15. I got a boy
Clary watched as Magnus walked away, a strange feeling building in her chest. She knew that Magnus was the High Warlock of Brooklyn, one of, if not the, most powerful Warlocks around.
And yet, as she watched him walking away, she couldn’t stop her heart from squeezing painfully in her chest.
She had been taught early on to trust her instincts; she knew better, however, than throw a tantrum to try and convince Magnus to let her sit in the meeting with him.
“What is going on?” finally asked Alec, and Clary shook her head a little, glad for the distraction.
She turned to him and Izzy, dragging them towards the corner spot she usually hid in whenever she went to Pandemonium. She noted with a small frown how Maia was, unfortunately and unusually absent, as was Jordan, and vowed to send her a message later on to check on her.
“Clary?” called Izzy, her hand soothingly caressing her arm for a moment, and Clary blushed a little.
“Okay. I am not 100% sure of what’s going on, but me and Bastian noticed something… strange, during our outing in Alicante.” She considered telling them that they had gone to their home, but the thought of that getting back to the Clave stopped her. “I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but I had a vision. A really fucked up vision, and our friends they were all in the middle of it. And I have this feeling in my chest, like…”
“Like something is about to happen,” finished Izzy, an expression of understanding on her face.
The red head met her gaze evenly, and nodded once. “You can call me paranoid or whatever, but Tessa always said I was particularly sensitive to the shifts and changes in our universe. Whatever the hell that means.”
“I don’t think you’re paranoid,” said Izzy, decidedly. “I don’t know what’s going on around here, but too many strange things have been happening lately.”
“And even stranger things are happening,” commented Sebastian’s voice, as he and Jace appeared next to them. He looked suspiciously at how close Izzy and Clary were, before picking up the hairclip from his pocket. “Your sword.”
His sister looked at him, eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Jace came to stand between the two Lightwood siblings, keeping his attention on them and Clary. “When we got there, the Institute was empty. No one was around and it looked like they had been away for more than a day already.”
“That’s not… have you contacted mom and dad yet?” asked Alec, with a small frown.
The blond’s eyes snapped to Sebastian, who just rolled his eyes before patting Clary on the head. “I need a drink. Let me know when Magnus gets out.”
+
“Are you going to explain?” asked Alec, 20 minutes later.
Both him and Jace had finally found somewhere to sit down, near the bar, nursing a pretty mocktail each. The shorter of the two looked away from where he had been staring at a particular shadowhunter on the dancefloor and back to his parabatai.
Alec’s eyebrow was arched, even as Jace took a sip of his drink with an annoyed, “Explain what?”
The dark haired man decided to humour him. “Before leaving Idris, you were pretty determined to ignore him because, and I quote, ‘He’s an asshole who thinks everyone should and will bend down to him’. And now, you can’t keep your eyes off each other?”
Jace didn’t turn back to the dance floor, eyebrows knitted together. “Each other?”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Everytime you look away, he’s staring at you, no matter what werewolf or warlock is trying to wrap themselves around him.”
The blond turned around again, in time to see Sebastian look away, mouth forming a small O as the werewolf in front of him put his arm on his waist and grind down. He turned his eyes to Alec, ignoring the sharp edged jealousy hitting his chest. “He looks like he’s having fun to me.”
“I’ve never seen a more intense ‘I’m trying to make you jealous’ move, ever,” decided Isabelle’s voice, as she took a seat next to her brothers. “Like, honestly, Jace: what did you do to him?”
Images of holding Sebastian firm in place earlier, biting as he kissed him flooded his mind, and he grimaced.
He had been mad at first. So annoyed.
It was like Sebastian had a remote in his hand and he knew exactly what buttons to push to get under Jace’s skin.
And Jace had snapped, pinning him down on the wall, so angry at him, so ready to punch him or something and then…
Then he had made eye contact with him, seen the flicker of intensity in those green eyes, seen the way his eyes dropped to his lips and had just… attacked him.
With his lips.
“He’s like a little brat waiting for you to put him in his place,” commented Izzy, and both of her brothers looked at her horrified.
