CHAPTER TWO
IRATZE RUNE
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Punching things, Adrian learned, was very therapeutic.
The comforting thud as fists met leather. The ache in his knuckles each time they made contact. The burning in his muscles. The release of anger and tension and stress into the punching bag itself, like the bag was a sponge absorbing it all. The heat of the training room, the mats on the floor and walls, the training weapons; everything in that room was meant to train children into warriors, but all Adrian saw was a healthy way to let out his feelings. A way to let them out without hurting anyone around him.
He didn't like hurting people. He wasn't like Jace, who covered his pain with sarcasm and a wall around his heart. He wasn't like Isabelle, who got the comfort she needed from physical affection but nothing deeper, who left a trail of broken hearts in her wake. And he wasn't like Alec, who kept things in for so long that he ended up lashing out at people who were only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wasn't like any of them.
The only person who suffered from Adrian Dieudonne's feelings was Adrian Dieudonne himself.
Adrian hissed through clenched teeth when he noticed how hot he was, taking a break in his relentless punching to jerk his shirt over his head and toss it aside. He knew he probably should pick it up and set is aside—Hodge always got onto him for keeping the training room messy—but his mind was too cluttered. He thought seeing Jace would have made him feel better, but as soon as he had went off with Clary, Adrian found himself thinking of things he didn't want to think about.
Adrian's fist lashed out, coming in contact with the punching bag so hard that it nearly fell over despite the weights on the bottom. His mind just wouldn't shut up.
Clary and her mysterious background. Thud. Oliver the werewolf and his unrequited feelings for Adrian. Thud. Isabelle cruelly throwing his own unrequited love back in his face just to make a point. Thud, thud. Alec being oblivious because he was so hung up on Jace. Thud. Jace not appreciating Alec enough, always interrupting him, only paying attention to him when it was convenient, Jace not realizing how lucky he should feel to be loved by someone as beautiful as Alexander Lightwood. Thud, thud, thud. Alec not loving himself enough to stop his parabatai from walking all over him. Thud, thud. Alec, Alec, Alec.
Why couldn't he have fallen in love with someone else? Why couldn't he fall in love with Oliver? Oliver was sweet and loving and gentle. Oliver wasn't hung up on someone else. Oliver wasn't part of a society that put so much focus on continuing a bloodline that being gay was supposed to stay behind closed doors.
Adrian gritted his teeth and threw another punch. He shot forward to catch the bag before it could fall to the ground, letting out a small curse. He pressed his forehead against the leather. It was hot against his skin, but it helped him focus a little bit, helped him realize that for the first time in a long time, hitting the punching bag wasn't helping him like it usually did.
"Adrian?" Adrian sighed and pressed his forehead further into the bag before he pushed away from it, running a hand through his hair. He called out from where he was, and a moment later Alec was coming into the training room. The scowl on his face told Adrian he was about to rant to him, so he started pulling the gloves off of his hands. They were supposed to protect his skin, but they hadn't done any good in his case; his middle knuckle on his left hand had split open, and his right hand was worse. Alec skidded to a halt when he saw the blood on his right hand. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"I'm fine, just got carried away," Adrian admitted, bending to pick up his t-shirt and using it to clean the blood off of his hands. He heard Alec make a sound of distress behind him, but he didn't turn around. "What happened with you? You came in here looking pissed." With the shirt wrapped carelessly around his dominant hand, Adrian turned back toward Alec with an easy smile. Alec looked suspicious, eyeing him with a frown. It was his I-know-something-is-wrong look. Adrian didn't want Alec worrying about him, so he brought up the one person who could distract Alec properly. "What did Jace do now?"
Alec's pretty face immediately twisted into a scowl. Even then, it was still beautiful. Adrian squeezed his right hand into a fist. The pain helped him get his mind off of the dangerous thoughts coursing through his head.
"He went off with the mundane," Alec muttered, glancing at the punching bag Adrian had nearly torn apart. Like he was contemplating taking his anger out on the thing himself. Adrian cleared his throat.
