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It all begins one night in the middle of Jace’s teens, during a period when his hormones are raging and he’s walking around constantly on edge and sexually frustrated—getting turned on by everything from sparring with his trainers to a mundane girl on the subway smiling at him. Alec is already considered an adult by then, starting to move into the role of the future Head of the Institute, and Jace can tell that he’s pulling away, even more adamant than before at keeping his feelings firmly under lock and key.
So Jace pushes. Not in an obvious way that doesn’t have plausible deniability—just enough to feel that surge of power when he makes Alec lose his breath, or start stuttering, or abruptly turn and leave the room.
He knows, on some level, that it must be fucking with Alec’s head, but he’s too caught up in his own to want to see it. So he keeps pushing, until one day when he’s sixteen and the two of them are left behind on a mission to secure the perimeter and get attacked by a Ravener demon.
It’s the first time they’re fighting together in the field without backup, and against something that poses a real threat. Jace feels the rush of their bond kicking in—a hundred times stronger than in training—Alec’s breath in perfect synch with his own, their hearts beating as one, and power surging through the bond, along his arm, to his blade like a current of electricity. When the demon finally falls, Jace lets out a whoop in triumph and throws his arms around Alec’s neck, riding high on victory. He hugs Alec tightly and claps him on the back before drawing back a fraction to look at him.
Alec’s eyes are closed, and when Jace takes a moment to pay attention, he realises that Alec’s body is trembling ever so slightly, Alec’s hands closed in tight fists at his sides.
“Alec, you okay?”
Alec opens his eyes, and the expression there makes Jace’s mouth go dry. The sheer want in them is overwhelming; Jace is able to sense it through the bond then, like a dam inside Alec filled to the brim and ready to break. Alec draws a shuddering breath, and one of his hands goes to Jace’s arm, fingers closing around it so tight, it’s almost painful.
Jace is suddenly hit with the realisation that if he’d just lean in a little and push himself up on his toes, he’d be able to press a kiss to Alec’s lips, breaking the dam and spilling all that raw power before his own feet. He has a sudden flash of himself putting his hands on Alec’s head and pushing him to his knees, and feels almost drunk with the knowledge that Alec would let him, that he’d give himself over completely, if Jace simply asked him to.
He reaches out and places a hand on Alec’s stomach, watching Alec’s last bit of control crumble as he runs it up over Alec’s chest and then higher, cupping his neck. He feels the energy between them flare, power surging through Jace like nothing he’s ever felt before, and before he has a chance to second guess what he’s doing, he closes his eyes and captures Alec’s mouth in a hard kiss.
Alec makes an almost pained sound in his throat, clinging to his control for another fraction of a second before it all comes crashing down, and Jace finds himself pressed up against Alec’s chest, Alec’s arms wrapped tight, tight around his back as Alec starts kissing him back, desperately and without reserve.
Jace’s head is spinning as he tries to press himself even closer. The parabatai rune on his hip feels like it’s burning in the most amazing way, sending wave after wave of heat into Jace’s body. It’s like the power surge during battle, but a thousand times better—an almost liquid pleasure spreading to his every bone and muscle, making him feel like he’s connected to Alec with every single cell of his body.
He moves his hands to Alec’s face, feels wetness underneath his fingertips and only then registers that his own cheeks are wet as well. The sensations running through him are overwhelming in the extreme, and he clings to Alec as they keep kissing, keep touching. Jace never wants it to stop.