“IZZY!”
“What?” she took Jace’s drink from him. “I say things like I see them.”
Alec smashed his head on the counter, and his sister grinned. “It’s not my fault you’re the only sexually frustrated virgin in the house,” she added, slipping out of reach of the hand that tried to hit her in the back of the head. “Emphasis on the virgin, because god knows I’m frustrated too.”
Jace groaned at her words, and looked back to the dancefloor again.
This time, Sebastian didn’t look away when he met Jace’s gaze, green eyes staying on him even as the werewolf in front of him sucked on his neck. Instead he bit down on his lip, moving the werewolf’s hand on his ass and that’s what it took for Jace to stand, striding purposefully towards him.
He ignored Izzy’s wolf whistles in the background, ignored all the bodies on the dancefloor, only focusing on Sebastian’s eyes on him the entire time.
The werewolf looked up at his approaching and said something, but Jace didn’t listen. He couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his heartbeat and the blood rushing in his head, even when his hand wrapped around Sebastian’s wrist and the werewolf tried to get between the two of them.
He said something, he must have, because the werewolf looked scared as he stepped back, but Jace had no idea what he said.
One thing to note was that, even as he dragged him away from the dancefloor, Sebastian went willingly. Sure, Jace’s grip was tight, but Sebastian was allowing him to drag him around.
Even when he finally let him go so that he could close and lock the bathroom with a rune, Sebastian didn’t move, just stared at Jace.
And Jace’s earlier bravado shook for a second, because… now what?
Now there was no werewolf all over Sebastian, and now Sebastian wasn’t hurling painful words at him anymore, so he didn’t have an excuse.
And then he looked back at Sebastian, eyes focusing on the hickey the werewolf had managed to place on his neck.
He moved closer to the green eyed shadowhunter, and when the man stepped back, his back hitting the wall behind him, a strange feeling went through him. A taketaketake feeling deep in his stomach that had him move forward again, body almost pressing against his.
He moved his hand again then, slowly, until he could cover the hickey with his thumb.
“He bit you,” finally said Jace, his voice lower than he had expected.
Sebastian shivered - actually shivered - under his hand.
“And you let him,” added Jace, and again the other shivered, green eyes looking at him for a second before looking away again.
Jace didn’t expect Sebastian to reply, let alone the reply itself. “‘M sorry.”
He didn’t freeze at the words, but it was a close thing. Sebastian was avoiding his eyes and again Jace couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he was doing. And why was Sebastian - Sebastian Morgenstern, the boy who had kicked his ass twice before, Sebastian ‘smartass don’t care for anyone but Clary’ Morgenstern - letting him.
“Tell me to stop,” said Jace, his hand twisting Sebastian’s face as he oh so slowly moved his mouth to his neck. He gave him time, teeth slowly setting right under the hickey by the werewolf before biting. Hard.
Jace considered apologizing, because he could have been gentler, but something told him that Sebastian didn’t want gentle. He, instead, bit again, and almost smiled when Sebastian hissed, one hand pressing on Jace’s chest.
“Stay still,” ordered Jace, tongue lapping at the reddened skin.
Sebastian stilled immediately.
It kinds of dawns to him that Sebastian would do anything Jace asked him, a this very moment. And that thought was both scary and exciting at the same time.
He moved his lips away from Sebastian’s neck, blue eyes staring hard into those green ones, looking for something - anything - that would tell him to stop and move away. Anything to show that Sebastian didn’t want Jace to continue.
“Tell me to stop,” he repeated, eyes still on him.
Sebastian’s cheek were blossoming in red, but he kept his eyes on Jace as he reached for the shorter man’s hand. Jace didn’t resist it, instead watching as Sebastian placed the hand on his neck.
