Goddamn, what's a boy to do?
Tryna' keep his cool while the walls fall in.
Goddamn, what's a boy to do?
Tryna' keep his cool, stood next to you.
We fell
Fell in love at the end of the world.
~ George Ezra
(2 months later)
{Clary}
I reach over and grab a handful of popcorn, stuffing them all into my mouth at once, bits flying everywhere including onto Isabelle's lap. She looks over at me in astonishment like she can't believe how unattractive I'm making myself look but I don't care, I've felt unattractive for months.
"Don't you think you should go easy on the popcorn?" She says, peering at my stomach instinctively. I shrug.
"What's a few extra pounds?" I ask the television and dig my hand back into the bowl.
She shakes her head and pulls her feet up onto the couch her head on my shoulder now.
"You're pregnant not dying. You still have to take care of yourself." I don't have to remind her not to tell anyone again, it's all I've done for the past two months. I run a hand over the very slight bump, the life inside me.
"You should tell him you know." She says like it's the first time and I roll my eyes at her intentional ignorance
"Dylan's not the dad." I tell her
"So you keep saying but the dates add up." Like somehow she would know.
"Short by almost two months so no not really." I snap then wish I hadn't, it was much easier if she thought Dylan was the father, bringing her brother into the equation would not help anything.
I hadn't spoken to him since that night with Serena in the hallway, I couldn't drop this on him, I couldn't burden him further just when he was getting his life back on track. I really couldn't when he has tried his absolute best to reconnect with me, fix things and I was too busy silently blaming him for "ruining my life".
It was my fault he has given up on me. It was my fault we were no longer friends and I had to love him from a distance.
I had begged Isabelle, begged her on my hands and knees not to tell anyone.
I could do this on my own.
So far she had been a good friend but maybe an accidental shitty sister. Something I also felt guilty about. But who else could I tell? Only Isabelle would understand how I feel.
"Whatever you say preggors." She kisses my shoulder and rises from the couch, stretching out all of her pretty, thin limbs, her hair a river of ink flowing down her back.
"I've gotta go mother hen." Pregnancy nicknames had become her new favourite thing.
"I'm meeting Alec and Jace at Takis, I'd invite you but I know what the answer would be." The 'argument' I was having with her brother annoyed her but she never said very much about it other than we were idiots.
I smile up at her that I understand and she smiles back as she slips her coat on and her favourite blue scarf.
"If I get any juicy gossip I'll fill you in of course." She zips her thigh high boots up over her jeans and clicks towards the door
"Remember," she turns to me, finger pointed "fruit, veg, vitamins. Shit that's actually good for you." It's almost a warning, like there was an "or else." Supposed to follow like shes the mother hen. She leaves with a "Love you!" Over her shoulder and finally I can relax and watch trash tv that doesn't involve fashion.
I tap the bump as lightly as I can
"Just you and me little one."
***
{Jace}
When Izzy gets here she's flushed like she's been running and barks orders at us to get her a large mocha as she dumps her things in the booth we're sitting in.
"Get it yourself." I laugh at her and she flips me off on her way to the bathroom, Alec only smiles.
"I'll get it." He tells me and I decide that later I'm slipping money into his jacket, arguing with Alec over a bill was pointless, he always won.
While Alec was ordering our food I sat and looked at the menu paying very close attention to the items we should have been ordering for a fourth person, but she didn't want to be here around me and god knows I was trying hard to accept that even if I didn't want to, even if it physically hurt me.
Isabelle gets back before Alec, rubbing her wet hands on her jeans
"No damn hand towels." She mutters and shuffles her way along one end of the booth.
"Nice to see you too dearest sister." I joke and she almost smiles like she's amused.
"I'd say the same Jace but I can smell you from here." She holds her nose to exaggerate her point and i smirk at her. Thankfully she's disapproving of my aftershave, rather than hinting I should shower.
"I'll have you know that nine out of ten women love my smell, better than sex apparently." She makes a face at me like she's innocent but Alec has told me stories worthy of therapy, having the room next to hers and all.
"Nine out of ten dingbats you mean." The witch whispers under her breath, I stick my tongue out at her like I used to when we were kids.
