#i did it purple because magnus' magic is usually purple/blue

[malucy31]

Time is On Our Side

Alec is stuck on a mission in India in the 18th century and he misses Magnus. One day, he wakes up somewhere that feels and smells like home.

Chapter 1/3 - Moon troubles

Read on ao3

In a state of semi-consciousness, Alec senses Magnus hovering somewhere over him, his soothing words, soothing voice, familiar presence. When he manages to blink his eyes open, it’s only for a second.

The light is too harsh.

“Magnus…” his voice trails off on its own. He missed him so much.

“Hello, there. You slept all morning, I was starting to fear you wouldn’t wake up at all.”

“The mission, it – ”

“Shh, you’ve been injured, try not to talk.”

“Thought it’d never end…”

“It’s over now. You’re safe here.”

Alec smiles at these words, letting his muscles relax into Magnus’s magic. If he opened his eyes, he knows he would see his lovely husband weaving blue tendrils of magic like strings of air and atoms. But his eyelids are too heavy, and everything is so peaceful.

Two weeks.

Those missions are always supposed to last two weeks, but they never do. Faint recollections of a missed new moon and a missed opportunity to go home cross his mind.

How long has it been? A month? A month and a half?

Alec can’t focus. He has missed Magnus so much, has craved being in his arms, hearing his voice. It has just been too long.

Above him, Magnus says things, but Alec’s brain only registers a few words of reassurance, maybe replies to his unconscious ramblings. He doesn’t even know what he is saying.

Disappointment settles when the soft buzzing of Magnus’s magic leaves his skin. He realizes he must be pouting because the musical laughter he loves so much answers him.

“Try to rest. I’ll be in the next room if you need me, okay?”

Alec pictures himself nodding but has no idea if his head follows. After that, everything fades.

Magnus’s magic must have been what kept him awake because when he regains consciousness, it’s to an evening light filtering through half-closed shutters.

The feelings he had earlier are still floating at the edge of his memory. Magnus’s magic is there too, purring underneath his skin like it has found a home there. As always, Alec opens himself up to the feelings, letting it drizzle, letting it settle in every numb place.

Peacefulness only lasts a few seconds though. The sheets under his palms are rougher than usual. It’s not the silk he was expecting to find. These remind him more of the ones he had at the Institute. More than a bit confused, he sits up, trying not to pay too much attention to his still painful right arm.

Something as simple as it is terrifying grows in his stomach as he takes in his surroundings.

He is neither in their bedroom, nor at the Institute.

In fact, Alec has no idea where he is. It feels like home, but it isn’t. Between the echoes of a familiar magic lovingly coiling up around his bones and the scent of sandalwood coming from the other side of the door, Alec could swear he is at their loft, just like he could swear that Magnus is brewing a batch of his sandalwood shampoo.

Did Magnus add a room to the loft while he was away?

It shouldn’t be this difficult to remember, but everything is blank. It’s only when he sits at the edge of the bed and sees his reflection in the mirror that his brain finally catches up with the situation.

This isn’t his face, he is glamoured as a Mundane.

And he isn’t home because the mission isn’t over yet.

He is still in India in the 18th century…

Great.

Alec heaves a long sigh and falls back on the mattress, wincing as the room spins around him. He was so sure he was home, so sure that this whole nightmare was finally over. But no. The demon they had to kill was harder to find, making them miss the new moon, miss the ritual and forcing them to wait another month in a place and time they were never supposed to be.

So no, he isn’t home. Far from it.

His memories are coming back, but what drove him here is still a mystery. What happened?

It was Magnus with him earlier, and it’s him in the next room. That’s a certainty.

Everything starts spinning again, and Alec has to close his eyes.

What did he tell him? Not too much hopefully, nothing that can’t be put under the account of being injured and groggy, right? How long was he unconscious? Did he miss the new moon again? The thought makes him sit back up, swallowing a moan because his right arm is really hurting.

He can’t wait another month here.

He can’t.

He needs to go home, he needs Magnus, his Magnus. He is sick of falling asleep in beds that are too small, too cold, and too hard. Sick of waking up and having quick breakfasts amongst the other Shadowhunters like he used to do when everything inside of him felt wrong. He wants his life back. Now.

Jace would tell him to stop overreacting, but he doesn’t know what a life with Magnus is. He doesn’t know that nothing compares to this life they are building year after year. Jace doesn’t know, he can’t.

Tears start prickling at the corner of his eyes. Alec is just so tired… It almost makes him regret this blissed state of half-consciousness from earlier where everything felt like a dream.

In the next room, he hears Magnus make a contented noise, humming in approval and commenting to himself like he often does when he tries something new in his apothecary or in the kitchen. Without realizing it, Alec stands up, feeling much lighter. Quiet and calm are replacing the spiraling storm inside his head. There’s nothing like Magnus being happy to make him forget about everything wrong in the world.

It pains him to think he should escape through the window. He has no idea how he ended up here, at Magnus’s or what he told him. It would be safer to escape.

But on the other hand, isn’t that exactly why Magnus didn’t travel with him? Or why he made sure to add a protection spell to Alec’s glamor? They all knew this could happen. This Magnus won’t be able to detect his glamor, his Magnus won’t arrive to save him… There really isn’t any danger, is there?

Before he can make a decision, Alec is at the door, already hearing his siblings’ snigger at their lovesick brother. He just… A month and a half is too long. He misses him too much.

It’s impossible to hold back his smile and sudden yearning when he opens the door. It’s the apothecary. The exact replica of the one Alec knows so well by now. He doesn’t have time to observe the details because Magnus is already meeting his stare.

“There’s our mysterious and reckless traveler! How do you feel?”

“Better, thanks.”

“Is it still hurting?” Magnus asks, pointing to Alec’s right arm as he absently rubs it.

The scent of sandalwood and home is so overwhelming that Alec is barely aware of his own answer, or of the fact that Magnus is approaching.

With an elegant movement, he lets a little of his magic rain over Alec’s arm. As it usually does, it curls up around him with a tenderness that leaves him speechless. It makes this Magnus’s face soften, just like it does with his Magnus.

I missed this. I missed you, he wants to say and has to bite his tongue to refrain.

Euphoria fades abruptly when he realizes that this is the second time Magnus has used his magic on him without trying to hide it. Magnus, who isn’t supposed to know him or know that he is part of the Shadow World.

If he is acting like this, it means Alec did or said something he shouldn’t have.

What did he do? How much did he reveal while he was unconscious? Did he doom them forever? Will he come back to an empty loft? To a life where he doesn’t know Magnus at all?

Maybe he should have escaped through the window after all. He is getting nauseous. His mind sinks into bottomless spirals and the room spins again. It’s too late to play dumb, to withdraw his arm and look scandalized, asking things like What kind of witchcraft is this? It’s not like Alec has ever learned how to lie properly anyway.

Magnus must feel his sudden distress because he gently leads him back to a chair, “There, everything’s alright. Better?”

Alec can’t even nod.

As for Magnus, he is smirking, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Don’t worry, mysterious traveler, I don’t know a thing about you.”

Apparently, glamor or not, Magnus can still read him like an open book. Alec doesn’t know if it should make him scared or make him fall in love a little more. Maybe both. Definitively the latter.

“Good,” Alec can’t help replying and regretting it immediately because the amusement on Magnus’s features fades away. He knows his husband enough to know that this mysterious traveler must intrigue him. While healing him, he probably felt a lingering taste of magic, of his own magic without really understanding it.

“Come with me,” he eventually says. “You should eat something.”

*

Magnus’s kitchen makes Alec smile too.

Once, Magnus told him he used several decades of his life to perfect his cooking skills, even owned a restaurant. Something fancy and prestigious that still exists, where he took Alec for their tenth anniversary.

Seeing what can only be called a mess in the kitchen, Alec wonders if this is when Magnus started experimenting.

Usually, Alec gets nervous around mess, but never around Magnus’s. There is always a certain beauty about it, something that reflects his mere soul. Herbs are hanging from the ceiling, drying, diffusing the light in shades of rosemary, wild citrus, and marjoram. On the countertop next to the window are several bowls turned upside down to protect what Alec can only call mixtures. He frowns before remembering that one of Magnus’s obsessions in cooking were mushrooms. The rare and disgusting kinds if anyone were to ask him.

But what Alec finds the most endearing are the vegetables. He knows how Magnus likes to sort them out and visibly, he has kept the same habits in centuries. He sorts them out by colors, giving every corner of the room the right shade of red, yellow, green, or purple.

It’s all about the colors and how each piece reflects the light around, my dear, Magnus explained once. Would you like to help?

It was fun. It was more like Alec was fumbling with everything Magnus gave him than helping, but it felt like watching his husband apply his makeup or redecorate their home. Magnus was opening up for him, letting him share his view of the world, and it was mesmerizing. The world as a work of art. That was something new to Alec, and after getting a taste, he couldn’t get enough. Every detail pointed out by Magnus was like a revelation to him.

He is still daydreaming when Magnus starts cooking something, using some magic to speed things up. It stresses Alec again to watch his future husband use magic in front of him – a stranger. What happened?

“Please, have a seat, it will be ready soon.”

“Thanks.”

Alec does as he is told, not really knowing where to start, not wanting to make things worse by saying the wrong thing. He is about to ask what day it is when Magnus reads his mind again.

“I found you last night, some meaningless demons were after you. I wondered what demons could want with a Mundane in the middle of the night when I saw you draw a sword out of thin air. I thought you were a Shadowhunter, but I don’t see any rune or glamour.”

He stops for a while, deep in thought, allowing Alec the time bask in relief.

“You had almost all of them killed, and I was about to let you handle it when one of them bit you, and you collapsed. The thing poisoned you. It’s meant to affect your memory of them. Some kind of defense mechanism to make sure you don’t remember any of it.”

Oh.

Alec means to thank him, but Magnus continues in a more cautious voice.

“I’m guessing asking you who you are is useless, huh?” he turns slightly, enough for Alec to get a glimpse of his expression. Curiosity. Alec swallows thickly.

“I… I wish I could tell you, but it’s um—”

“Dangerous?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Magnus sighs. “I figured. You said that a lot this morning… Normally, I’d try harder, but there’s clearly something unique about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s…something about the way my magic responded to you, or rather how your body accepted it like it would oxygen, and at the same time, something was keeping me out.”

“I’m sorry, I really can’t say a thing.”

“It’s alright. I have nothing but time to figure it out, and you must have a lot of fascinating stories to tell. I want to spend a nice evening for a change.” On those words, Magnus brings food to the table and smiles. “Shall we?”

Thousands of memories instantly bloom in Alec’s mind from the seeds of these words and this smile.

To appease his homesick heart, Alec answers what he always does, re-enacting a cherished routine he has been craving for the last month and a half. “After you.”

[bytheangell]

Just Enough to Get By

(Read on AO3) @shadowhunterbingo​ Square Filled: Potion Gone Wrong (Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Rated teen, no archive warnings) ------------- Jace knows he shouldn’t be here.

“Do you trust me?” Magnus asks, holding the small glass bottle carefully between his fingertips.

“What is it?” Jace prompts.

Magnus only shakes his head. “Something that will help. Do you trust me?”

Jace hesitates. Trust is not something that Jace does easily, certainly not with people he barely knows, and certainly not with Downworlders.

He knows that Magnus could tell him what the potion does and what it contains if he wants to. But he doesn’t, because this is a test.

Alec isn’t here. More specifically, Alec is unconscious after getting in the way of a particularly nasty bit of magic while apprehending a rogue warlock. As such, the Lightwoods are being overly suspicious of any and all magic, not even allowing the usual warlock healers the Institute keeps on retainer to see Alec. If they knew Jace was here, meeting Magnus Bane of all people in a dingy Brooklyn alleyway, he wouldn’t be allowed in to see Alec, either.

Jace doesn’t know much about Alec and Magnus’ relationship. Alec isn’t really one to kiss and tell, but he knows from the way Alec speaks about Magnus during what little Jace manages to pry from him that Alec cares about Magnus, and he thinks Magnus cares about Alec in return. Their relationship may be a secret to most, but that doesn't make it insignificant - Jace knows the hesitation that got Alec hurt in the first place came from a sudden unwillingness to kill the rogue warlock, and that sort of hesitation isn’t brought out of a Nephilim by a passing fling.  

Do you trust me? Magnus’ question hangs heavy in the space between them.

“Honestly? No,” Jace says finally. “But Alec does. And that’s good enough for me.”

Jace reaches out and takes the bottle from Magnus’ hand, tucking it carefully into an inside pocket of his jacket.

“I’ll give it to him as soon as I get back.”

Jace hopes for all of their sakes that his parabatai’s trust isn’t misplaced.

---

The potion doesn’t work. Worse than that, the potion makes Ale’s condition deteriorate even faster. His temperature spikes drastically between fevers and chills so extreme they send his body into shock and Jace stands by not just helplessly, but full of the guilt that this is now, in part, his fault. He doesn’t leave Alec’s side as he applies Iratze after Iratze, stronger because they’re from him but not strong enough.

Jace blames himself but not as much as he blames Magnus. It’s easier to assume this is a set-up, that he was tricked by the warlock to deliver poison to his parabatai rather than what Magnus claimed would work as a healing potion.

That is, until there’s screaming fit to wake the dead at the entrance of the Institute, and the sounds of pictures falling from walls as bodies are tossed aside, held away by magic as someone forces their way past every Shadowhunter stationed to stop them.

“Take me to Alexander,” Magnus demands the moment he sees Jace approaching him. “And tell your Nephilim to stand down. I don’t want to hurt them, but I will if they try and keep me out a second longer.”

The others look to Jace now, waiting for guidance and orders, and Jace hesitates. Golden cat-eyes come closer as Magnus doesn’t wait for an answer before continuing his approach. It’s a 50/50 chance, Jace figures. Either Magnus is here because he cares and is willing to risk his own life to help Alec, or he’s here because he wants to finish the job no matter what the cost.

Jace figures he has nothing to lose because if he’s wrong about Magnus, Alec dies. But if he’s right, and he keeps Magnus out, Alec may very well die anyway.

“Let him in,” Jace says. “Hurry,” he adds to Magnus, who doesn’t need the encouragement. “We don’t have much time before someone alerts Maryse and Robert.”

“What didn’t you tell me?” Magnus demands.

“What?” Jace asks, confused.

“The potion should’ve worked based on the information about the attack you gave me. So what didn’t you tell me?” Magnus repeats.

“I told you everything I knew,” Jace swears as they walk through the doors of the Infirmary and Jace dismisses the Nephilim waiting within, all of whom eagerly scurry out of the path of the raging warlock, magic already crackling at his fingertips as they approach Alec. Tensing but not making any move to stop Magnus, Jace watches as blue magic starts at Alec’s head and moves down his body.

“Go over it again,” Magnus demands, his eyes never leaving Alec.

“There was a rogue warlock. Alec had a clear kill shot but he hesitated and went to maim instead. He moved at the last second and it barely grazed him, and he attacked Alec. By the time we dealt with the warlock and got to Alec he was already unconscious.”

Magnus frowns. “Details. I want every insignificant moment of that attack down to the color of the goddamn underwear you were wearing.”

Jace tries to remember. “It was night, and we had a witchlight but there weren’t a lot of street lamps nearby. His magic was purple… light purple, like lavender. When he shouted the spell at Alec-”

“Wait. He spoke? Like an incantation?” Magnus’ magic doesn’t stop but his gaze turns to Jace now and Jace nods. “You didn’t say that before. You just said he attacked him.”

“He did,” Jace says, brows furrowed.

“Warlocks don’t need to speak to attack. If he used an incantation…”

Magnus’ magic shifts now, the blue becoming darker. The sound of the door opening behind them and heels clicking on the floor has Jace turning to see Maryse entering.

“If you want Alec to live, keep her away,” Magnus says through gritted teeth before he begins to mutter under his breath in a language Jace doesn’t recognize.

“Jace! I’ll have you tried for crimes against-” Maryse is already threatening.

“He’s healing him,” Jace insists, and against all of his better judgment activates all of his runes without thinking and uses his heightened speed and strength to catch Maryse by the arm and drag her back toward the door, away from Magnus. “You have to let him try, or we’re going to lose him. We’re going to lose Alec.”

Maryse struggles against his grip. “No! The mandate was clear, and you went against a direct order from-”

“THAT ORDER WAS GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF YOUR SON!” Jace snaps. “And my breaking it might be the only thing that saves him.” Jace instinctively puts a hand over the blade on his hip, and Maryse follows his movement with wide eyes. “I can’t lose him. I won’t. I’ll do whatever I have to to keep him alive, Maryse, do not test me.”

Jace prays to the Angel it doesn’t come to that. He and Maryse remain at the far end of the room, their temporary stillness tense and threatening to break at any moment. Jace prepares to do the unthinkable, to actually attack not just another Nephilim, not just the Head of the Institute, but the woman who took him in and raised him as her own.

Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that.

There’s a clatter behind him and he turns at Maryse’s startled gasp to see Magnus collapse next to Alec’s bed. Jace and Maryse forget their standoff and both rush over, Maryse and Jace both checking Alec first before Jace kneels to the ground next to Magnus, who is breathing heavy, strained breaths.

“Did it... work?” Magnus manages to ask, eyes closed as if he doesn’t even have the strength to keep them open. Maybe he doesn’t.

Jace stands again just in time to see Alec’s breathing even out and his eyes open slowly against the harsh light of the infirmary.

“...Magnus?” Alec says, his voice strained from a dry throat. “I heard… thought I felt…”

Jace watches Maryse bristle as he helps Magnus up and into the chair next to Alec’s bed.

“I’m here,” Magnus says, but makes no move toward Alec. “Just rest. The warlock who attacked you left a… well, a curse, for lack of a better word. Anything done to heal your body would have the reverse effect.”

Jace stills. The potion Magnus gave him. The Iratzes he faithfully reapplied every hour. Everything he’d done to help Alec had hurt him twice as much.

“There’s no way anyone could’ve known,” Magnus adds quickly, and Jace knows it’s for his benefit. “Well, anyone without magic, that is. Had a warlock been allowed in,” Magnus continues, his words now pointedly aimed at Maryse.

“You still broke into my Institute,” Maryse points out. “You attacked our guards, and-”

“And saved your son’s life,” Magnus cuts her off, sounding ready to fight.

“I brought him here,” Jace says quickly. “I told him to come. If there is any fallout for his presence it’s mine to face. I take full responsibility for anything the High Warlock did at my request.”

Jace ignores the shocked looks from everyone in the room, Magnus included. It’s a lie, but only Magnus knows that, and the Shadowhunters who can attest to him ordering them to stand down in the entryway will only back his claim. Shouldering the blame for breaking Maryse’s mandate is the least he can do after Magnus saved Alec’s life.

“You and I will discuss the consequences for your reckless actions later. Escort Mr. Bane out then wait for me in my office.” Maryse tells him, and Jace knows better than to do anything but keep his mouth shut and nod. “As for you,” she adds to Magnus as he stands. “In the future, you’d do well to remember who has authority here - because it is not Jace Wayland.”

Maryse, seething at the turn of events, stands with her arms crossed and waits expectantly for them to leave. Jace almost misses the quick look that passes between Magnus and Alec, a silent moment of longing, relief, and gratitude, all rolled up into the moment or two they allow themselves before Magnus forces himself to turn away with Jace.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Magnus mutters to him once they’re clear of the Infirmary doors.

“I did,” Jace insists. “I should’ve done more. Sorry I doubted you.”

“You didn’t when it mattered,” Magnus reminds him. “That was enough.”

He’s right. Things are far from perfect, hell, they’re far from good... but Alec is alive, and considering the way things could’ve turned out, that was enough.

[normal-thoughts-official]

Take a different turn

Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV)

Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood Magnus Bane & Alec Lightwood Magnus Bane & Raphael Santiago (mentioned) Alec Lightwood & Izzy Lightwood (mentioned) Izzy Lightwood/Meliorn (mentioned)

Alec Lightwood is a practical man, who happens to have an all-black house because it just makes things easier for him.

Magnus Bane is the witch that lives across the street from him, in a house covered in flowers and plants, always with a smile on.

And Magnus' clients keep knocking on the wrong house.

Read it on Ao3

Alec looks up from the book he was reading right in time to see that the latest client has just left his neighbor's house. The woman is leaving with a smile on her face, but it is no match for the one on the man that she's talking to. He waves at her, and she waves back, laughing, and one would think they are long time friends were it not for the vial of purple liquid she holds in her hand, making it unmistakable what this visit truly was, and what Magnus' line of work is.

Alec's neighbor is a witch, and the woman came to him for a potion. It's not like it's supposed to be a secret; there are signs along the nearest road advertising his line of work, and they even give his address - correctly, Alec has already checked plenty of times.

He waits until the woman has rounded the corner and Magnus has gone back into the house, and then precisely five minutes so the guy has some room to breathe, before getting up and crossing the street to talk to him.

The guy's house is nice - more than nice. Its walls are light yellow, not so bright that it hurts the eyes or even calls that much attention, but upbeat enough that it gives the place a happy kind of air. There are plants all around it and inside, some of which reach out from the windows. One particular tree has a branch that goes all the way outside, where it touches another's, where their branches almost curl around each other. There are a lot of flowers in neatly arranged little pots outside, all in constant bloom, of bright and beautiful colors. Anyone would think Magnus uses magic to keep them always beautiful, but Alec's seen him manually watering and pruning them, smiling and talking to them all the while.

I could use magic to keep them alive, but the plants need care and contact to be truly healthy. Why do you think Peter Plant and Perry the Plant-ypus are always holding hands? They need connection, he had said. Just like all of us, he added, in a much smaller voice.

The house is clearly well-lit, and there is sweet fruit hanging from some of the trees, which have little signs that read "feel free to take some!". Alec supposes it's a lot more fruit than anyone could eat or use on their own. All in all, Magnus' house is beautiful, and has an aura of kindness and happiness that sticks to it.

Alec's house is all black, because that way it isn't as obvious when it gets dirty.

Which is why they are stuck in their current predicament: every time Magnus has a client over - and man, does Magnus get a lot of clients. Alec wonders when he even eats - they go to Alec's house instead, because they "figured the address in the signs was mistaken".

Just like that last client, which Alec had been waiting to leave so he could talk to Magnus about how they could fix this. Again.

It's a little annoying, but Alec would be a lot more upset about it if Magnus weren't so genuinely nice to talk to. Alec has never been friends with any of his neighbors before, and it turns out that he likes it.

Still, Magnus' business can't prosper if the clients keep going to the wrong address, and Alec needs to work without being interrupted every hour or so to point people the right way to his neighbor's house. And assure them that yes, the yellow flowery house is where the witch lives. Yes, he is sure.

So, he knocks on the door, corners of his lips already tugging a bit as he hears the quick approaching footsteps of said witch.

Magnus is the most gorgeous guy Alec's ever seen, but that is fine because Alec already knows this and therefore won't act completely braindead. His hair is always changing style, length, and color, which would have cemented any doubts Alec could have had about whether or not he's the real deal. His real eyes have slitted pupils - which, okay, now that Alec thinks about it, that should have cemented whether or not he's the real deal - but he usually hides them behind a warm, rich brown that sparkles in the light as it assesses Alec, just like it's doing right now. Alec thinks the glamour is kind of a pity, because the golden eyes are also gorgeous. His hair has light blue streaks today, matching his eyeliner and vest, contrasting nicely with the yellow shirt that definitely doesn't hide the muscles of his arms, dear lord. His lips are a deep pink as he talks, just like the details in the shirt Alec can't quite make out; definitely courtesy of some kind of balm. His eyes are worried as they focus on Alec, and he snaps his fingers gently.

"Alexander, are you okay?"

Alec blinks. "Yes, why wouldn't I be?"

"You aren't saying anything."

Step one failed, Alec thinks. "Ah," he says, eloquently, before pulling himself back together, "yes, sorry, I just wanted to ask," his voice sounds that weird kind of forced pleasant that he wears sometimes when he needs it, and the idea of using it with this guy makes him cringe internally, but well, he wants a conversation starter and he's bad at sounding natural, sue him, "are you sure that you aren't hiding the house or something? I mean, it's the third time today."

Magnus brings his eyebrows together, amused. "Well, you can see it, can't you?". He shakes his head slightly, and it would be challenging, but the guy has a way of making you feel like he was laughing with you.

Still, Alec huffs. "Fair point. Still, I thought your- solution would have worked out by now."

Magnus' "solution" to their little problem was to snap his fingers and make some kind of tower appear on the side of the house. The tower has a triangular roof, and it kinda looks like a witch hat, Alec will give him that.

But it's also light pink.

Magnus purses his lips, seeming genuinely lost. "So did I," he agrees, scrunching his nose a little as he thinks. "Maybe some kind of spell where only someone who knows what to look for can find it?" he says hesitantly. He then reaches out with his hands, scanning his own house with his magic thoughtfully. His head tilts slightly in thought as he does it, and flowers or no flowers, no one would doubt that Magnus Bane is a witch at that point. The way that he holds himself, the grace in every tilt of his head, the not at all exaggerated - now that he's actually concentrating and not showing off - movements of his fingers that are still so purposeful and fluid it's impossible not to look. Then his hand drops, and he sighs. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it," he says. "What about your solution?"

Alec's solution was to place a hundred thousand signs near his door that said This is not the witch's house! The witch lives across the street and Yes in the yellow house with all the flowers, and yes THAT one I promise you it's the one you're looking at, and don't knock to confirm just go there. But Alec's other neighbor, Meliorn, just so happens to be a fairy, and takes great pleasure in stealing them whenever they can. Superglue hadn't stopped them, nailing the signs to the door hadn't stopped them, not even painting them directly on the walls had stopped them. And Alec can't use the usual seelie-shooers to keep them away because they are dating Alec's goddamn sister, who will not ask them to stop. Hell, Alec's not even entirely sure she's not the one asking Meliorn to do this in the first place. She might be more of a trickster than they are, at least when it comes to Alec.

Match made in Heaven, Alec scoffs to himself before replying.

"Still no luck with Meliorn," is all he says.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help more with that," Magnus says, and he sounds so genuinely regretful Alec couldn't be upset about it if he tried. Magnus tried to talk to Meliorn about it, but he said they looked so happy with all the stolen signs he couldn't even bring it up. It's a fairy's nature, he had said, and Meliorn seems to have gotten pretty attached to the signs. They have a special place in their house and everything.

Meliorn's house, Alec can't help but note, is exactly what one would expect from a fairy. It's covered in vines and exotic-looking flowers, not that different from the ones Magnus grows, but that unnervingly follow you as you walk past. And, of course, it is filled with their treasure. Just Alec's luck.

Magnus purses his lips again. "I could change your house into something a little more like mine, so people at least won't keep coming to you- okay, I see the face you're making, and I'll have you know I'm offended. My house is beautiful, if I do say so myself," he winks, smile bright.

"Of course it is," Alec says, making a dismissing gesture with his hand, because the idea that it wouldn't be is ridiculous. Magnus softens in a way Alec can't quite understand, his face warmer than it looked even as he grinned, "it's just- not quite my style. Besides, I wouldn't want to kill all the plants. Also, I don't like big changes in the environment," he says, scratching the back of his neck. Magnus is the opposite, always changing something here and there, even if the core theme of the place never changes, "And black is nice. I just didn't think that there would be a witch next door people would mistake me for."

Magnus scoffs. "I still don't get what that's about. Black is the worst color for a witch. Absorbs all kinds of energies, you don't want that when you're using magic. Yellow is a lot better, irradiates pretty nicely and absorbs the good things. Besides, my tower has a witch hat now! And there are plants!" he gestures widely, in an almost offended way. Alec doesn't know how to tell him that no one associates plants with witches, at least not the kind of pretty, bright colored flowers and fruits that he grows.

"I guess people expect witch's plants to be less…" He pauses for a second, looking for the perfect word, "voluptuous".

Magnus scoffs. "Then how would I get my ingredients??"

Alec shrugs. He has no idea. He doesn't know how witches work.

"Besides," Magnus continues, "why do people not expect a witch's house to look approachable? Why would you seek help from someone that doesn't look trustworthy? I work to cure the sick, bring good fortune, keep plants and people healthy, keep away bad energies. It's not like I work with bad energies or take those stupid," he emphasizes the word with a tilt of his head, "requests, like 'Hex my neighbor's grass!'" He says that in a demanding voice, snapping his fingers and grimacing a little as he impersonates that kind of client. Alec knows for a fact that his mom has hired witches to hex their neighbor's grass more than once, and Magnus' imitation is surprisingly similar. The fact that this guy has unknowingly talked shit about Alec's mom only makes Alec like him more.

Once upon a time, he would have felt guilty about that feeling. He doesn't anymore, and it's a nice change.

Magnus looks at him, squinting slightly, "you have hexed your neighbor's grass, haven't you?," he says.

"What? No," Alec grimaces, disgusted, "you are my neighbor."

Magnus gives a little laugh. "Fair point. I suppose I'd have to charge a lot for that one. Starting with even getting a lawn to be hexed. That would need considerably more space. I am not getting rid of my plants, I'll warn you." He says playfully, pointing a finger at Alec. It stops just shy of poking him. Magnus seems to be very careful when it comes to personal space, which Alec appreciates so much he finds that he wouldn't mind if he actually touched him.

Alec smiles, because he can't help it. "I don't have a lawn either, so I don't think that's necessary. No, it's uh, my mom who has hexed the neighbor. And I agree with you, it's stupid."

"Glad we're on the same page," Magnus replies, raising his eyebrows playfully for emphasis.

They fall silent for a while, but it's comfortable, and Alec's smile lingers on his face as he watches Magnus look at his own house in concentration. It's like a puzzle he can't figure out. Alec supposes pop culture has been lying to people about witches more than he ever thought, if this guy's completely clueless expression is any indication. His house has pastel colors.

"I mean, look, logical or not, you could change the front a bit to look more like people expect, right? Make it a darker color or something, put the plants on the back? If people want unapproachable, give them what they want, you know."

Magnus sighs, and he says, in a small voice, "but I want people to visit."

This is exactly the kind of conversation that would make Alec freeze up, not knowing what to respond, usually. But instead, he finds that he actually knows what to do and grabs Magnus' hand almost on instinct. Magnus looks at him with wide eyes, shock and sadness and the kind of guarded hope that means fear, and Alec just looks back at him, gathering words.

But it still seems to be the right thing to do, because Magnus says, "Raphael just moved out. I had never lived outside of the village before, but because he's not a witch, I thought it best to come to a neutral place. But everything is so different, and now that he's gone… The house feels empty." Then he quickly takes his hand from Alec's, and a smile is back in place, bright as ever, but it makes Alec feel a lot less warm. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be putting this on you. I promise I'm not usually such a woe-y old man, you just… Caught me by surprise."

"No, no, I like it," Alec says, because it's true. "And well… I can visit, if you want." Magnus looks at him with doubt in his eyes, so Alec quickly amends, "I've always wanted to know what a witch's work is like."

That's not really true. Alec hasn't always wanted to know what a witch's work is like, more like he's wanted to know what a witch's work is like ever since he's met Magnus. But potato, potatoh.

And if he didn't want to know before, well. He definitely does once Magnus' smile blooms with brightness, his fingers almost twitching as he goes to show him the plants he grows and what they do.

[chibi-tsukiko]

Countdown to TLBotW

Day 4: Magic 

---------------------------------------

A Magic Four Letter Word

Magnus wakes with a start. He waits for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before sitting up. He takes a few deep breaths to relax himself and moves the strands of hair sticking to his forehead out of his eyes.  He checks his phone, 1:04 am. New Message. He clicks it open.

Alexander 12:30 am: The next time Jace asks me to come with him on a scouting mission, you can answer him. Hopefully, the boys didn’t give you too much trouble with bedtime. 😕I’ll see you in a couple hours. ♥️

Magnus, huffs. Oh, our Bluebell certainly did, he thinks. He had to read Max ten bedtime stories and promise him chocolate chip pancakes in the morning just to get him to into bed. It took nearly four lullabies before Max had finally fallen asleep. Rafe had gone to bed without bargaining. I hope Max’s behavior doesn’t rub off on him, Magnus thinks. He puts his phone back on the nightstand and sighs. 

He gets up from the bed and grabs his silk robe he had laid across the chair in the corner. He snaps his fingers, summoning a cup of tea, and heads out towards the sitting area. He stops short in the hallway when he notices a large shadow on the couch.

“Rafael?”

Rafe peaks his head out from the blanket, the moonlight from the balcony doors catching the ends of his chestnut curls.

“What are you doing out here?” Magnus asks, kneeling down in front of Rafe, who fidgets with the blanket he’s cocooned in. Rafe’s curls cling to his forehead and around his ears, and there’s a ring of sweat around the collar of his shirt. Magnus places the back of his hand against Rafe’s forehead.

“Are you feeling sick?”, he asks.

Rafe shakes his head.

Magnus’ anxiety wains slightly. He pushes some wet strands away from Rafe’s face.

