#neverstandbetweentwomirrors

[oncethrown]

Cold Press and Half Truths

For Shadowhunters AU Mondays @shadowhuntersaumondays

Set in the Never Stand Between Two Mirrors ‘verse, about a year after the end of the story. 

Read on AO3

“No,” Jace declared, waving an arm in front of him to punctuate his point. “No way. You can’t bring that into the truck.”

Alec shifted his grip on Lydia’s baby, Tabitha, holding her up so that she was eye to eye with Jace. “But look how cute she is.”

“She is a health hazard. She is a licensing violation,” Jace said, pushing his hair back off his face. “She will throw up on hundreds of dollars of equipment, and ruin my life.”

“I will let you smell her head,” Alec countered.

“I don’t want to smell any part of that baby in my truck.”

Alec frowned and brought Tabitha back to his chest, adjusting the little hat he had carefully velcroed onto under her chin before venturing out. She squinted at him in a way that was oddly reminiscent of Lydia, despite the fact that Tabitha had huge squishy cheeks, and Lydia did not.

“I will forget to tell Lydia that you called her daughter a health hazard.”

Jace pursed his lips, but gave in, waving Alec toward the door into the Java Jace coffee truck.

Alec sighed in relief as he moved into the shade. When he’d decided to take Tabitha out for a walk half and hour ago, the preparing-to-set-sun had not looked anywhere near as merciless as it actually was.

Thank god Magnus had enchanted the little hat and the stroller to protect Tabitha from the sun and the heat, or Alec would be holding a half cooked baby, and probably wondering if he should just kill himself rather than chance Lydia’s revenge.

Alec leaned back against the truck wall. “Could I get a cold press?”

“Are you serious?” Jace demanded.

“Do Lids and I do all your marketing for free?” Alec replied.

“Godammit. Coming right up.” Jace grabbed the pitcher of cold press out of the mini fridge. “So, what brings you out to the park today?”

“Magnus and I were babysitting, but he had an appointment he had to take, so I thought Tabitha and I would get out of his hair for a while.”

Jace gave Alec a sidelong look as he filled a  plastic cup with ice. Alec tried to pretend he couldn’t see all the questions in that look.

A sudden appointment. For a psychic. A psychic who somehow managed to afford a huge loft near the park.

It had been sort of… thrilling at first. New boyfriend. Secret world. Torturously slow blowjobs where Magnus would stop to tease his tongue over the rune that Alec’s gloomy demon hunter alternate self had burnt into his skin during his foray into a legitimate alternate dimension. Alec had never fallen so hard, or so fast before.

But that had been over a year ago. The more permanent a fixture Magnus was in his life, the more obvious it was becoming that he couldn’t keep everything he needed to about Magnus secret forever.

And every day it was getting harder not to tell someone. Jace and Clary were openly suspicious about Magnus’s money. Simon and Isabelle kept accidentally working Magnus into pockets of pop culture knowledge that were somehow wrong, or old fashioned in a weird way that neither Magnus nor Alec understood, but spoke mysterious volumes to Simon and Isabelle.

And Lids…she was going to figure it out. If the secret behind Magnus had been something more… earthly, more possible, she would have figured it out already. She knew there was something weird about him. She knew when Alec was keeping a secret, and now that she’d had to give up her own freelance career and throw in with Alec… she was going to figure it out. Or work her way to a conclusion that made sense without the demons and the magic and the secret worlds on the other side of purple doors.

And he didn’t know what he was going to tell her when she did.

Alec felt the most guilty about not telling Jace. Maybe that’s why he’d found himself wandering in the direction of Java Jace’s when he’d been suddenly expelled from Magnus’s loft.

Jace handed the cold press to Alec just as a customer walked up to the front of the truck.

He was tall and handsome, with tight, neat dreads brushing across the tips of his shoulders, gold and emerald beads hanging from a few of them in a very carefully curated manner. The air around him shimmered in a way that Alec had learned to recognize and he looked through the glamour. The man was still handsome, but underneath the glamour his normal flat, round nose was triangular, raised, and catlike. A warlock. Like Magnus.

He asked for an ice mocha, which Jace cheerfully made him. Alec turned his attention back to Tabitha while Jace worked, tickling her toes until she made a noise that was a little bit more of a grunt than a laugh.

“Jesus shit,” Jace huffed. “That guy just dropped a 50 dollar bill in the tip jar.”

