There had been a time he thought his life was going to be normal, but there was always something changing that. Weather it was moving to live with the Lightwoods, finding out he had special angel powers, thinking the girl he loved was his sister, her turning out not to be his sister, traveling to the demon realms to defeat a psychotic lunatic. Sometimes he wished he was like everyone else normal, none special, sometimes he even wondered what it would be like to be a mundan. He wondered what would've happened if he had known his parents. He wondered where he would go from here.
He sat on an old trunk in the attic of Herondale Manor. He was alone, Clary had been spending time with her mom and Luke, who were still recovering from their trip to Edom. Alec and Isabelle were somewhere avoiding Robert and Maryse, as was he but for different reasons. Everyone in Alicante was recovering from the Dark war. Simon was… he was gone, alive but gone.
He looked around the dusty old place, it was untidy and it bothered him. Hazy sunlight poured in from a small window being the only source of light. There was a pile of old frames, portraits of the of those who'd lived here before. He got up from where he sat on the old trunk and over to the window, it's glass covered in years of dust. He wouldn't bother to clean it himself, it didn't matter. He left the window over to the flight of stairs that lead to the second story of the house.
he walked the length of the hall until he got to the main staircase, Which reminded him of manor houses in the movies and how grand the looked when you entered the house. He imagined this place had been grand once, it seemed like it had been the type of place where laughter once echoed through the halls, where music had been played and been full of happiness. Another feeling he got was the reminder was this was the house his mother had died in, the place where she had taken her own life out of grief, that reminder always made him feel like this place was filled with ghosts, and maybe Céline was amongst them.
He found himself drawn to the study, whichs walls were made up of shelves. It had occurred to him when he saw this room for the first time that he knew nothing about the Herondales. He knew them from history books and stories of traitors, deserters, and heros all the same, but the one thing he'd understood was they were great readers. Lovers of words. He'd found notes written in them, pages marked and stained novels with ink. The thing he most admired was the large collection of Charles Dickens, they had four editions of a tale of two cities for no apparent reason, seriously what was with these people and their obsession with Dickens? He took out a copy of Great Expectations and opened it to its title page which on the back had words written in ink, long faded and illegible except for the insholes on the bottom J.H.
Jace heard a knock on the door and slid the book back into it's place. He walked out of the study and into the front entrance to open the door. Alec stood outside, his hands in the pockets of his sweater, His breath was visible in the cold air. "Are you going to let me in or are you gonna let me freeze?" He said pushing past him without an invitation. "Um… Come in I guess. Is this going to become a thing with you, baring into peoples homes?" Alec raised an eyebrow at him not quite knowing how to respond, he then looked around him at the entrance hall, taking it in. "So this is the house of heros." He said still observing the room like a crime scene. "Seems fitting for you." He said looking back at Jace. "I'm not a hero." Jace said, maybe because he didn't want it to be true. "Yes you are." Alec said putting his hand on the bottom railing of the stairs. "Then you're one too." He said looking at him. Alec looked away. "Well if thats what the clave wants us to believe, then we're heros." They were silent for a moment before Jace spoke again. " Hows Magnus? Is he feeling any better? Are you two-" "He's fine. And Yes we're back together, everything's fine." Jace walked over to him. "Everythings fine but it's changed." he added. "Everything's supposed to change." Alec ran his fingers through his hair. "Can we not do this? At least not here." He said stepping away. " Do what?" " have one of those deep conversations that will ultimately end with one of us crying." Alec said. " I like these conversations, I think we should go to a therapy session, we would be great." Alec rolled his eyes. " Alec, would you please tell Jace how you feel." Jace said mockingly. He erupted in laughter. "See this is normal, you cracking terrible jokes is normal, and I need this to stay the same." He said with a smile. " I need us to stay the same. Because I don't want everything to change, I still want to be able to talk to to you but I don't want us to be burdened on how the other one is feeling." He looked serious now. "Okay." Jace said stepping towards him "now come here and hug me brother." Alec stepped towards him and enveloped him in a hug. " This is so weird." he whispered in his ear. " Yeah lets not be the hugging type of brothers." Jace said stepping away.
A/N: This was originally going to be part of my TMI one shot series but I wanted to make a story out of it. Depending on responses and if people like it I'll have the next chapter up if not this will become a one shot. Thank you for reading :)
~~RowanWhitethorn22