Notes: Hello everyone! Long time no see!
So the season has begun to a... controversial, to say the least, start for our favourite parabatai and I'm sort of... back to writing episode-related meta fics, I suppose? I had plenty of thoughts on the matter and this is where they led me. Sorry for the doubtlessly abundant typos and mistakes of any kind - I'm kind of in a hurry and also not incredibly emotionally sound after this episode. Title taken from Fever Ray's If I Had A Heart, because it felt surprisingly apt.
With that being said, hope you guys enjoy it and feedback is always welcome!
Grief is an odd thing to experience, Alec finds, especially so when it belongs to someone else.
It's usually simple enough for him to differentiate between his own emotions and the ones coming from Jace's direction – he feels them differently, the swirl of the sensations building up entirely on their own inside him easily separable from the heavy, distant but familiar taste that Jace's experiences leave in his mind. It doesn't matter what exactly either of them is feeling at the time – happiness and loss and anger and euphoria are all the same when they're shared.
Grief, however, is entirely different, if for no reason other than the fact that Alec isn't used to it. The life of a Nephilim is marked by loss from birth until death and that should be enough to imply that they'd understand it before they could grasp quite a few other aspects of life, but in his experience, the opposite tends to happen. Shadowhunters, he's noticed, aren't born understanding it; not the ones who have been surrounded by their own kind their entire lives. They're born used to it. He'd attended his first funeral rites so young that he can barely recall the details now and can remember even less about the deceased, and he definitely hadn't understood. It had been a fact of life just like anything else and, since he'd never been unfortunate enough to lose a family member, it had remained the same way for all the years that had followed. Death saddens him, particularly if it's someone from his own people – someone he'd seen every day – but it isn't grief. It never had been before. It isn't now, either, because it isn't his.
Jace's grief, where it burrows into him through their bond, is cloying and heavy; resigned and endless. It's the cut-off grief he'd felt for his father – the frustration of never getting to say goodbye to a person that had meant so much. There's no beginning and no end to it and for the first few hours after they get back to the Institute, Jace's pain seems as endless as the procedure Alec had endured when the medics had had to pull out his arrow from his own body. It's the exact same kind of hurt and it digs into his chest further and further, enough to make him feel like he'll never breathe properly again.
His body heals, eventually; the pain fading bit by bit until he's finally free from it. Jace's, however, does not. He leaves him to it at first – there are things that each of them need to handle on their own and demonic possession is definitely one of them – and it's only when Isabelle goes to check on him at his request that he realises just what he'd been missing.
It terrifies him; the picture she paints when she retells him everything that had happened in Jace's room until Alec had wrung out each and every word he'd said out of her. He vividly remembers the inside of Jace's nightmares – the blade in his parabatai's hands biting into his own as he makes his last pleas – and he'd thought— with the Owl finally gone, he had thought that it would be different. There's grief and there's self-loathing of this magnitude and it's almost too late when Alec realises that the two emotions have become too tangled up in one another for him to be able to tell them apart.
It's the last straw he needs to finally make the decision to take Jace off of active duty for the time being. It had been an order waiting to happen anyway and if Alec is honest with himself, he'd been looking for an excuse. It had been the preferable course of action for weeks now and if this is the only way to get Jace to stay put – to keep him safe, what little responsibility Alec can claim for that – then he's ready to embrace the opportunity.
It goes about as well as he'd expected, which is to say, not at all. He had thought the conversation through for almost an hour before that – had considered all the different possibilities, all the ways in which Jace could react to his words – and had, to his dismay, predicted this particular argument quite early on.
If only he had killed him when he'd had the chance. It's a frequent topic for Jace; one that he doesn't seem able to let go of at all. Somewhere in the depths of his mind (are they as empty and cold and desolate now that Lilith isn't there to chase all the warmth and memories away, Alec wonders before discarding the thought as quickly as possible in an effort to distract them both from everything that had happened back then), his death is the solution to every problem they'd had recently; the clue to the reversing of every pain, every death, every change and tragedy.
It's not like Alec is blind to the consequences; of course he isn't. He's more than capable of understanding that at their core, each of them would always lead back to his decision to keep Jace alive whatever the cost. Nothing else had mattered then and it still doesn't now that he had seen how it would all unfold. His parabatai's suffering is only one of the costs he'd had to pay, but if he needs to guilt him into staying alive until he can resurface from the pit he's dug himself into, then he will. At this point, he's quite sure that there's nothing he wouldn't do to help.
