It's late. Really late, actually, the lights are dimmed in the institute but there's a pounding coming from the training room that can only be my parabatai. I shake my head and walk in, seeing Jace pummeling the hell out of the punching bag. He stops, chest heaving, hands resting on his knees and I know he senses my presence.
"You wanna spar?" Jace asks with his back still turned to me.
"It's two in the morning, Jace." I say trying my best not to roll my eyes.
"So what are you doing here?" Jace says coldly, knowing exactly why I'm here.
"I woke up and you weren't there, that could be it." I say, disappointment sinking into voice against my will.
"You know how it is." It's a statement of fact. Jace has been having terrible nightmares since Isabel was killed in a demon attack two weeks ago. Jace was still slumped over his knees and I decide it's time to get him to stop feeling sorry for himself. My arm loops around his waist. "C'mon, shower and come back to bed and if you can't sleep I know a way we can pass the time." So rarely do I come onto Jace that he stands up and all wet and sweaty, hugs me and I feel the bond between us pulse in my chest. He loves you. Jace has never said it but Alec knows it's true.
"Yeah, yeah ok." Jace consceeds. Being the taller of the two of us my arm settles a little higher on his ribs and I can feel the steady, if not rapid drumming of his heart. It's beautiful. In my own fingertips I can feel that my pulse has sped up slightly to match his. We walk down the deserted corridor to our shared bathroom. Of course we don't share a room, but every night one of us with crawl into the other's bed. Jace strips off his clothes and climbs into the shower, calling over his shoulder, "I need someone to wash my back you know?" I smirk. During the daylight hours he's coarse, rough even and we argue about various things but at night… oh at night he's different.
I happily strip off the boxers I had climbed out bed in and step into the steamy shower, grabbing Jace's favorite body wash, lathering up a loofah and scrubbing my parabatai's back. "I know you're upset. Everyone's upset-" Alec starts but Jace cuts him off.
"She was my baby sister. She meant so much to me." Jace says, letting his walls down and letting the pain in his voice show.
Sometimes I wondered how I wasn't the one falling apart, as a matter of fact I'd stuffed my grief so far away I was pretty sure it had gotten lost in all the other things I repressed.
Jace sounds and looks exhausted. I rinse his back off and he sighs. "I'll stay up with you all night you know that right?"
"Of course." And there's that tone of voice he reserves only for me. A tender, kind piece of Jace that can't stand to show itself during the day.
I drape my head on his warm back. "I know you don't feel the same way but I love you. I love you so much." Jace turns around, places his hand on my heart and smiles. "I don't do the things I do with you with someone I don't love." He presses his lips to mine and I'll be a monkey's uncle if I don't know exactly where this is going but Jace pulls away, finishes scrubbing off and flicks water at me. I shake it off and we both dry off with fluffy white towels. I walk into his bedroom and collapse onto his bed, hair still wet.
"You're going to get my pillow wet, bro." Jace says to me, it's all playful between us and thank god for that.
"Probably but I think you'll still love me anyway." the towel is still wrapped tight around my waist and he's changing into boxers and a clean t-shirt. "Do you ever wonder what it would be like if I just stayed the night with you and let them find us in the morning? If we just let them have what's been coming for so long?"
Jace stops moving and turns to face me. "Every night you come to my bed I wonder that, and every night the answer in my head is the same. NO." I don't think he's angry with me, he looks frustrated though. The sexually frustrated act is getting tiresome for everyone and now there's no Izzy to try to fool it's not really worth it… except if we try to be together they'll separate us and part of me will die.
"What if we ran away?" I venture. It seems foolish to hope. I know Jace isn't gay but he sure as hell isn't straight either.
"You don't think they would have your friend Magnus trace us?" Jace snorts as he climbs into bed. As he gets into bed I go to his drawer and steal a pair of his underwear and one of his t-shirts. It's true, I could have gone to my own room, just next door and changed but I'd rather not.
"Magnus isn't a friend and you know it." I scoff. No, Magnus and I have an occasional friends with benefits arrangement. If Jace is gone on a mission without me I go to him for physical affection. "Magnus would have to be threatened with pain of death in order to trace us. He's so in love with me but he doesn't get it." I love you. It goes without saying.
Jace rolls onto his back and looks up at me, standing in his boxer-briefs, which are a little tight on me and his t-shirt, also a little tight on my broader, taller frame. "Like what you see?" I ask, a small smirk making the corner of my mouth curl up.
Jace laughs, "When I have I ever not liked what I saw?" It's a good question I can't imagine Jace not looking just a little too long at me, staring a little too hard.
"Dunno, no time in recent memory that's for sure." I climb into bed and let my hand find it's way across his taut abdomen.
"Are we doing this tonight?" Jace asks me.
"If you want to, yes. I haven't made love to you in at least forty-eight hours, much too long." I say tapping his hip, signalling him to get on his stomach.
"Yeah, you know I want to. You also know that if it had been four hours I'd still want to do it."
I laugh lightly and we pass the time as lovers do, skin to skin, chest to back, tongue on neck.
Morning comes, and grey dawn is no comfort to me. I am so lonely in the mornings. It's a shame too, my morning wood protests loudly at the lack of a partner ( one partner in specific ) to sheath myself in. Light seeps in the curtains and illuminates a head of golden hair on the pillow next to mine. I bolt upright, adrenaline surging through my veins. HOLY FUCK. I spent the night. Not only did Jace not kick me out but we completely passed out before I could sneak back to my room. I throw the covers off, waking up an irritable Jace, "What the fuck?!" He furiously whispers to me. He's angry and I can't blame him.
"I'm getting the fuck outta here." I say to him. We can never do this again, NEVER. Maybe it's best that I spend some nights with Magnus and remind myself what I would be missing if we were to be separated.
I'm down the hall and in my own bed in seconds and not a moment too soon either. Lydia is knocking on his door, still in her pajamas, hair in a messy bun. "Morning!" She says cheerfully. If Alec had ever been tempted to murder someone, it was her, right here, right now.
"Ugh - hi?" I say pretending to stifle a yawn.
"I've got coffee on!" She says cheerily and i can hear a few birds chirping. Holy god.
"Give me five minutes?" I say plaintively. She nods and disappears from my doorway. Christ.
She was reassigned here after her fiance was killed and my parents, Maryse especially, have hoped I would marry her. My mother and I had an argument last week where I reminded her, none too quietly, that i could marry a thousand times and it would always be the wrong choice. Marriage wasn't an option yet for gay people, not that it had been what I meant but none the less, I force myself out of bed and pull on one of my own t-shirts on after tugging Jace's off. His scent still lingers in the air and I know it's so faint only I can truly notice it.
Jace would never be woken up at this hour except for the fact that he's standing at my door, scowling, looking like a bear ripped from his den in mid-winter. "You're in so much trouble." He mutters. I know no one saw us because there's no pain in his voice, just irritation.
That night I will find out just how much trouble I am in, that I can rest assured of.
A/N: ok hey guys haven't posted anything here in awhile i have no idea where this is going but if you'd be so kind as to leave a review i would be eternally grateful 3 you can also follow me (lightarrowed) and my friend (steleruned) on tumblr for more jalec!