Summary: An anthology of whump and hurt/comfort stories that feature the Jace and Alec bromance but also includes Magnus, Clary, Izzy, Simon, etc. Friendship, drama, angst, aftercare, family, brotherly love. Mostly canon, but with my own interpretations of runes and magic. Story#1: When Clary gets hurt on Alec's watch, Jace is furious until he realizes that his parabatai is injured much worse. Takes place early in season 1.

Parabatai Pain
PenPatronus
Story #1
Friendly Fire

The distance between Jace and the Institute's front door was only thirty meters, but he ignited his Heightened Speed rune anyway. Alec had just entered with Clary in a bridal carry—one arm under her knees, the other beneath her back. Her hands shook where they clung to his shirt collar. Fresh tears covered her flushed cheeks. Blood dripped off the tips of her toes through the makeshift bandage of napkins and duct tape around her calf.

"Didn't you two just go out for donuts?" Jace snatched Clary out of Alec's arms without asking either one of them for permission. "What the hell happened?"

"It's not as bad as it looks," Clary insisted, wrapping her arms around Jace's neck and nuzzling her nose against his jaw. "It's a funny story… Well, tomorrow it will be a funny story. Next week at the latest."

"Demons ambushed us," Alec gasped, breathless. He tugged the two halves of his black leather jacket towards his naval and sniffed. "Ten of them."

Jace pressed dry lips against Clary's orange hair. "And you kicked their asses?"

"Alec did. Seriously, Jace, you should've seen him." Clary mimed shooting arrows with Alec's bow, then added her own sound effects.

The relief at seeing them safe and sound wore off as Jace examined Clary's leg. "You let her get bit?" he snapped at his parabatai.

"No," said both Alec and Clary. "He was amazing," she continued. "Took the demons out in less than a minute. I got hit by, um, friendly fire. It was an accident."

Alec stared down at his boots. "It was an accident," he repeated. "One of my arrows missed and ricocheted off a fire escape. Just nicked her."

"See? Funny," Clary claimed.

"Nicked her?" Jace fumed. "Look at all this blood!" Jace's eyes twitched and his nostrils flared. Red spread up his throat and across his face to the peaks of his ears. "You were supposed to protect her! Dammit, Alec, I trusted you!" Before Alec could respond, Jace pivoted away and started marching towards the infirmary.

Clary stayed quiet for a long moment, then tapped a manicured fingernail against Jace's cheek. "Alec did protect me," she whispered. "See? Here I am—successfully protected."

"Right. I'll recommend Alec for a medal." Jace clenched and unclenched his jaw. "Son of a bitch. He swore he wouldn't let anything happen to you."

"Jace, this isn't his fault." Jace booted open the infirmary door and Clary yelped when his knee bumped against her wound.

"Sorry! Sorry."

"See," Clary hissed between clenched teeth, "that was an accident. I don't blame you. I don't blame Alec."

Jace lowered Clary onto the first bed and arranged her pillows and blankets. He started adding iratze runes, but stepped aside when a physician emerged from a back office with a stele in each hand. "I'll be nearby," he told Clary, squeezing her hand. "I promise."

Alec was emptying his pockets of individually wrapped donuts when he staggered into the infirmary. "Think Simon will want this these?" he wondered, holding up ones that were speckled with blood. He coughed against his fist, still sounding out of breath. "Jace, I—"

"Shut up," Jace snapped. "You don't like Clary." It was a statement, not a question. "The two of you don't like each other." Alec shrugged. "Parabatai, I don't give a damn if you find her annoying or don't trust her. But have I not made it clear that she's important to me?"

"I know she's important to you," Alec sighed. "She's all you talk about anymore."

"There it is." Jace dragged his fingers through his blond hair and gnawed on his bottom lip. "You're jealous. Just like when we were kids. I thought you'd grown out of these—these stunts!"

"Stunts?" Alec's heavy tongue slurred the word.

"You hurt her on purpose," Jace growled. For once, Jace looked like the taller of the pair with his chin tilted up and his parabatai slouching.

