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shamelessllamapeanutthing · 4 years ago

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Ships and Feels about them

HUGE self-indulgent post but my brain is frozen and I need to get the juices flowing so I can start studying, because if I don’t get into the college I want I just might have to kill myself and then y’all can say bye-bye to your fav fics by your majesty.

YoruSoi- status: worSHIPPING (geddit? XD) them like the goddesses they are

I regularly play Wicked Ones by Dorothy and just imagine these two tag-teaming against their opponents, like the crazy, badass, ninja lesbians they are. It fucking gives me goosebumps and makes me blush like I am imagining them rawing each other instead. I am a big time SUCKER for powerful, cut-throat wlw. They make me feel powerful by extension, and my devotion for these two is completely unparalleled.

VictUuri- status: will protect them with my life

First of all, I love how layered and interesting they are. I can think about this show and this ship for hours and hours on end ( @feastingonvicturi will vouch for that). I naturally gravitate towards angsty ships and writing (because I am a weird sado-maso cross, what can I say) except for these two fluffy bastards. I had been putting off watching YOI because of the weird things I had read about ‘yaoi’ animes (IK YOI is not yaoi, now) till someone told me how pure and deep their love for each other was and welp, here we are.

RenRuki- status: comfort ship I’ll defend till death

It was one of my first ships and even as I multi-shipper, I always had a preference for them. Childhood-friends-to-lovers trope tugs on my heartstrings like little else and Renji’s devotion towards Rukia warms my heart. I hear them in nearly every song, imagine them in every scenario I read or write about and even though I have multiple ships I adore involving Rukia and Renji both, the two together is everything to me. (Presently obsessed with the amazing hcs and art by @recurring-polynya you might wanna check them out)

KaiRay- status: heart is taking a break, but remains firmly attached

I got into Beyblade BECAUSE of this ship, because of the moments these two shared in V-Force that I caught glimpses of when my younger siblings were watching the show. I love Kai and Ray’s dynamic and I guess what attracts me the most to this ship is the fact that as a teenager I was exactly like Kai and had my own personal Ray who got me through the worst in life. I love the sense of sweet nostalgia this couple brings me and I believe they are perfect for each other.

MariahEmily- status: coffee shop AU, anyone?

I was HUGE on MariahxRay but strong, stylish, kinda bitchy, dumb thot falling for the highly educated and fierce lady boss she doesn’t really know how to approach is another one of my favourite tropes, (see: PansMione, down under). I saw them interact and due to personal reasons my brain rejects petty rivalry between girls (because we’re all tired of that, children, be honest) and immediately tries to fix it in fanon. ( @trashyartz and her beautiful drawings had a lot to do with fanning these flames.)

ShunUki- status: want them to adopt me

Need I say more? No, but I wanna. I love the steady, secure vibes of this ship. This is the one ship I physically can’t write angsty shit about because of the level of understanding and sense of comfort these two share. They give me kind and strong dad vibes and I have emotionally been an orphan since I was in my early teens so.

WolfStar- status: they’re canon, JKR can suck my toes

Fucking TERF

Listen, listen, have you been listening? I mentioned I am a sucker for angst, right? Are you looking at the angst potential here, cause wow. What originally attracted me to this ship was the Chemistry between the two, cause it’s undeniable. You can NOT imagine Maurauders’ Era without imaging these two pining over each other. It’s impossible.

PansMione- status: toxic and problematic, but oh so hot

I got on this ship because I was craving some quality wlw ships. You guys’ I can not explain to you how often female characters in shows and books do not pass the Bechdel test and I stumbled on some gorgeous PansMione art and just fell in love. IK this ship is hella problematic, but I am firm on my stance that the baby Slytherins deserve a redemption arc.

Can you imagine these two after Pansy realises everything she did wrong and vows to be better? I imagine Hermione stumbling on a hurt and confused Pansy in year 8, who can’t stop her tears from flowing and is so ashamed of herself for that. She is feeling guilty and resisting the emotion with everything she possesses because the world she’d always known has crumbled down around her and everything she believed in has now been proven to be wrong.

She lashes out at Hermione because how dare that smart, gorgeous, courageous girl also be everything Pansy once thought she was? How dare she, a muggleborn, unravel the complicated threads of the wizard world so quickly, so efficiently, and clearly see what Pansy never could? Pansy is hurt and guilty and angry and she hates the fact that fucking Granger of all people has now witnessed her crying.

She feels lost and her anger only rages louder when Hermione doesn’t gloat or belittle her, she doesn’t say anything.

