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The more Jonathan Morgenstern observed Clarissa and the other—‘good’—Jonathan, the more perplexed he became. It wasn’t just them, of course. Isabelle Lightwood quickly stood out to him too, but for different reasons altogether. She was like a cracked mirror of himself he couldn’t help but study, while the thought of his siblings only brought his mind to obsession. No one quite interested him like his siblings: the sister his Shadowhunter mother took from him and the brother whom he competed for Father’s attention.
It was… an experience, seeing them for the first time; the changeling brother came first, lugging next to a Daylighter of myth and their Shadowhunter friends, and the surprise sister appeared a day later, against the express wishes of their brother. Their reputation preceded them, as did his father’s briefings, but nothing had prepared Jonathan for living with them, even if just for a couple of days.
The other Jonathan—Jace—was loud and obnoxious. He thought himself so clever, but Jonathan could see him for who he truly was: a charlatan. He taunted easy and was so fun to rile up. Jonathan enjoyed doing that, testing him, and wondered if other brothers were like that with each other.
Clarissa—Clary—was stubborn as a mule. It almost took him by surprise. She and their father were alike in that way, despite him being absent during her formative years. It was proof of the strength, of the influence, of the blood that connected them.
The Lightwood boy—Alec—was serious, with a loyalty he could admire. Unlike Jonathan, he covered himself with very few masks. His bluntness made him easy to navigate around but also disquieted him. It was almost alien for Jonathan, wearing his feelings on his sleeve.
Alec’s sister—Isabelle—was confident, and with good reason. Her abilities spoke for themselves, and it didn’t hurt that she was as smart as her whip. Around her, Jonathan had to be cautious not to slip up, and in this endeavor, Isabelle’s own temper played against her. The fire of her anger blinded her to his cracks. He enjoyed her company, still, little as he shared it. She was someone with a lot of talent, always crying out for her parent’s attention—it was something he could more than understand. In that, he saw himself in her.
Their little brother—Max—wasn’t a very lively child, always with a book on hand, but with lots of opinions. A lot of them meaningless, some not so much. Most of the time he spent around him was a direct consequence of hanging out with Isabelle, but he didn’t mind his presence that much. Max was so… light, even innocent. It was disquieting. He couldn’t imagine he had ever been like that at his age, even if the way Max scurried off at his family’s behest, with a quiet but ever-present anger at being inadequate, rang familiar.
The vampire—Simon—was clueless, but that was to be expected. He was newly turned, with just under a month of being part of the Shadow World, and even less than that at being a Daylighter. However that happened, no one had being able to tell—not his father, not the intelligence from the Verlacs, and not even the few whispers that reached him from the faeries whose inclinations tended towards the demonic—but it made him now a monster even amongst monsters. It was a shame that he didn’t stay for long.
With Aline Penhallow he was a little more familiar. He wasn’t actually her cousin Sebastian Verlac, but whilst she remained ignorant of that fact, she was pleasant to hang out with. Jonathan had spent his days training with Aline and taking long strolls around her family manor. She was abrasive, yet also perceptive when she put her mind to it. For long periods of time now, she had started to leave him to his reading in the evenings, and he appreciated that. It was time he used to go over all the information Valentine had given him and also the many missives from Élodie Verlac to her late nephew. Her net of informants was vast and overreaching, and he wouldn’t squander the opportunity that presented itself almost by accident. Who would have thought the old lady not only kept tabs on the Shadowhunters coming from New York but also kept her nephew in the loop about many other comings and goings of the Shadow World, especially of those that he was supposed to meet in his path before Jonathan violently cut it short.
It was also time he used to maintain some semblance of peace of mind. Aline and her parents were more people than he was accustomed to dealing with daily, and that was without mentioning all the servants that helped take care of the state. Her bubbly personality didn’t help any, either.
Jonathan suspected that the reason for his struggle laid in having only lived with his father while growing up, with sporadic visits from his true mother, Lilith. It was, perhaps, also the reason he didn’t understand the drama between Aline, Jace, and Clary.
Aline caught him just after it happened, and of course, he was going to lend her an ear. She was bewildered and a little off about the whole encounter, and she was more than happy to share her ruminations with him.
“She was so strange, you know?” Aline said as she finished her tale. “I understand it can be awkward to see that of your brother—well, no, I don’t have any siblings, but I can imagine.”
Jonathan wasn’t following; the only sibling he ever knew he had, he wanted to kill for most of his life. He didn't know what to do with a sister, even though he imagined she would answer to the call of their blood and join them. As soon as she came to their side, though—he didn't know what he’d do.
He gave her a mild laugh regardless. “That bad, huh?”
