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occasionally-good-authoring · 11 months

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there are ghosts in these walls (but you won’t ever see them)

@indigothemuse @squishmallow36 surprise, it’s jace!

tw: blood, referenced child abuse

He tore down the walls first. It was a spur of the moment decision, him, Alec, and Magnus stuck in Alicante for some reason Jace can’t remember for the life of him. It was five AM, they were all exhausted, and walking past Wayland Manor. Maybe it was the insanity that comes with dealing with the Clave. Maybe it was the onslaught of memories that left a bitter taste. Maybe it was a million different things and a million different reasons Jace can’t name, but he walked into that damn house anyway.

Dust covered every inch of the place, left undisturbed for years. He swears to god he can still taste the blood in the air. He stands in that entryway, front door hanging open. Something bubbles under his skin, itching and burning with memories. Alec and Magnus fall in place next to him. They don’t know what he’s going to do, but they’re waiting there anyway.

A million memories hang in just this hallway. Of violence and cruelty that no one deserves, let alone a child. Micheal’s—Valentine’s—blood wasn’t the only blood spilled in this hall. Valentine only bled when he wanted to. Jace bled when Valentine wanted him too. He clenches his hands into fists, stopping the memories. Jace’s eye look over the entry way, landing on the solid gold lamp, tall as Jace is. He used to think it giant when he was a child.

He doesn’t realize he’s grabbed it until it crashes into the wall. Right through the plaster—or is it wood? Drywall? Jace doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing—over and over again. Dust flies everywhere, painting tumble to the floor, denting the wood and breaking the frames. When the wall is nothing more than flimsy pieces hanging to the frames, he drops the lamp. The lightbulb is long broken, the shade a few feet away in tatters.

He’s panting, he notices halfheartedly. Alec walks next to him, placing a hand softly on his shoulder.

“Jace?”

He doesn’t need to ask anything else, a million questions sitting in his name alone. Are you okay? What do you need? Is there anything I can do?

“I’m making something of this place, Alec,” he says. The dust hasn’t settled yet. Jace won’t give it the chance to. “Something without him.”

Magnus steps past the pair of them, kneeling down to pick up a painting. It’s a good one, objectively, it probably cost a lot. Magnus tosses it back down to the floor. He looks back to Jace.

“Then we’ll come back later, with everything you need and a plan.”

…

They come back with everyone. Simon, Maia, Izzy, Clary, Raphael. They spend weeks destroying the house, tearing everything down. Except for the library. Jace refuses to step foot in the library. His fingers ache when he reaches for the door handle. He should let them open the door, but the piano reeks of memories. Blood may still be on the keys.

Now, it’s midnight. Everyone long gone besides Simon and Maia. The library is the only place left to tear down. The bones of the house are the only thing left, the only walls still up. It’s a warm night, the stars looking down on them. Jace stands in what used to be the hallway to the library. It’s only wood now. No more walls left up except for the ones in front of him.

“Hey, Sunshine, it’s getting late,” Simon says softly. Jace didn’t even notice he was there. He’s to Jace’s left. Maia is on his right.

“Or early,” Maia says.

Jace takes a disastrous step towards the library door. His fingers begin to ache again. Simon and Maia take it with him, Maia intertwining her fingers with his. The ache doesn’t lessen, but Maia and Simon make it easier to bear. Jace reaches for the doorknob, fingers shaking with an phantom ache. Simon and Maia wait for him to open the door.

The door swings open. Jace nearly chokes on the dust the falls out. The smell of blood slips out of the dark room, whether or not it’s truly there, Jace doesn’t know. Maia squeezes his hand, Simon presses his shoulder against Jace’s. He takes a shaky breath and stares into the dark room. The ghostly shape of the piano stares back at him. The books he was never allowed to read unless he was told to laugh at him.

He steps inside slowly. Simon and Maia follow him. The dust collects in his lungs. Maia rubs circles on Jace’s hand with her thumb. There’s blood on the piano keys. Jace can feel his breathing get quicker, shallower. Simon wraps his arm around Jace’s waist and starts to hum, one of the songs he wrote for Jace and Maia, just like he always does. Jace focuses on it, on Maia’s hand, Simon’s arm.

He lets it pulls him back. The piano keys are white, the dust can be cleaned, the books can be read. This library is Jace’s now, not Valentine’s.

“We keep this room,” he says. His voice is shaking just a little bit, but it will never be small again in this house. Valentine isn’t here. He doesn’t have to ever be small in Wayland Manor again.

“Are you sure, lovely?” Simon asks.

“Yeah.”

Jace stares at the piano, feeling the break of his fingers. He can see himself at that bench, nine years old with broken fingers. He can see Valentine holding Jace’s only remaining finger in his hand while a nine year old tries not to cry out as it breaks. Then, with broken bones, he sees himself start La Campanella again.

“I know what to make of this house,” he says.

…

When the new walls go up, Jace paints them a million different colors. Sky blue, emerald, pink, lilac. Clary decorates them, flowers and clouds and sunsets. Magnus and Alec help him paint the outside, a nice soft yellow that Valentine would’ve hated. But it isn’t his house anymore. Hell, it never was. It was Michael Wayland’s and now it’s Jace’s.