(Why is this turning into a ficlet, WHAT)

Anyways, Pansy gets over herself and she and Hermione get together and oh my god, imagine them then. Smart, powerful, righteous Hermione taking the fucking Wizarding World by a storm every single day with her sexy, vivacious, clever Pansy by her side. They’d be unstoppable and they’d love each other something fierce. It would show in the way they look at each other, with a sense of victory, not only over Voldemort but over the entire Wizarding society that had done everything it could to tear them apart, and ultimately failed.

(BONUS: Imagine Ron and Harry being utter dorks when they go to Pride parades with Hermione and let the image cleanse your skin and soul. @feastingonvicturi @trashyartz one of you (or both?) needs to collab with me so I can write a fix it fic for these two, please. I will pledge my soul to the devil to be used and abused as per Trashy’s whims in exchange. Taura will do it cause she’s my best friend and loves me more than I deserve to be loved.)

(In conclusion, I adore every single one of these ships and am willing to slice a bitch’s throat to protect their honour. Except for YoruSoi, they are fictional characters IK but I am convinced they do not need anybody’s protection, least of all this dumb fuck’s and just might laugh at the very idea.)

Also, feel free to reblog or comment with rants about your own ships even if they go directly against mine. More love to you if you expand on the ships I mentioned here myself. Tell me about your poison of choice, go ahead.

But if any one of you dares to send hate to any of my ships, please know that I am something of a God in my own capacity and will smite you with my preferred weapon of choice i.e. blindness in the face of adorable puppies or kittens (in pictures, videos, art, real life or otherwise). Beware. Let people love what they love.

#my ships #Bleach #Yuri!!! on Ice #Harry Potter #beyblade #YoruSoi #victuuri #renruki #kairay #mariahxemily #shunuki #wolfstar #pansmione

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singingwordwright · 7 years ago

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(Untitled) Rock Star AU: Chapter 2

I think I’m going to keep this on Tumblr for now, at least until I have enough written or at least plotted to commit to a regular update schedule on AO3. Then I’ll edit, have it beta’ed, and post it over there.

For now it’s just going to be a casual thing I update when I feel like it. And since we’re probably not going to get any more goodies for the show this week, this seems like a good time.

Chapter under the cut. See end for more notes.

You can read the first chapter here.

Magnus craned his head around to peer over the back of his chair. “Tell me you have news for me, Raphael.”

“I have news for you.” Even Raphael’s deadpan delivery wasn’t enough to quash Magnus’s joy at the announcement. He stared eagerly, expectantly, but Raphael just stood in the doorway of Ragnor’s office, stone-faced.

“You’re going to make me ask for it, aren’t you?”

Ragnor chuckled. “I’m sure he just figures the more opportunity he gives you to blather on and on now, the less he’ll be interrupted later.”

“I don’t blather,” Magnus sniffed, turning back to face him. “I’m simply concerned that any hype I managed to generate while I was on the show will die out before I release my damn album.”

“You have to stop worrying about that,” Raphael said calmly. “Getting people excited for you is a job for Idris Records’ marketing department now, as well as your eventual publicist. Your job is making music. Let them find the audience for it”

Magnus clenched his fists to keep from wrapping them around Raphael’s throat. “But I’m not currently making any music, am I? Because I don’t have a band!”

“Tsk tsk. Be kind to your voice now,” Ragnor chided. “We don’t want to have to put you in vocal therapy before you’ve even produced your first single.”

They were winding him up. The damnable part of it was that Magnus knew they were winding him up but it was fucking working anyway.

“Did Santiago-Fell Talent get a sizable portion of my advance from the label or not?” he asked softly, gritting his teeth. “If you did, then I’m paying you to find me a band, so tell me you’ve found me a band!”

Raphael strolled into the office and slid into the other chair facing Ragnor’s desk with his usual silent, almost otherworldly grace. “We haven’t exactly found you a band...”

Magnus threw his hands in the air, wishing he had something to fling. “Seriously?”

“...But we may have found you something better.”

Magnus glanced from Raphael to Ragnor, who wore a cat-in-the-cream smile and was practically rubbing his hands together in glee. Clearly whatever news Raphael was baiting Magnus with, Ragnor already had the scoop on.

“This is why you don’t hire friends to be your agents,“ Magnus muttered.

They continued to stare at him.

“I’m waiting,” he sing-songed, hoping his bared teeth looked more like a smile and less like he was ready to literally bite one of them.

Ragnor folded his hands under his chin. “How would you feel about singing for The Nephilim?”

Magnus blinked. Then blinked again. That satisfied smile never left Ragnor’s face.

He glanced over at Raphael, who lifted his eyebrows in a silent, yes he’s serious.