“Bad dream?,” he asks softly.

Rafe grips the blanket, pulling it tighter around his shoulders, “d-demonios”, he whispers, his voice shaking.

Magnus sees the tears swell up in Rafes’ eyes and his heart breaks. His own nightmare forgotten, he places his hand on Rafe’s knee giving a small squeeze, “Would you like to sleep with me tonight?”

Rafe looks up, eyes glistening in the moonlight. Slowly, he nods his head and Magnus smiles.

He stands and holds out his arms, “Come along then” he says.

Rafe immediately unwraps himself from his blanket cocoon and stands on the sofa so he can put his arms around Magnus’s neck. Magnus grabs the blanket with his free hand and carries Rafe back to the bedroom, glad for the company and the distraction.

Once in the bedroom Magnus deposits Rafe onto the bed, “Here we are. You can sleep on Daddy’s side,” Magnus winks and summons a small nightlight in the corner of the room, filling it with a rich orange hue.

He drapes his robe back over the chair, turns to get back in the bed, and stops. Rafe sits near the middle of the bed, his shoulders trembling as his hands fiddle with the blanket he had been wrapped in.

Magnus gets into bed, waiting for Rafe to crawl in closer to him as Max usually does, but Rafe doesn’t move.

Magnus frowns. Rafe has only been with them for a few weeks now, and though he’s adjusting well to everything, Magnus can still see the walls he’s built up.

“You’re just like me,”, he says quietly.

Rafe looks up at him in confusion.

Magnus smiles, “Whenever I have a bad dream, I usually go out to the couch too. I like to be as far away from the bad dream as possible.” Especially when Alec isn’t around to ease his mind.

Rafe stares.

“In fact,”, Magnus continues, covering Rafes’ legs with the blanket, “I had one tonight and headed that way when I saw you.”

Rafes’ eyes go wide, he turns his body towards Magnus, scooting closer, “el demonios?” He asks in a whisper.

Magnus hums, reaching out to tussle Rafes hair, “Yes, dreadful things aren’t they?”

Rafe nods.

“Why did you go out to the couch?” Magnus asks, curious, but also hoping the conversation will help Rafe feel more relaxed.

Rafe looks up at the window behind Magnus, “la luna” he says, pouting when he notices that he can’t see it.

“I see”, Magnus says. “I have an idea,” he sits back against the pillows and runs his hands together, muttering softly to himself. Slowly, a mist forms around his hands. Cloudy ribbons of blues and purples weave in between his fingers and cascade through the crevasses of his knuckles. As he pulls his hands apart the magic concentrates between his palms, creating a vortex of colors, all swirling together.

Rafe stares captivated his eyes twinkling, mouth agape.

“Ready?” Magnus asks.

Rafe nods vigorously.

Magnus tosses his hands up and the vortex explodes, stretching across the ceiling, turning the bland white roof into a galaxy.

Rafe gasps, staring up at the night sky Magnus created, awestruck.

“We’re just missing one thing,” Magnus says, he leans over and reaches behind Rafe’s ear, when he pulls back he holds a light in between his index finger and thumb, he flicks them up towards the ceiling and a moon appears among the stars.

Rafe beams, giggling as he grabs his ear and points up at the moon before looking back at Magnus.

Magnus grins, feeling his heart swell. There was a time in his life when he had feared his magic and the things it was capable of because of who he was.   There’s a part of him that’s still fearful, but in moments like these, where he can use his magic to heal and bring joy. He’s reminded that he is the one who  decides who he is.

Rafe continues to stare at the floating moon above them in awe. Magnus watches contently until out of the corner of his eye he sees the door to the bedroom creak open.

“Bapa?” Max calls, before pushing the door fully open. “Bapa?,” he calls out again, stepping into the room, rubbing his eye, his blue octopus stuffed animal dragging behind him.

“What is it, my little Bluehorn?”

“Daddy home?”

“No, not yet.”

It’s then that Max realizes Rafe is in the bed. He points at him, “sleepover?”

Magnus looks at Rafe, “Sort of”, he says looking back at Max, “Rafe had a bad dream,” Magnus barely finishes before Max springs into action.

He gasps, running forward, climbing up onto the bed. He crawls in between Magnus and Rafe and thrusts his toy into Rafe’s arms.

“Here Occi protect! Bapa put spell make scary dreams go way!”, he beams looking at Magnus.

Magus rubs the top of Max’s head, “That’s very kind of you, Bluebell.”

Max giggles, patting Rafe on the back. Rafe tucks the plushie into his lap and looks back up to the ceiling. Max follows his gaze, his mouth opening wide in amazement.

“WOOOOOW! PWETTY!,” he exclaims.

Rafe points up at the moon and to his ear, speaking rapidly in Spanish.

Max turns to Magnus, who chuckles.

“He’s saying how he had the moon hiding behind his ear,” Magnus translates.

Max turns to Rafe, bouncing up and down, “Oh! Magic! Rafey magic!!” Max claps throwing his arms around Rafe pulling him into a hug.

Rafe grabs onto Max to steady himself, “Rafe”, he corrects Max with a frown, but Magnus can see the sides of his mouth twitch.

Max giggles, grabbing one of Rafe’s hands, “More! More! More!”

Magnus shakes his head, “Not tonight, it’s late, and well past everyone’s bedtime.”

“Awww,” Max pouts, letting go of Rafe’s hand.

Rafe tenses again, pulling the octopus into his chest, “Me puedo quedar?”

Magnus blinks, “of course you can stay, I said so before”, he watches as Rafes shoulders relax.

“Bapa, I stay too? Protect Rafe?” Max asks.

Magnus smiles, and looks to Rafe, “What do you think?”

Rafe thinks for a moment, and reaches out, grabbing Max’s hand, giving it a small squeeze before nodding his head.

Max grins ear to ear, throwing his arms around Rafe again.

“Then it’s settled,” Magnus says, “let’s get you both tucked in and off to sleep. Before you know it Daddy will be home and—“

“PANCAKES!” Max interrupts, moving to lie beside Rafe.

“Yes, yes, and then all the chocolate chip pancakes you can eat my ravenous Blueberry,” Magnus chuckles, leaning over Rafe to tickle Max’s stomach.

He tucks both boys in, and lays back against the pillows, watching as the spell he cast starts to disappear.

Suddenly, he feels a hand on his arm; he looks down, Rafe reaches out tentatively before he pulls his hand back.

Magnus shifts slightly so he can put his arm around Rafe and pulls him in so that his head can rest on Magnus’ chest. Max notices the shift and moves to wrap his arms around Rafes middle and presses himself against Rafes back. They are small enough that Magnus’ arm can wrap around both of them comfortably.

“Night Night Rafey, Night Bapa,” Max yawns.

“Good night Blueberry,” Magnus says, rubbing Max’s shoulder with his hand.

“Rafe,” Rafael corrects again, and Magnus hears Max pat Rafes stomach in response.

Magnus chuckles quietly to himself, closing his eyes, ready for sleep to take him. He blinks himself awake when he feels Rafe grip his shirt and his body tense. Magnus moves his other hand and rubs it up and down Rafe’s shoulder.

“Shhhhh, it’s all right,” he whispers, “you’re safe.”

He lets his magic seep out of his fingers, something he’s done for Alec and Max before to help calm them down.

He feels Rafe relax his grip and snuggle in close.

“There you go,” Magnus says continuing to rub up and down his shoulder, “it’s all right. Shhhhh”

Rafe moves his arm to hug Magnus’ waist, “Gracias... Papa,” he mumbles.

Magnus hand stutters from his ministrations, his magic sparking slightly in shock. He looks back up at the spell above him, the vortex nearly invisible, only the translucent moon remaining. He’s an all power warlock. He can summon demons, create galaxies in a bedroom, and has lived for centuries. Yet to Magnus, a simple four letter word, was more than all the magic in the world. He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the tears back in and presses a kiss to the top of Rafe’s head.

“Buenas noches, mi hijo.”

—————————————————

Tag List : @lbotw-countdown-event @tiberiussblackthrn @littleturtle95 @legendofconsullightwood @hate-me-on-your-own-behalf @foreverfallentoast @tobeornottobetequila @cruel-prince-james @zafirafoxx @an-awkward-nerds-world @magnuslightwood-bane @bookworm-jedi @magnus-the-maqnificent @banesbitch

[megs-readstoomuch]

Newest installment in my “Shadowhunters: Parenthood Edition” stories. The rest can be found on AO3 HERE!!!

Happy Birthday Reesa!

Jace woke up earlier than usual. He stretched and immediately turned his head to check on Clary, as he always did when he awakened. She was still asleep, red hair fanned out on her pillow and the quietest of snores coming from her mouth. Jace grinned. She never believed him when he said she snored, but honestly, he found it adorable, so he didn’t complain that much. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, lingering for a moment to breathe her in. He smiled and gave her one more quick, light kiss.

Jace slid quietly from the bed and went about his morning routine of shaving and dressing. As he sat to put his socks and boots on, he heard her. She was humming the lullaby Jace had played her last night before bed, as he did every night. The song his Mom had sang to him and his siblings when they were young. With a smile, Jace went into the nursery and found his daughter standing in her crib, the morning sun slowly turning the room a warm gold. Reesa’s strawberry blond curls were wild from her night’s sleep and stood out like a cloud around her head. She had a thumb in her mouth and was still humming their song, but broke into a smile when she saw Jace.

“Hi Dada!” She waved her hand excitedly as if they were seeing each other again after a long journey. Jace lifted her from the crib, kissing each cheek. She laughed and patted his face.

“How is my girl?” Jace said as he proceeded to change her sleeper. He picked out one of the bright, colorful rompers Magnus and Clary kept her closet filled with and started dressing her. She wiggled as she waited on him to finish the snaps and buttons. “Guess what Reesa?”

The little girl blinked at him in response, as he tried to tame her curls a little with the tiny hair clips Clary bought. “Today is your first birthday. It is a big day. You’ve been here with Mama and Daddy a whole year. You are one.” He surveyed his work. Dang, he was getting good at this hair thing.

“I’m one.” Reesa said, watching as he proceeded to put her shoes on. He let her fasten the Velcro tabs herself. “All done!” She held her hands out.

“Excellent work.” Jace complimented her, lifting her down off the changing table and stood her on the floor.

“Where Mama?” Reesa asked as Jace careful put her favorite old stele of his in the pocket of her romper.

“Mama is sleeping. It’s just you and me this morning.” Jace answered her. “Shall we have breakfast?” He held out his hand. She slipped a tiny soft hand into his callused, scarred one and Jace felt his heart swell again with joy over having this little girl in his life.

“Mama sleeping.” Reesa said. “Ssssh.” She twisted her face into a comical shush and pressed a finger to her lips. Jace grinned at her.

“Exactly.”

———

There were only a handful of people in the dining hall this early, as it was barely 5 o’clock. Jace liked it this way though. Mostly those present were coming in late off of patrol, bleary eyed and exhausted. But despite that, each one perked up a little at the sight of the toddler in her bright pink romper, with the butterfly clips in her hair. She always waved at everyone as she and Jace moved through to find a table to sit at.

Reesa refused a high chair on the grounds she was “nota baby”, instead kneeling in the chair next to Jace, happily eating her bacon. Jace nursed his cup of coffee and just watched her. He couldn’t believe it had been a year since she arrived. He still remembered it, he had never been so scared and happy. And now look at her. One year old.

He pushed away the ever present worry about her “Angel gifts” as the family called them. She was just one, but she functioned more like a 2yo. She was quick and smart, speaking in small sentences already. She could jump and run faster than your average child, quick with all her reflexes and motor skills too. She was also taller than average. Aside from all this and a predilection for being found constantly leaping off of the top of Jace’s baby grand and landing perfectly every time, she had yet to exhibit any other manifestations of her pure Angel blood inheritance. Jace still wondered if she would have any of Clary’s gifts. Tessa often hinted that there would be more to Reesa than she had shown them so far.

“More please.” A tiny voice cut into Jace’s thoughts. Reesa had finished her bacon and eggs and was looking expectantly at Jace. “More bacon.”

“Alright, but just two more, ok?” Jace answered her, raising up from his chair.

“Okey doke,” she said, picking her orange juice up with both hands. He chuckled.

———

Clary found them in the office after she had woken and had her own breakfast. Jace at his desk and Reesa on his lap, as usual. He was flicking through night patrol reports on his tablet and Reesa was concentrating on drawing runes on a notepad, her tiny tongue stuck out in concentration.

“Hi Mama!” Reesa cried, wiggling off of Jace’s knee to run around the desk and into Clary’s arms.

“Hi, my baby,” Clary kissed her on the cheek and then blew a raspberry against the soft skin. Reesa giggled. “Happy Birthday!”

“I’m one!” Reesa held up one finger proudly.

“Yes, you are! And we are going to have a party for you,” Clary kissed the outstretched index finger.

“A party?” Reesa crinkled her forehead in confusion.

“A party?” Jace made the same face.

Clary smiled at the resemblance. “Uncle Magnus is planning a party for your birthday. With cake!”

The one year old’s eye lit up. “CAKE!” She yelled, wiggling to be put down so she could run around her mother in a happy gallop while continuing to yell about cake.

“It will be at 5 this evening,” Clary told Jace over Reesa’s yells. “I already asked Underhill to cover your patrol so the whole family can be there.” Jace frowned a little. He hated to ask favors of the other Shadowhunters, even if he was the Co-Head of the Institute. Clary walked around the desk and sat on the arm of his chair. “It’s for Reesa’s birthday. Underhill was happy to do it. And you can cover his next patrol to make up for it, he said.”

Jace’s brow smoothed out. “Well, that does seems more fair.” Clary kissed his cheek and then leaned against him as they watched their daughter dance happily around the room.

———

“I think Magnus made the apartment bigger to fit everyone,” Alec whispered to Jace as they walked into the living room from the kitchen.

“You think? Because I don’t remember there being two bathrooms in the hallway,” Jace pointed out. “Or that hatrack. Tell me that’s not anyone we know, by the way.”

“Dang it, you’re right,” Alec agreed, ignoring the query about the hatrack and sipping from his plastic cup. He made a face. “What is this?”

“Something called punch,” Jace eyed his own pink drink warily. He didn’t like pink drinks in general . “Jocelyn insisted it is what mundanes drink at birthday parties.”

“By the Angel, why?” Alec muttered, quickly dumping the rest of the drink in the ficus behind him (that he was pretty sure hadn’t been there this morning).

“No idea,” Jace said, tossing back the last dredges in his cup and swallowing.

“You still drank it?”

Jace raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever known me to reject food or drink?”

“Fair enough,” Alec said.

Clary came over with two bottles in hand. “Here. Have some water. That punch is as gosh-awful as it was when I was kid.” The two men gratefully accepted the drinks.

A crash came from the kids’ room. The parents all turned, waiting for any cries of distress.

“Everything’s fine!”shouted Rafe. Alec raised an eyebrow.

“I think I’ll check anyway,” he shook his head and went down the now extra long hall to his sons’ room where Rafe and Max were “fighting demins”, according to Max.

Clary slid her arms around Jace’s waist and he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. They looked around the room.

Jocelyn, Kadir, and Maryse were chatting in the corner, the every present dried paint visible on the back of Jocelyn’s hand and around her nails as she made a gesture in the air. Maryse nodded to whatever was being said and politely sipped from her cup, making no face but Jace knew his mother enough to see in her eyes what she thought of “punch”. He bit his lip to keep from smiling. Kadir was very focused on Jocelyn’s story, his own hands suspiciously empty.

Luke and Simon bookended the sofa, a 4-month pregnant Isabelle with the start of a baby bump sitting between them. All three were discussing a new weapon the Iron Sisters had sent to the Institute this week. Simon was particularly excited, waving his hands about. Isabelle rubbed her bump and watched him in amusement.

Tess and Jem were sitting on the loveseat, Reesa sitting on Tessa’s lap and talking with them. She was making some of the same gestures with her hands that Jocelyn was making and Tessa nodded encouragingly at her. Mina was sitting in the floor, leaning against her father’s legs with a surprisingly content Chairman Meow on her lap, bedazzling his fur with sparks of magic from her fingers.

Magnus was busily waltzing around the dining room, flashes of magic visible as he finished placing copious amounts of purple, pink, and blue streamers and balloons around a banner that said, “Happy Birthday Baby Biscuit”. Alec had gently pointed out no one else called Reesa that but Magnus had merely kissed him firmly and said, “I make the party rules.” Alec had said nothing more and left him to his decorating.

“You know,” Jace mused. “I never had family around for birthdays until I my 11th. And that wasn’t even my birthday, as we now know. And really by the time you get your first rune, it’s downplayed. Shadowhunters don’t do parties much. Just a cake if everyone is around. But the Institute was always empty. And of course I didn’t have anyone else...before. I got a gift or a wish as you know, but it wasn’t the same as this. I like this. Except maybe the punch.”

“I do too. I like birthdays. I had my first kiss on my 16th birthday, you know,” Clary gave him a saucy grin. Jace shot her a look that made her stomach flip. He leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“You better stop, Mrs. Herondale. I’m not a well-behaved man.” Clary giggled.

“Alright you two, stop it,” Alec rolled his eyes at them, coming down the hall with his son’s following behind him like baby ducks, each carrying a fake weapon of some sort, the two boys in their miniature gear jackets that they played in. Both their cheeks were red from their “battle” but they looked pleased with themselves.

“And the crash?” Clary asked.

“Bookshelf. Magnus will have to sort it,” Alec shook his head. Rafe and Max looked properly contrite, although Clary knew them enough to know they weren’t really. She winked at them.

“Time for cake!” Magnus announced and everyone gathered in the dining room. Reesa was given the seat of honor and a rounding chorus of “Happy Birthday” was sang. She sang along, much to everyone’s amusement.

She carefully blew out her candle, and Max relit it so he could blow it out too. Reesa found this hilarious, so Max and Mina kept relighting it until everyone had blown out the candle and Magnus finally had to remove the stub from the cake before a second round of candle blowing was started.

The cake was, of course, delicious. Magnus hinted strongly that it had came from France.

“I left money in the till,” He hastened to add before anyone said anything. “But our babies have to have the best cake.”

Clary watched as Reesa picked up her plate and licked the frosting off. “I think you chose well,” she said. Jocelyn shook her head in amusement and cleaned the chocolate off of Reesa’s nose and eyebrows.

“Bapak! Present time! Present time!” Max was bouncing in excitement as Rafe carried in the gift.

Magnus placed the brightly wrapped present in front of a wide-eyes Reesa who looked at him expectantly. “Magic?” She asked.

With a smile, Magnus snapped his fingers and the paper and ribbon unfurled to reveal a tiny gear jacket of her own. Reesa squealed. “On! Now!” She demanded.

Clary complied, slipping it over her bright pink romper and zipping it up. Reesa rubbed her hands over the jacket in amazement. Jace squatted next to her chair and adjusted the collar.

“Can you say thank you to everyone?” He prompted her gently.

“Thank you Unca Alec and Unca Magnus,” she whispered, still in awe. “And Nana and Papa and Gran’ma and Kad and Unca Simon and Ant Izzy and Max and Rafe and Jem and Nonna Tessa and Mina.” The adult all smiled as the little girl listed her whole family.

Alec smiled and knelt next to Jace. “Look,” he showed the little girl the pocket for her stele, tucking it in for her.

“You’re ready to fight now, Baby Biscuit,” Magnus said.

Max and Rafe bounced around her. “Yeah, we are all ready now!”

“Me too,” Mina cried, sending golden sparks through the air as she jumped down to dance with the boys.

“Well then, how about you all go train outside,” Magnus directed, snapping his fingers to cover every surface of the spacious balcony with large soft training mats, a low balance beam, and wooden swords. Reesa gave a suspiciously high jump off her chair and landed next to Rafe. He grabbed her hand and the four children ran outside.

———

The grownups sat down to enjoy decent, less sugary food (courtesy of Simon’s sister Rebecca’s restaurant, which Magnus used as often as he could) and watch the kids through the large windows. The punch had mysteriously disappeared (Jace wasn’t going to point fingers, but he suspected his mother had instigated a punch-removal directive to Kadir), so Magnus produced “adult drinks”.

Jace stood next to the window, watching the children play. Reesa was observing Rafe, who was showing Mina how to balance on the balance beam while holding her hand. When they were done, Reesa tried too, but refused assistance. She managed to walk it as easily as if she were on the ground and even did a large jump at the end.

“She’s good.” Jem had come up beside him, his eyes on his daughter who was comparing magic colors with Max. They were shooting little sparks in the air, and Reesa was laughing as they landed on her hair and arms.

“She is,” Jace said, a mix of pride and worry in his voice.

“Having a child with a gift you can’t exactly understand, it’s not easy,” Jem admitted. Jace looked at him, realizing Jem was a former Shadowhunter, with a half shadowhunter-half warlock wife and a child with an odd mix of warlock and shadowhunter blood.

“I don’t care about her gifts so much anymore, I just want her to be happy,” Jace said quietly. “I wasn’t, as a child. I want her to be more than just her gifts.”

“I remember you,” Jem mused. “You were the quietest, most composed, well-trained, and polite 10 year old I had ever met.”

“The ship. The attack by the werewolves on that ship the night I came to live with the Lightwoods.” Jace looked surprised. “I had forgotten, that was the first time we met, wasn’t it? I used your staff. The one with WH carved on it.”

“Yes. Your gifts were very visible that day, I just didn’t see them clearly. I’m sorry you weren’t happy, though.”

“I was later. I found part of my happiness with the Lightwoods. And the rest,” Jace’s eyes searched out Clary, laughing with Tessa and her mother near the fireplace. “The rest with Clary. And now with Reesa.”

“I understand,” Jem replied. And he did. He knew the fulfillment of happiness that came with love. With Will, with Tessa, with Mina and Kit. He saw that same completion in Jace now, what had been missing all those years ago when he had been the solemn and determined child with those golden eyes and that Herondale recklessness that had reminded Jem of Will even then.

The two men watched as Mina and Reesa joined hands to run away from Max and for a moment, it seemed like Reesa’s eyes glimmered and Mina’s fingers sparked a brighter gold and they seemed to be moving faster than they should have been. He blinked and it was gone. Jace’s brow was slightly furrowed , as if he had seen something as well.

“I think...those two may be trouble together,” Jem said.

“A Herondale and a Carstairs? Definitely. I’ve heard the stories from Tessa.” Jace laughed and Jem joined him.

“Oh yes. Will and I.” Jem smiled at the memories. “Will and Tessa’s daughter Lucie, her parabatai was also a Carstairs. Their son’s was a Fairchild.”

“Herondales, Carstairs, Lightwoods, and Fairchilds. Chaos and mayhem since the beginning, is what you’re saying?” Jace queried.

“Yes,” Jem confirmed. The two men stood in silence for a moment, watching the children play.

“Mundanes have gifted children too, you know.” Jem murmured. “But I think it means they are better at things like math and reading.” Jace looked bemused at this. Reesa turned and saw him watching her. She waved. He waved back.

“I can’t wait to see what they do,” Jace said softly. Jem nodded in agreement.

“I think,” Jem paused as Reesa and Mina joined hands again, their black and golden-red heads bent together to listen to Rafe and Max. “I think they’ll change the world.”

[mortallyscrumptiousmilkshake]

Two Flies With one Stone: |Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3| 

Your rest and recuperation lasted over two months, as the wound wouldn’t heal and close, causing a dangerous infection. Magnus had to be called in the middle of the night, his magical herbs and incantations saving your life once more. Izzy was helping prepare invitations for the wedding, making arrangements for the flowers and guest list. All in secret, as Maryse hadn’t been informed yet. Most of the time you had barely any energy to eat let alone suggest who should be sat at what table, but she wasn’t deterred. It was Izzy’s way of giving you the motivation to grow stronger.

When Magnus said you were well enough to move, you insisted on sparring to gain back some of the muscle strength you had lost. Alec volunteered to make sure you wouldn’t get hurt. “I think this is a really bad idea.” You grab a pole off the stand and roll your eyes, “everything I do at this point is a bad idea, according to you. Even going to the bathroom alone.” “I-I just… I don’t want you getting hurt.” “Your hovering is absolutely adorable.” “Shut up.” His cheeks grow red and he straightens into a fighting pose, you attacking him immediately. Unlike your usual fighting style where you use stealth and distance to take down your enemies, you decide on a different approach to trick Alec.

His pole hits your side and you double over in pain, holding onto your abdomen. Alec drops his training weapon and runs to you. At which time, you swipe his feet from underneath him. You point the end of the pole at him with a grin. “Like I said, absolutely adorable.” “You cheated.” “I did not. I tricked you, that’s different.”

Someone clears their throat as you help Alec up, your eyes falling on Maryse. Since she announced Alec and Lydia’s marriage, you hadn’t spoken to her. And she didn’t attempt to seek you out either. Alec wraps a hand around your waist protectively, a notion that doesn’t escape his mother’s eyes. “I see you’re feeling better.” “Yes, much. Still not duty-able though…” “That’s fine,” Alec plants a kiss on your temple, “you don’t need to do any missions.”

Maryse can see the loving bond shared between the two of you. How each would do anything for the other. Something she wanted to break up because she didn’t deem you worthy of the Lightwood name. It took months of resentment and arguments with her children for her to see that. “(y/n), do you mind if we speak? Alone?” “Erm, sure…?” Alec doesn’t want to let go of you as he watches his mother leave the training room. He feels your lips on his skin, reassuring him. You make your way after her to the courtyard where she sits down on a bench, surrounded by fragrant white and pink flowers.

“It’s been some time since you’ve been outside, hasn’t it?” “Yeah… Magnus said I was okay to move around, but I had to be careful.” “Training isn’t being careful.” “That’s why Alec insisted on being my sparring partner, so I wouldn’t get hurt. The others have no tact or regard, he said.” She chuckles, looking at the flowers. Maryse pulls out a purple velvet box, your eyes observing her with mild amusement. You’ve never seen the woman so nervous before.

“I know you said you didn’t want our family name. But I thought… You might reconsider that.” She opens the box to reveal a beautiful ring, adorned with blue diamonds in an intricate design. “It’s a family heirloom. To be given by the suitor to his or her betrothed. Even I know what true love looks like and I’m… I’m sorry for all the grief I’ve caused you.” She opens up your palm and slips the box into it, tears in her eyes. “Thank you for loving my boy, (y/n).” You wrap your arms tightly around her, a wide smile on your lips. Tears fall down both your cheeks in happiness.

Izzy joins her brother in spying on his fiance and his mother, conversing about who knows what with wide smiles on your faces. “Your possessiveness is rearing its teeth, big brother.” “Shut up. I’m just worried…” “Don’t be… Mother finally saw the error of her ways. She even helped me made the guest list.”

Suggested by @rennyd-26. 

[theheartsmistakes]

The Last Night Part IV

(Author’s Notes: Does anyone even read this part? I’m going to pretend like you all do... Hello everyone! Here is the next installment of my Jordelia fan-fiction based on the characters created by the amazing Cassandra Clare in her trilogy Chain of Gold. This is really turning into what the cool kids call a “slow burn”. I never intended it to have such an extensive plot, but this quarantine is really bring forth my imagination. Anyway, if you enjoyed this please give it a like, reblog, comment, or feel free to just pop in and say hi. As always, thank you for reading! Happy and safe quarantine to you all. P.S. I have added an original character “Martin” for the selfish reason that I didn’t want to kill Cyril. Please forgive the inconsistency.)

Here is Part I

Here is Part II

Here is Part III

Part IV

“Maybe he should lie down?”

“I don’t need to lie down, mother,” said James, not unkindly, but with a bit of annoyance. “He’s removing a bracelet, not my arm.”

“If you don’t remain still,” said Magnus, his dark eyebrows glistened with flecks of glitter when he arched them, “it might well be.”

Magnus stood in front of James in the center of the Institute library with James’s hand suspended between them while the warlock focused his attention on the seemingly inconsequential silver band that adorned James’s wrist. If one were looking from afar without any context at all it might appear comical. Flecks of blue light danced from Magnus’s fingertips causing the silver to rattle against James’s skin. He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light or if the bracelet had begun to glow. No. It was most certainly glowing and hot. It rattled and spun until it became so hot that James ripped his arm away on instinct. 

Magnus looked up, resigned and slightly paled. “It’s a much more powerful spell than I initially realized.” 

“How do you mean?” Will asked from where he sat on the desk under the arched stain glass window cut and stained to look like the angel Raziel rising up to the heavens. Rain hit the glass as thunder crackled against the Institute’s walls rattling the crystal chandelier above them. “Will it come off?”

“It’s the strangest thing.” Magnus picked up James’s wrist again. “An absolute work of genius, actually. It’s as if it’s alive and it’s fighting against my magic.”

“Well I’ve had quite enough.” Lucie stood up from the floor where she had been petting Church in long, absentminded strokes. The cat gave a placid meow when she’d stopped. She smoothed out her dress and walked towards the door. “There seems to be only one thing left to do.”

“What’s that?” Matthew asked from where he stood in front of the door, blocking her way. He seemed more steady than his usual self. His hand wasn’t twitching where it held the door frame; his eyes remained focused and clear. They had all wondered what brought on his sudden sobriety. It seemed after one conversation with her father and he’d dropped the sauce like one of his waist coats that he deemed “out of style”. Will had that effect on people. It was best not to question it.

“I’m going to collect Grace Blackthorn and drag her here so that she can ask James to remove the bracelet her-bloody-self.” Lucie came to a stop in front of Matthew. It may have been the shadows cast across his face, but Matthew almost appeared afraid.

“No, Lucie, we aren’t sure what Grace is capable of,” said Tessa. “You said only moments ago that she confessed the truth about the bracelet, but you failed to think to bring her here to remove it?”

Lucie’s mouth opened in defense, but closed as if she forgot what she intended to say. She turned back to Matthew with a quizzical grimace. “Why didn’t we bring Grace back with us?”

“She—“ Matthew raised a pale eyebrow. “I must say I don’t recall.”

Lucie turned her back against the wall and crossed her arms over chest. Heat radiated to her face despite the chill that surrounded the room. Anxiety prickled underneath her skin like the desire to run as far and as fast as she could. 

It’d been a whole day since she last spoke to Cordelia. They’d stood in the foray of her Aunt Cecily’s home after having walked in on her brother ravishing Grace Blackthorn against a wall. It was not an image that would soon evaporate from her memories. A blind rage filled her so suddenly that she feared she might have blacked out for a moment. When she came to, the walls behind James and Grace started to ripple and crease as translucent figures emerged from the atrocious paisley wallpaper. Their fleshless hands reached for the disentangled couple when Cordelia wrapped her hand around Lucie’s wrist and the door closed between them. 

No one had seen anything. Not even her brother whose eyes were fastened on Cordelia. No one knew the dark depths to which her power could reach— not even herself. 

“I know you’re upset, darling,” said Tessa, from beside her daughter now, “but have faith that Magnus can remove the bracelet and we will figure this all out.”

“We don’t have time for faith and waiting.” Lucie dropped her arms back to her sides. “Cordelia is on her way to Idris and after what James did, she’s likely to rune her room with wards not even the Angel himself can get through.” 

James grimaced. Good, she thought. He deserves to be in pain.

“That doesn’t sound like Cordelia to me,” said Tessa and pressed a hand to Lucie’s cheek. “You’re warm darling, are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine.” Lucie insisted. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment I think I’ll pop into the kitchen for a glass of water while I have faith and wait.”

Tessa looked resigned. “Maybe someone should go with you.”

“It’s only down the hall,” said Lucie, skirting past her mother towards the now empty doorway. Matthew stood beside James, an arm around his shoulder, as the two of them studied the bracelet. Matthew said something in James’s ear that brought a small smile to her brother’s face. Whatever they had fought about only days ago, it seemed not to matter now. Or if it did, other things took precedence at the moment. 

Tears stung her eyes as she turned from the scene and exited the room.

The framed pictures on the hallway walls rattled with the thunder. Lucie stopped to readjust one that had tilted slightly of her sitting in a deep purple velvet arm chair studying a book. She secretly hated the likeness— not because it didn’t capture her respectfully— but because of the memory of it. She had to sit for nearly four hours listening to the artist drone on about his holiday in the Americas while her brother clashed swords with Matthew in the training room next door. 

“Chin up, dear.” Bridget would say from time to time. “You’ll look like a potato.”

Lucie left the photo off center and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. To her relief, it was empty. Bridget was probably in her room reading or minding the Institute’s many chores. The kitchen always smelt like rosemary, freshly baked loaves, and exotic spices. It was heavenly and had an instant calming effect on Lucie. Memories of being a child and helping Bridget beat dough with her tiny fists until she was covered in flour from her mess of mousy brown curls to her apron came to mind. What she wouldn’t give to have a mound of dough to beat now.

Lucie walked around the center island, covered in a thin layer of flour, to the cupboard that housed the glassware and pulled a cup from the shelf. The pitcher of cold water sat beside the sink; she filled her cup to the brim and took a sip when a slight chill brushed against the exposed skin on the back of her neck. 