Now, it’ll be a place of solace. A place where when a child sits down at the piano, their fingers won’t be broken for a wrong note. They’ll be corrected softly and encouraged. No more children will be broken down in Wayland Manor.

No more children like Jace will be within those colorful walls. For weeks, Jace ends the day with yellow paint up to his elbows. The Manor is covered in a month. Simon and Maia are the ones to hold him when he cries. And for once, tears in Wayland Manor are happy.

They build all the furniture by hand. And when the attic is done, a simple bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen Jace stays there. It’s odd, living in the Manor again. He makes dinner for him, Simon, and Maia in a blur. The walls still smell like new paint.

He doesn’t fall out of it until he’s in bed with them. Simon and Maia have stuck him in the middle of their bed, Simon’s head on Jace’s chest, Maia’s leg wrapped around his.

“How’re you doing, Sunshine?” Simon asks.

Jace stares up at the ceiling. “I feel like I’m dreaming. For so long, this house was a nightmare. It was full of memories I didn’t want to have, things I didn’t want to experience. But it’s mine now. It doesn’t seem real yet.”

Maia props herself up on her elbows. She leans down and kisses Jace softly. “That seem real, Pretty Boy?” she asks with a smile.

“It does.”

Maia kisses Simon’s forehead and drops back onto her stomach.

“I love you both,” he says softly. It might just be the first time those words have been spoken in this house in Jace’s lifetime. He really has made something new here, hasn’t he?

“I love you too, Sunshine.”

“Love you too, Herondale.”

And when he wakes up in the middle of the night, sweating and panicked, they wake up with him. Maia and Simon hold him when they make sure he’s okay with it. The panic of openly crying in Wayland Manor never truly leaves Jace, not yet, but it’s faded.

It’s faded and there’s something new here. Something without Valentine.

…

When the children arrive, Jace makes Simon and Maia promise him something.

“If I ever hurt any of them, make me leave and never let me come back in.”

“You won’t, Jace,” Maia says. Two children, a pixie, Lizabet, and a Shadowhunter, Marie, play together in the garden, the three of them on the porch.

“Promise me. Please. I—I don’t—I need this, please,” he says quietly. The children are laughing, Lizabet tackling Marie. Simon intertwines his fingers with Jace’s.

“I promise, Jace. And I promise we won’t need this promise,” he says.

And they never do. Children come and go, Jace throwing himself into being what he never had. He holds them when they cry. He reads them the books he was never allowed to touch. And when they want to learn piano, he teaches them gently.

It’s love. It’s love when he teaches them La Campanella. It’s healing, when he comforts them, when he builds the playset in the backyard, when he loves them with everything he has. Valentine’s fingers may ghost on his in that library, and he may still see blood on the piano; but these children never will.

There’s something new in Wayland Manor now, and Jace’s fingers don’t break.

#i had an idea. i ignored it for two weeks. then i wrote this.#no regrets whatsoever #tmi #jace herondale #simon lewis #maia roberts #jaiamon #jimon #saia #alec lightwood #magnus bane #malec #clary fray #the mortal instruments #shadowhunters

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bytheangell · 1 year

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Flufftober Day 23 - Outsider POV (Read on AO3)

Magnus is at the Jade Wolf to speak with Luke, but his eyes keep drifting over to Simon and Maia. The young couple sits together in a corner booth, laughing over something in a book Simon is showing Maia. They’re in their own little world, full of smiles and casual touches and so much love it’s practically radiating off of them.

He can’t help but think that this never would’ve happened Twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. Magnus remembers the relationships he helped foster in secret, the couples who felt the need to hide their love rather than flaunt it openly the way Simon and Maia do.

It’s beautiful to watch.

“It’s a far cry from when I was their age, isn’t it?” Luke says.

“Sometimes you see so many major shifts in history, you don’t stop to appreciate the subtle shifts,” Magnus agrees. He’s lived through the first Accords, and every one thereafter, but it isn’t lost on him that so much of that is about tolerating others in the Shadow World and less about actual acceptance.

“Especially when you’re part of those shifts,” Luke adds.

“What do you mean?” Magnus asks, not sure he’s following.

“You and Alec,” Luke says like it’s obvious. Maybe it should be. “You two paved the way for this, at least as far as this city’s concerned.”

Magnus hardly considers himself a trailblazer for young love, but he supposes Luke has a point, at least as far as those in their immediate social circle are concerned. He always has set a bit of a precedent for saying ‘fuck it’ to what anyone else thinks about him and what he wants out of life.

Magnus turns his attention back to Simon as he wraps his arm around Maia’s shoulders and Maia leans in to nuzzle her head against Simon’s neck.

“They’re good together,” Magnus observes.

“They are,” Luke agrees.

It’s such a soft, casual moment that most people would overlook in a crowded room anywhere else. But for Magnus, watching a young vampire fledgling so brazenly in love in a werewolf den is a moment that he considers himself lucky to witness.

#saia #simon lewis #maia roberts #magnus bane #luke garroway #shadowhunters #elle writes a few deadbeat lines #flufftober 2022

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