adjure 

verb | uh - joor | meaning - to command solomnly under or as if under oath or penalty of a curse. 

chapter seven 

Undermost circumstances, Beckett Jackson loved his job as a police officer. After Luke had made him clean his act up, get control of his wolf self, and found something to bring perspective in his life, Beckett had clung on to his job for dear life so he wouldn't spiral back into being the awful mess he once was. Having a reason to get out of bed in the morning that didn't involve him ending up bloody or wasted, or sometimes both, had been a refreshing change in pace of things. 

But today, Beckett was not so fond of the idea of going to work, because that meant having to be separated from Clary. After finding her again and seeing what was happening around her, leaving her in the hands of the Shadowhunter community was the last thing he wanted to do. Unfortunately, it was his only option. She would be relatively safe with the Shadowhunters. Plus, Beckett couldn't afford to lose his job. 

There was one good thing that came out of going to work, though. Going in meant Beckett had the chance to finally talk to Luke, who hadn't been answering his phone except to tell Beckett he couldn't talk at the moment. The behavior was completely out of character to say the least seeing as Luke had been willing to drop everything to take care of Beckett when he needed it in the past. Luke was the closest thing Beckett had to a fatherly figure anymore, and Beckett wanted to get to the bottom of the cold shoulder he was on the receiving end of. 

As Officer Beckett Jackson walked up the steps to his precinct, he tightened the black tie of his police uniform. One last time, he checked to make she he had his gun and other essentials as he entered the building. As mixed up as his mind had been lately, he really didn't want to come to work without something he needed and look like a fool. 

"Aye, Jackson!" Another officer greeted with a smile when Beckett entered the elevator to get to his floor. 

"Mornin', Burke," Beckett responded in his usual gruff voice, offering the other man a small nod. 

The elevator eventually let out a high-pitched ring, and the doors opened slid open so slowly, Beckett fought the urge to pry them open with his werewolf strength. Almost immediately, Beckett was able to find Luke, sitting at his desk filing through some paperwork like everything in there life was completely normal. Beckett was baffled at the sight. 

"Luke," Beckett called out. Luke didn't look up. "Lucian!" 

This time, Luke's head snapped up. The detective was greeted by the sight of the younger werewolf marching towards him, looking like he was on a rather determined mission. Luke let out a long sigh as a greeting. He looked incredibly worn out, which was yet another thing that concerned Beckett. 

Beckett stopped his march when he got to Luke's desk, looking around hesitantly before letting his eyes fall to Luke. "Can we talk somewhere?" Beckett asked, his voice somehow managing to get even deeper when he lowered it to a hushed murmur for one Luke's ears. 

Luke studied Beckett for a moment. He'd known the boy since he was a teenager on the verge of adulthood, completely alone in life and unable to take care of himself in a proper way. Reading Beckett had been second nature almost instantly, and now he could tell Beckett had something important. 

"We can talk right here," Luke said calmly. Beckett didn't understand it right now, but Luke was doing his best to keep others suspicions off of him. 

"Luke," Beckett wanted to argue, but cut himself off when he was Luke's firm expression. Beckett nodded slowly before continuing. "I found Clary. She's safe, kind of." 

"Kind of?" Luke sat up straight in his chair. 

"She's with Shadowhunters," Beckett explained. His jaw tightened, and Luke felt ever so guilty as he watched Beckett's irritation rise. "You would know all of this if you answered your damn phone, Luke. Last time I talked to you, you were telling me not to attack the vampires to find Clary. What's going on with you." 

Luke looked over his shoulder, making sure Alaric wasn't there before standing up. He tilted his head towards Beckett's making it so the younger wolf would still be able to hear him as he talked as lowly as possible. "I'm protecting you, Beck. And I need you to trust me, okay?" 

"I've always trusted you," Beckett promised, "But right now Clary doesn't, and I need to know what you're trying to protect me from before I start siding with Clary on this one." 

