#Divinity Forsaken . Valentin | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bamf-alec · 3 years

Text

All Things By A Law Divine

Chapters 11-15

Artist: Lady Koalart (who did an absolutely incredible job)

Beta: @jeanboulet

Pairings: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, various background pairings

Summary: Magnus had waited a long time for his soulmate to be born. Fate must have had a sick sense of humour, though, because after all these centuries, it had handed him a Shadowhunter. Magnus didn’t know who this Shadowhunter was, or how they could possibly be meant for each other, but he did know that this story wouldn't have a happy ending.

Alec also knew all about fate's sense of humour. He had known this his whole life. But the ground was coming up from under him and everything he knew was being turned on its head, systematically picked up and pulled apart and handed back to him looking nothing like it did before. Valentine was alive. His own parents had been members of the Circle. The Lightwoods’ grip on the Institute was slipping. And, through all this, his siblings had found their soulmates.

Alec had found Magnus. But that didn’t mean anything, did it?

Link to AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33515842/chapters/83272549

** I would really prefer you read it on AO3! **

This fic was created for the Shadowhunters Mini Bang 2021: Presented by the @malecdiscordserver

Chapter 11

Alec could not believe that he was here. He wasn’t sure that he was, actually. The crumpled address in his hand didn’t feel real. Neither did the door in front of him.

This was stupid. This was pointless.

Valentine was alive and sending Forsaken into the Institute. Valentine’s daughter was sleeping in the room across from Jace. Alec’s family was in very real danger of losing control of the Institute. Lydia had politely asked him if getting married might save it. Alec had nearly said yes, and then he had said no, and then he had said that he needed a minute to think about it.

In that minute, he had gone through the Institute database and found a warlock that specialized in souls, and the bonds between them. Then, he had taken a second minute. In that minute, Alec had taken a page out of his siblings’ book and snuck out of the Institute before anyone was awake enough to notice.

This would lead nowhere. Alec would reaffirm what he had always known, the voice of doubt Izzy had infested his mind with would quiet, and that would be that.

The door swung open so swiftly that Alec felt his hair move. A very pixie-like woman stood in front of him, barely coming up to the top of his ribcage. Her hair seemed like an entire other person, stark white, long, and massive. It looked like it was floating more than sitting on her head.

“Um,” Alec said, because the reason he was here had suddenly escaped him.

The woman sighed breathily, like she was quite tired or perhaps like she was bored of this plane of existence. She said, “Yes.”

Alec thought it was meant to be a question, but it didn’t sound like one. He shook himself. He glanced behind him at the street, which looked perfectly normal. Roses were dying in pots that went all the way around the house.

“You’re the Diviner?” he asked, despite how stupid it felt. The Diviner. Like it was pulled from a fairytale. A cliché one at that.

“Oh my,” she said, inexplicably. “You’d better come in. Yes, you’d better.”

Alec wasn’t sure all of that had been directed at him, but he stepped inside nonetheless. As the door closed behind him, most of the light in the room was shut out. Everything was cast in dark shadows. The winding staircase seemed to reach into oblivion, and he wasn’t certain that if he stepped forward there would be a floor there to catch him.

There was. She led him down the hallway to a sitting room, which had large bay windows that let in giant swaths of sunlight. Lace curtains did their best to temper it, to no success. When prompted, Alec took a seat on one of the floral couches. The Diviner sat across from him, a coffee table between them with an old-fashioned tea set on top.

“Tea?” she asked. He shook his head. She sighed that same, breathless sigh. “All the better. I only have mint.”

Alec sat on her couch, trying to figure out what to do with his hands, while she drank her mint tea and watched him. She didn’t blink.

He cleared his throat. It took him two attempts to get out the words, and even he could hear the reluctance in his tone. “I’m here about soulmates.”

“Yes,” she said. Again, it wasn’t a question. Alec thought it was probably because most people who came to see her were here about soulmates. He waited to see if she would say anything else. She didn’t.

His fingers only shook a little, not noticeable to anyone but him (he hoped), as he rolled up his sleeves to show her his wrists. Bare, as they had been for as long as he could remember.

“Blank,” she noted, unhelpfully. She took another sip of her tea. “They said it means you’re alone.”

It still wasn’t a question. She seemed to know everything about him already. He couldn’t decide if it was a relief or unnerving.

Alec frowned. Self-consciously, he tugged his sleeves back down. “They did.”

