Author's Note: If you read this the first day I had it up, you read my near full paged rant on the Mortal Instruments' books. I made a mistake and accidentally said 'I've read City of Bones and City of Glass', when I meant 'I've read City of Bones and City of Ashes', and I'm going on and on about all the stuff I didn't know, so somebody comments and tells me 'hey, it tells those things in City of Glass, what up' and then she tells me those things I didn't know. . . (that comment isn't up here anymore, because I had to completely repost this fic so I could fix my Authors Note) I would just like you to know, I am not angry at her – I'm going to kill myself, but thats an entirely different matter – it was my own idiotic fault for not double checking my Authors Note. . . but I'm not so petty that I'd spoil the ending for you good people.
Wow, I hate talking so much. Here's your disclaimer.
Disclaimer: The Mortal Instruments Series does not belong to me, nor any of its characters. They all belong to Cassandra Clare.
We Could Keep it a Secret
Jonathon Morgensterns eyes grazed over the fields of flowers and healthy, green grass. Idris in the spring was stunningly beautiful; a dream. He threw his head back and breathed in deeply the crisp, clean air. It filled his lungs and cleared his mind, making him wonder why his memory of this place had to be tainted with his father's cruelty. The past, his mind sighed. Not anything he needed to worry about here, though. I'm happy, he realized with a pleased laugh. And he knew who had caused that happiness; who had wormed her way into his life and had given him joy, annoyance, guilt, fear, love, jealousy, anger, and insecurity; and like heat returning to a frostbitten limb, it had hurt, it had hurt them both- or maybe they had hurt each other- and they had struggled and fought one another senselessly, only to find themselves hurt, and questioning why they were hurt, and, finding no suitable answer, had returned to each other- like he knew he would have in the end anyway. She had given him a friend he could talk to and trust to understand and accept the sickness in his heart, one he could have fights with and tease, knowing it didn't matter because she would forgive him in the end, even when he didn't deserve it. She had given him family, something he'd thought he'd lost a long time ago-because even though he had the Lightwoods, the people who had raised him as their own and were his family in any sense of the word he could think of, he'd needed a blood-relative, just as reassurance that he had someone to love without any strings tied, because everyone knows it's never hard loving your family, you have to; for him, though, it was almost too easy to love Clary. The hard part was loving her like he should -like any normal brother should be able to do without even thinking about it -you know: default mode.
Pivoting on his heel suddenly, Jace stalked across the field, his Shadowhunter boots sifting through the waves of grass as though he was walking on water. A few yards away from him stood a cozy, medium sized cottage with a small garden, dotted with a few exotic flowers -the garden had been Clary's mothers (his mothers) idea, a present on her birthday, along with a few seeds, but those were the only ones she'd planted so far. She always told him how she was meaning to go down to town to get more seeds from the market, but never seemed to have the time. Their house had been built from scratch, by his and Luke's hands only. Luke hadn't had to, and they had offered him a room, only somewhat reluctantly, but he had refused, whether because he wanted to finally be alone with Jocelyn, or he truly felt he didn't belong in Idris anymore, they wouldn't be able to tell you- or maybe, his subconscious had told him, on some level, why they wanted to live alone together, why neither of them had ever dated anyone, why they were so close.
This house belonged to Jonathon and Clarissa Morgenstren, but when the door was closed and they were all alone, it belonged to Jace Wayland and Clary Fray.
Once Jace had unlocked the door with his glittering gold key, (his inscribed with a J, and hers with a C, rather than both with an M- like their own personal joke) he threw it open with renewed enthusiasm and glided easily inside, his eyes -well, no, that wasn't really right. It was more like his very being, sought out hers; magnetic, it was impossible to ignore. It was impossible to want to ignore. Clary stood in the kitchen doorway, having heard him come in. They smiled at each other, that joyful, knowing, guilty smile that said so much, but just not enough. He moved closer to her, intent on conveying the rest with his lips. He put his hands on the small of her back, starting to pull her forward. "Clary, I-" but before he could utter another sentence, she threw her arms around his chest and gave him an awkward, and very platonic hug.
"Oh, I thought you'd never get home, brother!" Uh oh. He knew what that meant. It was an unsaid rule that whenever they referred to each other as 'brother' or 'sister', it directly translated to 'someone-is-in-the-house-so-shut-the-hell-up-before-you-say-anything-that-might-give-us-away'. "You'll never guess who came to see us." Clary went on with a strained smile.