Alec nodded, before realizing he was entirely too unsurprised. Warlocks were generous tippers. Most of the warlocks now were centuries old. They’d been investing since before the stock market was a thing and only the stupidest and most extravagant found themselves short on cash.

Magnus was 900 years old.

And Alec wanted to be able to tell Jace that.

Without sounding crazy.

Jace stared at Alec. “A 50 dollar tip,” he repeated.

“Wow. That’s… maybe he’s in a good mood?”

Jace quirked his head to the side and leaned back at the corner of the counter, so he could face Alec, but still see if any customers were approaching. “Everything okay? You and Magnus…”

“Yeah,” Alec replied, not so fast that it seemed suspicious. “We’re great.”

“And you and Lydia and everything? Working together. That’s still okay?”

Alec decided to latch onto this to cover his earlier error. He let out an exaggeratedly mirthless chuckle. “We’ll see after tonight.” He moved Tabitha up onto his shoulder and started to bounce her. “She and John are going to the Opera.”

“I thought she hated opera now,” said Jace.

“She hates the snobby opera bitches that didn’t understand that not everyone can afford a nanny. She hated the way all of her former clients and associates made her feel low rent because she actually had to take care of her own child. She still loves the opera. And she’s been complaining that all she ever gets to do now is mom stuff and wanted to go out on a real full date. Dinner. Opera. Drinks. I mean… we’ll see how the night goes. She asked if Magnus and I would watch her because his place is closest to the Met, so if they needed to they could get to the loft fast, but she also explained to me what “Pump and Dump” means, so I have no idea how her night is really going to go.”

“Do I want to know what Pump and Dump means?” Jace asked.

“I guess it’s when you pump out all the breast milk that gets contaminated with alcohol and dump it down the drain. I couldn’t think of a good way to ask her if she’s just going to be tits out in the bathroom of the Met, pouring breast milk down the sink… but I think she would see it as an appropriate “fuck you” if she did.”

Jace’s face squeezed inward. “Why can’t I stop picturing it now?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t stop seeing it either. It’s extremely disconcerting.”

Jace shook his head, grabbed a cup and started making himself something. “Okay. Angry… breast milk things aside, she likes her new job with you?”

Alec shrugged. “We always did the same thing. She’s just… not doing it in a stupid way anymore. The brunch botox and balayage crowd will keep paying for opera. We’re going to actually help people. We set up a google doc where we can compare amounts. It’s driving her nuts that I’m still thirty thousand dollars ahead of her for the month.”

“You don’t think she’s going to find a rich opera friend tonight to make up the difference?”

Alec laughed. “Oh, she will. But now we both win if she does.”

Jace laughed too. Over Alec’s shoulder, Tabitha started to make a noise, like she was starting to get fussy. Alec set his drink down, freeing up both hands so he could bounce and spin her where she could see him, which usually helped.

The strange look on Jace’s face as he played with the baby eventually caught Alec’s eye. “What is it?”

“Did you…did you get a tattoo?”

Alec shifted Tabitha into one arm and checked his jeans, which, with no belt, had migrated downward off his hip.

For just a second, Alec considered telling Jace the truth. Trying to find a way to make the rune on his hip a rock on which to build his insane story about magic, and dimensions and demons. Letting it be the first step in the path to being able to tell his best friend that the guy Alec was pretty sure he was going to spend the rest of his life with had been to the world premiere of the three hundred year old opera that Lydia was seeing right now. And had a bunch of spell books — real spell books— hidden all over the loft that he paid for with money that he had set aside to invest in telephone technology after he had gotten drunk with Alexander Graham Bell at a party one time. And had slept with Casanova, Rose Bertin, and Michelangelo.

Jace laughed and held out his arms. “Here, hand her to me. Show me this thin you got put on your body.”

Alec handed Tabitha over and pulled the waistband of his pants down just a little bit, annoyed with himself. He always lost weight when he was stressed, he should have realized the jeans weren’t fitting right.

“I… it was kind of a whim,” Alec said, which was mostly true.

“What’s it supposed to be?”

This was the moment. Was Alec going to find an easier way of bringing this up than talking about runes and how he’d really gotten this mark?

He cleared his throat, and looked down at the dark black lines across his hip. Thought for a moment about how they let him see the world as it really was and how hew as probably the only person of shadowhunter blood in the world who still wore a mark.

As the words came to him, he looked up from his hip, to Jace.

And saw Tabitha puke all over the side of his face.

He’d have to tell Jace the truth another time.