Jalec Week 2015

Day 2: Bloody Chairs

Angst and canon divergence.

Jace raised his hand to knock on the door but thought better of it for some reason. Maybe it was best he just went on with his life. But his parabatai rune was stinging like it never had before. He knew the pain wasn't any sort of physical type-- Alec was fine-- but it was emotional. 

He leaned his forehead against the dark door. The lights in the hall were out, all the doors shut.

Behind the door next door, Isabelle was sleeping and beyond her, Max. Across the hall from Max was Jace and Clary was using the guest room next to his. 

And Clary was the problem. 

Clary was the reason he was standing outside Alec's room feeling like the world was crashing around him. 

Instead of knocking, he opened the door slowly and silently. 

"Alec?" Jace asked, softly, taking a step in. He shut the door behind him and the light in the room grew a little bit brighter.

"Jace, please, go," Alec's exhausted voice said. 

"We should talk," Jace said, turning to face his best friend, his brother, his--

"I can't," Alec said, standing up out of the chair he had been curled up in, a chair made in the 20s. The Lightwoods belonging to the Roaring Twenties generation had got it from a vampire raid. There was a speck of blood near the base of the black fabric chair. Jace said it gave it character, the blood appropriate decor for a Shadowhunter's room. Alec said it creeped him out and the only reason he didn't remove it was because he didn't want to risk staining the chair with chemicals. So Alec used it for reading most nights and crying on the others. 

"Please," Jace begged again.

"I think you said what you had to say."

"I didn't say anything!" Jace snapped. "I didn't-- I didn't get the chance to defend myself."

"What can you say to make this better?" Alec asked, shrugging his long arms helplessly. They were encased in a soft knit sweater that went on even past his fingertips. 

"I can tell you--" Jace stopped. He couldn't say anything and actually mean it. Because kissing Clary was not like kissing Alec. 

With Alec there was no sense of necessity or urgency; it was lazy and Jace didn't like lazy. He wanted energy, fervency, passion and Clary was all of that. And he could never say it aloud but Clary was the safe option in more ways than one. Alec was a thousand different combinations of dangerous. Alec could ruin the Shadowhunter legacy he fantasized about leaving. 

Jace sat on the edge of Alec's bed, still watching Alec.

"You can't," Alec said, completing his thoughts. "I'd just rather have you admit you're done with me."

"Alec, I'm never-- You and I are--"

"But never like you and Clary," Alec said. "Don't pretend. You know what love is. And you know you're in love with her."

"I don't want to cast you aside," Jace said, wringing his hands together, as if whatever they had could just be expelled from him like water out of a towel. 

"Whatever," Alec said, crossing his arms.

"I thought you and Magnus Bane--"

"Please," Alec laughed. "It's bad enough being gay and in love with my parabatai and you want me to add a warlock into my love life? Jace, just go."

"I don't like this," Jace said.

"We'll just do what we always do: wake up in the morning and act like nothing happen." Alec smiled horribly. "Get out."

That was a slap to the face. Alec was rarely sharp with Jace unless he had done something incredibly stupid or risked his life. 

So he pushed himself off the bed, staring down Alec. He was getting no satisfaction from this like he got from other conversations. This just hurt.

He took a step closer Alec. He could still make this right. . . He had to make this right. . . 

"I'm sorry," Jace said, putting a hand on Alec's face.

"Sorry that it didn't work or sorry that you hurt me?" Alec asked. 

"Both," Jace said, as if it were obvious. 

"Why her?" Alec asked. 

"You don't care," Jace said.

"I do care," Alec said, stepping away. Jace's arm fell to his side. "I want to know what you see in her. I want to know what about her makes you smile so damn much. And I want to know why you ever got the notion that kissing her would be okay!"

"We were never really official."

"Official?" Alec laughed. "Jace, neither of us were about to come out to our parents, let alone make it 'official.'"

"You could have told me--"

"What? That I wanted the deeper emotional connection to rather than the occasional hook up when one of us felt like it? How would that conversation have gone?"

"Awkwardly. . ." Jace trailed off.

"And it's just a joke to you," Alec said. "As always."

"Are you officially kicking me out?"

"I'm officially ending our unofficial relationship," Alec said, nodding. "And so now you have no reason to be in my room."

Jace wanted to step forward and kiss Alec until the other boy realized how sorry Jace really was. 

But he knew better. 

So he walked out, a stain on his heart like the blood on the chair.