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There had been a time when Jace felt all of Alec’s emotions, easily shared between them, even as he had himself been reluctant to share how he felt. His father’s lessons had held him back, to love is to destroy, and to trust was to be destroyed, but something about Alec Lightwood and his sincerity and awkward kindness that had begun to thaw Jace.
He hadn’t meant to be thawed, hadn’t even realised the extent of the walls he'd built around his heart, until his new family, his new siblings, began to melt them. Those walls were made of nothing more substantial than ice, and his heart had been like a plant frozen within its confines until bright and warm sunshine forced it to melt.
And you couldn’t get brighter than Izzy or warmer than Alec, even if the latter fact seemed hard for most people to ever see. He had told Clary that Alec didn’t like anyone, a blatant lie he had regretted speaking the moment it was out. But he had been trying to reassure her, and somehow the truth, saying “he’s jealous” seemed more disrespectful and disloyal than the lie. As much as he didn’t want to hurt Clary, he would always hate himself if he betrayed Alec.
Not when Alec had been the best thing to happen to him. Alec who had incredibly, impossibly not punched Jace in the nose for smug unsolicited advice, for unnecessary tantrums, for all his major or minor rebellions. Alec had always stayed, despite all of Jace’s pushing him away, all the tests Jace put him through expecting each to be the final straw, Alec stayed. He had planted himself next to Jace, within all his frozen and sharp walls, kept him warm and he was not going anywhere.
For weeks after their parabatai ceremony, Jace had spent every night tracing his fingers over the rune on his hip, relishing Alec’s sleepy presence in his mind, letting himself feel all the affection he never could when they were conscious. He would have a piece of Alec with him always, and he couldn’t imagine anything better.
And then, of course he had ruined it all. Loved and destroyed. Stepped over the invisible line in the sand he hadn’t even realised Alec had drawn.
It was soon after their first patrol, one where Alec had taken up the same role he always had in training, to stay in the background, protecting Jace and Izzy as they led the attack. Alec had wounded, deterred or stalled demons just enough for Jace and Izzy to take them out; he had protected them.
But then they’d had to report back to their parents- more than anything else to reveal their numbers, and Alec’s excitement at how well they’d worked as a team had slowly been taken over by nervousness, fear, and finally shame as he had to look their parents in the face and admit he had not himself killed a single demon.
And Jace had felt it all, underneath his own triumph, a small twist of unhappiness prickling at him. Alec himself was noticeably absent at dinner and neither of their parents asked after him.
Later, Jace had found him on the roof of the institute, loosing off arrow after arrow, his hands raw and bleeding, a bruise slowly forming over his unprotected forearm. And the bond… it had been pulsing with hurt and shame and humiliation, bad enough that Jace felt even his own reassuring smile dim and his head automatically be held lower than it would. Those weren’t his emotions, they were Alec’s.
He hadn’t planned for what to do once he had traced Alec to the roof, unsure how to comfort someone, but wanting so much to try. Alec was hurting, and that felt utterly unacceptable to Jace, a full decade of indoctrinated indifference crumbling in the face of their bond, and Alec’s hurt.
He had tried to reason with Alec, tried to encourage him, he had put himself in the path of Alec’s arrows to stop him from shooting off another arrow and worsening his hand. But Alec only kept insisting he was fine, that he had been the one to mess up and he could accept his punishment. Until Jace finally snapped back “No! I can feel you hurt through the bond!”
He had known it was the wrong thing to say the moment he felt a sudden surge of betrayal that shot from Alec towards him. Alec must have seen his expression change to register that new emotion,
For months, Jace had been feeling everything Alec felt through their bond, every detail, and he had never suggested Alec close it on his side. He had not wanted Alec to close his side of the bond.
But Jace? His father had spent too long talking about the weakness of parabatai bonds, too long training him on how to shield himself, and some of it had stuck. Without even consciously making the choice, he had been hiding his emotions from Alec, without ever thinking of the lack of trust it implied. And Alec had never known.
That was the day Alec shut off as much of his side of the bond as he could, clumsily at first, bits of him bleeding through, but he kept getting better and better at it. And nothing Jace did, none of his attempts to open himself up or talk to Alec could ever convince his brother to let him in. It was a while before he realised what caused that to happen, shame.
