So, this is my first TMI fic, so I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these lovely characters; they belong to the mind of the great (and terrible) Cassandra Clare.
Alec was lying flat on his back, yet again. This had to have been at least the sixth time Jace had knocked the wind out of him. He loved his parabatai (in ways he didn't want to think about), but training with him was a huge pain. Jace was a prodigy in the Shadow World. So was his sister Isabelle. Sure, he was a good Shadowhunter, but he was always overshadowed by his siblings. Not that he minded. He was proud to know that he'd always be the one to look after them, since neither of them know how to look after themselves.
"Need a hand?" Jace asked, standing over him. "Again?"
Alec scowled and smacked his hand away. "Shut up, Jace," he snapped, brushing himself off. "I'm gonna go take a shower." Alec stood up and started heading toward the door.
"Oh, come on, Alec, I was only kidding," Jace shouted after him, but Alec was already gone.
"He thinks he's so perfect, doesn't he?" Alec grumbled to himself. "With his golden hair and golden eyes. Thinks he can't be beaten. It's obnoxious."
"What are you muttering about?" his eleven-year-old sister, Isabelle, questioned as she walked out of the kitchen. She had recently taken up trying to teach herself to cook and was failing miserably. Alec had learned that the hard way.
"Nothing," he told her. "Jace is just being . . ."
"Jace," Isabelle suggested, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah," Alec agreed.
"I take it he beat you again?" Isabelle teased. "He's twelve and you're thirteen, Alec. You've had an extra year of training."
"First off, you know his dad trained him before he was ever supposed to start training, so if anything, he's had more training than me. Second, I'm really not in the mood, so could you take your sass elsewhere?"
"Fine, touchy," she muttered. "I'll go bother Jace."
"Please," he scoffed. "Go at him with everything you've got.
Alec had cooled off by breakfast the next day. Jace's apology helped. Alec was the only one he ever apologized to. That made him feel special.
"Apology accepted," Alec told him. "Just don't do it again."
"Of course," he said, though we both knew he was lying.
He turned in his chair to eat his cereal and Alec saw something very alarming. "By the Angel, what's on your neck?"
Jace instinctively reached up to touch the pink bump. "Oh, I got bitten by a spider after you left. It'll go away in a day or two."
"What's a spider?" Max, my four-year-old brother asked.
"It's a type of insect, Max," Jace told the little boy.
"Technically, it's an arachnid, not an insect," Alec added. "It has eight legs"
Both boys glared at him. He decided to turn my attention back to Jace's neck?"
"You sure you don't want to get it checked out.?" Alec asked, still worried. "We could call in the Silent Brothers. I'm sure Brother Zachariah wouldn't mind-"
"I can take care of myself, Alec," Jace snapped. I rolled my eyes. "Besides, what could a tiny spider do to me?"
He had a fair point. He was only a little smaller than Alec, and he was nearly six feet and muscular.
"Just let me know if it gets any worse, alright?" he said.
"Alec, I'm your parabatai. You can trust me," Jace promised.
Alec should've known not to trust him. It was four days after the incident, and Jace and Alec were training again. Alec could tell he wasn't feeling well. He told Jace to take the day off and rest, but he refused.
Alec was beating him easily, which tells you how out of it he was. Alec knocked his feet out from under him and he fell onto the mat.
"I think it's time you head to to bed," he told the blonde.
"I can't," Jace , you've trained more than enough-"
"No, Alec. I can't get up," Jace told him, lacking his usual snark. "I can't feel my legs."
Alec gave him a look. "This isn't funny, Jace-"
"I know it's not funny, Alec! I can't move and I don't know what to do!" Jace snapped at him.
Alec immediately dashed to the doorway of the training room and shouted down the hall to where he knew the library-and undoubtedly his mother-were. "Mom! Something's wrong with Jace!"
As expected, Maryse Lightwood instantaneously was in the hall and moving toward her son. "What do you mean?"
"He says he can't feel his legs and he's looked sickly for days," Alec told her.
"Carry him to the infirmary," Maryse instructed. "I'll call for the Silent Brothers." She was out the door and down the hall before he could blink.
Alec hustled over to his brother and placed the boy's arm over his shoulders. It was soaked with sweat.
"Come on, Jace, you've got this," Alec encouraged as he dragged him along. Jace's head fell to the side, unconscious. "Oh, by the Angel," Alec muttered, deciding the best course of action was to just throw the boy over his shoulder.
As they neared the infirmary, Jace began to moan. His head slammed into Alec's lower back repeatedly.
"The Brothers are coming, you'll be fine. You'll be fine, Jace." He knew these words were more for his own benefit than Jace's.
"What's going on?" his father questioned, coming out of his office.
"Jace is sick," Alec replied. "Mom's calling the Silent Brothers."
"What happened?" his father asked.
"I don't know," Alec said, exasperated. "That's why I'm worried."
Alec sat alone in the infirmary watching over Jace. The Silent Brothers had told him that Jace's spider bite was what had caused all this. Apparently, Jace wasn't bitten by a normal spider, but instead a demon spider. How it got into the institute, they didn't know, but his mother had told them they were hiring the High Warlock of Brooklyn to add extra protection wards.
Jace's condition was what was truly troubling. The Silent Brothers did what they could to get the poison out of Jace's bloodstream, but it had been there for so long, there was only so much they could do. His survival completely depended on his will to keep going.
Alec felt a teardrop drip onto his cheek, and then grow into a steady stream down his cheeks at the thought of Jace dying. Alec had no doubt he wouldn't be able to go on. The spider bite was at least partly his fault. If he hadn't stormed off in a huff, Alec might've recognized the spider to be a demon. Or maybe it wouldn't have gone after Jace at all. Or maybe it would be Alec in the bed, instead of Jace. To Alec, all of these sounded like better options.
"You should get some rest," Isabelle spoke from the doorway, surprising Alec. "I'll watch him for a couple hours."
Alec angrily swiped his tears away. "That's alright," he told her. "I can watch him just fine."
Ignoring his statement, Isabelle grabbed a chair from against the wall and brought it next to Alec's. "I don't want him to die," she murmured, so quiet Alec almost didn't catch it.
"He'll be fine, Izzy," Alec naturally reassured his sister.
"The Silent Brothers explained his condition to me too, you know," Isabelle said. "He could die. I'm afraid he won't be able to hang on."
"It's Jace," he told her, letting out a small chuckle. "He's always alright. I don't think he even can die. He certainly thinks he can't."
Isabelle, always knowing what to do, embraces her brother, burying her head in his shoulder. They remain silent for a long time. Finally Isabelle speaks, in barely a whisper, "If you're so confident, why were you crying?"
Jace woke up two days later. Since, Alec was with him at the time, he explained to the Jace what exactly happened to him, starting from the spider bite and ending with the Silent Brothers.
"It wasn't your fault, Alec," was the first thing he said after the story was finished. "Just because you weren't there, it wasn't your fault. At all. So don't beat yourself up over such a stupid thing."
And, though Alec nodded to give Jace reassurance, he did beat himself up over it. And he never completely forgave himself for what he did-or, more accurately, what he didn't. And he never forgave the spider for nearly taking Jace from him. And, most of all, he never forgot the fear he felt, when he thought he would lose his parabatai.