“Not now, Jessamine.” Lucie stared down into her reflection in the cup. The soft wispy hair around her face stood out in delicate curls she’d inherited from her father. A leaf sat tucked behind her ear. The coal she’d lined her eyes with had run making her eyes appear wide and fatigued. 

“Should I return later then?”

The cup fell from her hands and shattered at her feet, but she hardly seemed to notice. She spun around and faced the voice. “Jesse.”

A smile curved at the corner of his mouth. His straight black hair fell against his pale skin and swept across his green eyes that studied her from across the room.

“Where have you been?” The shattered glass crushed under her shoes as she moved forward to meet him. An uncontrollable desire to grab him around the shoulders and collapse into him made it difficult for her to breath evenly. She knew she couldn’t; that it wasn’t possible anymore, but reality rarely dissolved desire. 

“Tracking my fugitive mother,” said Jesse, his lips curled over his teeth. “I thought how hard could it possibly be to find a woman who still chooses to wear an enormous Victorian bird hat? Well, it turns out that it’s extremely difficult. If you needed me why didn’t you summon me sooner?”

Lucie averted her eyes to the ink stain marks on her fingers. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

After commanding him against his will to take her to James, she’d made a promise not only to him, but to herself to never command him to do anything again. That included summoning him to her even when she longed to just hear his voice. 

“It’s alright, Lucie.” Jesse stepped towards her but stopped. “Why did you summon me now?”

She looked up aghast. “I didn’t.”

“I heard you,” said Jesse, his expression softened. “It was faint but I heard you.”

Lucie shook her head. “Jesse, I promise you that I did not, or if I had, I hadn’t meant to.”

Jesse opened his mouth to reply when he looked to the kitchen doors. “Someone’s coming.” 

Lucie waited for the doors to swing open to reveal her mother, or father, or Matthew coming to retrieve her after being gone for too long. The air in front of the door rippled, like heat rising on pavement, until the form of a man materialized out of the haze. He was dressed in a rain soaked driver’s uniform, but his back was bent out of shape and his right leg curved out at an unnatural angle.

“Martin?” Lucie balked, recognizing the man that has driven her carriage since she was a child.

Lucie and Jesse both moved towards the ghost from either side of the room. The water that dripped from his coat splashed onto the floor and instantly dissolved into mist. 

“What’s happened to you?” Lucie demanded.

Martin looked between them as if he wasn’t all together sure how he’d come to be standing in front of them. “I was told by others that you would be able to see me; that you would be able to help.” He looked down at his hands. “I feel so strange. Everything and nothing at the same time.”

“Martin?” Tears sprang to her eyes as she realized that he was dead; a ghost standing in her kitchen as he had all of her life. Always casually slipping in to steal a fresh biscuit behind Bridget’s back with only crumbs and Lucie’s giggles left to give him away. He would listen to her stories on long drives and praise her for her prose. He’d laugh in all the right places and made her promise to sign a copy of her first published work, so he could keep it on his mantle. “What happened to you?”

“I was taking Mr. and Miss Carstairs to the London Portal when we were attacked.”

“Cordelia.” Lucie rushed forward. “Where is Cordelia?”

“I don’t know—“ Martin’s body began to flicker and wain, “I don’t have much time. I’m not supposed to be here, you see, but I fear something terrible may have happened. Something truly, truly terrible.”

Lucie burst through the library doors, the hem of her dress wet from her cup of water and her face noticeably pale.

The previous occupants of the room where joined by three more: Christopher stood beside Magnus surveying the bracelet and Thomas towered next to Matthew. Anna Lightwood was holding Church like a baby beside the fireplace. They all looked to her as she entered.

“It’s Cordelia.” Lucie shouted, her hand gripped the wall to keep her stable. “She’s been attacked.”

The room fell silent except for the small yet noticeable ting of metal hitting stone. Lucie’s eyes, along with everyone else’s, looked down at James’s feet where the bracelet now rested half on the toe of his boot and half on the floor. 

[myulalie]

Hello! I was wondering if you could do a Malec fic on your ao3... Izzy and Jace find pictures in Magnus's work desk, of Alec in lingerie and heels? After after all did a photoshoot for Magnus' birthday? Thank you!

Hi anon! Thank you for your prompt! You can find it on AO3 or read here! I'll admit I was out of my comfort zone, but I had a lot of fun coming up with this story, hope you like it ♥

Talking bodies

One. Ops Center Alec squirms, uncomfortable in the leather chair, and tugs at the fabric of his black shirt. Cotton isn’t so bad, stark black against his too-white skin from locking himself away during the day, and only going out at night. At least his skin hasn’t erupted in rashes from the prolonged contact this time, he thinks.

The shadowhunter feels like he’s about to choke with the collar of his shirt leaning heavily around his throat though, and can’t help but feel wary. This is Alec’s battle gear. He usually wears these clothes when he leaves on patrol, but there is nothing to fight here, except the urge to slap Jace over the head.

Why do they have to get dressed in the Institute? Shouldn’t this Clary girl adopt their customs rather than demand they all get dressed to spare her from… from what, exactly? Alec has seen the way she blushed at the sight of Jace shirtless, Clary enjoyed the view. Is she jealous of Isabelle? She’ll look like Izzy, like them all soon enough, better start living like them too.

Hodge seems uncomfortable in his clothes too, his hair in disarray and his clothes as revealing as possible to let his skin breathe. The pink tinge of Hodge’s complexion clues Alec in on the fact that he’s not the only one that feels too hot right now.

Alec cannot see Jace squirm because the blond puts up a brave front for Clary, but the parabatai bond is taut with concealed frustration. There is a suspicious looking tinge at the back of Jace’s neck too, bright red on beige. No wonder the bond is so sour, Jace must be in pain, Alec muses.

Serves him right, Alec can’t help but express through the parabatai bond.

Alec looks up with a start when the screen lights up with pictures of a warlock, always surrounded by other downworlders. The man is beautiful, with luxurious clothes and Alec squints as he tries to catch sight of a scar, or maybe a defining trait on the smooth expanse of skin exposed by the High Warlock’s clothes.

Magic is nothing like shadowhunters battle skills and there isn’t much to learn from Magnus Bane’s outward appearance, except that he’s rich, and good at hiding everyone and everything. Alec doesn’t approve of the plan, but there isn’t much to do or say either way. They need Clary’s memories. He glances at Isabelle, propped on the edge of the table, and the back of Clary’s head, bright orange hair curling down her back.

“Can you two focus,” he interrupts the banter going on around him, “this is not a joke.”

“Someone needs to get laid,” Isabelle quips.

Alec rolls his eyes and makes a face in reply to his sister’s teasing. Isabelle got away with a sports bra. Her tawny skin — from lazing in the sun when she naps during the day — is left on display. Apparently this is alright with Clary, and Alec has to hide his envious look. He really wishes he could take off his shirt now.

As things are, he follows along with the plan, so there won’t be any getting out of his clothes until he’s back in his bedroom for some well-earned rest.

Two. Brooklyn Heights Magnus doesn’t give much away, even in person. Alec cannot find any tell-tale signs of age on this flawless face, and there are no scars marring this beautiful skin of sepia and magic. The sparkles of color dancing at Magnus’ fingertips always come too late for Alec to feel like he has a chance against the warlock; not that he wants to fight Magnus anyway.

Alec retreats by Jace’s side once he’s sure the loft is secure, and once again wishes the rest of the world, and Magnus specifically, would wear less clothing. The warlock doesn’t need these clothes anyway, Alec reckons. Even if Alec could read Magnus’ body like he does other fighters, magic would glamour anything of use to the shadowhunter. Magnus looks like a dancer, quick on his feet, and it makes sense with the way he wields his magic, this is not about strength.

The shadowhunter glances at his sister as she interacts with Magnus. Isabelle mastered mundane cues to look non-threatening, but Alec can read the danger in her muscular thighs and the few scars on her arms. She doesn’t get hurt often, because her opponents don’t have the time to do any damage.

Jace, in comparison, has many more scars — sometimes more than older shadowhunters — because he fights in close range. It speaks of recklessness, and survival.

Alec startles when Magnus gestures to boss them around, “Pretty boy, get your team ready.”

Jace steps forward at the command, but stops abruptly as Magnus pushes him back to point at Alec instead. The blond steps back reluctantly, glancing between the warlock and his parabatai, and Magnus ignores Jace.

“I’m not talking to you,” Magnus corrects, “I’m talking to you.”

Alec blinks, the flicker of a smile playing on his lips because Magnus likes the way he looks, and Alec takes pride in his body, the work of an entire life, training to hone his skills. He doesn’t need to go hand to hand, because Alec can take his opponents out with his arrows alone.

Jace glances at him with a mock-offended frown, but the blond’s eyes sparkle with pride at the acknowledgment of his parabatai’s strength. Alec shrugs, adjusting his quiver on his shoulder and elbowing Jace. Their bond hums playfully as they get moving.

“Maybe you need to train more,” Isabelle whispers to Jace, teasing.

Clary looks at them like they’ve lost it. She wouldn’t understand, Alec imagines. Soon enough, she will be familiar with shadowhunters’ customs and read their bodies with new eyes. Hers speak of a sheltered childhood, and except for the stain of paint, nothing lingers on her skin. She’s a novice, and it shows in the way her shoulders drop when she sits, too. She has never been on guard, doesn’t need to stay alert.

Alec shrugs and pushes the unexpected compliment to the back of his mind as they get on with the summoning. He can’t wait to go back to the Institute and finally shed his clothes. It feels like he has been on patrol for the entire day.

Three. Training room Alec skirts the punching bag, the light of stained-glass windows fanning in red and purple over his naked back. The floor is comfortably cool beneath his feet and the impact of his knuckles against the bag grounds him. Alec punches once, then twice and thrice and exhales loudly as the clatter of heels echoes behind him.

Alec stills, surprised, as most shadowhunters walk barefoot, and he watches from the corner of his eye as Magnus comes round to face him.

The shadowhunter grabs the bag to stop its momentum, the leather slightly warm against his palm. He glances at Magnus with interest, at loss of what to think with the heavy ornaments the warlock chose to adorn his outfit with that day. There is barely any skin to see this time, and Alec tilts his head to the side. Maybe there is something to gather from Magnus’ clothes. Isabelle would know, he imagines, but this is a foreign language to Alec.

Magnus has zoned out, staring at Alec’s groin, and the shadowhunter frowns, confused. What is the warlock looking at? The parabatai rune maybe? Alec looks down at his chest, then his length, flaccid between his legs, and Magnus finally averts his eyes when Alec makes no move to hide himself. Alec even preens a little to show off the curves of his muscular frame, and Magnus gapes, shaking his head before speaking.

“I had forgotten about the customs of the Nephilim. Should I have undressed at the entrance?” Magnus asks with a wry smile.

“We do not impose our customs on our guests, but they like to deny us of our comfort,” Alec replies evenly.

Magnus’ eyebrows arch up, but he doesn’t comment, and neither does Alec. Clary has yet to adopt their customs, but she has taken to wearing sports bras like the one she allowed Isabelle to wear when they planned to meet up with Magnus, Alec muses as he moves to grab a towel. He wipes sweat off his chest and arms, glancing at the file in the warlock’s hands.

“I have the preliminary autopsy findings,” Magnus explains.

Alec accepts the file, but doesn’t look at it, admiring the colorful dance of the light pouring from the stained-glass windows and onto Magnus’ face instead. Magnus belongs there, Alec can’t help but think as he takes in the sepia of the warlock’s skin, and the royal blue of Magnus’ outfit, that aged like fine wine and shines gently centuries later.

It’s a beautiful contrast, and for a moment, Alec understands the appeal of such clothing. Then, Magnus shifts and the light falls to the floor between them. Alec throws the towel over his shoulder and finally glances at the file he dismissed a moment ago.

“Should I walk you out?” he offers.

“No, thank you. I should be alright,” the warlock gestures at Alec to get going.

Alec can feel Magnus’ gaze on his back as he leaves the warlock alone and walks out of the training room.

Four. Master bedroom For the importance mundanes and some downworlders put on clothes — and especially when to take them off or with whom — Alec finds it increasingly peculiar that Magnus and him keep them on in the warlock’s loft. It’s warm there, and most of the surfaces available are comfortable to lie on.

Alec particularly likes the couch near the window, and curls up there most of the time to catch up on paperwork. He can’t stop fussing today though, and keeps moving around instead of settling in. Alec would enjoy the comfort of the loft a lot more without clothes on.

He doesn’t mind per se. Alec understands that there is a time and a place to go around naked. This was the very reason for his annoyance when Clary insisted they get dressed in her presence at the Institute, Alec’s very home. Alec simply did not expect Magnus’ loft to be one of these places.

“Something’s bothering you, darling?” Magnus calls from the apothecary.

“Why do you love clothes so much?” Alec blurts out without thinking.

Magnus stills in the doorway and peers at him. Across the living room, it feels like the gap between them is too wide, and that Alec can never understand Magnus. He tries though, and stands up to cross the room, stopping a breath short of Magnus.

“Why do you hate clothes so much?” Magnus replies, with a teasing glint in his eyes.

“They’re impractical and because of their clothes I can’t tell someone’s social status and battle experience just from looking at them,” Alec explains without thinking.

“To you, maybe,” the warlock nods, “but I love my clothes, I choose them with care. They show a part of me that I cherish, and nobody can ignore these statements I make. Yeah, sometimes I use my clothes to conceal how I feel or what I am truly capable of, but would you know how strong of an opponent I am just from looking at me anyway?”

“Magic is different,” the shadowhunter concedes, “how… do you feel good when wearing clothes?”

Alec fiddles with the collar of Magnus’ shirt, curious, but rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger doesn’t bring any answer. Magnus smiles instead, and takes Alec’s hand to lead the way into the master bedroom.

The warlock opens a drawer in his wardrobe there and pulls out a jet black garter belt. It comes with a set of matching suspenders, and a complementary bra, made only of straps to wrap around the chest. Magnus offers them to Alec with an encouraging smile.

“What I like about my clothes is how smooth they feel, and how they enhance my features.”

The shadowhunter nods slowly and takes the jet black set of satin straps. The fabric is soft and flows in his hands like ink, barely there. At Magnus’ instruction, Alec strips and slips on the garter belt first, adjusting it on his waist, and then the bra. The straps crisscross across his chest like a harness and the sharp pattern of geometric shapes reminds Alec of his rigorous nature.

He likes the way the garter wraps around his legs like thigh holsters, too. It follows the lines of his muscular frame in beautiful curves and Alec smiles a little as he realizes he can barely feel the lingerie on his skin.

“I think I understand now.”

+ one. Apothecary Alec fiddles with a letter opener in Magnus’ apothecary while his boyfriend entertains Clary’s curiosity about the potion he’s making. Magnus is patient, and Alec can appreciate how attentive Clary is. She listens intently and hands Magnus whatever ingredient he asks for, squinting to read the tiny scrawl on the various jars around them. Alec has long given up on deciphering his boyfriend’s handwriting (or so he told Magnus) and relies on a series of tips and tricks to read the most important words, while the warlock does his best to write in a more modern script for Alec’s benefit.

Isabelle hasn’t, and she browses through a handwritten grimoire left open on the cluttered desk, her tongue poking between her lips as she reads. She pushes a misplaced quill out of the way to flip the page, and a picture flutters out. It falls on the floor and Jace bends to pick it up, a smile lighting his face at the sight of the photograph. Isabelle peers over his shoulder, a curtain of dark hair hiding the picture from view. She grins as well, glancing at Alec to wink.

“Damn Alec!” Isabelle whistles approvingly, “Did you really need to wear heels too? You’re already so tall!”

Alec rolls his eyes and ignores his parabatai humming in agreement. He strides forward to grab the picture and have a look as well. Alec is pleasantly reminded of the photo shoot that took place in Magnus’ bedroom when he tried on the garter set and strap bra.

Black satin wrapped around him aesthetically, with matching heels. It was a beautiful pair of heels too, that tied around his calves with black satin ribbons, enhancing the curve of his muscles in all the right places. Alec smiles at the reminder, and moves closer to Magnus, showing him the picture too.

“I don’t want to see that!” Clary shrieks, hiding her eyes.

Magnus chuckles and takes the picture, pressing it against his chest with a dramatic sigh.

“An early birthday present from me to me!”

[marauder-level-chaos]

In A World Like That Ch One

Magnus and Alec have been pushed into their TWI roles by a meddling demon who feeds on their happiness. It puts them in a deep sleep and the only way to get out there is to find each other in TWI and fall in love. If they can do that, they will automatically fall out of the magical slumber the demon has placed them under. Otherwise, they fall into an eternal sleep. It’s upto Malec to find their way back to each other. It is set after the TWI episode in the show, so they have met each other once already. Here is the masterlist. My AO3: malecplusotherthings

Warnings: swearing, TWI characters, angst obviously, some fluff, slight show divergence

When Magnus Bane woke up that morning, something had been very different. Everything around him looked as it always did, but felt extremely strange. He quickly shook the feeling and went about his day as he normally would. Magnus reached over to the table by his bed and grabbed his glasses. He brushed his teeth and poured himself a giant pot of coffee. He then fumbled around in his closet to find the only clean shirt left and paired it with a random pair of jeans. Great, now I’m going to have to do some laundry. I fucking hate laundry.

Magnus then headed downstairs to the antique store. His father had left him the store when he had passed a few years ago. Since then, Magnus had kept it in almost perfect condition. He grabbed one of his frayed light grey sweaters off the hook behind the door and went outside to get the mail. Usually there was nothing interesting in the mail, but today was different. Between all the credit card statements and electricity bills, Magnus noticed a deep purple envelope with beautiful silver lettering. He frowned as he grabbed a butterknife to open the letter. Inside was a wonderfully designed lilac invitation with gold writing that matched the silver on the envelope. The invitation asked Magnus to join an antiques exhibition at the Institute over the weekend. Well, they’ve got style, I’ll give them that. This was Valentine Morgenstern's way of including other smaller businesses in his circle. Between taking care of this business and his tarot readings, Magnus didn’t exactly have time for such events.

The day had been quite busy with people coming through the doors of the store constantly. It had been hours and Magnus hadn’t had a chance to sit down yet. He glanced at the clock above his head. It was already past noon. The exhibition would have started by now. He wouldn’t be able to make it even if he wanted to. He was snapped out of his thoughts by a customer asking for assistance. After helping them out, Magnus finally had some time to himself. Or so he thought. Surely enough, the door swung wide open once again. However this time, a familiar face walked through it.

“You got the invitation?” Catarina called. She was a co-owner of Magnus’ antiques store so it was obvious that she would have received an invitation as well. “I think you should go, Magnus. It might be good to get our name out there.”

“I’m a bit busy here, Cat. Besides, it’s already 1 PM. The exhibition started over an hour ago. They’re probably even done by now. I couldn’t go even if I wanted to.”

“Well, the invitation said it goes until 2 PM, so if you hurried you could make it.” Catarina said matter-of-factly.

“Well, I’m still busy so you go on ahead if you want to.” Catarina jumped over the counter to get behind the cash register.

“I would, Magnus, but you see I’m not the one who has a crush on the Institute’s Party Planner.” Magnus knew telling Cat about the boy he had met during the Morgensterns’ Mad Hatter party was a mistake. He rolled his eyes at her and glanced one more time at his watch.

“Well if it’s so important to you I guess I could go.” Magnus smiled at her. He grabbed his coffee off of the counter and marched out the door.

By the time Magnus got to the Institute, the crew had already begun to pack up. All the tables had been cleared and the chairs were neatly stacked in the corner.

“Hi...I’m Magnus Bane. I was invited here for the antiques exhibition?” Magnus pulled out his invitation from his pocket and tried asking one of the security guards at the door.

“I’m sorry but that exhibition has shut down for the day. Mr. Lightwood gave us strict orders to not let anybody in after 1:30.” Magnus let out a sigh of disbelief and threw his hands up in exasperation. All this was clearly for nothing.

***

Alexander Lightwood had been planning his exhibition for quite a while. After seeing his work at the Mad Hatter party, Valentine Morgenstern had asked him to take up a job as the Head of the Institute’s marketing and public relations team. It had been Alec’s idea to plan an exhibition in order to get to know the smaller businesses in the city. Many people would say that this whole thing was a charade for Alec to meet the man he saw at the Mad Hatter party. Magnus, that’s his name. Those people would be right. Shy, adorable and dorky was exactly Alec’s type. He knew that Magnus was an antiques store owner so Alec had sent an invitation over to his store. Being the nerd Magnus was, Alec was certain that such an exhibition would draw him out. He had called antique collectors from all over New York to take part in this event. Despite having been planning this for months, something felt odd to Alec. Something was different.

“You know, if somebody planned an entire party just to get my attention, I would probably love them for the rest of my life.” Alec turned his head and saw Simon standing in the doorway. He smiled. Simon was one of his oldest and best friends.

“Well, seeing as I was the one who planned the housewarming party for you and my sister…”

“And I do love you. What can I say, I have a thing for Lightwoods.” Simon shrugged. Alec laughed at that. “You ready, Alec?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right down just give me a minute.” Simon shut the door behind him and Alec turned his attention back to the mirror. He was wearing a perfectly tailored navy colored suit with a well ironed white button-down shirt. It brought out the blue in his eyes. His dark hair was messy but in an elegant sort of way. Silver rings adorned his long, graceful fingers. Alec picked up the black eyeliner laying on his dresser as a finishing touch to his ensemble. Alec had always been one for a little extra flair.

Satisfied with his look, Alec made his way downstairs to manage - according to Izzy, the correct term is micromanage - the details of the event. Guests were filtering in through the doors of the Institute but there was no sign of Magnus. Alec glanced at his watch and sighed. It was almost 1 PM. Maybe he was wrong about this. Maybe he was wrong about Magnus altogether. He signalled his crew to start packing up for the day. He made his way over to the drinks table where his friends were waiting for him.

“Is he pining?” Alec heard Jace ask Simon.

“Oh, he’s pining.” Simon said. Alec shot them a glare.

“Alexander Lightwood does not pine.” He retorted. “If Magnus isn’t going to come here, I’ll go to him.”

With that, Alec went to the address he had delivered the invitation to. He figured that if Magnus didn’t show it was probably because he got caught up at work. It was a bit of a walk but Alec didn’t mind. Magnus’ antiques store was very well maintained. It had a certain class to it. Alec made his way through the store, searching for Magnus. He spotted a woman behind the counter and went over to her.

“Hey, uh, Catarina, I’m looking for Magnus?” He said, reading her name off of her badge.

“Oh, he actually left for the day. Can I take a message?” Alec shook his head. Dammit, Magnus. Maybe this hadn’t gone the way Alec had planned for it to go, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to give up.

Malec Taglist (please let me know if you want to be added or removed):

@thatwinchestergirl67 @quickbright @julialightbane @bestieswithmydarkthoughts @plaggherondale

[jcmorrigan]

Can you explain a little about each of your OCs fashion taste and maybe add a pic of the epitome of their style? I want to see which one is most like my own fashion preferences (if I wasn't too lazy to dress up lol)

All right, what I’m going to do is the rapid-fire. I’m gonna tell you names and what they dress like, since you were interested in finding out who matched, and then you (or anyone else) can ask further asks about anyone who looks interesting one at a time and I will GUSH

Venley (protag hero): Wears deep blues (but not navy). Likes swishy skirts, flowing sleeves, and layering. So much layering, especially leggings under short skirts.

Sophira (hero): Has a style I like to call The Worst(TM). Wears non-complementary colors. Patchwork sweaters and miniskirts. Loves rainbow tie-dye. Will not take fashion advice from Axeline and this is going to be the death of Axeline

Axeline (hero): Mostly sticks to red palettes with long coats and corset lacing but will try anything once.

Siademina (hero): Likes to pair cute blouses with bouncy short skirts. Tends to wear warmer colors or pastels.

Zefiraduc (hero): Purple and glitzy. She wants to be a famous pop star and dresses like one.

Arain (hero): Blacks and reds. If the outfit can allow her to blend pants with something skirt-ish, like a side panel, it’s an extra bonus. Always wears the fantasy equivalent of a baseball cap to go with it (and has emo bangs AND a huge ponytail).

Ailuen (hero): Mostly dresses in comfy things, tees and jeans, but when she wants to go all-out, she will pick a pink prom dress with ruffles and sparkles. A nice compromise is if she puts a fancy pink blouse over the jeans. During the planned arc where she becomes a Lawful Evil for a while, wears a white military uniform.

Alivain (deuteragonist villain): Mostly likes red, but occasionally blue or purple. Is a villain and dresses like a villain. Outfits are very bright and flamboyant. I’m toying with an “evil circus” aesthetic for the entire team and have written down some of him acting as the ringmaster, so go ahead and add a red ringmaster’s uniform to his most-worn. I also want him to have gloves with little claws built in at one point. Capes. And he wears high heels because he likes to feel tall and glamorous.

Versafina (villain): All black all the time. Lots of leather. Prefers pants vastly over skirts because she’s a dancer/martial artist who needs the mobility; also she just doesn’t like the femme aesthetic so much. Though she does enjoy wearing the highest of high heels specifically because training in them makes her more balanced and agile, and if she takes them off, you are dead where you stand.

Phantasia (villain): White cocktail dresses. Swanky and glamorous. Usually more pencil-skirt style or form-fitting than anything that has ruffle. Slits that show off the leg are a fave style of hers. High heels for her too.

Zangary (villain): I’m not entirely happy with his design, but for now, I have him in kinda generic dark clothes with an ostentatious long lavender jacket and a black wide-brimmed hat.

Dweixyn (villain): Pink minidresses/blouses and skirts. Has a favorite trench coat that has pink lining on the inside and is darker on the outside. Always wears sunglasses, even indoors and at night, for the aesthetic and no other reason. High heels for her too.

Belador/Belladore (villain): They’re kind of a rave-themed villain so I imagine lots of mesh tops and glow sticks.

Yridel (villain): I’m not entirely sure what her style is, but it needs to show off her cybernetic limbs. That is a must.

Sherida (villain): A form-fitting red bodysuit with a black motorcycle helmet that prevents you from seeing her face. Heavy-soled boots. Steal aesthetics from Vanitas Kingdomhearts? Me? Nooooo

Lirian (villain): “Sun” palettes, with pinks and yellows and reds. But also blue sweaters and skirts (dull in hue). I toy with one of her quirks being wearing ballet shoes everywhere she goes but I’m not sure if that’s silly.

Rachneira (villain): Wears lots of black. Not just a Goth but THAT Hot Topic Goth.

Tomagi (villain): Pink sundresses, particularly with gold lining.

Calpurniko (villain): Jumpsuits, overalls, beiges and dull colors, white tees, anything she can get dirty and not cry over.

Diamandian (villain): White lace. He is cis male but comfortable enough with his masculinity that he adores ruffles and lace hems. Has a matching white parasol and a white top hat.

Maraya (villain): Victorian-esque dress...blue?...and a big ol’ black cloak that hides her appearance. Her design is still kinda under construction because I started out going one direction and then made a hard left on her character

Anastasios (villain): Tunics and breeches. Greens and browns.

Kaxhalen (villain): He is an alien warlord so I’m trying to design a silver extraterrestrial battlesuit but not sure how to make it look unique

Osmend Osmodias (villain): Shiny golden suits. Fedora that’s pulled down to cover his eyes.

Orianelle (villain): black leather that shows a lot of skin. Tanks and shorts that bare midriff. Tall black boots with heavy soles.

Siersyrei (villain): Navy blue and that’s about all I know for now, though there are reasons I’d like her to have a skirt with shorts underneath.

Clancette (B-team hero): When in civvies, wears a lot of pink “kawaii” clothing. Jackets over tanks. Lots of pins with the fantasy equivalent of Sanrio characters. Rainbow stockings. As a Magical Girl, is associated with the color pink and element of wind; her outfit has a short and wide ruffly skirt and any way a breeze can be implemented into the design is welcome.

Xar/chelyna (B-team hero): When in civvies, he wears button-down shirts and blue pants. As a Magical Girl, she is associated with blue and water, so skirts that are long and wavy and any ocean motifs. Also enjoys a blue top hat.

Loveleigh (B-team hero): Both civvies and Magical Girl clothing are red/fire-associated. Likes slinky skirts and low-cut blouses.

Fernamele (B-team hero): Both civvies and Magical Girl clothing are yellow/lightning-associated. Another pop star wannabe who dresses in glitz and glitter, with swishy short skirts.

Zelladane (B-team hero): Civvies are sweatshirts, jeans, and heavy rubber boots with a lot of dirt built on them from her gardening. Magical Girl clothing is green/plant-associated, but with pink accents. Any piece that’s green with pink flower decorations on it automatically makes me think of her.

Aoliaoma (B-team hero): Undecided on civvies, but her big character quirk is that she seems perpetually sleepy, so I could see her just forgetting to change out of her full-length pajamas that are probably black satin. As a Magical Girl, her association is black/the void, and she has a short dress meant to look like that of a traditional witch, with a pointed witch’s hat on top.

Ravenille (antihero): Denim jackets and pants. Lots of denim. Silver face piercings and LOTS of them.

Arisia (antihero): I specifically see her in a blue tank top, a brown skirt/shorts and chain mail overlays. Anything with chain mail makes me think of her. Also, tall heeled boots. She might also wear a mask made of chain mail that covers the lower half of her face.

Lunisia (antihero): Pink. Skirts with leggings beneath. Quirky shoes, like black patent-leather with buckles.

Rhodelton (antihero): The ugliest yellow jacket you can imagine over a T-shirt and jeans.

Phaeley (minor character, could be moved to antihero squad): Black tanks and long skirts. Slightly Goth but not that much. Always wears a black newsboy hat.

Sylvisa (minor character, could be moved to antihero squad): Almost exactly Versafina’s style except more masculine. I should probably refine his.

Dashorra (minor character): Anything that’s split right down the middle as black/white is fair game.

Victorique (minor character): Shiny silver dresses with long skirts.

Isisa (minor character): White toga and gold hair ornamentation.

Phil (minor character): Is literally a sentient pile of green slime and never wears clothes, but if he did, it’d be business suits with tacky striped ties.

Tristabelle (minor character): I usually picture her in a dark blue low-cut dress with a loose, flowing skirt, but I feel like it needs refinement.

Madwyn (minor character): I usually picture her in a form-fitting black cocktail dress, but I also feel like this could be more special.

Diceanne (minor character): I usually picture her in a pink bodysuit with gold accents that lacks sleeves or legs, so I kind of want to do something with this and the concept of tackling the issue of revealing clothing and sexism and how much choice is had in the matter so I guess her final outfit will come to me once I’ve got the arc in mind

Beccatrice (minor character): I usually picture her in a white toga, but unless she and Isisa are part of the same order or class or something, I should probably make hers different.

Sharamantha (minor character): Brightly-colored overalls (pink, green, purple) over white tees. Sneakers.

Eudarmence (minor character): Shiny gold gowns. Any shiny gold gown. Also likes shiny gold hair ornamentation. Has to be the shiniest thing in the room.

Ilyènne (minor character): Either yellow dresses with loose skirts or this specific pink blouse with a huge ostentatious ribbon on the chest that I got in my mind’s eye once.

Riaudne (plot-device character): Pink-and-silver dresses. She’s royalty, but I want to play with her culture not being Eurocentric, so I want to shake up this design somehow but I’m not yet sure how

Aelistene (plot-device character): Brightly colored minidresses (mint green or deep purple), likes hair ornaments.

Magnus (Lawful Evil villain): All white all the time. Looks very regal - jackets, waistcoats. Very masculine as well.

Janiel and Tjeron are both mooks of the Lawful Evil faction and will eventually renounce their ways, but I have literally never pictured them in anything other than military uniforms that I originally designed as black but now have changed to white for symbolic deconstruction reasons

The following characters are still under construction to where I’m not sure of their fashion style at all: Valencindri (villain sidekick), Dr. Hope Lessness (villain), Mercy Lessness (villain sidekick), Lainnhartt (villain), Soligeo (villain sidekick), Khairic Kajé (antihero), Aerokai (antihero), Tredwulfall (antihero), Burqueley (antihero), Liodax (minor character), Ririko (minor character), Ayali (minor character, possibly antihero), Lilianet (minor character), Spectra (minor character), Prettiza and Kyista (minor characters who have to wear the same outfit), Rewnoki (minor character), Delena (minor character), Jaydrey (minor character), Mejame (minor character), Shananadel (minor character), Veline (Lawful Evil), Keiandra (Lawful Evil), or Oquian (Lawful Evil).

I hope this has helped you figure out whose style you match and also see how many freaking characters I have designed and I don’t intend to stop until I have enough to fill a huge fantasy world but then I’ll probably keep going anyway because my mind is apparently hooked on designing now

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @actuallyredorchid!