“The Nephilim?” Magnus shook his head in confusion. “What in God’s name makes you think that would ever work?”

Ragnor frowned, looking affronted. “You like The Nephilim.”

“Yes I do. They’re catchy as hell and it’s obvious they’re exceptionally talented musicians whose music has been dumbed down by the label to make them more marketable in their target demographic. But when they dropped their first single, Alec Lightwood was the only one of them old enough to vote. Max’s voice hadn’t even changed yet. Their audience is, like, tween pop. Which is fine, because they make really good tween pop, but that’s not my audience.”

“Reality check: you don’t have an audience yet,” Raphael pointed out. “Your popularity is based on performing covers.”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “Okay fine. But they were covers of harder, edgier songs meant to appeal to a more mature audience. That’s the demographic I’ve been targeting.”

“It could also very well be the demographic the surviving members of The Nephilim want to capture moving forward after their tragedy,” Ragnor said, and leaned back in his chair.

Raphael nodded. “They’re rebranding. And I don’t just mean they’re trying to expand their repertoire or gradually change their sound. We’re not talking about The Beatles’ psychedelic/experimental period from Rubber Soul onward. I mean that The Nephilim are actually retiring. The surviving members are seeking a drummer and lead singer to form a new band from the ground up. I’ve been talking with Isabelle Lightwood all week and she says they’re looking for an entirely new sound and image.”

“Let’s not forget, either, that The Nephilim’s original audience is all grown up now,” Ragnor pointed out. “They are presently torn between a shameful affection that they just can’t shake for their dreamboat adolescent idols and self-consciousness over their fluffy tween pop phase. They want edgier, more mature music as well. Remaking themselves may be the only way Alec Lightwood and Simon Lewis can hold on to their audience.”

“And Jace Herondale,” Magnus added.

Raphael shrugged. “He’s a talented bassist but everyone knows The Nephilim owe their success to Lightwood and Lewis’s songwriting.”

“Herondale is also the potential downside to this whole scheme,” Ragnor said darkly. “If he doesn’t emerge from his stint in rehab fully reformed, the new band could have a very big problem on its hands.”

“The sobriety pledge Lightwood and Lewis are asking the new members is promising. Rumor has it, Morgenstern was the real bad apple,” Raphael said with a slight grimace.

“Or he was just the fall guy—” Ragnor began, but Magnus cut him off.

“Sobriety pledge?”

Raphael gave him a knowing look. “Isabelle was quite moved by your tweet thread about responsible indulgence.”

“And I was being perfectly sincere, but that doesn’t mean I plan to stop drinking entirely!”

“Not entirely. Just when you’re in the studio with the band. Or on the road with the band. Or socializing or attending events with the band.” Ragnor really was taking far too much pleasure in Magnus’s spluttering.

“I would be delighted to disembowel either or both of you right now,” Magnus gritted, glaring from one to the other.

“Does that mean I should tell Isabelle we’re not interested?” Raphael asked, smirking.

Magnus narrowed his eyes. “Scratch that. Disembowelment is too good for you. Of course I’m interested. Jackass.”

“Good choice.” Raphael pulled out his phone, his bland expression conveying how unimpressed he was by his impending evisceration. “They want you in the studio with them ASAP. I’ll set up a time and text you the location.”

Entering the soundproofed studio in the walk-in basement of Simon Lewis’s modest Los Feliz house sent an unaccustomed frisson along Magnus’s nerves. Which was ridiculous, because Magnus Bane did not get nervous. Magnus Bane did not get stage fright. Magnus Bane had never once so much as stammered during his stint in that stupid competition show, despite there being a new celebrity guest judge and guest performer every week.

He simply hadn’t ever anticipated that he would need to impress the musicians he ended up working with. He’d assumed they’d be hired specifically to work with him, not the other way around. This felt less like walking into a jam session and more like walking into an audition, only more momentous. The auditions for the so-called reality show hadn’t ever made him feel this way.

But then he hadn’t really cared about the outcome of the competition. His goal had only been to make it on stage for at least a few rounds, where he knew he could turn in performances that would jump-start his social media following. Everything had worked according to plan until the moment Raphael and Ragnor decided to hold off locating backup musicians for him and instead floated this notion of integrating with the remnants of The Nephilim.

Isabelle Lightwood had answered the door for him, and she was every bit as impressive as industry gossip had touted. She slipped her arm through his, leading him down a short hallway into the studio. “Alec is running a few minutes late, but I’ll introduce you to Simon, Jace, and the new drummer. Beware of Simon, he’s a talker and also a big fan.”

