Thank my beta for the wonderfulness... They helped me along with some mistakes and awkward things. And thanks to you guys, as well, for tuning in.
I've been flamed a bit for the ending of Restless Heart Syndrome, so let me just put in a slight spoiler for this one; it has a better, stronger ending. Or, it should. But I'm sort of notorious for bad endings. Have a nice day!
Oh, we also have a new cover because I was bored and too lazy to write. LOVE IT. I command thou.
"Conscience, as I understand it, is the impulse to do the right thing because it is right, regardless of personal ends, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability to distinguish between right and wrong." -Margaret Collier Graham
Alec hated the nightmare that Magnus had awoken him from. It was a situation he was becoming used to, hating things, with himself tied up and at the mercy of Jonathan Morgenstern twice in the previous three days. It was how the nightmare had went, predictably enough. He was in that cold concrete room, fastened to the sloped wall, and he was terrified. He couldn't remember exactly what had been done, but it was awful. He had begged and pleaded and bargained, but it was all for naught, just like it always was. His words were useless and the platinum-headed fugitive had come at him anyway.
He had screamed because it hurt and it wouldn't stop. It felt like he was having a seizure or something, his entire body pounding and shaking with little control. Even when his eyes snapped open, he was still there for a second, just trying to make the pain stop. Then Jonathan became Magnus and Alec hardly knew how to deal with it all. He wanted to tell Magnus, but all he'd be able to say would be weather-related. He'd begun to dislike the weather. The sky and its moods could go fuck itself.
Alec had kept secrets before, like the bottle of whiskey that went missing the year before, and contrary to what everyone thought, he wasn't horrible at it. He might have been, had people dug further, but they never did. He knew how to keep out of the limelight. But he'd never had to keep a secret like this, one that was always sitting at the back of his throat, laying his tongue with slick oil that the truth kept slipping on, trying to get out from. His head spun with ways to try and communicate what he was trying to say, but it didn't happen. No one dug deep enough into his strange behavior. He wasn't Jace, so it wasn't a dramatic change that had to be fussed over at every turn (because, face it, Alec would be the one doing all of the fussing).
It wasn't as though Alec had never kept secrets he'd wanted others to know. He had wanted people to know that he was gay, but he couldn't say anything because there was too much fear holding him back. It had been a secret, but not really a problem. Not like this. This was a new category of secret for him, and one he wished he hadn't been faced with. At least it wasn't Izzy who got it, understood, with her odd way of just knowing. He wouldn't want her to know first, he'd prefer his mom, or maybe even Magnus. He didn't want to seem too weak in front of his little sister, or anyone, for that matter.
Secrets weren't supposed to physically hurt him, like Jonathan did, and hide the evidence. At least when he was hit when he was younger his mother was upfront about it, and it was a means of punishment. It wasn't a secret if everyone knew, if everyone could see the marks. It stopped just before Isabelle was old enough to realize what was happening, as the stress of Valentine dying and the Clave's wrath became less harsh and the punishments with it. Those hits weren't a secret, and they didn't hurt anyone. They didn't prevent him from keeping anyone safe, because at the time, he hadn't had anyone to keep safe. He was on his own.
He wished there was something he could do other than let Magnus rock into him, both of their heads not completely there. Magnus was worried about the nightmare, Alec could tell, even if his own head was still trapped away in the unreachable hell of a cement room he'd become accustomed to.
A room that he didn't ever want to visit again if he could help it. Little did he know that he'd be making a forced appearance there again that evening, after he kissed Magnus goodbye and as soon as the weariness of working began to set in yet again.
The third time Jonathan stole Alec from the real world was horrible. Not in the usual horrible way, because Jonathan seemed determined to up his game with every visit. Angel, he almost wished for Jonathan's normal brand of crazy. Fuck. He'd began to think of what Jonathan was doing as 'normal.' But this wasn't 'normal,' this was awful, torturous, and completely vile in its own way. And Jonathan didn't even have to touch him. It almost made Alec glad he couldn't talk about these abductions to anyone, because he was ashamed that he'd done them. That he and them existed together in the same sentence.
He'd fought against it a bit, but he was tired and he'd lost a substantial amount of blood just three days before when his runes were traced down with an unforgiving blade. But despite his efforts, which were more desperate, and less effective, than the first day, he was still overpowered. He was thrown into a silver cage that hadn't been there yesterday with just his belt full of blades. His stele had been snatched from him, and Jonathan seemed to be getting smoother at stealing away his bow as they met more often.
