daydream. // jalec + malec

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Alec knew he needed to leave the Institute. He knew it was past time he returned to Magnus's apartment, to explain in as few words as possible what had happened without spilling every detail, to give him the excuse that he had been preparing in his mind for hours--that he had spent most of the afternoon discussing methods of attack on Valentine with his sister and Clary. He would tell Magnus that Jace hadn't needed to speak with him after all, that it was Isabelle's hands that had typed a message using his phone, knowing without a hint of doubt that Alec would only leave Magnus's side if he thought Jace was in trouble.

    This wasn't the case, of course. The truth was that Alec had spent the day at the Institute never leaving Jace's bedroom, wrapped up in the other man's embrace and kissing him for as long as he would allow, the one-night rendezvous created in Washington paling in comparison to this bout of pure passion, Alec's hunger and desire for Jace now becoming something mutual that the Parabatai shared.

    Night had fallen, and the moonlight trickled in through the open blinds covering the picture window in the center of the wall, turning Jace's bronze hair to a deep silver. His one brown eye was deepened to the color of hazel, the shade of a summer sky just before a thunderstorm tore across the heavens, while the blue had been transformed into that of a shimmering mountain lake, so much so that Alec could see his reflection staring back at him through it.

     "What are we going to do?" Alec had been repeating these same six words endlessly and repetitively, a broken record of confusion and apprehension that played over and over again. "How are we going to tell the others?"

    "I've told you," Jace smiled reassuringly, leaning down to brush his lips gently against Alec's collarbone. "We don't have to tell anyone."

    "We do," Alec countered. "Izzy, Clary, Magnus..." Something flashed in the back of his mind when he mentioned Magnus's name, almost like a warning, but it vanished before Alec could get a definitive grip on it. "It's better they find out from us than from someone else."

    Jace laughed, that sarcastic, self-assured laugh that Alec both loathed and loved at the same time. "Have you not heard what I've been telling you for the past three hours, Alec? This is our secret. No one has to know, and therefore, no one has to judge."

    Alec sighed deeply, but didn't press the matter any further, instead resting his head against Jace's chest, listening to his heartbeat and the rise and fall of each breath he took. Every so often, he would feel Jace's pulse jump, as if there was a living creature inside of his bloodstream, threatening to be released at any moment. It was strange, abnormal, and it caused a rush of fresh anxiety to wash over Alec, replacing the sheer bliss that had previously resided within him. The shock of that afternoon's events was slowly starting to wear off, erasing the numbness and filling his veins with a sensation that resembled that of ice water being thrown on his skin. Alec was beginning to realize that something, even if he couldn't pinpoint what exactly that something was, was terribly and dreadfully wrong. This wasn't right; no matter how hard his heart was fighting to tell him otherwise, his brain was alerting him to the wrongness in the way Jace was holding him, his arms wrapped so tightly around Alec's waist that it prevented even the slightest bit of movement. He was holding him here, holding him down and keeping him from leaving--and Alec wasn't certain if he wanted to leave. He needed to, but this was Jace he was with, after all. The Jace that he had loved since he was a child, the Jace that had managed to capture him in ways he never thought a person could be captured. The Jace that Alec had been so helplessly and deeply infatuated with that it often felt as if he was unable to breathe when he was around him. The Jace that would never love him back.

    Alec's eyes, which had been closed with a sort of contentment that came only from the touch of someone he never thought would want to touch him, snapped open as if awakened from a deep sleep. He began to sit up, temporarily forgetting about the iron-like grasp the other man still maintained, and was pulled back down by a still-smiling Jace. It was a wrong smile, however, a dark, twisted, almost sinister grin that made Alec's blood run cold. He couldn't deny that he wanted this, feeling as if his heart would shatter into pieces if he allowed himself to leave Jace's side, but in that same sense, he also knew that he had no other choice. He wanted to leave, to run, even if he had no idea what he was running from or where he was running to. With every sliver of moonlight that rose forward in the sky Alec was regaining a grip on the rationality he had lost, and with every second that passed he was starting to understand that no matter what he wanted to believe, he didn't belong here. He belonged back at the apartment across town, in the arms of the man who felt more like home to him than a building ever could, the warlock who he had managed to fall in love with so honestly deeply, so purely that not even his affection for Jace could compare--after all, his feelings for the blonde-haired boy had been strictly one-sided, an unrequited affair and, Alec realized, he had preferred it this way. He didn't belong with Jace, not truly; Jace belonged with Clary, belonged with her in the same way Alec belonged with Magnus, and he hadn't accepted either of these truths until now.