A talker and big fan, Magnus could handle. He was more concerned about Jace, who seemed a little pale and gaunt, obviously still underweight despite having spent 60 days at what Magnus was sure must have been a top-notch rehab that was probably as much a health spa as a place to convalesce post-detox. Ragnor’s point about Jace—despite Raphael’s attempt to deflect him from the subject—hadn’t missed Magnus.

Jace was the person here most likely to torpedo this whole endeavor before it ever got off the ground. They would need to watch him very, very closely.

Magnus shook hands with both of them, smiling blandly at Simon’s cheerful babble. Jace, despite his famed charm and notoriously fun-loving, laid-back attitude, was subdued and seemed almost nervous. Watching from the corner of his eye as Jace tuned his bass, Magnus wondered if maybe he wasn’t the only one who was aware of how much of their potential to succeed or fail rested on Jace’s shoulders.

That was a hell of a lot of pressure to bear, especially when someone was trying to stay clean.

“—And this is Luke Garroway, who has done some amazing studio work for Pack Howl and just finished touring with The Clave after their drummer had to have rotator cuff surgery,” Isabelle said brightly as Simon bounced on the balls of his feet, beaming at Luke.

Magnus leaned carefully across the drum kit to extend his hand. “Glad I’m not the only new face here. Was that you on Pack Howl’s latest album? Because I was blown away by the drums when I listened to it. Great work.”

“That was totally him!” Simon enthused before Luke could do more than smile and murmur his thanks. “Wasn’t ‘Prowl’ a great track? Man, I had that on repeat for weeks.”

“Absolutely.” Magnus nodded eagerly. “In fact, it sort of influenced some of the ideas I was tossing around for the theme I wanted for my first album—when I thought I was going to be doing it solo, of course.”

“Yeah, like what?” Simon asked, apparently not at all affronted by the idea of hearing Magnus’s ideas, even though he and Alec Lightwood had always been the creative minds behind The Nephilim’s music. Magnus would have expected him to be more territorial, but instead he seemed genuinely curious, glancing back and forth between Magnus and his equipment as he slung his guitar strap over his shoulder and plugged it into an amp.

“Well, I was considering—”

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” a new voice called.

Alec Lightwood, all six-feet-whatever of tall, dark, and handsome, literally had to duck through doorway. Basements tended to be a little low to start with, and the thick layer of acoustic paneling soundproofing the studio meant that Alec’s head nearly brushed the ceiling.

He looked different than he did in concert and interview videos, of course. Instead of being gelled into a calculatedly careless tousle, his hair looked fluffy, hanging across his brow, and his t-shirt and jeans were a little less tailored to cling to his torso and legs than the ones he wore on stage.

Somehow, that made him look more scrumptious, rather than less.

Before anyone could greet him, a tiny human who barely seemed to reach Alec’s knees streaked past him into the room. “Aunt Izzy! Uncle Jace! Uncle Simon! I lost my first tooth!”

“Hey, Gid, my man!” Simon crowed. “Gimme knucks.” The pint-size newcomer fist-bumped him and then showed Simon something resting in his palm. “Oh yeah, let’s see it. Awesome, that’s a big one! Is the Tooth Fairy bringing you money?”

Small fists balled up to rest on small hips. “Tooth Fairy?” Gideon gave his aunt a look as if to say, Is this guy for real?

“What?” Simon spluttered indignantly. “No one’s ever told you about the Tooth Fairy? Alec, what kind of upbringing are you giving this kid?”

“The kind that doesn’t involve extorting money for every tooth he loses?” Jace interjected quietly, and that bit of banter with Simon was the first remark Magnus had heard him make that sounded like the Jace Herondale he knew from TV and web interviews. He rubbed Gideon’s head briskly, and his smile seemed a little more solid than it had before.

Predictably, the kid only latched onto a single word of that. “Money?” He glanced up—way up—at his dad. “The Tooth Fairy will bring me money?”

“Uh, um, yeah, totally,” Alec said, sounding flummoxed. Then he folded down into a tight squat to get on his son’s level, and something about seeing him do that made Magnus’s heart flop over in his chest. “Hey, buddy, remember what we talked about? You’re going to be in the control booth with Aunt Izzy. She’ll tell you all about the Tooth Fairy and fill me in later. Got your coloring books and tablet? Okay. Don’t come out of the booth while we’re playing. It’s gonna be too loud for little eardrums.”

“‘Kay, Dad.” Gideon smiled a gap-toothed grin. Alec kissed his forehead, then stayed squatting as his son took Isabelle’s hand and disappeared into the sound booth. Only when they were gone did Alec take his eyes off them and rise.

