#*fic20

“Yes.”

“Did you tell me about this and I forgot? Seems like I’d remember if you’d mentioned there was a wedding.”

“Mn,” says Lan Wangji, his eyes fixed on the splendid display before them, looking slightly, what was it… wistful, perhaps? Wei Wuxian cocks his head. It’s odd for him not to be able to read Lan Zhan’s moods with an easy glance these days. Once you know what to look for, he really is an open book. Right now, though, he’s… inscrutable. Shut off, a little.

“What is it, Lan Zhan?” No reply. “Wait. Did you not know?” There is a tiny flicker in those piercing eyes. Maybe he’s onto something. “The Jin sect is holding a wedding at Carp Tower, and they didn’t invite the Chief Cultivator?” Wei Wuxian takes hold of one wide pale sleeve and starts moving towards the great expanse of stairs at the base of the tower, pivoting to walk backwards so he can fix his eyes on his husband, his tone flitting between mockery and seriousness, looking for signs of where to land.

“This is a terrible insult, Hanguang Jun. What should we do? Storm up the stairs and confront them? Sneak in the back and spy on them? I could go grab Jin Ling by his collar and threaten to break his legs if he doesn’t offer an explanation and an apology, he seems to respond to that.”

Lan Wangji pulls them to a halt just before the first step, but he maintains his silent composure, so Wei Wuxian continues, casting about for reactions: “I’m not in my good Yiling Laozu robes, but I could still blow the doors open and make up a few good fake curses to bestow on the unlucky couple for their hubris and ingratitude if you want to be dramatic about it. Lan Zhan. What are you thinking? Give me a clue here.”

Lan Wangji takes the hand tugging at his sleeve in his own, his fingers slightly colder than usual. His eyes are fixed on Wei Wuxian’s, meaning swimming in their depths, just a little too far below the surface to be read. His lips part slightly, but he doesn’t speak. Wei Wuxian squeezes the hand back as his heart begins to thump just a little louder. “Lan Zhan? Is everything all right?”

Lan Wangji takes a slow breath. “Wei Ying.” There is the hint of a hint of a suggestion of a tremor in his deep voice. Shit, thinks Wei Wuxian.

“We will go look,” Lan Wangji says. “If… Wei Ying, once we reach the top, if you wish to leave we will leave.”

“Ohhh… kay?” says Wei Wuxian. Something is really off. Lan Zhan is acting decidedly weird. The Chief Cultivator turns and starts up the stairs, still holding Wei Wuxian’s hand. Koi Tower has, obviously, a lot of stairs, and Lan Wangji climbs them with a steady unrushed elegance, which gives Wei Wuxian a nice span of time to throw a few more hypotheses against the wall. The wall, in this case, being the statuesque expressionless man who is the love of both of his lives.

“Something is definitely up here, right? I mean, who would be getting married that they would deck out Koi Tower like this for, but not let us know about it?” Lan Wangji keeps climbing. “It can’t be Jin Ling. He’d certainly at least write to let us know if he was getting hitched. I know he stabbed me that one time, but we’ve been getting on pretty well since then, all things considered.” He chuckles, a lopsided smile on his face. “Funny how in retrospect somebody stabbing you isn’t that big of a deal. Weird that happened right here, huh? Well, just back down there, technically.” It’s barely perceptible, probably not even conscious, but Lan Wangji squeezes his hand, just a little.

“Besides, if Jin Ling had been courting somebody, we’d never hear the end of it from the juniors, am I right? Remember when Jingyi kept making eyes at that cute kid at the inn on that night hunt in Qinghe, when was that? Last spring? I thought they’d never let him live it down. I’ve never seen someone turn so red so fast!” He expects a classic Lan Zhan tiny-smile at the memory, but nothing. Carved out of jade, just like people say. Extremely weird. A new thought hits him, and it’s troubling. His tone darkens.

“Lan Zhan. I think I was wrong before. I think you did know there was a wedding tonight.” Lan Wangji’s face stays pointed impassively forwards. “I think you knew there was a wedding, and you deliberately chose not to tell me.” Lan Zhan blinks, probably in spite of his best efforts. “Ah-hah! So you did know! You knew, and you didn’t want to tell me about it, but you still brought me here. You told me there was a meeting about taxes or some boring shit and invited me along ‘because I enjoy your company, Wei Ying’, but actually you brought me to Lanling for the specific purpose of crashing a wedding. Wait.” His stomach flips. “Lan Zhan, wait.” The corners of Lan Wangji’s mouth have tightened but he keeps climbing, now towing Wei Wuxian along with him.

“Ah, Lan Zhan. Hanguang Jun. Wait a second, seriously. Lan Zhan. Beloved, stop.” Lan Wangji freezes in his tracks and turns, slowly. There is a tiny crease between his brows. He looks concerned, and… yes. Guilty. He looks guilty. Wei Wuxian feels a tiny tremor in the hand holding his. Fuck.

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian swallows. He’s figured it out; it makes sense. “It’s just me that’s not invited, isn’t it? It’s an important wedding and they want it to be perfect and beautiful, so they asked you to come, but not to bring me.” Of course. Makes perfect sense. Makes sense too that Lan Wangji would be more offended by that than by being slighted himself. Would force the confrontation. Not that long ago he would have loved the idea of barging in, making them all face up to the unpleasant truth that he exists. Today… he'd really rather not, honestly.

He takes another glance at the expensive decorations shining in the twilight, dancing in the wind. They’re very beautiful. "I should go then,” he says quietly, sliding his hand out of Lan Wangji’s. “They don’t want me here.”

As he turns to slink away back down the stairs Lan Wangji catches his shoulders. “Wei Ying. That is not it. But…”

“But?”

“It may still be uncomfortable. Jiang Wanyin is here, and my uncle. I should have warned you of that before now. I apologize.”

Wei Wuxian stares at his husband for a few seconds. It’s difficult to admit, even to himself, but he’s at a total fucking loss, and despite the relief he feels at his scenario not being true, he’s getting a bit pissed off. “Lan Zhan. I am sure now that you know what is happening here, and I am just as sure that I do not. Since I’m not doing very well at guessing, I am now asking you very nicely to tell your poor stupid soulmate what the hell is going on before he tries to shake it out of you.”

“Wei Ying. You are not stupid. But I will not tell you, even if you shake me. Please trust me, and come with me up the stairs.”

What is there to say? The earnestness in Lan Zhan’s quiet voice and the gentleness in his steady eyes disarms him, as it always does. Of course Wei Wuxian trusts him. To the ends of the earth. And he has to admit, he loves a mystery. He huffs, then nods, and they climb the last stretch of stairs together, silent.

They finally reach the courtyard, and it appears to be empty. They see no one, hear nothing but the snap of the banners and the hollow paper bumpings of the lanterns. But Wei Wuxian knows when he’s being watched, and without a doubt they are being watched by many eyes. He takes a slow breath, feels the air. Then:

“They’re here!” It’s Jingyi’s voice, and it’s followed immediately by a chaotic rabble of young voices shouting “Hanguang Jun!” and “Wei-qianbei!” and the courtyard fills with Lan and Jin disciples, even a few Jiang teens in the mix too, tripping over each other and mobbing the newcomers with a scandalous lack of dignity or composure.

A-Yuan (he should probably call him Sizhui, he thinks, but fat chance of that happening) offers a perfect bow to the two of them, but he’s grinning ear to ear. As he straightens he addresses Wei Wuxian. “Wei-qianbei! You’re right on time. Welcome…”

“...TO YOUR WEDDING!” he and Lan Jingyi finish together as Jingyi throws his arm around his friend’s shoulders. Both boys dissolve into peals of laughter at Wei Wuxian’s expression. He suspects he looks rather like a stranded carp. Well, he came to the right tower, he supposes. He turns his incredulous gaze to Lan Wangji.

The Chief Cultivator regards him with attentive seriousness, and a sparkle hiding in his eyes. “Surprise,” he states, and the crowd of kids burst into cheers and applause.

“Lan Zhan?” He leans a little closer. “What the-- Have you lost your mind? We’re already married. We’ve been married for a while now.” Almost a year now, if they counted from his return to Gusu and the completion of their three bows at the Lan family shrine. But truthfully they had really gotten married so gradually, so many steps over so many years--forehead ribbons and chickens and bows one place or another and, of course, the sex, which had been a very memorable milestone-- it’s hard to pin down a specific anniversary. It feels like it’s been a decade, but also no time at all.

Lan Jingyi interjects: “But you didn’t do it right! You just did it all by yourselves like it was no big deal! There was no party! Nobody even saw it; it barely even counts! You’re supposed to have a feast and guests and... ” he gestures wildly around “...and lanterns! You didn’t even have lanterns!”

Jin Ling joins his friends now, looking splendidly haughty in elaborate gold robes befitting the young sect leader of the Lanling Jin. “Can’t trust you to do anything right,” he complains. Wei Wuxian offers him a bow, to which he offers an exaggerated scoff in return. “It’s embarrassing, frankly. So I’ll guess I have to be the one to make sure you do it right, just like I have to do everything around here. Go get dressed so we can get this over with.”

Jin Ling stomps away with a gesture over his shoulder. Following it, Wei Wuxian sees Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen standing several paces behind the gaggle of juniors. Each of them is holding what looks like about a mile of red silk, sparkling with gold embroidery and beads. Lan Xichen leans over and says a quiet word in the ear of the man in purple, who gives him a curt nod. Zewu Jun is looking better; his cheeks are less hollow, his skin less pallid than when he emerged from his seclusion a few months ago. Jiang Cheng looks like he’s about to punch somebody, so at least that’s consistent. As they head over, Lan Wangji gives Wei Wuxians arm a gentle squeeze.

“Jiang Wanyin has promised to behave,” he murmurs. Wei Wuxian responds with a quiet chuckle. “He wanted to be here,” Lan Wangji concludes in a whisper as they bow to the sect leaders. As they rise, Wei Wuxian feels a tightness in his throat.

“Jiang Cheng,” he says, his voice coming out raspier than he wanted. “This is…” he barks an awkward laugh. He takes in his (former?) brother, the Twin Jades, the juniors who are watching his reactions to all this like hawks. “Um… Are you all sure about this? It seems like a lot of... expense.”

Lan Xichen’s smile and Jiang Cheng’s eye roll are impressively synchronized.

“Sect leader Jin insisted,” says Xichen. "He and his friends have been very active in the planning."

“It’s already paid for, so no point whining about it,” snaps Jiang Cheng. “Besides, it looks bad for all of us if people think you two are just running around the country like a couple of sluts.”

Wei Wuxian can’t help but cackle at that, in spite of (or maybe partially because of) Lan Wangji’s abrupt tension beside him. “Ah, Jiang Cheng!” he gasps. “You always know just what to say.”

“Shut up and come get dressed. I’m bored of holding this crap.”

“Wei Ying.” The soft voice cuts through all other noise. He turns to his once and future husband. “Only if you want to,” says Lan Wangji.

“Lan Zhan,” he laughs. “You know how much I love attention! And free food! And you planned it as a surprise? And kept this many people quiet about it? Refusing would be the rudest thing I’ve ever done, and there’s quite a list.”

“But do you want to? Truly?” asks Lan Zhan, taking his hand, and there’s that earnestness again, reaching so easily past all his walls and wrapping right around his heart.

He takes a breath, checks in with himself. It’s a lot. It doesn’t feel real. So much of his life so often doesn’t feel quite real, still. But... the chance to marry his Lan Zhan properly, sumptuously, with spectacle and ceremony before the eyes of people he loves and who seem, against all odds and reason, to love him back (or, in a lot of cases, who love Lan Zhan enough to tolerate him, but that's fine too)… he’s hardly dared to let himself dream of it, but he wants it. Yeah. He wants this. So, so much.

“I do, Lan Zhan. Truly,” he says, and stands on tip-toe to kiss his husband, his eyes a little wetter than they were a moment ago. He hears Jiang Cheng pretend to gag. Wei Wuxian smiles against Lan Wangji’s soft sweet lips, and then hand-in-hand they follow their brothers to put on their wedding clothes.

…………………..

Getting dressed takes longer than he’d anticipated. There are lots of layers, soft shiny under-robes, what seems like a hundred more robes in the middle, then rich thick silk outer robes embroidered in gold thread with stylized rivers, lotus flowers and intricate repeating geometry. He’s pretty sure he knows the Yunmeng shop they came from; they smell like home, and he doesn’t mention it because… well. He doesn’t want to trap Jiang Cheng into any deep discussions. He’s careful to be inconspicuous about smelling them and running his fingers over the lotuses on his sleeves.

The hair takes a while too. Wei Wuxian is able to comb it into some semblance of order, and then there’s a thin fragrant oil that tames the frizz down and gives it a silken shine. Once that’s done and his red ribbon back in place, Jiang Cheng pins a golden ornament in front of his topknot. It’s made in the same style as Lan Zhan’s spectacular moon ornament, although smaller, and it looks a little like the sun. He doesn’t ask where it came from, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t comment on it either.

Then Jiang Cheng adds dozens of exquisitely thin golden chains dotted with crimson and gold beads that cascade in shimmering rivulets through Wei Wuxian’s hair. He grumbles the whole time, and Wei Wuxian teases him about it. He wonders if listening to them someone might mistake them for the same bothersome, promising kids from Yunmeng that bickered so easily all those years ago. They’re not, of course. He can feel the faint sizzle of Jiang Cheng’s pent up resentment roiling away inside him, and it’s weird that that’s a thing he can do now. There’s so much they still can’t talk about, can’t get over, and today is not the day to try and air it all out.

But Jiang Cheng is here, and he’s doing what a brother would do for his brother on an important day, and that means so damn much. So they both pretend that they’re okay, and if their banter is a little forced and their verbal jabs at each other a little careful, at least they’re both here. Someday, Wei Wuxian promises himself for the thousandth time, he will figure out a way to apologize for everything. For Shi Jie.

Jiang Cheng places the last golden strand with an unnecessarily painful tug and steps back. His thoughts must be running parallel to Wei Wuxian’s. “You look... “ he swallows. “You don’t look too bad. I wish…” he doesn’t finish it, but Wei Wuxian knows. I wish she could have seen you.

