Love is like a sickness, it eats you up from the inside out and dispels all the happy memories from the places nestled safely in your memory. Love uproots the things we love, carries them across the country and nestles them in the arms of someone you've always wanted. I've wanted your love to be my sickness for years but I've never caught the kissing disease.

"No I don't!" Alec cries from his place across the room from Jace.

"Right… and I'm the Queen of Sheba?" Jace laughs.

"Just because…." But Alec's voice fades. Just because I look at you too long in the shower or let you pummel me in training doesn't mean I like you.

Jace pulls down the duvet and sheet from his bed in their shared room. "Don't worry about it Alec. You never have to worry about it with me. You're my parabatai, I love you but nothing more." Jace stripped off his clothes, down to nothing, bare as the day he was born.

Alec, being the brave soul that he was had just been discovered with a trove of dirty gay magazines and a notebook with J+A scribbled in the margins. At first he had thought Jace would be repulsed, disgusted and generally skeeved out but he had been none of those things. In fact he'd barely reacted at all.

"Are you going to bed in the next millennium or should I wait forever for you to turn out your light?" Jace says sleepily.

"Uh. Oh yeah, sorry 'bout that." Alec stops standing with his mouth hanging out like he was trying to catch flies. Alec moves over to his large oak dresser and slips into pajama pants and turns out the light.

"Night bro." Alec mutters.

"Night." Jace replies sleepily.

A matter of moments later Jace's soft, even breathing is the only sound in the room. Alec's head is a mess in the worst way. What if it hadn't been Jace that found his doodling notebook? What if it had been Robert or worse Maryse? They would have been tossed out on their asses and separated forever. Several minutes of talking this way to himself has him properly riled up and thinking the worst. Alec looks up at the white spackled ceiling and wonders how long he's been in love with Jace… he couldn't be sure but it was sometime in the months after Jace came to stay with them is when it started and it hadn't really bloomed for years. Here was though, in the dead of night wondering if he could ever touch Jace in that way. There's a dull ache settling between his legs and he knows exactly the cause of it. Dutifully he ignores it as long as possible but it's difficult when the object of his affections is lying directly next to him. He's beyond frustrated and it would be excruciatingly difficult to rub one out in the same room as his parabatai. Jace would feel the surge of pleasure through his parabatai rune and wake up immediately, no there had to be some distance between them.

Alec shifts and attempts to leave the room but he hears Jace's head whip up. "Where are you going?"

"Uhm… can't sleep going to go grab some tea." Alec's trying to escape but Jace is already getting out of bed, never one to let his parabatai to suffer in silence.

"I'm coming. I'll steal a few of mom's chai tea bags." Alec rolled his eyes, the two were always fighting over it.

"Ok, yeah let's go." Alec said, trying to hide the trepidation in his voice.

So, Jace, clad in only a pair of Alec's too long pajama pants, pads out to the kitchen next to Alec. Alec microwaves a cup of water for tea and Jace smuggles a few chai tea bags for himself. "You're acting weird." Jace says in a muffled whisper.

"No…" But it's hard to lie to Jace even if it's for his own good.

"Just spit it out, ok?" Jace says as he hauls himself up to sit on the counter. Jace didn't seem to be perturbed by his parabatai's sheepish behavior but more concerned. Alec heaves a long suffering sigh and presses forward.

"I really like you… I-I think I'm in love with you. And I think you don't feel the same way." Alec said as quickly as he could without mincing his words.

Jace raised his eyebrows. It was plain as as day that the other boy really loved Jace but Jace couldn't give him his heart. "You know I love you but not in that way." Jace said, toying with the tea bags in his hand.

Alec scoffs. He wishes Jace could know the overpowering love he felt for Jace. He thinks for a moment wondering how he could show Jace how he felt. He remembered an old spell that could be cast on the parabatai rune to flood the recepient with the other parabatai's emotions. Alec burns his tongue on his tea and swears loudly. "Do you want to know how I feel about you, how I really feel about you?"

Jace shrugs, "Yeah I mean, I want to understand."

A thought passes through Alec's head… what if Jace know how he felt and it changed his feelings? It's one thing to know someone likes you ( in that way ) but an entirely different thing to actually the emotions that go through their head when they think of you. Alec dumps the dregs of his tea in the sink and whispers, "C'mon I wanna try something before you go back to bed."

"Yeah ok, whatever will help you." Jace agrees. Alec begins to think that Jace had no opinion on Alec being in love with him. As if it didn't matter? Alec shrugs this thought off and begins padding back to their room with Jace in tow.

Alec removes his stele from his bedside drawer with Jace across the room. "C'mere it's not going to hurt. I'm just going to run the stele over your parabatai rune and focus on my emotions." Jace's indifference seemed to be melting away. He knew Alec felt strongly and the front Jace had been putting up wouldn't last long.

"Yeah, ok." Jace lifted up his shirt slightly and exposed his parabatai rune and Alec began focusing on how he felt about Jace, all the anger, the sadness the joy and the attraction. When he'd brought his thoughts to cohesion he highlighted Jace's parabatai rune and let the feelings syphon off into Jace. When he was done he felt a little empty but the look in Jace's eye was worth all of it.

"THIS IS HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT ME?" Jace all but yells.

"Shhh you're going to wake up Maryse!" Alec says clamping his hand down on Jace's mouth. Jace's eyes were blown with lust, and he was crimson with whichever emotion of Alec's he was currently focusing on. Words seem to fail his parabatai but there was a flash of movement and Alec was pinned to the carpet, lips pressed to Jace's. This was not what Alec was expecting. He was expecting Jace to blow the whole thing off like it wasn't a big deal, to dismiss his emotions or flat out refuse to do the trick with the stele. But the way Jace was kissing him gave him a very different message.

"Jace, Jace!" Alec says breaking away from the kiss. "I can't…"

Jace pauses and lets his parabatai catch his breath. "I-I'm so sorry Alec." he stammers and Alec thinks it's the first time he's heard jace stammer in the entire time he's known the boy. Jace gets off him and wanders to his queen size bed. "That's what you feel for me? You're sure?" Alec can't help but laugh

"I can't be making it up now that I've just shown you can I?"

"Get in bed c'mon it's been a long night." jace says and Alec complies but as he heads to his own bed jace heaves a long suffering sigh. "Not that bed. My bed. I need to be close to you." Alec smiles and for the first time in his life gets to be the big spoon. Just before they fall asleep and with Alec's arm around Jace's waist he whispers "Not your boyfriend though." No, Alec thinks he's a lot more than a boyfriend could ever be.