She put her head on her hands, muffling a pitying laugh. “By the Angel, I was so embarrassed. My blouse was only halfway done, and I didn’t even enjoy it that much. Please tell me you’ve passed for something similar, that some girl’s family found you with your tongue in her mouth.”
Jonathan fumbled for an answer; he hadn’t anticipated this turn in the conversation.
“I—I don’t, that is, I don’t really—the opportunity hasn’t presented itself.” He was red all over. Aline groaned.
“Of course not, you are too proper for that.”
“Well,” said Jonathan, even though he should have left it at that, “I just think it’s something I don’t get much. I’ve—tried it, but I don’t understand the kind of excitement that would let you forget where and when you are. I think it’s horrible to contemplate you could just forget your surroundings.”
Aline looked at him oddly, now, as if examining him. “Maybe…” she trailed off. “Have you thought…” and that line of thought was never finished either.
“Out with it, Aline.”
“Maybe it’s not girls,” she blurted, flushing. “I know, I know it’s not… that the Clave... that our family might not understand… but have you ever thought… about another boy?”
Jonathan denied this too. It wasn’t a matter of the gender of his partner, rather than he abhorred to lose control like that, and could not afford to when he had a mission in mind, so he didn’t.
“Are you sure? I think I understand… Jace wasn’t exactly ‘my type’ if you know what I mean.”
He didn’t but kept quiet. He only confirmed his previous reply. “But it’s perhaps because I don’t see many people. It’s mostly just me and… Aunt Élodie,” he added; it was a lie, but one meant to placate her and force him back on character. Though raised mostly in isolation, he wouldn’t have become any good at lying if he had practised with a wall. Father had taught him many things, among them how to move in a crowd, and Mundanes were drawn to them like ants.
“Maybe,” she allowed with a frown on her face. “What do you think about then?”
A world with Shadowhunters in their proper place in society, he would have said if his father had asked. A world overrun by demons with me as its king, he would have said if his true mother had asked. But they didn’t, so he shrugged and said, “Training, mostly.”
“I would never be so lucky,” she said, self-deprecating in tone. She hugged herself. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I thought I liked Jace when I was a kid because he was fearless, and I thought I could like Jace now because he is handsome. I don’t.”
Again, Jonathan was left befuddled. He’d always seen kissing, from the soft pecks on the lips to the one that made your partner's eyes lid and leave them breathless, as a distraction, as a way to get past someone’s defences, close enough to stab them in the front and watch death take them; it was never about desire for him, though in some ways he knew it was supposed to be for everybody else. It was why it left them distracted. It was why it was effective. It was also, he could see now, another way he had been born wrong, incomplete, and nothing his father ever did would fix him—never being truly perfect, just a perfect monster.
Valentine had trained him for kissing girls, but Jonathan hadn't realised until now that it wouldn't have been proper Shadowhunter behaviour to enact those same skills on someone of his own gender, if he was reading correctly between the lines. He hadn’t noticed the reason his father never made him seduce Mundane boys was that he might have frowned upon it.
He didn’t understand why he might have disapproved, to be perfectly honest, but it was just another item in a long list of things he wouldn't ever get for being what he was. His mother didn't love him, so it was a sentiment he couldn't ever replicate. Of course it's intricacies and unspoken rules evaded him when he couldn't muster the feeling inside him.
But Jonathan had learnt many things, and the only way to master this was to experience the ritual until its completion, and with the right companion, instead of cutting it short with a knife to the sternum. From there, with practice, analyze every layer of it, until he perfected the art of attraction.
Jonathan could understand even now the appeal of becoming another person's whole world without fearing there would be any affection under the surface, of being what they wanted and being desired for that. Jonathan could also understand the roughness of it, the nails he knew would be leaving marks he'd barely feel on skin he wished he didn't own. Anger and hatred coming to life under the guise of affection—that was something he could even swear by. The rest of it always seemed—unnecessary, to him, and he was going to pay for that now.
Jonathan had indeed learnt many things. It would be painful to learn this one, to not reach for a weapon when the girls got close, to let it end naturally, but that was nothing knew. Both failure and success brought their own pains. It would be strange if this lesson left him unscathed. Already, he could feel the discomfort weighting him down like a rock.
“How do you know you want to kiss someone? Maybe I missed it,” he said, tone light and airy, as if holding back a laugh.
Aline didn’t respond immediately, and he knew the deflection had not landed well. She cast her eyes downwards and played with the top button of her blouse; her hunched shoulders made her seem smaller. “You aren’t making fun of me, are you?