"Speaking of dingbats," Alec appears empty handed "incoming." He takes a seat next to Isabelle and his usual happy-go-lucky demeanour is back so fast it scares me, it turns out he wasn't lying though, incoming indeed.
"Hey guys!" She squeals making me want to bash my head off the table. I keep my eyes on the menu, aware that I look ridiculous seeing as I've already got Alec to order for me but I'm past caring, as long as she knows I'm still set on ignoring her.
"Hey Kaelie, you work here now?" Isabelle speaks up and I can hear the distaste in her voice, Alec, however, stays quiet.
"Tragic right?" She places Isabelle's mocha in front of her and I catch a whiff of her disgusting flowery perfume. Over the last few months I had tried working on being a better person, less judgemental, but Kaelie would always be an exception.
"Seelie hasn't been doing too well recently." Is the only explanation she gives, possibly because I'm here.
"Tragic." Alec agrees quietly and I look up to see him smiling at me. At least Alec was a loyal brother.
She slides my pancakes over the table to me and a set of cutlery wrapped in a napkin, Isabelle continues to entertain Kaelie for whatever reason. Upon closer inspection I see that instead of a fork and a knife she's given me two spoons, great.
I look up at her and her eyes shine like she's been waiting for me to open my mouth "I have two spoons instead of a knife and fork."
Alec coughs awkwardly.
"Hi Jace." She smiles like she hadn't cheated on me multiple times, sent me 30 angry voicemails after I broke up with her and scratched her name into the wood of my front door. I'd since replaced it but the neighbours had been terribly confused.
"Knife and fork." I repeat and hold the spoons out to her.
"Of course, follow me and I'll get you some." She put Alec's burger down and walks off not even giving me time to protest. With a sigh and a wary look from Alec I do as she says and follow her through the restaurant.
The other problem with Kaelie was her looks, physically she was gorgeous and she used it to her advantage. I used to be one of those people back when I was with her, back before I grew up and realised that the world doesn't revolve around me. Doesn't owe me anything.
She swings her hips, still balancing the empty tray on one hand and I make sure to stay behind her purely because I have no interest in speaking to her.
We reach a trolley with the cutlery piled up on it and she takes her sweet time to pick up each piece and hand it to me, her eyes lingering on me as I take them.
"Is it possible that you're even more handsome than the last time I saw you?" She holds onto the fork forcing me to wait.
"I don't know, is it?" I reach out my hand gesturing for the fork but she chooses to ignore it.
"Clearly." She gives me the same smile she gave me the day I met her, suggestive yet somehow sweet.
"The fork." I tell her, growing impatient but her smile doesn't waver.
"It's giving us a chance to talk." I slip my hand back in my pocket knowing it's useless, she's not going to hand it over until she's ready.
"It's giving my food a chance to get cold." I snap at her "And I made it very clear the last time I saw you that I didn't want to speak to you again." She only laughs at me, the sentence not affecting her at all.
"You've said that a few times over the years but you always come crawling back." This time I yank the fork from her hand.
"I don't crawl anywhere for anyone." I growl "I bumped into you, made a colossal error and we had sex, that's all there ever was to it." I point the fork at her as if it's going to make my point clearer "You're not special Kaelie," I inform her "especially not to me." Finally her smile drops and I know that somewhere I've hurt her feelings.
Good.
I turn away from her stalking back to my table, Alec mimes blowing his brains out to me which earns him a shove from Isabelle but it makes me smile and I take my seat across from him.
"Pancakes still hot?" I ask nobody in particular, cutting into one.
"Barely." Both siblings answer in unison, I nod. Barely will have to do.
Isabelle stirs sugar into her drink and chats away about some girl from her work with "incredible fashion sense." And I'm grateful for some normality.
Every so often I make a noise to let her know I'm still listening but these pancakes are so good im not fully paying attention, if Clary were here she would be doing all the talking for us, she'd probably even promise Isabelle the pair of "killer boots" for her Christmas which of course would lead to the start of another conversation, one that Alec and I could join in on, without her we couldn't survive the fashion talk.
"I'm going to ask Magnus to marry me." Alec speaks over Isabelle because she hasn't granted him an opening in her ramblings and she spits her coffee back into her mug. I too stop what I'm doing.
What?
"What?!" The entire cafe turns but Isabelle just lowers her voice "When?"