“No school today?” Jace asked, clapping Alec on the shoulder before returning to his bass.

“Some sort of teacher in-service day. Lydia has meetings and his after-school nanny is sick,” he said with a sigh, brushing his hands on his jeans. The left, Magnus noticed, as now devoid of the wedding ring Alec was known for always wearing. His divorce had barely been a whisper on the gossip blogs after the more sensational scandal of Max Lightwood’s death and Jace Herondale’s trip to rehab.

Then Alec turned to face Magnus, and the sight of him full-on drove the breath from Magnus’s lungs. He had always assumed the gold-flecked hazel of Alec’s eyes and the lushness of his long, dark lashes were the product of really good lighting and makeup in photo shoots, but if anything Alec was more striking up close and personal.

“Hi, you must be Magnus.” Alec smiled bashfully and that, too, was a revelation. He was known for being the serious one, the grown-up whose straight-man act tempered Jace’s fuckboy flirtiness, Simon’s class clown routine, and Max’s puppylike excitability. Magnus wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Alec smile in an interview, and in the photoshoots where he did so, it always seemed a little forced.

This? This was the real deal, up close and personal.

Color crept up Alec’s cheeks and Magnus realized he was staring. He extended his hand.

“Sorry, I got distracted by seeing you with your adorable son and forgot we hadn’t been formally introduced. Yes, I’m Magnus Bane. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alec. I’ve admired your music for years.”

Alec’s smile flickered, turned a little incredulous. Clearly Magnus wasn’t the only one who felt that the simplistic mold their label had pressed them into had done their talent a disservice. Their growth as musicians had been artificially stunted until even the man who composed most of their songs doubted its quality.

Clearly at a loss for words, Alec turned away to introduce himself to Luke, which led to Simon chirping up again, “Oh, yeah, Magnus was about to tell us about some of the concepts he was tossing around for his solo album! I figured since we hadn’t yet decided on what we really want our new sound to be, maybe we should hear what he was thinking.”

Alec arched an eyebrow and looked Magnus up and down as if taking his measure, then ducked behind the rack of keyboards and began turning them on. “Yeah, sure, let’s hear it.”

As he spoke, his fingers tickled the keys lightly, the volume turned low as he tested his equipment. Magnus watched him, mesmerized by the length of his fingers and the dexterity of those huge hands. Only when Alec glanced up did Magnus realize he was in danger of staring again.

“Right. Well, my favorite concept, the one inspired by Luke’s work with Pack Howl, kind of skirts the edge of, like, old school prog rock. You know, themed albums where each song is a piece of a larger story.” Alec frowned, and Magnus could see the arguments forming behind his eyes. No one really did progressive rock much anymore; the label would declare it unmarketable. Magnus shook his head and pushed on. “Without the intellectual pretensions or psychedelic influence, I mean. People shouldn’t have to be high or have advanced degrees in classical literature to really get it.”

“How do you figure that would work?” Simon asked, brow beetled thoughtfully.

“Make the narrative that threads its way through, from track to track, something more in keeping with modern-day pop culture. Approachable to anyone who isn’t living in a cave.” Magnus rolled his eyes and pulled up a stool, sitting to face them so they all formed a circle. “Like, maybe a story about superheros, or—my favorite—an urban fantasy tale about demon hunters.”

“Like, what, The Walking Dead?” Alec asked, his lips pursed. His fingers never stilled on the keyboard.

“Or Teen Wolf! Constantine, Grimm, Supernatural, Hemlock Grove!” Simon rattled off, and Magnus laughed.

”All of that. And we’d each play different parts, right? Not like role play,” he said quickly when all of them started to look alarmed. “Not cheesy or overt. No costumes or makeup or acting. It’s more accurate to say the instruments would do the heavy lifting rather than us or even the lyrics. Word painting, in a way, with the instruments acting out the story.

“For instance, you, Simon—” Magnus pointed and stood, approaching him. “You’d be a—a vampire! Not a sinister, centuries old creature of the night, though. Not a predator. An college student who gets bitten and turned against his will, and now you’re pulled into this world and you don’t know how to navigate it. You’re trying to be a normal guy but you have these impulses you need to fight to control. Now...convey that using just the guitar.”

“Really? A vampire? Hmm.” Simon tilted his head inquisitively and closed his eyes, as though hearing the chord progressions in his head. A soft melody blossomed from his fingers on the strings and slowly crescendoed as he found the character in the music he was making. The sudden, harsh sliding chord assaulted their ears, erupting into several loud thrumming power chords that abruptly pulled back, resolving into the original melody he’d started with. “Something like that?”