"Step away from the punching bag, Alexander," he said sternly, using his left hand to push his hair back again. He had to remind himself to ask Isabelle to cut it for him later. "It's mine to whack at when I'm pissed." Alec's eyebrow rose, mouth opening to ask him what he had been angry about. Adrian rushed to speak before he could. "So Jace went off with Clary? Where did they go?"
"You know, you can't divert the attention away from you forever," Alec stated flatly. When Adrian did nothing but stare at him, he rolled his eyes and continued. "And yes, Jace went with the mundane. She wanted to check out her home and see if there were any clues to tell her where her mother is." Adrian pursed his lips. It wasn't the first time Jace went off on his own in a dangerous situation without his parabatai, and it wouldn't be the last.
Though in Adrian's opinion, it shouldn't be happening at all.
"That mundane has a name, Alec. It's Clary." His voice sounded dry even to himself. "Are we even sure she's a mundane? She wouldn't be the first lost Shadowhunter to show up out of nowhere." Alec glared at him, looking betrayed. Adrian couldn't help but laugh at his expression. "Why do you hate her so much?" Alec's face shifted; he almost looked ashamed.
"I don't hate her, I just..." He's jealous. The thought made Adrian extremely uncomfortable. Not for himself, but for Alec. He didn't want Alec to feel like Adrian did whenever he saw Alec looking at Jace in a way a parabatai shouldn't. He knew Alec was in enough pain already; dealing with your sexuality when you knew your parents would hate you for it couldn't have been easy. It was easy for Adrian; the thought of his father hating him for liking boys didn't even bother him. But Alec was different. He had a relationship with his parents, and Adrian didn't.
"Just what? Don't like mundanes?" Adrian teased, saving Alec from more questions. Alec sighed.
"I don't hate mundanes, I just don't find them all that interesting."
"Mundane hater."
Alec was about to respond, but he cut off when he caught sight of Adrian's left hand. It was still bleeding. Adrian grimaced when he saw it, glancing at his jacket all the way across the room near the door. He had left his stele there, not having thought he'd ruin his knuckles. Alec reached down to take his left arm, twisting it to look at the iratze drawn on the inside of his wrist. It was fading now, having done its job earlier that morning. Alec's thumb ran across the rune, making Adrian draw in a sharp breath. If Alec noticed, he didn't show it.
"That's the worst drawing of an iratze I have ever seen," Alec said after a moment. Adrian scoffed, relieved that Alec had finally said something. Anything to distract him from the fact that Alec was touching him.
"You wound me, Alec, you really do," Adrian forced out. Alec was still holding his arm. He hoped Alec didn't notice the sudden goosebumps appearing on his skin. Shocks kept running up and down his arm, like he was being electrocuted just enough to actually feel it, and his heart started to speed up in his chest. He watched, breathless, as Alec reached into his back pocket and pulled out his stele, getting to work a drawing a new iratze rune on his wrist. When he was done, he went to work drawing one on his right hand. His face was hard, focused, his hand steady and careful. Black hair fell into blue eyes, but Alec didn't seem to notice, too focused on drawing on Adrian for it to matter.
God, Adrian wanted him so much it hurt. He wanted to push his hair out of his eyes, wanted to kiss his face and lips, wanted to touch him and tell him how beautiful he was and how kind and protective and good.
"U-Um, I better..." Alec stuttered. It wasn't until then that Adrian realized he was staring and that Alec had finished drawing the runes a good time ago. Alec's cheeks were getting redder and redder; his blue eyes were dilated. "I better go and make sure Jace didn't die or—or anything." Adrian watched him go without a word, throat closing up and eyes going blurry. He blinked the tears away, shaking his head.
For a moment there, he had actually thought Alec knew. That he had actually saw someone other than Jace. Of course he hadn't. Adrian wasn't Jace.
He hit the punching bag so hard it crashed to the floor.