Jace’s hand squeezed down for a second, and then he stopped, a worried look on his face. Sebastian smirked, and finally Jace saw the cocky man he had gotten used to during those past few days again. “Don’t stop now, Wayland.” The name was said with a strange intonation, and Jace squeezed his neck warningly. “Didn’t you say to my werewolf friend that I was yours? Or was that your impersonation of a caveman?” Jace’s squeezed a little harder. “Should I… Should I go find Francis again? I’m sure he’s eager to-”
“Don’t talk.” said Jace, pressing a knee between Sebastian’s legs. He was surprised when his knee brushed against his surprisingly hard dick, but his eyes remained on Sebastian, waiting.
But the green eyed boy had closed his eyes when his knee had brushed against his erection, mouth shut.
“You are so desperate,” Jace’s words tumbled out of his mouth before he could even consider them. Sebastian’s eyes opened again, but he kept his mouth closed. “You want to fuck something so bad you’re ready to throw yourself to the first stranger available. Isn’t that a little pathetic?” He pressed his knee further up and a small whine escaped Sebastian’s mouth, Jace’s own dick twitching at the noise.
“Or maybe…” Jace moved his mouth until it was right next to Sebastian’s ears. “Or maybe you just want to be fucked.” He squeezed Sebastian’s neck again, and the shadowhunter moaned again. “You want to be fucked so bad, Sebastian. Is that what it is? You want me to fuck you, Sebastian?”
Sebastian let out another whine, trying to look at anything but Jace.
When Jace cupped his erection with his free hand, though, the other’s eyes were on him in a second, wide and almost glassy. Jace smirked, moving his hand slowly over his trousers. “I wonder what everyone would think, Morgenstern. You’re always walking around the downworlders and the mundanes with your little superiority thing, everyone fighting to kiss your feet and yet all you need is,” a squeeze on the neck, “someone to just bend you over and fuck you.”
“J-Jace,” groaned Sebastian, but he didn’t push him away.
The shadowhunter arched an eyebrow, ignoring how much of an effect Sebastian’s voice was having on him. “Oh. You want me to bend you over and fuck you.” another whine. “In this dirty old bathroom? Or maybe,” his hand moved slowly to his trouser’s band. “You want me to take you over one of the tables in the main dancing area? In front of Francis and all of your friends?” his hand slipped inside his underwear and Sebastian squirmed under him, gasping with flushed cheeks.
“You’re so pretty like this,” said Jace, and what was up with his mouth speaking before running the words by his brain? “I wonder how pretty will you look with my dick far up your perky ass?” He started jerking him with his hand, and Sebastian’s moans rose in volume, despite the hand pressing on his neck. “Or even with my dick in your mouth. I want to fuck your mouth so badly. Fuck it so hard you can’t even speak anymore. Tell me, Sebastian, do you have a gag reflex?”
When Sebastian just moaned instead of answering, Jace stilled in his movements.
“Please,” cried out the other, trying to twist and buckle his hips, but Jace’s hold was bruising against his neck. He coughed, actual tears appearing in his eyes. He was so fucking pretty. “Jace, please.”
“Answer my question, first, baby.” He catalogued the expression in Sebastian’s face at being called baby for later. “Do you have a gag reflex?”
Sebastian swallowed, biting down on his lip. “No.”
“Good boy,” answered the blond, his hand moving even faster than before. Sebastian’s knees seemed to be shaking, but Jace didn’t relent, jerking him hard and fast, the precome leaking from him enough that he didn’t chafe his skin. “Such a pretty good boy, Sebastian. So good.”
“Jace, I can’t, I will-”
“Go ahead. Come for me, pretty boy.”
Sebastian cried out one more time before his underwear was filled with come and his knees let out under him.
Jace let go of his neck, catching him with one arm before he could hurt himself.
The other’s eyes were closed, but he slowly opened them when Jace took his hand from his pants, sticky with come. When he made to stand up, however, Sebastian grabbed at his wrist.
Jace didn’t say anything, just stared in slight confusion as Sebastian brought his hand to his mouth. And when he opened his mouth, pink tongue twirling around one of his digits, still maintaining eye contact, it was all he could do not moan out loud.
“You’re going to make me cream my pants,” groaned Jace, when Sebastian started suckling on his fingers.
“No,” managed Sebastian around the finger in his mouth. “You said you were going to fuck my mouth, remember?”
