(Updated as of 1/21/15 to reflect stylistic changes on my part and plot developments in the Mortal Instruments series.)

A/N: My inspiration for this story came to me unexpectedly one day when I realized how many striking similarities there are between Jace Wayland/Herondale/etc and Jasper Whitlock/Hale/Cullen. I started thinking about it, and I realized that if anyone could pull off a charade like that, it would be Jace and Alice. So here's the result! I hope you like it. :)

Trading Js

by I Suffer From Hubris

Chapter One

Jace Wayland had always considered himself to be the type that bored easily. He had a notoriously short attention span, especially when it came to the female population, but he had assumed that it would never apply to his relationship with Clary. Lately, though, she was really starting to grate on his nerves.

He just found himself getting more and more irritated with the girl. Over the course of their three-year relationship, they'd suffered way more together than any couple should have to. Fighting against the supernatural… Possibly being related… Demonic possession… Some nerd who thought he was in love with Clary… Her evil brother who also thought he was in love with Clary… It was all far too much for one pair of teenagers to deal with.

But they had always been relatively happy together, at least when they weren't at each other's throats. Sure, Clary's ineptitude at most things got mildly annoying, but no one's perfect, right? And it wasn't all bad…

The first few months, back before they actually knew each other to any degree, had been the best. Hands down. Even if they were constantly fighting and whatnot, there was still that spark of new romance. Jace had been intrigued by Clary, and they began their relationship. Then, they learned that they were quite possibly brother and sister.

That had made Jace sink into depression. He'd find himself wandering the halls of the Institute at night for lack of sleep, training endlessly during the day so that he wouldn't think. Wouldn't think about Clary, about their twisted relationship, about how being with her (and without her) made him sick with dejection. He knew it wasn't healthy—anyone could recognize that. But all his waking moments and even his dreams when he managed to drift asleep were consumed with thoughts of Clary, and what a disgusting person he must be to be falling in love with his little sister.

And then they got the news that Valentine had been tricking them. They weren't related. That had lifted Jace from his depression for a little while. Things seemed to be looking up. But he was still haunted, for a different reason this time. Now he had other issues to deal with, like the identity crisis that came along with the happy revelation that he wasn't Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern after all. Who was he? He still thought of himself as "Jace Wayland" even though he knew he had no claim to that last name. Clary had told him that he was a Lightwood, but that didn't seem to fit. And what was he supposed to go by, Jace Herondale? Not only did that sound stupid, he had just about as many ties to that name as he did Wayland. Only this time they were biological, not emotional.

And, just when he thought that things might be looking up, he started being possessed by some guy he'd killed, who just-so-happened to be Clary's actual brother. Why was all of this happening to him? What made Jace so special?

And even after that gigantic debacle was resolved, he still felt empty, a certain panging loneliness that he couldn't explain. He was with Clary. They were together, and everything was supposed to be fine. So why was he still miserable?

Over the course of the next year, things got even worse.

They were supposed to get better, since a few good things were happening. He'd had his eighteenth and nineteenth birthdays, despite how weird it was to be celebrating it in his real birth month of January. And he'd grown a few inches, now topping out at around 6'3", so he was almost as tall as Alec, finally. He'd been exercising a lot too, and had filled out muscle-wise as much as he had vertically. Clary didn't seem to like it as much as his former build (which he now considered to be verging on feminine), but he didn't find himself caring too much.

He didn't care about many things in general, anymore, and that was the problem. When he had been fretting about Clary being his sister, Jace had always had Shadowhunting to fall back on. Killing demons had been a great outlet for him, since it was mindless and he was good at it. But… Shadowhunting didn't give him joy anymore, not even the once-familiar thrill of adrenaline as he dispatched another one of Satan's minions. It just wasn't there anymore. And that, quite frankly, scared him.

And, of course, there was the Clary problem. He had been sure that she was the one for him, the one that would become Mrs. Wayland/Lightwood/Herondale someday and have his children. But, naturally, there were problems with that. Like the fact that Clary had told him explicitly that she never wanted to get married or have children, and that she just wanted to live in sin forever. Oh, and that she didn't like his new muscles very much, too. Couldn't he just, like, stop working out for a few months?