He didn't know what was going on. But then, did he ever? He fought a sigh, stiffening his body and letting his senses tell him about his surroundings. He had to be prepared for whatever was going to happen, but he knew it wouldn't be good. It never was.
He slowly and deliberately surveyed his setting, trying to decipher exactly what might be close in his future. The cage he was in glinted in a flickering firelight that came from a bronze brazier on the wall he'd never noticed before. The cage was octagonal, the side Alec just pushed through equipped with a glinting chain lock. It couldn't have been more than five paces across the thing, and the chain link fence surrounding it must have been gilded the argent tone or it would have cost more money than Alec had seen in his life. It wasn't raised, just set on the dull gray floor speckled with off-colored spots.
Alec wasn't the only person in there, however. As his eyes took inventory of the space in front of him, he saw a terrified face pretending to be brave near the opposite side of the cage, a couple of steps away. Alarm was in the boy's eyes, and his stance was nearly as tense as Alec's though not quite as practiced. There was a scar reaching down the left side of his face, a thick blade maybe, and his dark eyes were alight with running adrenaline. He'd been in a fight before, and he was certainly looking as though he felt threatened.
Alec gave a stiff nod to the other boy, who couldn't be much younger than himself, but made no comment. He had a horrible suspicion about what was going to happen next, and he turned his body so he could see Jonathan and the mystery teen at the same time. He was ready for an attack from the boy, and even if they were separated by a thin wall of metal Alec couldn't believe he was safe from the madman.
Jonathan walked over to a chair that held something Alec couldn't see and picked it up, turning back and walking closer to the cage with an unnerving smile biting at his lips.
"Only one of you leaves," Jonathan stated, and Alec felt his stomach churning, not for the first time in the previous weeks. "You get an hour to kill each other. If you aren't both dead by then I will kill you both. Clear?"
"Cage fighting is illegal," Alec answered, while the boy just behind him gasped. "It hasn't been allowed in nearly a hundred and fifty years. It is a serious offense in the eyes of the Clave."
"The eyes of the Clave matter little to me, stupid shadowhunter," Jonathan scoffed. "This will hardly change how they see me, anyway."
Alec scowled. "No, you can't just-"
"Can't what? You have been at my complete mercy for days now." Jonathan smirked. "I could kill you easily, and you know it."
Alec swallowed, biting on his lip. Jonathan had killed Max, and this was a reminder. He'd killed a defenseless, innocent young boy. There was no doubt in Alec's mind that if he didn't kill the teenager in the cage with him, he'd end up with his guts as the new wallpaper for the room.
"You wouldn't!" The other boy exclaimed. "The pack would kill you!"
Jonathan smiled as Alec realized that the boy he was locked in the cage with was a werewolf. The accords were just strengthening, too. To have a shadowhunter and a werewolf fight to the death...they were fucked.
"I do not fear my own kind. I see little reason to fear yours," Jonathan shrugged, then pulled up a dully colored piece of mechanical equipment. "Now do a good job. Smile. You're on camera." Jonathan pulled out the screen attached tot he recording device and switched a little button, a green light appearing at the top. "And... Go!"
It took Alec until he'd slammed the werewolf against the cage wall and the creature screamed in protest to realize that their corral was lined with silver. He was supposed to win, what fun would he be for Jonathan if he didn't? He was going to kill the child of the moon whether he wanted to or not. It was irrelevant to Jonathan if he was breaking Clave law. He'd disregarded Sed lex dura lex (1. Jonathan was never going to be a true shadowhunter again.
Alec couldn't see Magnus, not after that. He just couldn't.
He hadn't been healed up with a rune like he had been in the past, and he wished that Jonathan had had to swirl the mark onto his flesh. But he had gotten no injury worse than a bruise or two. They would be gone soon enough anyway, and it wasn't as if he could talk about how he got them. He'd end up talking about the fucking rain clouds or something equally stupid. He just drew a rune on because he didn't want to have to see them. He didn't want to think about it.
He didn't want to think about what they meant. That they shouldn't be there, that instead he should have been ripped up by the werewolf. Then, at least, all of it would go away. But he didn't want to think like that, and steered himself away from those thoughts. He had taken the final blow and ended it, and that was never going to change. The illegality of it wouldn't change, either, as the Clave wanted to build good relationships with the downworlders they had abused for so long. This was almost worse than not uttering Jonathan's threat to the Clave, in an incomparable way.
