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Title: All He Wants For Christmas – (Are Parabatai Hugs)

Fandom: Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments

Disclaimer: All rights to the Shadowhunters show reserved to Ed Decter, the books the show is based off and its characters belong to Cassandra Clare. This fanfiction on the other hand is entirely mine. No money is made with this, though reviews are more than welcomed.

Warnings: m/m, pining, character study

Main Pairing: Alec/Jace

Shadowhunters Characters: Jonathan Christopher 'Jace' Alexander 'Alec' Lightwood

Summary: It was around Christmas time that Jace had first asked Alec to become his parabatai. With Alec in Idris on business as the consul, that leaves Jace alone to contemplate the past.

All He Wants For Christmas

(Are Parabatai Hugs)

It had been around this time that Jace had first gathered all his courage and asked.

To this day, Jace was pretty sure that it had been the singularly scariest and bravest thing he had ever done. Yes, including all the demons and monsters – literal and figurative – that he had ever fought. But for him, at ten years old, still so fresh off his father's teaching, to ask this boy to tie their souls together...? To love is to destroy. To be loved is to be destroyed. And even though back then he may not have had the proper name for the kind of love that bound them, even he knew there had to be love as the base for such a dangerous, ridiculous thing.

He had loved Alec Lightwood pretty much since they had met. Not immediately, but over the following short weeks when Jace had first stayed in New York. While many of the other kids were making fun of him for his nightmares, were whispering weird and mean rumors about him, Alec always had his back. Always. He may have even broken a nose or two in Jace's defense.

When Jace had been at what he deemed his lowest – maybe still deemed his lowest – Alec had been there for him. Yes, sure, all Lightwoods had been there for him, had taken him in and given him a home. But none of them were like Alec. Alec, who would sneak into his room when he had nightmares and comfort him, who'd spare for hours with Jace, just because he knew that Jace needed to blow off steam. Alec knew when Jace needed to be alone and he knew when Jace couldn't stand being alone. Even at barely twelve years old, Alec had been very good at reading Jace and at knowing what to do. It had meant the world to Jace. It still did, of course, but back then?

Back then, for Jonathan Wayland, an abused, broken and traumatized little boy who had never experienced any kind of love...? Not really, not truly, not unconditionally?

Even the Lightwood parents, they had mostly taken him in as a charge out of guilt, or a remaining attachment to the parabatai-bond between Michael Wayland and Robert Lightwood. Not simply out of the goodness of their hearts; Jace didn't fault them that though. He would always be grateful that they had taken him in and no one was expecting sainthood of them, to simply take a stranger in with no personal reasons for it. Still yet, there had been this condition. There had always also been this edge of fear – since they had no real ties to him, there had always been a fear of being discarded if he disappointed (like his father had discarded him, as he later learned. Like the Lightwoods would indeed discard him later on, so he supposed his fears had been built on a solid foundation after all).

Not Alec though. Alec had just been there and he had just stayed there. After Jace first moved in, Alec simply didn't seem to want to leave his side. And so they grew closer. And so Jace grew attached to Alec. To Alec's presence, to sparring with Alec, to relying on Alec.

If love destroyed, then what did it mean to leave yourself this open for attack, this vulnerable, by tying your very soul to another human being...? And was that, perhaps, why his father had claimed that love destroyed? Because the parabatai-bond, a supposedly unbreakable bond of loyalty, had failed him...? Perhaps if not the one Jace had thought back then – Michael and Robert – but the actual failed parabatai-bond between Valentine and Luke.

It still seemed strange to Jace that this very train of thought was what had set him on course of making Alexander Gideon Lightwood his parabatai. After all, should the failure of his father's bond not scare him off from the very concept? Yet it had the opposite effect on Jace, somehow. Because even back then, the thought of Alec ever betraying him seemed preposterous.

(Jace shook his head to push down thoughts of the early war. Thoughts of pushing Alec away and being on opposite sides. Thoughts of Alec nearly trying, nearly breaking their bond in his attempt to find Jace. Jace's failure toward Alec. It was in the past now, not as far in the past as what he was currently contemplating about, yet past still.)

Perhaps there had been a selfish pettiness to his request back then. Not that people could fault him for that; he had just been permanently left by the only family he even had. So the desire to want to tie this person who seemed to love him unconditionally to himself permanently? Who could hold that against him, especially against ten year old him...? Yes, a huge part of him wanted to make sure Alec would be and stay his and would not leave him, or at least not leave him easily.