“You believe them?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s a tricky thing, belief. Sometimes it makes things true. What’s that called again? Plack… Plum…”

“Placebo effect,” Alec offered. “Are you saying I don’t have a soulmate because I don’t believe I have a soulmate?”

She sighed again. She drank her tea. She looked out the large, bay windows. “Did I say it was your belief?”

Alec blinked. She waited for an answer. Uncertainly, he said, “No?”

She leaned forward to reach across the table with an impatient flick of her fingers. The tea had vanished and, now that he thought about it, Alec couldn’t remember her ever having brewed it. It had just appeared, cup full in her hands, despite the teapot between them.

It took him a moment to understand what she wanted, and then another to roll his sleeves back up and offer her his wrist.

Her fingers were cold when they closed around it. Dainty. He watched her face instead. Her eyes were very dark, or maybe very bright. It was hard to tell. She pressed her nail into his skin until it bled, and he winced, resisting the urge to snatch his arm back. She seemed pleased by this.

“The other,” she demanded. He gave her his left wrist. She dug her nail in again. She seemed more pleased. “What a neat little lie. The sort we’re not supposed to tell.”

Alec felt dizzy. He stared at her very strange eyes and her nail, still digging through the first couple layers of his skin, and his wrist, blank. Not even a rune trespassed on it. “What?”

“Barbaric,” she continued, as though he hadn’t spoken. He did not interrupt her look of deep thought to tell her that ‘neat’ and ‘barbaric’ were two things that tended not to describe the same entity.

She dropped his arm. “Do you like stories, Mr. Lightwood?”

“No,” he said, because he had a feeling she wanted to tell him one, and he could feel his skin crawling all over with the need to just know, already. He ignored the fact that he had never given her his name. She was in the business of souls, and it seemed unsurprising that she would have some magic way of finding it out.

She looked a little disappointed. “Oh. Well, then I will just tell you. Your mark’s been erased.”

Alec felt like he’d been punched in the chest. He struggled, for many long seconds, to recover his breath. Fucking Isabelle, he thought, but the thought barely reached his conscious.

“Erased?” he repeated, urgently. “So I had one?”

She nodded. “So you had one. This kind of magic’s been outlawed since… Well, for quite a while. One of the few things that nearly everyone can agree on is that it's....”

“Barbaric?” he offered, but he wasn’t looking at her. He stared down at his hands, the two half-moons on his wrists. He ran his fingers over the left one, like he would feel whatever had been there, but of course he could not. So many emotions warred for dominance inside of him that instead he felt numb. He swallowed. “Can I get it back?”

“No,” she said, putting precisely zero effort into softening the blow. Alec had only an instant to feel both crushed and weightless at the same time before she continued. “But just because the mark is gone, doesn’t mean the bond is. Like ridding you of the symptoms, but not the disease. Denial is not as strong as belief, you know. It always falls apart.”

Alec ignored that she’d just compared having a soulmate to having a disease. He scrubbed his hands down his face and breathed in and out. He wondered if his siblings knew. He wondered if his parents knew.

And then he immediately felt stupid because of course his parents knew. Who else could have done this?

“I think I’ll take that tea now,” Alec muttered.

There was a knock at Alec’s door.

Please, Alec thought desperately to the ceiling, sprawled out on his bed. Please, Jace. Go save the world by yourself today.

Jace knocked again. When there was still no response, he opened the door to peer inside. It was the middle of the day and his room had two windows, but Alec had turned the light on anyway. He could feel the frown from across the room as Jace picked his way through scattered papers to the side of the bed.

“Dude,” he said, poking Alec’s foot. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Alec replied despairingly. Alec was not usually melodramatic, and he was not being melodramatic now. It was very possible that, in fact, everything was wrong.

Jace said agreeably, “Okay,” and then yanked on Alec’s feet until Alec’s knees slid off the end of the bed and he was forced to sit up.

Alec glared at him. “What?”

Jace had been Alec’s parabatai for too many years not to be immune to his glare. “Come with me.”

Alec laid back down. “No.”

Witheringly, “Alec.”

Also witheringly, “Fuck off.”

Jace sighed. He looked over Alec, assessing the damage, then patted his leg. “Wanna go kill some demons?”

Alec considered it. “No,” he decided.

Enticingly, Jace said, “There’s a whole nest of raveners at the docks.”

Less certainly, Alec repeated, “No.”