She irritated him to no end. Every day, he found new things to dislike about her. Was she really that selfish? That petty? That… stupid, for lack of a better term? Once upon a time, his existence had revolved around her. But now, he had completely fallen out of love with her, and grew increasingly disgusted with the sight of the ginger. And he felt like he was living a lie, which he essentially was.

And that also scared him.

But he wouldn't break up with her, because what else was there in his life? He rarely Shadowhunted anymore. Alec was constantly going on expensive vacations with Magnus, Isabelle was with Simon the Shadowhunter (which never stopped being weird), Maryse and Robert felt awkward whenever he was around because they could sense his awakened depression, Valentine was dead and evil, and he had never really cared about anyone else, anyway.

He found himself endlessly pondering the point of living.

And so Jace exercised more. It was all he could do.

He was doing just that, exercising, one day when Clary decided that she was feeling neglected and needed to bother him.

"Hey, Jace," she said as he was lifting weights in the training room of the Institute, coming over to hover in his peripheral vision.

Jace sighed exasperatedly and resisted the urge to throw his dumbbell at her. Instead, he carefully lowered it and put it on the floor. "Hello, Clary," he said back, even though it came out sounding gruff. "What are you doing in here?"

"Just… visiting you, I guess," Clary explained, coming up to him and feeling up his bare chest, as he always worked out shirtless. "I just got the idea that you've been ignoring me lately."

He tried not to recoil as she dragged her warm, fleshy fingers across his chiseled muscles, scraping the skin lightly with her nails. Maybe it was a form of penance for living a lie, as he was. "Imagine that."

Clary's touch became feather-light as her voice fell to a whisper. So she's trying to be seductive, Jace thought, being familiar with the telltale signs. "I've got an idea. Since we haven't seen very much of each other lately, why don't we spend the night at my house and make it up to each other?"

"I don't know about that, Clary," Jace replied, not thrilled at the suggestion. In certain situations, Clary became bossy and surprisingly domineering, which he didn't like. He liked being in control, at least for some of the time, and the prolonged lack of that really made him dread being intimate with her.

"Aw, come on," she purred, fingering his abs with a touch of distaste. Clary wanted him to be just as unfit and chubby as she was; he'd be willing to bet any sum of money on it. "It'll be fun. Izzy's been giving me tips."

If he'd wanted to sleep with someone like Isabelle, he'd have slept with Isabelle a long time ago. Jace took a step back, crossing his arms. "No. I don't want to."

Her arms dropped uselessly at her sides, and she acted as if he'd slapped her. "What is that supposed to mean?" Clary spat, affronted.

"It means that I don't want to," Jace shrugged, picking his shirt up from the ground and pulling it on. How had he ever thought Clary to be attractive? She wasn't even all that pretty—well, she was a bit pretty, but her awful personality ruined it.

"You're a boy. You're supposed to want to have sex with me."

He looked at her, as if to say, "Seriously?" but found that Clary had on her guilt-tripping face. She was trying to make him feel guilty?

It wasn't working. "I don't feel like it," he explained simply. It wasn't as if his sex drive had disappeared completely, of course. Clary just wasn't doing it for him anymore.

"Ugh!" She threw up her hands, beside herself. "You're my boyfriend!"

"Unfortunately, you would be correct about that." Jace needed to get away. Far, far away from everything. Especially Clary. But where could he go…?

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'UNFORTUNATELY'?"

"I mean exactly what you think I mean: 'unfortunately'." He really had to leave. But Robert and Maryse would never let him… He could gather his things, leave a note…

"WHY THE HELL IS IT 'UNFORTUNATE'?"

Jace threw down his pretense of silent suffering, and laid it all on the table. It was time to make a change in his life, and that would begin by breaking up with Clary. "Because, to be honest, Clarissa, I can't stand you anymore. You irritate me to no end, and I'm sick of your controlling, idiotic bullshit! I've been wanting to get out of this relationship for the past year, but I stuck around because I thought it was something wrong with me!" He laughed bitterly. "As if it could be. The problem is with you, and I'm sick of being in this damn excuse for a relationship. You're not good for me, Clary. You're making me depressed."