He returned her sisterly hug disappointedly as Isabelle and Alec Lightwood stepped through the door, smiling the same smiles he'd seen on their faces the first time they'd met. "They come to see us all the time; what's so surprising about it?" Jace said without looking away from the siblings or letting go of his own. He said the words sarcastically, almost callously, but they knew that meant he cared; they would have been worried if he'd run up to them with exuberance and hugs and kisses. Isabelle put her hands on her hips with overdone joking annoyance, and Alec rolled his eyes, but they were both smiling, and he knew they didn't take the words to heart. They knew Jace well enough to know when he was happy and when he was peeved. Or at least when he didn't want them to know what he was feeling.
When Jace looked at Alec and Isabelle, he saw what siblings should look like, how they were supposed to love each other, how they should act around each other, how they should touch each other. And part of him (albeit a very small part) wanted that with Clary, wanted the closeness of family, and the sweetness of loving her the 'right way' without it being . . . sickening to everyone. The ties that made them nearly one person.
But he didn't think he could love her anymore than he already did; he didn't know how to love her any differently. Her happiness was all that mattered to him, whether he delivered it or someone else did, and if that were the case, all he had to do was stand back and not get in the way of it. But for the time being, he was what was giving her happiness. Whether it was right, or sane, or even healthy, it didn't matter, because he would be damned if he were the one to stop it. Because in the end it all came back to him and his selfishness.
He did it because it made him happy too.
"I hope you don't mind us stopping by," Alec said sheepishly, blushing all the way down his neck. "But we can't take Magnus' cooking anymore."
And sure enough, upon rounding the corner, there leaned the flamboyant warlock himself. "He's just being modest and leaving out the part about him being to lazy to cook himself." He held a plastic wrapped dish and an all too knowing smile that made Jace feel as if he were nothing but an open book for Magnus to read, evaluate and then judge accordingly. "But Isabelle was able to scrounge up something; we brought garlic potatoes."
"You'll come visit us in the city next time, right?" Isabelle implored with her big blue eyes, clutching Clary's hands in bother of hers. "Mom misses you. And so does Max." She threw a meaningful glance at Jace, and he knew that comment was meant as a dagger that should bleed him to death, and then gave Clary a droll look. "By the way, we blame you for teaching him to read manga." They all laughed at that. A group of friends, laughing and playfully teasing each other. It was comfortable, and not forced.
He was a only little ashamed to admit he was relieved when they were finally gone.
It was nearly midnight when they left at last. As soon as the door was closed behind them, Jace let out a big breathe he hadn't been aware he was holding, and whirled to face his sister. "Finally," She sighed, -echoing his thoughts exactly, like siblings are said to do at times- wrapping her arms around his chest. It was different this time, with absolutely nothing platonic about it, though she mimicked the same movements, they were completely alien, as though he'd never been touched this way before. He put his hands on her lower back again, running them up and down her slender spine. He kissed the crown of her head, then her forehead, each of her cheeks, her nose; ticking her neck with butterfly kisses, making her giggle. Like a real brother, the thought came unbidden into his mind. "Lets go," he rasped against her throat, all games done with. "Let's go to bed."
To him, this was the worst part. The love, he could accept that. When he had been trying to hide his true feelings -like trying to conceal a tidal wave with an umbrella- he had noticed that being Clary's brother was a lot like being her boyfriend; he could hug her, kiss her (albeit, just her cheek, forehead, nose, and only her lips if it was chaste and under three seconds), hold her hand, and no one questioned it when they spent time together, which they could do a lot. And he could come to terms with the fact that he was in love with someone he should just love. Because, on some level, if love really was just love in the end, if they boiled down to the same thing after all, then how was that wrong? Because that was pure and beautiful and no matter how sickening it would be to others if they found out, it was still love, and it felt so wonderful in his heart that he couldn't believe that such an emotion was sinful. But this. . . the lust; that was what shamed him. The sexual urges, the near insatiable urge to take her -and he had- made him feel like they were truly something to be ashamed about. Love was beautiful, a feeling that he couldn't be ashamed for -even for his sister- but the lust made him feel filthy, contaminated the purity; turned him into a villain. He slid his hands through her blood tinted hair and pressed his mouth more firmly to her soft pink lips, shuddering with unshed passion and guilt as she ran her soft, tiny hands up his stomach, then around to his back, where they clung to his shoulder blades desperately, like she would fall were she not anchored to him. They walked backwards until they were pressed against his bedroom door, where they kissed and writhed until one of them -though neither could have told you which- finally opened the door.
Jonathon Morgenstern woke up to a soft mewling sound. He didn't move for a few minutes, his Shadowhunter instincts taking control as he tried to identify the sound, trying to gage whether he was in danger or not. If Clary was in danger. Reflectively, his hand glided across the crisp sheets, searching for the skin of her hand as reassurance. Instead, he was meet with a cold, empty place where she should have been.