“Alec,” he manages, his voice coming out hoarse and affected between kisses. “Holy shit, Alec, I—”
“I love you,” Alec tells him, his voice cracking at the end and a sob breaking from his throat. “Fuck, Jace, I love you, I love you, and I’ve tried, I’ve tried, but I can’t, and I just—”
Jace surges up and kisses him again, a new level of desperation to his movements. “I love you too,” he tells Alec, the words bubbling up unbidden from somewhere deep inside of him. They’re new words—everything he’s feeling right now is so fucking new—but Jace can’t imagine what else it could be, this feeling that he might actually die if Alec stops touching him. He feels connected on a level that goes beyond desire, beyond family and friendship and allegiance. Alec is in his blood, in the very air that Jace is trying to pull into his lungs. The rune on his hip keeps pulsing, keeps pulling Alec and him closer together, as though it’s trying to merge them into one perfect being. It’s making Jace feel as though he could take on the very armies of hell without even breaking a sweat, as long as he has Alec by his side.
He’s in love with Alec. He has to be; there’s no other explanation.
A loud peal of laughter close by breaks them out of the moment, and Alec practically shoves Jace away from him, panic written all over his face.
A mundane couple walks by, giddy and drunk, stopping every few steps to kiss, blissfully unaware of the two glamoured Shadowhunters and the charred remains of a demon just paces away.
Jace turns back to Alec, who’s bent down to pick his bow and quiver back up from where he dropped them. His shoulders are bowed, and his whole body is practically screaming tension.
“This never happened,” Alec says hoarsely. “You hear me, Jace? Nobody can ever know about this. Nobody.”
The words hurt, and they also hit squarely at that deep, hidden feeling inside Jace that likes to whisper—in a voice unnervingly similar to his father’s—that he’s not good enough, that he needs to work harder or he’s bound to end up a disgrace. He opens his mouth to argue, then meets Alec’s eyes and sees the guilt and fear there, and ends up nodding instead.
They walk in silence together back to the Institute, keeping at least a foot’s distance between them at all times.
The next few days are horribly awkward. Both of them are trying way too hard to act normal, which results in Jace being aggressively cheerful and Alec avoiding him as much as possible, unable to even meet Jace’s eye when there are other people around. When a skirmish with the vampires arises, Alec quickly assigns himself the mission, together with a team of Shadowhunters that definitely doesn’t include Jace.
Jace alternates between disappointment, frustration and relief for half a day, until Izzy grabs his arm and practically pulls him out of the Institute, guiding them through the streets of New York until they’re standing in front of a night club.
“Look,” she says. “I don’t know what happened between you and Alec this time, but you have to stop jerking him around. He’s gay and he thinks he’s in love with you, and it’s killing him. So unless you can tell me that you feel the same, back the fuck off and give him some space so he can get over you.”
Jace stands there, just gaping at her. Izzy crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow in a very ‘well?’ kind of way. He closes his mouth, opens it again. “Izzy, it’s not that easy, you don’t—”
“Are. You. In. Love. With. Him?” Izzy interrupts, enunciating each word almost painfully slowly. “It’s a simple enough question, Jace.”
Jace’s blood runs cold with panic, Alec’s words running on a loop in his head. Nobody can ever know. Nobody. And the worst thing is, Alec is right; if anyone finds out, it’s not only his and Alec’s lives and reputations on the line—it’s all the Lightwoods and anyone closely connected with them.
He forces himself to sigh and look away. “No.”
“I didn’t think so,” Izzy says, and Jace hates having to lie to her, absolutely hates it. “Do you want to fuck him?”
Jace closes his eyes, tries to push back the onslaught of memories of Alec’s hands, Alec’s mouth, the overwhelming feeling of connection and intimacy as they pressed together. He’s pretty sure ‘want’ isn’t the right word—to be honest, he’s not sure there even is a word for the way he’s currently feeling.
He looks back at Izzy, raising his chin ever so slightly. “No. I don’t want that either.”
“Good, then stop being an ass,” Izzy says. “Now come on. Let me introduce you to some people who’ll be happy to help you let go and just enjoy life for a while. I think you’ll like them.”
Jace follows her lead, and ends up spending the night dancing and laughing with a group of fae, not seeing much of Izzy until they both stumble back to the Institute in the early hours of the morning. He’s laughing as they say goodnight to each other, making a pact that whoever is woken up first will cover for the other so that at least one of them can get more than a few hours of sleep.