Jace seemed to realize the gravity of the situation, then. The bed dipped under his weight, his knee knocking into Alec’s. When Alec glanced up to see what he was doing, he found Jace watching him with a concerned expression. “Are you okay?” he asked. “For real?”

Alec looked at him. He swallowed. He was running his fingers over the blank skin on his wrist. It was going numb, and it was definitely red, but he couldn’t stop. Even when he knew that Jace had noticed.

His voice was very small when he admitted, “No, I’m really not.”

Jace, who had never heard him sound so lost in all the years they’d known each other, looked alarmed. He cast a glance at the door, probably wondering where Isabelle was, because usually she was the one that coaxed the truth out of Alec. But Jace knew that Isabelle was with Clary, and so did Alec.

Jace hesitated to ask, “Is this about Magnus?”

Alec didn’t react. He wanted to be surprised, or to be terrified that Jace had picked up on this thing that he had never told him. He could feel it, too, the shame and the fear and the knowledge that if he blew Jace off, he wouldn’t ask again. But it was so distant, so buried, beneath this numbness that had settled over Alec this morning and not gone away since.

“He seems nice,” Jace offered. When Alec looked at him, he looked supremely uncomfortable, because they both knew that this was not a thing they talked about. Jace didn’t talk about girls with Alec, either.

To spare him the awkwardness, Alec snorted. “Nice,” he repeated. “Yeah, he’s nice.”

Jace nodded. He looked away, around the room, seeking a change in subject.

Alec dug his fingernail into his wrist, right beside where someone else had done so already. “Did you feel it?” he asked. “Clary. If you hadn’t seen the mark, would you have known?”

Jace turned back to look at him again. His brow furrowed, but he gave the question real thought. “Maybe,” he replied. “Maybe not. I wanted it to be, and I felt connected to her, but I think… I don’t think, without the mark, that I would’ve been sure enough to act on it. I would’ve had too many doubts.”

It was not the answer Alec would have hoped for, if he’d been accustomed to hope. Of course Jace would have had doubts. Of course anyone, with no mark, would have doubts. The mark was a confirmation, a reassurance, a certainty. They existed for a reason.

This one, it said, with no room to question it. This is the one.

He thought about telling Jace about his stolen mark. He couldn’t find the words. What could Jace say that would help, anyway?

Nothing. There was nothing. The mark was gone. It would never not be gone. Alec would live in doubt for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever.

I suppose, the Diviner had told him when he’d asked how he would know the bond when he found it, you will just have to ask around.

Alec thought about asking Magnus about his soulmark, and shivered. There was absolutely no universe where he could be that brave.

Did he have to ask? Or would he know if he saw it, on Magnus’s wrist?

How foolish and naive to even consider that Magnus Bane could be his soulmate.

But doubt — stupid, niggling doubt — gave him pause. Alec wanted to know. He wanted to be certain.

He knew where he needed to go.

Chapter 12

“Hey,” said Alexander Lightwood, standing in front of the door to Magnus’s loft in jeans and a t-shirt. He scratched the back of his neck. He didn’t have any of his regular shadowhunter gear with him, nor were there any obvious wounds to tend to. He didn’t sound like he was here with urgency, so no one must be dying. “Can I come in?”

Delighted but trying not to show it, Magnus stepped aside to let him through. He watched Alec, hands tucked in his pockets, inspect his living room like he’d never seen it before. Magnus had only swapped out a few statement pieces since the last time he’d been here.

Magnus shook himself. “Drink?” he asked, gesturing to his drink cart. It was his favourite part of the loft, and he was not ashamed of it.

Alec gave him a dubious look. “It’s five in the afternoon.”

“Suit yourself,” Magnus shrugged. He tapped his fingers on the back of his couch, a plush green velvet. His rings clicked against each other. “Not that I’m complaining, but what brings you here this fine evening, Alexander?”

Alec frowned a bit at the use of his full name, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes flitted over Magnus, and then over his bookshelf, and then back over Magnus. They stayed just a second too long on his wrist, covered by his silk dress shirt.

Oh? Magnus thought, a thrill running through him.

“I wanted, um,” Alec paused. He looked away. His brow furrowed in distress. Adorable. “Actually, I didn’t really think of an excuse.”

Magnus laughed. “You could just say that you wanted to see me.”

He’d meant for it to ease the tension Alec was clearly feeling, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Alec’s jaw tightened, and he looked out the balcony doors at the city.