"This weekend." I don't think I've ever seen my brother as happy as he is right now.
I stare at him for a long while which makes him visibly uncomfortable, Isabelle has launched into wedding details already telling them not to worry one bit, she will be their wedding planner, something I'm sure Magnus, if he agrees, will have something to say about.
"Jace?" Alec hasn't turned away from me this entire time and I know I should say something.
"Alec that's... that's fantastic." I get up and he lets me wrap him in a hug.
"Are you sure?" He mumbles against my shoulder and I nod
"I'm more than sure, he'd have to be an idiot not to want to marry you. You're perfect for each other." I hear Alec let out a sigh of relief and soon enough Isabelle joins the hug.
My head is swimming with all kinds of emotions, it takes me a while to let go of them. Clary should be here sharing this with us, sitting on my end of the booth like she always does. She should be animatedly talking to Isabelle, celebrating with Alec. Afterwards we would walk home knowing we'd be each other's date to the wedding and end up in the same bed. Something we should have been doing for months.
The best view in the world is her face first thing in the morning. That's over, you were never a couple. Even if things went back to normal that only means you'd be friends.
Or, maybe we wouldn't. Maybe I'd kiss her good morning and make breakfast while she lounged around in my t-shirt. It was so clear yet so far away.
She wasn't here and we would never do any of those things.
Alec was going to get married, Magnus would say yes. Whilst Clary couldn't even look at me and all because of one stupid argument and Serena.
"Jace are you sure you're alright?" Isabelle asks this time once I pull away and I just nod.
"What's the commotion all about?" Kaelie, turning up like a bad smell appears and Isabelle being Isabelle finds it hard to hold her water.
"Alec is getting married!" She screams not caring who hears, although Alec does as he's now hiding behind a menu.
"I haven't even asked him yet!" He whisper yells at our sister and she rolls her eyes at him like he's being ridiculous.
He peaks at me over the top of the menu and I give him a sympathetic smile, one he doesn't return probably because of the embarrassment.
"Isabelle." I warn her and finally she realises what she's doing and sits down.
"Wow" Kaelie laughs refilling Alec's filter coffee "such excitement, first a baby then a wedding. Your group has drama to a t." She mops at a patch of spilled coffee and Isabelle's hands fly up to her mouth like she'd said something wrong.
"Baby?" For the first time Kaelie and I look at each other dead on and she suddenly becomes very uneasy.
Was Isabelle pregnant?
Is that what this was about?
"Oh no, she hasn't kept it." Kaelie frowns a little "has she?" Isabelle is rising from her seat, taking her bag with her.
"Isabelle where are you off to?" Alec takes her arm probably thinking the same thing I am, she shouldn't be afraid, Simon would look after her, as would we.
"We need to talk about this." Alec urges her to sit down but she refuses, yanking her arm away.
"I need to call Clary." She mutters on her way out, grabbing her phone from her pocket and my veins feel like they've been electrocuted, like an awful realisation has shot through me.
"Who the hell is pregnant?" Alec asks us and Kaelie looks from him to me like she's only just realised she's given away a secret.
"Clary," she squeaks
"Or she was last I checked."
I can see Alec's hand reaching across the table to me as if to stop me but I've made up my mind, I move before he can grab me.
"Jace!" He throws a pile of random cash on the table and runs after me into the street, we each pass Isabelle and she steps infront of Alec, blocking his path.
"Let's think about this logically!" He yells over her head and I walk backwards so I can look at him, bumping into people.
"She's been hiding my own kid from me!" Isabelle has ahold of him now, looking confused.
"How do you even know it's yours?!" He screams as I turn around obviously not caring who hears him now.
What if it isn't mine?
I focus on my shoes hitting the sidewalk as I run to block those thoughts out.
***
{Clary}
My ringtone slices through the silence in my apartment and finally makes me want to move, not to answer the calls of course, it was probably Isabelle but I was going to use this valuable time to take my vitamins.
Shuffling in my slippers to the kitchen I stretch for the first time in hours and slip two slices of bread into the toaster as I pass, the water from my tap is immediately freezing and I almost thank the Lord for it as I fill a glass with it. Come to think of it, Isabelle was probably calling to make sure I hadn't died and actually taken these already, either that or some really juicy gossip.