He closes his bedroom door behind himself, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders as he turns, and then stops short.
Alec is sitting in his armchair, looking exhausted, worried and pissed off all at once.
“Where the hell were you?” Alec asks, getting to his feet and crossing his arms. “I get back from the mission and the only thing people can tell me is that you and Izzy have gone out. I’ve sent you both a million texts.”
Jace frowns and reaches into his pocket to pull up his phone. He’s met with a black screen and no reaction when he presses the ‘on’ button. “I’m sorry, I’ve must have run out of battery.”
“And Izzy? Are you going to tell me she ran out of battery as well?”
“No, she probably turned hers off,” Jace replies, remembering how Izzy had left the club less than an hour after they got there, wrapped up in a beautiful seelie girl with long, dark braids. “She was meeting up with someone.”
“And you?” Alec asks. “Did you ‘meet up with someone’ as well?”
“What? No.”
“You have fairy dust on your shirt,” Alec says. “And your pants.”
“I was dancing,” Jace replies, feeling an irrational stab of guilt over the hurt look on Alec’s face. “Nothing more, I promise.”
“Whatever,” Alec says, his voice completely flat. “Do whatever and whoever you want. Hell, maybe it’s better that way.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Let’s just—I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. I have to go.”
He uncrosses his arms and starts walking, heading for the door. Jace stops him with a hand on his arm as Alec tries to pass him.
“What, so that’s it? You’re just going to leave?”
“It’s for the best, Jace,” Alec says quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. “We can’t undo what… happened, but it can’t happen again. It can’t.”
“Alec...”
“Do you even know what would happen if we got caught?” Alec asks, taking a step back and pulling his arm out of Jace’s hold. “I do. I’ve known for years. We’d be exiled, stripped of our runes and our weapons, thrown out of the Clave to live as mundanes for the rest of our lives. Which would be weeks, at best, before a demon would find us!” He keeps on ranting, telling Jace in great detail about what their potential punishment would mean for the Institute, for Izzy, for Max. Jace hears it through a haze, too stuck on a certain wording of Alec’s to really pay attention.
“Years? You’ve been in love with me for years?”
Alec quickly turns his face away and tries to walk past him again. Jace sidesteps him neatly and puts his body between Alec and the door. “Jesus fuck, Alec.”
Alec shrugs, his whole body radiating tension. “It’s none of your business.”
“How is it none of my business? I love you too, you stupid moron!” Jace exclaims, frustrated. “Or did you miss that part? I kissed you—I want you—and I know what the Law says, okay? I know I must be fucking sick or something, but I—”
“No,” Alec breaks in, stepping in close to Jace and putting both his hands on Jace’s arms. “No, you’re not sick. The situation’s just… It’s confusing.”
His hands stroke their way down Jace’s forearms to his hands, hesitating there for a minute before weaving their fingers tightly together. When Alec speaks again, his voice is barely more than a whisper.
“Jace, I don’t know what to do. Please tell me what to do.”
Jace swallows hard, his heart beating like a drum in his chest. He closes his eyes and leans closer so that his forehead touches Alec’s, trying to think. Alec’s fingers tighten around his, and Jace can feel Alec’s shaky breaths on his face, the hot air ghosting over his lips.
He should untangle his hands from Alec’s, reach up, push him away.
He doesn’t.
The moment draws out with neither of them moving, and Jace can feel the confusion and torment inside Alec, leaking over into him through their bond. But there’s hope as well—a desperate, burning hope that grabs onto Jace like a hook and reels him in, making it utterly impossible to walk away.
“No one will find out,” he tells Alec quietly, pulling his stele from his pocket and drawing a quick locking and soundproofing rune on the door. “I swear to you, we’ll be so careful. No one will ever find out.”