Only after the words were out had Jace started to fear. What if Alec thought it was weird, what if Alec did not actually feel as fiercely and strongly as Jace, what if Jace was not good enough to be Alec's parabatai, what if unlike Jace Alec had actually been put out by his father's experience with the parabatai-bond and would never want to risk such a thing?

When Alec took some time to think on it, Jace took that time to let all those fears run through his mind repeatedly, intensifying and festering. His mind was only eased when Alec agreed.

(To this day, Jace wondered what it would have done to him had Alec said no. To this day, Jace feared to ever fully develop this thought for his life would, that much he knew, be far more miserable if he didn't have Alec at his side.)

But Alec had said yes! All his fears, they did not matter anymore, for Alec had said yes.

They started preparing for the parabatai-ceremony. Never in his life had Jace taken anything so seriously. Everything had to be perfect, he had to do everything right, it had to work. Maybe, he had theorized, Robert and Michael had done something wrong in the ceremony to cause their bond to fail. Who knew. (Robert did. But it would be many years before Robert was going to admit to either of the boys just why the bond with Michael Wayland had failed.) So Jace had to make sure that him and Alec did everything right, to make sure his bond with Alec had the perfect base.

The vows had been vastly misleading. For Jace, back then, who had no grasp on love, on different concepts of love, who hadn't known what he felt for Alec, those vows had been misleading. Yes, they reflected all that he wanted from Alec and all that he felt for Alec. However, as he would later learn, those vows were deeper and more romantic than many wedding vows given between romantic lovers. How was he, a mere child never taught about romantic love, supposed to differentiate there? How had he been supposed to know that what he felt for Alec was romantic in nature and that the parabatai-bond was supposedly against exactly that form of love...?

He couldn't have known. He had no reference for romantic love – Michael Wayland had no romantic partner in the years they had lived isolated and they had lived isolated enough that there had never been others over who were in love and a testimony to what being in love looked like, Robert and Maryse surely were no example of two people deeply in love either, Hodge was single and Alec, Isabelle and Jace were barely children. Love was complex. Love was hard to understand, especially when one had no reference as to what to look out for.

So Jace Wayland enthusiastically threw himself into the parabatai-bond, certain this was the love he felt, made more certain by the vows he spoke to Alec during their ceremony.

If nothing else, then Alec's eyes told Jace that he was right. For Alec looked at him the exact same way Jace felt about Alec. Like he was his world, like everything else paled and simply fell away whenever they were together, like no one could ever possibly hold a candle to him. That was how Jace felt about Alec and it was everything that Jace could see in Alec's eyes when Alec looked at him, so surely this was normal for parabatai to feel for each other, surely this was the love he was supposed to feel. (How foolish they both had been, how blind and caught up in each other.)

The parabatai-bond itself? It was like nothing Jace could ever even begin to put to words. He had tried, to explain it to Izzy, after the ceremony. He had tried again, after they met Clary and Simon who both had no grasp on it. While Izzy had simply given him large, confused eyes, Clary and Simon had rather quickly shut him up and supplied a mundie term for it – soulmates.

Jace liked that. It was very on-point, straightforward. Two souls that belonged together, that complimented each other, that made each other whole. Yes. That was what him and Alec were.

Still, those were such simple terms and words and they couldn't fully convey what it felt like.

Alec was there. Alec was always there. Even when he wasn't physically there, Jace could still feel him, could feel Alec's very soul, linked to his. It was a calming, warm presence in the back of Jace's mind. Grounding. And if something was wrong, it was more present. Be that Alec actively seeking him out, taking over more of Jace, prodding inside Jace's mind, feeling like electricity setting Jace's very being aflame with need. Or the other way around, when Jace sought out Alec, needed him. Then, Alec was like an all-consuming blanket of warmth, like the gentle but firm embrace of his parabatai but on an emotional and mental level, engulfing all of Jace, soothing him.

Whenever Jace felt lonely, doubtful, confused, he simply had to reach out with his soul and he knew Alec would be there, because Alec would always be there. Because Alec was his. The two always had each other's back, they could always rely on each other, trust each other.

It was only after they met Clary and Simon that things started to change between Alec and Jace.

Because Alec became jealous and Jace didn't see it. Or rather, he didn't understand it. He understood that Alec didn't seem to like Clary much, but he kept disagreeing with Jace and pushing Jace away on the issue, instead of trusting Jace's intuition as he always had? And for Jace, that – all of it – hadn't been about Clary then, it had been about Jace. Because... Alec didn't seem to trust Jace. And that was what hurt, what made Jace throw himself into the whole Clary-issue even more before he wanted to prove to his parabatai that he was right, that he deserved Alec's trust.