So maybe he hadn’t just wanted to see Magnus. He was here for a reason. A reason that had him pretending not to be looking at Magnus’s wrist again. Magnus’s heart tried to pick up its pace, but he stopped it before it got too carried away.

Alec let out a frustrated breath and shook his head, but it was directed at himself. He inspected one of the couches, debating if it was safe to sit on. Magnus threw himself onto one to demonstrate, and Alec gingerly took a seat. Across from Magnus, further away than he’d hoped.

Alec was looking at his hands when he said, “When you did the autopsy, and you came in while I was training. Did you see…?”

“Your mark?” Magnus finished for him. Alec looked immediately relieved, like that was answer enough, which confused him. “No. Why?”

“No reason,” Alec said too quickly. He leaned back on the couch, much less tense. He looked around, obviously trying to change the subject as fast as possible. His eyes lit up a bit when he found something. “Books. You have so many. You read?”

Magnus did not laugh, even though he wanted to, because it might’ve been strange when Alec didn’t know that Magnus had read more pieces of literature from his wrist than from any book in the last two decades. He also did not laugh at the desperate, stilted attempt at small talk, because Magnus was nice and he found the awkwardness endearing.

“I used to,” he offered conversationally. “Not so much anymore. I think I stopped around the… 20’s? 30’s? I had enough stories of my own, and I was growing bored of reading other people’s made-up ones. You?”

Alec hummed thoughtfully. “I used to,” he echoed. “It’s hard to find the time, now.”

Magnus was reminded that the boy across from him had many things on his shoulders, probably more than Magnus knew about. “Would you like to borrow something? I can think of some recommendations I might have.”

“Oh,” said Alec, a bit taken aback, but in a good way. “Yeah, sure. That’d be… That’d be nice.”

Smiling amiably, Magnus set about retrieving the books he was thinking of. He passed them each to Alec, who had followed him into his study where he kept most of them, and gave him a brief synopsis of each. Because he was Magnus, most of the synopses were inaccurate and consisted more of jokes than any valuable information. Alec only smiled, amused.

At six, Alec finally allowed Magnus to make him a drink. They drank them on the balcony. It was winter, so the sun was already starting to set, and it cast an orangey-pink hue over the city.

At eight, Alec’s phone went off, and he made an unhappy face at whatever name was on the screen. He looked at Magnus, stuffing it back in his pocket. His eyes followed the length of Magnus’s arm to the glass he was holding, but stopped just a bit short.

“I should go,” he said. “Institute things to take care of.”

He’d waved a vague hand around to indicate the things that needed doing. It was charming.

Magnus sighed, softly, so that Alec wouldn’t hear. “Of course. You’ll tell me what you think?”

Alec looked confused for a second before he followed Magnus’s gaze to the short stack of books on the coffee table inside. “Oh!” he said. “Right, yeah. I’ll text you?”

“Or you could come over and tell me in person,” Magnus offered, but he also shrugged to indicate that both were equally sound options.

Alec met his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe.”

He looked like he’d gotten a bit lost in space for a second, but then he smiled. He politely handed Magnus his empty glass, retrieved the books, and let Magnus walk him to the door.

Magnus waved him off when the door opened, already beginning to tidy up the mess he’d made while mixing their drinks. He looked up in confusion when he didn’t hear the door shut.

Alec had stopped in the doorway, his hand on the knob. He turned back to Magnus, and his expression was steeled. Magnus raised one questioning eyebrow at him.

“I don’t have one,” Alec said suddenly. He sounded very decisive. “I asked if you’d seen my mark, because I don’t have one. I think my parents probably figured out it wouldn’t lead to someone they approved of, so they got rid of it.”

The door shut behind him, the sound infinitely louder than it should’ve been, and Magnus could do nothing but blink.

Chapter 13

It took Magnus a very long time to process the information he’d been given. It grew dark outside while he sat on his couch. He’d collapsed onto it a while ago, when his knees had gone a bit weak.

Magnus considered the facts.

Alec was his soulmate. He was certain of it, now. The marks matched too well, and he had felt it with his magic.

Alec did not know that he was his soulmate, because Alec didn’t have a soulmark.

Alec didn’t have a soulmark, because someone wretched had wiped it away.

Magnus had been waiting impatiently for Alec to just figure it out already, because surely the mark couldn’t be that difficult to interpret, while Alec had actually not been figuring anything out, because bare skin was quite difficult to interpret.

No, he’s definitely figured something out, Magnus amended.

