secret | malec

3. Deep Breaths

'Stupid warlock,' The young shadowhunter had let himself fall onto his springy bed which he absolutely hated, emotionlessly staring at the bare ceiling above him, 'stupid party and stupid mission.' Alexander Lightwood did not feel good about himself, in fact, he felt like a complete failure for abandoning an important mission like that without any hesitation. He found it such an extremely selfish act and he actually didn't quite understand why he did what he did. Sure, he felt uncomfortable and not at ease, but that wasn't a good excuse for his behaviour.

The shadowhunter slowly closed his eyes and took a deep breath as trying to remember if he had gathered any information when suddenly someone knocked on his bedroom door. Alec assumed that everyone was asleep as midnight had already passed, so he was quite shocked to hear someone knocking on his door around this time. 'The door's open.' he mumbled grumpily as placing his hands on the blankets underneath him to push himself up to a sitting position.

Alec focused his hazelnut-green eyes onto the door and got somewhat curious to whoever was about to enter his room. 'Who's gonna come to my bedroom after midnight?' he whispered to himself underneath his breath and he cleared his throat. The shadowhunter noticed the sound of bare feet against the black planks of his floor, and by the amount of time between every step he knew that it was Isabelle Lightwood. 'You should be asleep by now.' he quietly whispered.

Izzy stepped into the moonlight and put her hands on her waist. 'Jace told me you came home earlier than you were supposed to.' The raven-haired male let out an exasperated sigh and rolled with his sleepy eyes. 'You never come home earlier from a mission, so I was wondering if you were alright.'

Alec thought it was kind of his sister to come here just to see if he was alright, but he rather just wanted to sleep than have an interview about his feelings with Izzy. 'Look, can you just leave me alone right now? I'd like to sleep but I promise that we'll discuss this first thing tomorrow.'

'You can't put your feelings aside forever, at some point they'll just explode.' she warned her brother concernedly before turning around again. 'By the way, I borrowed one of your shirts.' Izzy's soft lips curled up into a mischievous smirk and she tilted her head a little to the left.

Alec looked at the shirt she was wearing and noticed that it was indeed his, the shirt was mostly black but had some weird icons printed onto it, he always made everyone believe it was some ancient Japanese language. 'Just-' he groaned, 'go to sleep.'

Izzy opened her mouth to say something - probably that the shirt looked better on her anyway, but on that exact moment, someone else entered the bedroom. She didn't have to step in the moonlight to be recognized as her fiery red locks were too notable. 'Could you guys maybe stop talking so loud? Some of us are trying to get a good night's sleep.' Alec licked his lips and frowned his eyebrows. 'Could you maybe stop interrupting our conversation?'

Clary Fairchild folded her tiny arms over each other and a rather arrogant expression arose on her pale face. 'Don't be so grumpy, big brother, she was just asking something.' Izzy decided to defeat the redhead as they exchanged a look or two.

'Seriously, whose side are you on?' Alec frowned his eyebrows down even more and he seemed rather annoyed and tense now.

The shadowhunter took a deep breath and stood up from his bed, grabbing one of his leather jackets as passing the two ladies in front of him. Izzy placed her hand on his chest and stopped him from going anywhere else by doing so. 'Where are you going? It's freezing outside.' She noticed the emptiness in her brother's eyes and suddenly a combination of concern and sympathy hit her like waves hit the shore, rough and wild.

'Clary, can you leave us two alone for a minute?' Izzy asked politely and the fiery redhead nodded her head and scratched the back of her head. 'Yeah sure! I was just about to get back to bed anyway.' She granted them a beautiful smile before turning around and heading towards her own bedroom, flipping her red locks over her shoulders just before closing the door.

Izzy turned her focus back to her brother. 'I said that we'll discuss this over breakfast.' he raised his voice but didn't oppose to free himself from his sister's grip. 'I feel like this isn't a topic to be discussed over breakfast.' Izzy said.

Alec carefully bit his lower lip and took a few steps back, he roughly placed the leather jacket back onto the chair in the corner of his room and sat down on the edge of his bed. 'Confess, what did you want to say?' he asked reluctantly.

'You shouldn't be so harsh to Clary, remember that she hasn't got anyone except for us.' Izzy folded her arms over each other and neatly folded the leather jacket after she grabbed it from the chair. 'I know that I've been a complete jerk towards her and I'm trying to work on that, but sometimes there are more important things going on.' She walked over to his bed and bent her left knee to also sit down on the edge of the bed.

'I don't want to pressure you into telling something you'd rather keep to yourself, but something clearly happened and it seems like it's having a big impact on you.' Izzy was nothing more than right, something was going on and it did have an enormous impact on Alec, but he didn't like to admit just that or give into his feelings. 'I've talked about it with Jace too and he also noticed, we're starting to get kinda worried about you.' she frowned her brows and looked straight into her brother's eyes.

'There's nothing important for you to worry about.' the shadowhunter muttered as pinching the skin on his hands. 'Just some stupid crap with the mission, I didn't get the information I needed.' Alec swallowed strongly as he was afraid that his sister would actually convince him to talk about his feelings, and that would be the last thing he wanted to happen.

Alec thought about everything that happened during the mission, but mostly about Magnus and how he actually enjoyed spending time with him. He didn't want to think that, it was wrong and the warlock was nothing more than a suspect, so the shadowhunter shouldn't have enjoyed the time they spent together. 'I wasn't talking about the mission.' Izzy eventually replied and she blinked slowly a couple of times.

'Next time please let me know when you're discussing my private life with everyone.' Alec said monotonously as he placed his phone on the nightstand next to his bed. 'I only talked about this with Jace.' The lady defended her self as she stood up from the bed, about to leave her grumpy brother alone for the night. 'Even worse. Jace will tell the redhead and knowing Clary, she'll accidentally tell everyone.'

'You know what, I'm gonna go back to sleep.' Izzy mentioned as soon as she realized that it was impossible to get her brother to talk about his feelings. 'Forget the breakfast talk, if you want to keep bottling things up then have fun doing it.' She took a deep breath and walked towards the bedroom door, turning around once more. 'Goodnight, big brother.'