Hi hi~! This was originally posted on my Tumblr around a year or so ago, and here I am cleaning it up and posting it here! This is part of a Missing Scenes series that I hopefully will be continuing soon. This is my speculation on the parabatai rune, and what occurred to Alec after Jace was stabbed by Sebastian. This does contain spoilers for those of you who are Shadowhunters fans, or if you have not read City of Glass so be warned!
There is a suicide attempt in this, so if that sort of content is triggering for you, tread with caution.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Mortal Instruments
Where Thou Diest, Will I Die
...and there will I be buried: The Angel do so to me, and more also. - Parabatai Oath
What happens to the other half of the parabatai bond when one dies?
Alec's side of the Battle of Brocelind Plain, after Jace was stabbed.
By the time the first Shadowhunters had reached them, [Jace'd] been drifting into a dizzy unconsciousness. He'd woken up the next day in the city hospital with Magnus Bane staring down at him with an odd expression – it could have been deep concern or merely curiosity, it was hard to tell with Magnus. – City of Glass, Epilogue: Across the Sky in Stars, pg. 504
It happened between one instant and the next. One moment, he had loosed an arrow on an Iblis demon, was reaching for another, faintly worrying about the green sparks emitting from his fingertips, the next moment – the next moment he was collapsing, in pain. Alec had thought he had known pain before.
He was wrong.
Alec had been hurt before, he remembered the agony from Abbadon's poison wreaking havoc on his body. He hadn't had time to forget the crushing panic of not being able to breathe, Sebastian's hand around his throat. All the mindless times from when he was younger and less experienced, when he had gotten hurt, trying to keep Jace and Isabelle from getting hurt.
This was a thousand times worse.
Pain lanced through his shoulder blade, traveling the quick path to his heart. It felt as if someone had poured acid, lava, a cocktail of Greater Demon poison, straight into his heart, and it was now beating throughout his entire body. Agonizing pain sent Alec collapsing to his knees, barely aware of his bow and the arrow he had grabbed to nock clattering to the ground, the noise unnoticed in the cacophony around him. Through the haze of pain, Alec tried to force his thoughts back in order, tried to rationalize what had happened to him. Had a demon somehow managed to attack and poison him? Gasping breathlessly in pain, Alec had only scarcely begun to think that was the accurate assumption when his shoulder blade pulsed and he realized he was wrong, horribly, terribly, wrong.
His hands moved of their own accord, Alec barely aware of his body's movements as his mind tried to wrap itself around this newfound revelation. A dagger was in his hands now; Alec knew what he had to do. Holding it two-handed, he positioned it, the reassurance that he'd only feel a slight pinch barely heard in the roaring of his head. Alec gritted his teeth, could feel tears in his eyes, squeezed shut, and felt the pulsing beat in time with his still beating heart. He pulled the dagger slightly back to build up momentum, felt his heart quail though he knew this was what he had to do – Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: The Angel do so to me, and more also – and stabbed.
"Alec!" The panicked cry cut through the haze of pain and despair fogging his thoughts, startling him, but it was too late, too late, too late. A snap echoed, achingly loud despite the din muffling everything as if he were underwater, and suddenly Alec's arm was pulling, pulling to the left, until it missed its intended mark, slicing through his gear, slashing a bloody line through his side instead. Alec's arms and hands were shaking, a sob strangled in the back of his throat. He tried moving his hands, he had to do this, but there was a second snap, and Alec couldn't move at all.
"Alexander," Magnus was in front of him, breathing his name like it was a curse, but Alec could barely focus on him. All he could comprehend beyond the roar in his ears was the pulsing, the painful, agonizing, pulsing, each throb in time with his own heartbeat, quickening with it, reminding him, where thou diest, will I die, reminding him that he had a duty. "Alexander, what are you thinking?"
He wasn't though, he couldn't, Alec couldn't think past the pulsing, the burning, the suffocating realization numbing him slowly from the inside out. He could barely breathe, and there was just one thing running through his head.
Whither thou goest, I will go;
"Alec, answer me. Alec."
Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried:
"What's wrong, what happened?"
"I don't know, he was fine, then he collapsed and tried stabbing himself!"
The Angel do so to me, and more also,
There were hands, a hand, a hand on his shoulder, dipping beneath the collar of his shirt, touching the mess on his shoulder blade, the stickiness, the truth –
If aught but death part thee and me.
Golden light erupted everywhere, blinding, scaring off demons, and that was the last thing Alec remembered before collapsing underneath the pulsing, the pain, and everything swallowed him whole.
If aught but death part thee and me.
"I'm fine," Alec was protesting from the bed in the city hospital he had been confined to. "I don't need to be here."