He can’t meet Jiang Cheng’s eyes, but he nods. “Me too. Thanks, Jiang Cheng.”

He’s rewarded with a hard punch to the shoulder. “Let’s go. Can’t keep your precious Hanguang Jun waiting.”

……………

Wei Wuxian has problems with his memory. It’s pretty common knowledge. But it’s not that he just doesn’t remember things; his memory is a lot like his attention span. Events, conversations, whole months sometimes will pass in a blur, leaving just a vague impression on his mind, but some things stick with intense clarity, seared onto his memory. Sometimes they’re inconsequential and he doesn’t know why his brain chooses to keep them instead of any of thousands of more important things: he can’t recall his parents’ faces but he could still draw the design on Nie Huaisang’s favorite fan; he’s forgotten every single recipe he’s ever learned but he remembers word-for-word a heated argument between a master cook and his apprentice that he overheard at about 13 years old passing the Lotus Pier kitchens about the proper way to steam pork buns; he keeps forgetting Lan Xichen’s birthday but he remembers watching Lan Zhan’s hand in the firelight as he slept in the Xuanwu cave, noticing its callouses from guqin and sword practice, a thin scar on the back of one knuckle, the way the long fingers twitched minutely as he dreamed.

He’s beginning to recognize them when they happen, the moments that will stay caught in his porous memory like gold flecks panned from the river mud. He’s getting gradually better at consciously reinforcing them as they happen, making sure the important things stick. He wishes he could keep this whole night, watch it over and over from beginning to end like an emperor making his own private theater troupe perform his favorite play over and over. But of course, he can’t. The evening whirls around him, blurring into a fog of light and sound, slipping away from him even as he tries to catch it.

But he knows some of the moments that will remain with him, unchanging jewels held shining in his mind and heart until the end of this miraculous second-chance life (however far away that might be). He keeps an internal list of them as they happen. There are six that are his favorites.

1- Lan Zhan stands in his wedding robes. Wei Wuxian had expected to be done first and have to make small talk and wait for his husband, but when he rounds the corner into the main hall there he is in profile, and Wei Wuxian forgets how to breathe. They took enough time getting dressed that the sun has set and he’s illuminated by soft warm lantern light, standing out crimson and gold against the velvet dark. He’s brilliant, gorgeous, perfect, dazzling. No word is enough. Lan Zhan’s robes are embroidered with clouds and mountains. His hair, too, is set with delicate golden chains and beads. He still wears his usual pale blue forehead ribbon and his preferred silver hair ornament, the match and opposite to the one in Wei Wuxian’s hair. Somehow the blue and silver do not clash with the red and gold wedding attire. Trust him to be able to pull something like that off, the effortless beautiful bastard. He wears small smooth red stone earrings, teardrop-shaped, which swing gently as he turns from where he has been talking to his brother. He is glowing. He looks like a dream.

When Lan Wangji sees his husband, his breath catches too.

They both stand frozen for a few trembling seconds, then move to meet in the middle, Lan Wangji gliding like a dancer, Wei Wuxian tripping just slightly on the front of his robe in his haste. He can hear the whisper of silk and the tiny scrape of beads on the floor. The only other sound he notices is the roaring in his ears. Lan Zhan’s hands are warm and strong. Wei Wuxian brings those precious hands up to his lips and presses a kiss onto the knuckle with the scar he’d first noticed in a cold smelly cave two decades ago. When he looks up Lan Zhan’s eyes are shining, infinitely tender.

2- Most of the actual ceremony blurs by. He’s never cared that much about tradition or Doing Things Correctly, clearly. But tradition matters to Lan Zhan, and watching his face as they go through all the slow and formal steps that make them truly 100% married in the eyes of humans, gods, spirits, and whatever else have you… that’s important. His serious, studious face. He’s always glancing over at Wei Wuxian when it’s not inappropriate, checking in on him, locking eyes with him with subtle expressions ranging from besotted fondness to slightly possessive pride to gentle admonishment (fair, he’d started fidgeting, rolling a couple of sleeve-edge beads together to make tiny creaking noises; hadn’t even realized he was doing it). Each of those precious expressions sticks. He might draw them later.

3-The best part of the ceremony steps right on the heels of the most awkward part. They must, as is customary, pour tea for their relatives, oldest to youngest. There are so many Lans in attendance. Even Lan Qiren is here, although he’s been keeping the buffer of Lan Xichen between himself and the happy couple pretty efficiently, and his scowl could curdle milk. Wei Wuxian has no blood relatives unless you count Mo Xuanyu’s, which he doesn’t. His Jiang family is there, very politely ignoring the fact that he’s officially disowned, which is very touching, it really is. But it’s still just Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling, and aren’t they just a pair?

He pours for them. They drink. Then there’s nothing to do but stand there next to the two of his family members who were too prickly for Death to want to get near enough to take them (Madam Yu probably gave him such a tongue-lashing he wasn’t eager for another any time soon; sorry, sorry, forget he even thought such a thing). He watches the graceful lines of Lan Wangji’s back (and the enticing curves of Lan Wangji’s ass) as with perfect form he pours unending tea for what seems like a thousand respectable elder Lans. He has to switch to a new pot at one point.

“How are there so many of them?” Jin Ling whispers, clearly mired in the awkwardness too. “I thought the Lans would be too stuffy to…”

“You’d be surprised,” he quips before he can stop himself, and claps a hand over his mouth to halt the rest of the sentence just as Jiang Cheng hisses, “Wei Wuxian!”

Before it can escalate farther a deep voice calls “Wei Ying,” across the room. The three of them snap to attention, for all the world like schoolkids caught misbehaving in class. Wei Wuxian throws on his most winning innocent smile.

“Will you come here?” Lan Wangji asks, and Wei Wuxian bounces over to him, throwing a cheeky nod to the elder Lans, who look varying degrees of scandalized by his mere presence. Good thing they didn’t know what he was about to say to his nephew about the surprising effects of growing up righteous and repressed on their star pupil’s libido, especially regarding his impressive collection of exciting kinks. The star pupil in question, meanwhile, has stopped his lengthy ceremonial progression in front of Lan Sizhui, teapot in hand. Sizhui is composed and polite, but puzzled at the interruption.

Without a word, Lan Wangji takes Wei Wuxian’s hand and places it atop his own on the handle of the teapot.

Together they pour the tea for their son.

Sizhui very elegantly bursts into tears as he realizes the significance of Hanguang Jun’s gesture. They stream down his face as he smiles up at them. Then he drinks, his sleeve covering his cup and his sniffles.

“Thank you, father; thank you, Baba,” he says to them in turn, his voice thick as he puts the fine small teacup back on the table. Lan Jingyi clutches Sizhui’s sleeve, his other hand covering his mouth. He has also started crying, although he’s trying to swallow it back with little gulps and hiccups.

Wei Wuxian can’t speak. He nods to his A-Yuan, smiles at his Lan Zhan, and dammit, now Wei Wuxian is crying too. Lan Zhan wipes a tear from his husband’s cheek with his thumb. His own tears are far too disciplined to act out at such an important time, so they stay politely gathered between the sweep of his eyelids.

4- After the ceremony is finished there’s a short span of mingling time while the dishes for the feast are laid out. Wen Ning, Nie Huaisang, and, to Wei Wuxian’s surprise, Mian Mian (sorry, Luo Qingyang) mob them, giving Lan Wangji handsome bows and Wei Wuxian affectionate hugs, gushing about their wedding clothes, the decor, the ceremony, the impressive secrecy leading up to the big night. Wei Wuxian reflects that they’re three of the most loving and endearing people he knows, as well as three of the most dangerous. But then, he doesn’t really know anyone now who isn’t dangerous. They all did what they had to do, back then. It makes him happy to think these three might become friends, now, when there’s not so much need to be dangerous-- they’d get along well.

“Wei Gongzi, Hanguang Jun,” says Wen Ning, pulling him back out of his head, “I have wedding gifts for you.” he pulls a small flat box of dark lacquered wood from his robe. “I know you didn’t request any, so I hope you don’t mind.”

He holds the box out to Wei Wuxian so he can open the lid. There are two beaded bracelets inside. The beads are carved and polished lotus seeds. They look a good deal like the charm Wei Wuxian had never been able to give to Jin Ling. He holds his fingers over them and feels the hum of energy, somehow both resentful and benevolent. He throws a questioning look to Wen Ning.

“I made them, after I saw the one you made for Jin Rulan. A-Yuan helped me figure out the technique on our travels together. They will camouflage you from wicked spirits and monsters. Don’t wear them now, but I think they may be helpful while you are on your night hunts.”

“I see,” he says, touching them gently, feeling the energy contained within and its will to envelop him rather than invade him. He’s reminded of a mother hen, if it was made of black smoke and the desire for vengeance. So, a mother goose, maybe. “These are amazing," he breathes. "I’m very impressed.” He looks to Lan Wangji, and he nods in appreciation.

Wei Wuxian closes the box carefully and bows to his friend. “Thank you,” he says. “They will be of great use.”

Wen Ning smiles. “Thank you, Gongzi. If you approve of the method, I may begin making more of them. I think they would be useful for farmers and travellers who are worried about encountering monsters. When you’re ready to return to research I’ll show you how we made them, if that’s all right.”

“Of course! I would love that! It, ah…” he glances over at Lan Wangji, the word honeymoon beginning to swirl through his thoughts. “It may be a few weeks before I’ll want to return to research.” Nie Huaisang smirks behind his fan and Luo Qingyang smacks him on the arm.

“That’s all right,” says Wen Ning, giving the box one final fond pat. “I’m very glad you like them. Congratulations again on your wedding. I know you will be very happy.” With that and one more round of bows the unstoppable fierce corpse and his new friends, the political mastermind and the rebellious rogue cultivator make their way to the banquet. Wei Wuxian watches them go. He’s moved by the gift, even more by the friendship, and struck with the sometimes-wonderful strangeness of life.

5- After the feast (which is excellent; some of the spicy dishes are very nearly spicy enough, held for the sake of the more sensitive guests in bright red bowls as a warning sign), Wei Wuxian is laughing loud and raucous at a joke that Lan Jingyi has made. He looks to his husband, because he can’t laugh at anything without a glance to Lan Zhan, to see how he reacts and to include him in the happy moment.

The Second Jade of Lan is smiling, actually smiling, and Wei Wuxian feels that smile in every inch of his body, with every atom of his soul.

Wei Wuxian reaches out with both hands to capture that smile, holding his husband’s face between his palms. “Lan Zhan,” he says, and it hits him all of a sudden, like a storm, like a wave, like a runaway cart. He’s awash in the simplicity and wonder of it.

“I’m happy,” he realizes aloud. “Lan Zhan, I’m so happy,” and he pulls the mighty Hanguang Jun down into a long kiss.

When they finally pull apart, Lan Wangji’s face is soft and flushed, his lips pink and kiss-puffed and Wei Wuxian can’t help himself. He gives the unapproachably handsome and unrelentingly serious Chief Cultivator’s soft cheekies a little squeezy-squeeze. Lan Zhan blushes furiously, and Wei Wuxian casts a quick glance around the room to see who has noticed. Most of the guests seemed to have missed it (presumably if they had been keyed into the earlier part of the interaction they became politely engrossed in other pursuits when the snogging started), but Jingyi is frozen with a steamed bun halfway in his mouth, Jiang Cheng is rolling his eyes so hard he must be able to see his own brain, Nie Huaisang gives him an approving wink, Wen Ning is smiling sweetly, and Lan Xichen is administering helpful pats to the back of his uncle, who has choked on his tea. Wei Wuxian leans against his long-suffering husband and laughs and laughs until he doubles over gasping.

6- It’s after the wedding feast, and he and Lan Zhan are looking out at the cool night, listening to the summer insects and the murmurs of conversation filtering out from the banquet hall. Wei Wuxian is leaning against the railing, his husband standing as perfectly straight as always. The taste of good liquor lingers in his mouth, and the fragrance of wildflowers and night air fills his nose. He turns so he’s leaning back on his elbows, gazing up at the most beautiful man in the world.

“You’re really something, you know that?”

“Mm?”

“The peerless Hanguang Jun, so righteous that the wicked tremble at the very mention of him, so valiant that no enemy dare stand against him, so subtle that even the wicked Yiling Patriarch cannot unravel his secrets.” Lan Wangji swallows, and Wei Wuxian watches the bob of his throat with rapt appreciation. He really has no business being so beautiful. Wei Wuxian smirks. “And yet, mighty Hanguang Jun, I do know one of your dark secrets.”

“What secret?” His husband’s eyes are dark in the night. Mysterious. Very very sexy.

“You were nervous about tonight.” Wei Wuxian’s smirk grows to a full grin as Lan Wangji’s gaze drops. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so nervous.” He chuckles at the absurdity of it. “Lan Zhan, I’ve seen you fight worse monsters than most people can imagine without a second of hesitation. I don’t think there’s a soul alive who’d believe me if I told them you almost turned back on the stairs. If I said your hands had been shaking I’d be laughed out of the cultivation world.” He leans closer, his tone shifting soft and gentle. “But you almost did turn back, and your hands did shake. Why? Second thoughts?”

“No,” Lan Wangji responds immediately. “Not second thoughts. I…” it takes him a moment to formulate how he will phrase what he needs to say. Wei Wuxian waits. “I was afraid,” he finally says, “that you would feel I had trapped you into this. That you would feel pressured or ambushed or…” he searches for the right word, “...or used.”

Wei Wuxian laughs again, his ribs complaining about how much of it he’s been doing tonight. “Ah, Lan Zhan, you know how I love feeling used by you!” he laughs more, watching those perfect pale ears go pink.

He shifts over and Lan Wangji takes his hand. “What you guessed on the stairs,” Lan Wangji says. “That you were not invited to an important celebration. I’m sorry. It was never my intent for you to feel unwanted.”

“Lan Zhan, ah, Lan Zhan,” he sighs. He brings his husband’s hand up to his face and kisses his palm, then lays his cheek into it as he keeps talking. “You are too good to me. It truly was a beautiful surprise. I don’t feel unwanted. I feel very…” (it’s still hard to say, hard to believe) “...loved. By a lot of people.” He nods to himself. It’s true, and it really is astounding. He’ll try to trust it, try to keep believing it.