Tears were welling in her emerald eyes that he had once thought were the prettiest thing about her. Now, they only sent a shudder of revulsion down his spine. "Jace—" she sniffed, holding her arms open as if to hug him.

"No. I can't do this anymore."

Her tears really started flowing then, coursing down her reddening face. "I have no idea what you're talking about! Our relationship is perfect! There haven't been any problems at all, and now—"

"No problems?" he echoed furiously. "No problems? Clary, our entire relationship has been nothing but problems! And I'm sick of it. Actually, I'm sick of you, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to bring it up."

"FINE!" she shrieked, piercing the already tense atmosphere around them. She ran up to Jace and began beating her fists against his chest hopelessly. "I hate you! I hate you!" she kept repeating, before collapsing, sobbing, into him.

Jace felt a wave of sympathy, mainly because he could tell just how much he had hurt her. He'd always been weird like that, with emotions… He silently wrapped his arms around the small girl as she wept, sobs undulating through her body.

But then he realized what he was doing and pushed away the needless sympathy. This was exactly how she'd kept him from breaking up with her before. Jace wrenched Clary away from his now-soaked T-shirt, holding her at arms' length with an involuntary expression of disgust on his face. "Clary, I meant what I said. I'm done." He began walking out of the training room with intent on going to his room and packing a few things.

Clary followed him, sniffling hugely and wrapping her arms around herself for comfort. "So you're just going to leave?" she screamed, face wet and snot streaming from her nose.

Jace decided to stop looking at her, then, and walked speedily down the hallway to the staircase. "That is precisely what I intend on doing."

She kept hot on the chase, running after him to keep up with his long-legged stride. "You're actually leaving?" she screeched, coming up alongside him.

"Yes!" he explained edgily, rocketing down the first flight of stairs.

Clary still pursued him. "You can't leave me!"

"I can do whatever I feel like. This is my life, Clary, and I aim to live it the way I want to!" To deter her from chasing him all the way to his bedroom, he took a flying leap down the next staircase. Alighting gently on his feet, Jace began to run down the hall to his room, not bothering to see if Clary was following him in spite of everything.

Once he reached his sparsely decorated bedroom, he realized with a jolt how few personal possessions he actually had. Either way, he needed to act fast: Clary would probably burst in at any moment.

He seized a backpack he happened to have from the back of his closet, shoving as many clothes in as he could fit. He also threw in the few weapons he happened to store in case of emergency—a stele, a Sensor, and a couple seraph blades—in case they would be useful. Who knew where he would end up? Then he grabbed his money from the back of his bedside table drawer and quickly counted it up. 3,570 dollars and 72 cents. It probably wouldn't last long, but it was better than nothing.

As he was scribbling out a note for the Lightwoods in his messy handwriting, Clary predictably scrambled into the room. "You can't do this!" she screamed, catching her breath. So the girl was winded, was she? "You can't!"

He signed the note, satisfied, and completely disregarded his now-ex-girlfriend. Wearing the backpack filled with all his worldly possessions, Jace gently pushed her aside and began the trek downstairs.

He'd left the note on the bed, the message short and simple: "Sorry if you're all hurt, but I can't take it anymore. I need to get out of here. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm definitely not coming back permanently. Ever. But I might visit at some point. Thanks for being so nice. –Jace"

As he strutted quickly down the hall to the elevator, Jace felt like he was walking among the clouds. He knew that what he was doing probably wouldn't be successful for any extended amount of time, but it was what he needed. A fresh start… and a clean break.

He stepped inside the birdcage-like elevator, pressing the button to go down to the ground floor, and then turned around to face the hallway. Clary was, as expected, scrambling down and hyperventilating from the exhaustion.

Sighing to himself and shaking his head, Jace pressed the button for the doors to close.

"NO! JACE!" Clary yelled, almost catching up to him. Couldn't the doors close any faster?

Just as he was worrying about being trapped in an elevator with a hysterical ginger, the doors finally shut and the elevator began its descent.

A grin worked its way onto his face, triumphant at this small victory. Jace saw his virile reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator, newly tall and able to do physical damage without the help of a seraph blade or stele. He'd always have his scars, though. The network of fine lines across his body would probably never leave him, but it didn't matter. The scars were a part of him, more than even his name could ever be. They told of everything he'd been through, all the fights and killings and hunts. Regardless if they drew some curious mundane eyes, they were his scars and he'd come up with a story sooner or later.

