#nanda writes

But also neither of those things or any of the other dreadful possibilities that ran through Alec’s mind sounded like things that the other would do. Sure, Alec might not have liked Matthew Fairchild much at first, but that had been more due to a general discomfort at being forced to share a room with a stranger and a somehow ingrained disdain for people in the artistic courses that came from the kind of society he had grown in rather than from anything Matthew had done.

In fact, the more time they spent together, the more Alec had to resign himself to the fact his roommate was one of those people that was just fundamentally impossible not to like: he was kind, and nice, and cheerful, he always offered to help Alec with anything, he had a billion interesting stories to tell, always kept quiet when Alec was trying to study and not only did he cook but he always made extra to offer the other half to Alec. In many ways, he reminded Alec a lot of his best friend Jace, who would be coming to college on the next semester, and he had even started to think that they were possibly becoming friends too.

And then the shady behaviour had begun.

He didn’t want to believe he had been so wrong about someone, but what other answer was there?

On one hand, he wanted to have trust in Matthew, but in the other he didn’t want to risk getting mixed up in whatever trouble he was getting himself into, so he decided to take matters into his own hands: that night, he only pretended to go to sleep, and once Matthew got up and sneaked out of the room, he waited a couple of seconds and followed him.

As he closed the door behind him, he spotted the other turning a corridor and followed him. He had expected him to go out so he was wearing normal clothes and even had shoes on, but instead of taking the way to the stairs, Matthew turned the other way on the next corridor and slipped into an old supplies closet.

That made him even more confused. Flashes of the research he had done that showed people making homemade bombs with cleaning supplies passed through his mind, but Matthew couldn’t be planning to blow up the dorms, right? Only someone crazy would do something like that, right? But… didn’t he say his dad was a chemist? He probably did have the knowledge to do that, and if he remembered one of his friends was studying chemistry too… Oh, God.

He hurried the last few steps, not worrying anymore if Matthew heard him or not, it wasn’t like he had anywhere to run now and Alec – two times judo champion on his home town – was fairly certain he could take him in a fight. When he got close, he heard murmuring on the other side, but he couldn’t make up the words, so he took a deep breath, grabbed the handle of the door and yanked it open.

“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed as soon as the door opened. Matthew was crouching on the floor among the supplies, messing with something on the floor, but he jumped so high with the scare Alec gave him he fell back on his butt, head turning to look at him with absolute fear and shock on his expression. It would have been funny in another situation.

“A-Alec,” he stammered, eyes wide. “Damn, uh, fancy meeting you here. It- It’s not… Whatever you are thinking. It’s- Damn, Oscar, stay, no-“

There were lots of questions Alec wanted to make, ranging from what Matthew thought he was doing to who was Oscar, but before he could say anything more Matthew did a weird motion and fumble and then a tiny puppy jumped out of his arms and came wiggling from around him, looking up at Alec for a second before apparently deeming he was harmless enough and going over to sniff at his ankles.

Alec was speechless, frozen on the spot. What he was seeing was so far beyond from anything he had expected that he couldn’t even process it. He looked from Matthew to the puppy, that was now sitting by his feet and wiggling his tail at him – it was a golden retriever, he noticed – and back to Matthew and finally said:

“What the hell?”

Matthew twisted around in a hurry and picked the puppy up, standing up to look at Alec and holding the dog close to his chest as if he was afraid Alec would try to grab it from him and throw the puppy out.

“I… My friend Jamie and I found him trapped under a car the other day, and he was crying and hurt so we took him to the vet and we have been taking care of him, but you know how the dorm rules say we can’t have pets, so we have to keep him hidden or they will make us throw him out. Please don’t tell the dorm manager!”

Alec’s brain seemed like it was working extremely slowly. “So all this time you have been sneaking out at night… It was to take care of a puppy?”

Matthew nodded and Alec’s brain shifted from slow motion into overdrive, replaying all the times over the past weeks that Matthew had lost sleep and snuck out to take care of a sickly puppy, the smell of cleaning supplies from all the time he spent in here and probably from cleaning the floor and the puppy, the mud stains from taking the puppy out to play. He didn’t know what was stronger: his embarrassment that he had been so wrong all this time or the complete rage at being proven again just how infuriatingly cute and nice the other was, it was really starting to mess with his head.

“I, uh, I was actually going to talk to you to see if he could stay in our room for a while, Jamie’s roommate is allergic so he can’t, and Chris’ materials are too dangerous for him to stay with him and Thomas… It would just be until spring break and then I can take him back home with me, but I wanted to have him trained first before I asked so you could be sure he won’t cause any trouble, and he is so smart, Alec. He already knows how to sit and stay, and he doesn’t make noise, and I am teaching him to hide under the bed when someone comes. It will just be for one month.”