“And honestly,” he continues, dropping their joined hands down to rest on the railing between them, “even if everyone else in the whole world did hate me, I’d have you. You’re amazing, Lan Zhan. You’re perfect. I’d marry you every day. And I truly am impressed you managed to keep it a secret; I really had no idea! So cunning, Lan Zhan! I think I’m a bad influence on you, with my crafty ways!”

“You are the best influence on me,” Lan Wangji says seriously.

“Ah, stop, Lan Zhan!” he moans, shoving him with his shoulder. “Why do you always have to say things like that? They make me want to dig a hole and live in it.”

“Because they’re true, and I want you to believe them.”

Wei Wuxian buries his face in the silken robe over Lan Wangji's chest and groans a muffled “You’re impossible.”

They stand like that for a moment, Wei Wuxian breathing in the earthy smell of the silk and the faint sandalwood fragrance of the skin underneath. Lan Wangji loops a hand around his waist, not trembling now but warm and steady.

“Wei Ying. I have one more surprise for you, if you like.”

He looks up, a wicked twinkle in his eye. “Here? You don’t want to wait for the marriage suite? Hanguang Jun, I’m scandalized!”

His husband smiles again, a tiny lopsided quirk of his lips which Wei Wuxian finds very appealing (his poor face must be exhausted, how many smiles does that make today? Four? five?). “We will wait for the marriage suite for that, although once we enter I do not intend to leave for several days.” Before Wei Wuxian can respond to that beyond an enthusiastic intake of breath, Lan Wangji continues: “I am stepping down as Chief Cultivator.”

That halts the increasingly filthy tumble of Wei Wuxian’s thoughts in their tracks. “You… what? When?”

“Effective tonight. The major sect leaders have been in communication about it. Xiongzhang will take over my former duties tomorrow. He is ready to become involved in the world again, and far better suited to the position than I. I know he will be exemplary, and I believe he will find it fulfilling.”

“Wow, that’s. That’s great, Lan Zhan! I’m really happy for him. For you too. I know how much you hated it. Congratulations.”

Lan Wangji nods in acknowledgment. “Now I will be free to be what I most want to be.” He leaves the statement there, bait.

Wei Wuxian sighs and takes a half-step back, squaring his shoulders to his husband. “I know you’re about to say another one of those things, Lan Zhan. Go ahead, then. I’m prepared.”

“Promise you will not dig a hole to live in.”

“Fine. I promise I won’t dig a hole to live in. Go ahead, do your worst.”

Lan Wangji leans in to press his forehead against Wei Wuxian’s. The silver cloud ornament on his forehead ribbon is cool against the skin there.

“Tell me. What will you be now?” Wei Wuxian whispers.

His husband replies: “Yours.”

The End

“Love?” Magnus wraps his arms around Alec’s neck, soothing his fingers against the nape. “Hardly. Love is too often fleeting. You, however?” He brushes the ghost of a kiss against the corner of Alec’s mouth. “You have always been my greatest weakness.”

Alec kisses Magnus, because it says more than words ever could, because there are no words in any language that he knows which could be enough to express how he feels, how his core is alight and burning hot, how he can’t get close enough without knocking them both over, and even that wouldn’t soothe the ache.

“You didn’t even bring any food with you,” Alec points out, pressing a fleeting kiss to Magnus’ temple, lest he kiss any lower and come away with a shimmer upon his lips. His hands are broad and firm against Magnus’ hips, drawing him close until the ornate buckle of his belt is nestled against Alec’s belly button. He’s slouched, relaxed and calm. 

“An easy fix.” Magnus pecks the very tip of Alec’s nose, grinning easy at the way it scrunches. “What are you in the mood for?” 

“I really want to visit Sky,” Alec sighs, his shoulders drawing up. “I miss their chebureki. I’m craving their chebureki. But I have to file through this paperwork, or the Clave are going to be breathing down my neck.” 

Magnus traces the love rune against the nape of Alec’s neck. “I mean this with every breadth of my soul.” He pulls back, drawn to the mirth that draws Alec’s brow together before staring into hazel eyes which have always held his own gaze with such resolve it’s a wonder he ever questioned them. “Fuck the Clave.”

Alec laughs, hearty and full. Magnus kisses the lines of his eyes, warmth cloaking him like a homemade blanket. This, right here. This is all he needs. 

“Is that a proposition? I think I have a form somewhere for interdepartmental relationships, I’d be happy to sign it for you.”

Alec feigns to pull away, his hands falling to his sides. Before he can even turn his body, Magnus takes both of Alec’s hands in his own, kissing the space on his ring finger above his wedding band and the ridges of his knuckles while the other intertwines their fingers, squeezing tight and holding their joined hands against his heart - or, rather, a rough estimation of where his heart is, hidden beneath his unbuttoned silk shirt and floral blazer. 

“Burn it.” Magnus insists, resting his chin on the back of Alec’s hand, still held tight within his own. “Or shred it. Do you have a paper shredder? We can start a recycling plan! Saving the planet is really something the Clave should care about. Maybe they can investigate that, and then while they’re busy saving the world - I know that you Shadowhunters love that - we can steal away and pretend you never insinuated that I would ever break our sacred marriage vows for the Clave.”

Alec leans back, tapping the side of Magnus’ sleek ankle boots. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even joked about it.” 

“I wouldn’t break our vows for anything.” Magnus pulls a face. “Suggesting I would do it for the Clave is just insulting, Alexander. I have far better taste than that.”

“Is that so?”

Magnus hums, turning Alec’s hand to kiss down his wrist. “I’m pretty sure I have a certificate somewhere that proves it.” He murmurs, tilting his head into the cup of Alec’s palm against his cheek. “Unless that’s how you tested out your paper shredder? We haven’t cleared up whether it exists yet.” 

“Your environmental concerns are heard and are being considered by the Inquisitor at present” Alec teases, before adding. “I’m pretty sure that Aline has a paper shredder in her office. It’s definitely the kind of thing that Helen would have gifted. Probably wrapped in a bow, too.”

“That does sound like our Helen.” Magnus steps forward into the gap of Alec’s thighs. “I’m afraid that all I am hearing is that there is in fact no reason why you can’t take an extended lunch break.” He leans forward, teasing a kiss along the cut of Alec’s jaw. “Perhaps we can even enjoy it in the comfort of our own home.” 

They would have, Alec prepared with a half-hearted protest that Magnus would just as quickly swallow, bending the pretence of Alec’s revolve before whisking them away in a portal that would have to be created on the balcony to protect the furniture. They would have enjoyed a lovely meal, and each other’s company, and Magnus would have sent Alec back with a sweet kiss and a promise of reservations for some late night ponchiki, conveniently forgetting to mention that he’s missed a button of his shirt. 

Unfortunately, none of that happened. 

“Inquisitor Lightwood-Bane? High Warlock Lightwood-Bane?” 

Magnus rolls his eyes and steps away from Alec, although his hand skims Alec’s hip. The shadowhunter at the door seems familiar … Montclair something, maybe … yes, Eva Montclair. A sort of glorified P.A for various members of the Clave. Her sudden appearance in Alec’s doorway is not a terrible thing by nature, but Magnus has a feeling given the tightness of her knuckles around the hilt of her seraph blade that it is not good news that she couriers this time. 

Eva inhales deeply, her shoulders curled in defensively. “I was told to come and tell you both immediately, I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted anything.” 

“What’s wrong, Eva?” Alec asks, kind but firm.

“There’s been an instance near Piccadilly. A warlock appears to have recently come into their powers and is struggling with gaining control over them. The Head of the London Institute called them ‘rogue’, but I personally don’t think that’s fair. From the descriptions received all the magic seems to be defensive rather than offensive. The High Warlock there is currently unavailable but suggested that you, Mr. Lightwood-Bane, would be a … ‘fitting substitute’ in his absence?”

Magnus fixes a pleasant smile even as a laugh hiccups in the back of his throat. Ragnor truly says the kindest things. “If this is as you describe, Eva, I’m sure there won’t be any further problems.”

“Please alert the London Institute that we are on our way.” Alec requests. “And please make it clear to them that they are under no circumstances to harm the young warlock. This is no longer any of their concern.”

The hint of a smile toys at the corner of Eva’s mouth, and it’s then that Magnus remembers that she’s married to a warlock herself, and in fact he has met Mars on a few occasions as part of the Downworlder council. Small world. 

“Absolutely.” Eva nods, curtly, and ducks out of the room. 

Magnus nods towards the balcony doors. “Portal?”

Alec sighs, reaching for Magnus’ hand. “This has to be the fifth call this year alone. I’m starting to think those pamphlets aren't working.”

The balcony doors swing open with a flick of Magnus’ hand. 

“Maybe the Institute Heads are just environmentally conscious.”

---

“Angels,” Alec whispers, when they come through the other side of the portal onto a wet cobblestone side-street, the air heavy with unshed rain. “They’re so young.”

The warlock couldn’t possibly be older than eighteen. Their torn jeans are stuffed into worn and muddy old boots, their denim vest is missing sleeves, torn at the shoulder, and the faded band tank underneath looks far too thin for a London evening. Thin, white lines stand out against brown skin, forming stars on their arms like tattoos of varying size, a mark unlike any that Alec has ever seen before and given the slight furrow to Magnus’ brow, it’s not a common one. Their hair is cropped short and pink, which could be a warlock mark, although Alec has his doubts. 

“Their mark is glowing.” Magnus comments. “It pulses, see. It’s directly connected to their magic.”

“Is that unusual?” Alec asks, casting an eye around for anything to gain the warlock’s attention without spooking them. “Your eyes glow.”

Magnus drops his glamour. A point is being made, but it isn’t Alec’s. “The pulse is frantic, like their magic, their emotions. Their powers are so new that they haven’t figured out how to control any of it yet. Warlock marks, although rare, do sometimes come with the magic itself. That’s a lot to discover about yourself at once. No wonder they look so frightened, poor dear.”

Alec’s throat tightens when the warlock grips their head and folds over. “We have to help them. I don’t even know how but … we have to help them.”

Magnus grips the back of Alec’s neck, turning him until they’re facing each other. “We will.” Magnus says, firm but kind. “We are their best hope right now, Alexander, and we will help them.” He grazes his thumb along the column of Alec’s nape. “We’re good at this.”

Alec nods, rolling his shoulders back as Magnus’ hand falls away. Magnus gestures and Alec follows his gaze, towards a portable store sign advertising 25% off coats and knitwear - it’s not terribly wide or tall, but if he’s careful he should be able to hide behind it, if temporarily. The last thing they need is for the warlock to feel as though they’ve been trapped, so letting Magnus talk first and providing support without being obvious about it is their best chance at this point in time. 

The first time they talked a warlock down Alec had gotten his eyebrows singed off for getting too close, too fast. 

“Excuse me?” Magnus has procured a coat, probably from the store behind Alec, his hands shoved into the pockets. 

To the unassuming eye, he probably appears to be a concerned citizen, his eyes glamoured once more, although there is an undeniable electricity to him that couldn’t be mistaken by those who know for a thunderstorm. There is a chance that the warlock, although presumably new to their powers, will be able to sense it as well. If that’s the case, their reaction is anyone’s guess. Alec tightens his grip on his bow.

“I’m Magnus Bane.” The warlock glances up with lightning speed, their arms wound tightly around their chest, as though doing so would keep everything in place. Alec is familiar with the feeling. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. I’m like you, see?”

Magnus must have dropped his glamour, for the warlock takes a step back, but they lose some of the tension around their shoulders. “May I ask for your name?” He asks, rocking back on his heels.

The warlock hesitates, the stars on their arms pulsing even faster. “Nova.” They say, after what feels to be an hour. Alec lets out a heavy breath and relaxes onto his haunches. This is good. 

“Hello, Nova.” Magnus flattens his palm against his chest. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions? You don’t have to answer any that make you uncomfortable. My only motivation is helping you if I can.”

“What makes you think that you can help me?” Nova spits out. They’re shaking. “I don’t even know what’s happening to me. The other day I was fine, I was normal and then I woke up yesterday and I have these weird tattoos on my arm and today I’m sending things into different rooms with just my thoughts - and none of it makes any sense! None of it!” 

Magnus takes a lone step forward, but Nova doesn’t appear to notice. Alec feels a chill crawl down his spine. “You don’t know me, so what I’m about to ask of you probably goes against every instinct you have. Nova, I need you to trust me.”

“Why?”

Magnus takes another step. The hairs on the back of Alec’s neck stand to attention. “Because I’ve been where you are.” Magnus explains. “Lost. Confused. Angry. I was a child when I discovered my magic, what I could do with it. I didn’t have anybody to help me, and I always vowed that I wouldn’t let that happen to others, if I could help it. I want to help you.”

“What am I?” Nova furiously shakes their head, gripping at their elbows so tight little pinpricks of blood skate down their arms. “Why is this happening to me?”

“I prefer to call myself a warlock. Many of us do.” Magnus explains. He holds out his palm, letting a blue flame collect in the centre. “You can refer to yourself however you like. You can just be Nova, and nothing more, if you want.”

“But the magic … that won’t go away?”

Magnus shakes his head. “No. Take my word for it, you will only cause yourself more harm if you try. It’s not all bad.” The flame in Magnus’ hand turns into a cupcake, with a small sugary rainbow on top of the cream white frosting. “Once you learn how to control it, the things you’ll be able to do are incredible.”

“I lost a mug.” Nova laughs, a fragile thing. “It’s so stupid. I just threw it at the wall, but it didn’t smash or anything it just … disappeared. I looked for hours. It’s not even important, it was a quid or something but it … it’s gone. I did that. I don’t know how but wherever it’s ended up is because of me. What if - what if I do that to somebody? Make them … disappear.” 

“I don’t think so.” Magnus is a few feet away now if that. “The kind of power that takes is … astronomical, not to mention the technical restraint. The worst you might do is cause some minor injuries, but even that is rare.”

Nova’s stars are glowing steadily. “Have you ever made someone disappear?”

“Not without the intent to do so.”