He replayed the words again. He brought up Alec’s face, and his tone, and how he’d looked when he’d first gotten here, too.

It seemed like this was new information to him, too. And if that was true, then Alec’s bare wrist must have meant something different to him before. Then Alec had spent his whole life thinking there was nothing there because there was noone for him.

Now, Magnus remembered that Izzy had texted him to ask about his mark, and he realized she had been asking because she had been hoping this wasn’t true. Had Alec? Or had he just accepted it and resigned himself to being alone forever while everyone around him found love?

Magnus was beginning to get to know Alec, and he thought the latter was much more likely.

He looked at his mark, now.

Fearless.

Magnus was probably reading too much into it, but it seemed darker than it had the last time he’d seen it, years ago. More certain. Conviction, rather than desperation.

Magnus leaned back until he could look at the chandelier above him. It was a magnificent thing. It wouldn’t be allowed in his loft if it wasn’t.

Very, very slowly, in the manner of dread and things much more awful, something crept up on him. He remembered a woman at his doorstep, the rain, and the circle carved into her neck. The tiny little thing in her arms, the only reason she would have ever put aside her uncompromising beliefs. The memory had been gone for years, buried because it was insignificant to him and his own life.

He reached for it now. It came back, some pieces so vivid he thought he could smell the rain in the air, and some pieces still blurry enough that it felt like a disc in a record player, skipping.

Nothing matters but protecting them, Maryse Lightwood had told him, holding her son in her arms. She had seen his eyes, cat-like. One of a kind.

Magnus did not let himself wonder if that was what had done it. He did not let himself wonder if this was his fault, if she might’ve been oblivious before she met him and left her son’s soul alone. He wouldn’t have been able to close his eyes ever again, if he did.

Magnus did let himself wonder how it had happened. Who had done it? It took magic — the dark, twisted kind — to bury a soul inside itself.

Could it be undone?

Magnus’s eyes cast into his study, where he knew he had a book on soulmagic. He stared at where he thought it might be on the shelf. He twisted his rings around and around.

No. He shook himself. Alec hadn’t asked for that. Alec hadn’t asked for anything. Magnus didn’t know what he wanted, and it wasn’t right to assume that he might.

He didn’t know how much Alec already knew.

Did he know Magnus was his soulmate? Or had he told him for some other reason, because it was a magic kind of curse and Magnus, too, was magic? Because it was a very different kind of thing and Magnus, too, was a very different kind of person? Because Alec’s only friends were his siblings, and his family was too caught up in it already?

Magnus wanted to call Catarina or Ragnor to say all of this out loud, but he couldn’t do that, either. Alec had trusted him, and he couldn’t break that.

So Magnus sat, and he drank, and he avoided looking at any of his spellbooks, and he wondered when it would be appropriate to ask Alec if they could see each other again.

Chapter 14

Alec couldn’t stand to be in the same room as his parents, and his mother was beginning to notice. Maryse was working up to confronting him about it, her frustration rising each time he left the room shortly after she entered it. It was frustration born mostly out of confusion, but also out of the fact that Alec had yet to give them an answer on his hypothetical impending nuptials.

Alec did not want to be confronted, so he avoided the Institute in general as much as he could. Thankfully, Maryse hadn’t been on active duty for pretty much as long as she’d lived in New York, so she kept mundane hours. When it was dark and she was most likely asleep, Alec was free to roam the Institute as much as he wanted. Most of his roaming ended in the training room.

“So,” Jace said. He was cut off briefly by Alec’s fists pummeling the punching bag he held steady against his chest, knocking some of the breath out of him. Jace shifted his feet to brace himself better. “You want to tell me what’s up or am I going to have to guess?”

Alec didn’t look at him or stop pummeling the punching bag. “You’re going to have to guess.”

“Okay.” Jace shrugged. He squinted like he was really assessing his parabatai. “A ravener demon snuck into your room last night and poisoned you, and now you are both suffering from, you know, being poisoned, but also not getting enough sleep. Because of the ravener demon. Am I close?”

Alec snorted. “Yes,” he said, taking a step back. He wiped the sweat from his brow and pushed the hair that was clinging to it off his face. “You got me, Jace. That’s exactly what happened.”

“I knew it,” Jace agreed happily. He patted the side of the punching bag as he stepped up to see Alec without having to crook his head around it. “For real, though. I can feel when something’s wrong, Alec. And lately the parabatai bond’s been… a mess. I let you have your moment the other day and gave you time to sort it out yourself, but now I’m worried, man.”