"This isn't the right place to talk about it." The look in Beckett's eyes told Luke that that wasn't going to be good enough for him. As much as Luke had admired Beckett's tenacity in the past, he was really hating it right now. "All you need to know right now is the Circle members dropped by, looking into me and my affiliation with Jocelyn and Clary. As far as I know, they don't know about you, and I'd like to keep it that way. If I can distance myself from the three of you, maybe I'll be able to keep you all safe." 

"That's bullshit," Beckett retorted rather bluntly. "We have strength in numbers, you know that Luke. And they already know I'm a wolf, like you, I attacked some of them when they took Jocelyn." 

"I do, that's why I asked Alaric to get his pack to help me find Clary and keep her safe, but I can't be seen looking for her," Luke explained. "And, anyways, they don't know just how like me you are yet, and they won't be forgiving when they find out that I care about you, you understand?" 

Beckett still didn't look too pleased, but then again when did he ever. "You're trusting the other wolves to look out for Clary?" 

"No, I'm trusting you to look out for Clary," Luke answered. A small, trusting smile cracked through his serious demeanor. "They're just your back up." 

"I don't need backup." Beckett growled. He trusted Alaric enough seeing as they worked together, but he didn't like the idea of him and his pack snooping around for Clary. 

"Well, forgive me for wanting to help you out some." Luke almost laughed. 

Beckett shook his head. "You should come see her with me," he pleaded. "She's at the institute, we can go after our shift." 

"You should go, but I have to make sure there are no more circle member following me around before I put her in danger," Luke instructed. "Now go, if any of them are still hanging around, I don't want them seeing us talking. And let me to Clary about all of this when the time's right, please." 

Beckett stepped away from Luke unhappily, hating with every fiber in his being that he had to act like he and Luke weren't anything more then acquaintances. In all honesty, he didn't understand why his past had brought them together, but Luke's past was driving them apart. It felt like Beckett wasn't standing by him when he really should be. 

With a dissatisfied grunt, Beckett left to do his job, spending the rest of the day not acknowledging Luke. Throughout the day he dodged calls from Magnus, who he had yet to talk to about the memory the demon had taken from him because he didn't want to think about any of it. He had to isolate himself from his other problems. Luke needed him to stay out of the way and protect Clary, and that's the only thing he could afford to let himself concentrate on.

Beckett had driven to the institute where the Shadowhunters were holding Clary as soon as his shift was over. For all he knew, she might not even be in there any more, but she hadn't called him so the over-sized building was his only lead. 

Beckett had been in the middle of changing from his police uniform into regular clothes when he'd seen movement in front of the institute. Just as he was buttoning up his jeans, he noticed bright red hair standing on the top of the steps. Though she was a bit far away from where he was parked, Beckett knew it was Clary. By the looks of it she was drawing something on her skin. 

Runes, Beckett realized. Her figure flickered ever so slightly, and Beckett guessed that she'd put a glamour on herself so the mundanes couldn't see her. Luckily, being a downworlder, Beckett still could. Not dressing to impress anybody, he pulled a nearby NYPD t-shirt over his head, grabbed an old jacket, and hopped out of his car.

Clary had began walking rather quickly, obviously needing to get somewhere. What Beckett didn't understand, though, was why she was alone. As far as he could tell, none of her new Shadowhunter friends were around, and as much as Beckett disliked the shadowhunters, he disliked Clary being by herself even more. 

"Clary," Beckett called out when he got close enough. The younger girl turned around with a look of shock on her face that was quickly turned into relief when she saw it was Beckett. 

"Beck, I was wondering when I was going to see you again," Clary beamed brightly. She looked too happy to be someone who was being hunted down by an insane fascist, and it was cruel to think that the happy look wouldn't last for long. 

Luckily, Clary wasn't as much of a pessimist as Beckett was. Instead, the girl happily threw her arms around the werewolf, more then happy to have him back in her life. Beckett couldn't help but think that Luke should be there to, but he remembered his friend's wishes and held himself back from telling Clary everything and just allowed himself to hug her back. 