Alec had set him up on the same pedestal Jace pretended he had sat his own self on, and Alec felt inferior to him, been often told he was inferior, until all the smallest things began to convince him of it. And then he felt ashamed for how he felt about Jace.
It was not what a parabatai bond was meant to do, but with no way of changing things, he couldn’t help it. There were always the good times, moments where they moved as one in battle, moments where they could stand across a room and still share amusement over something with just the bright spark of laughter shot at each other, moments where he felt unmoored and lost until the calm reassurance from Alec felt like his anchor bringing him back home.
Such moments made it harder to address what he had always known was going wrong, until Jace had believed their connection would always be muted, always hurt that way, only half open, and only pain so intense it couldn’t completely be hidden bleeding through. And then Max arrived, and he realised Alec had, uncharacteristically, slipped up.
He saw Alec smile at their younger brother, play with him, and tease him, and realised Alec was so focussed on hiding all the worst of his emotions, and so unused to being free and happy, he forgot there were any other emotions had to shield Jace from.
His brother had never attempted to seal their bond to hide any positive emotions before, he had never had to, and somehow, it seemed he’d forgotten he even needed to do so.
And in a moment of stunning anticlimax, what years of repressed longing and pain managed to boil down to was: Jace himself sitting in a front row seat, watching what promised to be a mess of teenage hormones presenting nearly a decade too late, and his brother's first real crush.
It was ridiculous. And it was endearing. If they weren’t doing their thing where everyone pretended Alec was as straight as his arrows when everyone also knew he was anything but, and if he and Alec weren’t… at odds, he would’ve told his brother to go for it. A dastardly memory stealing warlock didn’t seem like the best first lover, but it would be entertaining and educational if nothing else. Bane looked like he knew a thing or two.
And he seemed kind at least. Alec deserved kindness above all.
And so, there Jace was, watching Alec stutter through some kind of an overture, and unable to help the way he was glaring at Bane. As much as Alec would be offended and annoyed, and probably confused by it, Jace would never let anyone hurt his brother and get away with it.
No outsider anyway, he amended, remembering how he had never been able to protect Alec from their parents. It was always Alec who took the worst brunt of pressure and expectation and disapproval, and Jace couldn’t help him with it. Alec seemed to think Jace and Izzy would’ve broken under that strain too long ago, and he was probably right about it.
What was less amusing was the constant stream of “hes so pretty, he's so pretty, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, oh my god he is so pretty.” that was running through his mind, barely in his consciousness and truly without his own input into the matter.
He could feel his heart suddenly and without warning begin to race, every single time Alec looked at Magnus, a hitch in his breath, the slightest prickle of awareness along his spine and heat in his cheeks. And each time Jace would have to close his eyes and focus on his breathing, and attempt to project some semblance of calm he could spare at his brother.
Only Alec refused to have any of it, too caught up in the glittering warlock who was so blatantly flirting with him.
Jace grit his teeth, and tried to breathe himself into a state of calm. It seemed every time his eyes were drawn to the warlock, every single part of his mind- or perhaps a very very loud and overwhelmed part of his soul- was struck by the word beautiful, and variations thereof. He had noticed the catlike quality to Bane’s eyes and somewhere in the back of his mind, the world breathtaking had been imprinted, he watched Bane swirl his fingers in what seemed to Jace a ridiculously dramatic flourish, and the part of his mind that was Alec stuttered to a stop, caught between gracefulmagicalwonderful and jolt of pure desire.
Magnus Bane was already ruining his poor brother, and in all that room, the only sign of it was Jace’s own thoughts racing recklessly in directions he knew he hadn’t directed them.
Sure, Bane wouldn't be breaking any mirrors he looked into, but Jace was beginning to resent the way his eyes kept flicking over to travel over the warlock's features as sheer awe and disbelief and the need to keep looking at him washed over his mind. He didn’t even want to look at Bane, Alec did. Alec was the one trying to memorise every feature like he was saving rations for a long travel through the desert. Jace groaned, saving up for his spank bank more like.