Alec clenched his jaw, inspecting his knuckles. Bleeding, ripped open where they hadn’t had a chance to heal from yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. He barely felt it.

He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“Okay. Then how about it’s none of your business?”

“Alec,” Jace sighed. He gave Alec a longsuffering look. Alec gave him the same look back, but more surly. They stared each other down for a minute, both too stubborn to look away and admit defeat.

Finally, Alec let out a long breath. He scraped his fingers through his hair, wet from the hour he’d been in here before Jace showed up under the guise of helping him train. He should’ve known. Jace was nowhere near as bad as Izzy, but he, too, was a nosy dick who couldn’t leave well enough alone. Not when it came to Alec.

Alec had been tired of his siblings always having something to say about his personal life years ago, and since then it had only gotten worse. It was only ever getting worse because in their eyes Alec was never getting better. How many times had Izzy made unsubtle comments about cute boys he might like to go out with? How many times had Jace slapped his shoulders and asked if he needed a wingman? How many sad, pitiful looks had they given him and his blank wrist and his nonexistent love life?

Like he could hear what Alec was thinking, Jace glanced around quickly. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice when he said, “Is this about your soulmark thing?”

Your soulmark thing.

That was what Jace had always called it, ever since Alec had fessed up and told him that he didn’t have one. Jace hadn’t believed him at first. Everyone had a soulmark. He’d turned both of Alec’s arms this way and that, like it was hiding in there somewhere, before he’d finally given up and accepted that Alec was telling the truth. Then he’d shown Alec the easel that spread across his entire wrist with a grim expression and admitted that he thought his soulmate might be a mundane. Shadowhunters didn’t have time for such hobbies, unless they were retired. It was doubtful a fourteen year old’s soulmate was in their sixties.

Alec wondered if it was strange for warlocks who had to wait centuries just for theirs to be born. How much life they had lived before them, how much they knew, and how little their soulmate would when they met them. Even if it were someone who shared their immortality, another warlock or a vampire or a seelie, they would have lived a dozen lives before the one they eventually shared with their soulmate.

It sounded lonely.

Did Magnus seem lonely?

Alec pursed his lips and burned the thought from his head, with fire. He shook his head at Jace. “It’s not about ‘my soulmark thing’.”

It was, of course.

Jace eyed him suspiciously. “Are you sure? Because the other day you were asking me about Clary, and I thought that maybe it sounded like you’d found someone you liked, and that maybe you thought they could be the one.”

“I don’t have a soulmate, Jace,” Alec told him, even though he knew now that it was a lie. The lie came off his tongue as easily as breathing, because it had sounded like the truth for so many years now.

“But you found someone?” Jace asked. It was much gentler, quiet and hopeful, hesitant. Even more so when he ventured to add, “Maybe someone like Magnus Bane?”

Alec’s throat closed. He dug his fingers into the knuckles on his other hand. He looked his parabatai dead in the eyes, steadied himself, and said, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jace looked back for a very long moment. Then, he looked past Alec, out the archway that led into the hub. It had been a quiet night so far, so there were only two people watching the screens for signs of activity.

“Yeah,” Jace sighed eventually. He clasped Alec’s shoulder and gave him a wry smile on his way out. Jace waited until he was halfway out the door to turn around and add, “By the way, Lydia called Magnus in to fix the wards. From the Forsaken attack. I think he’s coming tomorrow.”

That fucking… Alec didn’t finish the thought. He made a frustrated noise, combing his fingers none too gently through his hair, digging them into his scalp. The frustration swelled quickly into anger, overwhelming only because he’d never felt it like this before. It was an all-encompassing anger, extending from his absent soulmark and his parents to Jace and Izzy and his expected marriage and Valentine and Clary and—

And…

Alec went back to his room. He peeled off his clothes, damp with sweat, and splashed water on his face. In the mirror, an unhappy face looked back at him. He pursed his lips and looked away, left the bathroom to sit on the edge of his bed.

He played with the bracelet on his wrist. Leather, worn over the years but still strong. A thin, intricate braid that must’ve taken weeks of work for someone so young, but so determined to make sure it was perfect.

Isabelle had given it to him when she was eight. She’d said that this way, just like everyone else who had a soulmark, if he looked at his wrist he would always know there was someone who loved him unconditionally.