Alec rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "Are you seriously saying that I—"

"Remember my second summer in the Institute when I had a crush on Izzy? I spent two weeks training with her instead of you. Drove you nuts. And then, when she sparred with you—bam—benched the next day."

Alec's glazed, dark brown eyes stared at some fixed point beyond Jace's shoulder. "Are you talking about the time she broke her ankle?"

"You broke her ankle!" Jace roared. "With her holed up in her room, healing, it was just you and me again. Fast forward to now. Now you're jealous of Clary." A twinge in Jace's parabatai rune went unnoticed, even when it escalated into a continuous ache. Alec's expression remained blank, which only increased Jace's blood pressure. "Alec!"

Alec frowned and rubbed his sternum with both hands. "I don't know what you think you saw, Jace, but I'd never hurt my sister!"

"Then this is just a coincidence, huh?" fumed Jace. "Look me in the eye, parabatai, and swear to me that you did everything you could to protect Clary! Swear it!"

"…'s hot in here," Alec muttered.

"Are you kidding me?" A snap from Jace's fingers caught Alec's attention. "Is this a joke to you?"

Alec winced once, twice, three times. "Think I should sit," he gulped. "Jace. I think I need to—"

"Leave?" Jace proposed. He didn't notice Alec's face turning the same ivory color as the walls. "You should leave. I'll stay with Clary."

"…'s hot in here, isn't it?" Alec mumbled for a second time. He licked white lips. Sweat gathered on his forehead, his cheeks, and his upper lip. He slid his jacket off and tossed it on top of a trashcan. "Don't worry. Your little girlfriend will be fine."

Jace lashed out. Both of his palms collided with Alec's chest like a battering ram and slammed him back against the wall, skull first. Donuts skidded across the floor and sailed into the air. Alec's knees buckled and he slid to the floor, clutching his midsection, slowly toppling over. He looked down at his abdomen with wide eyes like he was seeing it for the first time. "God, Jace," he gasped, stunned.

Jace bellowed down at him, "For the last time her name is Clary and she's not a little—" Fresh liquid felt warm on Jace's hands. For a moment, he stared at the blood and wondered why Clary was still conscious if that much had leaked from her leg. Then, he looked at Alec's black long-sleeved shirt, newly revealed with his jacket absent, and saw the source of the blood: a long and large "V"-shaped bite across the left side of Alec's torso that resembled giant insect pincers lined with rows of shark teeth.

Suddenly Jace recognized Alec's lethargy for what it was—shock.

"ALEC!" Jace cried. He lunged forward just in time to catch Alec's head before it collided with the floor. "Dammit, Alec, why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"

"Because it doesn't hurt… It doesn't hurt—not bad… Not badly." Dazed, dizzy, Alec clawed at Jace's shoulders, trying to find purchase, an anchor.

"I told you to protect Clary, not get yourself killed!"

Alec sighed and closed his eyes. "Can't do anything right, can I?"

Jace forcefully arched Alec's limp knees, levered him up at the waist, and then scooped him up off the floor like he was as light as Max. "I've got you, parabatai." Terror disoriented Jace so quickly and absolutely that he almost dropped Alec on a countertop instead of a mattress. More medics rushed in. Nameless nurses dumped gauze into his fingerless gloves and steered his shaking hands towards the worst bleeders.

Alec ignored the doctors and nurses. He just stared, trembling white lips slightly parted and heavy eyelids turning gray, at his parabatai. His only voluntary movement was clutching Jace's t-shirt above their rune. "You…This will hurt you, too…I'm sorry," he whispered, "so sorry."

Jace immediately leaned over and touched his forehead to his parabatai's. "No, I'm sorry, Alec. For what I said. For what I assumed—I should've known better. I do know better. I know you, Alec. And I'm so very sorry."

Alec's body trembled. Tendons in his neck flexed and vibrated. His breathing went from strained to gasping to wheezing. "Jace, it's strange," he whispered, "but I can't feel my—myself."

