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Alec groaned, his broken ribs protesting painfully as the Circle member shoved him into a brick wall and pinned him there with a hand on his throat. Jace and Izzy darted into the room a few seconds later, poised and ready to strike on Alec’s command. “Don’t come any closer!” the Circle member shouted. “Stay right where you are, or I cut his throat.” Jace and Izzy exchanged frightened glances and lowered their weapons.
“What do you want from me?” Alec growled.
“Honestly? A little fun.” Before Alec had time to react, the Circle member had reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small vial of bubbling blue liquid. Alec recognised it immediately, and he swallowed hard. The Circle member uncorked the bottle and, smirking, unceremoniously poured it into Alec’s protesting mouth. “There,” he said when the potion was gone, “Now let’s see what little secrets you’ve got bouncing around in that big ‘ol brain of yours.”
The truth serum took effect immediately; Alec felt its weight settle in his bones, and his throat burned with the overwhelming instinct to speak. He glared at the Circle member, keeping his mouth shut tightly. While his attention was on Alec, Alec made a subtle gesture with his hand, and Jace & Izzy charged. The Circle member was down with two hits from Jace's seraph blade and one from Izzy's whip. Alec closed his eyes tightly for just a second while his siblings took care of the Circle member; there was so much that he could reveal, so many secrets, and he didn’t want Jace or Izzy to know any of them.
“Alright, Alec,” Jace called, startling Alec from his thoughts. “We’re ready.” Alec nodded, watching as he heaved the unconscious Circle member over his shoulder.
“Did you arrange for him to be taken to the Gard?” Alec spoke without meaning to, and he cried out, clamping a hand over his mouth. But it was too late.
“I was raised by Valentine,” forced its way out of Alec’s throat.
“What?!” Jace exclaimed. “You were - You were what?”
“It’s the potion!” Alec exclaimed. “The potion, it was a truth serum.” Tears gathered in his eyes as his mouth opened without his permission again, this time to blurt, “And Mom & Dad didn’t treat me much better.”
Izzy’s eyes were wide, and Jace was shaking, though from what, Alec couldn’t tell. Alec grit his teeth as hard as he could and pressed both fists to his mouth. Shit, shit, FUCK. His siblings were never meant to know any of this.
“We’re going back to the Institute,” Jace stated, his voice tight, “and then you’re telling us everything.”
Alec wanted to protest, but he knew he couldn’t risk letting any more secrets spill out for Jace and Izzy to hear.
~ ~ ~
By the time they made it back to the Institute, Alec’s jaw ached from holding it shut so tightly, and his arms were on fire from pressing his fists to his mouth the entire way home. He was tired, and he was embarrassed, and he just wanted this day to end. He didn’t want to talk to his siblings. He didn’t want to tell them anything. They didn’t need to know. But he knew that, in all likelihood, he wouldn’t have a choice.
The second the Circle member had been shipped off to the Gard, Izzy cornered him. She dragged him to her bedroom, where Jace was waiting. Alec knew he was upset from the set of his shoulders, and he swallowed hard. Coming clean wasn’t going to help anything. It wouldn’t change the past, and it would only hurt everyone who cared about him in the process.
“Sit,” Izzy ordered, gesturing to one of the plush benches beside her vanity. Alec reluctantly did so, pressing his fists harder against his mouth. Izzy took a seat next to Jace on her bed, and they exchanged a heavy, significant glance before turning back to Alec.
“Alright,” Jace spoke up first. “I want to know the truth, Alec. The whole truth. You said you were raised by Valentine?”
Alec tightened his fists, biting through his lip in a vain effort to keep the truth locked inside him where it belonged, but it was to no avail.
“I was. Raised by Valentine, I mean. He abducted me when Maryse betrayed him and took me as the control case to you. Wanted to see how we’d be different, I guess, you with your angel blood and me with my regular blood. He kept me in an abandoned manor and split his time between us. Remember how he used to take off for days at a time and leave you by yourself? That’s because he was with me. He taught me all of the same things he taught you.” Alec was rambling now, but the words were spilling out faster than he could even try and stop them. “He broke my fingers when I didn’t hold my bow right, and he told me that any creature with demon blood had to be exterminated, for the good of all humanity.”
Jace let out a strangled sound, his hands tightening into fists at his sides, and Alec wanted to do something, anything, to wipe that horrified look off of his face, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, because he was still fucking talking.
“He gave me back to Mom & Dad when I was seven. I-I guess I disappointed him.” Alec’s eyes stung with unshed tears, but he refused to let them fall. This was in the past; this was history, history that should have stayed buried. “And when they took me in, they saved me. Not because of anything they did, but because they let me have Izzy.” Izzy made a small, surprised sound from her spot on the bed. “They let me be a big brother. They let me raise her. They told me that I would learn to be a normal person, or they wouldn’t let me see her anymore.” Alec’s hands were trembling. “So I learned.”