Thank you for your great prompts, I tried to combine as many as possible into one fic (and it evidently ran away with me …)

malec | rated: t | extended oneshot | canonverse time travel, first meetings, developing relationship, established relationship, 5+1 things

fic summary:

Magnus Bane meets a man from his future, interwoven throughout moments in his past.

Read on AO3

*****

Your Name for a Capital

“In my dreams I am kissing your mouth and you’re whispering ‘where have you been?’ I say, ‘I’ve been lost but I’m here now. You’re the only person who has ever been able to find me.’”

— Sue Zhao

ONE | MADRID, SPAIN, 1619

Magnus Bane saves people. Somewhere along the line, this became fact. Somewhere along the line, he lost someone he couldn’t get back, and he decided no more. That’s enough . He suspects it was his mother.

Catarina says that other people’s happiness takes priority over his. You need people to need you, Magnus.

Magnus laughed at her the first time she suggested it: you’ve only just met me , he had said. How can you know that?

You rescued me from that stake , she replied matter-of-factly. You didn’t have to, but you did. That’s how I know .

I just wanted to make an impression , Magnus had said. He didn’t want to tell her that she was right.

And Catarina being right is the reason why Magnus is still awake and hasn’t been home since the morning before, wandering the deserted streets of a slowly stirring city as the last of his adrenaline fades: last night, the High Warlock of Madrid had refused a newly-turned Vampire in need of a potion to quell his hunger, and Magnus has never been one to stand idly by. He knows how the High Warlock looks at him and sneers, an ugly wrinkle to his nose as he calls Magnus young and inexperienced and insolent , but Magnus doesn’t like playing by the rules.

He saves the people he’s not meant to save. There’s an opiate thrill in it, swooping in at the last minute and saving the day, and he chases the rush, the way adoration and gratitude burn through him leaving him breathless and ignited. The taste of power in his fingertips, willful and impassioned and destined to do good - he needs it. He needs to know that it’s still possible for him after he left everything in the East Indies behind.  

Madrid is sleepy shortly after sunrise; the sky is a brilliant blue but the streets are steeped in shadow that remains icy cold to the touch. There are alleyways and dark corners aplenty for demons to hide, but Magnus lingers in the intermittent shards of early sunlight that slip through the spaces between the townhouses. The city rarely feels this still, but the cobble beneath his feet and the granite on either side muffle all sound in the narrow, valley-like streets. Magnus feels like he’s walking along the bottom of a steep canyon and his every step might echo.

The clack of wooden shutters against the side of a house echoes too. The opening of balcony doors. The yowl of a stray cat. All the sounds of a home that has been made a home; the city begins its wakening, and Magnus finally feels his sleepless night weighing on his shoulders. His bed calls out to him. He might as well get a few hours of shut-eye before the High Warlock comes looking and chews him out.

And then, Magnus hears the echo of something else. He’s not sure what catches his attention: a shout, a clatter – but it’s his magic that stirs first. He feels it in his fingertips, a twitch, as it scuttles up the back of his neck forcing him to turn his head, like the restless spasm of a nerve.

He strains his ear to listen, but the silence suffocates all noise, and the world holds its breath, deathly still.

Clang !

A resounding clamour behind him; a body shoved against a wall, a low grunt.

Magnus stops in the middle of the street and turns a full circle, listening for another sound. The wind, the rattle of wagon wheels on the cobblestone, the city’s murmur - another muffled shout. The twang of a bowstring. The recognisable hiss of a demon evaporating in a shard of sunlight.

He reaches out with his magic, probing for disturbances in the air; in return, he feels the bitter, swirling energy of Shax demons, a lot of them, biting and snapping at his magic as he reels it back in.

Strange , he thinks. But not unheard of . Shax demons rarely attack in the daylight, but they’re drawn to concentrated power, unusual magic wetting their appetite, and in a city like Madrid, there is plenty of that to go around. The leylines that spread out across the country gather in the Plaza del Arrabel, and it’s not inconceivable to find a spider waiting at the centre of the web.

Or a Shax. Regardless, they both have too many legs for Magnus’ liking.

Cautiously, Magnus extends the shield of his magic again: the demonic energy is familiar in the way it always is, reeking of Edom and the planes below, red and brimstone-coloured in Magnus’ mind like Hellfire. But there’s another layer, another current clashing with it and forming a riptide: it’s faintly white and silver, cutting through the stench of Hell. It tastes Angelic - pure and metallic like Adamas - and Magnus’ magic recoils at the touch, but it doesn’t burn as it usually does.

It’s not a Shadowhunter. Well, it is, because the Nephilim are loud and brash and unmistakable in everything they do, but it’s not Angelic power as Magnus knows it.

It’s different, obscured. Distorted somehow.

Another loud crash rings out through the empty streets.

Magnus gathers his magic into his palm, wisps of blue and purple that coil like a serpent in his waiting hand. He slips down a sidestreet, his magic wavering like a compass needle as it guides him towards the epicentre.

Trust the Nephilim to get in over their heads , he thinks. And expect a Warlock to come save the day.  

He can hear Catarina scolding him: I told you I was right.

The old parts of the city are like a maze: twisting, turning, easy to get lost in for anyone but Magnus - but he’s drawn towards the sound of a fight, his magic crackling in his fingertips, eager and impatient.

The stench of the Shax demons gets stronger as he draws closer and he wrinkles his nose. He can sense five, maybe six, not enough to be a problem, but too many for Magnus to waltz into the middle of a battle and not risk being hurt.

And one Nephilim.  

The Angelic power crackles in the air, scattering across Magnus’ skin and raising the hairs on his arms. It pulses and spasms, unstable in a way Magnus has never felt before, as if suddenly cut free from age-old ties and left to convulse as feeling and freedom rushes back into its metaphysical body all at once.

Shadowhunters are usually so cold and controlled. Their power is regimented and stern, never wandering and never wavering, and yet this - this is rogue.

And there’s something more. Magnus doesn’t notice it at first, but as he plasters his back against a wall to catch his breath and his bearings, he listens to the hum of his answering magic, and he feels it. A presence, heavy and unfamiliar, intangible in a way Magnus’ magic cannot grasp. It has no smell, no taste, no colour at all, a blend of magic existing in a dimension he cannot fully grasp, but he feels its effects so strongly it overwhelms him.

The air seems to shimmer like a mirage. Magnus can feel the leylines thrumming beneath his feet and it makes him uneasy, but it makes his heart pound too.

You’re reckless with yourself , Catarina would say. You’re going to end up hurt.

But Catarina isn’t here.

Magnus straightens out his doublet and smooths his hands down his breeches, flexing his fingers as he moulds the magic from blue to red and the intent becomes him.

Then, he steps out from behind the wall - and it’s exactly as he expected.

Six snarling Shax demons circling a lone Shadowhunter, froth dripping from their open jaws and their shrill cries piercing the air like the dying herald of a wounded animal. The Shadowhunter is pinned against the wall; he has a bow in his hand and an arrow poised, but he holds himself still, waiting for one of the demons to pounce before he looses it.

He doesn’t look hurt. In fact, he looks remarkably unbothered, and the only thing askew about him is his dark hair, ruffled by the wind, and the scuff of dust on his knees. He breathes deeply, and even at a distance, the deep rise and fall of his shoulders is apparent, but his eyes are focused, moving from demon to demon, anticipating their every move with the expertise of a man who has spent years training to hunt monsters.

The Shadowhunter’s gaze flicks to Magnus, over and above the wall of prowling Shax demons. His eyes briefly widen, his eyebrows jumping in a way that highlights the thin scar that runs through his left brow, but his stare is vibrant, honeyed-brown in the early morning, and alive . Magnus’ magic jolts in response.

And maybe he imagines it, but the corner of the Shadowhunter’s mouth tips up into the crooked inkling of a smile. He nods at Magnus.

And then he leaps into action.

The Shadowhunterdraws back his bowstring and releases, his flying arrow piercing straight through the hide of the closest Shax demon. The demon shrieks, clawing at its own chest, but the arrow glows bright white, and in a sudden burst of ether, the demon dissolves into a cloud of black dust.

But before the Shadowhunter can blink, a second demon lunges for him from the side. The Shadowhunter ducks beneath the outstretched claw, spinning onto his knees and stabbing the sharp end of his bow into the demon’s belly. The demon throws its head back with a scream and strikes at the Shadowhunter again - but Magnus thrusts his palm out and blasts it with a torrent of magic, carving its body in two and turning it to dust.

The Shadowhunter glances over his shoulder and Magnus grin, the blue tendrils of magic twisting in between his fingers, but the Shadowhunter doesn’t stop; he’s on his feet again and moving, notching another arrow like he’s done this a hundred times before and trusts Magnus to watch his back. He draws the bowstring back to his lips and the arrow soars, so fast and hard that it pierces through the third demon and out of the other side, as if its flesh has been turned to butter. The bow in the Shadowhunter’s hand quivers.

Magnus has never seen a bow like it, sleek silver and glowing with faint runes embossed on the metal. The Adamas sings and Magnus can feel its residual power meshing with his own magic; it invigorates him like a gasping breath, like a punch of energy he’s never felt before, white-hot and celestial and setting his own magic alight as if drawn, instantly, to the point at which Magnus is most flammable.

An arrow whizzes past Magnus’ ear and the breath of it slice into his cheek as it disappears over his shoulder. His fingers shoot up to his face to feel for the thin line of a cut, but his hand comes away bloodless. Magnus’ mouth falls open on instinct, but the Shadowhunter is grinning at him like he’s God damn pleased with himself, and he fires another arrow over Magnus’ head. Magnus twists around as the Shax demon behind him falters - the shafts of two arrows protruding from its chest - and evaporates, its remnants splattering across the cobblestones.

One demon left. Magnus turns to face it as the Shadowhunter does, reaching back for his quiver.

The Shadowhunter sucks in a breath, grabbing his last arrow and notching it in his bow. The Angelic power shudders, and so does the presence that belies it; it radiates out along the shaft of the arrow, gathering in the point.

His fingers twitch, the arrow flies, but Magnus waves his hand in a sudden arc, launching the last demon into the wall where it explodes in a shower of black dust. The Shadowhunter’s arrow misses, embedding itself in the wall with a silent puff of plaster.

The sound of a clock tower bell striking upon the hour rings out in the immediate silence. Each clanging ring pulsates like a drumbeat, disturbing the dust and demon viscera settled on the road.

Magnus smirks to himself, dusting his palms on his doublet and sweeping his windswept hair back against his head. He can feel his heartbeat racing, his breath panting. Exhilaration makes him grin. His eyes flick towards the Shadowhunter who stoops to collect his spent arrows and slots them back into his quiver.

Magnus’ head is buzzing.

“That was impressive,” he says, eyes raking over the Shadowhunter’s broad back. His clothes are like nothing Magnus has ever seen before, tight-fitting and embossed with metal; and instead of buckles and clasps, his shiny leather jacket fastens with a line of silver teeth. He wears no armour. No waistcoat, no stockings, no simple cravat.

But he’s tall and handsome and well-built, with the gait of a soldier and a dark, inky Deflect rune snaked around his pale throat. Definitely Nephilim .

So why doesn’t he feel like a Nephilim?

Magnus raises his eyebrows, running his teeth over his lower lip as he appraises the long line of the Shadowhunter’s legs as he bends over to yank his last arrow out of the ground. “You dispensed those Shax demons rather proficiently, I must say.”

The Shadowhunter pauses and glances back over his shoulder, looking Magnus up and down, and laughs. Laughs. Not at Magnus, per say, but he laughs as if he’s genuinely delighted by the fact Magnus just saved his life, and yet is completely bemused by it.

His laughter lights up his face, attractive creases forming at the corners of his dark eyes as he straightens and turns to face Magnus. “You’re supposed to say well done ,” he says.  

Magnus raises his eyebrows, unamused. “Well done?”

“Yeah,” the Shadowhunter grins. He slings his bow over his shoulder and walks up to Magnus like they’re old friends who often spend the morning dispatching demons in a back alley - but Magnus refuses to budge. “You say well done , and then I say: more like medium rare .”

Magnus frowns. “If that’s a jest, I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“It’s our thing,” says the Shadowhunter, but then he glances around, his gaze sweeping up the walls of the overlooking townhouses. He seems to realise where he is for the first time and his cheer wavers for a moment. “Or it will be, I guess. Where, uh - where am I?”

“Did you take a bump to the head back there?” Magnus scoffs, but the Shadowhunter’s earnestness makes him pause; the Shadowhunter grips the limb of his bow where it’s looped over his shoulder, thumbing at the metal. He genuinely doesn’t know. “We’re in La Latina.”

The Shadowhunter scowls. “Spain?”

“What do you mean, ‘ Spain ’? Of course we’re in Spain,” Magnus laughs sharply, “We’re in Madrid. I’ve met my fair share of Shadowhunters in my time, but never one quite so directionally challenged. Where did you think you were?”

The Shadowhunter shrugs, his cheeks tinged pink.

“Dunno,” he says, and Magnus struggles to make sense of the curious twang of his accent, but he can’t place it. His English is good, fluent even, and yet Magnus has travelled the world over and never met anyone who sounds like this. “I figured Europe, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know where I’d end up, but - shoulda known it’d be here. With you.”

He smiles at Magnus again, as if that’s enough to answer the myriad of questions Magnus now has. He seems delighted to see Magnus, to see him here despite not knowing where here was, and as his eyes roam over Magnus’ face, pinning every detail to memory, Magnus doesn’t have the faintest idea why.

The Shadowhunter must be concussed. Perhaps that explains why the power leaking from his runes is going haywire. Magnus should really do him a favour and take him back to the Institute, leave him out on the front steps. Not only will the Head of the Institute then owe him a favour, but the High Warlock will also hate the fact Magnus has been out helping amnesiac Shadowhunters in his spare time.

Two birds with one stone, really.

Magnus narrows his eyes. “Evidently, you know who I am and expected me to be here,” he says carefully, but the Shadowhunter doesn’t show any signs of annoyance at being found out. He even has the nerve to take a step closer. “But I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of your company before. And I am not one to forget a face.”

The Shadowhunter rolls his eyes. “It’s fine,” he says, but the fond exasperation in his voice throws Magnus. What on Earth is wrong with this man - “You don’t know me.”

“But clearly, you know me,” Magnus presses. “If the Institute has some business with me that I don’t know about, they can come knocking on my door and pay for my services like everyone else. They don’t need to accost me in the street.”

“I’m not here on any business,” says the Shadowhunter, looking down at himself and drawing Magnus’ eye back to his clothes. He’s too pale to be local, his skin untanned by the Spanish sun, and his gear is shiny and elegant, his leather boots well-polished. His trousers are practically painted onto his long legs, and his collarless shirt clings to the faint outline of muscle on his chest.

It makes Magnus feels uncharacteristically underdressed. Or overdressed. He’s not quite sure. Self-consciously, he straightens out the sleeves of his doublet and adjusts the frill of his cuffs. If he’d known he’d be meeting mysterious Shadowhunters in the depths of the old city this morning, he would’ve worn his best hat, the one with the feather, God damnit.

The Shadowhunter is still watching him. Openly, gently; it’s all wrong. A Shadowhunter has never looked at Magnus like this before: like he wouldn’t rather see Magnus locked up in some dungeon or put to use warding the Institute, as has always been his only value in the eyes of the Nephilim.

Maybe he’s playing you , Magnus thinks. He’s acting friendly to get what he wants, whatever that is. He’s not what he seems.

Or maybe he’s exactly what he seems and you’ve just forgotten how to trust people.

Magnus frowns, and looks down at his ringed hand before he extends it to the Shadowhunter, letting the wisps of his magic curl and then fade around his fingers. The Shadowhunter is unfazed.

“Alec,” says the Shadowhunter, his smile turning playful. He reaches out and grasps Magnus’ hand with a sure grip, and it makes Magnus’ magic stutter again.

“Alec. Short for Alexander?” Magnus guesses, “Alexander whom? I thought you Shadowhunters were excessively proud of your lineages. Do you not have a family name?”

Alec bites his lip and shakes his head, holding in a laugh. He withdraws his hand too soon. “Yeah, I do. But, well - I guess that’s spoilers.”

“Spoilers?” Magnus repeats, rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. “Hm.” He considers cutting his losses - he’d rather not get involved with a troublesome Shadowhunter who speaks in riddles and won’t even tell Magnus his name - but his curiosity has been piqued. Curiosity killed the cat, Magnus , Catarina would tell him. She’s probably right. This might be the weirdest thing that’s happened to him all decade - and that includes a very unfortunate incident involving Ragnor, a bottle of tequila, and the fact he is now barred from purchasing a copy of Don Quixote de la Mancha anywhere in the city.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Alec?” Magnus probes, circling Alec slowly. “And if you truly aren’t here on Institute business, how did you end up in my neighbourhood encroached upon by a swarm of Shax demons, might I ask? They don’t rarely attack people in the daylight.”

Magnus’ magic flexes in his fingertips, reacting to the unknown undercurrent that still lingers in the air. It’s not Angelic. He can discern that now, but it’s not Demonic either. He doesn’t know what it is: a shiver of someone else’s magic, but it doesn’t belong to this Shadowhunter. Too powerful for that.

It feels like temporal magic. Vast and unwieldy and unable to be bent and shaped like other forms of energy. Magnus doesn’t know it well, but he’s been working on his portal theorem for a while now, and he’s read every musty old text the Silent Brothers have to offer on the subject of how magic threads itself through time and space. He just hasn’t been able to grasp it yet.

The unfamiliar magic flutters in a realm he can’t comprehend; it’s like reaching for a handful of water, only for it to flood between his fingers. Magnus frowns, but when he glances up at Alec, he finds Alec watching him expectantly, like he’s waiting for Magnus to come to a realisation that must be inevitable.

Oh , Magnus thinks. He knows what it is. He knows exactly what it is and must know that I can feel it.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Alec says cryptically. His voice is low. Magnus feels it ripple down the back of his neck.

“Do you believe in chance?” Magnus asks.

Alec’s mouth quirks again. “Not really.”

The demonic energy has faded and no more Shadowhunters have come running. Whatever or whoever Alec the Shadowhunter is, Magnus doesn’t want to let him go now. He’s too interested.

This is going to come back and bite him.  

“So, what now?” He doesn’t realise he’s said it until it’s said, and it hangs, suspended, in the space between him and Alec that has contracted without Magnus really noticing. Did I take a step forward, or did he - “Where are you headed?”

Alec says nothing, meeting Magnus’ eyes and holding his gaze. The temporal magic quietens, but doesn’t vanish. Instead, the buzzing in Magnus’ temples simply fades until it becomes a hum of background noise.

Alec looks at him. Alec looks through him, as if all Magnus’ smoke and mirrors are nothing but fantasy and he can see straight into Magnus’ chest, to a part of Magnus that Magnus doesn’t even know exists, let alone how to control, but he’s sure he’s exposing all his secrets.

Magnus clenches his jaw and shifts in his boots, refusing to be unwound. His magic pulls taut, straining at his skin, reaching out for the other magic he just can’t seem to grasp; it dips and dives through his metaphorical fingers, slippery and unwilling to be caught. The silence stretches on a beat too long.

And then Alec shrugs again, breaking the spell, his eyes flicking away like it was nothing. His smile turns gentle. Illuminated. Almost dazed. The slow rising of the sun over the rooftops glances off his cheeks and forehead, highlighting the threads of deep brown in his hair and drawing Magnus’ attention back to the honey colour of his eyes.

“Anywhere,” he says simply.

Magnus blinks. “Anywhere? What does that mean?”

“It means I’ll go anywhere,” Alec clarifies, “I have nowhere to be. Not for a while. Where are you going?”  

Magnus’ mouth falls open. Oh .

What is happening here? Who are you?

Why are you looking at me like that?

His magic reaches out for Alec on its own accord. Alec can’t see it and likely can’t sense it either, but Magnus feels his power reaching, eager to grab fistfuls of Alec’s jacket and pull him closer.

A thought: you can trust this Shadowhunter. He isn’t like the rest. He isn’t like anyone you’ve ever met .

Magnus clears his throat pointedly. “I was on my way to Plaza del Arrabel,” he lies. His bed can wait. He’s going to do something stupid first. “Perhaps you’d like to see it. I could show you the way.”

“I’d like that,” Alec smiles.

&&&

Magnus leads the way through the old city: he loves the narrow Gothic streets, their sun-baked cobblestones, the earthy colours and heavy stone, the ornate windows and doors with heavy cast-iron knobs and a thousand stories to tell. He knows the name of nearly everyone who lives here: the merchant on the corner, the painter in the attic room, the greying musketeer who frequents the tavern in the basement, spinning tales about his days in the regiment that get more and more grandiose with each successive glass of wine.

The street smells like people wilting in the heat, and the pot-holed stone shimmers. A church casts a shadow that blends with the dappled shade of a single olive tree bursting out of the earth. Magnus can hear the strum of a sitar seeping from a high-up window and it coaxes his blood to sing.

He walks beside Alec, but doesn’t noticed the distance between them disappearing until Alec’s shoulder brushes against his. Magnus glances sideways at Alec, but Alec doesn’t notice, enraptured by the sight of a shoe-shiner polishing the boots of a man in armour; of a young woman setting up her stall of apples and cantaloupe melons to sell; of two horses tied to a hitching post and huffing in the slowly rising heat.

Magnus summons two apples from the grocer’s stall and holds one out to Alec: it’s ruby red and glossy in the sunlight, but Alec still squints at him, glancing back at the woman at the stall. Magnus rolls his eyes and snaps two gold coins into her pocket for her trouble, and that makes Alec smile triumphantly as he takes the apple from Magnus’ hand, his fingertips brushing against Magnus’ rings.

The apple crunches as Alec bites into it, the flesh crisp and sweet, and the juice rolls down his chin. Magnus watches, transfixed, until Alec meets his eye and raises his eyebrow as if to say what? Magnus laughs quietly to himself, but it sticks in his throat.

Deliberately, he lets their shoulders brush again. His pinkie strokes against the side of Alec’s and the magic sparks like flint.

Alec doesn’t react, taking another bite of his apple as he looks upwards, his attention now caught by a woman leaning out of her window three floors above their heads, reeling in her washing line; everything is a marvel to him, save Magnus. He’s not surprised by the touch. Not repulsed by it either. It’s almost as if he’s used to the familiarity, as if he’s expecting it, and that -

That makes Magnus nervous.

Madrid lives and breathes in its people. It’s a city adored by the sun and swathed in music at all hours of the day and into the night. Dozens of intersecting lives, and yet Alec doesn’t fit in at all. It’s like he’s stepped out of a different time.

And yet why do you feel so endlessly familiar? I would remember if I’d met you before.  

“You know, I’ve never been to Madrid before,” Alec remarks then, taking the tip of his thumb into his mouth as he licks off the apple juice. “Which is weird when there’s been an Institute here for so long, but I never really travelled before I met - uh. Yeah. I should make the most of it while I’m here, huh?”

Magnus snorts. “You keep saying these cryptic things that make me more and more confused as to how it was that you accidentally ended up in Madrid,” he says. “Which Institute are you from?”

“New York,” Alec says automatically, before he pauses, the apple pressed against his lips. He turns to look at Magnus. “I mean, uh - shit. New York probably doesn’t exist yet, does it?”

Magnus narrows his eyes, and with his free hand, he lets his magic curl. Quietly, probingly, curiously - a question posed ( who are you ?).

And much to his surprise, he feels a ripple of an answer in return, spoken in a language he doesn’t know how to translate. The magic coaxes him back to Alec with a magnetic pull. A shift in the fabric of the universe, unnoticeable and untraceable, but not unlike a faint shimmer in the air above hot cobblestones or the glimpse of a shadow from the corner of the eye. Something that’s not quite right, but which disappears when looked at for too long.

Temporal magic. Of course. It makes sense now.

Alec didn’t know he was in Madrid not because he wasn’t expecting to come to Madrid, but because it doesn’t look like the Madrid he knows.

He’s a long way from home, indeed.

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of New York,” Magnus says slowly, “York in England is a delightful place, of course - I’ve been many times, but - something tells me you’re not from around here.”

Alec shrugs meekly, taking another bite of his apple. “Like, I said -”

“I know what you said,” Magnus insists, “I’m asking how did you get here ? How did you end up in this particular year ?”

“Ah,” says Alec.

“I’m still trying to master cross-time magic, but I know it when I sense it, and you are drenched in it,” Magnus continues. “If someone has beaten me to the creation of the portal -”

“Not a portal,” Alec admits, “Spell. We were trying to bind a demon, I got hit with some residual magic. This is a side effect.”

Magnus’ eyes widen. “So, you are from the future.”

Alec shrugs again, but he’s biting back another smile. He seems infuriatingly unconcerned by this revelation. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Oh, I am a warlock of my word,” Magnus says, marking an X across his heart with his index finger, but he can feel his magic vibrating, and it’s a miracle his hands aren’t shaking too. “What are the Nephilim doing with temporal magic?”

“Not us. We called in an expert. A Warlock.”

“Oh, a Warlock. And what is their name? I might know them.”

“Spoilers, sorry.”

“But the spell was strong enough to send you back in time,” Magnus remarks, “Which suggests the caster was someone particularly powerful, and I can only think of a few who might be able to wield that sort of magic -” He taps his index finger against his mouth in thought. The High Warlock of Rome has long been interested in manipulating time with magic - but only because he’s incredibly vain and fears getting any older. And then there’s Ragnor, who has been helping Magnus collect old tomes for his portal research, and so help him God, if the old bastard’s gone and stolen Magnus’ work in the future - “If I guess correctly, would you tell me?”

Exasperated, Alec rolls his eyes. “Spoilers,” he says again.

Magnus clicks his tongue. “Very well. Keep your secrets, but permit me one last q uestion ... when is it in the future that you come from?”

Alec licks his lips but shakes his head. His smile is coy. “I’m not going to tell you that either,” he says, “Sorry.”

“Good God,” Magnus laments, throwing his hands up in the air, “Ruin my fun, why don’t you. Can you not give me a clue? A hundred years? More?” He gestures at Alec’s clothes. “I want to know when it is that I might look forward to this strange fashion.”

“I’m from ... a while in the future,” says Alec, glancing up at the yellow-stone buildings that tower above them. His brow furrows. “I think.”

“You think?”

Alec nods. He glances around, and while a few people are eyeing Alec strangely, no-one stands within ear shot. Still, Alec drops his voice low. “Yeah. It’s, uh - it’s temporal hopping. Jumping through time. I’ll bounce around a bit until the residual magic wears off, and then - yeah. It’s not permanent. I’ll probably just disappear without warning.”

“I see.”

“You’re … you’re not freaked out by that?”

“If by ‘freaked out’, you mean to ask if I’m alarmed, then of course I -” Magnus stops himself. He’s not alarmed, but he should be. Men don’t just step out of a rip in time and claim to know him; it’s the stuff of fairytales and the theatre and the tall tales that find people accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.

And yet he finds no space inside him to feel fear or shock or anything but the small flicker of deja vu and the unparalleled sense that he knows - this . The marvel in Alec’s eye as he takes in the city; the way he holds himself completely still and statuesque when Magnus speaks to him; and the soft laughter that underlies his words

Did I call out to you across time? Is that why you’re here?

“Magnus?”

Magnus looks up. It’s the first time Alec has called him by his name.

But Magnus never told him what it was.

It all comes together in a rush: he knows Magnus in the future.

Oh, God, what have you gotten yourself into, Bane?

“I’m not alarmed,” Magnus says, “Perhaps I should be, but I’m not. You live as long as I have, and you see enough that the world stops surprising you. Well -” He looks Alec up and down. “Almost. Here and there, there are a few bright spots.”

Alec beams at him, and it lights up his entire face. And the rest of the world - it fades away. Magnus wonders if he will miss it at all.

&&&

They come upon a large archway and Magnus guides Alec into the deep shadow and out the other side where the street opens up into an enormous plaza, three hundred feet across in each direction. The leylines gather here, and Magnus can feel the humming of energy beneath his feet like a network of blood vessels, pumping magic into the city’s heart: Warlock magic and Angelic power and Seelie spellcraft, and as Alec steps out into the sunlight, something else entirely. Magnus feels the change ripple through the leylines, spreading out and away from them and radiating across the square: not an earthquake, but still a seismic shift, a change in the fabric of the planet for those that might be looking.

But no-one is looking. That’s the beauty of Madrid, a place where Magnus needs not have a name if he doesn’t wish to have one.

In the centre of the plaza, there is a market, a patchwork of coloured tents and twisting pathways, hemmed in by tall red townhouses with slate grey roofs and elegant spires tipped by flags fluttering in the breeze.

The air is lively with chatter and smells of cattle, the merchants driving hard bargains and flashing brilliant smiles, herding the morning crowd towards their stalls lined with trinkets, gold and silver and impressive jewels alongside the vibrant colour of fresh fruit and smoked meat. A wagon rolls by, pulled by an ox that haws and huffs in the heat; in the back, crates of plump, red tomatoes that make Magnus’ mouth water.

But Alec’s focus is elsewhere. The sky is an endless canopy of blue, and he turns his face to the sun, his eyes fluttering closed. His eyelashes cast thin, delicate shadows upon his cheeks, and as the sun warms him, the corner of his mouth tilts up serenely.

Magnus is transfixed. He’s young, reckless, a hedonist; he considers himself a purveyor of beautiful people as much as he has a taste for danger, some soul-felt thrill to be found in complimenting the strength in a handsome man’s jaw or trading coy smiles with a woman in a lively crowd. He knows how to enjoy the sight of a man completely at peace.

But this - he doesn’t know this. Alec is both timeless and other-worldly; and as the rest of the world rotates around him, he doesn’t move.

For someone stepped out of time, he seems so permanent, like a man who has found his fixed point in the universe after a lifetime of searching. He exists differently to the passage of the sun in the sky and the bustle of movement through the market; he exists where Magnus exists.  

His immortality is not the same as Magnus’ - he’s Nephilim and Magnus can see the signs of age beginning to mark the corners of his eyes -  but, like Magnus, he views the world from a distance, through the perspective of someone who has seen different far-off times and places.

Looking at him makes Magnus feel younger than he has felt in centuries.

They meander through the labyrinth of market stalls, and it doesn’t take long for Magnus to notice what catches Alec’s eye.

His fingers trail across the spines of old leather books, and he admires a pair of earrings curled in the shape of two silver snakes while Magnus watches from afar. An artisan’s stall stacked with bright coloured jars of painter’s pigment leaves him looking wistful. A blacksmith displaying an array of ornately carved knives has Alec’s hand drifting to his side, his palm splayed over a rune Magnus cannot see.

None of these things match Alec - and Magnus doesn’t know how he knows that - but Magnus sees the love reflected in Alec’s eyes, a homely and unfettered sort of love, and he wonders who he thinks of.

But it’s the jewelry that draws Alec like a moth to a flame, the barest glint of gold and silver pulling him this way and that as Magnus dips through the crowds behind him. Rings and necklaces, small trinkets for the pocket, even a chain for the ankle adorned with fine jewel-coloured charms - Alec has to look at them all, has to weigh them in his hands and brush his thumb over the metal with a small but fierce scowl.

Magnus wants to ask him what he’s looking for, but perhaps that would disturb the trance - if Alec knows he’s been caught, he might stop, and Magnus is fascinated by his scrutiny. He studies each ring with the diligence Magnus might afford any Shadowhunter - but in the training room or on the battlefield, and not here, in a sunlit market of Madrid at noon.

Magnus allows his eyes to wander over Alec’s body: his long legs, his strong chest, his large alabaster-white hands as he cups the pendant of a necklace and inspects it in the sunlight. He wears no jewelry of his own, no necklaces, no cufflinks on his jacket, no rings save one.

A plain silver band winks at Magnus from Alec’s fourth finger.

“You’re married.”

Magnus doesn’t mean to say it - it’s nothing more than a passing observation, but -

It feels important. A detail meant to be noticed. And now that he’s seen it, it’s like the temporal energy swarms there, gathering on the ring in a cluster of dense magic.

Alec sets down the necklace in his hands and grins at Magnus, but this time, it’s accompanied by the most exquisite pink flush to his cheeks.

Yes, Magnus thinks, yes, I can see how someone would marry that.

“Yep,” Alec admits. The look in his eyes is tender and adoring as he looks down at his wedding ring, rubbing it with his thumb, and then back up at Magnus. “About a month ago.”

“Well, congratulations. What’s her name?”

“ His name.”

Alec holds Magnus’ gaze with diamond-like focus. He says nothing, but Magnus is unable to look away.

Magnus wets his lip and measures his words; it seems as if they might matter.

“How peculiar,” he says slowly, watching Alec’s face - he doesn’t give anything away, but his shoulders fall with the quiet release of a breath that Magnus might call relief. “Although, not as peculiar as a Shadowhunter wearing a ring. I was of the opinion that it was a rune on the hand and a rune on the heart.”

“It is.”

“Oh? So he’s not a Shadowhunter? Now I’m especially intrigued.”