It took a moment for Alec to realize he was crying. A sob ripped out of him before he could stop it. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and bit down hard on his lip. Minutes passed. He breathed deeply, in and out, until it felt like he was getting enough air again.

Then he dropped his hands. He twisted Izzy’s bracelet around his wrist, smoothing his thumb over the familiar pattern.

He glanced at the short stack of books on his desk, one finished and another bookmarked halfway through, and then at his phone on the nightstand, and then at the door. Somewhere, Izzy was probably taking off her makeup or picking out which heels she should slay demons in tomorrow. Jace was probably either with Clary or pretending he didn’t want to be. Magnus was probably… Doing whatever warlocks did. Brewing potions? Casting spells? Mixing drinks?

The thought of being alone when his head was such a mess sucked, but the thought of talking to any of them also sucked, so Alec chose what was most familiar. He turned the light off, kicked off his boots, and went to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours, praying for sleep but knowing it likely wouldn’t come.

Chapter 15

Magnus, though he did fix the Institute’s wards, ended up overstaying his welcome. He was pulled into some intricate plot to smuggle the mortal cup out of the Institute. Alec was notably absent for the entire process of retrieving it from some super special Shadowhunter storage box, but neither Jace nor Isabelle volunteered any information as to his whereabouts. When Magnus tried to ask, Izzy pursed her lips.

“I haven’t seen him all day. He’s probably…” She shared a look with Jace, who didn’t mask his concern in time. Izzy turned back to Magnus with a decisive nod. “Busy. He’s busy.”

Magnus frowned, but he let them be mysterious. “Well then, I suppose I’ll leave you to it. Give Biscuit my best.”

He saw Jace mouth ‘biscuit?’ to Isabelle, who shrugged. She smiled at Magnus. “Thank you so much for your help. We’ve got it from here. We’ll walk you out.”

“Actually,” Magnus interrupted. He looked between the two of them, the duffle bag Izzy was holding with the mortal cup, and the hub full of busy Shadowhunters. Robert Lightwood, who’d accompanied him while he reinforced the wards, was conspiring with a group of people at one of their holographic tables. Alec was still nowhere in sight. He turned a charming smile on the remaining Lightwood children. “I should check the wards again. Make sure everything’s in order. Don’t want any more Forsaken finding their way in.”

Jace shrugged and left, off to bring Clary the mortal cup. Isabelle stuck around for another moment. She watched Jace’s back until it disappeared through the door before she took a deep breath.

“He’s probably on the roof,” Isabelle told Magnus. She held his gaze, unwavering. “He was injured in the Forsaken attack. Maybe you could speed up the healing process for him.”

“Ah,” said Magnus. He rested a hand on her arm, squeezing. “Thank you.”

Isabelle smiled. It was tight and sad. Then she left, and Magnus immediately regretted not asking how to get to the roof. He sighed and braced himself for a long journey navigating the maze that was the Institute.

It did not take as long to find the access to the roof as it had to find the morgue, thank God, but it was still at least fifteen minutes before Magnus could breathe a sigh of relief and stop feeling dizzy at the endless identical hallways. It was only when he found the stairwell up that he paused.

Magnus hadn’t spoken to Alec since he’d paid Magnus that visit. It’d been well over a week. He’d hoped for a text or a call or another impromptu knock at his door, some sign of life, but received none. Magnus had questions and he had worries, and he had things that were both, but he also had no idea what was going on in Alec’s head. Would he want to talk about it? Or had he said what he’d said only to say it, to have it be said, and then to never have to bring it up again?

Magnus didn’t know. He liked to think he was starting to understand Alec, but clearly not well enough. Perhaps the best thing was just to give him space and wait for Alec to come to him. He must’ve known Magnus was coming. If he’d wanted to see him, he would have. The sensible thing was to leave.

Ah, well. Magnus had never been one for sensibility.

Alec was, in fact, on the roof. He was in a t-shirt that couldn’t possibly be warm enough for the windchill up here, but it gave Magnus a nice view of his arms and his shoulders. He had very nice, strong, Shadowhunter muscles, and was using them to draw back the string of his bow and fire arrows into the abyss.

Magnus stopped a few feet away from him. “Did the Institute run out of training dummies?”

Alec started, his fingers slipping on the arrow he’d been about to draw from the quiver. He spun with a frown that only deepened when he saw Magnus. Then he seemed to shake himself. Alec lowered the bow. “It’s quieter up here.”