Regardless of what it was I wasn't in the mood, I never really was these days it just kind of felt like I lived to eat and sleep like an overweight cat. What an image.
The toast pops as I swallow a handful of vitamins and the third missed call starts up from somewhere in the house.
Lazily I spread some jam on both slices and go in search of it knowing that the reason she was calling was probably important considering how persistent she was being or I hoped it was important anyway. It takes me longer to attempt to work out what the hell Isabelle was talking about in her texts than find the actual phone rolled up in my bedsheets, just a frantic series of one word warnings like
"CLARY!"
"SORRY"
"OMG"
I sigh knowing I'll have to call her back and wait for her to answer with my phone wedged between my ear and my shoulder, my hands sticky and covered in jam. She doesn't answer the first time and I make my way into the kitchen to wash my hands so I can actually touch the screen with ease.
"Pick up izzy, pick up." I mumble at the dial tone on loud speaker where it's sat next to the sink and search for a towel to dry my hands on.
Suddenly the the brown eyed minx answers and it's a mix of yelling between her and Alec I presume. The gossip must be really juicy if Alec was panicking.
"Clary thank god!" Isabelle wins and I roll my eyes turning her off speaker and putting the phone up to my ear
"I'm so sorry okay, it wasn't me I promise it wasn't but it's really bad!"
"Isabelle you're not making any sense, what on earth are you on about?" I ask and she shushes a frantic Alec "Kaelie told him, she just blurted it out in Taki's!"
I hear the main door downstairs bang shut and know what whatever has happened it's possibly the beginning of the end. My blood runs cold.
"Told who what Isabelle?!" Without a knock my front door comes flying open and the answer, as if it wasn't obvious before stares me in the face.
"Clary? Hello?!" Isabelle tries when I haven't spoken in a while but I hang up, it was too late for a warning now.
Jace was standing in my Livingroom and he was looking at me as if I was a criminal.
"Jace..." I trail off, what was i supposed to say to him? Sorry I ruined your life?
He recovers a little and at least shuts the door behind him before it kicks off.
Steps a little further into the room even.
"Is it mine?" He asks me, not wasting any time whatsoever and I feel my mouth moving to form some kind of response, something, anything!
"Ugh, I... W-what? Is what yours?" I croak sounding absolutely ridiculous. I can hear him breathe from the other side of the room like he's been running or he is extremely angry. It's probably both.
"Don't fucking do that Clary," he marches towards me and I feel my back hit the sink involuntarily. He's inches from my face, his breath hot on my skin. I'm not scared of him even as he tries to intimidate me, Jace wouldn't touch me.
"Jace." Its a warning and he knows it but something tells me he's past caring.
"Don't Jace me." Regardless he steps away a little giving me room to breathe and runs a hand through his hair, lighter than I remember.
"I just found out" he points a finger at me accusingly "from Kaelie of all people, that you're pregnant." He glances at my stomach and his expression softens but it doesn't make me feel like any less of a piece of shit.
He moves around the living room slowly yet manically with no set destination like he just needs to keep moving or he will collapse, finger still pointed, eyes always on me.
"You're going to tell me right now Clary if that child is mine, and don't lie." Finally he leans against the edge of the dining table but his stare is just as intense.
I can't keep this a secret anymore, I can't lie. It wasn't right when he was asking me straight to my face and I've probably lost Isabelle and Alec already due to all the lies so far but I still can't help but feel bitter, not when it was my body at risk, not when I'd done it more or less on my own so far.
"Why, so you can skip town?" I don't mean for it to sound as bitchy as it comes out but then again it wasn't a particularly nice question in the first place, was it?
I expect him to throw something or march some more perhaps even look guilty, but he doesn't. He just looks sadder than before, stands up straight and slowly walks back over to me till our noses are almost touching, like he could kiss me but he won't.
"Fuck you Clarissa." He says in the most gentle voice he has ever used with me or anyone and when he leaves I stare at the door and feel hollow inside like those words sucked out every single good thing in my life. And Christ did I deserve it for saying that to him, I shut him out. I'm the one who practically skipped town and left him.
***
{Jace}
"She said that?" Alec is still trying to wrap his head around it and to be honest so am I.