"How did you know I was here?" Clary asked when she pulled away. 

"Well, when you said you needed to go and stay with the shadowhunters instead of me because they had answers you needed, I decided that if that's how it was going to be, I was going to wait out here if when I can so I can be nearby when you needed me," Beckett explained. "I know you do, but I don't entirely trust the Shadowhunters."

"Why not?" Clary asked out of curiosity. Clary's hands, which were still holding on to her old friend, felt Beckett's muscles tighten as she asked the question. 

Beckett hesitated for a second before answering her. "I've just been around long enough to know that they only have their own interests in mind. But that's not important," he decided quickly. "I want to know why you're out hear by yourself. Where's the bottle blonde with the embarrassingly bad comebacks." 

"His name is Jace, and please never say that to his face," Clary corrected Beckett. "And things are kind of tense at the institute. There's something at the loft that I think could be important, but nobody thought it was worth the risk of getting, so I kind of snuck out." 

"Going behind the Shadowhunter's backs," Beckett summed up. "I'm in, not that I was ever out. I'm not a fan of us getting separated." 

Clary smiled up at the big, buff, werewolf whom she knew was secretly a softy. After a quick squeeze of his arm to show him her gratitude, Beckett and Clary began walking together towards her old loft. Beckett tried not to think about the last time he'd seen it, with a seraph blade protruding from his chest and Jocelyn begging him to watch over Clary. Until they found Jocelyn again, that's all he intended to do. 

"Beckett, can I ask you something?" Clary asked after a few minutes of walking. Beckett looked down at the redhead and nodded slowly, and so she continued. "Back at Magnus', with the memory demon, who was that in the memory that the demon took?"

"Clary, I can't-" 

"You know, when you first came into our life when I was still a kid, my mom sat me down and explained sexuality to me," Clary cut him off. "She told me what it meant to be gay, and that you were gay and that you needed a new family because your old one didn't understand that being gay wasn't wrong. I never understood what the big deal was, and I knew I loved you from the first time you let me beat you in tic-tac-toe. We're family, Beck, and you can talk to me about it, because that's what family does." 

"You're mom told you all of that?" Beckett's heart-ached. Of course he thought of the Fray's as family, but he never knew that they had accepted him into there family before they really even gotten to know him. When he found Jocelyn, he was going to have to thank her for caring for him the way his real family should've. 

"Of course," Clary nodded, giving him a look as if he should've already figured that. And maybe he should've because Luke and Jocelyn had always been nothing but accepting towards him. "She saw how much taking care of you meant to Luke, and she wanted to do anything she could to make your life easier." 

Beckett laughed almost bitterly. He remembered being difficult, relying on things he really shouldn't have to take the edge off of things when ever he needed to escape. Taking care of his younger self had been no easy task, and yet Luke and Jocelyn had done it without hesitation. How completely unfair it was that he couldn't ever pay them back for most likely saving his life and loving him. 

"What else did she tell you?" Beckett asked the young shadowhunter. Looking over at her and seeing her looking at him with so much care, he realized she looked exactly like Jocelyn had when he'd first met her. 

Clary's eyebrows dropped a little as she tried to remember. "Nothing else much, just that you'd lost a lot and you weren't used to people being kind to you, so we needed to be extra kind." 

The memory of an elementary aged Clary holding his hand, guiding him around her house to show him all the sketches of hers that her mother had hung up. It was one of the first time's he'd seen the young girl, and Beckett had never been in any way good with kids, but the little girl didn't hesitate to treat him like she'd known him all her life.

 Even if Jocelyn hadn't told her to, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that Clary would've been anything short of pleasant towards him. When Beckett had been to scared to even look at himself in the mirror, the young girl would crawl up on his lap and ask him to read her The Frog Princess. 

"Yeah I guess she couldn't tell you too much more without spoiling the whole Shadowhunter world to you," Beckett realized. "Not that she could tell you everything, either. The only people that know my whole story are Magnus and Luke." 