Alec looks down at him, his pupils completely blown, his eyes filled with want and love and a blinding trust that makes Jace completely lose his breath. Jace can’t take it anymore; he lets go of Alec’s hands and slides his arms around his neck instead, pulling him into a desperate kiss.
They stagger over to Jace’s bed, attacking each other’s clothes as they go. It’s the first time for both of them, and things are rushed and clumsy and nothing like Jace had imagined losing his virginity would be like.
It’s still utterly perfect, the way Alec’s hands tremble as they move across his skin, how each kiss seems to pull them closer together, and the way their bond feels solid and present in every movement—as though they’re connected by more than just their physical bodies.
The rune on Jace’s hip flares with heat when Alec comes, and Jace imagines he can feel a shadow of Alec’s pleasure as Alec gasps against his throat, a high whine escaping him as he rides out his release against Jace’s thigh.
Jace follows him just moments later, throwing his head back against the pillows and squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he feel himself spill over Alec’s hand and both their stomachs.
They lie wrapped up in each other afterwards, both trying to catch their breath, when Jace feels Alec stiffen and start to pull away.
“Don’t go,” Jace says, tightening his hold on Alec’s waist. “Please don’t. Come here.”
He pulls Alec back in and kisses him—keeps kissing him until Alec melts against him again.
“We’ll figure it out,” he promises, pressing a line of kisses along Alec’s jaw. “Side by side, like with everything else. It’ll be fine.”
Alec nods and kisses him back. Jace wonders if the words sounded just as desperate and impossible to Alec as they did to Jace’s own ears.
It gets both easier and harder after that. Every kiss and touch, every stolen night spent in each other’s rooms with double locking and soundproofing runes on the door is an addictive bubble of intimacy that makes acting like nothing’s changed between them a thousand times harder.
Also, strange things begin to happen to their partnership, first out in the field and then spreading to the training floor as well. They’ve always fought well together—a hundred times more so since they were bonded—but now it’s like they’re literally a single thought, a single blade, moving together in absolute synchronisation like an unstoppable force.
“You are really coming into your own,” Hodge comments one day in training, sounding exceedingly proud after Jace sweeps his feet out from under him and throws Hodge down on the mat. “Good work, Jace. You’ll be the best Shadowhunter at the Institute soon, at this rate.”
At the other end of the room, Alec is practicing with his bow and arrows, hitting the very centre of his target every time he lets an arrow fly. He looks up at Jace with a triumphant grin and a comment about how good Jace looks without his shirt on, and Jace’s eyes widen in alarm. As he looks around the room, however, no one else seems to be reacting, and Jace’s hearts starts to beat faster in his chest when he realises that he could hear what Alec was thinking inside his own head.
He doesn’t hear anything else after that one thought, so Jace writes it off as a fluke, or himself projecting or anything else that makes actual sense. That is, until they’re out in the field one night, fighting a hoard of slimy, snail-like demons that are royally pissed off that Jace and Alec just burned down their nest.
One second, Jace is swinging his seraph blade like normal, and the next, he has three demons on his chest, crawling up his throat and covering his mouth. At the same time, he sees Alec get a snail demon with an arrow, but there’s another one creeping up behind him—a Shax demon that’s no doubt sensed the carnage and come to join in. The second demon opens its jaws and prepares to leap, and Jace tries to call out a warning—to tell Alec to Duck! Look behind you! Get away from it!—but is unable to get any sound past the slimy demon on his face.
Miraculously, Alec does duck, and then immediately rolls and fires off an arrow in the Shax demon’s direction, hitting it right in the throat.
The demon falls to the ground and explodes in a shower of sparks, and Alec turns to Jace, eyes wide with shock, before he notices the trouble Jace is in and runs over to help him.
“Jesus fuck, these really latch on,” Alec pants, as he tries to pull the slimy demons off of Jace without hurting him. “Do you have any smaller blades on you? A knife? Anything?”
