first song,” Jace points out.

“Come back tomorrow so I can have a witness I haven’t fled in terror yet! Also, they’ll be playing it on instruments this time around. I can’t promise it’ll sound any better, though.”

“I can’t possibly sound any worse,” Jace points out, but immediately regrets the comment when Simon’s smile drops almost immediately. He covers quickly, adding, “But I might have enough time before 8th period to stop in, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Great,” Simon says, covering any disappointment with a new smile. “Well, I better run. Have to get to that music store you told me about and grab some sheet music I had them order in. Later, Jace!”

Jace doesn’t get it. He’s been nothing but a dick since Simon showed up, but Simon is still going out of his way to be nice to him. None of the teachers go out of their way to be nice to Jace, not even his own siblings.

He also isn’t sure why he can’t just bring himself to humor Simon’s relentless positivity, because Alec is right - he is falling for it, just a little.

Not that it’ll matter if he pushed Simon away completely first.

Tomorrow. He’ll swing by tomorrow and he’ll make a better impression.

---

Tomorrow rolls around and Jace shows up during Simon’s 7th-period class again, but this time he knocks on the window to get Simon’s attention and an invitation in.

“Ah, it looks like Mr. Herondale is going to join us today,” Simons says from the front of the class. One of the students nearest to Jace shifts over a chair and pats the now-empty one for him to sit.

Jace eyes Simon warily. “Join?”

“I saved you a kazoo,” Simon says with a smirk.

Jace is about to refuse, to stand up and walk out rather than look ridiculous in front of the students he has to teach, too… but he sees that smile on Simon’s face and finds that he doesn’t want to be the cause of it vanishing for the third time in a week.

“You’ll have to pick a song I know, then,” Jace says, finally.

“We already did,” Simon states proudly, handing around the sheet music to “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. “A little birdie told me you usually use Metallica as background music in class.”

Jace stares around the room to see who the guilty student is who ratted him out but everyone avoids eye contact, focusing very intently on their sheet music instead.

“Alright, we’re going to sightread this one, but I get the feeling a lot of you should have the basic idea of it already. I know it’s old, but-”

“It’s classic,” Jace interrupts, and some of the students laugh again.

“Right, classic,” Simon corrects with a wink at the laughing students. “Alright, everyone ready?”

Jace brings the kazoo up to his lips, and despite only making noise grudgingly the first few bars, actually gets into the song after a little while. He also manages to avoid the impulse to plug his ears as the teenagers hum their way through the opening sections of the song before Simon cuts them off.

“Great! We’ll work on it a little more in-depth next week with our normal instruments. Remember, we’ll be voting next Friday on the songs we’ll be focusing on for the End of Semester Showcase, so if you like these older classics, remember to vote for them!”

The class files out but Jace stays behind to chat with Simon, even though he knows it’ll make him a little late for his own, which starts in about 6 minutes.

“Please tell me there’s a reason you’re letting them butcher all these songs,” Jace asks, waving his kazoo in the air for emphasis. He wanted to ask before but wasn’t about to question Simon’s teaching in front of the students.

“They get a feel for the melody without having to fumble over technique,” Simon explains. “And it’s fun. I’m sure you haven’t entirely abandoned fun in your life, have you, Mr. Herondale?”

Jace scrunches his nose, and isn’t sure what feels so off about Simon saying his name until he realizes it’s because Simon didn’t call him ‘Jace’ this time. Probably just because students are still milling around, but even so…

“I know how to have fun,” Jace insists. “I did the kazoo thing, didn’t I?”

Simon laughs. “You did,” he agrees. “But I was thinking more… outside of work. I am new to the area, after all…” Simon starts, obviously leading.

“Looking for someone to show you around the city?” Jace finishes for him.

“At least a good restaurant, to start,” Simon suggests hopefully.

Jace is, quite honestly, at a total loss here. He can’t get a read on Simon at all, certainly not enough of one to know if Simon is just being friendly, or naive, or if this is what Jace thinks he’s reading into it. Because it sounds a lot like Simon is fishing to set up a date, but maybe that’s just because that’s what Jace wants him to be doing.

There’s a reason why Jace came back today, after all. And he wouldn’t sit here and hum on a kazoo in front of a bunch of teenagers for just anybody, not that Simon knows that.

Simon must see the confusion written all over Jace’s face because he takes a deep breath and steels himself before speaking again.

“Maybe… as a date?” Simon continues, still hopefully, but this time with a bit more anxiousness. “You don’t have to. Or it could just be as friends… or I could never talk to you again if I totally overstepped and-”

“I think I know a few places,” Jace cuts Simon off before he can talk himself out of the idea. “Tomorrow night?”

“Great. Yeah, tomorrow night,” Simon agrees. “It’s a date.” Simon pauses again. “It… is a date, right? I realize I gave options.”

“Yes, Simon. It’s a date,” Jace confirms, rolling his eyes but smiling at the same time as he leaves to make it to his own class, hopefully not too late.