The answer seems to appease Nova. Alec stays hunched down, it doesn’t look like Magnus needs his support, although it would be nice to stretch his back soon, although he still trains from time to time, he isn’t exactly as young as he used to be. 

“Magnus Bane. Step away from the rogue warlock at once. This is no longer an issue for the Downworlder Council to handle, this has become an Institute matter and will thus be handled by Shadowhunters. Your services have not proven useful, and this warlock must be subdued before any harm is caused.” 

The electricity in the air gets sharper. Alec hesitates but eventually rises slowly from his crouched position. He catches the minute the Institute Head, Stephen Highsmith, sees him and the flood of blood to his cheeks and forehead. A second later, his head whips towards Nova, who is clutching at their head, their wide eyes caught between the three of them. Alec doesn’t have the time to search for the Shadowhunters positioned around them, knows on instinct that they’re surrounded, that the only way out is through talking and, if that fails, a little violent liberty. 

“The warlock is a child.” He states, stalking out from behind the sign. He grips his bow tight and positions himself diagonally from Magnus, firm in his defence. “Surely you have higher morals than that, Stephen.”

Highsmith, a weasely man riding the coattails of his family name, sneers and draws his seraph blade. He’d never been too good as a Shadowhunter, from all accounts, but power is a currency and money talks. “It was very honourable of you to leave your post and flock to my streets, Inquisitor Lightwood, but I’m afraid your presence is simply not necessary. My men and I have it handled.”

“I’m sure you’re very capable of handling precarious situations, Mr. Highsmith.” Butter wouldn’t melt in Magnus’ mouth. “However, as High Warlock Fell is currently out of the country and has given permission for Alexander and myself to fulfil his duties in his place, I do believe it is a case best left to us. We don’t intend to intrude upon your delicate sensibilities, I’m sure you’re a very busy man who has much better things to do than to waste your time on such a small affair.”

“For the record.” Alec smiles with no heart. “It’s Lightwood-Bane. A simple mistake, I’m sure, but an important thing to rectify. Names carry a lot of importance and weight, you know.”

Highsmith splutters. “I do not have time for this!”

“Neither do we.” Magnus stalks closer, until he’s within arms distance from Highsmith. Alec inches closer to Nova, now bent over with their palms pressed against their eyelids. “This is a matter for the Downworlder council, and as it’s representatives, we will take care of it. The longer you argue and fight with us over this, however, the longer it will take until we are out of your hair.”

The back of Alec’s neck prickles with heat. Magnus continues to admonish Highsmith. “Neither Alexander nor I will budge until Nova is safe. Believe me when I tell you that there is nobody more equipped to handle this than us, and if you don’t take your leave quietly and with what little grace you can summon, you will be responsible for whatever harm or damage is caused.”

“How dare you speak to me like that!” Highsmith’s face is blotchy and red. 

“Quite easily.” Magnus twists his fingers, a white-hot blast landing at Highsmith’s feet. His shoes turn into fluffy bunny slippers. The ears flop when he pounds his feet. “Respect is earnt, Mr. Highsmith, and quite frankly you have done nothing worth receiving mine.”

A low muttering draws Alec’s attention. Nova has sunk onto their knees, the heel of their palms digging into their eyes. Alec quietly side-steps closer, holding his bow behind his back so as not to terrify Nova even more. 

“I just want to go home. I just want this all to end. I want to go home.”

Alec sneaks a glance towards Magnus, still holding defence against Highsmith, who has acquired shocking green hair and a yellow high-visibility vest alongside the bunny slippers. Perhaps it won’t go as smoothly as if Magnus were the one talking Nova down, he can connect with them in a way Alec never would, but he can offer support - just as long as he can calm Nova down, draw them away from the conflict, that’s all … then they can dismiss Highsmith because there would be no ‘warlock problem’ and Nova’s safety and comfort could once again take priority. 

“Nova?” Alec crouches down, rocking back on his heels. “My name is Alec. I’m a friend of Magnus’. We’re going to do our best to get you home, okay?” 

Nova starts rocking back and forth. Their tattoos glow brighter than before, a luminescent blue that pricks at the back of Alec’s eyes. “I want to go home.” They continue to murmur, in a voice that takes on a warbled effect, as though they were speaking underwater. “I just want to go home.”

“Where do you live?” Alec asks. “Do you live in London?”

Nova falls to their knees. In the distance, Alec hears Magnus’ tone getting sharper, although he can’t make out exactly what is being said, it doesn’t fill him with much confidence that a productive conversation is being had. Nova keeps rocking, folded over into themselves. Blood streaks down their forearms, small droplets collecting behind their ears from where their fingers had dug into their scalp. 

“Enough is enough!” Highsmith shouts. Shadowhunters spill out from the dark, armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons, seraph blades and a few staves, the odd throwing star attached at the hip. Archers are scattered across the rooftops around them, arrows notched and aimed. 

“Highsmith.” Magnus’ hands crackle as blue flame licks at his fingertips, wrapping around his arms. “I’ve made an attempt at civility, but you are clearly not interested in politics. Fine. Take this as a warning. Recall your soldiers. Stand down. I cannot guarantee everyone’s safety if you do not heed this warning, and the dangerous consequences your refusal could inflict are limitless. This young warlock is frightened. Let us look after them, and I assure you, nobody will get hurt.”

“I have had enough of your whining.” Highsmith spits. “This is now Shadowhunter business. Perhaps a few days in a cold cell will teach this young warlock how to control their powers.”

It all happens in a flash. Literally, an actual flash. 

Alec rushes forward to protect Nova, futile as it might be, his bow poised towards the nearest threat - a Shadowhunter only a few feet away with a seraph blade drawn and pointed at the back of Nova’s head. A static roaring fills his ears, but he pushes through, hardly aware of his own body as an arrow is sent flying into the Shadowhunter’s shoulder. His skin starts to prick and burn, from his hands up to his neck and rushing down to his ankles like a wildfire coursing through a forest. His heart beats in tune with Nova’s words, I want to go home, thud thud thud thud thud. 

Alec shuts his eyes against a luminescent white light, stumbling as the ground falls out from beneath him and an echo calls out for him, a desperate plea of his name shouted underwater.

Magnus? 

I just want to go home. 

---

Alexander? Alexander!

---

The air smells like metal and thunderstorms. Magnus whirls on his heel, angry tears racing down his cheeks. Hell, hath no fury like a warlock scorned. 

“Listen to me you weasely git.” Magnus spits. “I’m done playing civil. My husband is missing because you wanted to play hero for the first time in your poor, forsaken life. Sad you never got to play soldiers with the big boys? Well, guess it’s your lucky day. I am going to take Nova with me back to Alicante, and while I’m there, I’m going to ensure that my lovely friend Consul Penhallow is updated with everything that occurred here today. Unfortunately for you, her wife has family in the area, some of whom I am sure wouldn’t mind stepping up to keep an eye on you. I’ve seen how you conduct yourself, and if it is any indication of how your Institute is run, I guarantee it is not a position that you will retain for much longer.”

Magnus raises a hand. The Shadowhunters flanking Highsmith sheath their weapons. “Withdraw your forces and go slinking back. This is not a request. You did not heed my warning, but you will weather the consequences.” 

He turns, uninterested in sparring Highsmith another second of his time. Magnus didn’t see the flash, but he recognised the sign of a portal, although … there’s something about this one that is bugging him. 

Today I’m sending things into different rooms with just my thoughts … I don’t know how but wherever it’s ended up is because of me … what if I do that to somebody? Make them disappear? 

“Fuck.” 

Nova is sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at their hands as though they’re something alien. Magnus collapses in front of them, a mirror-reflection. They’re shaking, tremors like the ground before an earthquake. 

The earthquake has come. This is the aftershock. 

“I don’t know what happened.” Nova whispers, harshly. “I just wanted everything to stop. I kept wishing that I could go home, and everything got really muffled, like I was wrapped in cotton or something, but I was still here and there was so much noise, so much shouting and I was so scared-”

“Might I reach for your hand?” Magnus asks. Nova glances up, their cheeks stained with dried tears. They nod, wordlessly. Magnus turns their palms over, tracing the lines with his fingers where they glow intermittently, as though a light was shining from beneath their skin. 

“You’re not mad?”

“No.” Magnus’ smile is a little thin, a little bittersweet. “Not at you. I know that Alexander is okay, wherever he is, and that’s all that matters to me.”

Nova shakes their head. “He could be dead, I could have-”

“You didn’t.” Magnus assures them. “I would know if he was, as sure as you knew when your magic appeared. Which, if I recall correctly, you said was behaving volatile today?”

Nova’s fingers curl against Magnus’. “That flash. I felt like an exposed wire. I felt…” Nova frowns. “Right as it happened, I felt really calm all of a sudden, but also … like my magic? I guess? Was being pulled out of me. I wasn’t scared anymore, though, I felt … comforted. Safe? But then I opened my eyes, and everything was the same, and all that fear came flooding back.”

Jagged pieces are coming together in Magnus’ mind. It’s a working theory, and a weak one at that, but it’s something and that’s enough for him to cling onto, to keep his sanity. 

“Nova. I don’t mean to pressure you, so please do not take it that way, you are of course free to go wherever you please - I promise the Shadowhunters, the lot dressed in all black with their pointy egos, won’t cause you any harm, but … if you’re willing, I could use your help.”

“My help?”

Magnus wicks a portal into existence. The wind around them picks up leaves and twigs but in the little bubble he creates for them, they are safe. “This is a portal. I sort of invented them. I have a feeling that what you did is not all that dissimilar, but I need your help to figure that out. I hope that I’ll be able to help you better understand your own powers, and get my husband back, but only if it is something you are comfortable with.”

Nova stares at the portal in wonder. They nod, hesitant at first and then firmer with every movement. “Whatever happened … it was my fault. I know you don’t blame me, somehow, but if I can help … I have to. You and your husband were willing to do anything to help me, it’s the least I can do.”

“It only takes a word, if at any point you want to bow out, or you don’t feel comfortable or safe, your commitment ends. There’s no obligation here, okay?”

Nova nods. Magnus stands gingerly, wiping the dirt of the back of his pants and extending a hand to help pull them up. “You’ll need to keep tight hold of my hand.” He instructs. “Don’t let go until I say it’s safe, otherwise I could lose you too.”

Nova squeezes Magnus’ hand. “We’ll find him.” They promise.

“Of course, we will.” Magnus smiles, wishing he could even half-convince himself. 

---

Alec focuses his landing on the balls of his feet, leaning back to distribute his weight to his heels to cushion the impact. It’s fortunate that, despite the length of time he’s spent behind a desk instead of in the field, he’s managed to keep up with his training. That fall could have wiped him out. 

He takes a few seconds to focus on what he can hear, smell, see; the floor beneath him is a dark mahogany, freshly polished, the sunlight leaking in from the north facing window between drawn burgundy curtains. Outside the window echoes a busy street, tolling bells and warm chatter and … horses? 

“Quite a grand entrance. Most people just use the doorbell.”  

The voice, familiar in the wrong ways, sweeps under his feet and knocks him backwards, scattered along the floor. It’s only magic, which he recognises beneath its coldness, that saves him from knocking over a beautiful porcelain vase sat precariously atop an equally beautiful, engraved end table. 

“Then again, I’m not sure I would have invited a Shadowhunter into my home.” 

The voice belongs to Magnus, but he is … not himself. At least not the one that Alec knows. It’s rather like seeing a distorted mirror image for all that stands out to him as wrong. 

The hardened glaze of Magnus’ glamoured eyes. The sneer of his mouth. The white of his knuckles curled around the top of a hardback novel. The muted colours, from his hair to his makeup-free face, to the dark pants with thin silver lines and matching suspenders over a plain black shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. The line of his body along the gilded lounge is carefully constructed to suggest a nonchalance which is betrayed by the tension Alec can see in the rigidity of his limbs; he’s poised to attack. 

This is not the Magnus that Alec recognises, this is a stranger with his husband’s face, his history, and his memories but not his present - or, rather, as Alec is quickly coming to suspect, his future. 

“I’m sorry.” Alec tries to stand up, but as soon as his hands touch the floor, they become stuck, as though someone has glued them to the wood. His feet too are rooted in place. 

“Oh, no. Please don’t apologise. It’s not as though you barged into my home, my private sanctuary, with no warning.” Magnus purses his lips. “You did not pull a weapon on me. I will admit that is a nice change.”

Alec can’t feel along his back for his quiver, but he’s fairly certain his weapons hadn’t travelled with him. Magnus had cloaked them to appear when he needed them, but it’s unlikely they were spelled in preparation for a situation such as this. Not that he is 100% clear on what this even is. 

“Who are you?” Magnus waves a hand dismissively. “Please don’t say ‘Shadowhunter’, I am quite aware of that much, even if your runes weren’t visible only child soldiers hold themselves with such rigid arrogance. I will concede the outfit is quite out of the ordinary, however.”

Alec clears his throat. He has to be delicate about this. “My name is Alexander.” He shifts his weight and draws his shoulders in as best he can. “Alexander L-uh, Wayland. Alexander Wayland.”

Smooth.

Magnus hums, folding his book and letting it fall onto the glass table in front of him. “I had suspected for a fleeting moment that you might have been a Lightwood. No matter.” He elegantly sweeps his legs over until both are flat on the ground, his hands clasped between his knees as he leans forward with a seamless, lethal grace. “The real question I need an answer to would be how a lanky Nephilim such as yourself made it past my wards to crash into the very room in which I had been trying to enjoy some peace and quiet. London isn’t exactly known for such these days.”

“London?” Alec echoes, without quite thinking much of it. 

Despite his foolish hope that he might have been wrong, the evidence was insurmountable and quite literally staring him in the face - however it might have happened, when he’d moved towards Nova he’d been sent falling and inevitably crashing into 1884. Magnus had only stayed in London for a year, hadn’t been back since, and Alec has seen the photos of him, Ragnor and Camille, recognises the darkness in Magnus’ gaze as when he first talked about Camille, and how she had torn him to pieces, discarding him without a thought after she was no longer satisfied with him. 

“Magnus, Archibald has two extra tickets for tonight’s - oh. I do not recall you informing me that you were intending on having company for the night.” 