There’s one in my left boot, Jace thinks, and Alec immediately reaches for it, pulling it out and stabbing each of the demons.
Well, this is a new development, Jace hears Alec’s voice inside his head, and he almost laughs out loud, because trust Alec to sound just as dry and sarcastic when he thinks as when he talks.
“Let’s finish off these demons, and then we’ll figure this out,” Jace replies, pulling a second seraph blade from a holster on his belt and going after a couple of slimy lumps on his right.
Alec follows his lead and brings his bow back up, quickly dispatching a few demons that are trying to escape into the sewers.
“I mean, it’s not like it’s a bad thing,” Jace says later, when they’ve finished the mission and are walking back towards the Institute. “You know how people always say that some of us have special angelic powers? Maybe mind-reading is just one that we both happen to have.”
“Powers like that are usually hereditary,” Alec replies. “And since we’re not related, it’s highly unlikely that we’d both have the same, unique power.”
“So maybe just one of us actually has it,” Jace argues, “and reading the answers from the minds of other people is part of it.”
“That still doesn’t explain how it only works between the two of us, and why it’s only starting to work now.”
“Do you actually know it’s only us, though?” Jace says. “Maybe it’s other people as well. We should test that out.”
Alec looks like he wants to argue, but then shakes his head instead. “Sure, let’s do that.”
“Can you tell what I’m thinking right now?” Jace asks, more than ready to leave the work portion of their evening behind and turn his focus to… other things.
Alec’s eyes widen slightly, and then he ducks his head, a clear blush spreading across his cheeks.
“So is that a yes?” Jace says, smirking as Alec’s blush intensifies. “Awesome, let’s get back home.”
It is just the two of them, and their power is growing. Another couple of weeks later, they’re able to communicate telepathically with ease and across all of New York. It ties them even closer together, because being in each other’s heads, they’re never truly apart.
It also makes them reckless.
“Jace? Jace, hello? Are you even listening to me?”
Jace gives himself a mental shake and tries to refocus on the mission report in front of him. “Sorry, Iz, I was just ta—thinking about something Alec said earlier. So, is it only vampires that are going missing, or is this demon targeting mundanes as well?”
Izzy gives him a furious look. “What do you mean only vampires? We’re meant to protect everyone, remember?”
“Well, yeah, but vampires can defend themselves,” Jace replies, quickly trying to backpedal. “I mean, they’re not helpless the way mundanes are. So if a demon is targeting them and succeeding, it’s probably quite powerful, and we should keep that in mind when allocating resources.”
Nice save, Alec tells him, and even from only that one thought, Jace can tell that he’s smirking. Jace narrowly keeps himself from rolling his eyes.
Want to do a sweep later? See if we can pick up a trail of this one?
Already runing some new arrows. See you by the door in ten.
“Alec and I’ll head out and take a look,” Jace tells Izzy. “Want to tag along?”
“I think I’ll head out with Raj’s team,” Izzy replies. “Since they’re the ones who’ve been assigned this mission.”
Jace pulls himself out of his mental conversation with Alec and does a double take. “What?”
“You’d have known that if you’d paid even a little bit of attention,” Izzy says. “Seriously, Jace, where the hell is your head these days?”
“What do you mean? I’m right here,” Jace protests. “It’s not my fault these reports are super stuffy.”
“Really?” Izzy says, skepticism practically dripping from each syllable. “Fine, don’t tell me. But I’m here if you do decide to pull your head out of your ass and want to talk.”
She turns and walks off, high heels clicking against the stone floor. Jace puts both his hands on the table and stares down at the files in front of him.
I think Izzy suspects something is going on, he sends to Alec, his own heart rate increasing as he feels the sudden jump in Alec’s. We need something to throw her off.
Like what? Alec sends back.
I don’t know? Maybe one of us could get a girlfriend or something? That’d probably help, right?
