Jace strode arrogantly down the sidewalk, his blonde mop of hair glinting in the moonlight, stopping only to kick an old drink can from him path. He didn't even have to think about where he was going, his brain on autopilot, which wasn't surprising considering the hundreds of times he had done this journey since the battle at the seventh sacred site. Sebastian was many things, but not an idiot, he knew he would thousands of miles away scheming whatever terrible and destructive thing he was gong to throw at us next, rather than lurking in the shadows of the New York alleyways waiting to ambush a young girl on her way back from training. Even so, Jace still couldn't shake the feeling that Clary was in danger - if anything was ever to happen to her, she was so fragile, he didn't think he'd be able to - no. He shook his head, he was simply being paranoid.
And so it was that night, like the night before, and every night for the last 3 months that Jace made his way quickly through the streets of Manhattan, back to the institute after dropping his girlfriend - wow it felt good to say that finally, it was something he never thought he would be able to, and the word tasted sweet on his tongue - off back at Luke and Jocelyn's.
Jace pursed his lips. If it was up to him - and Clary too - she would simply stay at the institute, like every trainee shadowhunter before her. It irritated Jace, that whenever he did get to spend one on one time with Clary nowadays, he was always having to decide in what way would be suitable for him to 'attack' her. But no. Jocelyn would hear nothing of the sort.
"NO. NO SLEEPOVERS ANYWHERE WITHIN A BLOCK's RADIUS OF YOUR BOYFRIEND. UNDERSTAND?"
And he didn't see her changing her mind anytime soon either, he thought, smiling wryly. He tried desperately not to think of how unfair this was. She let Simon sleep in the same bed as her precious little daughter! His fists clenched instinctively, a flicker of rage in his chest, at the thought of that bloodsucker's name. He never quite had gotten over his jealous tendencies towards the mundane, even now when he seemed to be with Izzy, and the current situation wasn't exactly helping the matter.
He knew it was because Jocelyn didn't trust him, and at first he had been sympathetic.
Husband turns first child into a demon. Tries to do the same to the second. Psychotic husband kills parents. Forced to flee country, and entire life and go into hiding. 15 years later said husbands returns, kidnaps you, puts you in a coma, intending to use your adolescent daughter in a pawn for his quest to take over the world. First child follows in his foot steps, almost succeeding in world dominion, kidnaps Clary, attempts to turn her into a demon and harbors passionate incestial feeling towards her.
And he is the adoptive son and brother of these two... monstrosities. Of course she didn't trust him. He sighed, frustrated. He had tried to prove himself, to show that Clary literally is his world, but clearly she hadn't 'bought it'.
Just then he caught a flicker of movement in the shadows, out of the corner of his eye. His head snapped up, his stance switching to one of aggression and caution. He prepared himself for a fight.
Nothing. He waited, training his ears onto the environment around him, listening for any signs of disturbance. Still nothing, just the accelerated humping of his heart against his rib cage, and his breathing, which caught on the inside of his throat. He waited for a few minutes longer, before exhaling deeply.
He snorted quietly at himself and his ridiculous paranoia, before relaxing. He looked down, not surprised to see his skin radiating a soft gold light. His hands looked almost transparent, his milky white bones shinning clearly through the thin golden gossamer that was his flesh. For the rest of the walk home his finger tips tingled, as they so often did nowadays.
He was just about to round the corner onto the last stretch of concrete, where the institute would surely rise majestically into view, when he saw it again. The flicker as someone darted across the road. Getting caught, just briefly in the glare of the streetlamp. There was no mistaking that flash of brilliant white hair.
He sat there, unmoving like a statue, even the slight rise and fall of his chest undetectable, just staring. Staring at the object in his hands.
The blue glittery object hang limp and lifeless in his outstretched palms. It did little justice to its owner, he thought emptily. Running the soft fabric through his finger tips, he closed his eyes, the darkness behind his lids the only place now where he could see his face.
But, as it hadn't over the past few weeks, no face surfaced beneath the blackness. At first he'd wanted so desperately to forget, forget him. And now that he wanted only to remember, to cherish, did it seem that, ironically, cruelly, his mind intended to forget.
This thought however did not bring the panic, like an iron fist around him throat, and the sharp pain it first had. This time he felt only empty. Hazy, like everything outside his protective bubble was surreal, meaningless. He felt detached, detached from all the heartache, the crippling pain and even the tears that were apparently coursing down his face, unrelenting, and dripping onto the midnight blue cotton, that was now resting in his lap.
Instinctively he brought his knees up to his chin, and rolled over, the mattress cushioning his fall, so he lay on his side in a ball amidst the sheets.
And there he lay nuzzled into the scarf, perhaps for hours he thought, days. Or maybe just a few minutes. Who knew. And a tiny selfish part of him wondered if this was what it was all about. Ma...He said he planned to live for eternity, and Alec now realised perhaps heartbreak was the eternity.
His feet hit the pavement with rhythmical soft thuds, as he sprinted, as only Jace - and Sebastian - could after his darling brother. Everything seemed to be in slow motion and he watched the figure in front of him dart from street to street, twisting down dark alley ways, Jace following easily in his wake.
A small part of his brain knew it was a trap, Sebastian only got caught if he wanted to, and an even smaller part was telling him to 'TURN AROUND', for surely nothing good could come of this. This tiny voice however was crushed by Jace's thirst for revenge, a revenge that as Jace enveloped the ground between him and his 'brother - in - law' - that thought painting a shadow of a smile across his chiseled face - he vowed to get.
As he gained ground Jace wondered if it was all the anger and the hatred, for the way in which he had ripped his family apart, the shadowhunter world apart, Max, fuelling his legs, pushing him to go faster. It was too late however that he realised it was because Sebastian had slowed down, practically reaching a halt in the middle of a deserted alleyway, probably across the other side of town. Jace looked past the triumphant figure of his brother, unsurprised to see a brick wall, signalling a dead end.