Alec grins, his mouth parenthesised by dimples. He turns back to the stall and picks out another necklace, the fine silver chain and pendant glinting in the light.

Magnus frowns, stepping up to Alec’s side to peer over Alec’s shoulder..

The necklace is pretty. Magnus might wear it himself. He can imagine how it might feel draped against his chest, beneath his collar, the cold kiss of metal.  

“What do you think?” Alec asks, and he’s close enough that he need only whisper. Magus feels the puff of his breath against his jaw. “I like this one.”

Magnus hums, reaching out to take Alec’s hand and rub his thumb over the pendant cradled in Alec’s palm.

“Yes,” he says, “This one’s nice, indeed.”

&&&

The sun sets slowly, staining the sky in shades of orange and pale blue. Lanterns flicker to life, suspended from the awnings of the market stalls and dancing in the open windows that overlook the square. Shadows stretch long and thin and dark, and Magnus finds himself sat on the steps of the bronze statue in the middle of the plaza, still sun-warmed against his back.

He’s sat here a hundred times before, content to watch the day pass him by as people come and go. He has the time to spare; immortality lends itself for lounging and for lingering.

Now, though, Alec’s tall shadow looms over him, illuminated in gold around the edges by the dying of the sun.

Magnus looks up at him. Alec holds out a bag of mazapanes.

“Want one?” he asks.

Magnus takes a handful and pops one into his mouth: the taste of marzipan and almonds melts on his tongue and fills him with quiet fondness for this city he calls home.

Alec folds himself up on the steps beside Magnus, his legs stretched out in front of him and his shoulder pressed up against Magnus’. He’s warm to the touch, and Magnus feels his magic laving at Alec’s skin, wherever it can find space to shimmy beneath his clothes.

From the corner of his eye, he watches Alec lean back against the statue and exhale, his whole body relaxing. He tosses a few candied almonds into his mouth and then licks his fingers absently, all the while staring at the sky. The orange glow catches in his eyes and highlights the different shades of brown.

“Thank you for today,” he says, without looking at Magnus. “I had a good time.”

“I should be the one thanking you,” Magnus says, “This will make for an excellent dinner time anecdote that I’m sure no-one will believe. Heavens, I might not even believe it by this time tomorrow.”

Alec laughs softly. “I mean, thanks for not running away. I know this must -” He gestures with his hands. “- kinda weird.”

“Why would I run away?”

I feel like I know you. How impossible is that?

“I dunno. I just figured -” Alec stops mid-sentence, a frown furrowing his brow.

“What?” Magnus asks, “What’s the matter?”

Alec sets the bag of mazapanes on the steps and inspects his hand, curling and uncurling his fingers into his palm. “The magic’s fading,” he says, “I think.”

“Oh,” Magnus replies, “Are you sure?”

Alec holds out his palm to Magnus and Magnus reaches out with the invisible touch of his own magic, probing at the energy that licks across Alec’s skin: sharp, staticy, but there’s a restlessness to it now that wasn’t there before. The threads of the universe begin to fray and Magnus can feel them tickling, like fingertips skittering up his arm or like an intimate breath ghosting across the back of his neck.

The rest of the world seems to slow. Alec’s presence here distorts space-time just enough for Magnus to notice. The people passing by walk slower. Distant bird calls become longer. The sunset is paused, suspended in a forever yellow.

Alec’s going to disappear.

Magnus doesn’t have much time.

“The magic,” he starts, but he doesn’t know how to continue. He has so many questions still to ask and he’s not going to get answers to all of them. “The magic I feel on you, it’s volatile. It’s moving.”

Alec nods, still staring at his fingertips. “Yeah. I can feel it. It’s what happened just before I jumped the first time. It’ll stabilise for a bit, and then flip out again. Guess I’m about to go somewhere else.”

Magnus swallows thickly, and then, tentatively, he reaches out and touches his fingertips to the centre of Alec’s palm. The magic ripples as if Magnus is a stone in the water. He sinks too fast for his own liking. “The magic’s strong. I don’t think I can influence it, but I might be able to calm it,” he murmurs, gently pushing his own magic into Alec’s skin - his Angelic power hums, but Alec doesn’t resist. Magnus’ magic slips into his blood like sunlight. “It feels familiar, in a way. I don’t know why.”

Alec glances up at him, his mouth opening into a soft round oh . “Familiar?”

“Does that surprise you?” asks Magnus.

Alec shakes his head. He holds up his hand to the sunset, and it’s then that Magnus sees his skin has turned translucent and now, it appears near gold, like a shard of sunlight in which dust particulates dance. Slowly, Alec begins to fade away.

“No,” Alec says, turning his hand this way and that, and the pricks of dusk-coloured gold glint like jewels.

And Magnus - Magnus longs to touch him again, but fears his hand might pass right through, like wisps of fog and smoke that might disperse with even the tiniest shift. He cannot move; he doesn’t want Alec to go. There’s a feeling in his chest too big to comprehend; he hasn’t yet learned the way to grasp it, to hold it within himself. He wishes he knew what it was.

Alec’s shadow disappears, fading sunlight trickling through him. His legs, his arms, his body, now dust. All that remains is a whisper, before he is whisked away through the recesses of time that Magnus has yet to experience.

“No, Magnus,” he says, his voice lingering, “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Magnus doesn’t move for a while after. He watches the sunset pale into the faintest of yellows, and then lilacs, and finally deep, deep blues as the sky becomes pitted with stars. Madrid dances on. Laughter and music takes over the night, drunken cheers and singing, people spinning in the plaza around and around and around, but Magnus is unwilling to join them. Not yet. Maybe later. Maybe in a moment.  

He looks down at the steps. The bag of mazapanes is still there, solid to the touch, and yet an afterimage lingers upon it, invisible fingerprints that only his magic can sense.

He feels changed somehow. A part of him has shifted out of plane and now exists a step ahead or a step behind everything else.

Oh , Magnus thinks. I should’ve asked when I’d see you again.

TWO | LIMA, PERU, 1791

Nights in Peru smell like the sea: salt and seaweed and high winds that bring the Pacific inland as waves, washing over the taste of roasting bananas and coffee beans drifting up from the streets. The sky is navy blue and the moon, a thin white monolith, is suspended in a field of stars and constellations that Magnus has spent centuries learning.

He sits on the balcony of a townhouse, overlooking a small courtyard and nursing a cup of rich, red wine that reminds him of the dusty hills and towering mountains that surround the city. He doesn’t know how many cups he’s had, but it’s enough to warm his blood and linger like a hum in the back of his throat.

And it’s enough to forget a broken heart. Not enough to be rid of loneliness, but not even Catarina and Ragnor dragging him halfway across the world could do that, despite their best intentions. He can outrun a string of failed affairs, but he cannot escape the fact he’s four hundred years old and wants a little more than some smeared night he can’t remember with someone he’ll never see again.

Magnus sips quietly at his wine. Downstairs, there’s a party in full swing, drunken and exciting and billowing with oaky cigar smoke. Ragnor will be sitting in an armchair in the corner, and Catarina will be making elaborate excuses for Magnus’ absence, he’s quite sure.

But it’s the noise - the constant noise - he needed to escape. I need some air , he’d said to Cat. Just for a moment. I’ll be back . That was almost an hour ago, but she hasn’t come looking for him, not to introduce him to some doe-eyed stranger, nor to check that he hasn’t drunk himself into a self-deprecating stupor in the bathroom once again.

High above, the shadow of a large bird briefly crosses the moon; it soars on updraughts that Magnus cannot reach, borne away with ease, not minding where it ends up. It might be a condor. He envies it. They probably mate for life. How dreadful.  

Magnus tilts back in his chair, taking another sip of his wine, and sighs. The chair creaks and he closes his eyes, letting his breathing slow and the tension drip out of his body. He can hear a flute playing from a downstairs window and the thin, delicate notes drift upwards, longing and melancholy and dreaming of a wide expanse of wilderness, of freedom, of the loss of a great love. Magnus doesn’t really know which, but the song is beautiful and it lulls him into a doze.  

There are worse places to be alone. The night is balmy and he’s always loved the enduring magic of this place, the way the city is steeped in layers and layers of history, where the ancient world meets the new, and travellers from across the continent pass through in search for gold. So many men have spent their lives chasing paradise, but truly, Magnus might have found a slice of it right here.

He could fall asleep and never wake up again, and he doesn’t even think he’d mind. Catarina might find him faded away with the dawn and a soft smile on his face, a spilled cup of wine at his feet.

And yet why does your heart still ache? Why is it that you close your eyes and still dream of all the someones who have left you behind?

This is too much longing for one person. Too much time spent alone with the world; he knows all its corners far too intimately. There’s nowhere else left to see.

Behind him, the curtains rustle as someone steps out onto the balcony: a man, judging by his soft huff of breath as moves towards the balustrade. If he’s handsome, Magnus might take him back inside to bed. A whirlwind love-affair. He could stay in Peru a few decades. He wouldn’t mind that. His sheets have been cold for a while now, and he longs for cooling sweat and breathlessness and the feeling of being wanted. He longs for a flutter to stir his heart.

Magnus meets the man’s eyes and the thought fragments with a quiet, rippling chime, indistinguishable from the soft music in the distance or the sound of Magnus’ nail tapping against his wine glass.

Oh . A dream. A dream of a dream. A summer’s day in Madrid, years and years ago is borne back to him on the breeze.

It’s you.

I thought I dreamt you.

The curve of his back a beautiful parabola as he leans over the railings and gazes out across the rooftops, his profile highlighted by the flickering yellow glow of lantern light and the deep blue of the settled sky. His hair is the same inky black as it was all those years ago; the rune on his neck, just as stark. His clothes are different now, soft worn fabric clinging to his broad shoulders, while his pants hang loose about his hips. He goes barefoot.

And he hasn’t aged a day since Magnus saw him last. Perhaps it’s only been days for him. Not like the centuries for you.

Magnus barks out a laugh, swinging back in his chair and hoisting his feet up onto the balustrade. He swirls his drink around and presses the glass to his lip, but doesn’t take a sip. He must be drunk if he’s conjuring up memories from his past when he’s so desperate for companionship.

“God,” he laughs, shaking his head. He wonders if his longing can be heard through time. “Catarina and Ragnor always insisted that I made you up, but I told them you were real. Either they will kick themselves when I tell them later, or they’ll have me institutionalised. One can’t be sure.”

Alec, his impossible Alec, turns to look at him, his body still bent over the railings. His smile is fond and sleepy, like he’s been stolen out of a moment just before bed. It makes Magnus’ heart skip a beat.

“How long has it been?” Alec asks.

“One-hundred and seventy two years. Give or take a few, I’m sure. I might have lost a decade around the turn of the century through no fault but my own.”

Alec whistles a low note and looks back out across the city. The nighttime toys with the shadows that stretch and pool upon the mismatched rooftops: wells of deep purple and blue and odds with this glow of orange that seems infinite and ephemeral in the same moment, fading into the sky like a halo. Upon Alec’s skin, the colour is exquisite. It makes his eyes simmer with a gentle opal-dark fire.

“That’s a long time,” Alec says quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for. You can’t control it, the magic is volatile. You said so yourself.”

“A hundred and seventy years is a long time to go without seeing someone.”

Magnus hums, hiding the quirk of his mouth behind his glass again. He tips it back just enough to taste the wine on his lower lip, his tongue. It draws Alec’s eyes.

“It is,” he murmurs, “But worth the wait, I dare say.”

“You knew I was coming back?”

Magnus rolls his shoulders and slips out of his chair, joining Alec against the balcony. He molds himself into the space beside him, resting his glass on the railing and curving his body towards Alec, an open question. Alec shifts to face him, a timeless answer.

“Temporal hopping,” Magnus explains, “I’ve been reading up on it in the hope that you might come back to me. The magic may not be stable, but it still requires an anchor. Something that stays the same in all the places you’re drawn to. Usually it’s a location, the place where the original spell was cast, but given I’ve found you in both Spain and Peru now, I’m inclined to say that your anchor might, in fact, be a person.”

Alec’s mouth twists up into a smile. “Yeah?”

Magnus scoffs, buffing Alec on the arm with the back of his hand. It’s an excuse to touch him, to know that he’s real, to feel that forgotten ripple again. “Oh, come now, don’t play coy with me. I’ve had almost two centuries to think about it.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “You and I know each other in the future, don’t we?”

“You could say that.”

Magnus raises his glass at Alec. “You knew my name that day we met. I never told it to you, but you knew it all the same.”

“I did.”

“And in the future, we’re well-acquainted?”

Alec blushes, colour rounding at his cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”

“And I work with the Shadowhunters? Are we in business together?”

“Sometimes.”

Magnus scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You’re still just as cryptic and infuriatingly tight-lipped as before, I see.” His attention drifts down to Alec’s hand, curled over the balustrade. His wedding ring looks molten tonight.

“Your husband,” Magnus says, glancing up at Alec, “What did you say his name was again?”

“I didn’t.”

Magnus’ heart skips a beat. He wets his lower lip and is glad he’s got one hand on the railing and the other on his glass, so that Alec can’t see his fingers shake. “Ah,” he says, his voice a murmur, “You called that spoilers , if I remember correctly.”

“You do.”

Magnus hums, swirling the wine around in his glass. He considers the way the purple splashes up against the sides and leaves behind a fading red residue.

“I have a hypothesis,” he says boldly, “About why you wouldn’t tell me your name, last time. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Alec chuckles to himself, looking to the sky. The constellations are reflected, dizzyingly, in his eyes. “You said you’d figure it out straight away. I shouldn’t have second-guessed you. You’ll say ‘I told you so’.”

“Future me sounds terribly astute.”

“Future you is a pain in my ass,” Alec teases, but the look in his eyes is endless. It speaks of a man deeply in love, the sort of love that has transcended a thousand hardships and never wavered, the sort of love both effortless and consuming - all the things that Magnus wants for. His chest aches again, some parts longing, and other parts jealousy. It makes that passing thought of taking a stranger to bed feel lukewarm.

And what’s the point of any of it being lukewarm -

Magnus’ smile becomes wry. He doesn’t want to dwell on that. Instead, he offers, like a baited line, “So, Alexander Bane, is it?”

“Lightwood-Bane,” Alec corrects. He thumbs at his wedding ring again, twisting it around his finger. It must be a habit. “Magnus, uh - my Magnus, he told me I shouldn’t tell you very much.”

“What a spoilsport he is,” says Magnus, but he leans in closer to Alec, drawn to the bob of Alec’s throat as he swallows, the gentle tremor of his nerves attuned to Magnus’ magic. What does he have to be nervous about? He knows Magnus. Incredibly well, it seems.  “So, it was my future self who cast this spell that backfired on you? How inconsiderate of me.”

Alec nods. “The demon was stronger than the binding spell you prepared. You managed to seal it, but - well, yeah. This happened. You said it would wear off pretty soon, but there might be, uh - bad side effects.”

“Side effects,” Magnus muses, “If me getting the pleasure of your company is a bad side effect, then -”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Alec interrupts quietly. “I mean - I won’t stay for long and I can’t control it. I don’t know where I’m going to end up. Or when.” His hand has shifted near to Magnus’ upon the railing, and now, Alec’s staring at them both, wondering where to draw the line before he oversteps. Magnus wants him to overstep.

This is his husband . It doesn’t seem real. Right now, in fact, it feels impossible, and it makes that too-large feeling build inside his chest again, constraining at his ribs and longing to be free; in the almost two hundred years since that day in Madrid, he still hasn’t learned how to contain it.

He has never imagined himself married. He’s never imagined finding a person who’d want to marry him . It makes no sense, and yet he doesn’t question it. It fits , he thinks. It fits with me. I feel whole. Too whole.

Perhaps it is a ruse. A drunken delusion, a joke. A cruelly crafted one for sure, but Magnus cannot bring himself to care. Not when Alec is gazing at him so softly, and the starlight is tangled in his messy, bed-ruffled hair.

He wants this man. He doesn’t understand it, but it hardly matters, because his head is wine-addled and he feels not himself, caught in Alec’s inexplicable pull and dragged, stumbling, off course.

It scares him. It does. There’s some part of him he has no control over and he’s not used to trusting himself to someone else’s hands.

“So what did my future self have to say about me?” he asks, and he wonders if Alec can hear the tremble in his voice. “Did he warn you of how devilishly handsome I am?”

He reaches out and trails his fingers down Alec’s shirt; the fabric is gossamer-soft to the touch, and Alec’s chest is warm and hard beneath it, but what surprises Magnus most is way his magic pulses in his fingers like it’s mimicking a heartbeat. A beat and an answer. An echo that doesn’t seem to fade away.

His hand falters. Alec notices this time.

“He didn’t tell me anything. That’s not how it works,” he says softly, “All time is concurrent. The past and the future - they happen at the same time, so this - us. Us meeting here. This hasn’t happened before.”

“Did I tell you that?”

Alec smiles sheepishly. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

“Oh,” Magnus murmurs, brushing his near-shaking fingertips over the slip of Alec’s clavicle visible beneath the neckline of his shirt. He marvels at the way Alec’s throat moves as he swallows; as he holds in a breath. He drops his voice to a whisper; any louder, and his magic, and the way it leaps at the touch, might bleed through. “So, your undoubtedly charming husband has no memory of what happens here tonight?”

Alec shakes his head. “Us meeting here - it makes a different future. My future is - it’s not going to be the same as your future. But they both exist. It’s, uh - kinda complicated.”

“Infinite futures. Hm. How extraordinary.” Magnus’ fingers drift along Alec’s collarbone, smearing through the invisible current that trips across Alec’s skin. His magic verberates, resonates, reflects. It’s like he’s ghosting his fingertips along the frayed edges of a nerve that stems from his own body - the frayed edges of a tiny rip in time and space - and every slight quiver threatens to make his breath hitch. He touches Alec and he feels it in himself. A part of him, a part of Alec, inexplicably tied. “I wonder if we meet in every one.”

Alec exhales slowly, steadying himself. He briefly glances away, out into the city, his eyes dancing from rooftop to rooftop. Magnus follows the working of his jaw. “If you did know. If you in the future did remember this, I don’t think you would’ve told me. Not when we first met, at least.”

Magnus’ hand stills against Alec’s sternum. The closer he gets to Alec’s heart, the stronger the pulse, the more he can feel the familiar undercurrent that lingers beneath the temporal energy that surrounds him. He looks up. “Why not?”

Alec screws up his mouth and hunches his shoulders, but it seems far less easy than before. “When we first met, I was scared. If you’d told me that we met before, I would’ve - I would’ve probably run, if I’m honest. I was kinda dealing with a lot back then.”

“But now?” Magnus asks.

“But now I’m happy,” says Alec.

Magnus doesn’t know what to say to that. He hears the sincerity in Alec’s words; it speaks of a terrible vulnerableness, a terrible loneliness left behind but not completely forgotten, one that Magnus knows too well, but it also -

Alec’s eyes meet his, and he smiles his lopsided smile, his eyes creasing up again, and it’s inutterable: this warmth, this tenderness, this growth from a shell of man that Magnus doesn’t even know and has never met, but he feels the entire story resonate as the magic does. The love radiates from Alec like he was fashioned from it, like the Angel gifted him devotion instead of skin and bones.

And to think it’s just a fraction of the love he must feel for his husband , Magnus thinks. That he feels for me, but not me.

Never me.

Magnus lays his palm flush against Alec’s collarbone. The familiar magic answers him, a surge more profound than before: that threads of torn time and space intertwine with something else, another magic so endlessly recognisable that it makes Magnus gasp.

Beneath the quivering Angelic power, and beneath the remnants of the backfired spell, Magnus finds a reflection of himself, every will and wish and want he’s ever known, because that’s what Alec is drenched in. His magic. Magnus’ magic - and how did he not notice it before, because it breathes and moves the same, answering the quirk of his fingers in a way he knows innately.

Magnus’ magic . Evolved to be softer and kinder, stronger and more encompassing, woven through with Angelic power, caressing at Alec’s skin and absorbed into his very being. And the pulse that Magnus feels within it is Alec’s blood, Alec’s heartbeat, Alec’s soul, bared to Magnus as he pushes and prods at this impossible man who stands before him.

Magnus rubs his fingertips against the slip of Alec’s bare skin. The strong tendon of his neck. The base of his Deflect rune, and it summons a trail of goosebumps down Alec’s throat and across his shoulder.

He watches Magnus’ intensely. Magnus can’t meet his eyes; he summons blue smoke into his fingers and marvels at the way it clings to Alec’s skin as it does to his own hand. Like it cannot tell the difference between him and Magnus.

How is that possible?

It feels so intimate. Magnus feels so known.

“I can feel -” he starts, before he realises he’s talking at all. “I can feel myself. I’m all over you.”

“Yeah,” Alec whispers. He reaches up and covers Magnus’ hand with his own, holding Magnus’ hand against his heartbeat. His wedding ring catches the midnight glow of the city and turns gold. “Yeah, I should hope so.”

“It’s my magic, but - it’s so strange. It’s like seeing your reflection in a mirror and noticing something is not quite right, but you can’t put a finger on the difference,” Magnus murmurs. “It knows you. It’s like it’s changed because of you.”

How can I feel so connected to someone I don’t even know?

“It can do that?” Alec asks.

“It appears so,” Magnus says, before frowning. He pulls his hand away from Alec. “It makes sense. If what you say is true, and all time occurs concurrently, then it appeals to reason that the pool from which I draw my magic transcends space-time too. I just haven’t yet learned to wield it the same as I do in the future. With you.”

Magnus snaps his fingers, summoning a blue flame into his palm. The light of it dances across Alec’s face as Magnus holds it between them, watching as it sways and shifts, despite the stillness of the night.

“My magic knows you,” Magnus repeats, “It knew you before we even met. How impossible does that sound?”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Alec whispers, “Not for us.”

Magnus’ chest clenches. Us , Alec says, as if that’s something Magnus understands at all. Us , he says, as if Magnus’ last string of relationships haven’t all ended in heartache.

Us , he says, because when he fades away at the end of this night or in the early morning or whenever, he goes back to that, to them, and Magnus is left - here. Alone.

“Magnus?” Alec asks, stepping closer. His hand brushes Magnus’ sleeve and leaves ripples in its wake.

“Tell me about him,” Magnus whispers, half-breathless and half-hoping. The loneliness solidifies within his chest, filling the chasm of space he’s nursed with endless glasses of wine; now, the longing has mass, has weight. It won’t be ignored or shoved to the side. “About the Magnus Bane you know. Tell me about him. About the both of you.”

Tell me I get to have what you have. Tell me I get there.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did we meet? What was our courtship like? Was it you who asked me to marry you, or was it -”

Was it me?

Alec glances down at the wine glass in Magnus’ hand, and then at the near-empty bottle that sits abandoned next to his empty chair. “If I tell you all that, will it help?”

“What?”

“You’re lonely,” Alec says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and so easy to say. “I know you are, but I - I don’t - if I tell you all those things, it won’t make it easier.”

Magnus frowns. “How could I be lonely when you’re here?”

Alec sighs softly and turns back to the city, leaning his wait once more upon the balcony. He folds his arms upon the railing. The swell of his spine can be seen through his shirt, his back a long, curving arc.

“There’s a man who plays the charango,” he says then, and the soft glow of the city almost swallows his words up. “You’re probably going to meet him soon. Here. He’s good for you. You still think about him often.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Magnus says, sliding his palm across the back of Alec’s neck, thumbing at the skin below his ear - but Alec turns his head away, his jaw working. “Alexander - you feel this, don’t you? It’s inexplicable. The connection. My magic. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

Magnus rubs his fingers against Alec’s neck and feels Alec lean into the touch.

Do I touch you this way often? Are you used to this?

“There’s a party downstairs,” he finds himself murmuring, “Catarina and Ragnor are there. We can go down there together.”

Alec shakes his head softly. “And if I disappear in front of everyone?”

“That’s the beauty of magic,” Magnus says, “It explains the unexplainable. A party of inebriated Warlocks won’t question a thing.”

“Magnus -”

Magnus sweeps him thumb across Alec’s pulsepoint. He takes another step closer, crowding Alec against the balustrade, ducking his head to intercept Alec’s line of sight.

“I have rooms inside. A bed. We could share another bottle. See where the night might take us.”

“Magnus,” Alec says again. His eyes meet Magnus’, and then flick towards his hand, which he holds out over the balcony edge. “Look.”

He’s already fading.

“So soon,” Magnus whispers. “You stayed a whole day last time.”

“I know,” Alec murmurs, twisting his wrist and sifting his fingers through the moonlight. “I’m sorry.”

THREE | BLACKFRIARS, LONDON, UK, 1872

As rain lashes against the concrete, the wind over Blackfriars Bridge wails like an abandoned child at the side of the road. Below, the Thames churns, infinitely black and grotesque in the dark, eager to swallow people up and never spit them out again. Its stink is sewage and its rush of water is a hiss that presses against Magnus’ back, whispering in his ears.

You sure you still don’t want to jump?

It’ll be cold. You’ll feel something. You’ll feel nothing. Both will be good.

The rain soaks Magnus to the bone. His frock coat clings to him like a second skin and his hair hangs limp across his forehead, rainwater streaming down his nose. His hands grip tight to the railing of the bridge, his fingers stark and cold. He doesn’t remember taking his gloves off. Hell, he doesn’t remember putting them on.

He only remembers standing on the edge and looking down.

You’re not actually going to jump , Camille had said. You’re not a coward.

Maybe I am , Magnus had replied, Maybe I always have been. I’ve spent my entire life running.

His skin still stings with the indentations of her nails on his arm, yanking him back from the edge. He can still hear her hiss, her sharp words, her fury. The rare fear in her eyes as she screamed at him to climb down from the railings.

This is ridiculous! she had snapped. Come and find me when you’ve sorted your head out, Magnus. I refuse to deal with this for you.

Magnus leans forward over the railings, staring down at the bubbling river. A stagecoach splashes water up the back of his legs, the horses snorting and the coachman tilting his tri-corner hat down to keep the storm out of his eyes.

Camille left. She always leaves. Unwilling to stand out in the rain and ruin her hair, unwilling to give any part of herself up for others.

She knows Magnus won’t jump now, so her work is done. He’ll live and he’ll drag himself back to her when he’s ready and she’ll say I told you so, Magnus. Why don’t you ever listen to me ?

Magnus feels cold - the sort of unforgiving cold that seeps into the bones and into the blood and drags thoughts to a shuddering halt. The wind is bracing, carrying with it sharp shards of slush-turned-sleet that cut into Magnus’ cheeks. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here; he doesn’t know how long ago Camille left. Sunrise might be on the horizon, but he’ll never know, not with the smog that rises from London in the distance, thick pillars of soot black that blend into the clouds of rain and smother the stars.

He stares at the spot on the railings where he stood grasping at the lampost, his toes curled over the edge - an hour ago? Or was it two? Three? Time has slipped away from him, as it always does. What is time to someone who’s going to live forever, bound endlessly to watch humankind search for meaning in their fleeting lives -

Search for love -

Numbness tingles in Magnus’ fingertips, and he wishes for it to go away, he wishes for time to stop, he wishes for a feeling other than tenderness bruising in the hollow parts of himself, but -

The rain stops.

His magic flinches.

And Magnus looks up, blinking back the raindrops that cling to his eyelashes and pushing back the hair that lies limp over his forehead. A hand extended over his shoulder, and a large black umbrella hiding him from the clouds above.

It’s like a breath, a breath stolen after being underwater for so long - not enough to quell the painful ache in his chest, but enough to fill his lungs. He’d almost forgotten what it feels like.

He’s lived an entire lifetime since then.

“It’s going to get better,” comes the familiar voice that Magnus has missed eighty-one years now, a rumble he feels deep in his water-logged chest. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but - I promise.”

Magnus looks up at him. At Alec , rain-flecked and stepped out of the storm, holding an umbrella aloft above them like it’s the only thing he was put on Earth to do. He steps between Magnus and another passing carriage, shielding him from the splash of the wheels in the puddle. Alec grimaces, his nose scrunching.

Magnus laughs wetly. “You can’t say that. You have hindsight. That’s cheating.”

A raindrop trickles down Alec’s temple and Magnus follows it, across his cheek, drawn to the pull of his lips, dripping from his jaw and onto his shirt. His mouth is twisted with worry; his eyes flick between Magnus’, searching for some strength Magnus doesn’t know how to give. Not anymore.

Magnus sniffs, scrubbing his palms across his face, but it won’t make a damned bit of difference. He looks disgusting. He looks like a man who was about to jump off a bridge. He knows he does.

Why couldn’t you have shown up when I was on that ledge? Why couldn’t you have been here a day ago, a year ago, a lifetime ago, before it all went wrong?

“It’s not cheating,” Alec murmurs, “Not when it’s the truth and you need to hear it.”

He steps closer, crowding Magnus with his body, protecting him from the wind. He brings the handle of the umbrella down between them, and invites Magnus to hold it too, as if they’re sharing a flickering candle.

Alec’s hands are warm where Magnus’ are ice cold. He almost feels real. Oh, God, I’ve missed you.

“You’re soaked,” Alec says, his eyes wide and his brow furrowing. He rubs his hands over Magnus’ knuckles and huffs on them loudly; Magnus sucks in a splintering, wet breath. “Jesus, Magnus, you’re gonna get a fever -”

“Warlocks don’t get fevers.”

Alec scowls at him. “We both know that’s not true. I know what you’re like when you’re sick, and it’s the worst.”

“Me, insufferable?” Magnus laughs weakly, “I couldn’t imagine such a thing.”

Alec rolls his eyes, looping his arm around Magnus’ shoulders and clutching the umbrella between them.

“C’mon,” he says sternly, “Let’s get outta the rain.”

Alec grips his shoulder, his fingers pressing into Magnus’ skin through his overcoat - but unlike the prick of Camille’s nails, Alec’s hand is firm. He rubs his palm up and down Magnus’ arm.

Magnus feels like crying. Shock, relief - he doesn’t know what it is that clogs his throat and forces him to suck in sharp and shallow breaths. Perhaps it’s the realisation that he was a single step away from a plummet into the cold current of the Thames. Makes sense .

At the end of the bridge, Blackfriars station glints in the dark, its white tin rooftops spit-shiny. Alec pulls Magnus across the road, dodging carriages and offering his hand to Magnus to step across a puddle, and then he ducks into the station awning, and the braying of the wind is suddenly silenced.

Alec steps away from him, battling with the umbrella, and Magnus scrubs his hands down his face and pushes his limp hair back against his head. He flicks his hands and rainwater spits across the floor, accompanied by a pathetic spurt of magic that dies blue at his feet, extinguished like a damp flame.

Beside him, Alec flops back against the brick wall, tilting his head back and cricking his neck. Tonight, he’s in a suit, so deeply blue it might be black in any other light but the flickering of an underground station. It sticks to him, his shirt slick against the curve of his chest and abdomen, the silver buckle of his belt shining with rain. He picks at the cuffs of his jacket, but it’s sodden. He frowns, rolling up his sleeves and revealing his forearms covered in runes.

He’s without a tie, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Magnus wonders if that’s the fashion, or, perhaps, someone has already removed it for him.

Briefly, Magnus wonders if the cold of the rain masks colour in Alec’s cheeks or the redness of kiss-bitten lips. He wonders where Alec was and what he was doing before he was summoned to the banks of the Thames in a rainstorm.

None of the things he imagines makes him feel any better.

“We should probably wait it out. Your place is kinda far,” Alec remarks, peering out into the rain with a frown. “Every time you’ve taken me to England, it’s been like this.”

“Every time?” Magnus asks.

Alec looks back at him and smiles - not his crooked, heart-racing grin of a smile, but something small and quiet and precious that Magnus hasn’t seen before.

“We stayed in your apartment in Soho when we were on our honeymoon. For a bit,” he says, and not even the streaks of rain on his face can hide the delicate blush now. “It rained for three days without stopping.”  

“It always rains,” Magnus murmurs, “That’s why I love that apartment. You can always -”

“You can always hear the rain on the roof,” Alec says, “You say it helps you sleep.”

Magnus swallows thickly, but the lump in his throat makes it difficult to breathe. He shakes his head, but the tightness doesn’t go away; he only succeeds in splattering Alec with more rainwater.

Of course he knows that. He knows everything , and that’s unfathomable, because if he knows everything, he must know this: this wretched, inhospitable, ugly feeling that festers and bubbles inside Magnus’ chest that won’t go away no matter how much alcohol and reckless hedonism Magnus doses it with.

He knows everything.

“Alec -”

“Yeah?”

Deep breath, Magnus. No matter how much it hurts.

“Did you know I’d be on that bridge?”

Alec doesn’t blink; he doesn’t hesitate. He sets the umbrella against the wall and steps in close to Magnus, and Magnus can feel the warmth of him, ever-glowing and always-tended, even now. The longing to place his hands on Alec’s chest, to sink his fingers into Alec’s skin and step inside him and inhabit him - if only to know himself as Alec does - it possess Magnus, an urge.