A wave of sheer disbelief comes at him from the bond, followed by a sting of pain that quickly stops when Alec’s whole being seems to push, and Jace gasps as he feels suddenly and inexplicably cold—like all his senses just got muted by diving into ice-cold water.
Okay, okay, I’m sorry, he sends to Alec, but receives nothing in reply. He closes his eyes and focuses on the bond.
He can’t sense Alec at all—not even the steadying beat of his heart. Jace begins to panic.
Alec! he tries again, putting his entire mind into pushing the message out. Alec, talk to me.
He can tell right away that the thoughts aren’t going through, so he tries again, and again, putting more and more force behind them as his panic gets worse. He can feel something building inside of him, like a pressure inside his chest that’s expanding outwards, surging through his bloodstream to try and find a way out.
ALEC!
The last thing Jace remembers before everything turns dark is a massive flash of crimson light and pain unlike anything he’s felt before exploding from his parabatai rune.
Jace comes to in the infirmary. At least he assumes that’s where he is, judging from the distinctive smell of antiseptic. His entire body hurts, and he feels tired all the way down to his bones. Even just trying to open his eyes is exhausting, and he gives up on it after a few attempts.
“How long until you can do the spell?” he hears Maryse’s voice coming from close by. “With the exorbitant fee you quoted, I’m expecting efficiency.”
“Like I’ve already explained, I need them both conscious,” an unfamiliar voice says. “Ah, I think the blond one is back with us.”
Jace gasps as he feels a wave of energy hit him, his eyes snapping open and focusing on the face in front of him. A warlock, judging from the scales covering his face and what appears to be gills at the side of his neck.
Jace turns his head and sees Maryse standing a few feet away, looking decidedly grim. “What happened?”
Maryse doesn’t approach him, and her face holds none of the warmth Jace is used to. “I think I should be the one asking the questions,” she replies coldly. “But I’ll wait until my son wakes up.”
She practically spits out ‘my son’, and a sense of dread starts up in Jace’s stomach. He looks around the room and spots Alec lying in a second bed, his face ghostly pale.
“Alec!”
Jace tries to sit up, every instinct in him screaming to get up, to go to Alec’s side. A new wave of magic hits him, keeping him down.
“Don’t worry, your parabatai is quite alright,” the warlock tells him. “Or should I say your boyfriend? Lover? Dirty little secret, perhaps? Why, the things I saw when I looked through both of your minds…”
Jace’s blood runs cold. He turns his face to look at Maryse, the stony look on her face taking on a whole new, horrific meaning.
“It’s not—I can explain,” he tries helplessly.
Maryse doesn’t even deign to reply. “Let me know when Alec is awake,” she tells the warlock crisply. “We need this fixed as soon as possible.”
With that, she turns on her heel and walks out of the room, leaving Jace struggling against the magic holding him down, trying and failing not to panic.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Maryse tells them a short while later, arms crossed as she narrows her eyes on Alec and Jace in turn. “This whole… travesty will stop. Immediately and completely. There aren’t even words to express how deeply ashamed I am of both of you right now.”
Next to him, Alec looks utterly broken, his shoulders hunched over and his eyes firmly fixed on the floor. Jace wishes he could reach out and comfort him somehow, but any kind of gesture like that would most likely make their current situation ten times worse.
Hey, he tries to send to Alec with his mind, we’ll get through this, I promise.
Alec doesn’t react, and there are no answering thoughts either. Jace draws a deep, steadying breath and tells himself to keep it together.
“Because of your disgusting behaviour, the Institute is facing an investigation from the Clave,” Maryse continues. “The burst of magic caused by perverting your sacred bond didn’t only put both of you in a coma, it also destroyed most of the Ops Centre—nine Shadowhunters were hurt in the blast and three of them are still in critical condition.”
Jace swallows hard. If what Maryse says is true—and Jace assumes that it is—then he and Alec did this. Their selfishness and inability to control their emotions got other people hurt—nearly got three people killed. Jace feels like he’s going to throw up.