"Wish I could be like that," Clary mumbled, but she didn't sound as cynical and Beckett would've if the words had come from him. "Everyone around me seems to know my story, except for me." 

The two continued walking down the streets of New York. Both of their minds were now filled with a million and one different problems that each had in their life, and they were more thankful then ever for the other being there.

Beckett was the one to break the silence. "His name was... Jonas." 

The name came out after a moments hesitation as Beckett choked on it, clearly difficult for him to say. His entire body felt like it was closing down at the sound of the name, and it had been the one to utter it. And the worst part was, this was a much better reaction to hearing the name then he used to have. 

Clary looked over and could tell by the hurt expression on Beckett's face exactly who the 'he' Beckett was referring to was. She hesitated before asking, "Did you love him?" 

"Yeah, with everything I had." 

Beckett's voice was the softest she'd ever heard it. Clary had seen Beckett go through quite a range of emotions in the time she'd known him, but the look he had on his face, the one that made him look like a fragile young boy and not a strong werewolf, was something she never thought Beckett would reveal to her. It was so beautifully painful, she almost wanted to paint it. 

"What happened between you two?" 

Beckett laughed with no amusement. He looked up the the sky, trying to find something to concentrate on to calm him down, and blinked away the tears that were beginning to surface. 

"I've been spending all day ignoring Magnus, which I'll probably end up paying for, because I was avoiding this conversation, and yet here I am still having it." 

Clary watched as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he fought for steady breathes. How could she have never noticed that the guy who had promised he scared all the monsters from under her bed before she went to sleep at night had been living with those monsters in his head this whole time instead. Suddenly, saying Beckett was a Greek tragedy wasn't nearly awful enough to describe the horrors barely hidden behind his dark eyes. 

"You don't have to answer me anymore, Beck. It's okay," Clary softened her voice, feeling awful for making these feelings surface for Beckett. 

Beckett shook his head, fighting with everything he had to be able to continue. "I'm sorry, Clary. I don't want to keep things from you anymore I just- I've pushed this away for as long as I could remember, and I never really dealt with it in any healthy way. But now it's all coming back to me and I need time to sort, through all of it, you know?" 

"No, I don't think I know at all," Clary answered honestly. "But I understand." 

A shaky hand raised, and Beckett used it to wipe away the tears from his eyes before they could fall. Then, after he was sure any signs of him being completely and utterly broken inside where once again pushed away, he clenched his hands into tight fists and shoved them back into his jacket pockets. 

Beckett's eyes began to wonder as he realized he hadn't been paying attention to where they were, only to realize they were standing in front of the Brooklyn Academy of Art. He came to a stop, and Clary stumbled a little to keep herself from going on without him. 

"This is where you should be," Beckett sighed, looking up at the building. Sitting on the front steps was a young woman with a sketchpad, and Beckett had no problem imagining her as Clary. 

"To bad destiny has an awful sense of humor and doesn't take into account where we should be with where it wants us to be," Clary mumbled. Still, she looked at the building longingly. 

"Tell me about it," Beckett huffed. His broad chest puffed out before concaving again, letting out a long, deep breathe. 

Suddenly, Clary's phone began ringing. The people around walking about around them began searching their pockets for their own phones, trying to figure out where the ringing was coming from. None of them could see the shadowhunter next to them, rummaging through her bag for her phone. 

"If I had known you weren't already aware, I would've told you there's no point in being invisible if your phone--" 

"--Isn't on silence," Alec finished the sentence for Beckett. Beckett looked at him as an unpleasant surprise, wondering how he had allowed the shadowhunter to approach them without noticing. Alec was too busy scowling at Clary to look back at Beckett, though. "It was childish, sneaking out like that." 

"I think it was done in good taste," Beckett mumbled under his breath. That made Alec look at him, but only for a second. 

Ignoring the two men infront of her, Clary answering her phone. 

"Simon, hey. Listen, I know I should've called you right back but I couldn't. Sorry. Is everything okay?" 