Jonathan bridged the distance between them as he slung an arm over her shoulder and squeezed lightly, hesitantly. Causing her harm would not help him now, but his skin already tingling uncomfortably proceeded to prickle with more vigor at the act—not that she would notice. He'd kept a better mask under worse conditions before.
“Never, Aline. It’s an honest question.”
She blew air out of her mouth. “So it’s not because of Jace?”
“I don’t like Jace either,” he confessed, which made her snicker. “A bit too full of himself, I think. You can do better.”
“I can do better,” she agreed with a shaky smile. “All right. I’d say you want to be near that person. You want to have their whole attention on you, and make them happy. Sometimes… this is a bit cheesy so don’t tease, but… sometimes you feel as if you’ve been waiting for them your whole life. You want them to love you. Does that make sense? Can you think of anyone?”
Jonathan nodded, finally making sense of things. Maybe he did experience this feeling, after all. Just because he had not been taught to identify it, it didn’t mean he didn’t have it. Just because his demon blood might have hidden from him those desires, it didn’t mean he could not find his way around them. Just because it made his stomach turn in on itself at the mere thought, it didn't mean he wouldn't tame it.
Of course it was her, when they were supposed to be the same.
But there was still one problem. Aline might be ignorant of the true reason Clary had reacted the way she did—cold and somehow scandalised at the same time—but he wasn’t. Father had made him aware, and Élodie Verlac's intel rounded well his information. He knew what his brother and sister felt for each other; though before he thought he didn’t understand it, perhaps he did. And even if he didn't—he could use that.
“You are weird,” Aline told him after a bout of silence, “and I’m not saying this because you didn’t get what it was to want to… stick your tongue in anyone as you loose your awareness of your surroundings.” Jonathan barked a laugh. “I don’t mean this just for right now. You like your space, but you are lonely. You are always happy and accommodating, but you have biting humour. You use your day clothes to sleep, which is insane, by the way. I also don’t think you care about a lot of things, or at least as half as many as you want me to think you do. You’re my cousin, but I barely used to know you. You were just… another name. It feels good that I know at least this much about you now. So, you are kinda weird, but you are a good guy. I promise I won’t tell anyone what you told me.”
Jonathan smiled and thanked her, before making an excuse to ditch her, suddenly feeling utterly unsettled.
If Aline believed him to be happy and accommodating, it meant his cover was working. He tried to feel smug about it, but could not erase completely his unease. Jonathan wasn’t bothered by her statement on his morality—he already knew he had none. Goodness wasn’t something he particularly cared for, knowing he was a monster from a young age, and the sin that kept his heart beating couldn't be trained out of him. His humanity had been burned down long before he was born, and it left him behind, hollowed out and yet heavy. He didn’t understand goodness for goodness’ sake, he didn’t understand those who were ruled by that edict either, and he wasn’t interested in learning besides. It served his purposes that Aline believed otherwise.
What had unnerved him was how easily she had seen him even though all that, even if just a fraction of his true self, even if they were so verily different. In a handful of sentences, he was reminded he could not hide forever, because forever wouldn’t work. He could mask his intentions, but never the little things that defined him, which meant that, eventually, someone would feel the taint in his blood and raise the alarms.
Jonathan inspected his to-do list and knew his timetable was short. He needed to get to Clary before everything came crashing down and Jace finished sweeping her off her feet. The fact that they were brother and sister had put a strain on their relationship, no doubt due to the Mundane’s ideas about the taboo, but it had not fully stopped them either. Even now, Jonathan had people inside the Seelie Court, who although would never see things Valentine’s way, they saw it Lilith’s way, and Jonathan could play both sides, not beholden to speak the truth as they were. In other words, it meant he knew what had happened between his sister, his brother, and the vampire.
If Jace’s supposed demon blood was not a deterrent to Clary’s love and desire, he would be able to gain her affection too. Never mind that his skin ached with every careful caress. For his sister, who was so determined to love a monster, he would show her a real one, and she would understand him as no one else did. In the face of that, he wouldn't deny her the affections her body craved. Her angel blood would not separate them, because the rest of her had to be calling out for him too—only she didn’t know. Just like his demon blood could have been deterring him from making the connection, because it was vile and corrupted what it touched, hers had placed too much importance on morality—Mundane morality, even when they were above them, not only in virtue of being Shadowhunters, but Valentine's children, and so they should never shackle themselves to them.
If romance was what Clary wanted, it was what he would give her. It was how he was going to ensure she came to his side. He would become perfect in this too; he would show her the weakness of their changeling brother, and she would choose him.
Jonathan just needed to approach her; offer her comfort when their brother had offered scorn. Aline’s kiss with Jace was going to prove fruitful. Perhaps one day he would even thank her for her sacrifice, and it might even be honest.