“I said, oh fuck, I said… a lot of stuff. Some of it, maybe,”
“Don’t start overthinking,” warned Sebastian, except it fell a little flat, considered he was sucking his own come from Jace’s fingers. “I liked it. You asked me if I have a gag reflex.”
Jace did his best to stop the blush from appearing on his own face. “Uh-uh. I was going to explain to you in very vivid details how I was going to make you gag on my dick while you were begging me for more.”
Sebastian made a noise around his fingers, eyes fluttering a little. “You’re going to make me hard again.”
The blue eyed shadowhunter arched an eyebrow, intrigued. “You’re way too easy, baby.”
He made that whine/moan again, a flush reappearing on his cheeks. “If you call me that again, I will actually get hard. Please.”
Jace made to speak again, ready to test that theory but of course that’s when the screams started.
Clary was standing in front of the door behind which the Downworlder’s meeting was going on when it exploded.
After spending a couple of minutes dancing around with Isabelle and spying to determine her brother’s foul mood, she had decided to call it quits.
Izzy was fun, and it was clear that she enjoyed dancing around with Clary. Her smile was almost dangerous and well, Clary wasn’t used to that particulary hungry look being directed at her.
So, the moment Izzy’s attention fluctuated, she was stepping back from the dark haired girl, letting the crowd swallow her presence before walking away.
Finding the room where Magnus and the rest of the Downworlders were talking in wasn’t difficult, what with the amount of preternatural energy emitting from the room.
Clary had, in her 16 years, been at many places that accomodated every type of Downworlders. But the raw energy that was spreading from behind the closed door was almost a tangible thing.
Meliorn, a guard of the Seelie Queen, was standing in front of said door. He didn’t move when he saw Clary approaching the door, instead staring at her somewhere between curios and warningly.
“Morgenstern daughter,” he finally said, eyes fixed on her.
“Meliorn,” she parroted in the same tone, and she didn’t miss the way the fae’s lips quirked the slightest at that.
“How come you are standing out here? Shouldn’t you be inside to be able to protect her Majesty?”
Meliorn shrugged. “I don’t tend to question my Queen’s orders.” Then he gave her a look. “Although I suspect she put me here to avoid someone like you finding a way to march inside the meeting.”
“Someone like me?” asked Clary in a mock outraged voice, standing with her back to the wall opposite from him. “I’ll have you know I am a delight. A riot, if you will!”
“And while I don’t doubt this, you have to know that the last time downworlders disappeared like this, the Shadowhunters - specifically your father’s little club - were coming up with their own set of rules to use after the Uprising.”
Meliorn scoffed, but Clary had frozen.
Downworlders were disappearing.
Again.
Her mind flashed again to the ‘vision’ Ithuriel had shown her, the image with Lily and Elliot, and the image with Maureen on a throne of bones, her red lips terrifyingly familiar.
Magnus’ expression when Clary had said she had a weird feeling, and the way it had relaxed fractionally when she had mentioned Ragnor.
“Meliorn,” she asked, and her voice sounded strange to her own ears. “Is Raphael Santiago inside?”
Meliorn’s expression when she finally looked up at him was enough. He didn’t need to say anything, because Clary had dealt with losing people before and knew exactly what that face meant.
But before he could say anything, a large figure appeared in between the two of them shoving him away before knocking down the door.
Clary allowed herself less than three seconds to flounder, her eyes following the dark mass inside the room.
It looked like a cross between a horse, a large bear and a dog, way bigger than a tibetan mastiff. His red eyes paused on Clary on the floor for less than a second, but she immediately paled at how red they were.
The moment she heard the first scream though, she forced herself back to her feet, her sword taking its natural shape in her hands as she quickly moved inside.
Meliorn was still supine on the floor, but Clary didn’t have time to check if he was okay or injured or dead.
Her original plan was to stand at the door for a few seconds and wait until the monster had its back to her before stabbing it.