A tall, slender blonde man hovers in the doorway, staring at Alec with equal parts vague intrigue and thinly veiled distaste. Everything about him exudes taste and elegance, but there is a familiarity to his features that itches at the back of Alec’s mind. He knows the man’s face, has never met him, he doesn’t think, but knows him in the distant way that one knows legends and heroes.  

“The tickets are all yours, Woolsey.” Magnus doesn’t take his eyes off Alec. “I am afraid it appears I will be a little preoccupied, I have some unexpected business to take care off. Enjoy the play on my behalf.”  

Woolsey Scott. The founder of the Praetor Lupus. 

This isn’t funny anymore. 

“Of course.” The corner of Woolsey’s mouth ticks up. None of the documentation around him could have ever come close to capturing the real thing. Magnus had mentioned him a few times, off handed, but Alec can see how they would have gotten along. “Don’t wait up, my dear. I certainly won’t be.”

Just as quickly as he had come sweeping in, Woolsey is gone, and Alec is left to sit glued to the floor while Magnus picks him apart by gaze alone. After a few uncomfortable minutes where the distant ticking of a grandfather stirs Alec a little mad, a chair slides across the polished floor, coming to a stop seamlessly next to Alec. The magic around his hands and feet disappear. He can wiggle his toes again. 

“I kindly suggest that you take a seat.” Magnus states in a tone that leaves no room for a refusal. “I have a few questions that need answering.”

Allison and Lydia shared a confused look. It was just the three of them here, planning out secret santa as everyone else on the pack went for midnight wolf patrol. Stiles didn’t mind, he liked when team humans got to hang.

“Derek doesn’t celebrate his birthday…” Lydia finally said, turning back to him.

“Yeah, I know,” Stiles shrugged, “I just got him a photo album and filled it with all the family pictures of the Hales I could find. I dropped it off in the morning, we had some coffee, and I left. Derek didn’t have to celebrate, and I only had to spend like 5 bucks.”

They were both frowning now though. “How long did that take you?” Allison asked.

“Uh…” Stiles scratched his head, “a month or so?”

“A month or so?” Allison shook her head. “This year you gave me gum for my birthday!”

“Hey, you like gum!’

Lydia smirked, “don’t take it personally, Ally, Stiles only buys good presents for people he loves.”

“Woah- what? Who said - I don’t love anyone!”

Lydia laughed, “Stiles, you once bought me a TV! This year I got more dollar store pens. But Derek gets a whole photo album that you spent a month on? You’ve moved on from me and right on to him,” she grinned, “did you add little notes in it too?”

Stiles blushed, “no!… not that many! Shut up!”

“Relax, Derek likes you too,” she said. All nonchalant, like this wasn’t brand new information.

“What- what do you mean? Not that it - I don’t love him, or anything, but like what do you mean by that.”

“Okay,” Allison said, leaning back, “I can see it now.”

“Um, no? There’s nothing to see?”

“I guess we’ll find out next week,” Lydia said with a wink, “when you both get each other for Secret Santa.”

“You can’t just… cheat like that. Can you? Oh my God, what do you think he’ll get me?” They both laughed. Stiles was starting to see their point. “… not that it matters, what he gets me.”

“He’ll get you something sweet, I’m sure,” Lydia said. “You’ve kind of already outdone yourself with the photo album, but I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“Aw, this is so sweet!” Allison said, smiling at Stiles blush. “Aw at New Years you two can kiss!”

Stiles didn’t even try to deny he liked that idea. And now that he was thinking about it, it was definitely not the first time he liked the idea of Derek kissing him.

Shit.

“Guys, I might like Derek…”

They looked at each other and laughed.

–

That weekend, when they pulled their Secret Santa names out of the hat, Stiles wasn’t surprised he pulled Derek’s name out. Lydia was a witch, she could do anything.

He watched carefully as Derek read his. He made no reaction, but Stiles noticed him glance towards him a minute later. Did you get Stiles’ name too? Was Lydia really doing this?

Was it normal to be this excited for Secret Santa?

Stiles wasn’t sure - but he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait for Christmas.

–

He realized as soon as he stepped into the mall, Lydia was right. He should have fucking waited to do the photo album for Christmas.

No one cared about their 26th birthday. It was a stupid age. Why did he go so big? Stiles had turned 22 this year, and Derek had just taken him out for dinner. He should have done that.

What the hell was he going to do now?

He had $20 he could spend and that was it. He walked past the dollar store but shook his head. Looked into H&M and scoffed. Derek would hate everything in this mall. Stiles wasn’t sure where he bought his ridiculously soft shirts, but it wasn’t here.

And they were probably more than $20s.

Cursing, Stiles back tracked. What could he do? He did the sentimental thing already, but maybe he could.. Add to that? Get… What, video recordings of his family?

No, that would just be creepy. He wasn’t fucking stalking the dead.

He could… draw him a picture? He was shit at art. He could… take him on a trip? At some point.. When neither of them were working.. And it was super cheap?

God he was doomed.

Stiles walked past La Senza and paused. The mannequin was dressed in a skimpy bra, but that wasn’t what he was looking at. It was also covered in bows, like the mannequin itself was the present.

Could… Stiles… be the present?

No, that was ridiculous.

Unless…?

No. Derek deserved a real present.

But maybe..?

Stiles bit his lip in thought. It would be better than dollar store pens at least.

He turned and made his way to the craft store. Time to spend his $20 on high end ribbon.

–

Stiles had on his tightest skinny jeans, the ones that Jackson said made his ass pop. He wore the shirt Lydia had given him, the one he thought had been a size too small but she insisted fit him better than anything else he owned.

Now, for the important layer. He pulled out the red ribbon.

He tied a loop around his chest, making a bow on his front. He tied another around his leg and made a bow on his thigh. He looped a ribbon down his left arm, starting from his shoulder and ending with a bow on his wrist.

He looked at himself in the mirror, a bit worried he had over done it.

“Well, my dad didn’t believe I was gay before, he should see me now.”

Although he and his dad had already had that talk. More than once, actually, after he caught Danny in his room in senior year. That had been awkward.

But they were good now. And Derek wouldn’t be such a surprise to him, he didn’t think…

You know, if Derek… actually liked him back. And wanted to date him. And be introduced to Stiles father as his boyfriend-

He was getting ahead of himself.

He took a deep breath. “Even if he doesn’t like me, the present is he has me for a full day. He can make me clean his windows if he wants.”

WIth that, Stiles pulled on his dad’s trench coat.

It was show time.

–

Stiles usually barged into Derek’s loft like he owned the place, but it felt weird to do that now, so he knocked.

It took a minute before Derek opened the door. He already looked confused, and his eyebrow rose up at the sight of him.

“Stiles.”

“Evening, Derek.”

“Why did you knock…. Why are you dressed like you’re going to flash me?”

Stiles felt his cheeks warm, “it’s, uh, for Secret Santa!”

“You’re going to flash me for Secret Santa?”

“No! I am,” he gestured at himself, “fully clothed underhere, I will have you know. But it is part of the present.”

Derek raised a brow, “the gift exchange is tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but… mine starts today.”

Derek shrugged, then stepped back to wave Stiles inside.

Palms sweating, Stiles stepped in and only hesitated a moment before he opened his coat. “Ta da!” He said, dropping the coat dramatically to the floor, “I am your present!”

Derek looked him up and down, eyes lingering on the bows, “okay.”

Stiles swallowed. He shouldn’t have worn his tightest clothes, could Derek see his sweat through his shirt already?

Fuck, could he smell it?

“And, uh, you can do whatever you want with me. For the next 24 hours.” Derek nodded, his eyes still on the bow on Stiles chest. Shit, maybe this was stupid. “Sorry, I thought… I’m kind of broke, and I - this was dumb-”

“No, it’s good,” Derek stepped toward him. Stiles’ heart started to race, he clenched his fists so they wouldn’t shake. This was the plan, right? This was the fucking point of the gift - make a big decleration and give himself to Derek, for a whole day, to do whatever.

But fuck, what if Derek was into weird shit? Stiles wasn’t a virgin, but he’d only been with two people before, and did that guy from college really count if all they did was handjobs? Stiles didn’t even remember his name. And fuck, what if this made Derek think all he wanted was sex? What if he was ruining a potentially amazing relationship because of one stupid -

All Derek did was reach behind him and close the door.

Of course.

Stiles cleared his throat.

“So, uh…”

“Come with me.”

Stiles obeyed, following Derek to the couch. Was Derek going to throw him on it? Ravish him?

He passed Stiles a laptop.

“You’re good at this stuff, right? I think I have a virus or something.”

“… what?”

“I have you for 24 hours, tonight you can help me with my laptop.”

“Oh, oh, okay, sure.” Stiles sat down, glancing down at the screen. He felt stupid for being relieved.

“After you figure out the virus thing, you can also help me get a netflix. And figure out how to get it on the TV? Lydia is refusing to set up pack movie nights anymore if we’re all going to complain about watching The Notebook everytime.”

“Alright,” Stiles leaned back on the couch, diving right in. By the state of Derek’s desktop, he had a feeling this might actually take him 24 hours.

–

Stiles slept over at Derek’s house that night, though it went very differently than he had imagined. He borrowed Derek’s sweats and a baggy T. He slept on the couch. He worked on his laptop until 2 am, and woke up to Derek making breakfast. Stiles joined him in the kitchen, making coffee beside him as he cracked eggs into a pan.

It was nice. Domestic.

Derek smiled at him as he passed over a mug of coffee, and Stiles smiled back.

This was way better than his original plan.

“So, your computer’s up and running, and can connect to the TV. What else do you need help with?”

“Cleaning.”

“… cleaning what?”

“The loft. The pack is coming over tonight for the Secret Santa exchange. Clean up, and when you’re done, help me make the Christmas cookies.”

Stiles shrugged, “okay.”

–

Cleaning wasn’t hard. Derek kept his place pretty impeccable anyway, so all Stiles had to do was some dusting and sweeping. Then he joined Derek in the kitchen, where he had already started baking.

The rest of the day went by so fast, Stiles ran out of time to go home. He changed back into the clothes he was wearing last night, minus the bows, and came back to find the pack already arriving.

He smiled at Derek as they passed out the food together. He imagined what it would be like if he really did live here, really did help Derek with every pack night. He thought they would make a good pair.

And when their shoulders brushed when they sat down together, Stiles didn’t feel nervous. In fact, he leaned into the touch a bit. And he didn’t miss the soft smile Derek sent his way when he did.

Yeah… he thought they would be great together.

The night went by in a blur, Stiles too focused on Derek’s warmth beside him to really pay attention to any of the presents everyone was opening.

He didn’t even notice people had started leaving until it was only him, Lydia and Allison left.

And Lydia and Allison were getting ready to go.

“Oh. I guess I should get ready to go too.”

“Aw, but you two look so cozy,” Allison said with a smirk.

Stiles flushed. Derek, thankfully, either didn’t notice her comment or ignored it. “I haven’t given you your gift yet,” he said. “You can’t leave.”

“Have fun getting your gift, Stiles,” Lydia said, winking, before she shut the door.

Stiles felt his face grow even hotter, but Derek still didn’t comment on it as he got up to get his present. Bless this man. Bless him and his new social tact.

Derek came back out with a present so big, Stiles felt a pang of regret for going with his stupid idea. He could have at least given him… socks, or something.

“Derek, you didn’t have to-”

“I did. After the photo album, I did.” He cleared his throat, “it’s not that big of a deal, I just didn’t know how to wrap it.”

Stiles didn’t believe him. The way Derek was carefully holding it, he didn’t think Derek fully believed it either.

When he ripped open the wrapping paper, he gasped, “Derek…”

It was a painting. A painting of him in his grad cap and gown, from his university graduation last summer. Beside him was his dad, in his suit, just like in their pictures, and on the other side…

“I tried to make her look a bit older, without changing her too much… your dad gave me a picture.”

“She’s beautiful,” Stiles whispered. His mother looked just like he remembered, he even knew the dress, but… there were wrinkles that he never got to see her have. A few gray hairs she never got to grow. His eyes started to burn, so he put the picture down on the table, taking a deep breath. “Derek, you really didn’t have to…”

“You didn’t have to give me the photo album.”

Stiles licked his lips. Derek leaned forward.

“I knew what you were doing. With your gift, I mean, I knew what you were trying to do.”

“You don’t - I shouldn’t have, I don’t want to force anything. It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid, it was cute. I was just surprised. And you smelled really nervous, sweaty,” Stiles cursed himself, he knew Derek had smelled the sweat. “I didn’t want our first anything together to be with you under pressure. I want us to both want it.”

Stiles looked at Derek, how beautiful and sincere he was. He thought maybe he was already in love with this man.

“Do I smell nervous now?”

“No.”

They leaned forward at the same time, the kiss was soft. Perfect. Derek’s beard was smooth under his fingers.

When they pulled back, Derek grinned. “Can I unwrap my present now?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Lan Wangji half-listens to the exchange from his corner table. It is a familiar one, enough so to be pleasant background noise without distracting too much from his book. When the proper disruption comes, it is neither unexpected nor unwelcome, as it happens every morning around this time. He has already closed his book and moved his empty cup to make room for the small chalkboard that appears in front of him.

“Spicy vegetable for the soup,” Wei Wuxian announces, flinging himself down in the other chair. It is not yet nine in the morning, and he already looks happily tired. Lan Wangji nods and wipes the board clean—perhaps not strictly necessary, but if he redoes the borders, Wei Wuxian will sit with him for longer and take a proper break. “White chocolate and cranberry scones, because ajie loves us very much. And...hm. I’ll do a blueberry mint lemonade today, I think. Do we have blueberries?”

This last is for Wen Ning, who sets down Wei Wuxian’s coffee, Lan Wangji’s refill, and a plate with two of the aforementioned scones. “We do,” Wen Ning confirms. “But they’ll go moldy soon, so you should use them up.”

“Perfect.” Wen Ning smiles at both of them and returns to the counter. Wei Wuxian leans back in his chair, stretches his legs full-length, and looks around the coffee shop with satisfaction. One of his ankles comes to rest against Lan Wangji’s. Without looking up from the chalkboard, Lan Wangji puts his free hand on the table. Wei Wuxian laces their fingers together and dips a scone in his drink.