That Alec was in love with Jace, that Alec was jealous of Clary, those were things Jace hadn't been privy to know just yet. Weeks of distress and Alec and Jace growing apart would have to be endured first before one wise warlock was going to step in and nudge them.

Alec had not been the only one to experience jealousy, but unlike Alec, Jace hadn't been quite sure what to even make of it. Alec, he had experienced it before – Jace knew he had slept around a lot during their teenage years and apparently, each and every one of those evoked Alec's jealousy. Clary had just been the first one to stick around. Everyone else got Alec's heated glares behind Jace's back on their way out, never to be seen again. Now, Alec had to endure the person he was jealous of.

Jace, he didn't... he didn't like the way Magnus Bane flirted with Alec. Until one day, Magnus pulled Jace aside and, very cryptically, told him that he was lucky to be loved so fiercely. Of course he was, both lucky and loved fiercely, for they were parabatai. And Magnus had just looked at him indulgently, with a nearly pitying smile, and told him that this was not what he meant.

It was going to take Jace another few weeks before he actually figured this out. It would take Jace his abduction at the hands of his father, and Alec nearly giving his life trying to find him, that Jace realized just how deeply he loved Alec. Loved Alec more than just a parabatai.

It had also been around that time that Jace got to see actual romantic love around him. Luke the most of all, the way Luke spoke of Jocelyn and looked at her, the things he shared with Jace, after the reveal that Jace was apparently Jocelyn's son. Then there were Simon and Clary, Simon who had been in love with Clary since their childhood and was so blatantly pining and Clary who was slowly coming around on realizing that she may actually like Simon back. And then Lydia Branwell entered their lives and Jace got to see Isabelle flustered and falling for her.

Love. Love was complex. Love was different, there were so many different ways to love.

He loved Max and Isabelle fiercely, but had always loved them differently than he loved Alec. He had loved Robert and Maryse, but that again was different than Max, Isabelle and Alec. He had come to love Luke that same way, like a parent, because he had started to look after Jace ever since they mistakenly thought he was Jocelyn's son (and that Luke's love hadn't been stopped by the truth had been a huge relief). He had come to love Clary, like he loved Max and Isabelle. And still, his love for Alec was always outstanding, overwhelming and all-consuming.

For so many years, Jace had thought of course it is, we're parabatai. Now, for the first time, he had started to doubt that. To think that maybe, he loved Alec differently, had loved him differently even before they were parabatai, because he was in love with Alec.

The actual realization had happened relatively randomly. They were sitting together, Jace in Alec's arms, tucked under Alec's chin. His parabatai's arms were the safest place he could imagine. There was nowhere else he'd rather be. He hadn't even meant to say it but he did.

"I love you, Alec."

"I... I love you too, parabatai", had Alec replied but in that awkward, reluctant manner of his.

"No. Not like that." Because he had already said it, he wanted to commit to it fully. "I'm... in love with you. Seeing you like that, nearly... You nearly died to save me and I... I can't lose you, I can't ever lose you, Alec, because I love you, with all my heart."

That. That had been the moment that changed Jace's life forever, in a way he had never imagined. So much happened after that, so many twists and turns and losses and blows that Jace should have never been able to recover from, yet somehow he did. Because he had Alec, his parabatai was lending him the strength he needed to push through, until it finally ended. The war ended and Jace was allowed to recover. Seeking help, professional help, to deal with the trauma he had suffered in the past year – and even before that, during his childhood – and to deal with the emotional turmoil that this... journey of self-discovery had woken in him. Jace Wayland, Jace Morgenstern, Jace Fairchild, Jace Lightwood, Jace Herondale...? So many identities he had gone through in such a short span of time and while so many things seemed to change, there was one thing that remained constant during the entire struggle. Alec was at his side.

Slowly, gradually, Jace got better. He wasn't good, not fully, not yet. He still had nightmares – about the things the Owl had done, about nearly killing Imogen, about nearly killing Alec, about the torture on the Morning Star – but they were getting fewer and Jace had found ways to cope.

While Jace was predominantly focused on his recovery, Alec was making career. He had been head of the New York Institute for over a year before he was offered a position as a counsul. He accepted it, mostly for Jace's sake. Imogen too was still in recovery after the Owl had nearly killed her and Jace was in treatment in the City of Bones. Imogen had no one but Jace, so Alec, the good loyal parabatai he was, he watched over her while Jace was getting treated.