That plan flew out of the window the moment she looked inside and saw the genuine strength it was taking Magnus to keep the monster - the demon? - at bay. Immediately she leaped inside the room, ignoring Magnus’ panicked expression as she landed a kick on the horse-dog-bear hybrid.
“Hey, asshole, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” she shouted, once it finally looked at her.
Again, it didn’t attack her. It just observed her for a second or two, like he was studying her; then he whipped his head to where the werewolf Luke Garroway was standing, roaring loudly in its face.
The roar reverberated throughout the whole building so loudly, that it had Clary’s teeth shaking in her mouth. Maureen - and she felt something between horror and terror solidifying in her chest at the sight of the girl - fell to her knees, and it took Luke a clear effort to stay upright.
“Morgenstern,” called the Seelie Queen, and Clary focused her attention back on the beast as he tried to claw at a surprisingly agile Luke Garroway.
The Queen pulled up her own sword, with a small nod.
When the monster lifted its arm again to claw at Luke again, both the Queen and Clary rushed forward, twins scream of rage in their voices as they let their swords fall on its arm.
When the monster screamed, an agonized sound that had Clary wincing, she didn’t even have time to celebrate before both her and the Seelie Queen were sent across the room, bodies hitting the floor with a painful crack.
“Clary!” called a voice, and the redhead managed to open her eyes minutely to see her brother, Jace, Alec and Izzy appearing in the room, eyes blazed and arms poised.
She wanted to say something, reassure whoever it was that was calling her that she was fine, that everything was okay, and to focus on the monster.
Instead, she passed out.
+
When Clary came to, there were three faces looking over at her.
She groaned, trying to sit up and push them away, but Magnus’ arms on her were as gentle as they were stern.
“Take it easy, Clary. You hit your head pretty hard,” he told her, his tone betraying how worried he was.
Clary did her best to appease him by not shoving him away. Instead she looked over Izzy’s shoulder to where the Seelie Queen was standing. “Meliorn?”
The fae’s eyes narrowed, becoming somewhat colder. “Taken.”
“Disappeared, actually,” pointed out Maureen, her voice sharp. “I didn’t see that… thing taking anyone away. All it did was attack us - almost as if to distract us.”
The Queen glared at Maureen. “What are you implying, child of the night?”
The younger girl scowled back. “What I am implying is that, maybe this is all your doing!”
“If it was my doing, why would I allow my people to be taken? Why would I come to this meeting? A meeting I didn’t even organise and found out about mere hours ago!”
“To get everyone off your scent! Or,” and here she glared at Magnus. “Perhaps you were working with the Warlock to begin with.”
“Hey-” started Clary, inflamed, but Magnus’ hold on her made it impossible for her to sit straight and argue for him.
The Seelie Queen apprised Maureen with a glacial look. “Interesting how you are the only one the monster didn’t attack at all. While everyone around here is slightly bloodied and injured you look perfectly fine.”
When Maureen bristleded at the accusation, Luke finally spoke. “Both of you stop, this is probably what it wants. To get us to fight each other, to get us to distrust one another. We need to work together.”
Maureen shook her head, glaring venomously at the other three Downworlders. “I refuse to work with any of you. The New York Clan doesn’t need you.” she finally said, turning to walk away.
Clary felt more than saw the way her brother stilled at her words, connections springing up in his brain, but before either of them could say anything, the Seelie Queen was also walking away.
“This meeting has not brought forth any solution that my people will be willing to follow; in fact, it costed me one of the most important people in my court.” she said, expression detached. She glanced at Clary for a fraction of second, almost assessing, before turning to Magnus. “Apologies, Magnus Bane.”
“Your Majesty,” tried Magnus, but she was already disappearing, the whirl of her clothes immediately making Clary dizzy.
For a moment, no one said anything, Luke and Magnus staring at each other, while the Lightwoods hovered in the backgrounds, probably wondering if they should speak to someone or contact the institute.
“What I want to know,” finally said Sebastian, arms crossed to his chest. He turned around, eyes going from his sister to the only werewolf in the room. “Is what my uncle, Lucian Graymark, is doing here.”
This seemed as good time as any for Clary to pass out again.