He wondered how Alec ever imagined he was in any closet beyond a purely transparent flimsy glass affair when he tended to broadcast his interest so openly.
It had never been this bad even when he looked at Jace, but to be fair it had never been bad at all when he looked at Jace himself. The only emotions the bond ever let him feel were ones he himself felt on seeing Alec’s grumpy, exasperated and very very beloved face. Perhaps now his brother might realise what Jace had known for some years, that Jace might be the safe choice, the easy choice for a crush, but he had still not really been chosen as Alec’s crush so much as a stand in.
The emotions through the bond muted and dulled somewhat, and Jace looked over to find Magnus Bane had turned away from Alec. He had no doubt the warlock was watching Alec watch himself in the shining glass windows, but Alec didn’t know that. He felt quite unhappy to no longer be the center of Bane’s attention and Jace found himself, his own self rather than Alec, willing the man to turn around again.
Alec only saw Magnus turn away, and the disappointment and self consciousness he felt at his blundering had now taken over- emotions he kept away from Jace.
Magnus had now been approached by Izzy, who was fiddling around with their phones. Giving him Alec’s number Jace could bet. Alec himself was drooping a little as he wandered around the perimeter of the room, taking in Bane’s decor, and completely missing how all three pairs of eyes in the room were directed at him.
Jace rolled his eyes, a form of self expression he always said he’d caught from Alec and the bond, and made the best of his temporary respite. He turned and walked back towards who he considered was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.
Clary Fairchild, she was kneeling on the floor, a frown of concentration on her face as she practiced the next part of the pattern in the air, practicing, before finally putting chalk to floor. Her red hair fell over her shoulder, and the new rune stood stark against her pale skin.
Her hand paused as she finally realised she was being watched, and as she looked up, she smiled at him, bright and hopeful, and just a little bit mischievous.
In a way, Jace was glad Alec was so taken with Magnus, and so incapable of being interested in Clary. He found it impossible that anyone could see her and not fall in l… and not like her very much. And he had no desire at all to fight his parabatai for any girl.
He stepped forward and came to join her on the floor, Alec’s helpless awed litany of prettyshinysmileprettykindprettywarlock fading from his mind in her company.
She talked as she worked, of her plans for university, of her art, of the things she enjoyed sketching best, the strange things she had begun to draw recently, and he couldn’t look away.
All he could do was shut off the part of the bond that he knew would project his feelings for Clary over to Alec. He knew it contributed to his parabatai’s hurt, that Alec could remember the way he had been shut out in the beginning whenever Jace did it even now, but what else could he do?
He had always tried to shut off how he felt about girls, ever since the first time he saw Alec struggling with the fact that he didn’t like them the way nephilim society wanted him to. Alec had been clinging to normalcy, tried to make up a story of a girl who did date him, and Jace for his part tried not to let his own growing attraction to women confuse a journey Alec would find challenging enough in itself.
He and Izzy had researched into what it meant for Alec to be Alec and be gay, without ever putting into words why. They would use no words until Alec used them himself, but she had known because she always knew her brother best, and he had known because he could feel the jolt of adrenaline, the rapid beat of Alec’s heart around some men.
Neither of them had any reference for it, not in Shadowhunters society, all they’d known was that this was Alec, and Alec couldn’t be anything but good. It the unwritten rules of society called him wrong, it was the rules Jace and Izzy would question.
He had for his part looked up the compulsion to believe oneself heterosexual, the belief that vague feelings that followed the norm were stronger than the conviction that didn’t, and he had decided to never let himself interfere with how Alec felt about this left of himself.
Beyond the whole crush-not-crush issue anyway. And he had Izzy had done their best to introduce more of media which had included gay characters in it- only for it to end disastrously in every way. Very few such men ever had a happy ending, and if that wasn’t enough to scare anyone, the look of longing and sadness on Alec’s face, and the sadness he could feel slip through the bond had been. They began to leave Alec alone.
Alec seemed painfully ready and willing to be alone, but maybe, for a while at least, Magnus Bane could keep him company. And maybe some day, their parabatai bond would do what it was meant to in that way.