He had killed a downworlder with hardly any just cause. At least, according to the camera that didn't catch Jonathan's threat, just two people flying at each other in an effort to kill. The Clave would favor the downworlder, because of the bridges being built, and claim that if the werewolf was attacking him he should have just restrained the beast. It would be his fault, because he was an adult, a shadowhunter, and maybe a part in it would be that he was gay. He would be swept under the rug, and he kind of deserved it. It was almost like he'd killed Luke, who he admittedly hardly knew, or fuck, killing Magnus. He'd felt the blood stick to his hands, staining them in that unforgiving way that blood had about itself.
He couldn't think about it every time he looked at his warlock- slow, burned out eyes and blood spilling all over his chest. He called him, before the sun set, and told him that he wouldn't be making it home that evening. He apologized, not for his absence. He apologized for the downworlder he had killed, because he couldn't say anything else without sounding like an utter fool. He probably still did, but he wanted someone to know that he was sorry, even if they didn't know what for.
He went back to the institute as his shift ended, washing out some of the blood from his gear before throwing it in the washing machine to be cleaned. He was lucky, in a way, that it was so hard to see blood stains on black cloth. No one was around, they were recounting Clary's tales or finishing up paperwork or sleeping. He could sleep, let himself shut down and hopefully be somewhere protected. Though Jonathan never bothered him when he was at Magnus's, he still felt safer back at the Institute he'd grown up in. They were both layered with thick protection magic or runes. It was probably worse at the Institute, because Jonathan could walk right in undetected. But it felt safer, even with its long empty halls. It reminded him of Jace.
Dressed up only in his boxers he tried not to think about the first non-demon's life he'd taken. He wanted to sleep, he was exhausted. But he'd lie on the bed, and images of the werewolf would slip into his mind. The fear on the werewolf's face as he lost his drive to death's harsh hand. Alec took a cold shower then, and even with blue lips and goose-bumps on all of his skin he had trouble forgetting it to himself. It just made everything horribly clearer, too defined, too real.
In the end Alec collapsed onto the bed, his eyes thick and his body heavy as he stared at the ceiling. He probably fell asleep, because when he opened his eyes next it was to a blaring alarm clock he could hardly remember setting the night before.
He was tired, and he had work to do, but it wasn't as if any of that was anything new.
He was on edge, as much as he could be, and went back to Magnus after his long day of never-ending patrolling and searching was over. He knew he had to find Jace, but it was hard with the ever-present threat of Jonathan looming. Jonathan, who he was also supposed to be finding. He'd been found instead, and was paying the price.
Alec was nervous, but his head and his limbs weren't acting on the same pages of the script, their overlapping dialogues telling different stories. His brain was overloading, becoming paranoid at every single off-from-the-crowd footstep, while he wasn't physically the best he could be. He was weak, too open to attack to win against Jonathan. Maybe he'd get a demon, if he used his bow, but he was slow.
Four days of sixteen hour days, sometimes only fourteen, was what he had been scheduled for. The draining of his confidence and the ghost of hurt that lingered just behind his eyes wasn't accounted in that mix, either. He wasn't looking forward to the days to come. He didn't want to know what was going to happen, he didn't want to be there when it did. He felt like he wanted to curl up on a soft mattress and never wake up. Maybe Magnus would even lie with him as the world passed them by... If only he didn't have a sister to protect and a brother to find. A life to live. He wished it were possible, in a wistful moment. If only he could be happy, if only everything were alright again. Even if that had only been all of ten minutes.
Hours still passed, laced with exhaustion. His back was stiff from the stress, a constant ache on the right side base of his neck that he should ask Magnus to help him with. He' wasn't really particularly comfortable with massages, but he was getting used to them, and they were nice when used for relieving aches like that. He got a massage from Magnus that night, but it wasn't the only thing he got. Magnus made some jokes about how much Alec had been talking about the weather lately, and Alec snapped at him a bit. When they went to sleep, the bed was colder. Alec knew that he would welcome the heat, then, if it came from Magnus. Though he was still a bit upset, he had more days of searching to get through. He couldn't snap at Magnus; he wanted them to last, this to last, whatever it was. Dating would be a good word, but it was almost more than that. It was his first step into his skin, his first try at really being himself. He'd have to have more patience. It wasn't Magnus's fault. He'd go to the warlock tomorrow and face his mistakes, or at least he'd lie because he couldn't do much else.
His feet were on fire. His legs weren't much better, the heat only slowly lessening the higher up the nerves were. Steam wet whatever clothes he was still wearing, because his shoes and pants were gone, and sweat clung to his body as he tried to move his feet out of the water without splashing it on his legs. The temperature was rising, the fire burning beneath the pot he was standing in getting hotter and hotter.