The problem with that was... that now, Alec was living in Idris. And Jace, he was still in New York.

Which brings us to the here and now. Jace was standing on the rooftop of the New York Institute, watching the snow softly falling onto New York, contemplating the past.

It was something he tended to do during this time of the year, because it reminded him of how he had first asked Alec to be parabatai, the first time Jace experienced snow in New York. The contemplation changed with the year. New things happened, or he gained new perspectives on the past. This... This was the first time he had thought back on it with the knowledge that he was in love with Alec and Alec was in love with Jace. That really put their past into perspective.

Shuddering a little, he wrapped his arms around his torso and leaned against the rail. Izzy had asked him to join them at the loft; Magnus was throwing a Christmas party with his cute new werewolf boyfriend Bat Velasquez, a big deal since it was their first time hosting together. They were cute and Jace was genuinely glad Magnus had found his own happiness, but... it wasn't what Jace wanted today. Seeing all the happy couples was only going to make him feel even lonelier, what with Alec still busy in Idris... the Clave had no time for Christmas, Jonathan had wiped out entire Institutes mere months ago and they were still caught up on the clean-up. So Jace understood. He knew Alec was busy on good business, he was working so hard on making the Clave better. That... didn't mean that Jace didn't miss Alec, since this could have been their first Christmas as a couple.

The snow blew into his face as the wind picked up. It was biting cold. He shuddered again.

"Why aren't you wearing a jacket? Why are you like this? Don't be reckless with your health."

Jace blinked a few times as firm, large hands placed a jacket on his shoulders. Craning his neck, he looked into the irritated face of his parabatai. It took him a moment before that really sank in and then his whole face brightened up and he threw his arms around Alec's neck, pulling him into a full-body hug. Their hugs had always been... magnetic. As though close proximity pulled them together even faster and then they just collided, like the two halves of a whole that they were, finally melting back together into one again. Jace's eyelids fluttered shut as he took a slow, shaky breath.

"Parabatai", whispered Jace, the word a breathy sound filled with longing.

"Hello to you too", chuckled Alec, his casualty betrayed by how his fingers dug into the back of Jace's neck as he pulled Jace even more impossibly close. "I missed you, parabatai."

"Missed you too", mumbled Jace, voice muffled by Alec's neck. "What are you doing here? I thought you were all booked, wouldn't get out for at least another couple days..."

"What can I say... it seems that the Inquisitor is eager to spend her first Christmas with her grandson, so she personally canceled the meetings. She sends me to pick you up and bring you to Idris with me, Christmas dinner at the Herondale mansion awaits the two of us", whispered Alec.

Imogen... knew. She knew that Alec and Jace were breaking the Law. She also knew that Alec made Jace happy, that Alec was his anchor who had helped keep Jace sane during the past year of torture and turmoil. She may be the Inquisitor, but first and foremost... she was Jace's grandmother. And Jace was the only family she had left, she wouldn't risk losing him, especially not after how close she had gotten to losing him during the war. Jace smiled softly against Alec's collarbone.

"Family dinner, huh?", mumbled Jace softly. "I..."

"I know, Jace", whispered Alec gently, smoothing down Jace's hair in a reassuring gesture. "I know. You... get to spend Christmas with your grandmother."

"And with the... love of my life", grinned Jace impishly.

"...You've been spending too much time with Simon. It's not good for you, he is rubbing off on you", commented Alec dryly, bringing enough distance between them to cup Jace's face.

"Ye—eah, well, since you weren't there to rub off on me in a... different way, I had to occupy myself somehow. And someone has to train that bumbling mess, otherwise he'd be a hazard for everyone around him", snorted Jace with a cheeky grin. "Can't trust Clary with it, she keeps getting distracted by the whole boyfriend part, while Iz is too busy running the Institute with the wife."

"She still getting all dopey-grinned whenever she gets to call Lydia her wife?", asked Alec.

He grinned fondly at that, shaking his head. The Lydia and Isabelle wedding had been their huge victory celebration after the war, after Izzy had so recklessly gone to Edom on her own, after they had finally returned her. Jace laughed softly in answer, before nuzzling his nose into the nape of Alec's neck. Alec sighed contently as he wrapped his arms around Jace's waist once more.

Jace may not get to call Alec his husband, ever, but he got to call him his parabatai and it would always mean so much more than anyone could ever even begin to understand.

~*~ The End ~*~

Author's note: My contribution for the Jalec Secret Santa. I do hope it turned out vaguely what you wanted, Mia. And that you - and everyone else who read this - enjoyed it and is having happy holidays!