“We’ll be gone from the Institute within the hour,” Alec says. Jace can tell that he’s trying to be stoic as usual, but it’s ruined by the way his voice tellingly breaks half-way through the sentence. “I know we have no right to ask, but would you allow us to please say goodbye to Izzy and Max before we go? We’ll tell them whatever the official story is going to be, I swear, just—please.”
Maryse just looks at him. And then the corners of her mouth twist upwards in a grim kind of smile.
“Oh, it’s not going to be nearly that easy,” she says. “I have no intention of letting the two of you destroy everything this family has worked for. The warlock waiting outside this room has been hired to clean up this mess. He’s already put a dampener on your bond to get it back to the level it should be, and while you were still unconscious, he went through both your memories to find out exactly when this abomination started. He’ll now extract those memories from you, locking them away so that not even the Silent Brothers will be able to find them. You’ll be cured of this affliction that’s befallen you, and things will go back to normal.”
Jace feels his jaw drop, and next to him, Alec’s head snaps up, looking just as shocked as Jace feels.
You can’t do that, Jace’s mind protests, but to his surprise, it’s Alec who says it out loud.
“I’m only looking out for you,” Maryse replies stiffly. “For you and for our family. Sacrifices need to be made.”
“But you can’t,” Alec repeats, and there’s a note of pure desperation in his voice. “These are our minds, our hearts—you can’t just… erase us.”
“It’s the best course of action,” Maryse says. “The official story will be that Jace got caught up in a fight last night between two lesser demons and the warlock you’ll soon be meeting. While killing one of the demons, he got in the way of a spell, which was temporarily absorbed by his body due to his angel blood, but which exploded once he came back here to the Institute. He was understandably disoriented by the effects of the spell, which is why he didn’t immediately inform people of what had happened. Alec got knocked out by the blast because the magic spread through your bond as well. And the warlock in question has been generously granted immunity for his awful mistake in return for coming here and healing the wounded as well as repairing the damages to the building itself. Don’t worry about remembering it—it’ll be added to your minds with the rest of the spell.”
She walks out the door and comes back shortly after, warlock in tow.
“The requested artifact, as promised,” Maryse tells him, pulling a black velvet bag from the pocket of her dress. “Make sure the replica you leave behind is perfect—if I, or anyone else, even suspects it’s been tampered with, you’ll have this entire Institute hunting you down.”
“Fair enough,” the warlock says, smiling. “Shall I start with your memories, then?”
“Please do,” Maryse says, throwing a last dirty look towards Alec and Jace. “I’m more than ready to forget about this awful day.”
The warlock’s smile widens, and he raises a hand, putting it just a few inches from Maryse’s temple. A ball of brightly yellow magic starts to form, connecting with Maryse’s skin and making her head snap back and a gasp escape her lips.
The spell goes on for less than a minute before the magic disappears. Maryse opens her eyes and blinks sluggishly before her gaze focuses on the warlock.
“Are you almost done here, then?” she snaps. “The Clave’s generosity and patience do not extend forever. I want all affected Shadowhunters healed and the blast damage fixed before the end of the day—with a boost of our wards as compensation—or you can kiss your pardon goodbye. Is that clear, Warlock?”
“Perfectly,” the warlock replies. “I’ll just do a last check of these two to make sure there’s no lingering damage from the original spell, and then I’ll start with the rest directly.”
“See that you do,” Maryse says, and then she turns and walks over to where Jace and Alec are sitting, giving Jace yet another shock as she wraps him up in a tight hug.
“Don’t scare me like that again,” Maryse tells him softly as she lets go. “I know you’ve just been through a lot, but as soon as you’re ready, come to my office. The Clave needs as much information as you can give them for the investigation into the activity of the demon that got away after you were hit.”
Jace somehow manages a nod, and Maryse puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She turns to Alec, and her posture visibly stiffens.