“Wait. Wait a minute. What are you saying?” Alec asked, filtering through Matthew’s rambling to get to the important part. He was getting rather good at that. “You want to hide a dog in our room?”

“Shhh, don’t talk so loud. And well… Yes. We stole the keys to this closet from the manager. I don’t think he noticed yet, but he will soon, so we don’t have much more time. If he stays here, he will be found out and they will make us take him to a shelter or worse, but no one comes into our rooms unless we let them, and like I said he is really well behaved and he won’t cause any problems, I promise. It’s just for one little month, please?”

Alec looked at him like he was crazy. It was one thing to keep the dog in the supply closet and ask Alec to keep a secret, it was another one completely different to ask him to help hide the puppy in their room. If the dog was found in their room there would be no way for him to pretend he didn’t know what was going on, he would be an accessory, he would be caught up in the trouble. There was only a couple of people in this world Alec was willing to get in trouble to cover for, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to let Matthew into that list yet.

“Listen, I don’t think-”

“Oh, come on, Alec, please? I am begging here, I really want to keep him. I will do your laundry for the rest of the month, I will do anything you want. I will take full responsibility for him, I promise. So, please? Please? Look at him, you can’t say no to this face.”

Before he could protest again, Matthew had extended the puppy close to his face, and damn him, if he wasn’t already cute enough, the puppy had to go and enthusiastically lick the tip of his nose. Matthew laughed and said that ‘see? He likes you’ and Alec found himself on the other end of two extremely convincing puppy looks. He mentally cursed Matthew again, but his heart – and his resolve – melted at the sight.

“I suppose… If it’s just for a month… And you are going to take responsibility… It’s ok.”

He didn’t want to think it had been worth it to agree just to see the way Matthew beamed at him, but it did, and then he wasn’t thinking of anything again, because the other had thrown an arm around him and kissed his cheek in gratitude and all the blood that was supposed to be in his brain to help with tiny things like thinking went to his face instead as he blushed wildly. He was definitely not going to think about what this meant either.

“Thank you, Alec. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You won’t regret it, I promise. I will take care of everything. Here, hold him while I gather his things.”

The puppy was put into his arms as Matthew went back down on the floor to gather an assortment of bowls and toys Alec hadn’t seen before. He was really serious about this. And the puppy was really freakishly well-behaved, during all this time he hadn’t barked and he just snuggled back into Alec’s arms, as if he knew how important this was and that Alec was their new ally. He caressed the puppy’s head.

“What’s his name, again?” he asked in the middle of a yawn. After all the emotions of the night had passed, he was realising just how truly tired he was.

“Mr. Oscar Wilde,” Matthew replied proudly and Alec snickered. Of course he would name the dog after that author he couldn’t shut up about. “But we just call him Oscar. Ok, I’m ready, let’s go.”

Alec shut down the light on the supply closet and closed the door and they quietly began walking back to their room. It was hard to see in the dark hallway after being under the light for so long, but they let memory guide them, and when they passed through a window, Alec saw that Matthew was still looking at him with that bright smile on his face and a fond look in his eyes.

“What do you mean extended indefinitely?” Matthew paused, hand half stretched towards the doorknob of his room, all the levity his voice had carried when he first started answering his mother now gone. He knew, he knew they needed privacy, specially if they were going to talk about that, but his mother’s words got him frozen on the spot, an icy chill lumping at his stomach and spreading slowly throughout his body. “That wasn’t- That wasn’t what the Inquisitor said. She said-”

His mother interrupted him and even though he knew it wasn’t her fault, that she was only relaying the words and message of the Inquisitor and the Consul - or so he hoped - it still made him furious, a concentrated point of blazing heat amidst the ice. “Me behaving wasn’t part of the terms of the deal. I don’t care what Maryse’s reports say, the deal was-”

He cut himself now, biting his lip to keep the words from coming out. The deal was that he needed to be away from James, that he needed rip away his sick, twisted feelings and find someone else, so he would never again be able to corrupt the noble line of the Herondales - those were the words that witch had used, as if he was a virus, a disease - and it made him sick how much her words still resonated in him, how no matter how much he tried sometimes he couldn’t help but agree with her. He had, after all, been the one to first seek James out, the one that couldn’t control himself, the one that got them in all this mess to begin with...