But what to do with his newfound freedom? He could reinvent himself as a mundane, possibly, somewhere far away like Hawaii or Italy or Australia. Meet a nice girl, go to college, get a job. Try to live a "normal" life and whatnot. Or he could join up with some rogue Downworlders and form a pack of vigilantes, upholding covert justice in the holy name of Raziel.

He met his own golden gaze in the mirror and his smile grew. Maybe… just maybe this could work out after all.

An hour later, he was feeling a bit less confident. It was already after eight o'clock in the evening, and he had nowhere to go. Jace had been wandering aimlessly around New York, but finally decided that he needed to go somewhere else. The Big Apple may have been a big city, but the Lightwoods—particularly the kids—knew their way around it like the backs of their hands. He had to get out.

He found himself gravitating towards Penn Station. Why not catch a train to go somewhere? He had money and needed something to do. So why not?

Jace got to the ticket booth a little after nine-thirty. He approached the counter, not even winded from his hours-long walk. "When's the next train leaving?"

The clerk, a middle-aged man, raised an eyebrow. "To go where?"

"I don't know. Anywhere," he said, feeling like he was doing something wrong.

The clerk smiled thinly, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. "Parents getting you down? Or is it a girlfriend?" he said.

Jace responded flatly, "None of your business. Can you please answer my question?"

The man chuckled to himself as he checked the schedule. "Well, all of the trains are booked within the next half-hour," Jace's heart sank, "but there's one leaving at 10:05. How does Philadelphia sound?"

"It sounds fantastic," he said with fervor, a smile working its way onto his face. "How much does it cost?"

He was expecting a huge sum, and thus was surprised when the clerk said, "Fifty dollars, including tax. Special night-time rate."

"Done," Jace pledged, digging a fifty-dollar-bill out from his backpack and sliding it through the window.

"Here you go, kid," said the clerk, handing him a ticket. "And good luck with whatever you're leaving behind."

"Thank you, my good man."

Feeling freshly confident, Jace went over to the waiting area and sat down. Philadelphia, he thought. He'd never been to Philly before, but had heard a lot about it. And it was probably one of the least likely places that anyone would expect him to go to. All the better.

To Philadelphia, then.

When he arrived at 30th Street Station, it was just after 11:30 PM. But Jace didn't feel like booking a motel room, yet. He'd decided while on the train that he would go to a bar—and and no one would ID him, since he looked at least twenty-two—and take it from there. He needed a drink after what had happened that day.

It didn't take him long to find one, either. He was in downtown Philadelphia, after all. Downtown anywhere would probably have plenty of bars.

He walked in confidently, as the key to getting past any question of age was acting like you weren't worried about someone guessing how old you actually were. And even if he was ID'ed, he could just say that he left it at home and end up going to a different bar. It didn't really matter, one way or another.

Along the bar table was a normal row of stools. They all looked to be occupied, but once he was in the center of the place, some girl jumped off her barstool and flounced up to him.

The way she moved was unlike anything he'd ever seen before: graceful, almost like she was interpretive dancing instead of walking. That's odd, he thought.

And then Jace got a better look at her. As tiny and ethereal as pixies he knew, this girl had a shockingly beautiful face to match. And unnaturally pale skin, with dark circles under her eyes, which, for their part, were a strange shade of reddish-black. Her hair was tousled, short, and jet black, reminding him nostalgically of Alec. Standing in front of him, she was even shorter than Clary and half as wide.

She couldn't have been human; there was no way around it. Some kind of Downworlder, definitely… But he'd never seen anything like her.

She smiled blindingly, inhuman face turning up to look at him. "You've kept me waiting a long time," she said in a voice like ringing wind chimes.

Jace, perplexed nonetheless, felt his face shift into a seductive smirk. "My apologies, then."

A/N: From now on, the story will be mostly Twilight-centric, but I'm still going to include some Mortal Instruments-related parts. Just thought I'd give you all a heads-up. :)

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review.

Love,
I Suffer From Hubris