It's a horrible, horrible thing and it eats away at him every time he feels Jace's bottomless guilt weighing him down and thinks, I did this for you and I'm sorry if it wasn't enough and I'm sorry she's dead but it could have been worse, it could have been you and a million other things, each more unfortunate than the other, but it can't be helped. None of this can. It's all they have and for Alec, it is very nearly good enough.
Jace, as expected, isn't so lucky.
"Come in," Alec says, still stubbornly turned to the stained glass of his office's windows at the sound of the tentative knock on the door. Outside, the world keeps turning, churning along like it always has and it's a nice reminder to have, sometimes; that it's still capable of such a thing. Shadowhunters might be used to loss, saving their grief for only the people they cannot bear to lose, but even they know that it doesn't last forever. It couldn't possibly.
It's been a week. Not quite forever, but it's certainly what it feels like from his point of view. Or Jace's – he's not entirely sure, and the difference has definitely been melting away even more in the last couple of days.
"We need to talk," Jace says as soon as he's inside and the key is turned in the lock. It's so that no one can bother them, presumably, but Alec has the sinking feeling that it's also a way of making sure that he'll be forced to listen. Not without a twinge of regret, he spins on his heel.
Jace looks as immaculate as he ever gets and his misery sticks to Alec's throat, raw and unfiltered now that he's so close.
"Are you okay?" There's no point in having a conversation – he knows exactly how he is and Jace knows he knows, knows that he's been looking and perhaps that's why he's here – to tell him to knock it off. It would be preferable to almost any of the other options Alec can already see coming and that's why he suspects that there's something else that he needs.
"Okay enough to be cleared for missions, as I'm sure you know." Jace strides over to his desk and slams a handful of papers in front of him, some of which crumpled and coffee-stained enough to be almost unreadable. Still, he recognises what he sees. "It's something Luke told me about and I've been looking into it. He's made a bunch of graphs and he thinks—"
"I know what he thinks." There's no getting out of this now. Alec seats himself back in his chair and motions Jace towards the one on the other side of the desk, forced to look up when his parabatai ignores the gesture. He nudges his tablet in the no man's land between them and Jace frowns as he swipes through the photos, clearly having been over this already. "He sent it to me three days ago; it makes some good points. Suppose he thought it'd be easier to launch an investigation with more manpower, and he's right, but I'm not exactly in the Consul's good graces right now." Now that it's out in the open, there's no stopping the conversation from going down that path anyway, so Alec soldiers on. "But if you know about it, I'm guessing he talked to you too."
"I went to see him," Jace nods, hands clenching and unclenching around yet another page of supposed proof. "He must've reached out to you after that. You didn't say anything."
"No."
He can see Jace grinding his teeth, the resignation from before giving way to the age-old irritation of having to pry something out of Alec when he doesn't feel like elaborating. Good. It's not perfect, but it's better, and Alec is ready to take what he can get. "Care to share why?"
"Because it's nothing convincing enough to actually gather the equipment we'd need for something of this scale. I could rationalise the expense if we—"
"Are you trying to tell me we've got funding issues?" Disbelief and outrage are among the list of small victories that Alec keeps in the back of his mind, so he keeps quiet. "Have you taken a look at your family's vaults recently? You could easily fund it out of your pocket. I could do it if you won't. I've all of the Herondale family's fortune on my name now, along with whatever's left of the salaries Imogen has been getting for years. Apparently the Inquisitor position pays rather well." When Alec refuses to rise to the bait of the insensitivity that makes them both wince, Jace pushes forward. "I can do it all on my own if you want."
"I don't," he finally crumbles. Silence is no good if it means losing him in any sense of the word. "I don't want that. And I'll see what I can do. You're still off of field work. Don't get any ideas."
Angel strike it all, he could have possibly omitted the command. Should have done so, likely, but it's too late now and he's given up on regretting anything at this point. Whatever the cost, he reminds himself until it's a little easier to look Jace in the eye again.