This is how mornings have gone nearly every day for a few years now. Wen Ning arrives early to open; Wei Wuxian staggers down from the apartment upstairs after being prodded awake by Lan Wangji, who claims his table and reads as the coffee shop comes to life around him. Jin Zixuan arrives at some point, bearing the day’s soup and pastries from Lotus Pier Cafe and often as not a dinner invitation for all of them from Jiang Yanli. Lan Wangji earns his coffee by writing out the day’s specials; Wei Wuxian seizes the opportunity to sit down for as long as it takes him to complete the task. Then Lan Wangji gives his table over to the morning rush and goes to work himself. Cloud Recesses Books is close enough to walk to in good weather, and he gets there in time to open. When the coffeeshop closes at three, Wei Wuxian wanders over and spends the rest of the afternoon doing his own reading or debating with Lan Qiren. It is a pleasant routine, and Lan Wangji sometimes has to stop and wonder at how happy he is.

There has been a coffee shop here for decades, under one owner or another, but the Jiangs bought it only three years ago. Lan Wangji remembers perfectly the first time he visited it after that. It was Lan Xichen’s idea to see what the new management had done with the place, and they went for lunch the first month after it reopened. “‘The Burial Grounds?’” Lan Xichen reads, pausing outside the door. “Interesting name choice.”

“After the Burial Mounds, presumably,” Lan Wangji points out. “The nature preserve outside the city.”

“Ah,” his brother says. “Naturally.”

Despite the name, the inside is entirely pleasant: walls repainted to brighten the space, spider plants hanging in the windows, a detailed menu in plain neat lettering on the chalkboard above the counter, specials in the same writing on a smaller one by the pastry case. “They must outsource their food,” Lan Xichen observes, nodding at the familiar lotus image. “The Jiangs own Lotus Pier too, so it makes sense.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji says. He is listening. He is.

Lan Xichen follows his gaze to the mug on the counter, which holds pens for signing receipts and also a small rainbow flag. “Ah,” he agrees. “That is a pleasing development.”

The line is long enough that they can take their time reading the menu. This is good, because it contains none of the conventional titles. The Med Student, Lan Wangji reads. Four espresso shots in a cup. Below that is The Jiejie: soooooup! (See Specials board for today’s variety). And on and on: The Peacock (a white chocolate mocha with nutmeg), The Angry Brother (chamomile and hibiscus tea), The Adorable Nephew (warm milk with honey), The Headshaker (“Decisions are hard, so let us surprise you!”). Some have less of a story, Lan Wangji thinks: The First Timer is just a latte, and The Adventurer promises undisclosed amounts of cayenne. The result is a place that feels well-loved without being unwelcoming.

“It certainly has character,” Lan Xichen observes as they near the counter. The young man who takes their orders has a quiet earnest smile; he carefully lists the non-dairy milk options for Lan Wangji.

Despite the line, they find a window table easily enough—it is towards the end of the lunch hour—and they watch the street while they wait. It is only a few minutes before a different employee appears with their orders, mugs and bowls balanced precariously enough that Lan Wangji watches the soup in some alarm. But the dishes and their contents reach the table safely, which means that he can look up when the server says brightly, “Can I get you anything else?”

Lan Wangji thinks, Oh. He only barely prevents himself from saying it aloud, and the effort keeps him from speaking at all.

“Oh, wow,” the beautiful man says, staring back at him. Then he shakes himself. “Uh. Sorry. Is this your first time here?”

“We thought we’d see what the new ownership had done with it,” Lan Xichen explains. There is laughter in his voice, subtle enough that Lan Wangji hopes nobody else can hear it. “Our family owns Cloud Recesses, the—”

“The bookshop down the street!” The server’s face lights up—lights up more—and Lan Wangji gives up any hope of forming words himself. “I’ve been in there a few times. I thought you looked familiar.” This is to Lan Xichen; to Lan Wangji, he says, “I haven’t seen you before, though.” He does not say, I would remember, but the sentiment comes through clearly enough that Lan Wangji feels his ears go pink.

“My brother just finished university,” Lan Xichen explains. The amusement has become noticeably less subtle. “He will be working with us.”

“Oh wonderful!” the beautiful man says. “We’ll hope to see you again, then. Both of you, of course.” He sticks his hands into his apron pockets. “I’m Wei Wuxian, the manager. Which is, you know, terrifying. I’m probably not supposed to tell customers that part, though.”

Lan Xichen laughs aloud now, kindly, and Lan Wangji loves his brother for the way the beautiful man—Wei Wuxian—relaxes. “We understand,” Lan Xichen says. “Starting a business is a rather stressful experience at the best of times. I am Lan Xichen; this is Lan Wangji.”

“Welcome to the Burial Grounds, Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji,” Wei Wuxian says gravely, eyes dancing. “Please do let me know if you need anything. Or Wen Ning, he’s honestly much more capable than I am.” He jerks his head towards the counter, where the young man who took their orders is wiping down the espresso machine. “Anyway, I have to get back to work, but I hope you’ll come back.”

“I am certain we will,” Lan Xichen assures him. Wei Wuxian’s eyes linger on Lan Wangji’s face for a moment. When he manages to nod agreement, the smile widens. Wei Wuxian ducks his head at both of them and disappears into what is presumably the back room.

“Well,” Lan Xichen says, after a moment. “This is a delightful discovery.”

“Brother,” Lan Wangji says, deeply pained. He suspects that his ears have gone full scarlet by now.

“I mean the coffee shop, of course.” Lan Xichen takes a sip of his latte and hums with pleasure. “And as a small business ourselves, it’s only right to support others in the neighborhood. We shall have to become regulars.”

Lan Wangji sighs.

He returns alone the next day, just for a coffee in the morning. The one after that, Wei Wuxian sets his drink on the table with a hesitation that already seems out of character. When Lan Wangji tilts his head in question, he says, “I, uh, made you something special. If you want the one you actually ordered, I’ll do that instead, I just...sometimes I get the idea for new things, and I thought you’d like this one.”

Lan Wangji looks at the mug in front of him. It looks like the perfectly dull mocha that he had ordered, unsure what else to get, except that there are flower buds of some kind on top of the foam. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just nods and takes a cautious sip. “Lavender,” he says. He closes his eyes, which helps keep his brain from panicking when Wei Wuxian sits down in the empty chair. “Salt. Something sweet, apart from the chocolate?”

When he opens his eyes, Wei Wuxian’s smile is brilliant. “Birch syrup,” he confirms. “Good, I wasn’t sure how much that would come through; I haven’t used it before. But do you like it? You’re the first person to try that one.”

“Mm.” Lan Wangji looks down at the cup again: something made just for him, not for anyone else. “I like it.” He lifts his head again.

“Oh, wow,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, as he had the first day. “Sorry, I know I’m being weird. I just hadn’t seen you smile before.”

“Not weird,” Lan Wangji says, when he finds his voice. “At least, I don’t mind.” He clears his throat. “Thank you. For the drink. You should put it on the menu.”

“Yeah?” Wei Wuxian grins. “I can do that.”

There is indeed a new listing on the large chalkboard the following day: Dark chocolate mocha with lavender, sea salt, and birch syrup. Lan Wangji looks at the name of it and swallows. The Beautiful Stranger, it says, printed neatly in white chalk below The Headshaker.

When he has been coming to the Burial Grounds several times a week for a month, Lan Wangji arrives one morning to find Wei Wuxian darting frantically back and forth behind the counter. “Wen Ning called out sick,” he explains, when Lan Wangji gets to the front of the line. “This is definitely my reminder to hire more staff. I meant to, since we’ve been doing pretty well, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Anyway, sorry, what can I get you?”

Lan Wangji looks at the smear of cocoa powder on his cheek and says, “Is there anything I can do? I do not know how to use the machines, but I could help with other things.”

“You know,” Wei Wuxian says, “that would actually be amazing. Uh, let’s see. I need to get the Specials board up but my handwriting is atrocious. Would you mind? We’ve got chicken dumpling soup and vegan ginger snaps. No drink specials because I have too much else to worry about today.”

When that task is done (“Oh my god,” Wei Wuxian says, staring. “Well, I know I’m never ever showing you my writing”), Lan Wangji clears tables and wipes down the counter and takes orders. All the while, Wei Wuxian darts around the shop like a cheerful whirlwind. “Don’t you have to go to work?” he asks at one point, managing to pour a perfect latte and read the next ticket at once. “I’ll manage. I mean, I don’t know how, but—”

“I have texted my brother,” Lan Wangji says calmly. “He and uncle will cover the bookshop today.”

“...Right,” Wei Wuxian says. “I feel like I should fight you on that, but also I don’t have time. Thank you.”

At three o’clock, Wei Wuxian sets the Closed sign, draws the curtains, and collapses facedown onto the couch where the college students like to study. Lan Wangji regards him for a moment, then puts down the rag he was using to wipe down the last table. He still cannot use the espresso machine, but the kettle is a more familiar creature.

Wei Wuxian lifts his head blearily at the clink of saucer on table. He sits up enough to drink his tea without spilling it, and he devours two of the ginger snaps that Lan Wangji brought over in rapid succession. Lan Wangji sits down in the armchair across from the couch and sips his own tea.

The cookies seem to revive Wei Wuxian a little. “Thank you,” he says. “Again. For the tea and for, you know, everything. How can I repay you? Not a rhetorical question.”

Lan Wangji cradles his tea, glad to have something to do with his hands. “Well,” he says, “when I came in this morning, I meant to ask if you would have dinner with me.”

“Oh!” Wei Wuxian looks at him, wide-eyed. “I—hang on, past tense? Did you change your mind? I guess you did just get the total immersion experience, which I’m told is a lot—”

“I enjoyed the experience,” Lan Wangji says. “But I do not wish you to feel obligated. I will not ask you in a conversation about compensation for my labor.”

“...Right,” Wei Wuxian says. “Because you think about things like that, because you’re a ridiculously good person as well as gorgeous and in possession of unbelievably nice handwriting. Hold on.” He sets down his mug and goes to the counter, does something out of sight involving paper and a pen, and returns. “Here.” Lan Wangji puts down his own tea and inspects the offering: a gift certificate (filled out in a scrawl that is admittedly dreadful) for enough to keep him supplied with coffee for a month, more if he cuts down on his visits. “And I’ll get you all the tips from today, once they’re counted.”

Lan Wangji does not imagine that he will be cutting down on his visits.

“This will do,” he decides, and tucks the paper away in his wallet. “And half the tips. You worked very hard.”

When he looks up again, Wei Wuxian is fidgeting beside his chair. “Sure,” he says. “Great. So is the compensation conversation finished? Can we have the other one now?”

Lan Wangji smiles; he cannot do anything else. Deliberately, he stands up so they are facing each other. Wei Wuxian swallows, but his eyes are bright and he is smiling helplessly as well. Lan Wangji says, “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian replies immediately. Then, “You mean like a real date, right? I mean, I’d still say yes either way, but just so we’re clear.”

“A real date,” Lan Wangji confirms.

“Oh wonderful,” Wei Wuxian says. “I really hoped that was what you meant. Yes. Did I already say that?”

He is still in his apron, which has great smears on it from when a cup of coffee spilled on the counter earlier. His hair is coming loose from its tie for at least the fourth time that day; there is raspberry syrup on his forehead and powdered sugar on his nose. He is very, very beautiful.

Lan Wangji reaches up and tucks one loose strand of hair behind his ear. It does very little to help anything, but it means that he gets to feel the slight intake of breath as Wei Wuxian goes still. Lan Wangji does not drop his hand back to his side. Instead, he cups Wei Wuxian’s cheek very gently. He whispers, “May I—”

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says, a little hoarsely. “Yeah, yes, please—”

Lan Wangji kisses him. Wei Wuxian makes a soft sweet sound and puts both arms around his neck; Lan Wangji cradles his face a little more firmly and drops his other hand to the small of Wei Wuxian’s back, drawing him in.

And so now it has been three years, or near enough. Lan Wangji dutifully writes out the Specials board every morning; the main menu also bears his script. He has met Wen Qing, who is now a surgeon and no longer the Med Student of the four expresso shots but who remains alarmingly intense. He has also met the Adorable Nephew and the Headshaker as well as the Peacock, Jiejie, and the Angry Brother, all three of whom received him with some combination of suspicion and amusement. “So you’re the Beautiful Stranger,” Jiang Cheng says, having shown up at the Burial Grounds to demand an introduction all of two days after that first date. “Hmph. He’s been yammering about you for a month; you better have been worth it.”

Alec is about to hang up when Izzy’s voice changes.

“And Alec, be careful,” she says, voice sounding unsettled. “It sounded bad. I don’t think it was just demons.”

“I’ll be careful Iz,” he murmurs, “promise.”

“Okay,” Izzy replies, “I’ll meet you there.”

When Alec hangs up Magnus sends him a small smile. “Off to save the world on your day off?”

Alec huffs a small laugh, unsheathing his seraph blade, “demons don’t take a day off.”

“Portal?” Magnus asks, already summoning magic to his fingertips.

“Actually,” Alec says, “would you come with? Iz said it wasn’t good.”

Magnus rolls his eyes, sweeping his hands down and creating a portal. “Darling, if you thought I was going to let you walk into a patrol gone wrong without backup, you don’t know me well enough.”

Alec laughs, grabbing Magnus’ wrist as he steps though the portal.

The laugh quickly dies in his throat when they step out into chaos.

The street is flooded with screams of pain and writhing Shadowhunters. It is unlike anything Alec has ever seen before. None of the patrol is left standing.

Alec hurries closer, Magnus on his heels. He kneels down next to Dominic, the patrol lead, Magnus doing the same on his other side.

“What the hell happened?” Alec demands while Magnus places a hand onto Dominic’s chest to try and heal him.

“Ambushed,” Dominic gets out between pained groans, “a warlock.”

Shit. A rogue warlock willing and strong enough to take out an entire team of Shadowhunters did not bode well for them.

Alec sees Magnus’ hands still at Dominic’s words. When Alec meets his eyes there’s something he can’t quite read warring there.

“It’s poison,” Magnus says, voice ragged. He gets to his feet, taking several steps away from Dominic’s body.