The room was quiet for a minute, and Alec sagged onto his bench, exhausted from the effort of trying to hold back the harsh, ugly truth of his childhood. His mouth was no longer moving a mile a minute, but he could feel the next truth in his chest, getting ready to burst the second Jace or Izzy asked a question that was a little too close to one of his secrets.
“God, Alec,” Jace breathed, and his eyes were full of tears. Izzy’s tears had already spilled over, streaking black lines of mascara down her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say. I-I never knew.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” Alec replied tiredly. “You were never supposed to.”
“I’m so sorry,” Izzy squeaked, her voice small and vulnerable. “Alec, I’m so sorry for everything I ever gave you shit for, every time I called you weird or a freak. I-I hope you know that I was just teasing, I don’t really think that. You’re wonderful, you’re the best, I-I - ” Izzy broke off, choking on a sob, and Alec felt his heart break for her. This was exactly why he wanted to keep these secrets to himself.
“It’s okay, Iz,” he promised her. “I know you didn’t mean it. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered back.
“How could you not tell me this?” Jace’s horror had turned to anger in the span of a couple seconds. “I’m your parabatai, Alec! I was raised by Valentine, too! I know exactly what you went through! How could you not tell me?!”
“I didn’t want you to know,” Alec said, a little desperately. “Please, Jace, I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what?” Jace snapped incredulously. “From the knowledge that I’m not alone? That there’s someone, someone I know and love, who knows exactly what it’s like to be raised by Valentine?”
Alec fell silent, his jaw muscles working anxiously. He’d never thought of it like that. Every time he’d considered this, considered telling someone, he’d only been focused on the burden it would put on their shoulders. He had never considered that it might actually help Jace to know that he wasn’t the only one with the horrible, fucked-up memories they had, and that he wasn’t the only person who’d never really had a childhood at all.
“I’m sorry,” Alec whispered, training his gaze guiltily on his lap. “I never thought of it like that.”
“Obviously,” Jace replied, rolling his eyes. There was a hint of fondness behind the gesture, and Alec knew Jace wasn’t really angry with him anymore. He gave his parabatai a smile, twisting his fingers together in his lap. As much as he hated this, at least he knew now that it wouldn’t change the unbreakability of their bond.
“Wait,” Izzy said, and her tone sent dread shooting through Alec. “Back there at the warehouse, you said that Mom and Dad didn’t treat you much better than Valentine did.” Jace’s eyes widened, obviously having just remembered himself, and Alec’s eyes slipped closed in resignation as the truth burst from his throat and into the space between them.
“They hated me,” he said, his voice dull and distant. “I was raised by Valentine, after all, and I didn’t have any extraordinary abilities to show for it like Jace does. All I had was trauma and a fucked-up sense of self, and they didn’t care enough to try and help. Instead, they pushed me harder than everyone else and told me to assimilate or leave. They made me feel like I was never good enough, and they made me believe in things I can’t even stand to think about now. They gave me Izzy, their one good deed, in the hopes that having someone to care for would “fix” me. Then they left.” Alec was shaking now, his fingers turning white from clutching the sides of his bench. “They left for Idris, gave me control of the Institute, and told me that they would ship me off to someone else unless I made the family proud.”
“That’s why you almost married Lydia,” Izzy said, her voice sad and full of newfound understanding. “You were scared of what they would do if you didn’t.”
“Yeah,” Alec admitted, picking at a loose thread on his cargo pants. “I guess I should have called their bluff a long time ago.”
“It’s manipulation,” Jace said angrily, his hands tightening into fists at his sides. “They manipulated you into doing what you were told and following the rules, for fear that they’d force you to leave.”
Alec said nothing. He’d long since accepted that normal parents didn’t treat their children the way the Lightwoods treated him, but he’d never discussed it out loud like this before, and it was more than a little unnerving.
“I’m so glad you’re, y’know, you now,” Jace said, and then he was striding over to Alec and wrapping him in the tightest hug Alec could ever remember receiving. Izzy joined them a few seconds later, her hair tickling the back of Alec’s neck. Together they swayed for several seconds, and Alec tried to ignore the tears he felt drip into his hair, just as they ignored the soft little sounds he made whenever one of them squeezed tight.
Together they stayed, and though Alec still thought it would’ve been better if he hadn’t been dosed with the truth serum, even he had to admit that this wasn’t at all what he thought it would be. His siblings, he knew, were the best of him, and now he could well and truly believe that they would be together until the day they all died.
Three go in. Three come out.
It was a promise if Alec had ever made one, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was one he would always keep, no matter the cost.