“Yeah,” says Alec, meeting Magnus’ eyes deliberately, “I did. That’s why I went and found Camille and sent her to you.” He laughs softly. “She didn’t react well to a Shadowhunter telling her what to do, but I guess she listened anyway.”

Magnus’ heart lurches. “You sent Camille?”

“Yeah. But she would’ve come on her own.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You should. She did,” Alec says, before adding, “Her one good deed.”

“Why -” Magnus says, but he feels the slap of Camille’s words again, the sting against his face, and he winces. He knows Alec notices the twitch. “If you were here, why couldn’t you - why didn’t you -”

“Why didn’t I talk you off the ledge myself?”

“Yes,” Magnus whispers, and he squeezes his eyes closed, and this time, water beads along his lashes and falls freely down his face. “Yes, Alexander. Precisely that.”

Alec glances down, fiddling with his wedding ring, twisting it around and around his knuckle. He chews on the inside of his cheek. Whatever he has to say, it hurts him. He doesn’t want to say it.

“It has to be her.”

“I don’t believe you.”

A man ducks into the station from out of the rain, shaking his umbrella and tipping his top hat at Alec and Magnus as he hurries towards the ticket office. The cold follows him like a draught and Magnus wraps his arms around his middle, digging his fingers into his sides. The wet fabric of his frock coat squelches.

He listens to the man’s footsteps as they disappear, and then he glances at Alec again, but Alec’s mouth has settled into a tight, straight line.

“Different futures,” Magnus says, “You said it yourself, nearly a hundred years ago. My life in this timeline might not end up the way it does in yours.”

“It will. I know it will.”

“You can’t know that,” Magnus presses, “You appearing here has changed that, Alexander. You’re a ripple in time. You must know how ripples work.”

“That’s why I had to make sure it was Camille who found you,” says Alec, “I can’t - I can’t change the past that made you who you are, Magnus. I had to make it right. Because if it was me -”

“If it was you, perhaps I wouldn’t have been there to begin with,” Magnus says bitterly, “And if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t her - if I was alone up there, perhaps I would’ve jumped. You can’t know.”

“I know you ,” Alec says. “You wouldn’t have done it. People need you.”

Magnus shakes his head. It always comes back to that: people need you. You need them to need you.

“And you?” he says, his voice rendered hoarse. “Do you need me?”

Alec closes the space between them, shrugging out of his suit jacket. He shakes it out and drapes it over Magnus’ broader shoulders, and while the sleeves might be wet, the silk lining is warm and smells of Alec.

Then, he pries Magnus’ hands from his arms and covers Magnus’ fingers between his own two palms, gently rubbing at Magnus’ knuckles.

“I need you,” he says simply, “Now, in the future, in a hundred different timelines. Always. I need you to be alive to meet me, the past me, because he’s the one that needs you the most. And I think you need me too, even though I know that’s difficult for you sometimes, because you like to pretend that you can do everything by yourself and you don’t like showing people when you’re hurting, but - trust me. You can trust me. Let me take care of you. Let me return the favour.”

He brings their clenched hands up to his lips and presses his mouth to Magnus’ fingertips. The cold, the numbness in Magnus’ hands, it abates. In its place comes the rush of temporal magic, and a flutter not unlike a cautious heartbeat.

“It gets better than this,” Alec whispers. “I swear.”

&&&

The downpour doesn’t let off, and they find themselves on a bench on the empty platform at Blackfriars station, the smell of wet cobblestones replaced by creosote and stale air. This far below ground, they can’t hear the rain, but each train that rolls into the station is battered by a storm that rages a hundred feet above them.

It would take ten minutes to hop on the tube and ride to the stop closest to Magnus’ apartment in Soho, and another five minutes to run to the front door - but Magnus doesn’t mention it. He doesn’t want to move from here, he doesn’t want to lose the warm, solid press of Alec leant against his shoulder, his eyelids slowly drooping.

He doesn’t want to risk standing and disturbing the magic that keeps Alec tethered here. A little longer , he pleads with the universe. Just give me a little while longer with him.

Alec’s head drops onto Magnus’ shoulder and he lets out a snuffle that makes Magnus’ heart clench, and then a grumble as he cracks open one eye.

“What were you doing?” Magnus asks gently, toying with Alec’s long fingers, still tangled with his. “Before you came here?”

“Dinner,” Alec mumbles, words half-slurred. He gestures vaguely at his ruined suit. “The Clave has you running in circles at the moment, and they sent me to consult at the Institute in L.A. It was my first night back in Alicante.”

“We live in Alicante? In Idris?”

“Mhm,” Alec murmurs, “‘S nice. Not as bad as it sounds.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. What were we having for dinner?”

“I didn’t finish making it yet,” Alec hums, “You were home early. We got distracted.”

Magnus rubs his thumb against Alec’s wedding ring; the metal warms quickly beneath his touch, but he feels the magic shiver, as if rain-cold. He hears Alec yawn, but the weight of him against Magnus’ shoulder is slowly lessening, bit by heartbreaking bit. Magnus lets his eyes fall closed.

This way, he won’t have to see him disappear.

“How very kind of you to make time for me,” Magnus whispers.

“I’ll always make time for you, Magnus.”

Magnus hums. “Hm. ‘ It’s rotten work ’, I believe dear Orestes said.”

“Not to me, it isn’t.”

It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. His devotion, his dedication, how he slips through time and touches Magnus and changes him so quietly and yet so fundamentally, only to disappear again and leave behind only memory to while away the years.

Alec’s will alone makes waves in the magic that surrounds them, the magic that binds them together in all this impossible possibility.  Perhaps his love for Magnus is enough to bend time and space. Certainly, it has been enough to draw him here, to Magnus’ side, over and over again.

You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? Magnus thinks. How to love someone fully and truthfully and with everything that you are. I’m jealous of that. I want it. I want you.

When Magnus opens his eyes, he is alone again.

FOUR | MONTMARTE, PARIS, FRANCE, 1929

Magnus is drunk. And not happily drunk, not the sort of drunk that’s dizzy and forgetful and where all the world seems like a miracle - he’s way past that. His stomach wrings itself in knots and he tastes acidic bile up the back of his throat and his skin feels hot and sweaty to the touch. He slumps over on a bar stool, his shoulders hunched and a glass of cognac between his hands, half-drunk. The ice has melted, the liquor lukewarm. His nails tap relentlessly against the crystal of the glass, but it’s like there’s cotton stuffed in his ears because he can barely hear the chime.

The bartender tries to pour him another, but Magnus waves him away. Whatever words he says are slurred. Magnus can’t remember them anyway.

How many days have you been sat here? he wonders, squinting down at his glass. The colour of the brandy swishes between brown and amber-gold. How much time has passed? How long has it been since you ended it? When was the last time you saw the sun?

The cognac has pooled in the hollow of his stomach; it sloshes around and Magnus has to grip the edge of the bar to stop him doing something stupid, like falling off his stool or upchucking all over his waistcoat. He glances down at himself and finds the buttons misaligned and his pocket watch missing  and the untucked tails of his shirt stained with sticky splashes of his drink. He waves his fingers, banishing some of the mess away, but the blue magic swirling in his palm makes his head spin.

Around and around, it goes. Around and around, Magnus goes, repeating the same mistakes time and time again.

This always happens , he tells himself. You get too attached and they break your heart and you drink the pain away and do it all again. You deserve it. You never learn.

On a stage in the corner of the bar, a jazz ensemble is packing up their instruments: one man with a saxophone, another with a double bass. The singer, a woman with sharp painted nails and a sharper smile, is smoking a cigarette and already turning down drinks from her admirers.

In the low light, she looks like Camille.

Magnus’ head throbs, and he grimaces, pressing his hand to his temple as he slouches lower over the bar.

Why are you still mooning over her? Ragnor had asked him earlier this morning when he had stumbled upon Magnus on his front porch. She never cared for you, Magnus. She only cared for herself. I don’t know how you stayed with her for so long.

I’m too afraid of being alone , Magnus had thought, but did not voice. Ragnor could see it in his eyes, and the slow turning-down of Ragnor’s mouth had been too much, and Magnus had to leave.

He spent the day wandering the streets of Montmatre. It feels appropriate: Paris, the city of lovers, and therefore, the city of scorned lovers. Montmatre has always felt especially unforgiving: a woman who eats you up and spits you out, lost and disoriented in her winding streets, while, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower and the postcard picture of France play pretend.

Magnus doesn’t know how he came across this bar. It doesn’t seem to matter. Ten drinks in, all brandy tastes the same. Perhaps it’s time to switch to whiskey; it’s his heartache drink after all.

Magnus leans forward and lets his forehead rest on the bar, but the room still spins. His skin, sticky, flushed; he wants to be rid of it. Strip it off and start again, someone fresh and new and unknown. He won’t stay here, but London holds more memories he wants to outrun. He could head south where the sun is warm and the afternoons are lazy, or across the sea, and spent the night in a daze in the gardens at Santo Domingo -

Ripples follow him everywhere. He needs to go somewhere new, somewhere far away where the past can’t find him. Magnus tips his head to the side, resting his cheek on the bar. He curls his fingers and summons forth the thought of a portal, shimmering orange-red around his rings, but he doesn’t give it form. The magic weaves in and out and around his fingers, endlessly curious, tiny appendages tracing the lines in his palms from end to end. He could push out his hand and make a doorway to another world. It would only take a second and he could stumble through, and wake up tomorrow in a gutter where at least the sun might be shining.

Look at you , he thinks, curling the portal magic into his palm and extinguishing it. Planning to run away again. You’ll regret this in the morning. You’ll regret this when you’re sober.

Magnus closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, but his stomach churns again and he tastes cognac on the way back up, no longer sweet and purely bitter.

Across the bar, the bartender frowns at him and pushes him a glass of water on a napkin.

Magnus murmurs a reluctant merci , but nudges the glass away again with his fingertip. He doesn’t want to drink it; he doesn’t want kindness. He wants to wallow and remember why he’s alone again.

His temple pulses. Pressure builds in his forehead and behind his eyes and in the bridge of his nose, pinching and pulling at his skin as if vying for his attention.

And then a warm palm presses between his shoulder blades and Magnus’ entire spine lurches; he’s not sure what’s going to come out: all the brandy he’s drunk in the last half hour, or some biting remark about leaving him the Hell alone, he’s not interested . Both are going to cut up the inside of his throat and taste like vomit.

He sits up too quickly and twists in his seat, but comes face to face with a shirt and the smell of expensive cologne - sandalwood . Soft and earthy and delicate against the sweet stench of spilt beer and cigarette smoke.

The hand on his back arches, fingers pressing into the knobs of his spine.

“Hey.”

His voice, Alec’s voice, whiskey-warm. For a moment - and then it’s sour again.

Oh, of course. You’re so drunk that you’re imagining Alexander now? It’s been decades. Alec is not here. You just want so desperately to feel loved.

Magnus looks down at his half-finished cognac. He laughs in disbelief.

“You were right about Camille,” he murmurs, swilling the brandy, wondering if he might find himself in the bottom of the glass. He’s drained far too many bottles in his time, searching for exactly that without much luck. Instead, he finds heartache and hallucinations of men he hasn’t seen in forever.

“‘That night was her one good deed’, that’s what you said. Would’ve been nice if you’d given me a forewarning about her. But instead, here I am, drowning my sorrows -” He gestures suddenly with his hand and knocks his glass; the drink sloshes onto the bar. Magnus pouts.

The room spins, but now the edges are blurred. It could be magic, it might be magic, picking at the threads of time and space and slowly unravelling them, or maybe he’s past the point where he’s going to remember tonight and everything else he does now is moot. He has free reign to be stupid.  

Alec’s hand sweeps up Magnus’ spine, a trail of white-hot heat that sticks to Magnus’ skin beneath his sweat-soaked shirt and waistcoat; Alec curls his fingers over Magnus’ shoulder and pushes Magnus back onto his bar stool.

Pretty strong for a figment of your drunken imagination, Magnus thinks. He didn’t even realise he left his seat.

“Magnus -” Alec starts, slipping onto the bar stool next to him, and now, Magnus gets a good look at this apparition: the fierce set of his mouth, the handsome three days of stubble along his jaw, the bruised, worried look in his eyes that Magnus in no way deserves to receive. He’s no older than that night at Blackfriars. Never older. He’s like Magnus, in that way.

And oh, Magnus hates him. Hates the part of his brain that summoned him.

Don’t talk to me , he thinks. Don’t you dare to talk to me. I can’t hear your voice, not tonight. Not when you’re just like the rest of them, but somehow worse than all. Never staying, always leaving.

Magnus grabs his drink and throws the last dredges of it down the throat. He slams the glass on the bar and turns to Alec - and it really is Alec, and not a stranger with Alec’s face.  Magnus stares at him, searching, but his vision blurs, smeared by invisible fingers. The magic swarms around him, around Alec, drawn towards him like he has a magnet at the centre of his chest that thumps with the same beat as a heart.

“You’re not even here,” Magnus mumbles, but he reaches out to jab Alec in the chest, and Alec is as solid and warm and unmoving as ever. “I’m just pretending that you’re here so that I can shout at you. So that I’m not alone for yet another night -”

Alec wraps his fingers around Magnus’ wrist, stilling the prod of his finger into Alec’s sternum.

“Magnus,” he says quietly, “I’m here, I’m real. Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?”

Alec’s frown deepens. He stares at Magnus openly, the colour in his dark eyes swirling, but he holds Magnus’ hand fast against his chest, even as Magnus tries to pull away. “No, you don’t. What’s happened?”

Magnus laughs sharply. Drunkenly. “Everyone keeps leaving me. That’s what.”

He grabs his empty glass and leans across the bar, flagging down the bartender (“ un whisky, s'il vous plaît ”), but Alec takes it from his hand and sets it aside, out of reach. He hands Magnus the water instead.

“Magnus, you know that’s not true.”

“Oh? I do, do I?” Magnus retorts. “The man with the charango? Do you remember him? Five years that lasted, and then it was over. I watched him get on a boat in Callao and never come back. Or how about Camille? Or you .”

Alec glances around the bar, dragging his stool closer, but Magnus could not give a damn if anyone is staring. The cognac lights a fire in him; he feels it scorch, he feels it sear. It turns his insides black in sudden, irrational anger.

“Magnus, c’mon -”

“Is it easy? To come and go and not have to say goodbye over and over again and not know when will be the next time I might see you? If you’re coming back at all?”

“Magnus -”

“It’s been fifty-seven years, Alec!” Magnus snaps, surging to his feet. The stool topples over, and Magnus grips the edge of the bar to save himself from the same fate. Blood rushes to his head and black spots pitter across his eyes as he sways. He clenches his teeth and screws tight his eyes until the ache fragments through his jaw and up into his temple. “Fifty-seven years since that night on the bridge, do you know that? I’ve been counting. And every night since, I’ve looked for you, I’ve waited for you, I’ve - I’ve - every single man I’ve walked past, I’ve had to stop and check and see if it’s you. I’ve hoped for you .”

Alec stands too, reaching for Magnus’ shoulder. “Magnus, you’re drunk. Let me take you home.”

Magnus snorts, clumsily batting Alec’s hand away. “‘Let me take you home?’” he parrots, “Did that work on me the first time, hm? Is that the line you used? Is that the line I used?”

Alec suffers every blow, his mouth twitching, but the look in his eyes only grows more determined.

How much does it take to push you away? Magnus wants to beg. What do I have to say to make you leave and not come back?

“No,” Alec says quietly, and he touches Magnus again, his hand on Magnus’ shoulder, his thumb brushing against Magnus’ neck, slipping beneath his cravat to find his pulsepoint. “No. I said, ‘relationships take effort’. And then you said, ‘I’m all for effort’, and you meant it.”

Magnus scoffs, but his heart aches painfully, like Alec has wormed his way past Magnus’ outer walls and taken his heart in a vice and squeezed. It sounds like him. It sounds like the sort of thing he’d say when faced with a beautiful Shadowhunter with infinite patience and a mouth worth kissing.

Magnus’ head swims again, and he staggers off balance. Alec is quick to catch him, looping his arm around Magnus’ back.

He buries his nose in Magnus’ hair, just behind Magnus’ ear. Alec breathes in deeply, and it steadies him. He breathes in deeply, and for a moment, Magnus wonders what it must be like for Alec to see the person he loves most in the world try agonizingly to pull himself apart, while Alec knows he won’t be around long enough to see it through.

“Let me take you home,” Alec whispers, “Please.”

&&&

Montematre is moonlit as they stagger from the bar. Alec is strong, strong enough to support Magnus’ weight, probably strong enough to carry him, but Magnus’ coordination is shot to pieces.

It’s not the only thing that’s shattered. His resolve lies in fragments at his feet.

Red lights gleam in the dark as women hang from windows and call out to the late-night drunks in the street, beckoning them upstairs for the price of a few gold coins. A parade of towncars hurtle past, a young woman hanging out the window and screeching with laughter, waving her hat in Alec’s direction as the roar of the engine rumbles. They fade into the distance. And as far as the eye can see, there are rooftops, and there are men on the rooftops, singing love songs to a city that longs to be serenaded, who will stay up until the sky turns from blue to blush with the twilight.

Magnus dares not look up. He stares at his feet, willing his double-vision to go away so he can walk a straight line long enough to reach his apartment on the banks of the Seine - or at least summon a portal there.

He leans into Alec’s side, unbalanced, pressing his nose against the collar of Alec’s shirt; there’s that sandalwood again and leather and the sweet sugar of magic, comforting, familiar, too much. Far too much.

Magnus needs more. Instead of whiskey, let him drown in this.

He pulls himself close, until every point on his body is flush with Alec, and he feels the surprised gasp leave Alec’s mouth and it almost feels good . Alec’s arm tightens around Magnus’ back, his fingers gripping Magnus’ waistcoat to stop them from toppling over, but there’s a part of Magnus that wants to tumble to the ground. He wants to fall through the puddles that fill the gaps in the pavement, into the upside-down world, the other future where Alec is from, where they’re in love, where this Alec loves all of him as he is now, and not just a figment.

Magnus buries his head in Alec’s shoulder. Words escape him, humid and nauseous against Alec’s throat.

“I can’t wait another hundred years to see you again, Alexander.”

He hates it, he does. He hates the way Alec looks at him with a history they haven’t yet shared.

Alec’s fingers dig into his ribs. A moment of hesitation. “You won’t have to wait that long,” he murmurs, quiet enough to be a secret. “I promise.”

Magnus scoffs bitterly. “You don’t know that.”

Alec stops, forcing Magnus to stop too. Magnus squints at him, seeing double, but Alec shakes his head. “Magnus, I do.”

“How?”

“Because,” says Alec, and once again, Magnus feels the tug of magic kneading at his skin, a string of fate that wraps around his bottom rib and leads beyond his chest and enters Alec’s in exactly the same place. “You and me, we always find our way back to each other. Whatever happens.”

He’s said those words before, Magnus knows he has. Not to him, not yet, but - one day.

How far away is one day, Alec?

It doesn’t matter. Alec believes it with every fibre of his being anyway. Magnus knows that too.

&&&

Sunrise hesitates just below the horizon by the time Magnus’ apartment comes into view, his feet aching terribly, blisters on his blisters. He’d tried to call a portal, but his magic had spat out hisses and sparks, and now, he doesn’t want to know how far they’ve walked across the city in a strange stupored silence.

The sky is pinkening in the distance, spilt with shades of orange as Magnus stumbles into the lobby of his building and Alec nods at the doorman. In the elevator, Magnus mashes the button for the penthouse and then leans back against the handrail, tilting his head against the mirrored wall. He pushes his shirt sleeves up about his elbows and undoes the buttons of his waistcoat, letting it hang loose, and then he catches his own reflection in the mirror on the other side: his cravat is crooked and his hair unkempt; his red-shot eyes; his makeup smudged and day-old.

Alec slides in next to him, his hands folded behind his back, and Magnus watch him in the mirror too. His eyes roam the long length of Alec’s body, his heavy boots and his fitted trousers, up to the holster lashed around his thigh and the buttons of his shirt. Magnus lingers on the lines of his neck disappearing into the open collar of his shirt, and then on his mouth as Alec worries on his lower lip, deep in thought.

Everything blurs in and out of existence. Magnus’ heart beats sluggishly, pulling itself through the cognac settled in his stomach.

The elevator shudders upwards and their eyes meet in the reflection in the mirror.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alec asks.

Magnus shakes his head. “No. Not really,” he murmurs. His temple now aches with the early onset of sobriety. “It’s a terribly sad story that doesn’t bear repeating. I’ll be fine once I’ve slept it off.”

Alec’s frown deepens, and he looks down, fiddling with his wedding ring again. The silence is only disturbed by the ding of the elevator as it rises floor by slowing floor.

“Can I tell you something?” Alec asks, after a moment. He turns to Magnus; the magic confined to the small space of the elevator ripples but has nowhere to go. It bounces back against the mirror, colliding with itself, and Magnus has to pull his eyes away from the mid-distance, from the patterns no-one can see but him, to look at Alec.

“Always.”

The corner of Alec’s mouth twitches upwards, almost a smile, but it fades. “When we meet, I - I never thought I’d get this. I never thought I’d meet someone like you and I’d decided that was okay. Well, not okay, but liveable. I had my job, my family, my parabatai - other things. I thought I could get by without-” He gestures between them. “- this.”

“And then I swept into your life and changed all that?”

Alec’s smile blooms again, distant, sad, somewhat wry. Faint colour creeps up his neck. “No. No, you came along and it - it made it worse. It was like, I could see what I could have and then it was even further out of my reach, y’know? Everything else in my life, it was like black and white, but you - you were colour. And that terrified me. I got one tiny look at it - at us - and it made me realise that that’s all I’d ever get because I wasn’t allowed to want it. You don’t just get to be a Shadowhunter and - well. This.”  

“This,” Magnus repeats. “Married?”

“Not just that. It was everything. And I ran away from it - or I tried. I was going to do something really stupid, but you … Magnus, you never gave up on me, even then.”

A breath catches in Magnus’ throat; the hand of magic encircles its warm fingers around his windpipe and applies just enough pressure for his next words to come out as a whisper or maybe as a croak. “What are you trying to say?”

“I thought I was gonna be alone for my entire life. I’d accepted it, just like you,” Alec says honestly, “I was wrong.”

The golden hand above the elevator doors tips over, and the doors open onto the penthouse. Magnus cannot move. His hands grip the bar behind him, and he stares at Alec, unwilling to blink, unable to take a breath.

He feels both cut adrift and rooted to this moment, held only to the ground by the steadfast look in Alec’s eyes. The universe moves around him, his determined heart at its very centre.

No, not the universe. Just yours.

Magnus sees that now.

“Magnus …” Alec whispers, stepping forward and reaching out. His fingers brush against Magnus’ bare forearm leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Magnus jerks away. He feels the sickness of the alcohol, but not the dizziness.

You talked about being scared. I know that too. I’m scared of this hurting my heart more than everything else that’s happened before.

“Let’s go inside,” he murmurs, “I need to lie down.”

&&&

The haze before the dawn echoes with the rattling sound of tires on Parisian cobblestones, the moonlight barking of neighbourhood dogs, and the ever-present rumble of Paris’ heart slowly stirring into wakefulness, but Magnus’ room is still and silent. His bed is unmade where he left it yesterday morning, sheets rumpled and half-draped across the mattress, pillows strewn against the headboard. Clothes litter the floor, unpaired shoes and untied cravats, a dress of Camille’s or two. On the bedside table, there’s an uncorked and half-emptied bottle of whiskey.

Halfway between dreams and sleep, Magnus is vaguely aware of the throbbing in his forehead, but he’s too delirious to feel real pain, not with Alec floating at his back like a ghost, close enough to feel, not quite close enough to touch.

Good , Magnus thinks distantly, his eyelids heavy as he drops down on his mattress and kicks off his shoes, his whole body suddenly sore. It’s more a hollow, tender feeling, as if his skin has coloured with poppy bruises, and clumsy, invisible hands poke and prod at these tender spots, as if seeking out old wounds. But the feeling doesn’t ebb or flow or fade like it should - it just lingers, a present thought in his foggy head.

The dream is strange: emptiness and longing, the vastness of a lonely city, the sickening of alcohol, the want for pliant skin just for the sake of touch. The overwhelming presence of Alec in his space, standing before him with his hands clasped behind his back, both a dutiful soldier and a perfect husband, drenched in Magnus’ own magic and the nauseating spin of time and space that’s not meant to be.

Magnus feels like he might vomit. God, what is wrong with me .

“Alexander,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. I need you. I need you in a way that I don’t think you can give. Not yet.

Alec kneels down in front of him and lays his left hand on Magnus’ knee, his ring attracting the faint wisps of light that slip through the blinds.

“You’re allowed to want things,” he says, “You taught me that.”

“Even things I have no right wanting?”

“Even those,” Alec murmurs. “I wish I could give them to you.”

Magnus stirs, reaching out blindly for Alec’s jacket - the need to pull him close is overwhelming - but it’s Alec’s hand he finds, Alec’s hand that squeezes Magnus’ fingers tightly. His wedding ring feels cold now. Magnus’ focuses on that against the pounding in his head.

With his other hand, Alec loosens the cravat around Magnus throat and pulls it free of his collar, folding it carefully upon the nightstand. Then, he smooths Magnus’ hair away from his forehead, his fingers lingering against Magnus’ temple, as if drawn to the point where the blood pulses the loudest, knowing his touch will quiet it.

He knows everything about Magnus. All the tiny little things that no-one has ever paid attention to, Alec knows them intimately.

“Magnus,” Alec murmurs, his finger ghosting around the socket of Magnus’ eyes. “You need to sleep. Sober up.”

“I won’t until you’re gone.”

“It could be hours yet. C’mon. I’ll stay here with you.”

Magnus rolls onto his side, his cheek hitting the pillow - and the room swirls in dark colour - and he looks Alec in the eye. Alec’s expression is grave, his mouth drawn in a severe line. A crease appears between his eyebrows, and Magnus wishes it gone; it makes him look far older than he is. It makes him look as old as Magnus feels, like he has lived all these lifetimes between their visits too.

“Stop that,” Magnus whispers. He untangles his hand from Alec’s and presses his thumb between Alec’s eyebrows, smoothing out his frown lines.

“Stop what?”

Magnus shakes his head, and drags his thumb down the length of Alec’s nose, across his cupid’s bow, and onto his lips, pushing down until blood gathers at the touch and Alec’s lower lip blooms in a dark, perfect red.

Alec exhales carefully, cool against Magnus’ skin. His eyes are wide when Magnus finds them again.

“Will I see you again?” Magnus asks. He has to know. Sooner or later, Alec is going to vanish with the morning and not come back. The residual temporal energy will only last so long.  

“The magic’s not gone yet,” Alec replies, but the sorrow lingers. “Maybe - maybe I’ve got one jump left. I don’t know.”

“Am I getting close?”

“Close?”

“Close to you, in your present. My future. Wherever it is that you are and I am not.”

Alec doesn’t speak for a moment, but Magnus can see him thinking. His thumb rubs at the bare knuckle of Magnus’ fourth finger.  

“It’s soon,” he settles on, but he still won’t tell Magnus exactly when. “But I can’t-”

Just give me a year , Magnus thinks. Give me a decade. Something to hold onto.

“But you can’t just wish away your life waiting to catch up, Magnus,” Alec continues, “There’s so much - there’s so much you’re gonna miss, and you’ll regret it if you do. There’s so much ahead of you that makes you who you are -” He takes Magnus’ hand by the wrist and draws his fingers close; he presses a soft, worshipful kiss to the pad of Magnus’ thumb. “It makes you the man I fell in love with.”

Magnus’ heart lurches. “Are you always so frank?”

Alec smiles softly. “You love it.”

I do , Magnus realises. God above, I do.

FIVE | BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, USA, 1989

“That’s the last of them,” says Catarina, as the portal closes behind her, the swirling orange magic dissipating into sparks that extinguish on the rug. “I never thought we’d get the High Warlock of Madrid taking refugees from the Circle - what did you offer him? Diamonds? Jewels? Oh, Magnus, it better not be your apartment in London, I know how long he’s been coveting that.”

“I am most certainly not giving him the apartment,” Magnus says, “The old coot just owed me a favour from a very long time ago and I decided to cash it in. The High Warlock may be a stick in the mud, but very few people hate Shadowhunters as much as him. He won’t let Valentine Morgenstern come within a spell’s throw of the Warlock community in Spain.”

Magnus swans towards his drinks stand and picks up two glasses: one, tall and thin-stemmed with a trio of olives propped against the rim, and the other dark and purple and glittery. He holds it out to Cat, but she raises her palm and shakes her head.

Magnus raises his eyebrows, a silent ‘ suit yourself ’ as he takes a sip of his drink. “Besides,” he continues, licking the taste of the martini from his lips, “There’s nothing he could give me in exchange for that apartment. Where else would I stay when visiting Ragnor, if not there?”

Catarina rolls her eyes. “You haven’t visited Ragnor in fifty years. You and I both know that’s not the reason you want to keep that apartment. I seem to remember you insisting that you needed it for a very special occasion, last time the High Warlock tried to buy it off you.”

Magnus waves his hand noncommittally. “I was drunk. Whatever I said can’t be held against me.”

“So you’re denying it then?” Cat says, but her eyebrow is raised and her mouth curves into a wry, crooked grin. She folds her hands across her chest and cocks her hip. “You don’t remember saying you were going to spend your honeymoon in London and you’ve already planned it all out, despite the fact you and I both know you’ve never been married, not once in eight hundred years, even though I’m pretty sure a number of people have asked you -”

“I said no such thing, and even if I did, I maintain that I was incredibly drunk. You’re putting words in my mouth, Catarina.”

Magnus flicks his fingers and the balcony doors swing open, daylight streaming into the loft from across the East River in shafts of yellow. He squints, raising one hand to shield his eyes. The shapes of skyscrapers coalesce; the Brooklyn Bridge catches the reflection of the water and the brown stone ripples.

Magnus wanders out onto the balcony, setting his glass down on the edge and spreading his hands wide. He surveys the city: the bustle of Brooklyn, the cacophony of car horns and the sound of construction, Manhattan looming in the distance.

The city that never sleeps. Except when Shadowhutners are killing and torturing Downworlders and then, then it’s time to turn a blind eye -

Catarina hesitates in the doorway, watching him from afar. He doesn’t turn back to look at her, but he can feel her eyes on his back.

“Are you worried?” she asks. It’s a loaded question and only has one answer.

“I’m worried about a lot of things,” Magnus replies, “I’m worried that Valentine Morgenstern and his lackeys are going to wipe out the Downworld population of New York. I’m worried that we can’t trust the Shadowhunters to look out for our best interests any more, not if it means going against other Nephilim. We’re on our own.”

“The Shadowhunters have always been that way,” Cat frowns, “Trusting them is stupid, you’ve said so yourself. Nephilim are all the same.”

Not all of them , Magnus thinks, not one. I still have hope that things can change.

But we can’t afford to wait for that. Too many Downworld lives are on the line.

Magnus sighs heavily, turning to face her. He leans back against the edge of the balcony. “No, you’re right,” he says, “I’ll summon the other Downworld leaders and we’ll discuss how best to deal with the New York Institute. I’ll send you a fire message so you can be there.”

“I’ll do my best,” says Cat, “I’m moving a lot of people out of the city this week. I’ve got a clan of Vampires going to Tokyo tonight, and another six Warlocks to send to Madrid. It’s hard enough summoning so many portals, but harder still when we have to hide the magical trace from the Nephilim so that they don’t know what we’re doing. My magic is shot and I’m exhausted.”

Magnus smiles tightly. “You worked for the Underground Railroad in the fifties, Cat. There’s no-one else I would trust with this.”

“Yeah, the eighteen fifties. That was a long time ago, Magnus. I thought we’d seen the last of this. Genocidal maniacs hunting and killing our people.”

So did I , Magnus thinks. So did I .

&&&

He lingers on the balcony a while after she’s gone, long after his drink is empty. He runs his fingers up the stem of the glass and listens to it sing, a sound shrill and sharp against the rumble of the city at large.

He has so much to do - potions to make and clients to call, and there are a stack of fire messages on his desk waiting to be read, all from young Warlocks desperate for his help to get out of the city before the Circle find them - but he finds he cannot move, not for a quiet moment that seems slotted in between the passage of time. His eyes follow a lone seagull coasting on the updraughts, hanging motionless in the bright blue sky. It bobs in the wind, its caws carrying across Brooklyn, and it lulls Magnus into a stupor where the rest of the world is drowned out.

His magic envelops him, a shield between him and New York, between him and the world he has stopped running from and finally turned to face. He taps his fingernail upon the stone edge of the balcony and listens to his magic reverberate - tip, tip, tip - and then he feels a swell, a gentle pushing on his wards at his front door.

