Work Text:
Jalec || Shadowhunters || Jalec || A Garden of Their Own || Jalec || Shadowhunters || Jalec
Title: Jalec Bingo: A Garden of Their Own
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.
Tags: m/m, fluff, This World Inverted, childhood sweethearts
Main Pairing: Alec/Jace
Shadowhunters Characters: Jonathan 'Jace' Herondale, Alexander 'Alec' Lightwood
Summary: Jalec Bingo Prompt: TWI AU. Writer's Month Prompts: bridge + secret garden. The first time Alec and Jace met in the TWI universe was in a garden.
A Garden of Their Own
Jalec Bingo / Writer's Month 2022
Alec always felt like he belonged into Jace's life. Ever since he'd first seen the other from across the bridge in their own little garden. It was technically neither of theirs, but still it belonged to both.
When Jace was ten years old, he came to live with his grandma Imogen, because his mom wasn't doing well. Back then, his parents had framed it as a fun adventure for him, not telling him what happened. Not telling him about his mother's mental health. Now, he supposed he'd been too young for that. Back then, he had been annoyed that nobody told him the truth.
He loved grandma Imogen, she was great. But she also worked a whole lot. She was a judge and took her work very seriously. So when Jace was left more or less unsupervised (the staff at the Herondale estate weren't exactly used to babysitting an energetic ten year old), he tended to explore.
At first just the mansion itself. He'd rarely stayed over at grandma's before, usually she came to visit them in Germany, where his parents lived in a little town called Idris in the three-country area. New York was like a whole lifetime away, the flight had taken forever. So grandma's mansion was a whole new adventure to discover for Jace. At one point, he finished exploring the inside.
Next up was the outside. The estate was huge. So huge, there was a whole pond there. A lot of flowers. On day three of his garden exploration did he find a secret, hidden garden. He'd been drawling beneath the bushes, curious to see if there was something more behind it.
He could not have pictured what he found. Behind the bushes, through a hole in a rotten fence behind them, Jace found his way into another garden. One that was far more impressive than grandma's. Because not a single blade of grass was allowed to be out of line with grandma, but here? Everything grew wild. The grass was higher than Jace's nose! Glowers of all kind grew just everywhere. The pond in this garden was dirty with old leafs and other stuff, but the white bridge going over the narrow part of the pond seemed stable. Since everything left and right of the pond was so wild and grown so high that Jace didn't really know how to make his way through it, he decided to go over the bridge to reach the other side.
As soon as he put a foot on the bridge, he saw another boy on the other end of it. Dark hair, taller than Jace. Looking as startled as Jace felt. Somehow, this garden had felt like entering another realm, so it seemed nearly forbidden that someone else was here.
"You're trespassing," declared the other boy with a glare.
Trespassing? Jace frowned, watching the other boy very closely. His tenseness, the way he was gripping the bridge's rail. Taking a deep breath, Jace straightened up and took another step.
"So are you," Jace's voice was firm, he was convinced he'd come to the right conclusion.
"How would you even know that? Not that you're right or anything."
Jace huffed softly and continued on his way toward the other. "You were surprised. Not 'help someone broke into my home' surprised, but 'oh no I got caught doing something naughty' surprised. You don't live here here. So you don't get to tell me I'm not supposed to either."
The taller boy wiggled his nose at that, frowning. "Fine. Yeah, I live in the place over there."
He pointed behind himself, implying that both Jace and this boy were the neighbors of this abandoned building. And yes, he'd come to the conclusion that it must be abandoned, because there was no way anyone maintained this garden. Jace grinned toothily and offered his hand.
"Hey, I'm Jace. Jace Herondale. I'm staying with my grandma."
Now it was Jace's turn to point behind himself. Alec looked over Jace's shoulder, a little surprised.
"Oh, that's cool. I knew Judge Herondale had a grandson, she talks about you all the time. I'm Alexander Lightwood. Everyone calls me Alec though."
He accepted Jace's hand and they shook on it. Neither of them knowing that they'd just met the love of their lives. No, romantic love hadn't crossed either mind. Though it came quicker for Alec than for Jace. The slightly older boy had an easy time falling for Jace, a little more with every time that they met in this little garden. Turned out it used to be the Wayland estate, but father and son had died in a tragic fire a decade ago. Nobody ever bothered to fix the mansion up and it became a playground for the kids in the neighborhood. The garden though, that had been Alec's. He came there to have some peace and quiet – because his mom recently had a baby and Alec's little brother had a very strong set of lungs, so it was nice to get away from that every now and again.
Jace came over to that garden more and more often too. At first just to talk to Alec, because he didn't know any other kids at all. But even after he acclimated more into the neighborhood and made other friends too, this garden remained special to him. Not just because it was theirs, but also because Jace had developed an interest in gardening and he started to take care of the garden. He liked to keep it so wild, but the plants still needed care and the weed had to go. For months, Jace took care of that garden, with Alec's reluctant help. Until Jace returned back home.
/break\
Jace visited every summer. The summer of Jace's senior year in high school, him and Alec shared their first kiss, on the very bridge they first met. The summer after graduation, Jace moved back to New York. At first, he lived with his grandma, until he'd get on his own feet. His own feet started with a small, crappy apartment that was all his. A decade, a proposal and a wedding later and Jace found himself carrying heavy boxes into the former Wayland estate.
"The house cleaned up nice," Jace looked around their bedroom as he put down the box.
They both came from rich families, filthy rich families. And while Jace still had started his business without input from them, opening his own coffee truck Java Jace, he had accepted the financial aid from his parents and grandparents to buy this place. Together with his husband.
"Renovations took long enough," Alec glowered, walking up to Jace. "The garden though..."
A smile spread over Alec's lips and he wrapped his arms around his husband's waist. This garden was where they had first met. Where they had first kissed. Where Alec had proposed to Jace. So when finally someone wanted to buy it, tear the house down and change the garden, Alec had acted on cheesy, romantic impulse. He'd asked his own parents and even Imogen for help. Because despite having a nice high income in his parents' law firm, this was still beyond his pay-grade. But this. This had to be where Alec wanted to spend the rest of his life with the love of his life.
His eyes were on the pond and the bridge. He could already see it, the both of them old and gray, watching their grandkids play in this very garden. In their garden.
~*~ The End ~*~