A/N: Alec is so friggin' cute. I want to give him a big hug and tell him that everything will be okay.

Written for The Towers of Alicante's August prompt, "Life is like a game of cards..." Check out the forum, yo. You won't regret it.

This is not in any real chronological order, or really in line with the books.

House of Cards

He's building. Always, always building – or playing, he doesn't really know anymore. He plays (builds?) with a careful deck of flimsy cards, making his walls from black and white and red. They are specially designed to keep everyone out and away from him.

Well, not really. There's one person he would let in, but that person will never, ever knock. He knows that, so he doesn't even bother making a door between his walls.

He carefully stacks his cards, leaning them against each other, propping them on layers upon layers; making sure that only small chinks of light are let through.

But sometimes he covers those tiny holes up too. Just to be extra careful, so that he has a bit more of that protection (barrier) he craves.

.:a heart:.

"Alec?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay? You've been down since we killed those demons near the river."

"Just something I ate."

"You sure? The iratze did work, right?"

"I'm fine, Isabelle." He lies without shame (conviction). That's what siblings do, they tell each other fabricated explanations and stories.

When he built his fortress that he hates, he makes sure that the cards of the Heart face inwards, so that no-one else can ever see it or how mutilated and ugly it is.

.:a club:.

"I look sexy, right?"

Alec flicks a cautious glance at Jace Wayland; the boy who isn't his. He's wearing a T-shirt that screams 'I'm a douchebag!' that everyone will love, simply because it's him that's wearing it.

"Hot." He chokes out and turns back, too quickly, to his book about medicinal herbs. He tries (fails) to concentrate.

Jace seems satisfied and leaves his room, his hips swaying a bit too much as he brushes past Alec's bed, his thigh grazing (burning) Alec's foot.

A thought of Alec with him Clubs the boy and he forces the lovely image away from the front of his mind.

.:a jack:.

The funny thing is that he can't bring himself to hate Jace. Sometimes Alec wishes (begs) that he could despise the wonderful golden boy that haunts him. It would make things so much easier if he would roll his eyes and grudgingly save his life when the demons get too much for even Jace Wayland. But oh, how life likes to watch Alec writhe.

It's like a Jack-in-the-box, really. He puts (forces) his feelings away into a little corner in his house, but it always springs on him again and again just to show Alec that he's not in control at all.

.:a king:.

Clary is his for now. Alec watches the mundane boy break slowly and surely while Simon's hopes sink (crush) his heart. Alec can only pity him because he knows exactly what that's like.

Except that Alec wants a King and he never had any hope to begin with. So maybe they're not all that similar, but they both hate seeing Jace&Clary.

Which makes Alec like Simon just a bit more.

.:a joker:.

He watches him swirl with that pretty girl on the dance floor, and the two become blended together as their bodies touch. Jace smiles at the redhead with the curls and curves.

A soft, small hand touches Alec, jarring him from his thoughts and providing an escape. A girl with spiky blonde hair and purely green eyes looks up at him, inviting him to the dance floor with a smile (grimace) and too much cleavage.

For a moment, he wonders why she picked him. His hair is its usual mess and his clothes are tattered; that combined with his lack of sex appeal keeps all advances at bay. She's probably drunk.

"Sorry, I have a girlfriend," he says, adding another Joker to his careful, lonely, delicate house that so clearly isn't a home.

But it keeps him safe (unfeeling) and he's grateful for that.

.:a spade:.

Clary knows. The fact that she could guess digs into him, making him feel like there's a Spade in his chest, slowly pulling out his important internal organs and replacing them with concrete. He's confused (alone) and can only threaten her to not tell – and hope she has a shred of honour.

As it turns out, she does have some dignity. And that makes him loathe her even more.

.:a diamond:.

"You hate him, don't you?" Alec asks, looking at the mundane boy across the table with mild curiosity.

Simon looks up, surprised, and nods. "He's an asshole," he says with absolute certainty (hatred).

He wants to protest and tell the mundane about how wrong he is, but he needs to keep his game of cards going, so he ignores the jibe. "No, you hate him because he's with her."

Simon looks down again, his glasses catching and reflecting light; a second-long Diamond more radiant than the wearer. "You wouldn't understand."

Alec cracks a tiny smile, his lips forming a thin (unkissed) line. "You have no idea."

.:a queen:.

Clary doesn't deserve to be his Queen. She's too ordinary, too plain, for a person so incredible like Jace Wayland.

Alec's cards are beginning to slip and slide around, and he dislikes (hates) it. He's holding on desperately to every little crack, but more and more pieces caving in, and now people are seeing brief glimmers of the inside of his card house (prison).

.:the ace:.

Then there's a flamboyant Warlock that is so unlike Alec that it sometimes makes him cringe. They clash and clang against each other's personalities, but somehow the sounds makes a melody instead of an ear bleed.

What he doesn't know yet, is that he was just handed his glittery and bedazzled Ace.

And that beautiful card makes his house fall down, down down, so that the flimsy papers spiral downwards and muddle together. They slice through his hair and slide down his clothes and hit the floor, so that hearts, kings and spades are displayed to anyone who's looking for them.

He's free.

(Kind of.)