Magnus frowns, peering back into the loft. The protective magic shifts again, but rather than someone trying to break in, scratching and plucking at the spell, desperate to unravel it, it feels as if its a curtain parted and someone slips through quietly. Very few people can get past Magnus’ wards - he can count them on one hand. Catarina, Raphael, Ragnor - if the old bat ever left his cottage in England to say hello to a friend who misses him -  

Frozen, he watches as the front door opens, and then, slipping into the loft like he’s lived there all his life - Alec.

His Alexander. Of course the wards already know him. He was woven into their magic before Magnus even cast the spell.

Magnus’ heart beats loudly, a rhythm he hasn’t felt in a long time, a reverberation in his chest that he knows intimately, locked away in his memories.  

He watches Alec’s eyes dart around the loft, lingering on the drinks bar and frowning at the large sofa Magnus has been planning to switch out for something more modern. He sets his bow and quiver down by the door, and then his fingertips trail across the back of an armchair, and he steps around the rugs on the floor without even looking, as if he already knows where they lie.

A smile curves Alec’s beautiful mouth: it’s soft, loose, completely at peace. His gaze flicks up and he sees Magnus standing on the balcony, and that same smile blooms with the sunlight as it passes across his face.

And in that moment, Magnus realises: this is his home .

This loft in Brooklyn is Alec’s home. It’s their home. They live here together, they’ve made a life here together; this space is Alec’s space.

“Hello, stranger,” Magnus says, leaning back against the balcony, basking in the roam of Alec’s eyes up the length of his body as he, too, steps out into the view of Brooklyn. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

“What year is it?” Alec asks. He’s wearing his usual jeans and jacket, but his shirt shines with subtle silver thread, and Magnus knows that same shirt sits in his closet right now, still in its garment bag. Magnus bought it only last week.

.

“1989,” Magnus says, curving his body towards Alec as Alec rests his hip against the stone railing. “George Bush is President, the High Warlock of Bangkok skipped my birthday party, and Madonna released an excellent fourth album. It’s hard to guess what might go down in history.”

“Sixty years since Paris,” Alec remarks.

“The blink of an eye,” Magnus says, offering a smile. “You don’t have a single grey hair.”

Alec ducks his head on a blush. The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Got a couple wrinkles though. Perils of the job, I guess.”

Magnus hums. He could say that the faint lines around Alec’s eyes make him handsome, or he could remark on how he wouldn’t mind feeling the bite of Alec’s stubble against his skin - and it all would deepen the colour in Alec’s cheeks - but he’s content enough just to look.

So, he looks. He looks, he marvels, and while the ache in his chest is still there, it’s quietened. It’s softened. It doesn’t bruise him anymore because he’s made peace with it, with the tenderness of his skin and his carefully-concealed heart whenever Alec is nearby.

The magic trickles across his skin, the barest touch. A long time ago on the streets of Madrid, it was a flood, a wave punching against his chest, but now, the same temporal magic fades, hissing across the metaphorical sand as it retreats back into the sea.

The spell is weakening, the tear in space and time slowly stitching itself back together, and soon enough, Alec will no longer be able to step through. But Alec - oh, his eyes have softened and he gazes at Magnus with such an overflowing amount of love, and Magnus wants to know how he ever missed it.

How he ran into that Shadowhunter all those centuries ago and didn’t know what this was at first glance.  

I should’ve known you then as I do now. I should’ve known you then as you’ve known me always.

“What?” Alec asks, his smile slanted.

Magnus shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”  

Disantly, Magnus hears a hiss, the whistle of a fire message cutting through his wards. He snatches it out of mid-air, embers cooling on his fingertips, the edges of the parchment scorched.

“Is it urgent?” Alec asks.

“No,” Magnus replies, but he scrunches up his mouth and frowns anyway. “It’s Catarina. She’s been moving Downworlders out of the city and needs my help with masking the energy signature of a portal.”

“Moving Downworlders - oh . The Circle. Valentine.”

“The fact that you’ve heard of him doesn’t fill me with much hope,” says Magnus, snapping his fingers and turning the fire message to ash. He nods at Alec to follow him inside.

“I don’t know him, I’ve met him,” Alec corrects, “Wish I hadn’t.” His voice drops and he fiddles with his ring. “Wish you hadn’t.”  

“There are a great many things I wish I hadn’t done,” says Magnus, leading the way into the loft and towards his study. “But as someone very wise once told me, you can’t just wish away the things that made you who you are.”

Even with his Shadowhunter reflexes, there’s something endearing in the way Alec almost walks into a bookcase, unaccustomed to it being next to the door. Alec glares at it, and Magnus huffs with laughter, sliding behind his desk. He picks up the stack of unburnt fire messages next to his quill and leafs through them.

“The Circle is torturing Downworlders,” he says as Alec hovers on the other side of the desk. “Catarina and I are ferrying as many as we can out of New York to sanctuary cities. The New York Warlock council is not happy with me, of course, because they think we should stay and fight, but - as High Warlock of Brooklyn, my responsibility is to the safety of my people first, and not to the war that Valentine Morgenstern is so eager to fight. It’s kept me very busy.”

“I’m glad,” says Alec, “I mean - I’m not glad that this is happening, just that you’re - that you’ve found purpose. Back in Paris, I thought - I was - you save people , Magnus. That’s what you do.”

“You flatter me.”

“It’s the truth.”

Magnus hesitates, but Alec doesn’t look away. The way he stares, sometimes, wide-eyed and earnest and unblinking, makes Magnus feel so see-through. And it’s in those moments that Magnus finds he knows himself, the truest version of who he is and what he can do: he sees himself as Alec sees him.

Whole.

Magnus clears his throat pointedly and summons his caldron and pestle and mortar to his desk.

“I need to make a magical restoration potion for Catarina,” he explains, “Can you pass me the cypress? It’s in the jar on the -”

Alec reaches out and grabs a small glass jar from the shelf behind him, handing it to Magnus. He doesn’t read the label, but as Magnus uncorks the jar and turns it upside down, a few green branchlets shake out into his palm. Magnus inhales the sweetness of pine and the dry peppery smell of juniper.

“You knew where that was without even looking,” he murmurs, staring at his hand, “I know what that means.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means I’m getting close.”

Magnus crushes the cypress leaves in his fist and tosses them into his cauldron, and then he steps around the desk, crowding Alec against the pantry. The glass jars clink as Alec’s shoulders knock against the shelf.

“It’s a different me,” Alec murmurs, “I told you, when we first meet, I’m -”

“You’re still you,” Magnus says. “That’s all that matters.”

Magnus cups Alec’s neck, kneading his thumbs into the soft, pliant skin beneath Alec’s jaw. It makes Alec’s lips part on instinct. His heartbeat is traitorously loud.

“I think this is the last time I’m going to see you,” Alec whispers. “The magic left over from that spell is wearing off, so I probably won’t - “ His sentence breaks and he swallows thickly, and Magnus follows the slow, pronounced bob of his throat. Magnus strokes his fingers over the tendons in Alec’s neck, feeling them jump and shift with his touch. “I probably won’t get to …”

“You have your own future,” Magnus replies, “And I have mine. You’ve known from the start that this meeting was an accident.”

Alec chews on his lower lip, his head jerking. His eyes have grown dark, his irises eclipsed by his pupils. One hand comes up to cover Magnus’ against the side of his throat. His wedding ring glints and feels cold against Magnus’ fingers.

“It happens soon,” Alec confesses, and the words tumble out as if he might regret them if he says them any slower. “Less than thirty years. In Manhattan -”

“Spoilers, surely?”

“- and I take one look at you and it terrifies me, because I want it so much and I’d never wanted anyone like that before.”

Magnus sucks in a sharp breath, and then he surges up onto the balls of his feet, threading his fingers through Alec’s hair, and he kisses Alec hard.

Alec stumbles back into the shelves and the jars and pots and trinkets clink and jangle, but none of them break, and Alec grips Magnus by the lapels of his jacket and pulls him close.

Magnus’ magic stutters - and then it leaps. He feels it surge into Alec at every point they touch, and Alec returns it in like: Magnus’ own magic, but more, outpouring with this timeless and irrevocable love that makes no sense, and yet, here Magnus is, cradling it between two palms and feeling the way is disturbs the universe - palpable, tangible thing.

Alec kisses him deeply, his tongue flicking against the seam of Magnus’ mouth, his teeth nipping at Magnus’ lower lip. He kisses Magnus like he’s been kissing him for years - and God, he has, he has - and he knows each and every way to make Magnus’ heart beat faster.

Then, Magnus can feel his smile: tiny, guilty, perfect, and the kiss softens. Alec presses his lips to the corner of Magnus’ mouth, to his jaw, to the soft skin of his cupid’s bow as Magnus, each one more gentle than the last as Magnus threads his fingers through the dark hair above Alec’s ears.

And Alec trembles, the magic they share trembles, shivering through Magnus’ fingers and up his arms and into his chest where it bounces across each rib. It breathes, and Magnus takes each of Alec’s shaky inhales and exhales as his own.

The kiss fades, until it’s just the brush of Alec’s lips across his, and then Alec tilts his forehead against Magnus’, his breathing deep. His fingers are still knotted in the lapels of Magnus’ jacket.

“I never -” Alec whispers, and Magnus feels every word against his mouth. “I never thought that I’d - that felt like our first kiss again. I never thought I’d feel it a second time.”

Magnus brushes his nose against Alec’s. “And which of us did it better?” he asks, “Him or me?”

“You. Always you,” Alec murmurs, “He is you.”

The buzzing in the magic has yet to dissipate, and Magnus can feel the invisible threads of the fading spell wrap their tendrils around Alec’s arms and legs and begin to tug. They don’t have long.

Magnus closes his eyes, holding Alec near to him. “I stand no chance, Alexander,” he confesses, “The moment I meet you, I’m already going to feel so -”

“I’m going to feel the same thing. I promise.”

Magnus shakes his head. Alec doesn’t understand it; he can’t. The feeling has always been too big for Magnus, to unwieldy for him to grasp, and yet Alec lives and breathes it: this thing called love.

“It makes no sense, but I know you,” Magnus says. “I know who you are in the same way I know my magic. It’s intimate. Inherent to who I am, and yet it’s a life I haven’t yet lived.”

“It’ll make sense,” Alec replies, and his lifts his hand to cup Magnus’ jaw, but the touch of his fingertips is incorporeal. His eyes find Magnus’, endlessly. “It makes sense to me.”  

“I look forward to meeting you,” Magnus whispers, as Alec’s skin turns translucent and becomes the same dust particulates always suspended in a beam of silent sunlight.

PLUS ONE | MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, USA, 2016

The lights of Pandemonium pulse with electrochromic intensity: blue, purple, green, white, strobe passing across the crowd like a searchlight, plunging young thrill seekers in and out of shadow. The floor is sticky with spilled beer, the air is sweet and sickly with Seelie magic, but it’s the music that laves across Magnus’ skin and always fills him with that heady rush.

That, and the power flickering in his fingertips as he summons a portal, the thrill of holding a Shadowhunter by the throat with just the lick of his magic, the power pulsing from the red jewel in his hand, returned to him by Clary Fairchild and that insufferable blonde Shadowhunter, and engraved on the back with the single word, amor -

True love can never die .

“Look out!”

The arrow comes out of nowhere, piercing a hidden Circle member through the heart. The man falls with a thud, but electricity skitters up the back of Magnus’ neck.

He turns. The archer comes striding down the stairs and pushes his way through the crowd, brushing Magnus’ shoulder on his way to retrieve the arrow. He’s young - painfully young - and skittish and beautiful and, at last, unfamiliar.

There’s not a single wisp of temporal magic to be felt. The universe, for once, is whole and faultless.

It’s taken almost four hundred years.

“Who are you?” Magnus asks, already breathless. He knows the answer. What was it he’s supposed to say? More like medium rare?

He watches the Shadowhunter toss his Seraph blade in the air and catch it. The roaming yellow-gold lights of the club pass across his bare forearms, the empty space on his left ring finger.

Heat unfurls beneath Magnus’ skin.

The magic sings.

[multi--dimensional]

Happy Candlenights, Sirs!

I’ve never posted a fic here, so my apologies if the formatting is weird. 

This is my half of @thecandlenightszone exchange, and my partner is @Kentuckyfriedbooks! I know I’m a little late, and I’ve already asked them for forgiveness.

Critical information: In order to make this idea work with what I know about the show (AKA nothing past The Eleventh Hour), I had to mess with the timeline a little bit and take advantage of the weird passage of time. Essentially, I’m moving the pre-Crystal Kingdom Candlenights party to a different point in time and adding another Candlenights between it and the chaos that happened after Crystal Kingdom. Hopefully that makes sense. 

With that, here’s the story! I’m gonna go read mine. :)

Temperatures were dropping, precipitation was getting more and more frozen, and the skies were getting dark sooner at the same time thousands of lights lit up the night in every town. The halls of the Moon Base were decked, and a particular small room had a little shrub proudly displayed on its only table. Another Candlenights season was kicking up, and Angus was ready for it. He’d saved up from missions, made several trips to the Fantasy Costco, and he had hopefully gotten everyone something they would enjoy more than the books he’d handed out last year.

He’d managed to find a proper strop for Magnus, enchanted to protect the blades that it sharpened so that they’d dull slower and be less likely to break. There was a solid bronze handle attached to it that made wrapping it far harder than it should’ve, and in the end he gave up on neatness and twisted a hunk of paper around it like the end of a hard candy wrapper.

Merle’s was more difficult, but he ultimately decided on a pot full of purple starbuds. During the day, the blooms were wound into a tight, dark purple cone, but come night, they’d unfurl into a star-shaped flower with a twisted center, and clusters of white speckles on the petals would be visible. Its broad leaves were also a great downer when dried correctly; Angus’ grandfather used to smoke them occasionally, and it surprised him that he’d been allowed to buy them at all. He wasn’t certain, but thought Merle would appreciate that feature. He’d only wrapped the pot, not trusting himself or Merle to not kill the plants if he put them in a box.

Their presents were sitting in a corner, waiting to be handed out, and he was currently trying to wrap Taako’s. He’d been at an utter loss for his present. He wanted to get him something he’d really like, but realized with surprise that he didn’t know what that might be. Magnus was an open book and loved to talk about woodworking, and Merle was a Panite, so a woodworking tool and a plant seemed like obvious choices. Taako, though not exactly quiet, didn’t actually talk about himself that much. Angus knew he loved to cook, but he also knew that cooking was a sore spot for him, so an enchanted utensil may not be a good idea. He liked magic, but already had a powerful magic focus. After perusing the shelves of Fantasy Costco for a few hours (across the course of a few days, as Garfield’s staring quickly unnerved him), he decided to get him an Alchemist’s Ring. He was pretty sure Taako liked jewelry, and if he, Merle, or Magnus ever needed to resort to a health potion on the field, this would make it stronger. It even seemed to fit with his style, which was very lucky. At the last second, he grabbed a basic acrylics set and a mug that said “World’s Best Wizard.” He proceeded to paint some pink flowers around the text and wedge the word “Flip” before “Wizard”. (Taako had reluctantly given a demonstration of his acrobatic skills when Angus had asked why his friends occasionally called him that, and he was still amazed.) Now, Angus was definitely a better detective than an artist, but after a few restarts and a lot of touch ups, he was very proud of his handiwork. It was just too bad he couldn’t give the flowers a scent. Maybe he’d try a prestidigitation on it when he gave it to Taako.

He carefully dropped the ring box into the mug, set it into a box, tucked his spare towel around it, and wrapped it the best he could. Mission accomplished. Giddy, he placed the gifts under the shrub and turned on the mostly-working fairy lights. He knew the boys held their own traditions around the same time, almost two weeks away, so he’d keep them there until then. He turned to the handful of mismatched candles on his dresser, closed his eyes, and attempted to cast prestidigitation. They flickered to life on his second try, and he let out a whoop.

It really felt like Candlenights in his little room. All he needed was a macaron; it had only been one year, but he already viewed them as a Candlenights tradition he wanted to continue.

He knew cooking was a testy subject for Taako, but couldn’t help but hope that he’d get another one for Candlenights this year.

...

Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear— literally dawned. The sun was barely over the horizon and Angus McDonald, Boy Detective and notorious Early Bird, was already up and at ‘em, hanging out in a corner he’d claimed in a lounge dome near his dorm. It was magic day once again. Six months of weekly magic lessons had only grown his enthusiasm, and he was pouring over the pages that he’d dedicated to magic notes in the back of his beat up little notebook.

He looked up at the quiet whoosh of the door opening, and the thumping of snow-laden boots on the entry rug.

“Hello, Madam Director!” He chirped.

The Director jumped, gaze quickly swinging around the small room and landing on Angus. She relaxed and exhaled an embarrassed sound somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle.

Angus’ eyes had widened to the size of saucers. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Madam! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“It’s alright, Angus,” she started, regaining her composure and gliding to his little corner. “I wasn’t paying attention, I suppose.” She started removing her gloves and took a seat on the couch across from him and smiled gently. “What are you doing up this early?”

“Oh, I’m always up this early! Early bird gets the worm, my grandpa always said! Which was strange, since he sometimes got annoyed at how early I was up. What about you, Madam?”

“I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I took a walk.” As she put her gloves in her shoulder bag, her hand nudged something and she peeled up. “You know what, Angus? I know it’s still a little early in the season, but I’ve got something for you.”

The Director pulled something out of her bag, and Agus breathed a quiet “Whoa.”

It was a small parcel, wrapped in shiny, blue paper, scattered with delicate silver stars and elaborately tied with a sleek, grey bow. It was completely free of wrinkles, almost seamless, and he couldn’t tell what was holding it all together. If he didn’t know better, he’d even say it glowed just the tiniest bit. Angus had to wonder if there was a spell for gift wrapping, or if the Director had just been hiding insane proficiencies in paper folding and knot tying. He was reluctant to even touch the gleaming paper, especially since he was pretty sure he knew what it was. 

The package was the size and shape of a book, and it was well known among the base that Caleb Cleveland: Kid Cop was his favorite series. What was less well known was that he already owned all the books. A copy or two would be an easy gift for him if someone wasn’t sure what else to get him. He had half a mind to thank the Director, bring the present back to his dorm, and display it as it was.

She had the slightest of self-satisfied smirks when he looked back up. She pushed it towards him. “Go on, open it.” She must’ve seen his hesitation, because she chuckled. “Don’t worry about the paper, I can wrap it back up afterwards if you’d like.”

He nodded and took the gift. It felt heavier than he expected it to be, more sturdy than his usual paperbacks. Maybe an exclusive cover? He worked off the bow and removed the paper, still careful to keep it from tearing.

Inside was a box, which he also opened and slid the contents into his free hand. It was a book, as he expected, but it wasn’t Kid Cop. It was a journal. The cover was made of beautifully tanned leather, with a pen holster on the spine and a cover flap that was fastened closed with a large, walnut wood button. There was an engraved jellyfish on the right side, dyed purple, blue, and green. He ran his fingers over the engraving, and the jellyfish seemed to float under his touch. Soft, tiny lights in its umbrella blinked once, twice, and went dark again.

The Director reached in front of him and pointed at the button. In silent awe, he unfastened it and pulled open the flap. On the inside, hand-engraved, were the words “Detective’s Notes.”

“I noticed your old one was getting a bit ratty,” she said. “The button is charmed. It stores two spells. If you tap it two times, it’ll cast ‘reduce’ on the notebook so you can put it in your pocket. Tapping three times will cast ‘enlarge,’ and it’ll return to normal.”

“I-- Thank you, Madam Director!” Angus’ eyes were starting to well up, but he grinned ear-to-ear. “I love it! I haven’t gotten a new notebook in... I think 2 years? Maybe? This is fantastic, I actually have clean pages! I won’t need to keep scribbling in margins, and putting Fischer on the cover, did you do that yourself? Thank you so much, it’s so cool! What spell was that? Oh, that pen holster is gonna be so great--”

The Director smiled softly as he rambled on, but as she watched, her face changed. She slid off the couch and knelt down to Angus’ height. Her smile had disappeared, the corners of her mouth turned down in concern as she looked him in the eye. “Angus, I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.” 

Startled by the sudden change in mood,  he settled down and nodded. 

“You are happy here, right?”

“Of course, Madam Director!” She didn’t look convinced, so he continued, “I’ve got my own room, I live on an awesome floating base, and I’m able to use my detective skills to help people. Almost everyone here is super nice, and I’m getting to learn magic!”

The smile returned, and tension drained from her shoulders that Angus hadn’t fully realized was there. She reached out and ruffled his curls. “Good, I’m really happy to hear that. I just want you to know that no one’s forcing you to stay here. You’re extraordinarily bright, Angus, but I fear that I may have dragged you into a situation you don’t want to be in.  We all love your company, and you’re a great help, truly. But if you ever want to leave, just say the word. Or even if you want to stay on the base, but keep out of missions. Just. Let me know if you’re unhappy.”

This was clearly something that had been weighing on her for a while. Angus nodded solemnly. “I will, Madam Director. I promise.”

“Thank you.” She tentatively opened her arms, and Angus stepped forward and hugged her, notebook still clutched in one hand.

“Happy Candlenights.”

Her eyes crinkled into a true smile. “Happy Candlenights, Angus.”

When the hug ended, the Director looked at him with a hint of slyness in her gaze.

“You said ‘almost everyone.’ I feel like you might be referring to Taako, Magnus, and Merle. Just a little secret, Angus: Taako’s teasing isn’t meant to be hurtful. He considers it friendly ribbing of an equal. You mean quite a lot to him. Merle and Magnus, too.”

Angus beamed. “That’s what I thought! At least, I was pretty sure, but it’s...”

“Hard to tell with those boys, yeah.”

They both smiled.

“Oh, hey! Can you-” Angus moved to grab the box, planning on asking the Director to rewrap it, but when he turned around, it was already done. He looked back at the Director, who was clearly trying not to grin.

“Can you please teach me that?”

“You know what, Angus? Talk to me next Candlenights, and I’ll give you some tips.”

...

Magic lessons went by far quicker than Angus liked, as per always, but they went well. Taako commended him on his Mage Hand, the basics of which he nailed a while ago, but the aesthetic? Not so much. He had finally gotten a fully-formed, not nightmarish hand today. They had started working on the different facets of prestidigitation too, which was coming along nicely.

Now they were walking across the main campus of the base. Angus wasn’t quite sure where, but he hadn’t been shooed off yet, so he stuck around. He’d noticed that Taako was more bundled up than he normally liked, with a shorter hat, and that he’d stopped to pull Angus’ beanie over his ears and make sure he had gloves on before they went outside. While it did make him grin, he didn’t think about it much. They were thousands of feet in the air in the middle of winter. It was cold out. 

What he hadn’t quite yet discounted was the way Taako kept looking around once they stepped outside of the mess hall. He couldn’t tell if he was nervous or expectant, but he was... something, and it was putting him on edge. Taako only said that “Everything’s good, Ango D’jango” when he asked if something was wrong, so he was trying to put it out of his mind.

To help ignore how distracted Taako was acting, Angus started rambling about any and everything, from the lesson to how pretty the campus looked covered in snow, and that was when a snowball landed two feet in front of him. He heard the vinyl squeak of winter material as Taako quickly hopped to the right, and a quiet thump as a second snowball hit his arm in spite of his best efforts.

Behind a mound of snow not twenty feet away came a voice. “Merle, you have the worst aim.”

And from a tree ten feet to their right came: “Hey, sorry we aren’t all gifted with decent athletics!”

A red pom-pommed hat atop a familiar bearded face popped up from the mound, and Magnus grinned as he threw another snowball. Angus was bracing for impact when he was swept off the ground; Taako had picked him up and tucked him under his arm as he ran for shelter. Dodging hits all the way, he crouched behind a half wall that normally framed a seating area and set Angus down next to him. He was smirking, and a competitive gleam lit up his eyes.

“Start making snowballs,” he ordered, already starting on his own pile. Angus started to do so, but after spending fifteen seconds on one, Taako interrupted. “Don’t go for shape, just get it packed. Have you never made a snowball before?”

Angus shook his head. “Not in the middle of a fight!”

“...Oh. Well, here, just— grab a double handful of snow, and—“ he quickly packed it into a lopsided ball, and Angus mimicked him. “Yes, perfect! Keep doing that!”

In no time, they had a pile of ammo the height of Angus sitting criss-cross. The battlefield was quiet. After a few moments, footsteps crunched across the snow towards them, and Angus knew why they hadn’t returned fire: Taako was luring them closer.

Indeed, Taako was peering through a crack in the wall, grinning an evil grin. Angus found another hole, and sure enough, Magnus was out in the open halfway between their wall and his mount, trying to be sneaky.

“Hey, bubula,” Taako whispered, “Wanna see a trick?”

Angus nodded vigorously.

“Alright, cast Mage Hand, but keep it low.” After a second, two Mage Hands appeared near the snow. Taako put a snowball in each, and his Mage Hand wrapped around it. Ango had his do the same. “Load it up, wind back,” the Hands drew back, and Taako peeked his head just barely above the wall. Angus followed.

Magnus made eye contact with them and froze, then paled when Taako yelled, “And fUCKING CHUCK IT!”

His Mage Hand launched the snowball directly into Magnus’ chest, and he stumbled back. Angus’ came damn close. From then on, it was all-out war. Magnus and Merle were worthy opponents, but Taako and Angus fiercely defended their base, their Mage Hands giving them twice the throwing capacity. Angus even got a few hits in, and Taako yelled encouragement each time. 

The battle ended an hour later, when Merle used Shield of Faith on Magnus, allowing him to barrel through the onslaught and dump a Heroic Memories Shieldful of snow on both of them. Angus was laughing too hard to continue at that point, and while he didn’t want to head inside, he had to admit to himself that he was getting cold. Taako seemed to agree and started complaining about how elves aren’t meant for this weather, he was going to catch his death out here, etc. etc. Magnus and Merle gave each other a knowing look at that, though Angus wasn’t sure why.

Davenport had a platter of hot chocolate ready for them when they came in, serving it with his usual cheerful “Davenport!” Angus grabbed a mug and thanked him profusely, clinking mugs with Taako.

Time to cross “snowball fight” off his bucket list.

...

Another week and a half passed relatively quietly. There were no missions, no big disasters (unless an exploding snow duck counted-- so he didn’t have the cleaning part of prestidigitation down yet). Just the usual, wonderful mess of mashed together traditions that came with the season.

Angus had spent most of the day in the library, and bolted back to his dorm when he noticed the sun going down. It always got frigid on the base when it was dark, and he wasn’t prepared for the cold because hadn’t planned to stay so long. He’d just gotten sucked into an older Caleb Cleveland book that he’d read probably a hundred times now. Those older books were pure gold. It was just a shame that Grant Andrews had died. His son had tried to take over, but he just didn’t have the same style. 

Not to mention aging Caleb up to a teen was probably the worst decision ever.

Angus made it back minutes after sunset, and was still stomping his feet to get some feeling back to them when he opened his door. His alarm bells immediately went off. Something felt different. He scanned the room from the doorway, investigating each corner, but nothing looked like it had been moved. Nothing was missing. He took a tentative step inside and shivered. It wasn’t as cold as it was outside, but it was definitely a few degrees cooler than the hall. As small a room as it was, it was normally warmer than the hall.

Wait.

He glanced at his Candlenights shrub. The fairy lights were off. He could’ve sworn he left them on; he almost never turned them off during the holidays. Still glancing around, he crept towards the shrub and flicked them on.

There was a fourth gift under the shrub. He’d missed it in the gloom, and it was no wonder why: in contrast to the rest, this one was covered with black fabric, and a sleek black feather was tucked into a fold at the top. It was half off of the table, like whoever put it there was in a rush or afraid of being caught.

Someone had been in his room. He had no clue what might be under those wrappings. He should go get someone. Taako, or the Director, or one of the guards.

But no one but the Bureau members could even get to the Moon Base. None of them would try to hurt him... Right?

Despite his better judgement, Angus found his hand drifting towards it. He tugged part of the fabric away to reveal a cover with a very familiar design, but an unfamiliar title. The top was bordered with golden yellow roses whose petals seemed to be made of gemstones. Below them was a large police badge, with a wooden wand crossed behind it. Inside the badge was written:

Caleb Cleveland and the Secret of the Amber Rose

That was strange. Angus didn’t know of a Caleb Cleveland book with that title, and even stranger was that the badge and wand was the cover style used for the older books. They didn’t use that style anymore. His first thought was that a new book had somehow come out without him knowing, and they’d reverted back to the old covers. Maybe they’d even gone back to the old format, with Kid Cop! He started to pull away the rest of the rest of the fabric, and his eyes drifted to the bottom of the cover.

By Grant Andrews

That... couldn’t be right. Grant Andrews died years ago. It was far too official looking to be an old draft; people had already unearthed some of Andrew’s drafts, and he didn’t bind them. Was it a forgery? Did someone try to publish something in his name? Could it be a super obscure early series book?

Okay... when was this published?

He flipped to the copyright page and skimmed. It was published... This year?

Alright... It had to be a forgery, right? A fanwork? If it was an official fanwork, it’d be published by Blueglades. He kept scanning, and... nope, definitely not. Silver Sea Publishing. He’d never heard of that company.

Angus’ eyes kept drifting to the summary in the jacket. It looked... really good. Really true to the series. He glanced at the copyright page, then back to the jacket. As much as he wanted to solve the mystery of where this book came from, the mystery printed on its pages called to him more. He climbed into bed, lit the bedside candles with prestidigitation and a quick, proud smile, opened the book, and dug in.

...

As dedicated a reader as Angus was, he was still, almost invariably, the “early to bed, early to rise” type. He woke up just before dawn the next morning, the Secret of the Amber Rose fallen half-open on the bed in front of him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, stopping dead when he realized his glasses weren’t on his face. He looked around and found them on his bedside table. Oddly, the candles were out-- not burned down, just out. Eyebrows furrowed, he reached for his glasses, put them on, and scanned the room for the second time in twelve hours.

Once again, he found his shrub tampered with. The three presents he had placed underneath were gone, replaced with three different ones. Further investigation proved them to be from Taako, Merle, and Magnus. He laughed; they must’ve broken in to leave their presents, and couldn’t resist when they saw some with their names. Very on-brand. He grabbed the presents, sat down in front of the shrub table, and set to opening them.

He tore open Magnus’ first, and immediately wondered if he and the Director had worked together. It was a wooden pen, and looked to be made of the same walnut wood as the button on his notebook. There was a built-in grip near the nib, and a small carving of a wizard’s hat at the end, which had the word “Ango” delicately carved around the brim. It was beautiful, and he put it right into the pen holder so he wouldn’t lose it.

Next, he grabbed Merle’s. It was a Trick Tract, and he almost sighed and put it aside, but decided to skim through it. A few pages in, he started to actually read it. Merle had put some thought into this one; it was about a boy detective investigating a supernatural occurrence on All Hallow’s Eve. In place of the normal message at the end was a short, handwritten message that simply said, “Happy Candlenights, Fancy Lad.” It was no masterpiece, but it was... good. Angus reread the final page a few times, grinning, before he finally closed the tract.

Last but not least, Taako’s. Something shifted around in the box as he lifted it, so he slowed his movements and put it down gently. He peeled back the wrapping and found a note on top of the box, written with a flourish that made it almost illegible, “IOU, magical difficulties. Happy Candlenights, Mr. Wizard.”

Well, that was cryptic, but he continued on and opened the box. His face lit up enough to power the Base.

It was a box of assorted macarons. It looked like Taako felt the same as him about making them a tradition.

As the sun rose and cast shifting hues of light through his small window, Angus gathered his presents and moved them onto his bedside table. He cuddled back into his blankets, picking up his book and choosing a cookie to nibble on.

He couldn’t have asked for a better Candlenights.

-------

-A strop is a piece of leather, usually nailed to a piece of wood, used to sharpen straight blades. 

-I basically blended night sky petunias and the first and middle stages of moonflowers to get purple starbuds. They’re both really pretty, and I got the side effects simply from someone describing the scent of moonflowers as “intoxicating.”

-I pulled the Caleb Cleveland reference full circle, lol. The idea that the series went downhill ‘cause the original author died is my personal headcanon, but I love it, especially because it means I got to do this. Krav is definitely bending rules here, but he did it for his bf and his boy. Don’t tell the Raven Queen.

Happy Candlenights, everyone! @Kentuckyfriedbooks, I hope you enjoyed!

[cactibarber]

Monster Factory

So I may have decided to write my first fanfic and it may be an awful crackfic between My Brother, My Brother, and Me and The Magnus Archives- two podcasts with completely complimentary humor, tone, and storylines. 

Since it’s my first fanfic- please give me advice/critique! It’s been forever since I’ve written anything non-scientific so I need the practice lol

I’m planning on this only being the first chapter so stay tuned I guess! I don’t have an AO3 account yet, but I’m planning on putting it up there too. 

anyways enjoy the mcelroys annoying the shit out of jon sims or whatever (and also some jonmartin)

Jon tapped his fingers on his desk slowly, while he listened to the clock behind him tick on. Slowly. So, so slowly. He sighed, trying to relax his shoulders past their usual home of “right near his ears”. His boredom started to reach and stretch into that little part of his mind that could See™, but he quickly sucked those boredom tendrils back in.