Clary tried stepping away from Alec and Beckett, but they both followed her. The girl looked back and forth between the two towering above her and frowned at them, but didn't say anything. 

"Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about," Clary said in response to whatever Simon was saying to her on the other line. "Look, can I call you back later? Things are kind of crazy right now." 

Beckett looked over at Alec out of the corner of his eye. The shadowhunter was looking down at Clary unhappily, which was an expression he wore quite often, and Beckett had discovered why. He felt like he knew this raw fact about Alec that hardly anyone else did, and he wondered if Alec had realized that he knew. 

If Beckett hadn't always locked himself away so much, maybe he would've been able to tell Alec that he knew what he was going through. But Beckett wouldn't have even known where to start. 

Alec looked up from scowling down at Clary to find Beckett still staring at him. He could tell the werewolf was studying him, picking him apart with his eyes, which Alec would've normally felt defensive about, like Beckett was some hostile enemy or something. But right now all Alec felt was confused. He was confused as to why Jace had been sent out on a diplomatic mission and he hadn't. He was confused about how Clary could manage to be so unfailingly stubborn. He was confused about everything he had ever felt. 

And right now he was confused as to why it was difficult for him to break eye contact with Beckett Jackson. 

After a moment of prolonged shared eye contact for an unexplained reason, Alec was able to come to his senses and remember why he had left the institute in the first place. 

"I'm at the Brooklyn academy. I'm on my way to-" 

"--Hang up," Alec was now cutting off Clary. He gave her a meaningful glare. "That's it. He have to go. Right now." 

Clary ignored Alec and instead of hanging up, she continued to talk to Simon through her phone. "I'm on my way to the loft. There's something there that I think could help me find my mother." 

There was a pause which consisted of Clary shaking her head at Simon even though he couldn't see her, Alec crossing his arms in a rather disgruntled manner, and Beckett finally managing to take his eyes off of the dark-haired Shadowhunter long enough to listen again to what Clary was saying. 

"I'm fine, I'm with Beckett." Clary assured Simon. Alec raised his eyes at her, and Clary sighed. "And Alec." 

Simon said something else to Clary, which Clary tried to argue with, but it appeared that Simon then hung up on her. With a sigh, she put her phone away, and looked up to Beckett to try to read his face. 

"Well, Simon's meeting us there I guess," Clary told him. 

Beckett shrugged in indifference. "Wouldn't be the first time I had to chaperone for the two of you." 

"Okay, no," Alec said bluntly, looking back and forth between Clary and Beckett with discontent. "The mundane is not meeting you anywhere because we're not going anywhere, except back to the institute where you belong." 

"I can think of a number of places Clary belongs, and your institute isn't any of them," Beckett retorted. Alec gave him a side-glance that actually managed to offend Beckett ever so slightly. 

"This is hardly downworlder business," Alec shot back. 

"If it's concerning getting Jocelyn back, it is absolutely my business," Beckett and Alec stared at each other once more, this time seeing who was going to given in first. "Come on, Clary. Let's find what ever it is you think is going to help get your mom back." 

Clary nodded and began walking in the direction of her old house while Beckett waited for Alec to make his move. Alec let out an annoyed huff before eventually brushing past a determined looking Beckett and his infuriatingly unreadable expressions so he could instead follow after Clary. Once Alec had passed, Beckett couldn't help the small victory smile that danced around the edges of his lips. 

"This better be quick," Alec growled at the both of them. 

so basically i really wanted to show you how important Clary, Jocelyn, and Luke are to Beckett. They really are his family and that's why he's so willing to do all of this for them. Also, just so you guys know, Beckett is almost ten years older then Clary, so she was about eight when Luke found him and took him in. that being said, what ever you do don't imagine a young beckett who has gone through hell and in a very bad place being disgruntled sat down with a little clary and luke making him play with her, only for beckett to find out he really enjoys drawing with her in her coloring books. yeah, definitly don't imagine that. 

anyways, you guys know your comments are the best so please please please tell me your thoughts on this chapter! like how do you like Beckett's relationships with everyone?