Magnus hummed in agreement. He played with the insides of his pockets. He would never admit that he had spent twice as long as usual picking out what to wear, but he felt overdressed now. His cashmere, printed suit jacket blocked out most of the wind, but it didn’t compare to Alec’s t-shirt and jeans, both of which he could now see were full of holes.

Magnus’s brow furrowed. “Your arm,” he said. He waved a hand at the bandage around Alec’s left bicep. “May I? Free of charge.”

Alec shifted his jaw. He looked down at his arm. He shook his head, dark hair a moving mess. He made a ‘go ahead’ gesture and extended his arm to Magnus when he stepped forward to take it.

Magnus peeled the bandage back gently. The wound was deep and angry red, made an even angrier red by its contrast to the fresh iratze beside it. Magnus poked the rune. Alec hissed, jerking his arm a bit, and looked at Magnus like he’d been horribly betrayed.

“Sorry,” Magnus murmured. More carefully, he moved his hand over the wound and reached for his magic. It danced into his fingers and twirled into the space between his and Alec’s skin, and then vanished into the wound. The cut stitched itself shut in a blue haze and then smoothed itself over until it was like nothing had ever been there to start with.

Involuntarily, Magnus’s gaze dropped to Alec’s other arm. His wrist was still bare. Magnus shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was still finding it difficult to get used to the idea of someone just… not having a soulmark. This someone in particular.

Alec caught him looking and gently tugged his now healed arm free, pulling Magnus’s attention away. “Thanks.”

Magnus took a half step back and smiled. “My pleasure. As I said, if you ever need anything, I’m here. You could’ve called.”

“Yeah.” Alec shifted uncomfortably, not looking at him. He touched the top of his bow where it rested against the roof’s ledge. “I could’ve. Sorry, I… I didn’t text you. About the books. They were good.”

Magnus continued watching Alec’s face, even though it was turned away from him. “That’s alright. I’m glad you liked them. If you want, you could come over and I could lend you some more.”

Alec met his eyes, then started a bit like he hadn’t expected to. He rubbed his neck where the deflect rune was impossible to miss. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, his frown many meters deeper than when Magnus had first stepped out onto the roof. Then, he shook his head and met Magnus’s eyes again. The smile he offered was small and private. “I’d like that.”

Magnus offered the same kind of smile back. They looked at each other for another long moment while Magnus decided whether this was the time and place to have a real conversation.

It wasn’t. They were in the Institute, for one. Alec’s siblings were doing something that would no doubt get them into monumental trouble any minute now. Magnus needed to send a fire message to the warlock community with an update on the Valentine situation. Alec was bleeding, still, but from his hands. Magnus had felt it when he’d healed his arm, and he could see it now where it dripped between his fingers. He’d been up here a while, no protective gear while he fired arrow after arrow until every pull of the string dug into open wounds.

Magnus let out a breath. “Right, well. Call me? Or just stop by. Whenever you have the time. I’m usually around, and even more so after dark. I can make you a drink that you might not hate this time, and we can just… talk.”

He watched Alec swallow. He watched him inspect the cuts on his hand, poking at them until all of his fingers were bloody. When it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything, Magnus put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and said, “Okay. I’ll be seeing you, then. Take care of yourself, Alexander.”

Magnus only hesitated for a second before he gave Alec’s now healthy arm a squeeze. He turned away immediately after to go back the way he came. Not that he knew what way that was. He should’ve drawn a map.

Alec stopped him before he’d left the roof. “I’m sorry,” he said. He waited for Magnus to turn back around before he repeated it. “I’m sorry. For last time. Just dumping that on you. I know it’s a lot and it doesn’t really have anything to do with you.”

Magnus looked at Alec. Alec dug his bloody nails into his wrist. His bow rattled against the ledge with the wind.

“It does,” Magnus stated. He offered nothing else.

Alec looked at Magnus. Magnus let him, waiting patiently. He had centuries of experience in patience, despite what his friends might think.

Alec looked away, shaking his head. When he kept not looking at Magnus, Magnus accepted that that was that. He nodded, and turned around again to leave. This time, Alec let him.

He had wondered if Alec knew. He had wondered it as soon as he’d met him, and more when he’d realized it for himself, and more still after the last time they’d seen each other.

Alec did know. Magnus was certain of it now. It’d been written all over his face. He’d known when he’d showed up at Magnus’s door, and he knew it now, too.

Magnus knew from personal experience that accepting it was another story.

#shmb2021 #malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #shadowhunters #my writing

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