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This pain wasn’t like last time.
It wasn’t a stabbing pain, like acid poured onto his insides, but more of a slow ache spreading through his body, like someone was shutting down his muscles and nerves one at a time leaving him with nothing but pain to feel.
All of a sudden Jace was robbed of all of the air in his lungs. It felt like he was choking on water, drowning on the air surrounding him. With nothing to help him Jace fell to his knees in the dirt, his seraph blade falling limply at his side before slipping from his weak fingers.
Distantly Jace could hear yelling in the background but he couldn’t register any of the words.
It was like his chest had caved in. An emptiness crashed over him like a wave, the feeling at once lonely and all-consuming. Tears sprung to his eyes, pricking at his eyeballs and threatening to spill down his cheeks.
Jace tried to gasp in a breath but all he achieved was opening his mouth in a wordless scream.
He looked up suddenly to find Magnus crouching beside him, the expression on his face enough to rob Jace of all of his air again. Magnus blasted a ball of energy directly into Jace’s chest allowing him to finally take in the lungful of air that he needed. He reached out blindly, his hand clutching at the jacket at Magnus’ shoulder as he panted heavily.
Even as the air reached his cells again something still felt… wrong. It was like someone had taken a piece of Jace’s soul, like they’d reached into the very depths of him and stolen a part of what it was that made up Jace.
“… I mean they’re trying but I don’t think it’s working. You’d know if it was working and you look horrendous so it’s obviously not working,” Magnus rambled, the glamour on his eyes slipping so that the cat irises were all Jace could see on Magnus' exhausted face. Nothing Magnus was saying was making sense though so Jace shook his head like he was trying to shake the fog that had descended over his mind.
“What are you talking about?” Jace panted, his vision spotting so that the yellow of Magnus’ eyes filled his line of sight.
“Alec,” Magnus gasped, his hand coming up to grip at Jace’s forearm.
All at once it was like someone had sucker-punched Jace, the breath leaving his body once again. This was why the pain felt familiar, the emptiness similar to the wrenching stabbing that Jace had felt the last time Alec was hurt.
This time was so much worse though.
Jace felt like the place Alec had taken up in his heart, his mind, his soul, was bleeding out onto the dirt, like the place Alec had once occupied was empty and gone, leaving behind a lost and gasping Jace all alone.
Jace followed Magnus’ gaze, where he was staring with an intense longing and a heart-breaking despair, and found his parabatai lying motionless on the ground, drenched in water with Simon forcing air into his body. Lydia was doing rounds and rounds of compressions while Clary drew numerous iratzes onto every available piece of skin she could see. Isabelle had Alec’s head cradled in her lap, her face stricken and lost.
Pushing himself off from the ground Jace dragged himself across to Alec, his fist still clenched in Magnus’ jacket forcing him stumbling behind, and he immediately fell to the ground beside his parabatai.
Releasing his hand from Magnus Jace pushed Alec’s sopping wet t-shirt up, the sodden material clinging to Alec’s cold and blue skin, and placed his hand over the parabatai rune on Alec’s abdomen. Jace fumbled out his stele and drew an iratze so close to the parabatai rune that they almost overlapped.
As soon as the rune took Jace could feel his own parabatai rune burning, this pain a good pain, like a healing ache. This pain was the opposite of what he’d felt before, like someone was breathing air into his body instead of taking it, and Jace could feel hot tears spilling down his cheeks in contrast to his cold skin.
Alec gasped in air below his hands, the sound almost melodic in amidst the sorrow that had clouded Jace’s mind, and his eyes flew open, his body already bracing again to attack.
Isabelle bent forward, pressing her forehead to Alec’s as she let out a sob of relief, as Clary, Lydia, and Simon collapsed backwards away from Alec. Jace laid his hand flat across Alec’s parabatai rune, the blood flowing beneath his hand making Alec’s skin warmer and alive under his fingertips.
Magnus had moved to Alec’s other side, replacing Lydia, and had placed one hand on Alec’s shoulder, his fingers pressing into Alec’s pulse point on his neck, whilst his other hand had come to rest on Alec’s chest, where his heart was thudding rapidly and perfectly.
“What… happened?” Alec gasped as Isabelle sat up again, her hands stroking through Alec’s hair soothingly.
“You died,” Jace choked out. Alec turned head slightly in Isabelle’s grasp so his eyes met Jace’s. Jace stared into Alec’s eyes, reassuring himself that the life was coming back to Alec’s body, before he choked out a small laugh.
Jace shook his head before he shifted, pushing himself onto his knees. He hooked an arm around Magnus’ neck, pulling him in for a half-hug in the space above Alec’s body. He jerked his head at Izzy and the three of them formed a protective triangle above Alec, one of Isabelle’s arms coming to rest around Jace’s waist as she laid her forehead on Magnus’ shoulder.
Below them Alec panted quietly, exhausted, shivering, but alive. And in that moment that was enough.