Speaking of Bane, the doors slowly began to close themselves, and Jace reached for his Angel blade, pushing Clary behind him as he prepared himself. And the the doors few open, and Magnus Bane made his dramatic entrance. Had the man really done all that just for the drama?
Jace’s eyes swept the room, taking in Clary as she let out a small squeal and moved as through to protect her pentagram from the wind, over to Magnus Bane looking anxiously over at Alec to ensure he had witnessed their entrance, to Alec who was once again broadcasting infatuation while pretending not to look, and over to Izzy who had made her own sweep and was waiting to catch his eye and share the joke.
“The only one who could draw this well was Michelangelo,” Bane was now saying, ridiculously self conscious, to the point of standing on tip toes just to check Alec’s reaction, “Who was excellent in bed I might add.”
Jace groaned internally, Bane would not be trying so hard if he only knew Alec’s internal monologues, and how Alec had, oh dear Angel found that admission hot.
He caught Izzy’s eye again, and struggled not to laugh. “Michelangelo, really?” She mouthed at him, and perhaps Clary as well. Alec for his part was now staring mesmerised at Magnus’s hand, the irritating chains-and-rings affair chiming with every movement the warlock made. Magnus in turn kept adding extra flourishes in every moment as he watched Alec watch him.
The clamour had begun again, a chorus of prettybeautifulmagnificentmagicalwonderfulbeautifulhot that Jace was equal parts glad and regretful Bane couldn’t hear. He wasn’t sure if the encouragement would stop the man from being so embarrassingly obvious after all, but it might feed his ego too much.
Bane shifted his weight a little, adding a small swing to the movement of his hips, and Alec audibly gulped. Alright, that was enough, Jace did not want another one of those irritating jolts of need to shoot through his body.
He kicked Alec on the shoe and Izzy really did snicker that time. She was being entirely too smug about all of this. Her smugness was only heightened as they linked hands, and Jace was tempted to break the chain and muss up her hair the way he used to when they were kids. That habit had ended when she twisted his arm and pinned it behind his back one memorable day, a move Alec smugly admitted he had been practicing with her for weeks.
Et tu, Parabatai?
It was a fond memory of Jace’s own, but not one he expected the demon would ask for in payment. He had many more which claimed that spot more easily. He frowned as he tried to remember all his fondest memories of Alec, trying to cling on to them as much as he could, trying to reassure himself there were more just like them if he lost one.
He saw Izzy too, her arms around Alec, holding him still in an embrace he was attempting to escape with all the desperation and gracelessness a cat would show if dunked in water. Izzy had started to lean against Alec, sure that he’d never move away if it meant letting her stumble, and her other arm was extended towards him, inviting. Over her head, Alec, one arm wrapped around her, watched Jace come closer to join the hug with a fond exasperation in his eyes.
Family.
Jace knew with a sickening lurch in his stomach that this memory, this moment of acceptance and family would be what he would have to lose to return Clary’s own family to her, and a selfish part of him wanted to wrench his arm away.
But he couldn’t.
Instead, he grit his teeth and sifted through his mind, trying to find some other memory he could offer. One of those hazy ones of his father. Could the demon be fooled?
The demon had taken Izzy’s fondest memory already, and it was no surprise that it was Alec. He had always been her protector and hero and enabler, raising her when they were children themselves, eating anything she cooked, helping her practice her makeup, practicing lessons she found difficult with her, distracting their parents from her when she was in trouble. Alec had been everything she needed from parent to brother to best friend, and everyone except Alec himself could see that. His smiles were rare, and it hurt Jace to think that was what she cherished above all. He hoped they didn’t both lose the same memory of Alec.
Both Jace and Max had teased Izzy about playing favourites between her brothers, and she had always teased them about having the same favouritism problem in return. An Alec problem.
He hoped if memories had to be of a single person, he could keep hold of his own fondest memory of her and Alec together. Jace’s brother and sister.
The demon was taking a memory from Clary now, perhaps her mother judging by the red hair. Jace found his grip tightening as the urge to let go became stronger.
And then it was Alec’s turn. And that was when alll hell, or at least one single demon from hell, broke loose..