“Exactly!” Magnus chuckled and started pacing, excitedly gesturing. “You take that sort of notion and work it into whatever the song we may be playing, let it inform your approach. I know it sounds like some weird musical inception shit, but, like, your guitar is that character, and that character is performing whatever song we’re on in the set list. So the only time it can be obvious is maybe when you’ve got a solo. You get what I’m saying?”

Simon nodded eagerly. “Oh, yeah, totally!” he glanced past Magnus at Alec. “If we can make this work, it could be really awesome, dude.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Alec agreed with a thoughtful tip of his head, then looked at Magnus. “Keep going. Give us the whole picture.”

Magnus dropped him a wink. “Thought you’d never ask. Jace, you’re a warrior.”

“What kind of warrior?” he asked, stroking the neck of his bass with a frown. “Another vampire?”

“No. You’re Nephilim, of course!” Magnus beamed when they all laughed. “I’m serious. You’re a half-angel demon hunter, the best of the best. You’re fierce and impulsive. Your bass line should be rapid and unpredictable, always trying to drive the tempo faster, always ready for a fight, a challenge.”

Jace nodded and started in on something that first reminded Magnus of the acid-rock-esque bass line in Heart’s “Barracuda” but which quickly differentiated into something else entirely. Magnus grinned and headbanged along for a moment before pointing at the drums.

“Let me guess,” Luke said wryly. “A werewolf?”

“Not just any werewolf—the alpha werewolf,” Magnus called back one of Simon’s sliding chords shrieked along Jace’s driving bass. “The leader, wise and patient, but savage when necessary. When the hothead over there starts to get too far ahead of himself, you rein him in, keep it steady. His kind, they don’t always get along with your people or Simon’s people, so there’s conflict there, but also the potential to work together for a good cause.”

Luke pursed his lips and jumped in on the off-beat, playing in counterpoint to Jace for several bars until they shifted to sync up so seamlessly the could have been doing it for years. Simon hooted gleefully and laided a new chord progression over their rhythm.

“So if I’m a vampire and Luke’s a werewolf, is there conflict there?” Simon had to shout to be heard. “That’d be a little Underworld, wouldn’t it?”

Magnus shook his head and they all slowly faded out until he could be heard without trashing his vocal chords.

“No, maybe there could have been, but your relationship with Luke has history that makes it more harmonious,” Magnus explained. “He’s a mentor to you, a father-figure.”

Simon grinned brightly at Luke. “Hey, just like real life!”

Magnus blinked in surprise, but before he could ask, Jace smirked. “So I guess that leaves Alec as a wizard?”

“I’m the warlock,” Magnus replied, sniffing. He made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “It gives me something I can express physically, since I’ve only got my voice and the lyrics to play with, and it’s not supposed to be that overt.”

He glanced over to see Alec arching an eyebrow at him, as if to ask, Yeah? So what am I, then?

“Alec’s also a demon hunter,” Magnus said, watching him thoughtfully. “The other half of Jace’s team. But he’s not a scrapper, like Jace. His skill is archery. He’s steady, focused, mysterious, laser-beam precise. He can get in there and dust it up if necessary, but he favors strategy.”

“Mysterious, how?” Simon asked avidly.

Magnus shrugged. “Maybe that’s for us to figure out as we go. He’s a man with secrets,” he purred. Alec frowned and narrowed his eyes, then looked down at his keyboard. From the way Jace and Simon went still, Magnus suspected this was how they’d done their composing for The Nephilim. Alec would lay something down and they would build around it.

It was a heavy, expectant moment, and then it began. A single trilling chord slowly crescendoed, then resolved abruptly into a different chord, hard and staccato. Magnus could almost see a bowstring being drawn back and the arrow being loosed as though it were playing on screen before his eyes.

Then they were off to the races. Alec’s allegro chords were a little reminiscent of “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” but with a slightly darker undertone, bringing to mind images of hunters running down their prey. Jace joined in after a few bars, his bass line a thrumming heartbeat, pounding with the thrill of the chase. Luke’s counterpoint rhythm threw the whole thing into confusion, suggesting something else was stalking the night, and the shriek of Simon’s guitar called into question who was hunting and who was the hunted.

Magnus let them riff for a while longer, ironing out any wrinkles until it came together smoothly, then grabbed the microphone and kicked in with a quickly improvised adaptation of lyrics he’d been working on for months now.

They say there’s two sides to every story As they sharpen their knives and shroud themselves in glory

Might makes right Got the angels on their side But what justice lies in store At the point of a sword?

