daydream. // jalec + malec

frostbite.

Alec wasn't certain when he stopped running. His legs kept moving, feet shuffling underneath him at a rapid pace, the woods becoming nothing more than a blur of mixed greens and browns. The sun had been replaced by a shimmering moon hours ago, the bright object in the sky illuminating his path and causing the branches of the trees around him to be lined with silver, until suddenly, there was nothing. The clouds from earlier's storm had returned, starting off slow in their arrival, eventually gaining intensity and replacing any rays of light the moon may have previously been casting. Snow began falling, delicate flakes cascading silently down to the wet ground and gently attaching themselves to Alec's boots as he stood, leaning against a towering pine, trying desperately to catch his breath. The chill seemed to bite deep into his bones with a ravaging ferocity, the wind whipping around his shoulders with enough force to rival that of a hurricane, and he couldn't help but wonder how long he would be able to stay in the protection of this forest before frostbite began to set in.

    He wanted to keep running. No, Alec needed to keep running, to get as far away from the truth as he possibly could, putting hundreds of miles inbetween himself and the rest of the world, the rest of the Shadowhunters. He knew Izzy would be concerned, and with this knowledge came the realization that she was probably already in the process of looking for him, undoubtedly going to all extremes that didn't include sending out a military-led search party. This fed his urge to escape even more, and he forced himself a few hundred more feet before he finally collapsed, exhaustion and fatigue catching up to him, fingers grasping clumps of frost-covered foliage as he struggled to push himself back up. He wanted nothing more than to simply lay back down, to close his eyes and enter the realm of solitude that came with it, but a nagging voice in the back of his mind kept screaming at him, reminding of the potentially fatal consequences that falling asleep in a winter storm could have. Even so, the fact that he could very well die tonight didn't scare him half as much as the prospect of facing the others did. If Alec returned to the Institute, the place that was becoming more and more like a prison and less like an actual home, everything would be different, in each sense of the word. His entire life had changed in the span of a day, the strings in the fabric that held his world together tearing and ripping at the seams until it felt as if they would disintegrate completely. Until now, Izzy and Clary had been the only ones who knew of his secret, and Alec had been intent on keeping it that way for as long as he possibly could. He had promised himself that he would die before he let anyone else find out, and yet, in the cramped basement of a warlock's apartment across town, appearing in the face of a malevolent demon, Jace Wayland now knew that Alec Lightwood was irrevocably and undeniably in love with him.

    Alec admitted that he probably shouldn't have been this upset. He should have felt relieved; after all, everything was now out in the open, and there was no sense in hiding anything anymore. The truth was, however, he was afraid, never once remembering a time in which he had been as frightened as he was in this current moment, sitting in the middle of an unknown wooded area, snow caking onto his eyelashes and forming frozen layers on his sleeves. He was fearless in battle, not showing any sort of hesitation no matter what demons he was faced with, running headfirst into a burning warzone before anyone else could even blink. It was only when confronted with his own emotions that Alec's weaknesses were revealed, and no matter how hard he would try and say otherwise, Jace was his number one weakness. It had been this way since Alec was young, when he had first been introduced to the fellow Shadowhunter, the blonde-haired boy with heterochromia and a fierce heart of gold capturing him in a way he had never thought was possible.

    The thing that cast the most terror in Alec, though, wasn't the knowledge that Jace was aware of his secret--it was the uncertainty of it all. He wasn't certain how he would react when he did see him again, nor did he know if he would be angry at him for keeping something so important and so risky from him. Jace was unpredictable, at least when it came to his own feelings, and this combined with everything else caused the same dull ache to return to his chest. He didn't know much, but if Alec knew anything, it was that his relationship with Jace would more than likely never be the same again. It would be laced with hesitation and awkwardness, becoming guarded and replacing the carefree and strong Parabatai bond they had always maintained.