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The buzz of a bowstring sang through the shadow-tinted emptiness of the alleyway, before the air came alive with an inhuman screech and the thump of a heavy body, followed by feral growling, rustling and the glowing shape of a sword in the dark, slashing through flesh and bone like the graceful arm of a ballerina. It was a beautifully choreographed performance, and the dancers themselves felt the rush of euphoria with every perfectly synchronised shot, cut and turn, back to back, their parabatai runes glowing in a soft red on their skin.
After the last body had dissolved under Jace’s sword, they stood for a few seconds, breathing deeply, still half-expecting another attack, before Jace let out a laugh, and Alec felt the tension slowly subside, as he put the cautious last arrow he had pulled out back into the quiver.
“That was amazing.”
Jace swung around, unabashedly smiling from ear to ear, and Alec couldn’t help but grin about his enthusiasm. It was contagious. Had always been.
“Where did you learn that backhanded sword twist? I’ve never seen it on you.”, Alec demanded, and Jace’s face nearly split in two with his smile. Sheathing his sword, he walked over to where Alec was standing, closer to the sparse light of the lamp behind the brick wall that separated the alley from the outside world of New York. The air was warm this time of year, and just humid enough to feel like a touchable thing.
“Hodge showed me. Thought I’d surprise you.” Up close Jace looked positively dishevelled; there were scratches on the front of his leather jacket, his hair resembled a haystack after a hurricane, and one side of his face had been on the receiving end of some smaller demonic blood splatter – but his eyes were gleaming, and the sheer joy on his face made Alec want to … to…
Jace’s hand landed on his arm, and Alec flinched involuntarily. “We were fantastic” Jace said with absolute honesty in his voice; and Alec had to take his eyes from his face to refrain from doing something incredibly stupid.
“You have demon goo on your cheek” he retorted instead, making a vague motion with the arm not currently occupied by Jace, who was still uncomfortably close.
Jace laughed again, finally pulling his hand away from Alec’s arm, and absentmindedly ran his fingers over the side of his face, wiping them on his jeans. “You really have to ruin the moment, don’t you?”
“I didn’t know we were having a moment”, Alec replied.
Jace paused quite abruptly, and looked up at him.
“Stop doing that.”
Alec furrowed his eyebrows. “Stop doing what?”
“Stop making it sound like it wasn’t special.”
“Like what wasn’t special?”
Jace looked at him like at a four year old who hadn’t understood a very simple concept after three hours of tireless and colourful explaining. “You? Me? Together? Saving people? Hunting things? The family business?”
“What is it with you quoting TV-shows?”
“The point stands.” Jace gave back, confidently. “We just made a home run, and we were great together, you and I. We are great together, period. I don’t know why you’re so afraid of admitting that to yourself once in a while.”
Alec felt himself grow uneasy during Jace’s monologue. This was really not a conversation they should be having, because talking about feelings meant talking about Alec’s feelings as well, and those – by the Angel, those shouldn’t be touched with a ten foot pole. Especially not by Jace, of all people.
“Ummm, yeah. We are great, sure. I don’t dwell on it too often. We just – are” Alec ended rather lamely.
And Jace, dammit, Jace wasn’t buying one syllable of what Alec had been saying, because there he was, stepping up to him, demon blood still stuck to his face in some areas, a worried expression in his eyes. “Alec, you’re acting weird. Not for the first time, by the way. It’s like you’re, I don’t know how to put it any better – evading me.”
Shit.
“I’m – not. Evading you.” Well, that sounded convincing.
Jace was coming closer still, and Alec stepped back without meaning to, which his parabatai promptly took as a perfectly literal case in point.
“See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Damn, Jace, what the hell are you expecting me to do? Give you a long hug while we cry about our mutual awesomeness? Make out with you?”
He noticed only that he had slipped when the words had already left his mouth. Oh, fuck no.
Jace looked at him, unblinking. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. Maybe, maybe, pretty please-
“Do you want to?”, Jace asked.
And that was that.
“Of course not. Why would I? You’re my brother, my parabatai. Dammit, even if it weren’t wrong in the first place, it would still be illegal. Where do you get your ideas from?”
Jace was still looking at him, something dark and intense in his eyes, and Alec knew, he just knew, he was in deep, deep trouble.
“I don’t believe a single word of what you’re saying, Alec.”
Jace stepped forward again, which, in turn, forced Alec to step back further, until he felt the rough surface of the brick wall against his bare forearms. On the inside he was readying himself for a fight. If Jace wanted him to admit anything concerning his very well bottled-up feelings, he’d have to beat it out of him. His parabatai was now close enough that Alec could feel his body heat bleed through two layers of leather, warmer than the May night surrounding them. Jace was smaller than him by a good measure, but he was nothing if not determined, a solid wall of muscle blocking Alec’s way, with a look on his face that made Alec’s fighting instincts surge up – together with a completely different set of emotions, one that he really, really didn’t want to ponder about right now.
