Strategic changes
✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS
FANDOM: The Shadowhunter’s Chronicles
SERIES: The one where Alec and Magnus are cis women
RATING: General
WORDCOUNT: 2 417 words
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Alec Lightwood, Isabelle Lightwood, Jace Lightwood, Clary Fray, Hodge Starkweather.
GENRE: Spectrumslide, family fights.
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: The bottom line is: they’re going on a stupid suicide mission because Jace wants to impress Clary. Again.
DEDICATION(S): Dedicated to particlenumber13, with thanks for sparking the series :)
NOTE(S): It’s been a loooong while since I put anything out for this series, but then this was in my draft files and I’m trying to clean that out…so I polished it a little and voilà :)
Alec runs her hands against her face, aching for her bed and her battered copy of The Return of the King even as she bites down on a grown and insists:
“I still fail to see how this is our problem.”
Jace dragged her out of bed ten minutes ago, acting like the world was about to end and barely even letting her put pants and a bra on before she stumbled down to the library. Little miss Mundane’s here, babbling about some crazy, death-courting project she half-baked on her way back to the Institute, and frankly it’s too early to bother with this. Alec blinks sleep out of her eyes, doesn’t protest the choice of meeting place-at least when she drags people out of bed, she gets them breakfast-and downs the last of her coffee before pouring herself a fourth cup.
At least Hodge thought about that.
“The Clave will look for the Cup-you know that, Jace. Our job is to send them our intel and let them do their thing.”
“But my mother-”
“She’ll be found in the process,” Alec cuts off, wrinkling her nose at the absence of sugar in her drink.
Hodge takes his coffee black.
“The Clave has manpower we don’t-you seriously think three kids will do a better job than a dozen adults?”
“It’ll be faster if we do it ourselves,” Jace says, clicking his tongue, “Hodge and I already discussed it, and that’s what we’ve decided.”
“Well thanks for including the rest of us,” Alec mutters into her cup.
The parabatai rune hums on her shoulder, sharp and warm against the skin, and when Alec risks a glance at her sister she finds her pushing her braid behind her back with a determined expression. She’s sighing almost before Isabelle says:
“I’m in.”
“I’m not,” Alec replies, pinching at the bridge of her nose, “the Clave will send people, we should let them do their job.”
She stresses the last part of her sentence, as if it’s going to make any difference, but Isabelle’s fingers close, iron-gripped, around her wrist, and Alec has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming her frustration out. She should know better-she does, too-but sometimes she’s incapable of letting herself go down without a fight.
“It’s not that simple,” Jace says, and Alec snorts:
“Yes it is. you’re just looking for a new reason to indulge your hero complex and risk your life again.”
Jace, predictably, grows three shades of red and puts several more decibels into his voice when he slams his hands on the table and all but yells:
“I don’t understand why you’re fighting me on this!”
“Because I’d like us to stay alive?”
Isabelle tugs at Alec’s wrist between them, but Alec wrenches her arm free so she can gesture at Clary to emphasize her point:
“You’re asking me to follow her into a volatile situation-she’s got no experience, no skill, no common sense-“
“I have Dorothea’s trust!” Clary protests, “The Clave doesn’t!”
“If this Dorothea is half as smart as she should be to run a Sanctuary, she won’t trust you with a ten foot pole either,” Alec snaps but Jace just rolls his eyes at that.
Of course he’d consider his pet trustworthy on general principles.
“Come on Alec,” he says, barely bothering with softened inflections, “It’ll be fun! Think of the glory if we bring the Mortal Cup back to Idris! Our names-”
“You mean your name, right?” Isabelle interjects, just a little too sweet.
Her fingernail stab into Alec’s flesh where she found her wrist again.
“They’ll never honor us like you.”
“And glory is useless if you’re dead,” Alec adds, too sullen for her own taste but unable to keep it out of her tone, “your plan-”
“It could use perfecting,” Hodge offers, perfunctory conciliation etched in every line of his body, “but Jace is right.”
“Yeah,” Isabelle mutters, too low for anyone but Alec to hear, “what a shocker.”
Alec grips at the seam of her jeans and the ceramic of her cup, forcing her lungs through a breathing exercise while Hodge remembers to explain:
“Sending the Clave to the Sanctuary would be a disaster. Dorothea would flee and would never be found. No, Jocelyn clearly wanted Clary to be able to find the Cup. Clary alone.”