Quite the contrary, in Magnus's opinion. Alec, quite obviously, did not remember the short spectacle he had undergone during the Battle of Brocelind Plain. Magnus, however, did, and it was quite unlikely that he would ever forget.
"I'm sure it's just a precaution, darling," Magnus felt comfortable using the endearment, not only because no one was currently around, but also because it hadn't been so long ago that Alec had boldly came out to the Clave.
Very boldly, Magnus remembered, not able to stop the slight smile that formed on his lips, touching his fingers to them.
"Besides," Magnus continued airily, and did his best not to convey his distaste through his tone, "If you were let out of bed, the first thing you'd do would be go running off after Jace, when it's doubtless that they'll bring him here, if –" Magnus stopped himself before he could say what had been on the tip of his tongue. If he's really dead. He changed his wording. "–if he's seriously injured."
Magnus watched Alec, wondering if he had noticed his slip. Alec undoubtedly had, Magnus thought, as he reached a hand up slowly, grabbing his shoulder. There was a closed expression on his face, and his grip was white-knuckled. Underneath his hand was a swath of bandages, covering the parabatai rune located just opposite of Alec's heart.
The rune bled, wept dark ink, when the partner to it was wounded, or killed. It also conveyed the pain that the partner felt to the one marked. Parabatai were few, Magnus knew that, and he knew that the rune could cause the parabatai to feel each other's pain, and sent a message to signify when the other half of the bond was dead. He also knew from experience that it faded, not to a silvery white but to an ashen grey, when one half of the bond was dead. Magnus had seen many parabatai throughout his life, had seen many halves of the pair lose the other, but never had Magnus seen what he had just a scant few hours ago.
From what Magnus had been told, sniffing around for information while he waited for Alec to regain consciousness, was that the bond had the ability – in close pairs – to compel the other to die when one died. That it wasn't abnormal for one half of the parabatai bond to die, in battle or due to something else, and the other to follow shortly after, whether by their own hand or a misstep in battle. Magnus had also been told, though he was sure that the Shadowhunter who had told him was reluctant to pass the information on, that if Alec's parabatai, if Jace, had truly died, there would be precautions put into place to make sure that Alec did not take his own life.
A half hour later Alec had woken up, vomiting blood. That had been quite a sight–
"You aren't listening to me." Alec announced, frowning, voice cutting through Magnus's thoughts sharper than the blade he had (tried to kill himself with) held last night.
"Of course I am," Magnus automatically denied, even though he hadn't realized Alec had been talking. Which was quite tragic, because Magnus adored it when Alec spoke. Magnus loved hearing Alec's voice almost as much as he loved hearing his own, if not more.
"I said," Alec repeated himself, eyes narrowing in a way that implied that he knew Magnus hadn't been listening to him, and Magnus had been incapable of convincing him otherwise, "That I don't care about precautions. I'm perfectly fine; I don't need a bed when there are others who need it more than me."
Alec didn't wait for Magnus's response to his proclamation. He swung his feet off the side of the bed, settling them on the floor. For a brief moment, Magnus regretted not relieving Alec of his shoes, and for another moment he considered using his magic on Alec to keep him in bed, but decided against it. It would just upset Alec, he reasoned.
Besides, Magnus discovered just a few moments later, he didn't need to use magic on Alec to keep him in bed. Alec stood, with a grin on his face that seemed pleased that Magnus wasn't fighting him on his decision. That only lasted a moment, before his knees buckled, sending him toward the floor. His hands flew to catch himself before he hit the ground, and Magnus slotted himself neatly by Alec's side, catching him before he could fall all the way down. He tutted lightly, but didn't say anything.
Magnus helped Alec sit on the bed, settling next to him.
"He isn't dead." Alec said suddenly, prompting Magnus to look at him. He was staring determinedly at his hands, which were closed into fists. "He can't be." Alec's hands were shaking, and it took only a moment for Magnus to understand who he was talking about.
"Of course he isn't," Magnus agreed easily, placing a comforting arm around Alec's shoulder, even though he had no way of proving so. Alec shook under him, quaking, as he tried to convince himself that Jace was alive.
They sat there, in silence, for a long time, until Isabelle found them, an untamed whirlwind sweeping into the room announcing how both Jace and Clary were still alive, and dragged them both to where the two were being kept.
Magnus watched as Alec's shoulders moved as he let out a small sigh of barely audible relief, taking a seat at his unconscious parabatai's bed side. He listened, along with Alec, as Isabelle and Clary recounted the tale from Lake Lyn to them both.
He frowned, when the pieces didn't quite line up, when something felt off about the story he was told.
And he wondered, staring at Alec's unconscious parabatai, wondered if Jace maybe, just maybe, had actually died that night.
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