After his “encounter” with Peter Lukas, nothing much had happened in the institute. Elias had disappeared after his brief meeting with him in the Panopticon, Basira had returned with a slightly more aggravated than usual Daisy in tow, and life at the Magnus Institute had gone back to whatever semblance of normal it had had beforehand. And it was driving Jon insane. He was constantly worrying about where Elias was, if Julia and Trevor were still staking out the institute, and what if Peter Lukas hadn’t been lying about the Extinction, and he was just about to miss the ritual- 

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, and Jon looked up quickly. Martin’s round, perpetually slightly worried face peeked through the crack in the door. Jon looked up and smiled, shoulders dropping at least halfway back to their anatomically correct position. “Martin,” he said excitedly. “How are you feeling today?”

“Fine, Jon,” Martin replied. He nervously tapped his fingers against the doorframe, looking as if he had marbles in his mouth, and he was rolling them around trying to find the right one.

“We’re still on for tonight, if that’s what you were wondering,” Jon said hurriedly. “Unless-”

“Oh, no- that’s not what I was here to talk to you about,” Martin interrupted. “I mean that’s good-”

“Great, then-”

“Well, there’s another- thing- that’s come up,” he finished. 

“Oh lord,” Jon groaned. “Is it those two again? We should make sure Daisy and Basira know, and get ready to pull the fire alarm-”

“No, no,” Martin interrupted again. “It’s not them, but Rosie said we might have to watch out for anyone taking the east route since it’s full of alleys that they could be hiding in, but that’s not the point.” Martin drummed the doorframe again, taking a second before he said, “Someone wants to give a statement.”

Jon’s reaction was immediate- his shoulders shot up and he slumped in his chair, trying to make himself smaller than he already was. But his eyes seemed to light up, with a ferocity only seen in wild animals and slighted moms at soccer games. “Martin, you know I can’t- I said I wouldn’t- not to another person. Especially after-”

“Yes, I know, and I told them that I could take the statement for them, but the older one started talking about “taking it to the top”, and, well, I feel that, well, I think that we might need a little help from the Eye.”

“What does that even mean- wait. The older one, as in, there are multiple people trying to give a statement?”

“tmfhree.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, three. Three people are outside waiting to get their collective statement taken.” 

Martin quickly slipped into Jon’s office and shut the door to keep the very loud curse Jon let out inside. 

“Come on, Jon. It won’t be so bad. You might not even have to compel them or anything-”

“Oh, I won’t have to compel them? That makes it so much better, Martin, that I don’t have to compel them. It’s not like you’re basically showing me, no, giving me, a five-course meal when I’m on a diet-”

“Jon-”

“And I know that when- if- I give in, everything will be ruined again. And- and I’ve been making progress, I swear, and-”

“Jon.” Martin brought his hands down on Jon’s shoulders heavily. Jon shakily breathed in, grounding himself through the added weight, and the warmth of Martin’s hands. “Look at me.” When Jon refused to look up from the hole he was drilling into the table with his eyes, Martin gently cupped his chin and raised his head to meet his eyes. “If you really don’t want to take their statement, you don’t have to. I’ll do my best, or get Rosie to send them along. But, their situation is a bit immediate, and they need help. And I know, that you’re worried about what happened before, but I trust you to, you know, rein yourself in.” 

Martin suddenly realized the position he was in, and flushed red, quickly trying to extract his hand from its position on Jon’s face, but Jon moved quicker, pressing his own hand into Martin’s. “Okay,” he muttered quietly. “I’ll do it.”

A slight smile spread across Martin’s face, and he rubbed his thumb in circles on Jon’s scarred skin. “Okay,” he said softly. Martin reluctantly pulled his hand away and moved toward the door. “By the way, if you do scar or retraumatize them awfully, you shouldn’t worry about them too much.” Martin opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “They’re Americans.”

Jon shifted in his chair, waiting for his customers? Patients? To step in. He caught a tape recorder in the corner of his eye, and moved to grab it and place it in the center of his desk. It wouldn’t hurt to seem a bit more professional, he thought, as he willfully ignored the state that his office was in. He heard multiple voices and what sounded like the footsteps of a monster with thirty feet coming down the hallway. “Come in,” he said sharply, before Martin could knock on the door. 

Martin opened the door and let in three men in their early 30’s. The contrast between them startled Jon, and it took a while to let the wild picture in front of him sink in.

The tallest man had bright purple hair and a beard, and what looked like eyeliner behind his glasses. He was wearing what could only be described as a cowboy shirt, and the look was completed with his dark brown cowboy boots. The oldest looking of the three was wearing a garishly neon Hawaiian shirt with a bright green fanny pack, with some weird designs on it. The shortest and youngest-looking looked like he could work in the financial department of the institute. He looked absolutely normal. No, not normal- boring. 

  But that wasn’t the whole deal. Because each one of these men was talking. Whether they were talking to each other or to Martin or Jon or just to thin air was incomprehensible, and Jon felt a migraine coming on. 

“So you’re the big boss, right? The big dog of this little establishment,” the purple-haired man said.

“Well-” Jon started.

“C’mon Trav, the big boss boy wouldn’t have this small of an office,” the Hawaiian shirt man interrupted. “Not that there’s anything wrong with your office,” he said quickly. “It’s homey and cozy in here but I would expect-”

“A penthouse office in the middle of Central London?” the youngest one interjected. “Are you kidding me? How many stories did you see on the building when we walked in, Justin?”

“How many stories a building has has nothing to do with it, Griffin! I”m just saying that-”

“That you’d expect a weird cryptid magic institution to have nice offices? This is probably one of their front offices, and they have the nice ones, you know with the haunted stuff and ghost circles and-” The purple-haired man broke off and turned to Jon. “Not that we have anything against haunted stuff or ghost circles, but-”

“But that’s not what we’re here about, we discussed this, that we weren’t gonna get sidetracked and now look at you trying to get a job here-”

“I’m not trying to get a job here, I’m just saying-”

Jon desperately looked up at Martin, pleading with his eyes for him to stay. Martin smiled, a little too cruelly for his liking, and waved to Jon as he left, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

“Gentlemen,” Jon began, raising his voice over the din. “Please- can we start with names?”

“Oh, of course,” the oldest one said, pushing the other two over to the chairs in front of Jon’s desk. “We’re the McElroy brothers-”

“You might have heard of us from our great bits in Trolls 2,” the youngest one said brightly.

“Trolls World Tour, Griffin, I told you. And I don’t think he’s even watched Trolls 1 so-”

“How would you know that? You don’t know him, he might be the biggest Trolls fan in England-”

Jon cleared his throat, and when it didn’t stop the deluge of conversation, cleared it again. By the time the three men heard him, it sounded like he was trying to hack out a hairball. “Gentlemen-”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” the older man said, shooting the other two a dirty glare. “Like I was saying, we’re the McElroys- I’m Justin McElroy, and these are my two dipshit brothers Travis,” he said, pointing at the purple-haired man, “and Griffin.”

“You didn’t let us introduce ourselves,” Travis pouted. He turned to Jon. “We have this thing we like to do, and I get to say that I’m the middlest-”

“That doesn’t matter Travis, we’re not recording an episode of the fucking podcast,” Griffin said exasperatedly. “Sorry for being blue, but we’re here to talk about some real nasty shit,” he said, whispering the last word. 

Jon took the opportunity to jump into the conversation. “Yes, what are you here to talk about? Martin said it was rather urgent.” 

For once, there was silence in the room, as the three brothers shared glances. The silence went on for a bit too long, until Griffin elbowed Justin in the side. “Ow- I guess since my brothers have decided that they have lost all use of their vocal cords, which is great for our careers, by the way, that I’ll explain.” Griffin rolled his eyes and Travis stifled a giggle. 

Jon, out of habit, reached to turn on the tape recorder, and was only mildly surprised to see that it was already running. Maybe there was a statement here after all. “What is this regarding?” he asked seriously, willfully ignoring the glances at the outdated technology.

“Well,” Justin started, “it’s about, I mean it’s a bit hard to explain.” He stopped abruptly and ran his fingers through his hair. “We-”

“We saw our video game monsters last night,” Griffin interrupted.

Jon sighed, deeper and fuller than he had ever sighed before. “Statement of the...McElroy brothers, regarding,” another deep, deep sign, “video game monsters come to life. Statement recorded direct from subjects, 1st October, 2018. Statement begins.”

[glorious-spoon]

A prompt for you! 22. “Did you just hiss at me?” and malec if you’d like a pairing/fandom too!

Thank you! :D

I also put this up on AO3: Backyard Wildlife

*

Magnus is crouched in a corner of the patio when Alec gets home, barefoot in red brocade and full makeup, peering into the shadows under a potted hydrangea and making kissy noises. A dish of cream rests on the bluestone beside him.

“Don’t be scared,” he’s saying as Alec steps out into the late afternoon sunlight. His voice is soft and coaxing. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I promise, you’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you. You can come out now.”

Alec settles one hip against the door frame and smiles helplessly, overwhelmed by a sudden rush of affection for this man, this immortal being of unspeakable power who can reshape reality with a gesture and is currently trying to lure what is probably yet another stray cat out from under his flower bushes with sweet talk and a conjured dish of cream.

“Come on, you can come out now,” Magnus says again, extending one hand. There’s a sudden horrible spitting noise from under the bush, a spray of red sparks, and Magnus jerks out of the way with reflexes that border on superhuman. A few sparks land on a tuft of dead grass, flaring up into a flame. Magnus extinguishes it with an absent flick of blue magic as whatever’s hiding in the bushes makes a noise like a garbage disposal that just gained both sentience and a bad attitude.

Okay. Possibly not a stray cat, then.

“Did you just hiss at me?” Magnus sounds almost comically offended. “Not nice! Not nice at all.”

“Uh, Magnus,” Alec says carefully. “What—”

“Give me just one moment please, Alexander.”

“…Okay.”

“She’s a little nervous,” Magnus adds, like that’s anything even remotely resembling an explanation. And then to whatever is hiding under the bush, “Aren’t you? Yes you are. You poor thing.”

There’s another spray of sparks, followed by a low growl, and Magnus extends his hand again, palm-up, entreating. Alec bites down on a protest. Magnus is an adult–several times over, in fact. He can take care of himself. Just because Alec is having visions of whatever nightmare is hiding under the bushes chomping Magnus’s fingers off, rings and all, doesn’t mean—

“Oh, there you are,” Magnus says, soft and delighted. “Hi, there. Come on, sweetheart, come on out. Come meet Alexander. He’s going to love you.”

Alec opens his mouth to dispute that, then shuts it again as the bush shifts and something that is absolutely, definitely not a cat pokes its muzzle out from under a fat purple head of flowers. It’s sinuous and reptilian, blunt nose and long, snake-like neck covered in scales in shifting shades of red and gold. When it catches sight of him, it opens its mouth and hisses again, displaying tiny needle-sharp teeth, but although Alec rocks back on his heels, no more sparks are forthcoming. Then it ducks out from under the bush entirely to butt its head against Magnus’s knuckles, and Alec blinks.

Because those… are definitely wings.

“Is that a dragon?” he asks stupidly. “What is a dragon doing in our backyard?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Alexander,” Magnus says. He extends his hands, spreading his fingers and making a soft clicking noise against his teeth, and the thing that definitely looks like a dragon to Alec butts against him again, then climbs clumsily into the cradle of his broad palms. It’s about the size of a small cat, its long tail looping twice around Magnus’s forearm as it settles like a glittering red-gold bracelet. There’s a wicked-looking barbed spike at the end of it that comes to rest uncomfortably close to the hollow of his wrist, but it seems to have decided against attacking him again. At least for the moment. “Dragons have four legs. This little beauty is a wyvern.”

“Oh, of course,” Alec says, very dryly. “My bad. What is a wyvern doing in our backyard?”

“I imagine she’s lost. Her mother should be around here somewhere; they don’t usually stray very far when they’re hatchlings.”

“So what you’re telling me is, there’s at least one very unhappy adult wyvern wandering around somewhere nearby,” Alec says. “Great.”

“Mm. You’re probably right. I ought to get her back to her parents.” Magnus stands gracefully and crosses the patio, cradling the hatchling against his chest. “I’ll be a little late for dinner, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Alec manages. “I’ll just order something in.”

“Thank you, darling.” He tilts his head up to kiss Alec briefly on the lips, then pulls back when the hatchling starts to growl again. A scatter of red sparks bursts into the air between then, but Magnus twists away before any of them can hit him. “Oh, stop that, you. I’ll be having a stern word with your parents about your manners, don’t think I won’t. I’m sorry, Alexander. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

“Sure, no problem,” Alec says faintly. Magnus gives him a sweet, lovely smile, then steps back, shifts the hatchling to free one hand, and spins a portal into being. He steps through it–still barefoot, Alec notices–and it winks out of existence behind him. Alec stands there for several moments, then laughs softly, shakes his head, and steps back inside.

[kinkymagnus]

Do you have any headcanons about Magnus crossdressing? (Although I hate this term because clothes don't have a gender)

LET MAGNUS BANE WEAR A SKIRT.

and a dress. and lacy lingerie. and pretty “traditionally feminine” things. 

he already does have a more traditionally feminine style sometimes–particularly season one, with the open and silky flowy colorful shirts. and his makeup. and it suits him. 

but seeing him properly in like fishnets or a dress… ldfkgjkgfdhj

(also, i totally get you on clothes not having a gender. i mean, i’m a trans dude but i do like skirts/dresses sometimes? which can have some. self-esteem issues. but like. my point being a guy can like skirts/dresses and all that and not be less manly. and skirts/dresses/makeup don’t have to be “a girl thing”.)

but REALLY magnus in traditionally feminine clothing would be so good. i would pay to see magnus in a skirt, okay?

(not to mention the part of me that hardcore likes trans or nonbinary magnus is screaming at the idea of nonbinary!magnus in a skirt, ok.) 

but ok okok ok ok oko kok oko kok spECIFICALLY. you asked for headcanons. so let’s do that. ok

magnus “crossdressing” headcanons under the cut: 

magnus generally likes a more androgynous fashion: not super “masculine” (like, idk, dirty overalls or jeans or whatever is considered “manly”, or like even plain but nice/sharp suits and stuff) but definitely not super “feminine” either (like dresses). he tends to go for the happy middle ground. HOWEVER

that doesn’t mean magnus doesn’t like either/or. and honestly, tho he might not admit it easily, he prefers some more feminine clothing. 

dresses are super flowy and nice, and he’s got great legs so

also because i project myself onto characters i like and relate to: for magnus, how the fabric feels is one of the most important parts of an item of clothing.

it doesn’t matter how nice the dress is, if it doesn’t feel good against his skin or at the very least feels comfortable, he won’t wear it.

and that kind of applies vice versa–while he has standards as to what he’ll wear in public, he 100 percent has some dresses/skirts/shirts/robes/whatever that are kind of frumpy or just look okay but are made of the SOFTEST fabric, with just the right amount of like, heft to it, and feel so nice against his skin.

anYWAY. magnus likes all sorts of dresses (i know i keep going back to dresses and that’s not all crossdressing is but look i love dresses despite being a dude so i’m gonna project ok?) but like. there’s different Moods. there’s “this is a nice dress and i feel Powerful in it” and “this is a fancy as fuck dress, look at it, it’s a ballgown, it’s heavy and swooshy, i can spin” there’s “this is light and breezy on the bits, feels nice, comfy” and “this is like a cosplay dress, i look bomb as fuck even tho i can’t wear it forever because it’s heavy and complicated” and “this is nice, i just feel a little more feminine today and it it looks good on me but it’s not uncomfortable” 

magnus looks good in red and gold as well as blue and purple ok

magnus in a skirt. magnuS IN A SKIRT. androgynous fashion is great. magnus in a more masculine but kinda open shirt, maybe even a button up, and a simple black skirt (not tiny but not long either), maybe fishnets because fishnets look so good and make you feel good wearing them ok and he looks SO GOOD. long legs mostly showing off, draped over the arm of a chair as he’s just like lounging sideways in it and alec is like HOLY SHIT YOU LOOK GOOD 

magnus. in a crop top. not inherently feminine by any means but still. this could mean a more masculine one or a blatantly feminine one. either way he looks good. 

piercings!!! earrings. sometimes simple and subtle ones like little black beads, other times more elaborate/obvious. hoop earrings, or dangly pretty ones. whatever goes with his outfit and his mood.

magnus in lacy underwear and lingerie will always be my jam okay

he looks so good with silky/lacy underwear ok

magnus casually defying gender roles is my life

i would think that over his centuries of living he’s like. gotten more and more bold as the years went by?

this next part works better if you fly with this ‘magnus is lowkey nonbinary’ headcanon but it works for not that too

actually fuck it this is trans nonbinary man magnus now.

(nonbinary man = someone who identifies more as masculine and a man, likes he/him pronouns and they/them pronouns, etc. but is also not quite a man and like, kinda in between gender wise? nonbinary but leaning masculine? possibly me, i’m still figuring it out. but anyway.)

(also i have a lot of feelings about magnus and they/them pronouns but for the purposes of this post i’ll stick with he/him)

he started off like. when he realized who he was and was like, transitioning and stuff. he dressed super masculine, trying to like, compensate, you know?

he felt guilty that he still likes some “girly” things because it’s like how do you know you’re really a man if you like girly things? are you faking it? (spoiler alert he’s not there’s nothing wrong with a trans man liking “feminine” things, nor a nonbinary person) 

anyway eventually he got more comfortable with exploring a little–some “guyliner”, maybe plain or darker colored nail polish, kohl. subtle stuff at first

he got bolder with encouragement from his friends, with like, meeting other queer people and stuff–more colorful makeup, clothing, nicer stuff

he may or may not have went through a brief phase of going way over the top

actually come to think of it the standards for masculinity have changed a lot over the years there were times when masculine was huge frills and poofy sleeves, right?

idk how to fit that in there but it does, ok

anyway the point is magnus gets more and more comfortable with himself

and right now during canon era he’s more on “boldly expressing himself but still has tons of issues so maybe not completely or as openly as he’d like”

aka he wears makeup and jewelry and more feminine clothes but he tends to wear more “risky” things in private/with close friends only. (as well as not being super open about being nonbinary and/or trans. some other queer downworlders know, particularly baby ones who are like also trans/nb and magnus is more than happy to help with like, glamours and potions or a person to talk to and shit) 

the first time catarina sees him in a dress lounging in his apartment looking fabulous she doesn’t bat an eye she’s just like “damn that’s good where’d you get it” and he lights up (she doesn’t fail to notice his shoulders relax a little) and starts talking about this fabulous little shop in france run by a friend of his 

ragnor is probably the only person he’d ever openly and directly talked to about this, one night earlier on when he was rather drunk and he saw a skirt he really liked but he was afraid to get 

ragnor bought it for him later

anyway

quick detour on they/them pronouns. magnus usually uses he/him because he likes those pronouns just as much and it’s just easier in so many ways but cat, ragnor, and some of his other close adopted family members often use they/them because they know magnus doesn’t hear it enough and he likes those pronouns too

alec finds out about him being nonbinary/enjoying they/them pronouns and magnus is a little worried because he knows alec is Gay but alec is like. so accepting and understanding. and even days where magnus feels more nebulous and less masculine alec is like “babe i love men yes but i love you MOST, on days were you’re a man and days when you’re not” because a) sexual attraction =/= love and b) alec loves magnus not his dick (although i have feelings about being trans + magical transitioning and believe it is fully possible magnus could potentially be pretty much biologically male with enough powerful magic ok)

anyway alec uses both he/him and they/them with magnus depending on what he’s comfortable with that day and magnus is so happy ok

BACK TO CROSSDRESSING (you’re right, that is a stupid term–especially since i’ve detoured into nonbinary man magnus because im dumb and now the “cross” part even MORE doesn’t work) 

ok but once canon era is over and malec are happily married and immortal

magnus now has several friends (i mean he already had that but now one of them is gone–although we can easily say ragnor faked his death i mean–and he has a few new ones. like. simon is immortal so. just saying.) AND a loving husband who loves and supports him so much

who are there to support and encourage him

so magnus might get more and more open and possibly wear skirts and stuff even in public

and yeah he gets some assholes who are dicks about it but he also gets the occasional shy teenager complimenting him on his skirt or a grown woman being like “oh my god THE COLOR where did you GET THAT” 

generally the downworld is pretty supportive 

and if anyone’s a dick about it i mean

while magnus can defend himself

catarina, raphael, alec, or one of his many other supporters is probably gonna get there first

[j-writesandstuff]

equal, hermano

The second Rafael and Max were through the front door of the loft Max ducked, practically running, into their shared room the slam of the door reverberating across the whole apartment. Rafe let out a deep sigh, he knew his little brother would have locked the door by now so he dropped his bag by the door and shuffled towards the kitchen. Defeat was not a feeling Rafe enjoyed, neither was helplessness. Especially when it concerned his little brother.

He was born lucky, he knew it-he'd been raised to know and appreciate that fact. As a shadowhunter birthright is often the first thing you're taught at the institute. But his parents had also taught him the privilege it bought him in their world, the struggles he would never have to face all because he got lucky in the lottery of existence. Many in their world would tell him his brother was born unlucky, pulled the short straw. The same was often said about his Papa. Rafe never really understood it all, all he saw of them was the fact Max healed every injured creature he came across since the age of three, and the fact his Papa conjured waffles when he was sad, Max made runes dance on the ceiling in shimmering purple when studying was melting his brain, his Papa helped save the world. He didn't understand the people who hated them. He doubted he ever would. He also would never understand the people making his little brother want to lock himself away in their room. Rafe knew he needed to think of something. To him, Max had always been equal sometimes he even considered the fact Max was superior to him in plenty of ways. He and his family saw Max like that, but he wanted everyone to.

That's when the idea hit him. Rounding the corner into the kitchen, he heard the soft hum of classical music-his Dads favourite- and saw his fathers gently swaying along together as they prepared dinner. Perfectly in-sync with each other. He almost didn't want to interrupt. Almost.

'Uh. Dad, Papa, can I ask you about something?'

They both jumped a little at the presence of their son bursting the little bubble they'd created but composed themselves quickly.

Magnus spoke first.

'Of course sweet pee, always. What's up?' Both Magnus and Alec had lent against the breakfast bar, opposite their eldest son sitting on the bar stool.

'How does the alliance rune work?'

Neither of them was prepared for that question-it was written all over their faces. They shared a glance. With that glance they shared a whole a conversation, Alec placed his hand gently on the back of Magnus' arm just above his elbow-their secret sign of support.

'Well, your Aunt Clary saw it just before the war with Valentine.' Magnus always said his name like that, as if it left a bitter taste in his mouth. His whole family did. Rafe hadn't heard it all, but he was sure it did.

Alec continued, they always spoke like this. Flowing perfectly one after the other-together.

'It binds the two who share it, I and your father share it with each other. I can use your Papas abilities, as he can use mine. I could use it to conjure a portal, and he could light up a seraph blade.'

They both got a faraway look in their eyes as Magnus finished.

'I'm almost certain that rune saved at least a thousand lives. Certainly mine and your Dads. But it was also a changing moment in the relationship between Shadowhunters and Downworlders. We fought side by side. It was truly incredible.'

Alec's arm had slid entirely around Magnus' waist as he'd been talking. Rafe's perfect example of the two worlds unity. They'd always taught him unity was strength. Love was power, and alliance was always the answer.

He knew exactly what needed to be done. He smiled broadly, a determined glint in his eye.

'Are they busy tonight?' They know who he meant. 'Can you get them over in the next half hour? Uncle Simon, Aunt Clary, and Papa are especially important. Uhh, don't tell Jace and Izzy I said that. Or Grandma.'

Alec chuckled. 'Sure buddy, your secrets safe with us, I wouldn't wanna inflict that on anybody. We'll give them all a call now. But, uh, why?'

'I'll explain when they get here, just get calling it needs to happen soon-its important.'

And with that he was gone, flying off the bar stool into the office leaving his parents to share a confused look before dialing the phone.

Exactly thirty minutes later his whole family was assembled in the living room, Rafe sat crossed legged on the coffee table in the center. Magnus and Alec, Alec with a leg slung lazily across his husbands lap, next to each other on the sofa. Jace next to Alec, with his Aunt Clary on the arm of the chair one foot in Jace's lap, the other on Simon's shoulder. Who'd been forced to sit on the floor for arriving last. Aunt Izzy and his grandma sat on the armchairs either ends of the coffee table. The only one missing was Max. Everyone noticed. Rafe began.

'Okay, so you've all noticed our little buddy blueberry isn't here. In fact, he hasn't left our room since we got back from training today.'

Concern spread across each of their faces. Magnus took Alec's hand.

'That's because today someone hurt him, pretty badly. And I don't mean just physically, although that too.'

The concern melted into horror, and cold rage in all of them. Even Rafe felt the buds of it rising again in his stomach. It was Simon who spoke. Always his Uncle Simon to hold some composure. He was good like that.

'What exactly, did they do to him, Rafael?' His voice quiet, as if he didn't really want to hear. He imagined they probably didn't. They'd known Max since he was a baby, tiny and defenseless. That image still hadn't really gone away. Even now he was ten, and able to do magic it took Warlocks hundreds of years to master, he was the family baby.

'Well first of all Max beat this kid in a race, totally fair and square. We got told to use any ability we had, and well Max just happens to be able to teleport. Really they should have been more specific. But anyways. This kid was not happy about that, jealous if you ask me. His pride was hurt, badly. He storms over to Max and calls him a cheater. Then punches him.'

The atmosphere in the room said it all. Fury filled every member of his family, he felt bad telling them about it but they needed to know for this to make sense. He ignored the nauseating feeling rising in his throat as he remembered the rest. He continued.

'This kid is big, I'm talking my age, a head taller than Max and five years of ShadowHunter training literally written all over him. He's towering over Max and I can feel it, you feel his magic you know? That shit is strong-'

'Language Rafael. Just because you're fifteen doesn't mean the rules are off the table.' Cut in his Grandmother.

'Right, sorry. I go jogging over ready to fight this kid for squaring up my baby brother when he swings for him. Now we all know, me from experience, you don't swing at Max. In seconds he's across the room right into a wall.'

They share a glance between them all. The kind only a group of concerned adults can understand. Jace nods at Rafe, silently telling him to go on. Jace is never good at speaking when he's angry.

'Obviously, I'm turning to Max to calm him down when someones shoving me aside and catches Max off guard. He was looking at me, not focussing you know? He gets him. Right in the stomach.' Rafe's voice shakes a little as he continues.

'I'm seeing red. Max is barely recovering when I'm up.I-I broke his nose. You guys can punish me for that later, I don't care about a consequence. But now this kid is humiliated and in pain. A bad combination in a jackass.'

'I can't believe the trainers just let this happen.' Interrupts Maryse. Her voice stern, but the edges laced with anger.

'They weren't there, the kid picked the exact time an important Clave message came through so the trainer had to leave or something. But that isn't the actual bad part, not really anyways. He's yelling at me. A lot of swearing and cursing my family name which I was about to punch him again for-when he notices Max healing a little graze on my elbow from where he pushed me earlier. By the angel, Max is so soft. This kid says stuff that has totally destroyed Max okay. It's bad. I dunno if Papa is even gonna wanna hear it. That kinda stuff.'

Alec squeezes his hand Clary subconsciously looks down at Simon. So does his Aunt Izzy. They aren't stupid, they know the kind of stuff he means. Blue sparks are rising from his Papas other hand, a small burn mark forming in the arm of the chair. His Dads other hand is tapping hard against his thigh. He can see the anger in his Uncle's shoulders, both of them rigid all over. His Aunt Clarys eyebrows were knotted so tightly together it must have been hurting. His Aunt Izzy had an expression that could have killed, he imagined she was wishing it could.

'Its okay sweet pea. I've lived enough years to hear this.' Despite the usually soothing nickname, his Papas tone was ice cold.

Rafes own voice shook, a lump had risen in his throat. He was going to cry.

'He said 'I don't even know why this dirty warlock is even allowed in. He's half demon. Look at what he just did to me, he's dangerous. I guess you really can't tame half breed.' At this point, I'm screaming at him. Ready to rip into him, because Max apologises to plants he steps on and heals injured birds and sleeps in Batman pajamas.' At this point the tears are streaming down Rafes face, his hands shaking.

'He's not dangerous. He's so little he was just scared. Then he turns to me and says the worst part. 'I don't get why you're defending him. You're worse than that dad of yours. A few years ago you'd be hanging his horns on your mantlepiece as a prize. Why is he even part of your twisted little family? He can't even use a seraph blade. You've been tainted by the dirty demons in your house and your faggot of a dad. He then threw a blade at Max and taunted him because he cant use it and told him we'd never be really equal, no matter how brainwashed I was.' Rafe has said it all so fast he was out of breath, the front of his shirt wet with tears.

'Max broke one of his arms and both parts of his left leg. Blew up a light bulb then ran out the room. It took me twenty minutes to catch up with him. He was practically glowing purple he wouldn't let me touch him.'

Everyone in the room was stunned into silence. They'd all surpassed anger into full-blown rage.

'That's why I needed you all to come over. I'm gonna show him we've been equal since his tiny toddler hands made me a flower out of thin air. Aunt Clary, you can still draw that alliance rune right?'

Clary took a moment to compose herself, wiping a tear and sitting up a little straighter and pulling her mouth into a smile.

'Yeah Rafe, I can.'

'Perfect. I'll go get him.'

Outside their bedroom door, Rafe could feel the ice cold sadness of Max's magic. He loved his brother more than anyone, feeling his sadness broke his heart.

'Blueberry,hermano. I've got something to give you. Everyone's here, well because they all care Maxy. You've just gotta come into the living room.' He whispered through the gap under the door.

After a moment the door opened, revealing a tear stain Max. His blue cheeks burning a bright red, Rafe only ever saw them do that when he laughed too hard. He swore they never be red from tears as long as he lived. His blue eyes puffy, curly hair scruffy and disheveled from having a pillow over his head. He hadn't even gotten changed out of his clothes, one trouser leg bunched up around his knee.

'Okay.' Was all he said, barely a whisper. He trailed behind Rafe into the living room.

Concerned eyes follow them both as Rafe goes back to the coffee table. He moves over and gestures for Max to sit next to him. He refuses. Max won't meet any of there eyes. Not even Simons. Max always favoured Simon a little, he could see the heartbreak on his uncles face.

Suddenly Rafe was angry. Angry someone had made his brother feel he didn't deserve to be with his own family Anger Max had believed him.

'Maxy, sit next to me.' He patted the spot next to him again and smiled up at him. 'Come on buddy.'

Max sat on the edge of the table looking down at his Star Wars socks. A gift from Simon the birthday after they'd watched them all together. Max looked like he was about to start burning them off. His parents were holding each others hands so tight their knuckles were white. His Papa looked close to tears but he was wearing his unglamoured eyes- a statement.

'Okay, Aunt Clary lets go.' Rafe stated a cold determination in his tone.

She drew the rune on a piece of paper, it flowing perfectly from her hand.

Rafe took the piece of paper and began copying the rune onto the palm of his hand.

'Turn and face me.' Max did, still not looking up keeping a distance between their knees. Rafe moved forward so they were touching and placed his palm over Max's heart.

'Now you listen to me, Maxwell. You're sat in the middle of a group of people who found a baby, who was bright blue and didn't even consider you being anywhere but with them. They gave you the name Max as a gift. You have a better heart and soul then many a shadowhunter, you can do way more than any of us ever could. So quit crying. And give me your hand.' Rafe smiled as his brother finally met his gaze and placed his hand palm up in his hand.

Rafe traced the rune.

A surge of magic flooded through his system and he almost fell off the table. But something had caught him. His own palm was holding him up, three inches off the ground.

'Now that. Is awesome' Rafe laughed, sat up and looked at his brother.

He handed him a witchlight.

Max hesitated for a moment, he closed his hand around the stone. He'd try this a few times before, the stone always remained cold and blank in his hand. When he opened his palm the stone was alight with a bright light, tinted slightly purple. His face lit up almost as bright as the stone in his hand, and suddenly the tension in the room snapped and everyone jumped and cheered.

'Equal, hermano.' Whispered Rafe, so only his brother could hear.

'Equal, brother.' Max beamed back, the light behind his eyes was enough thanks for Rafe.

The next day when the boys were training together, testing their new found skills Max noticed him coming. Rafe felt the spike in magic as he entered the training room-coming straight for Max.

'Haven't learned your lesson yet warlock?' He sneered.

'Let me make it clear. You can't use our weapons or our runes. So why are you even here?' He dangled a seraph blade in front of Max's face and laughed.

Max took it from him, smiled and lit it up.

Rafe had never been prouder, and when they walked home Max was practically dancing down the street in joy.

That night all the family were over for dinner, Max smiled the entire time.