“Well then let her go alone!”
Cold hits Alec’s wrist when Isabelle turns to gape at her, while Jace throws her the most regal of his disdainful airs.
“If you’re so scared of a few Forsaken,” he says, looking like he’s grown a dozen inches in the space of a second, “then by all mean stay behind!
“I’m not scared,” Alec hisses through gritted teeth, refusing to back down even as she feels herself pale at the implication.
“This is settled then,” Jace crows with a smug smile.
He looks around the room, almost daring the others to take him up on the shivering of fight-anticipation buzzing against his skin. Alec swallows around a rock while Isabelle valiantly tries to pretend the whole thing sounds fun. Hodge, far too late, tries to offer the Mundane an out but, to no one’s surprise, Clary refuses, and Alec holds a sigh as she watches her last hope for a moderately sane day fly away.
At least she has the common sense to look vaguely hesitant about fighting.
“Oh don’t worry, we’ll handle the forsaken,” Isabelle shrugs, “they’re not that hard to kill.”
You just have to avoid thinking about who they used to be. Clary doesn’t know that, of course, but Alec’s mouth pinches at the corner just the same, and she stays silent when Jace starts talking nonsense about getting a car-as if they’d ever needed one before.
“We’ve never had the Mortal Cup with us before,” Jace shrugs when Isabelle points that out, “I want to make sure we’re in a controlled environment.”
There’s no getting that without removing Clary from the equation, Alec knows. Jace looks feverish with the planning though, Hodge and his infuriating impeccability backing him up with a raised eyebrow, and the way Isabelle readjusts her braid into a more elaborate, less handle-shaped updo means there’s no way Alec will catch her eye now. She bites on the remark, and settles for nodding at Clary instead:
“Guess she can drive us then.”
“I don’t have a license,” Clary protests, “I’m only fifteen.”
“Well here goes the car plan, then,” Alec half-sighs half grunts.
Then, because she’s had enough, she rises from her chair, ignoring the Mundane’s noise about having a friend who can drive. Fat lot of good that does them, if they can’t bring said friend in and have them drive!
Except, the more pessimistic side of her brain supplies, Jace is probably going to do that anyway, controlled environment be damned.
He hasn’t come to that conclusion yet, grinding to an almost-audible halt when the name ‘Simon’ crops back up into the conversation, but he will. Clary seems dead set on it, after all-lately it’s more than enough to make things happen.
Alec rises to her feet with a sigh, unwilling to watch Jace descend into an embarrassingly open and childish display of jealousy when she already knows how these tend to end. She gathers the tea set instead, balancing the whole thing over her arm, and exits the library in perfect silence, only wincing a little when she hears Isabelle hurrying after her.
“What the hell was that?” She asks when she reaches Alec’s level, incredulous look carved into her features.
“What the hell was what?”
There’ no hiding her flush, she knows-no avoiding the conversation, either-but she makes herself breathe slower anyway, eyes straight ahead and shoulders tense under her t-shirt. By her side, Isabelle narrows her eyes with the promise of a real fight if Alec doesn’t get a grip right this moment-Alec is tempted to take her up on it, but they’ll be on a mission soon. No need to risk compromising it with stupid injuries.
“Don’t play dumb, you know what I’m talking about,” Isabelle hisses, as if anyone could have thought of following them to the kitchen, of all places, “why would you tell Clary to go back to her place alone?”
“Clearly I’m afraid of the forsaken,” Alec replies, and makes herself stay calm when Isabelle slaps her over the back of the head.
“Alexandria, I swear, if you keep your Jace impression up I will hit you, mission or not! You basically just told that girl to go and die!”
“It’s not what I meant,” Alec retorts, but she doesn’t argue when Isabelle points out:
“It’s still what you said. So I repeat, what the hell, Alec?”
Alec’s shoulders slump, gaze sinking from the door ahead of her to the rune-patterned tiles under the thick sole of hastily put-on boots, and makes herself mutter:
“I just want her gone.”
the rune on her arm cools down, just a little, and maybe it’s worse than have it burn with anger, but Alec forges on: “I want things to go back to what they were. Angel knows they weren’t perfect, but she’s throwing everything out of whack-”
“We both know that’s not true.”