It was clumsy and cobbled-together, but somehow also perfect. Perfectly full of potential, perfectly full of opportunities to improve and transform it into something amazing.

Alec led them through a transition and key change and they all fell in line like ducklings.

Duckin’ under sightlines Tryin’ to avoid the frontlines Keepin’ my head down Dodging heat from people whose heads never bow

They keep comin’ for me I just want to live, just wanna be Never good enough in thought, deed, or word When’s it time for my side to be heard?

Magnus could feel it, that sense of rightness, of having tapped into something special. It swelled under the music, running through them all like an electric current leaping from one person to the next until the circuit was complete.

When he glanced at the sound booth, Isabelle was beaming through the glass as though she’d won the lottery.

Magnus grinned back and began improvising another verse.

They worked for hours, recording the bare bones beginnings of half a dozen songs that they—particularly Simon and Alec—would polish and refine until they were ready to lay down the tracks for real.

Three of those were more fleshed out than the others, and though no one said it, Magnus knew they were all imagining the way those songs could segue into into one another in a medley. When played live on stage, those songs could easily become a true, fifteen minute long suite, hearkening back to the idea of old-school prog rock that Magnus had led with.

On the album, however, they would probably separate the tracks, to make it a little less obvious what they were doing when it was interspersed with a label-pleasing number of bops, ballads and anthems.

Magnus grabbed the cup of tepid slippery elm tea Isabelle had appeared with when she’d returned from one of several trips upstairs throughout the afternoon, along with one of the face towels off the stack she’d laid on a nearby stool as they’d all worked up a sweat. Even Simon’s perfectly adequate air conditioning wasn’t enough to keep them from overheating.

Luke, Simon, and Jace’s t-shirts had ended up in a sopping pile near the door, while Alec’s dark gray tee was nearly black and clinging to his torso quite attractively. Magnus felt damp and probably a little ripe as well.

Simon glanced at his phone and gasped. “Crap, I need to go. I’m gonna be late!”

“Tell Maia I’ll call her later this week,” Isabelle said with a fond smile, emerging from the control booth, leading Gideon by the hand. He rubbed his eyes and staggered a little, clearly having just woken from a nap.

Jace and Alec groaned in unison.

“Don’t talk about that sort of thing with us here!” Jace groused, batting away the towel Simon flung at his face as he rushed out of the studio.

Then Simon popped his head back around the door. “Luke, tell Clary I’ll pick her up coffee tomorrow morning,” he said, then rushed off again.

“Who’s Clary?” Gideon mumbled, all but falling into Alec’s lap as Alec sat down on the floor to receive him.

“Clary’s a friend of Uncle Simon’s,” Isabelle explained, squatting beside them. “And Luke there is her stepdad. He’s the one who got Simon interested in music, but then they moved when Clary’s mom got a job in Europe, and that’s when Simon joined The Nephilim. But Clary’s mom went away last year, like your Uncle Max did, so Luke and Clary came back home just when we needed to find a drummer. Lucky us, huh?”

“So that’s how you ended up playing for a German band like Pack Howl,” Magnus observed.

Luke nodded.

“Hey, little man,” he bent low and held out his open palm. Gideon give him a groggy high-five and Luke chuckled, something a little sad hovering around the edges of his smile. He straightened and looked at Isabelle. “I gotta run. Clary and I were gonna grab dinner tonight.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said with a gentle smile. “We can set up a time for you and Alec to debrief about how you felt things went musically today, make sure you’re on the same page there? And if you are, I’ll talk to our lawyer about the contracts.”

Luke nodded. “Sounds good. Talk to you soon, Alec. Great work today, Jace. Magnus, I thought your ideas were excellent. This is gonna be good.”

“It was great to work with you, Luke. Can’t wait for our next session,” Magnus said, waving with his cup of tea. The tea was really only a prop at this point, though. With this energy sizzling along his nerves, high on creativity and the overwhelming sense that the group had all really clicked while they were playing, he hoped he might have a chance to debrief with Alec a little now instead of making an appointment.

When Luke was gone, Jace sighed wearily. “I need to go rest,” he murmured. “Good work, Magnus. See you later, Gidlet.”

Alec frowned. “You sure you don’t want to come stay at my place?”

“Nah, I don’t think I should be around Gid until I’m feeling more like myself. As long as Izzy promises to order takeout, I’ll be fine.” He smiled wanly and slipped away before Alec or Isabelle could protest.

“Is Uncle Jace still sick?” Gideon asked solemnly.

Alec sighed and kissed his temple. “Yeah, he is.”

“But I thought he went to the special hospital to get better.”