“You know, I wasn’t sure before”, Jace continued. “But now you’ve given me an answer.”
And with that he shoved Alec up against the wall and kissed him, surprisingly soft, considering the entire assaulting tactic he’d utilized to get him into this position. Alec froze for a few milliseconds, before his body could get with the programme of kissing, not fighting, but then it seemed to move all by itself. Alec’s hands found their way into Jace’s hair, pulling him in, and his mouth opened against Jace’s heavenly lips. His parabatai tasted like sweat and adrenaline, a lightning rod of fighting energy and euphoria; and this was so much better than Alec could have ever dreamed of.
Then, Jace pulled away; and after a few moments of haziness, Alec’s brain went back online. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than the ground to eat him up, right then, right there.
“Okay”, Jace said, quietly, like he had just made a breakthrough discovery. “Okay.“
“Look”, Alec managed. “Please, I know this is – terrible. But you didn’t have to kiss me to prove something, so- you know, it’s your fault as well, and-“
Jace lifted his hand to stop him. “I wasn’t proving anything.”
“Then what…?”
“I was clearing something up for the both of us. You know, you’re not very subtle, Alec. Or observant, for that matter.”
“You were – I’m not – WHAT?” Alec felt like he was underusing his talent of forming complete sentences tonight, but then, Jace had just kissed him, and now he was speaking in riddles – limited grammar was among the least of Alec’s problems right now.
“I’ve watched you looking at me for a while now, Alec. And I wondered whether you’d come clean to me yourself. Or whether I’d have to make you. Since you were not picking up on any of my hints to talk to me about this – well. But that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is that I want to kiss you again, and that comes a little unexpected.”
Alec felt his guts twist at that. There were so many things he could be saying right now, like Who the hell do you think you are? or This is a terrible idea. or Then kiss me again, you idiot. but all he seemed to be able to produce was another disbelieving “What?”
Jace cleared his throat. “Okay, maybe I was trying to prove to the both of us that kissing would feel weird, because, you know, because-“ He paused, rather awkwardly.
“Because we’re parabatai.”
“Because I’m a guy”, Alec ended the sentence at the same time, only to stare at Jace. “That’s not the problem?”
Jace shook his head wordlessly, and then examined Alec’s facial expression, like he was looking for something specific. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I really thought, it was for the best to just – get it over with, and move on, you know?“ He sighed.
Alec tried to be angry, he really tried, but didn’t succeed at all. Jace’s reasoning was not necessarily conventional, but sound nonetheless, and there had been nothing but good intention behind it.
“How long have you known?”, Alec demanded.
“Six months, maybe. How long has this been going?”
Alec thought about lying, then decided against it – Jace already knew everything he had never wanted him to know; why withhold the details? “About two years now. Maybe longer.”
“Shit”, Jace looked at him with something like – awe? “That’s-“
Alec never learned what the rest of the sentence consisted of, because Jace’s hand had found Alec’s cheek right in the middle of it, and before Alec could do anything else, he was caught in another kiss – a little more forceful this time, with more body contact and a sense of desperation in the way Jace’s tongue slipped right into his mouth and his fingers grabbed for purchase on Alec’s lapel. Alec held on for all he was worth, because this was Jace and he was kissing him, and this was wrong, but also so terrifyingly, addictively, heart-acceleratingly good, and damn, maybe spontaneous combustion from sheer, irrational happiness was a thing after all.
When they let go of each other at last, hesitantly, Alec got his language, and his guilty conscience, back first.
“We can’t do this ever, ever again. It’s illegal, Jace. They could banish us.”
Jace nodded, reluctantly, and, for the stupidest reason, Alec’s heart sank. Some naïve little boy part of him had still, despite everything, held onto the hope that, somehow, if it ever came to this, against all odds, Jace would make it okay. Jace would rebel against the Clave. Jace Wayland would force the whole world to accept this.
Instead he let Alec continue without interrupting him. “This has never happened, okay? We just move on, completely normal, and forget you ever had the crazy idea to prove a point by kissing me. And failing at proving said point. Maybe we’ll even laugh about it one day.”
“That’s never going to happen”, Jace replied, unapologetically. “But it might be for the best to ignore this whole evening for the rest of our lives.”
“It is.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, though.”
Alec dropped his gaze to his shoes. Looking at Jace was painful right now. “No.”
A finger laid itself under his chin and lifted it up, until Jace was looking him straight in the eye, a kind of sadness in his gaze that Alec wished he could do something against.
“Then don’t forget it.”
With that, the finger disappeared, and Jace turned around, heading for the street without another word.
Alec stood for a few seconds and wondered if things would ever be the same again.