Alec glances at her sister from the corner of her eyes-the careful hand she runs over her head, so she won’t mess her hair up. The tense line of her neck, of her shoulders as she chews over what she has to say, eyes looking for inspiration in every possible corner of the corridor.
Yeah. Alec, too, knows what the real problem is.
“It’s not like we can kick him out.”
“Sometimes,” Alec admits-quietly, like the paintings will run and spread her words if she’s not careful enough-”I wish we could.”
“Yeah,” Isabelle admits, her arm mirroring Alec’s to cross in front of her, “me too. But we can’t. And Clary-I mean, okay, Jace is being even more of an ass with her here, but it’s not like she’s making him.”
Alec is honest enough to nod, but she refuses to say the words aloud. It’d hurt too much, still.
“I’ve been thinking about this-not just this morning, fyi. It’s just…I don’t think we’ve given her many occasions to do something else, you know? Besides being an enabler, that is.”
“She’s just as hotheaded as he is!” Alec protests, voice rising before she can catch it, and Isabelle scrunches her nose at that.
“Yeah, probably,” she admits, “and I’m not saying we can like, cure everything. But maybe-if we give her different options, if we teach her the proper way to deal with demons and forsaken and whatnot, maybe she’ll listen.”
Alec bites at her lips, hackles rising against Isabelle’s logic. It…makes sense. A lot of it, actually, but Alec’s heart beats faster when she tries to consider it, the heart of her rebelling against the very thought-teaching Clary? Welcoming her in their rank, as if she were a child instead of an arrogant brat? Pretend like she has any idea what it’s like to wake up every morning, wondering if that day will be your last?
“It doesn’t matter,” Alec growls, unwilling to curb the anger in her voice, “I’m not about to indulge her ego. She already thinks she’s better than us!”
Isabelle’s arms fall from her chest, and Alec looks away from the confusions on her sister’s face, hurrying to the kitchen and locking the door behind her, Isabelle close on her heels. She takes deep, wet breaths as she settles the tea cups and kettle in the sink, gripping a sponge with white knuckles as she makes herself go through the motions of dish washing. Normal breathing, normal things-she just has to keep going.
This is-she is ridiculous, really. What does she care about Clary’s opinion? Her parents would never forgive her for giving value to a bratty, untrained mundane’s judgment!
Knowing it doesn’t prevent anything, though, and Alec’s throat tightens long before Isabelle’s soft voice echoes through the door.
“Alec, let me in.”
“I don’t want to.”
She wasn’t really trying to hide her irritation-emotion, whatever-but hearing it in her own voice still hurts. She’s not supposed to be proud-not for real, not like Jace is allowed to be-but even female shadowhunters are expected to deal with their weaknesses on their own. she’s not about to just let that go, even for her sister’s sake.
“She’s not better than you,” Isabelle says after a while, sigh easy to hear around her words, “and even if she was, you’re my big sister, okay? She’s not going to change that. I’m just saying, Jace is a lost cause, but maybe we have a chance to reason with her.”
Alec swallows-it cuts at the inside of her throat like broken glass-and makes herself go through the last of the dishes before she dries her hands. She drags that out, too, careful to swipe around every finger and clean her nails, until Isabelle hisses something about hearing footsteps in the stairways.
Right. Breakfast time.
Alec takes a deep breath in, wipes at her face with water-cool palms, and runs a hand through her hair as she walks to the door and unlocks it, flushing again when Isabelle’s concern hits her straight on.
“I’ll be fine,” she mutters, redirecting her gaze to the ground.
No way that’s going to fool her sister, but Jace and Hodge are used to her foul moods-they won’t be looking hard enough to notice reddened eyes.
“Yeah,” Isabelle agrees, “I know.”
A wry smile.
“’Sides, if she turns out to be a jerk we can always arrange for an accidental death.”
Alec snorts in laughter at the thought, but it dies in her throat when Jace walks up to them and sighs:
“I hope your girl talk didn’t get in the way of my coffee.”
“I was about to put the pot on,” Alec says, gritting her teeth against the snapping tone she wishes he could use. “Izzy, can you get the plates, please?”
“Sure.”
Alec turns her back on them to face the coffee maker. There’s the whine of old hinges, a smack of wood on something hard-Jace yelps in indignation, and Alec smiles when Isabelle’s concern sounds less than sincere.
On her arm, her parabatai rune sings with love.