"You can't keep confining me to the Institute until I start being—"
"What? Responsible for yourself? I can and I will. I'll arrange a psych eval for you if you'd like to debate this further, but I don't think either of us would like that." There's fury burning its way through Jace's body, along with indignation and exhaustion and a hint of the kind of devotion that says, yes, anything, but only because it's you and Alec is terrified and overjoyed by the feel of it. It's been a small, private eternity since they've been in this position and Alec is aware of how bad it would look in front of anyone else – it looks terrible in his own mind – but he still can't help but welcome it all with open arms. He steps around until he can come near his parabatai; touch him again, cup his cheek in his palm and watch him lean into the caress without even thinking, possibly without even meaning to. It's thrilling all the same. "Or you could always talk to me. That offer's still standing. It always is. If not, I'll still look into Luke's files. I'll get my best field agents—"
"I'm your best field agent," Jace snarls before he can help himself and Alec feels his own ire take over, fuelled by the frantic need to protect him as best as he can. It's impossible to satisfy that particular beast when it consumes him so easily every single time and all his parabatai does is feed it further, whether he knows it or not. On occasion, he does – it's not unheard of between them – but just now, Alec suspects that he has no clue. It makes everything just that last bit worse.
"Not right now you aren't." He's not backing down this time, no matter how much it hurts either of them. "I can request more people from Idris if the situation is serious enough. Luke's sent me his updates too – if you have a skilled enough Warlock, you can sometimes trace the magic left behind from certain runes and there's something he suspects was used. It binds two people together physically and mentally and if he's right, it could only mean trouble."
"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"
If he's managed to distract Jace enough for him to try and get on his nerves, then he's well enough to handle the truth when faced with it. Alec flashes him a bitter smile. "I researched it some more since then. If one of them gets hurt, it's debilitating for the other, sometimes even lethal. More often than not, actually." He watches Jace's eyes widen with realisation at what this could mean – the impossibly hopeful and the unthinkably horrifying – and nods in response. "The one who benefits from it more would do anything to protect the other, of course." He still hasn't moved away, Alec realises suddenly, hasn't stopped touching him, and does nothing to rectify that. His parabatai hadn't either, after all, still pressed into his touch like it helps him stay upright. It just might. God, Alec hopes it does, and tries to bury the impulse so deep that Jace would never, ever be able to see it.
"Anything?" That, too, is both hope and horror, Alec notices, and gives another nod of affirmation.
"Anything," he says firmly. "Nothing else matters as much. With such a connection— it would always be a priority." Clary is dead, Magnus gave up his powers, Simon and Luke risked their lives, and this is how I repay them. This is how he'll repay anyone, always, Alec realises, by asking for more and more until there's nothing left to give, in order to protect who matters. He'd already used his own potential pain as a reason to keep Jace here and he's ready to do it again if needs be; giving him hopes that will almost certainly turn out to be false is nothing in comparison. Very few things have been below him in the last few days and he's past wondering whether he should sink any lower. "Whatever the cost."
"Not very wise," Jace points out, but still lingers close. Alec's smile turns rueful.
"No," he agrees. "Selfish, really, but he wouldn't be able to help himself if he wants to keep either of them standing."
"So if Clary somehow made it—"
"So did Jonathan. Or the other way around, likely; after everything he's been through, I bet he's hard to kill for good. But he could have saved her. Doesn't really matter to the mission; if I report the possibility of him still on the loose to the Clave, it'll get them moving."
And just like that, Jace's arms are around him, his grip tight and far more desperate than Alec had expected. It's fine, really. He relishes in it all the same, drinking in the warmth suddenly flooding their bond. Hope, he thinks, and his eyes sting with both that and the shame of how feeble and misleading it actually is. "Thank you. Parabatai."
"Don't," he chokes out even as he returns Jace's embrace. He should remain firm, remind him that he needs to do better than this, that he can't keep hanging on to the loose threads of what is very unlikely to happen; should say something about how this is a matter of security and how the Shadow World is in danger and this is bigger than them, but what comes out is, "You're still staying here. I'm not doing this for you."
It's about their world, he knows, or it should be, but Alec's long since lost track of how deep this particular lie goes. The Shadow World could crash and burn for all he cares – he's made enough sacrifices on its altar by this point to know that he'll keep going as long as he can keep this (him) here, relatively safe even from himself, for as long as he can. Whatever the cost.