I open myself another beer on the edge of the worktop and lean back against the kitchen wall. I can see Alec watching me from the corner of my eye, always worrying when he shouldn't be, he has too much on his plate at the moment to be dealing with my problems.
When I can't stand the look he's giving me any longer I shut my eyes and take a drink but that's absolutely no help either. I have Clary's face burned onto the back of my eyelids and I have no idea when she got there. Maybe she's always been there?
"So..." I hear the fridge open "it's not yours?" He asks then returns to his seat and so I do the same "I don't know, she didn't answer just accused me of running off on her."
"I see." He says taking a drink of his fourth beer. Magnus so graciously agreed to him coming over to see how I'm doing by Isabelle's request apparently, but you can see in my brothers eyes when he hurts for somebody, he must be in agony right now.
"When exactly did you and Clary have sex?" He's been dying to ask this question, I can tell but it comes out casually. I laugh when I think back to the beginning of the agreement, all the sex afterwards, if it was mine who knows when it was conceived.
"Which time?" He literally chokes on his drink, beer dribbling down his chin that he tries to catch with kitchen roll and I realise Magnus has kept quiet.
"Which time?" He wipes the counter down a little, still choking and I nod "I thought it had been once?" He asks me then and it just makes me feel defeated to think about now
"A few times." I tell him "although I'm fairly sure I know which time exactly it was that it would've happened." I admit under my breath, trying not to think about it because despite the worry that had gone through me when I realised, it had been incredibly hot.
Alec gives me a look like I'm disgusting him. The bloody cheek.
"Jesus Jace, what were you thinking?" I shake my head taking a swig from my bottle "I wasn't, after the first time I knew it wasn't going to work. I couldn't stop thinking about her."
"Is it time to admit you're in love with her yet?" I don't look at him, focus on the condensation on the outside of my bottle and shake my head "Don't be stupid Alec." I tell him and down the rest of my bottle.
He doesn't say anything until I move to put it in the glass bin,
"Jace we've been through this, just accept it and stop lying to yourself." Will he just give it a rest already?
"We just have sex, okay?" I turn to him not meaning to snap "or at least we did. Now we don't even talk to each other." I busy myself by picking up our other empty bottles and discarding of them but I should've known Alec wouldn't drop this. Alec knows when to push.
"Im not asking if she's in love with you I'm asking if you're in love with her, so tell me you're not in love with her." He's on his feet now and I lean over the cooker trying to avoid looking at him, he knew too much already... but he was my brother. He could read me, he knew. Maybe everyone knew apart from her. I'd spent so long holding the five words in that they were almost crippling me.
"I can't Alec, because I am in love with her. I'm irrevocably in love with her." As I turn towards him I see he's staring at me in astonishment.
"Sorry?" He asks like he hadn't been expecting me to actually say it.
"She's all I ever think about, she's ruined every single other woman for me out there because she just lives in my head." Alec honestly looks like he can't move, like he can't believe it either but I keep going " I would break myself to make her happy and there's not been a single night since the first time we had sex that I haven't wished she loved me back even half as much as I love her, maybe even before then!"
This was the only place safe enough to say things like that. To let him know that after the first time, when I carried her to bed and worshipped her the way she's supposed to be worshipped and she lay beside me I looked directly at her, her green eyes finding mine in the dark and I thought hard enough like I was trying to push them into her own head
I'm in love with you, I'm sorry, I'm in love with you and now there's no going back. This was a terrible, terrible idea and I'm not going to be able to end it.
Alec only blinks, mouth hanging open.
"She's so fucking loud in there," I touch a hand to my chest trying to make him understand "Tell me how to make her stop." I couldn't do this. I felt like I'd tricked her into sleeping with me even if she'd been the one to suggest it. I'd tried not to do it afterwards without telling her we had to stop because then she'd know and I didn't want to see the pity in her eyes.
Alec finally snaps out of it and grabs me, both arms nearly crushing me to death with the amount of force he's hugging me with.
"It never just stops, people can't just stop." He whispers "Especially not when you love them like that."
***
Alec falls asleep long before I do with Radiohead playing in the background and the truth out in the open.
Admittedly it feels great, to put down that weight for a while. The only secret I've ever kept from my best friend, but what good has it done me?
Using a bin bag I clean the living room and the kitchen making sure we haven't left any bottles or caps around. I hated clutter and my mind was cluttered enough as it was.