"Focus on our bond, Alec. Take my strength." Someone elbowed Jace in the side but he stood his ground. "You're already healing. And I'm here. I'm here." Alec didn't speak—couldn't anymore—but his mouth formed Jace's name. Tears like a flash flood splashed down both of their cheeks. Fresh blood trickling from the corner of Alec's mouth combined with the tears and dripped down his neck. Dark eyes fluttered. "Fight it, Alec, fight it!" Jace's escalating high-pitched voice jumped up an octave. "Alec, please, I won't bury you today!"

"Wayland, step aside!" ordered one of the physicians.

"He's his parabatai!" said another voice. Isabelle.

"His parabatai will die if he doesn't let us near all the wounds! All of you—leave this room! Out!"

Jace tried to shift to the left or the right, but nurses blocked his path, their steles sweeping across skin like paintbrushes. "I can't—I won't leave him!" Alec's limp hand began to slip out of his grip. "Alec, I won't leave you!"

"Get him out of here!"

Hodge's arms wrapped around Jace's waist like steel cords and pulled him back. "Alec—ALEC!" Jace reached for Alec's falling hand, but a faceless figure stepped between them. Simon grabbed his left arm. Izzy grabbed his right. All three pulled him out the door and down the hall past a shell-shocked Robert and Maryse.

That night the infirmary emptied of everyone but Alec and Jace. Jace scooted his bed next to his parabatai's so that he could reach over and touch Alec's runes, check his pulse, or just grip his hand tight. Jace set his cell's alarm to wake him up every 20 minutes. When he startled awake he immediately reignited the runes slowly healing Alec and/or checked to see if he was conscious yet. It was almost sunrise when his alarm shrilled and he rolled over to find a pair brown eyes blinking at the ceiling. A yelp escaped Jace's throat. Although he was tempted to sound an alarm and wake up the entire Institute with the good news, Jace, instead, stayed perfectly still, perfectly silent, and waited—patiently—for those eyes to meet his.

Jace Wayland possessed many gifts. Patience was not one of them. Less than 30 seconds passed before he whispered, "Alec. Alec, I'm here."

Alec's touch found him before his sight. He flailed his hands in the direction of Jace's voice and grabbed on tight when he found a t-shirt. Jace's hands ghosted over his, then lightly hugged his wrists. Alec's eyes widened to the maximum when he spotted Jace, and he asked, "Is Clary good? Clary… Is she ok?"

It's not that Jace didn't expect Alec to be fine. Every medic in the Institute assured him that his parabatai would make a full recovery. So, he knew, in his mind—logically—that it was only a matter of time before he would see Alec again.

His heart was another story. It was scared. Just scared.

And that's why Jace rolled over in their combined beds right up into Alec's personal space and clung to him with all four limbs. Alec hugged him back just as hard, but for only half the time when his weak energy levels dipped once more. "You didn't answer my question," Alec whispered against Jace's shoulder. "Clary?"

"Would be dead without you." Jace rolled back onto his mattress, then swung his feet off it to the floor. With Alec's hands sandwiched between his own, Jace leaned in close so that his brother wouldn't have to waste energy on the volume of his voice. "Can't thank you enough for saving her. Also, don't think I've ever been angrier with you. You could've died. All that blood you lost? Alec, it was close."

Alec's pale skin reddened somewhat. He swallowed, Adam's apple bouncing, and stared down at his own hands. "Are there any donuts left?"

Jace didn't realize that there were tears in his eyes until he snorted, and more than one seeped out. "Look at me." Two dozen seconds passed before Alec did. "I'm sorry for not trusting you. I'm sorry for not noticing that you were hurt but, buddy, the next time I'm standing there making an ass of myself you have got to stop me, you hear? We may be parabatai but I can't read your mind—at least, not yet."

It was Alec's turn to snort. "That part wasn't an accident. Clary was hurt. I could stand a few minutes longer."

"You can't fool me. You let her get medical attention first because of me—for me. But, Alec, you've gotta remember, man. You're more important to me than anybody. Anybody."

Alec exhaled a sleepy sigh. "So, you would've dropped Clary on the floor and carried me to the infirmary?" he chuckled.

A smile tugged at both corners of Jace's lips. "No. Nope, no. I would've thrown her over my left shoulder and you over my right—and then I would've run twice as fast."

The End