Jonathan was laughing at him, at the way his legs were tied down so he couldn't pull them out of the water that was coming to a boil, at the way the entirety of his body was beginning to resemble a lobster in color. He wanted it to stop. Fuck, he'd never be able to take a bath again. Why the fuck was Jonathan doing this? It wasn't like he looked like he particularly enjoyed it, besides the laughter. Alec had known he was fucked in the head, but before that week he hadn't imagined it to be that extreme. He played with his food.
Being boiled alive wasn't a very pleasant experience, needless to say. There was the inescapable steam, which coated the inside of the nostrils and didn't go away, setting in the ears, and there was the sweat that coated his overheating body just desperate to cool down. Then there was the undeniably uncomfortable feeling of being burned alive. And not like fire, or heated metal. It wasn't singing, it wasn't a flash and a burn. It was a continuous, slow and excruciating process that made Alec want to lose all hope. Jonathan wouldn't kill him, he doubted it, because then he would have no one else to play with, unless he had Jace locked away somewhere. But his skin was red, just bursting to get out, and he couldn't pull away.
When it was finally over, Alec knew he would never look at water the same way again, and he knew that from Jonathan's smirk that this had been an intermission, of sorts. The ending of the first scene, but then, how many would there be? Would there only be two, would there be six or would there be three? Would it ever end? Alec wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he just wanted everyone to be safe again. Safer. He needed a plan, but they were all slipping from his head, scurrying away as soon as any light was cast upon them.
He didn't shower when he got back to Magnus's. He didn't do much at all. He ate, and slept, and his head was out of it. He mumbled a line about the weather that Magnus snapped at him for. He hadn't cared too much at the time. He'd probably responded, then went to sleep. Magnus was debating something when Alec went in to sleep, but it didn't really seem to matter much. He slept, and got ready for a new day. The new day came, and with it, more energy.
He was more there by the time he got back to Magnus. That night was a nice one, kind of. They were tense around each other. Not exceptionally, there was just an extra thickness in the air. Extra caution in every word or movement. He felt like he was suffocating, slowly, but he was sure that Jonathan would eventually try something of the sort and it didn't bother him as much as it should have. Magnus asked if he was okay. He just shook his head and took a cold shower, trying not to look at the still pink skin of his feet and up his ankles. The slight burns would heal, only hurting when he stood. He went to bed early that night, after his shower. He'd hardly eaten, but he didn't really want to. Maybe the next day would be better.
Sleep came easily. He was exhausted, and he slept like he hadn't had a wink in years. He dreamed like he'd never heard of the term, a blank, empty slate. He was stiff, not even completely relaxed while he was out of it. In the morning, when he woke up, the burns didn't hurt anymore but it felt wrong to talk. Not physically, it just seemed like opening his mouth to say something was too much. Like the world might shatter if he did. So he kept his words sparse, only speaking when he was addressed first. He told his mom that he'd started his patrol through a text message, and kept to his streets, his pace not fast but keeping at a constant rate. His eyes would dart around at the slightest sound that he considered suspicious, and he didn't stop at a food truck or anywhere for lunch like he usually did. He needed to keep moving, even if Jonathan only took him while he was moving. He needed to find Jace so that he could be safe again. So Jonathan wouldn't be a threat any longer, a hidden threat that only Alec could see.
He wasn't special, he never had been. That wasn't his job; he was just there to make sure that everyone else didn't die. He'd already failed that twice, maybe thrice, though he refused to believe Jace was dead. It wasn't as if he'd ever wish something like this on his siblings, but he had to wonder why him. Was it really because he was gay, and no one would care? Or was it because he was the weakest, the one who wouldn't fight well enough to do any damage? The easiest to get away with killing.
He was tired. He wanted Jonathan to stop hurting him. For once in his life, he wanted to talk to someone. But there was something inside him keeping his mouth shut about even the smallest things. He needed help, but he wasn't going to get any.
He was Alexander Lightwood. He was specifically special to no one but Magnus, who claimed he was different. But maybe he wasn't so different, with all of the time in the world spinning threads through Magnus's fingers. Magnus was older than the country they lived in. Surely, in all of that time, there were better people to fuck. To love, as they claimed for each other. Alec loved Magnus. Magnus said he loved Alec. But, like the rest of the world, was it even real? Ale didn't know. He'd have to be strong, though. He hadn't been strong long enough, he just needed more time before he could collapse and never be found again. He needed to find Jace first. Then he could slip out everyone's minds like he had a habit of doing unless it involved his he could be gone to everyone, just a shadow keeping everyone safe.
1. the Law is hard, but it is the Law