“Alec, I want your report on what exactly you were doing when Jace got hit by that spell within the hour,” she says firmly. “And it’d better be good. As the future Head of this Institute, I expect a lot better from you.”
Alec murmurs something that sounds vaguely like ‘yes, mother’, his eyes still fixed firmly on the floor. Jace doesn’t need to see his face to know that Alec is completely and utterly breaking apart.
As soon as Maryse is out the door, he reaches out and pulls Alec into a crushing embrace.
“This is all my fault,” Alec whispers, clinging to Jace like a lifeline. “If I hadn’t—I’m older, I should have known better; it’s all my fault—I’m so sorry.”
Jace clings back, hides his face in Alec’s neck. “I kissed you first. And then I asked you to stay. It’s not your fault, Alec. We did this—both of us—and I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Jace,” Alec tells him brokenly. “I know neither of us will remember it, but I do. I do. I never wanted you to get hurt. I’m so so sorry—”
“While this is all incredibly sad and touching,” the warlock interrupts, making Jace stiffen and loosen his hold on Alec a fraction, “we have spells to do. So get a last kiss in if you’re going to, and let’s get this show on the road.”
“Fuck you,” Alec says, with so much venom Jace is actually startled. “I hope some demon does come for you. You know, I never got why other people were so negative about warlocks before, but now I definitely do. You’re nothing but greedy opportunists.”
“Oh rawr!” the warlock says with a smirk. “The little angel has claws!”
“You don’t have to be so dramatic,” he adds, sending out a burst of magic to keep Alec and Jace sitting down when they both try to launch forward, “I’m going to extract and alter some of your memories, yes, but it’s not like I’m wiping you clean. You’ll still be exactly the same as before you got yourselves into this mess, and you might even retain some foggy flashes that your brains will read as dreams. I’m good at what I do, but I’m not good enough to change the heart of a person. Or their sexual orientation,” he says, looking pointedly at Alec, who opens his mouth uselessly before closing it firmly again.
“Wait,” Jace says, trying to wrap his head around this new bit of information. “So what are you saying? We’ll still feel the same about each other as we do now? We just won’t remember being together? How the hell does that help anyone?”
“Well, now you’re getting into some deeply philosophical questions,” the warlock says. “If no one hears a tree fall in the woods—or remembers it, in your case—did it actually fall? If left without the memories of your time together, will you make the same choice again? I don’t know—and I don’t really care, to be honest. I was hired to fix your memories, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
“But we won’t change?” Alec asks, a new edge to his voice. “We’ll still love each other?”
“Whatever feelings you harboured before that movie-worthy first kiss happened and your bond started to morph will most likely stay with you, yes,” the warlock replies. “So whether you’ll still be in love is really a question only the two of you can answer. As I said before, I don’t really care. Now, do you have any more questions or can we move on?”
“Just one more thing,” Alec says, and then he turns back to Jace, reaching down between them to take Jace’s hand in his and weave their fingers together.
“I’ve loved you since I was sixteen,” Alec tells him quietly, and Jace feels his chest grow uncomfortably tight. “And I just want to say that even if you don’t—if we come out on the other side of this and you don’t—then that’s okay. I won’t blame you if you—”
Jace grabs the back of his head and pulls Alec into a fierce kiss, muffling whatever else he was going to say.
“Don’t be stupid,” he replies when they break apart again. “Spell or not, we’ll be fine. We’re bound together forever, remember?”
“Forever,” Alec echoes, and a small smile curves the corner of his mouth. He leans in and presses another kiss to Jace’s lips and then turns towards the warlock.
“Okay, we’re ready.”
“Fantastic!” the warlock replies. “Now, this next part will sting a bit, fair warning.”
He extends his hands in front of him, the same brightly yellow magic as before starting to form from the centre of his palms.
“Best of luck, little Nephilims,” the warlock says, and then the magic is rushing towards them, and Jace stops thinking.