I throw a blanket over Alec's sleeping form and retire to my bedroom, it never seemed as big as this before Clary. Now it always seemed empty despite her being such a small person. It's little things like that that really got me, they made me realise the position I'd put myself in. When she brought it up I should have told her no, that I wouldn't do this with her but clearly I have absolutely no restraint.
I take off my shirt and jeans for bed, tossing them in the laundry basket and just as I turn the light off there's a faint knock at the front door, or maybe it's my imagination? Either way I'd better check.
Stumbling through the dark in the hallway I manage to find my way to the door and unlock it to a small ginger who happens to be staring directly at my chest.
I don't even need the dull light in the hallway to know it's Clary.
"Clary?" I lean in the doorway and she lifts her head to look up at me, eyes rimmed red. I'm surprised she's even here after the way I spoke to her last.
"Just shut up and listen okay?" She starts and I pretend not to act as shocked as I am by the outburst and nod. If it's possible, despite her looking so upset she looks even more beautiful than I remember her.
"When you and I started this I knew you were handsome and kind, it's hard to miss both of those really," she eyes me quickly then looks back up at my face "but that night, we were so gentle with each other and I realised that whether we had intended to or not we'd made love." The memory of that night bites into me, brings an unfamiliar heat to my cheeks. Of course I don't even have to ask because it had been intentional on my part, I had been softer with her than I've ever been with anyone as if I wanted to show her how I felt if I couldn't tell her.
"That's exactly when I thought that I loved you more than I have ever loved another person. And I know I haven't always been in love with you but when I fell there was no avoiding it, like it was always meant to go that way." I'm sorry, what? Clary is in love with me? Is she so foolish?
I turn behind me to make sure Alec is asleep, I would not cry in front of my brother.
"I was wrong about loving you more than I have ever loved anyone because you made me realise I've never even experienced love before you. You're the first and I'll be surprised if you're not the only of my life Jace Herondale." Her lip shudders like it always does before she starts crying and I know that if I break then she definitely will, I have to hold it together. But I can't, seeing her look at me the way she always has and tell me she loves me makes me want to collapse.
"So yes, the baby is yours because there's no way it could be anyone else's, none at all. I just thought you should know." I blink and pinch the bridge of my nose threatening the tears to stay indoors which mostly they comply to, but it doesn't stop my vision from blurring.
"Clary, ugh," there's a lump in my throat so enormous that my voice croaks and she looks defeated like I'm going to reject her when in all honestly I'm trying to collect myself before I breakdown in the doorway "I didn't think you loved me back." I laugh and shrug at her blurry outline, I think she's even smiling back at me then.
"Please let me be the dad, because if I can't spend the rest of my life loving you both to death then I have no idea what I'll do." A single hiccup escapes me but it's caught up in a laugh of mine as I try to lighten the mood.
I hadn't expected to get so emotional, I had thought maybe I wasn't able to fall in love so when it happened with her I felt both despair and immense joy because it was impossible for me to love her, we were friends and I didn't want to ruin that but by some miracle, the person that knew me best in the entire world had fallen in love with me anyway.
"I'd want nothing more than for you to be the dad." She smiles and I ache with how much I missed it, how much I physically needed to be in her life because I didn't know who I was if she wasn't in it. "You're turning me into a wuss woman." I smile back at her, letting her know and wrap her in my arms because it doesn't bother me. I'm fine being soppy when it comes to her. She leans up and lets me kiss her, our lips connecting like they should always have been connected.
"You're in love with me too?" She asks against my mouth, her breath dusting along my lips and I inhale her, laughing and pull back to look at her
"Are you crazy? Of course I'm in love with you. Being separated from you has been destroying me." I admit and she laughs at that like she feels the same way and holds me to her body.
"I love you so much that it scares me." I tell her and take her face in my hands so I can kiss her over and over again, as any times as she'll let me not having a care in the world if Alec wakes up and finds us making out like kids in the hallway. I didn't want to let go of her, I wanted to keep her here with me for as long as I could and hoped that was forever.
Ooof, chapter rewritten. Cleared up some dialogue and I'm a lot happier with it now.
Hope you guys liked it!
Let me know what you think.
Until next time,
Kirsten 🌼