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Twenty minutes later, Adrian finally realized that punching things wouldn't make him feel better, and then thought that maybe food would do the trick. The kitchen light was on. He could hear the clanking of pots, the opening and closing of the refrigerator, a female voice explaining in detail what she was doing. Once Adrian recognized the female voice to be Isabelle, he broke into a run, bursting into the kitchen and startling everyone in the room.
"I heard you speaking about food and I came to warn you not to eat her cooking unless you want food poisoning." He pointed at the boy, about a year younger than he was, sitting at the counter. He had tousled brown hair, eyes wide behind him black-rimmed glasses. Adrian frowned, finger still pointing. "Who are you, actually? I mean, the warning about Izzy's food still stands, but I would like to know who I am protecting."
"Simon," the boy squeaked, looking rather intimidated. Adrian wasn't used to people being intimidated by him—he lived with a bunch of people who knew him to be quite friendly—so he had to remind himself that, to strangers, a tall boy with muscles like a swimmer and a pretty face tended to intimidate smaller people. "Simon Lewis."
"Simon Lewis..." Adrian cocked his head to the side, still frowning. It only took a moment for it to click. "A friend of the cute little redhead?" Before Simon could answer, Adrian was jumping onto the stool beside him and reaching for the cellphone on the counter. "I'm Adrian Dieudonne. And I meant what I said. Don't eat her cooking."
"You know, at least everyone else loves me enough to pretend to like my cooking," Isabelle grumbled from her spot at the stove. She was poking at whatever was in the pot. She must have been trying to make soup, but it was far too thick for that now. Adrian's mouth twisted in distaste, and he quickly averted his gaze from the pot.
"It's precisely because I love you that I'm keeping you from killing someone with your cooking. The Clave doesn't like murderers, Izzy." Isabelle went to hit him with the spoon, but Adrian held up the cellphone—her cellphone—and grinned when she froze in place. "Ah, ah, ah! We have a guest, Izzy." He turned toward Simon, smiling at him. "Sorry about that. She's quite...well, she's Izzy, that explains enough." Simon's awkwardness seemed to leave his body in one smooth movement, letting him relax enough to smile back. "You like Chinese?" Adrian was already dialing.
Once he had ordered enough food to last them all a week, he got to work helping Isabelle clean the kitchen and stash what she called soup inside the refrigerator. Isabelle would be the only one eating it, but he guessed the only thing that mattered was that she liked her own cooking. The food arrived soon after, and while Isabelle went to retrieve it, Adrian set the table with plates and glasses while chatting up Simon. He found out a few things, like Simon being Jewish and him being obsessed with Star Wars. Adrian knew about Star Wars, but he had never seen any of the movies. When he had confessed that, Simon exclaimed that he had to see them, even if he had to watch them with Simon to do it.
Adrian was about to accept that offer—because, really, Simon was kind of adorable and he would have felt bad saying no—when the kitchen was suddenly being filled with people and the scent of Chinese food. Adrian ushered Simon into a seat and sat beside him.
"You've met Izzy, and also Jace, I'm assuming?" he asked. When Simon nodded, he continued. "The old man is Hodge. Don't worry, he's nice. The one currently glaring at me is Alec. Don't look him in the eye, he'll attack."
"I can hear you," Alec said as he filled his plate with food. Adrian shot him a sweet smile, reaching for the container of noodles right as Alec passed it to him.
"Okay, so let me get this straight," Isabelle was saying. Adrian dug into his food, prone to listening but not interacting when food was involved. "Your mother, Jocelyn Fairchild, used to be married to Valentine Morgenstern, and now that he's back, he...wants her?" Isabelle sipped at her drink. "That's kind of romantic."
