Hello, all! Okay, so I fiured it was time to finally get off my bum and post this, you know, before the next book comes out and destroys my little (not so much) story.

Firstly, I would like to address that this takes place after CoLS, and Alec escapes from the vampire brat, who is irrelevant to the story. Malec is broken up at his point, but Alec hasn't talked to anyone since it happened.

Also, disclaimer. Do you think someone like me would write something as horribly fluffy as TMI (Too Much Information)? Seriously. I couldn't if I tried. (I actually tried to write fluff the other day...) A lot of the inspiration for this came from its namesake, Green Day's Restless Heart Syndrome. Mostly the beginning of the song, mind you.

And fair warning. I am very cynical, and those of you who have/are read(ing) Danger Line know full well that I like to slide a bit of fluff in there and then completely obliterate it. This story is not full of easy times, and though Malec does get back together things aren't quite the same. There is illness of the body and heart, and this story makes me very proud. It's a bit out-there, but if you like Danger Line you'll probably like this. And vice versa. (Shameless promotion.)

To say "I love you, but…." is to say, "I did not love you at all."

~Anonymous.

Restless Heart Syndrome Chapter 1 Loss of Control

Alec stares at the ceiling of his bedroom, completely oblivious to the world around him as yet another pathetic tear slides down his face. He's thinking abut nothing and everything all at once, about how his desire to actually get to know his boyfriend actually ended their relationship. About how he just wants to tell Magnus that he loves him. About how he shouldn't be this weak, that shadowhunters shouldn't be affected like this over anything. About how he could have saved himself all this pain and weakness if he had never let Magnus into his heart, never allowed himself to be gay. If he had never allowed himself to come out, all those painful splinters of subtle hate would never have been shoved gracelessly into his heart.

There's nothing better to think about when you're not thinking about anything.

He hasn't told anyone that he and Magnus broke up. He hasn't really talked to anyone in the two days since. He's hardly gotten out of bed, as whenever he does he feels slightly nauseous and has a desire to throw up. He hasn't, so far, gotten sick, but every time he makes a sudden move he wants to. His insides feel like they're slowly starting to burn, a feeling that's been at the pit of his stomach since he a bit after he started talking with Camille. He assumes it's guilt, now layered with added heartbreak.

With a barely there sigh Alec slowly tilts his head to look around his room, and he hates it. He still has the photos of him and Magnus, smiling and occasionally laughing in various parts of the world, some even taken in New York on a particularly sunny day. He doesn't want to see those photos, not now, not when Magnus has discarded him almost like he meant nothing to the warlock.

He knows he meant something to the warlock, at the very least, but not enough for Magnus to hear his apology, or even listen to his explanation. While the idea of making Magnus mortal was tempting, it wasn't really what Alec had wanted from Camille. He just wanted to know more about his boyfriend, whom never deemed him worthy to be told anything, apparently. Magnus was unfair, Alec made one mistake and it was all over, just gone. The half-demon who taught him to be true to himself wasn't true to him, didn't trust him.

Alec laughs bitterly, before he feels the wave of sickness wash over him again. This can't be just heartbreak, he shouldn't heart like this from a torn up heart. He'll have to get cold medicine eventually, he'll have to leave this room that holds so many memories of himself and Magnus. Sitting where Alec is now, talking, laughing, kissing...

Alec sits up, ignoring the wave of nausea. He has to get out of this room. He can't live here anymore. He can't live in this swirl of Magnus, he can't breathe the stuffy air of his room because there's still the faint trace of his boyfriend-ex boyfriend at that, one he really doesn't want to think about right now while simultaneously wants to think about with his undecided attention.

So Alec makes for the training room, not really thinking about it, and he get out his bow and starts shooting at targets, ignoring everything on his mind and just hitting the red dot in the middle over and over and over again. He's trapped in his own world of shooting the target, but breaks out of it with a fresh set of tears when he remembers saving Magnus with the same bow, and he collapses on the floor in a heap of sobs, pulling his knees up to his heat. He shouldn't be reacting like this. But he's, and how can he stop? How can he stop the tears, how can he stop the unsettling feeling in his stomach, the aching of his heart?

Alec doesn't get a chance to think about it when he feels a wave of disgust travel up his frame, up his throat in a dizzying way. He sprints to the nearest restroom, and empties up whatever manages to be in it after two days of not eating. He takes a minute to collect himself after the sudden puking session, and rinses out his mouth with a quick gurgle of water, not giving a damn about mouthwash. He's too depressed to care about something so trivial, and he feels disgusting on top of looking like a wreck.