He bolted up, his muscles tensed, and a worried line forming between his brows. His eyes scanned his dark, tidy room for a dash of fiery red hair, the only color that should be there. The bathroom door was open a crack, and he could see a sliver of light and a glimpse of red hair, of the girl he was looking for, the one he'd been living with for years, the one he'd been loving secretly for years, the one he'd made love to last night: his sister.
Why do I purposely torture myself with thoughts like that? "Clary," he called, unceremoniously tripping in the dark. The nerves were making him hurry, stumbling with anxiety like a fool, reminding himself of that bumbling idiot Simon, who'd been in love with his sister and his girlfriend- coincidentally the same person. "Are you okay?" He heard her breath hitch at the sound of his voice, then her her pitiful sniffling as she tried to cover her quiet sobs. If the door hadn't already been open, he would have smashed it off it's hinges to get to her, like he did to everything that stood between them.
He was breathing hard, like he'd been running a long distance to reach her, even though it had only been a few small steps. Behind the bathroom door, Clary lay in a crumpled heap, her fuzzy pink robe sliding off one shoulder, her hair wild and uncombed, and with big bags under her eyes, like she hadn't gotten much sleep. She looked pale and miserable. There was a smell in the air that nearly made him gag.
He fell to his knees beside her with a broken cry, hands trembling towards her skin, but indecisive of where to soothe first. "Cl- Clary. . . What. . . Are you- Do you need- ?" He couldn't seem to form his desperation into a question. Instead, he sat there like a fool, hands fluttering over her skin like one-winged birds. But when they wrapped around her and pulled her to his chest and onto his lap, they felt more like chains, enabling her escape, impossible to break. She seemed comfortable enough there, in any case. She nuzzled into his neck and whimpered. He thought she might have said something, but couldn't make since of her muffled words.
"Clary- I can't understand you when you're crying like that. Now, come on," Jace said, lifting her chin with his scarred hand as gently as he could. "No more tears." He murmured, and you wouldn't be able to see anything wrong with the picture, because right then, it looked just like a brother comforting his sister. "That's it," He crooned, trying to keep his normally rough voice soft. "Now try again; What was it you said?"
She opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Giving up, she sighed in frustration and grabbed a small object off the floor that he hadn't noticed before. It was long, thin, flat and white, with a blue section at the end. . .
Oh. Oh no. He knew what it was even before it touched his hand.
He examined it for about twenty-eight minutes before choosing the finding words to say, and even then he was sure they were the wrong ones.
"C-Clary. . . You're pregnant?"
She nodded helplessly. More tears came and overflowed from her delicate green eyes. "What are we going to do?" Her voice was hoarse, and broke on the word we. "Babies made from people like us. . . People say that they- they don't always. . . come out right." Her voice had grown quiet, as if someone might overhear us. He would have laughed and teased her about it if he weren't in shell-shock. She went on, quiet and urgent. "And I can't have an ab-" She stopped and closed her eyes, as if even the thought made her feel ill. "I just can't, Jace." Her eyes begged for understanding, something she had given him without even thinking about it.
"It's going to be okay." Jace whispered, just one of his many qualities was that he could completely lie to himself and others and totally believe it. He didn't even process the words, they were just something to say. "We'll get through this, like we've gotten through everything before that." She looked at him then, and he was given a brief glimpse to what she was thinking.
We haven't gotten through anything; we've been hiding and lieing to our friends, our family and to ourselves.
But if that was truly the case, then how were they going to get through this?
Jace Wayland woke with a start. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his back. Blood pounded behind his ears, but could barely be heard over his own ragged breathing. The panting subsided after a moment, but was soon replaced by louder, more desperate, more humiliating sobs, that tore his chest open and left him a gaping open wound, bleeding his soul out in the middle of the night all alone. A very small, quiet, timid part of him wished that Clary would somehow know what he was going through right now, would realize how much he needed her, and she would somehow materialize to comfort him, like an angel. (Or haunt him, like a ghost.) It would be perfect, beautiful, like in a movie.
But this wasn't a movie, and she couldn't magically know when he was suffering and when he wasn't, no matter how much she seemed to be able to see right through him. Jace watched the seconds slip by as he tried to calm himself. Five minutes had passed before his breathing had returned to normal. Three more minutes had passed before his heartbeat was thumping evenly again. He collapsed against the headboard of his bed. It was cold and made a loud smacking sound against his bare back- chilled with sweat- and echoed loudly around the room.
His eyes zeroed in on the scarce items around the dark room, categorizing, taking inventory (as though he thought something might have been moved from the time he had fallen asleep to the time he'd woken up), anything to distract him from the nightmare -or dream- he'd just had. He could still see it -still feel it and taste it! The colors, the sounds, everything had been so. . . vivid. But it would fade with time, he reassured himself, like all dreams did.
Like every dream he'd ever had about Clary did. . . Or, would, he corrected himself.