"That isn't romantic, Izzy, that's stalking," Adrian drawled. He was already bored, the news doing nothing but confirming that Clary was, indeed, a lost Shadowhunter. He only half listened as Hodge explained how it was possible. Valentine had burned down his house and, later, three bodies were found: a man, a woman, and a young little boy. Everyone had assumed it was Valentine, Jocelyn, and their son. Turned out the only person inside the house as it burned down was the little boy and two complete strangers. After that, Adrian stopped paying attention, feeling a bit sick to his stomach. He knew if he heard the story of the Circle again, he would lose his appetite. He already knew it—his father made him learn a lot of Shadowhunter history involving the Clave, which included the Circle—so he didn't need to hear it again.
The history behind the Circle was very simple. Valentine Morgenstern originally had good intentions, wanting to do nothing but create more Shadowhunters and live in peace with mundanes. Over the years, his ideals changed. Adrian never knew what made him change his mind, but it went from protecting the mundanes and Downwolders who followed the Accords to wiping out the Downworlders all together. He had so many followers that, by the time he changed his mind and set a new goal, they all followed him blindly. It was like a cult. The Uprising, where they had all tried to steal the Mortal Cup to make their own army of Shadowhunters and take over the Clave, had resulted in nothing but tragedy, ensuring that the Circle ended and the surviving members were punished.
Adrian's eyes went from Alec, Isabelle, and then back again, his brow furrowing. He wondered if they knew their parents had been in the Circle. He couldn't remember it ever coming up in conversation—not that they spoke of the Circle often—but he wouldn't have put it past Robert and Maryse to keep it from their children.
"—Silent Brothers," Hodge was saying. Adrian sat up a bit straighter.
"Silent Brothers?"
"I'm going to see if they can get the memories out of my head," Clary explained, tapping at her temple. Adrian nodded. He watched silently as Clary got to her feet and left, Simon following soon after. Adrian must have missed something, because the kitchen was suddenly filled with tension he didn't understand. Licking his lips, he picked up his fork and pointed at the eggroll on Alec's plate.
"Can I have that?"
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Early the next morning, Adrian usually went for a run around the block. It helped keep him in shape, especially considering he had a habit of skipping training sessions when he just wasn't up for it. With his stele in one pocket and a granola bar in the other, he skipped down the stairs and threw open the door, nearly running into another human being in the process. It wasn't everyday someone was at the Institute door at six in the morning, so he nearly tripped over himself trying not to fall on top of the other person.
"What in the fu—oh, hi Simon." Adrian, blushing, stepped away from him to give him space. Simon looked a tad bit alarmed, eyes blown wide, fist still raised like he had been about to knock on the door before Adrian had almost ran him over. His hand dropped.
"Uh, hey Adrian." He was quite pleased Simon had managed to remember his name, especially considering how his eyes had been glued to Isabelle practically the entire time. Adrian shot him a bright grin, leaning his hip against the doorway. Simon rocked back on his heels once. Back to being awkward. Adrian was tempted to flirt with him just to make it worse, but then decided that he didn't know Simon well enough to tease him quite yet. "Is this a bad time?" Adrian glanced down at himself. All he was wearing was black jogging pants, a thin white tank-top, and a black hoodie thrown over it.
"I was about to go for a run," he explained. "No offense, but what are you doing here? Clary isn't here. She went to see the Silent Brothers, remember? Though..." He glanced back into the foyer of the Institute, at the clock by the staircase. "They should be back soon." Simon looked thrown off.
"Oh, u-um—"
"I texted him using Clary's phone." Isabelle appeared behind Adrian in the doorway, making both of the boys jump. Adrian, with a scowl, turned and took Clary's phone away from her, shoving it in his own pocket. Isabelle patted him on the shoulder. "Forget your run, Dri. We have to all meet up with Jace, Clary, and Alec." She continued to walk down the pathway, right by Simon and toward the gate surrounding the Institute. Adrian and Simon, sharing a glance, hurried after her.
"Did she remember anything?" Simon asked before Adrian could.
"Just one thing," Isabelle explained, linking her arms with both of the boys once they caught up with her. "Magnus Bane."
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edited: 3.17.19