Alec makes his way out of the bathroom, moving slowly towards the kitchen. The last thing he wants to do is eat, but he should at least try to get down some crackers and a ginger ale to cure his obviously upset stomach. When he finally makes it to the kitchen, he sees Izzy and Maia there, talking over a plate of nachos. The smell makes him want to throw up all over again.

When he walks into the room, Izzy gasps at his appearance. Puffy red eyes and an almost dead expression.

"Alec! What happened?" she asks, eyes wide.

Alec shrugs, not really wanting to talk as he opens the refrigerator. "Do we have any ginger ale or something?"

Izzy's eyebrows come together at her brother's odd request, but she nonetheless answers his question with the shake of her head. Alec sighs, deciding to look for saltines in one of the cupboards. He looks so... inanimate.

"So... Have you been here all week? We thought you were with Magnus and didn't want to be disturbed," Isabelle says, still not certain about what's going on with her brother. "Did you two have a fight?"

Alec's body starts shaking and he bites his lip as he tries to hold back tears from hearing Magnus's name spoken out loud. It's bad enough hearing it in his head, he doesn't need to have the name blasted at him through his ears as well.

Alec can't hold back a sob as much as he tries, hunched into himself, and Isabelle notices. She shoots Maia a look, telling her to scram, before she walks over to her brother and wraps an arm around him. This is obviously a bad fight between the seemingly perfect couple.

"Sh..." She soothes, letting Alec cry into her shoulder. "You can tell me. I know about these kinds of things."

Isabelle doesn't quite believe the response she gets from her brother, as the possibility never so much as crossed her mind.

"He... Broke up with me," Alec whispers, new tears falling, wetting Isabelle's undoubtedly fashionable shirt, something Magnus would love. It just causes him to cry harder.

Isabelle goes rigid for a moment, taking a good five seconds to process what Alec said. She had never considered Magnus breaking up with Alec an option, it had never seemed a possibility. Her brother had put everything into their relationship. He had fucking come out of the closet for Magnus. Magnus Bane deserves punishment, or at least some kind of smacking for turning he brother into this mess. Isabelle squeezes Alec to her, rubbing his backs s he continued to cry and sob into her.

After a while she glanced at the clock, and realized that the rest of the family should be coming to dinner soon, so they need to get out of there, because she highly doubts Alec wants anyone else to see him like this. Fucking bastard that did this to him.

"Do you want to go to your room?" Isabelle asks, though she kind of doubts it. Magnus, fucker, and Alec spent hours in there, doing the Angel only knows what. Alec shakes his head to confirm her thought, and pulls off of her shoulder.

"I'm sorry about your shirt..." He says, then sniffles. "I just..."

Isabelle shakes her head. "You just got broken up with for the first time. I don't really care about the shirt right now. Let's go to a dumb chick flick and eat ice cream after, okay?"

Alec doesn't really like chick flicks, and neither does Isabelle, but he's grateful to get out of the institute. It's the last place he wants to be, besides with Magnus in his flat. He needs to return his key... Not today, though. He's not strong enough for that. Why does he have to be so damn weak? He's a shadowhunter for the Angel's sake!

Isabelle ends up sneaking into Jace's room for a change of clothes for her brother, and Alec doesn't seem to even notice that they're not his usual black and he pulls them on in quite the zombie fashion. He feels sick again, but not in the puke-y way. He just feels so... Helpless, and he hates it. No one should be able to do this to him.

Isabelle pulls Alec out of the institute, as he's lost in his own world, and takes him to a place that reruns older movies. There's a screening of Mean Girls in a half hour, so Isabelle buys them tickets and leads her brother to a conveniently located ice cream parlor a block away.

Isabelle gets chocolate ice cream, and Alec is too out of it to think of more flavors than vanilla. They sit in silence as they slowly eat their ice cream, Alec a bit reluctant to eat anything after puking earlier. Isabelle just assumes it's the break up blues and thinks nothing of it, besides that she is so going to go off on Magnus the next time she sees him.

They make it to the movie a bit early, and Isabelle gets a bag of popcorn Alec wants no part of. He's feeling slightly ill after eating ice cream, though he has more energy, he would prefer not to feel like shit, so he doesn't touch it. He doesn't need another thing to upset his currently unruly stomach. Maybe he's sick... No, that's silly. Shadowhunters don't get sick.