“He did, sweetie,” Isabelle replied, stroking a hand over his dark hair. “But it’s not the kind of sickness you get better from all at once. The hospital got him over the worst of it, and he’s going to get a little healthier every day until he’s all better again. It will just take some time. But as long as he stays with one of us and doesn’t try to go home alone or anything like that, we’ll be here to help him through it.”

Gideon nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. If he decides to stay with dad, he can sleep in my room while I’m at Mom’s house. It has Captain America.”

Alec smiled. “I bet Captain America would definitely help him feel better,” he agreed. “I’ll be sure to let him know you made the offer.”

“Captain America’s kind of old now. My new room at Mom’s is gonna have Wonder Woman,” he announced.

“Good choice!” Isabelle hooted, high-fiving him.

Loath as he was to interrupt their family scene, Magnus was starting to feel a little creepy, hovering there while they spoke with no way to bring the conversation around to how Alec felt things had gone during their jam session.

“Well, I should get going,” he announced, setting down his empty teacup. “We’ll do our post-game roundup another time, Alexander?”

Alec’s cheeks seemed to darken slightly as his eyes flicked quickly over Magnus and then back up to his face in a cruise so swift and subtle Magnus would have missed it if he hadn’t been on the lookout for it.

“Um, y-yeah. I, uh, I-I need to get Gideon to his mom’s house soon, so I— I, um, have to go soon, myself.”

Isabelle glanced from Alec to Magnus and one corner of her mouth turned up.

“Why don’t you let me take Gid to Lydia’s place tonight?” she suggested, beaming. “We were having fun together in the control booth earlier and I have nothing going on tonight. You and Magnus need to talk about how the session went anyway, so you might as well do it while it’s still fresh in your minds? Especially if Magnus is going to have the sort of creative input it appears he will; that’s totally different from the way the band used to work.”

Alec’s brow furrowed and he looked at his son, who craned around to meet his eyes. “What do you think, buddy? Want Aunt Izzy to take you home?”

“You can show me your plans for your Wonder Woman room,” Isabelle added.

“Yeah!” Gideon shouted and scrambled carelessly off Alec’s lap, resulting in a muffled grunt that had Magnus wincing in sympathy. “I get to ride your car! Can we put the top down?”

Magnus smiled as Gideon dragged Isabelle out the door to transfer his booster seat into what would no doubt turn out to be a very stylish convertible.

“Don’t forget to tell Mom about the Tooth Fairy!” Alec called after them, then sighed heavily. “How much money is the Tooth Fairy even supposed to leave in today’s economy?” he muttered, standing to dust himself off. He glanced uncertainly at Magnus.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Magnus said before any opportunity for an awkward silence had a chance to set in. “Would you care to have dinner with me, Alexander? Then we can talk about the music.”

On to Chapter 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: There’s a musical technique called Word Painting (and if it has a more formal name I’ve forgotten it in the ~25 years since I learned about it) where an instrument or instruments imitate what the lyrics are describing.

A good example of that would be in Bob Seger’s “Hollywood Nights” at about 1:11 (listen to what the piano does after “They watched the waves tumble over the sand” and you’ll hear the piano is imitating the waves.)

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Another example would be at 4:50 seconds of “Driving the Last Spike” by Genesis. Listen to the tumbling descent of both the vocal part and the drum part on the line “Stone fell like rain.”

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Actually Genesis is a good place to look for the kind of more modern prog rock Magnus is describing in this chapter, especially their later stuff rather than the old-school variety in the Peter Gabriel era. Check out "Driving the Last Spike” for more straightforward storytelling, and then also “Home by the Sea” for a slightly more abstract prog rock piece (gotta love a band that makes a song about a cat burglar getting stuck in a haunted house.)

Pay particular attention to the second part of “Home by the Sea”, from around 4:30 onward, once it becomes wholly instrumental. That’s Tony Banks on the keyboards, whom Alec compares himself to in Chapter 1 of this story. It’s really his skill at the keyboards that stands out about Genesis’s music.

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If you enjoy those songs, feel free to check out the rest of the Way We Walk Live Tour in 1992. It was really a great concert (and one I actually almost got to go to, but not quite.) Again, listen closely to Tony Banks on the keyboards, because I take a lot of my inspiration for Alec’s playing from him. If you listen to the Old Medley starting at around 24:50, you’ll hear part of “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” which I mention in this chapter (you can find the camera that focuses solely on Tony in this video here: https://youtu.be/wXm6jH0z324?t=129).

#shadowhunters #malec #fanfic #my fics #rock star au #addiction cw #character death cw #long post

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