Are you sure? Alec starts to ask but cuts himself off when he sees genuine fear flit across Magnus’ face for a brief second.

He wants to reach out to Magnus, to do something to reassure him, but Alec doesn’t know what the hell is going on here and if this is poison, they likely don’t have the time for comfort.

“Do you remember anything about the warlock?” Alec asks, turning away from Magnus with some difficulty, “defining features.”

“Tattoos up his arm,” Dominic gasps out, “slight Italian accent.”

Magnus freezes again, voice hard when he speaks, “Angelo. The bastard. He’s banned from the Western Hemisphere.”

“We need to find him,” Alec says.

Magnus shakes his head, “We need to get these people back to the Institute first. This poison,” he falters, “it’s slow acting but extremely painful and dangerous. We need the antidote. Quickly.”

***

Even once Izzy arrives with backup, it takes them a good half hour to drag the entire patrol through a portal to the Institute infirmary.

Alec stands in the hall outside the infirmary, arms crossed, watching his Shadowhunters writhe on the beds. Medical staff flits from bed to bed but they are of little use. If this is poison like Magnus had said, the only thing that is going to help them is the antidote.

Magnus is pacing the hall Alec is standing in, on the phone with Catarina. Alec tries not to eavesdrop, but Magnus has seemed off since they found the patrol.

“I thought I’d gotten rid of it,” Magnus was muttering down the line, hands gesturing wildly, “I know—I—yes, I have everything at the loft. But—“ Magnus cuts himself off when he sees Alec watching him.

There’s a split second where Alec thinks about looking away and pretending he wasn’t listening. He doesn’t.

“Just go to the loft,” Magnus says into the phone, hanging up and then looking at Alec carefully.

Alec takes a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

Something flashes across Magnus’ face, too fleeting for Alec to understand what it means. He doesn’t answer the question.

“Cat is on her way to the loft,” he says instead. “We have the ingredients to prepare the antidote for the patrol. But we need to find Angelo. There’s a good amount of hideouts he could be squatting at—“

“Give me the locations,” Alec cuts him off.

This is a deflection method Alec has grown used to from Magnus. He starts moving a thousand miles a minute and doesn’t stop for air. Alec isn’t sure why this is hitting Magnus so close to home, but it obviously is.

“Alexander,” Magnus starts and then trails off. His voice loses some of the tension it had when he says Alec’s name but he still looks wound tight, fingers rubbing together absently.

“Magnus, you can’t do two things at once,” Alec says gently. He wants to reach out and still Magnus’ hands, to twine their fingers together and ask Magbus if he’s okay and get an honest answer. He knows that won’t happen though. “I’ll call you when we locate him. I promise,” he says instead.

Magnus seems to deflate just a little bit and nods. “Okay,” he snaps his fingers and a paper appears in his hand. He hands it to Alec.

***

Alec puts the whole Institute to work with the list of locations Magnus had given him so he’s not surprised when it only takes them a couple of hours to locate Angelo.

“We’re pretty sure he’s at the safehouse in Queens,” Izzy says, sidling up beside Alec and handing him the paper with Magnus’ list.

Alec takes the paper, folding it and putting it in his pocket. He can’t get Magnus’ panic out of his head.

He almost wants to just put together a team and go get Angelo himself, but he’d promised Magnus he’d call him. And from the way Magnus had said Angelo’s name, it seems they know each other quite well. Logically, Magnus is the only one of them who knows what they might be walking into. Despite that, Alec still wants to protect him.

He sighs and pulls out his phone, “Start getting a team together,” he tells Izzy, “I’m going to call Magnus and let him know.”

“Alexander.” Magnus’ voice sounds distracted when he answers the phone.

“We found him,” Alec says, “he’s still in New York. Queens.”

Alec hears Magnus put something down on the other line, “Of course he is. The man’s always been dramatic. He’s probably waiting for a fight.”

So Alec had been right. They do know each other well.

“Magnus,” Alec starts carefully, “about Angelo. It would be nice to know what we’re getting into here.”

He doesn’t voice the part about how Magnus had looked scared of Angelo. He’s not sure Magnus would appreciate Alec pointing that out.

There’s a tense moment of silence in which Alec almost regrets asking the question.

“We were friends,” Magnus finally says, “but that was a long time ago.”

“And he’s looking for a fight?” Alec prompts.

Magnus chuckles dryly, no humor in the sound. “Let’s just say that our friendship didn’t end on the best terms.”

“Did it have to do with the poison?” Alec asks before he can stop himself.

Magnus goes quiet on the other line. Alec can hear what must be Catarina moving around in the background of the call.

“The poison,” Magnus finally says, “is my fault.”

“What?” Alec asks, pausing his pacing in the hallway.

“I developed it,” Magnus says, voice hard.

“You developed the poison Angelo used,” Alec repeats slowly, brain trying to catch up with the implications of the statement, “that’s why you knew what it was so quickly.”

“Yes,” Magnus confirms, voice barely a whisper now. Alec can hear the guilt in it even over the phone.

It is at odds with the kind of person Alec would imagine would develop a poison that was slowly and painfully killing Alec’s people in the next room. It isn’t at odds with the kind of person Alec knows Magnus is though. Here and now.

“Magnus—“ Alec starts, only to be cut off quickly.

“It was a mistake.” Magnus says. “And I—we don’t have the time to talk about this right now. The Shadowhunters need to get the antidote in the next few hours if we want them to survive and I haven’t got a clue what Angelo’s plan here is but I’d rather not find out.”

Alec bites his lip. It’s only been a few hours since Alec last saw Magnus but he sounds so tired .

“We can go in ourselves,” Alec suggests even though he already knows Magnus isn’t going to agree with that.

“Cat’s got the rest of this antidote handled. I’ll meet you in Queens,” Magnus says, ignoring the offer, and Alec sighs internally.

“Okay,” he agrees even though it’s not.

***

Magnus is dressed to kill when he meets with Alec and his team. He has on the same shirt he’d had on earlier but he’s exchanged the plain black blazer with a studded mauve coat and an overabundance of jewelry that he hadn’t had on before.

His face is hard when he steps through the portal but he sends Alec a thin smile when he sees him looking at him.

“There are wards up,” Alec tells him as he walks over.

“Not a problem,” Magnus says, “Angelo was never very good at wards.”

Alec wants to ask what Magnus and Angelo used to do together, dealing with poisons and making wards for safe houses but now is not the time.

Magnus turns to the team of Shadowhunters Alec had brought with him for the mission. Jace, Izzy, and Clary stand at the front of the group. Magnus looks at them and then to Alec.

Alec nods at him. Magnus knows by now that Alec doesn’t mind when he briefs his Shadowhunters but he always asks permission first.

“As soon as I bring the wards down, Angelo is going to know. I’m going to try and block his magic as fast as possible but we have to be careful. The poison is magically administered. If you see magic coming at you, get out of the way.”

Magnus’ gaze flicks back to Alec’s for a brief moment and he looks like he’s going to say something but he just lets out a breath instead. Alec realizes beltatedly that Magnus might be worried about him .

Magnus walks by Alec and up to the building. Alec lets himself reach out and brush a hand over his back as he walks by. Magnus’ seems to let himself relax into it for a touch of a second.

The next second he’s stepped out of Alec’s space, every inch the powerful high warlock. Alec watches as he makes a downward motion with his hands, similar to the way he brings down the wards at the loft.

There air ripples with electricity and the ozone smell of magic and then Magnus drops his hands. He doesn’t wait, just walks straight into the building without hesitation.

Alec goes after him, motioning for the team to follow behind.

“Do you have a plan?” Alec asks quietly, adjusting his grip on his bow out of habit as they walk a narrow hallway into the safehouse.

“Does getting the bastard the hell out of my city count?” Magnus asks. Alec doesn’t fail to notice that there’s poorly hidden fury in his voice.

Before he can reply Magnus is yelling “duck!” and pushing Alec down. Alec drops quickly as a burst of magic whizzes over their heads.

Magnus stands quickly, hand glowing blue and throwing his own burst of magic in the direction the other magic had come from.

Alec stays crouched on the ground. “Everyone okay?”

“We’re good,” Jace calls from behind him and Alec nods to himself, standing.

“Well he’s not hiding, at least,” Alec says.

Magnus lets out an amused huff, the first thing that has sounded even near positive since he’d gotten here. Alec sends him a small smile.

Magnus starts forwards again, this time more cautiously. Alec follows his lead, muscles tense and ready to spring into action.

The hallway opens up into a large room. It’s mostly empty save for a shelf against one wall. It’s obvious Angelo hasn’t been here long at all.

The man in question stands in the center of the room. Both his hands glow red with magic. His mouth turns up into a slow smile when he sees them, sending an uneasy feeling into Alec’s gut.

“Magnus Bane,” he says, voice echoing in the room, “What a lovely surprise. Did you enjoy my little gift? You’ve always enjoyed a bit of poison haven’t you?”

Magnus falters next to him and Alec clenches his jaw, torn between wanting to protect Magnus’ honor and not knowing the full story.

“They’ll be dead soon,” Angelo goes on. He ignores Alec and the rest of the team in favor of speaking directly to Magnus, “But you already know that. You—“

Alec doesn’t hesitate this time. He might not know the full story, but he does know that revealing Magnus is behind the poison in front of a team of Shadowhunters who had just seen their friends in unimaginable pain back at the Institute is not going to end well. Alec trusts Magnus, knows the kind of person he is. His Shadowhunters will take any excuse to vilify him. He steps swiftly in front of Magnus, letting an arrow fly.

Angelo’s sentence is cut off by a sharp cry of pain as the arrow lodges itself into his leg. It gives Magnus enough time to recover and he’s hurled a binding spell at Angelo before Alec can make another move.

Tendrils of magic wrap around Angelo’s body, rendering him immobile and unable to use magic. Alec freezes but doesn’t let down his guard.

Angelo just smiles despite his current state. “Is this any way to treat a friend?”

Magnus ignores his comment. “I told you if you came back here that I’d send you straight to the Spiral Labyrinth.”

“Oh dear, so dramatic.” Angelo replies.

“What do you want?” Alec demands.

Angelo turns to look at him, only now acknowledging he’s there. “It’s very simple, Shadowhunter ,” he says, a hatred in his eyes that has Alec holding his breath, “I just want to remind Magnus that he can play nice with you Nephilim all he wants.” His gaze cuts over to Magnus, who is standing stock still, “But he’s still one of us. Always will be.”

Anger lights like fire in Alec. He imagines pulling his seraph blade out and  stabbing it straight into Angelo’s side, no mercy. It takes an incredible amount of self restraint not to go through with it.

Magnus acts in the same moment, reaching out and conjuring a portal that Angelo disappears through. When the portal closes, Magnus quickly sends a fire message and then brushes his hands off theatrically.

He spins on his heel to face the team of Shadowhunters standing behind them and grins. “Well I think that’s done, why don’t we go save your friends?”

It isn’t until everyone turns and starts shuffling back out of the safehouse that Magnus’ posture betrays his true feelings.

He looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut, shoulders slumping and hands balled into fists.

Alec walks up to him and places a careful hand on his shoulder. For a moment, when Magnus turns to look at him he looks heartbreakingly fragile.  

Alec opens his mouth but Magnus has already pulled away, following behind the line of Shadowhunters.

Alec lets out a silent breath and follows him.

Later. They’ll talk about it later.

***

Once Alec has briefed the Institute on the situation he makes his way down to the infirmity to check on the patrol.

Magnus and Cat had administered the antidote while Alec had given his briefing so the infirmary is quiet when he gets there. He stands in the doorway, watching Cat flit from bed to bed along with infirmary staff. Shadowhunters are sitting up in bed now, chatting across the room or sleeping soundly.

It’s a much better atmosphere than it had been only a few hours ago when all of them had been screaming in pain.

“Hey boss!” Dominic calls out when he notices Alec in the doorway.

Alec smiles, stepping into the room. “How are you feeling?”

He pretends not to notice Magnus watching him from the corner of the room.

Dominic leans back into the pillows in the bed. “Exhausted, but alive.” He gestures to where Magnus and Cat stand, “all thanks to them.”

It’s a win, Shadowhunters in his Institute acknowledging the Downworlders who save their asses time and time again. When Alec turns to share the moment with Magnus and Cat it’s to see Magnus hurrying out the door.

He excuses himself from Dominic and makes his way over to Cat. It’s interesting, their relationship. Alec respects Cat and he hopes she respects him as well. But it’s more than that. They share a common trait in that they love Magnus Bane.

“He said he told you,” Cat says without preamble when Alec walks over.

Alec sighs. “A little.”

Cat smiles sadly at him, “take him home.”

Alec nods.

***

Magnus goes straight for the drinks cart when they get back home. Alec watches the tense line of his back for a long moment before he walks up behind him.

“Magnus.” Alec waits until Magnus turns to face him and then brings his hands up to cup both sides of Magnus’ face. “It’s okay. Everyone is okay.”

Magnus shakes his head minutely between Alec’s hands. “It’s not okay.”

“Talk to me,” Alec murmurs, sweeping his thumbs over Magnus’ cheeks and searching his eyes. “Let me help.”

Magnus releases a shaky breath, turning his head so Alec’s hands fall from his cheeks. “Damn you,” he mutters. Alec isn't quite sure he’s supposed to have heard it.

Magnus places his glass loudly back onto the drinks cart. He doesn’t look back at Alec. “You can’t help.”

Alec feels helpless, both wanting to step forwards and gather Magnus into his arms and being worried he’ll be pushed away even further if he tries.

“Okay,” Alec says quietly. It’s hard, realizing that sometimes he can’t fix things. It’s what Alec does. He fixes the problem. It’s how he’s taken care of Izzy and Jace all his life. But with Magnus he’s found that sometimes fixing something isn't an option. “But I’m not going anywhere.”

Alec reaches out and slips his fingers between Magnus’. He tugs only slightly but Magnus jerks forwards suddenly. Their joined hands get crushed between their chests and Magnus’ forehead falls to Alec’s shoulder. His free hand smooths up and down Magnus’ lower back.

They stay like that for a long time. Magnus isn’t quite crying, but he takes small shuddering breaths into Alec’s shirt that break Alec’s heart.