There had been a strong underlying tone in the Inquisitor and the Consul’s voice that he was to find a girl, so they could bury the shame of all his perversions in one easy punishment, so he wouldn’t be able to corrupt anyone else, but nothing had been specifically written down on his sentence so he made a point of ignoring it. He seeked out girls, and he seeked out boys, mundanes, downworlders and shadowhunters. He had never been ashamed of himself, of anything, and besides, the more options he had, he thought, the easiest it would be to find someone else, to forget.

It wasn’t part of his sentence, it wasn’t the reason for his punishment, as wasn’t any other part of his behaviour and actions. It was only supposed to be for a year, using the exchange study trip young shadowhunters usually do to other Institutes after they come of age as a cover, but now...

The Lightwood’s reports have showed multiple infractions...

Your behaviour hasn’t been meeting the Inquisitor’s expectations...

The Council is greatly displeased...

Honestly, what did you expect, Matthew, defying them like that...

It has been decided that your punishment will be extended indefinitely until further orders...

It made him want to throw up, his breath coming out in short puffs. The sickness rose on his throat, but he knew, even amidst all of this, that he wasn’t allowed to talk about it - that was, in fact, one of the clauses of his sentence. The Institute was full of eyes and ears and even though he wasn’t exactly sure how exactly the Inquisitor could make his punishment even worse now, he was sure he didn’t want to find out.

“Mother... Mother please,” he begged, “They can’t- You can’t do this to me, this- This is exile.” The word came out in a wheezing breath, a terrified whisper as reality slowly dawned on him and panic swirled through his veins. This couldn’t- This couldn’t be happening. Criminals were exiled. Traitors were exiled. Circle members were exiled. People who did unspeakable things, committed atrocious crimes. He hadn’t done anything, this was not fair-

He felt the tears starting to well up in his eyes and he forced himself to move, to open the door of his bedroom and slip inside, slamming it behind him. He fell back against the closed door, unable to give another step as his mother talked. He knew she was only trying to make him feel better, but all he could hear were excuses.

“What does it matter if they won’t be putting the rune on me!? That doesn’t change anything! I don’t care what name they call it, they won’t let me come home, Mother! Never again! Do you get that!? I will never be able to see you, or Father, or-” Or James, he thought, his parabatai rune burning on his chest, the string that tied them always taut and thin and painful from the distance now seeming like all he would ever feel again. It was terrifying, and he wasn’t even allowed to say it, “Or any one of you ever again. Everyone I love, my family, my friends. Mother, you can’t let them do that. Please, I’m begging you, I will do anything. I promise I’m c-cured, I promise it will never be like that between me and James again, I promise, I swear on the Angel. Let me talk to the Inquisitor, I’ll tell her, I’ll prove her, I will hold the Soul Sword, I will do anything she asks, just let me come home please-”

It was his mother that had taught him the trick to hold back tears, to stare at a bright surface or light until he could focus. She was probably using it right now, her voice heavy and strained but still clear. He had no idea where she was, maybe the Gard, maybe back home, but in his dim lit room there was nothing he could focus on, not even a little bit of shine. 

He knew he was doing an impossible request, asking something his mother had no power to achieve. The Law was hard, but it was the Law, and the Inquisitor and the Consul and the Council were the Law. And even if his mother was part of it, the most she could do was relay his request, she could try intervening in his favour, begging and pleading, but she had no actual power to change anything, it was the whole Council’s decision, and they would never, ever - even if he became a model Shadowhunter overnight for the rest of his days - let him go home again.

“I know, I know, Mother, it’s ok.” He replied, his voice tired. He was just so tired, had been for weeks now, but what else could he do? “I know you will do what you can, I-”, he swallowed, “Can I talk to him? Please?”, it was the last desperate plead of a desperate man, and even though he knew what the answer would be, the negative still slashed him like hot iron as he closed his eyes. “C-Can I talk to Father? Chris? Tom? Anyone?” He begged. They would at least allow him to say goodbye, right? They wouldn’t be so cruel, right?

Wrong.

His shoulders slumped and he scrunched his eyes tight to keep the tears behind. He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He ended the call, fingers shaking around the phone as he brought it down from his ear. This wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair-

With a cry of rage he threw the phone on the wall where it smashed in tiny pieces. Next were the books on his shelves, the papers on his desk, the chairs, the pillows and covers, the tables and desks and the drawers until everything was turned over or ripped or smashed, scattered in a mess all around the room. 

He didn’t care about the noise he was making, didn’t care if they heard him screaming. Let them hear, he thought, let them see, let them know his life was over and it was all their fault, let them come and try to stop him so he could have a go at them as well, and Matthew might loath violence, but he also enjoyed it so much. He was gonna tear it all apart until everything was broken, until everything was ripped and ugly and shattered.

Just like he was.