The movie flies before Alec's eyes, and he finds some of the jokes amusing enough to think that they're amusing, so it might be okay. But every time they joke about the one kid being too gay to function, Alec's heart clenches as he thinks of Magnus. Magnus isn't anything like the kid, not really, besides the fashion obsession, but Alec can't get his boyfri- ex-boyfriend out of his head. He's so used to thinking of Magnus as his boyfriend that it's hard not to anymore.

He keeps going over the things he did wrong in their relationship, things he could have done better at. He keeps thinking that if he had come out to his parents sooner, Magnus would still be with him. Maybe if he hasn't picked so many fights about immortality, Magnus would still love him. Maybe if he'd put more than everything's had into their relationship... But Alec knows what ended their relationship, and despite knowing that it won't change anything, he runs over nearly every moment that spent in each other's company, whether they were alone or with other people, trying to get a sense of that happiness he found with Magnus, but each time it slips away, leaving him feeling hollow inside. He misses Magnus so, so much.

Isabelle shakes her brother from his trance even after all the final credits have rolled, the look in his eyes saying he needs so much more time to heal than this dingy theater can give him. When Alec looks at her, for a moment it seems like he's not really seeing her, but a moment later he snaps out of it and gives her a meek, and entirely false, smile. A smile that Magnus made fake.

She suppresses a sigh as they make their way to the institute, and Alec collapses on a couch in one of the living rooms with a sigh. She suspects there might be an abundance of sighing in the near future from her older brother. She remembers what first breakups are like, and she didn't even like the guy as much as Alec likes Magnus.

It's going to suck, that's for sure. But they'll get through it, they always do.

The next day Alec throws up again, but he doesn't tell anyone. He doesn't quite know what's wrong with himself, and he doesn't want to ask why he's getting sick when shadowhunters aren't really supposed to get sick. He assumes maybe it's some symptom of having a broken heart and memories that tear him up, but Isabelle never mentioned anything about that. But Isabelle probably never actually loved one of her boyfriends. Alec won't even bother asking Jace if this is how he felt when couldn't be with Clary, but the situation is entirely different and Jace is... Well, he's Jace.

Alec hates going in his room. He hates it so much. He needs somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't remind him so painfully of Magnus. He needs somewhere new.

Isabelle doesn't see much of Alec over the next couple of days. She wants to, to make sure he's alright, but whenever she wants to hang out again she's either on a mission, or he's not at the institute-disappearing to places or wherever he goes when she can't find him. Isabelle doesn't know where he's going, and Alec dodges the question in those odd seconds she gets with him while they pass in the hall. It's not the best way of things, and her brother doesn't really look that happy, or very healthy for that matter. But until she can catch a real moment with him it will have to do.

Finally, after three days of missed brothers and worried glances they get assigned a mission together. It's a simple thing, just patrolling, so it provides a good opportunity to talk. And Isabelle wants to talk.

"How have you been?" she asks as they walk down the abandoned, dimly lot alleyway. There are a couple of homeless, of course, who can't see them because of their glamours, thusly they don't count. Isabelle doesn't look at her brother as she asks, but she walks a few inches closer to him to show him that she's there for him.

"I've been..." Alec sighs, "I really don't know."

There's silence for a few moments. Isabelle would like to pretend that it isn't awkward, that Alec's state of melancholy isn't getting to her, but it is. She can't brush off the dense atmosphere, the lost and shattered aura coming from her brother. Alec might not know exactly how he's doing, but it certainly isn't well. His skin is even more pale than usual, and there are purple bags under his somewhat red eyes. This is all Magnus Bane's fault.

Isabelle sighs. "Alec... You'll find someone else, eventually."

After a few more moments of silence Isabelle glances at her brother, and sees tears welling up in his eyes and his lips contorted downwards into a broken frown.

"I don't want to find anyone else, Isabelle," he says, a tear falling from one of his eyes.

Isabelle feels a stab of guilt like it punched her in the gut, stealing her breath away. She was tactless... She abandons all ideas of keeping on patrol to hug her crying sibling, letting him cry into her shoulder. She rubs circles in his back, trying to sooth him.

"It'll be okay, Alec. Don't worry. It'll be okay."

Alec pulls away from Isabelle, wiping the last of his tears off on his sleeve.

He nods, smiling falsely.

Tell me what you think, yeah?