When he finally lifts his face, he looks wrecked. Alec isn’t sure what to say so he brings the hand still tangled with Magnus’ to his lips and kisses Magnus’ knuckles.

Magnus shudders but doesn’t pull his hand away.

“God, I—I’m sorry,” he gets out quietly.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Alec says just as softly.

“I almost got half of your Institute killed. Of course I need to apologize.”

Alec is shaking his head even before Magnus can finish the sentence. “ You didn’t poison them. In fact you caught the guy who did and saved everyone with the antidote.”

“I wouldn’t have had to if I hadn’t made the damn thing in the first place,” he says bitterly, “I was young and I was angry. And I did things I’ll never forgive myself for.”

“Magnus—“ Alec starts, but it seems like some sort of dam has been broken in Magnus because words keep spilling out.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew I wanted my father’s approval. I wanted so badly for him to think I was worth it. For someone to be proud of me for once.” Magnus lets out a laugh that holds no humor, “And he was. Fuck, he was proud of me. And that’s when I’d realized what I’d done.”

Alec doesn’t say anything, just squeezes Magnus’ hand.

“But it was too late,” Magnus says, “I'd been working on it with Angelo so he knew about it and he refused to wipe out all records of it like I wanted.”

“So you came up with an antidote instead.” Alec guesses.  

Magnus nods. “I haven’t had to use it in years. It caught me off guard. Reminded me of a past I’d rather forget.” He finally looks at Alec for the first time in the conversation. “A past I’d have preferred you didn’t know about.”

There’s hesitance and something like resignation in Magnus’ face now. As if he’s ready for Alec to hate him. As if that was even remotely possible.

“Magnus,” I don’t care about your past. I love you. Here and now. I know who you are. I see it everyday.”

Magnus scoffs but Alec isn’t finished.  He’ll be damned if he doesn’t show Magnus what everyone else sees when they look at him.

“I watch you choose good every single fucking day. You saved my people today. Hell you’ve saved us hundreds of times. You help every person that shows up at your door. You made a mistake. That doesn’t define you.”

Magnus’ eyes are wet by the time Alec finishes and he’s blinking rapidly. This time it’s Alec who is pulled into a hug by their joined hands.

“I love you.” Magnus mutters into Alec’s chest and Alec presses a kiss to his temple. He’s not sure he’s convinced Magnus but this is a start.

Why he had eventually agreed to the blind date was anyone’s guess, even Alec himself was questioning it, especially since the guy had apparently decided not to show.

“That’s it.  I’m—”

“I am so sorry I’m late!”

Alec looked up startled.  In front of him was what had to be the most uniquely beautiful man he’d ever laid eyes on.  His hair was swept up in an elegantly wavy coif with blue highlights, his eyes were traced in black eyeliner with some kind of shimmery eyeshadow that helped bring out the beautiful bronze of the man’s eyes.  His lips were plump with a slight pink gloss to them, which Alec wanted nothing more than to kiss.

Wait…what?

Alec shook his head and closed his eyes.

Get a hold of yourself Alec.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, finding his blind date looking at him with wide eyes.

“Look, you’re probably angry with me, which I totally get, but I have a very good excuse I swear—"

The man stopped rambling as Alec held up both his hands indicating that the other man should stop.

“You’re here now, which is all that matters, right?” Alec said straightening up and focusing his attention on his date.

The other man smiled softly at Alec and gently nodded his head.

“Right.  Let me formally introduce myself, I’m Magnus, Magnus Bane.”

“Alec.”

The two men shook hands and neither one could keep the smiles off their faces.

“Wow, Isabelle really hit the nail on the head with you.” Alec couldn’t help but say, feeling himself blush as his own words hit his ears.

The other man, Magnus, was quiet for a moment, looked unsure before a Cheshire grin spread over his face.

“Can’t say I heard as much about you, but I don’t think words could do you justice Alexander.”

Alec paused a moment, his full name coming from the man in front of him causing a shiver to radiate up his spine.

I like that.

Alec chuckled and smiled back at the man who seemed like such a force of nature, all he wanted was to try and contain it just for himself.

So, the two men chatted and laughed and drank together for the next couple of hours.  The waitress who had previously been looking at Alec with pity was now looking on at him with envy.  It felt really good he had to admit to himself.

Magnus was an impressive man.  He owned his own night club (he’d been helped out with a loan by his grandmother), but he’d been the one to turn it into a successful venture.  He was also an artist; painting was his main forte, but he also enjoyed writing poetry every now and again.

“Maybe one day you could show me a piece of your work.” Alec had said nonchalantly.

Smirking Magnus had replied with, “Maybe one day I’ll let you see my piece.  I’ve been told it’s quite impressive.”

Alec had nearly choked on his food at that.

“I didn’t—That’s not—”

“Alexander, relax,” Magnus had said reaching forward and clasping his hand over Alec’s. “I’m just flirting with you, no need to get flustered, though I must admit you’re even more adorable now than you were ten minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry gentleman, but we’re closing in five minutes.”  It was their waitress who did have guilty look on her face.

Magnus swiped the check from her before Alec even had a chance.

“It’s on me my dear Alexander.  I was late after all.”

Alec couldn’t stop the stutter that made its way out of his mouth as he tried to protest, but it was a losing battle.  The man before him had bewitched him.  Everything about Magnus Bane left him feeling hungry for more.  His sister sure knew how to pick guys.

They ended up exchanging numbers, promising each other to text when they made it home safely.

Magnus took Alec’s hand in his and placed a gentle kiss to the top of it.  Alec’s eyebrows were up to his hairline as Magnus looked up meeting his gaze.

“Goodnight, sweet prince.”

And in a flourish Magnus Bane was gone.

Alec was in a daze most of the way home.   He also had the biggest smile on his face.  Izzy definitely had outdone herself.

His phone rang suddenly, and he answered without thinking.

“Hello?”

“Alec?”

“Hey Isabelle, what are you—”

“Did Jason show up?”

Alec looked at his phone in confusion.

“Um, who’s Jason?”

“Shit, what an asshole, I should have known.”

“Iz you really need to figure out what you’re saying because I just had the best date I’ve had in years, and you’re kind of freaking me out here.” Alec said stopping.

“Well, I don’t know how that would have been possible Alec, because the guy I fixed you up with turned out to be a total prick and decided not to show.  I had been so scared you’d just sat there all night alone…"

“Ok Izzy wait a second.  So, if the guy who you set me up with didn’t show then who the hell did I have dinner and desert with for the last two and a half hours?”

“Oh, Alec I—I’m not sure.  Two and a half hours, really?  That’s Amazing!”

“Not the point Iz.” Alec said impatiently trying not to freak out.

“What was the guy’s name?”

“I don’t think that matters—”

“Alec just tell me the guy’s damn name.”

Sighing Alec shook his head.  “Magnus Bane.  That’s his name.”

There was a moment of silence before Isabelle started to scream on the other line.  Alec had to hold the phone out from his ear.

“Iz? Isabelle?  Can you stop screaming I kind of need my hearing.”

Laughing Isabelle stopped her yells and took in a few deep breaths.

“Alec, Magnus Bane?  He’s only one of New York’s most prominent eligible bachelors.  He frequents bars, restaurants, and night clubs sometimes. And he, Oh!  He must have seen you were a damsel in need of rescuing and decided—”

“Isabelle, I am not a damsel.”  Alec interrupted, feeling all the hope and excitement from the date drain from him.

There was another moment of silence before she answered.

“Alec listen, I didn’t mean anything by that.  Magnus Bane has very high standards when it comes to those he takes interest it, he might have a reputation of sorts but he really is a good guy, at least from what I understand.”

“Iz if you think that’s suppose to make me feel better—”

His phone buzzed and he noticed a text message from Magnus.

“Not home yet, but I can’t stop thinking about you.  Tonight, was fantastic, but I have a confession to make.  I wasn’t your blind date.  I saw you sitting there looking absolutely stunning and the idea of leaving you alone seemed cruel to me.  So, I took a chance and I am glad I did.  If you forgive me, I’d like to see you again.  What do you say?”

Alec felt the wind knock itself out of him, and he actually smiled.

“Isabelle, I’ll call you later I have a text to respond to.”

Magnus stares at the cloth for so long that his brewing potion is now ruined. He doesn’t care though, not when there’s something more important to focus on. With a shaky breath and hand, he grasps the blanket. It’s so incredibly soft in his hands, the fabric is perfectly suitable for a baby. Not just any baby though Magnus realizes, his soulmate’s. His soulmate must have just turned two, when most soulmates start to receive their partner’s lost items.

A sob escapes his lips and he presses the blanket to his face. 

Four hundred years, it took four hundred years for his soulmate to be born. Magnus had lost hope such a long time ago of ever getting one. Each year that passed with nothing showing up around had him made him lose hope. And after everything Camile did to him, the manipulation, the gaslighting, stealing his items, and pretending that they were soulmates, Magnus swore to never open his heart again.

Now here is this pacifier and blanket in his loft, letting him know that love will not be lost to him. That there is someone out there that is made for him. He scrunches his face at that thought. His soulmate is a baby, he shouldn’t be thinking like that, not yet. He still has many years to go, but Magnus will gladly wait as long as it takes to meet them.

“Oh god my soulmate is a baby and I’m a warlock,” he says out loud to no one. He glances in horror at the state of his apothecary. Everything is everywhere, the minute he forgets one thing it’s going to teleport to a baby. 

Potion forgotten, Magnus starts to clean his apothecary with precision, making sure that everything is labeled and in a proper place that is easy to find. The last thing he needs is to kill a baby, let alone his soulmate. 

“You better not die because of me,” he demands, glaring at the pacifier and blanket now resting in a case in his bedroom.

The first six years are filled with anxiety on Magnus’ end. His friends made fun of him at first, thinking he had finally gone mad. When he showed them the items, they rightly shut up and even occasionally helped him if he was looking for something for a potion. None of them wanting to be responsible for the death of his soulmate. This is the happiest they have seen him in a long time, if it means portaling at ungodly hours of the night to help him find something before it disappears then so be it.

Magnus did have fun “accidentally” losing toys for his soulmate to have and play with. He has no idea if his soulmate actually uses anything that he finds, he hopes that he does. While Magnus is sure that his soulmate’s parents spoiled their child to no end, Magnus was never one to not spoil someone important to him.

Somehow Magnus knew that the exciting thrill was never going to last. His soulmate would be eight now. He glances at the calendar on the wall, a big red circle around September 12th. Magnus had made sure to mark the date after he got a hold of his emotions all those years ago. 

He’s debating on what to send an eight year old child on their birthday. He’s been good about getting gender neutral toys for his soulmate, not knowing if they are a boy or girl. He’s going through a catalog on his phone when he spots a piece of paper on the coffee table. It's flipped upside down but Magnus can see some dark ink on the other side of the paper.

His soulmate must be doodling or drawing and forgotten something they made for their birthday. Magnus reaches out and grabs the paper flipping it over to inspect the drawing.

The paper bursts into flames by his magic.

No that- that can’t be right. Magnus just saw the paper wrong, he must have. There’s no possible way that was what he thought it was. He gets a second chance to see when another paper appears on his coffee table. He feels himself starting to fall apart as he reaches for the sheet and flips it over. He recognizes the marking anywhere.

Iratze

The paper once again catches fire from his barely contained magic. Magnus feels his throat tighten and his breath getting shorter. Shadowhunter. His soulmate is a shadowhunter, his mind provides. He feels like the universe is playing a cruel joke on him. Of all the people living on this earth, his soulmate had to be of the people who have hunted and killed his kind for hundreds of years. 

Magnus barks out a wet laugh, immediately summoning a drink from his cart and downing it in one go. The glass is already refilled as he watches more papers appear on the table, more runes scribble on them. He doesn’t know how many times he refills his glass, but he got the desired effect he wanted: numbness. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s stared at those papers, drinking his pain away. He can barely sit up at this point with the alcohol flowing through his system. He can’t remember the last time he got this drunk. He’s been better since Camille, not wanting to go that far again. He hears the door to his loft open. Was he expecting guests? He doesn’t remember, doesn’t care. The intruder could rob him for all he cared.

“Well you look awfully dreadful,” a familiar British voice says. “Is this why you’ve been ignoring my calls and I had to take the long way in?” 

“Ragnor,” Magnus slurs, he tilts his head towards his friend. The small movement makes him nauseous, it takes everything in not to immediately stumble to the bathroom to throw up.

“What is it this time?” His friend sighs dramatically. Ragnor glances around the room, glaring at something out of his field of view. “Obviously something has upset you enough to drink almost your entire cart. Did Camille try and reach out to you?”

“No,” he says too quietly. He can already feel the emotions he’s tried to lock down start to bubble up. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Ragnor, his friend doesn’t need to worry about him. The man always has more important things to deal with than him. Still, his arm has a mind of its own and points to the coffee table.

“What, you were studying runes and decided that getting drunk would be easier?” Oh, he truly loves Ragnor, the old fool knows how to make him laugh even at his lowest of lows. 

“Not mine,” he manages to get out before tears start to fall. 

“Oh, old friend,” Ragnor whispers. He’s happy that he doesn’t have to explain more, his friend understanding what the papers mean. 

The couch dips beside him and an arm wraps around his shoulders. Magnus doesn’t even try to resist, he’s just so tired. He rests his head on Ragnor’s shoulder and cries. Damn the universe for dealing him this deck of cards. 

As his soulmate grows older, the less stuff they seem to misplace. Magnus would find it strange that he’s practically getting nothing, but at this point, he doesn’t care what the shadowhunter does with their life. 

He does, though, care about the number of arrows he’s been finding in his loft. 

Magnus glares at the vase he designated for arrow disposal and sees that it’s full. He has five more wrapped in a cloth in his hands. With a sigh he snaps his fingers and summons another vase, tossing them in. He doesn’t know why he’s keeping them, there’s really no point except to dump them at the Shadowhunter’s feet when they meet. Maybe even throw a few at them, he considers. 

There’s nothing on them so he figures that the shadowhunter is training. Though Magnus almost shudders at the thought that a child is already practicing how to use a weapon. His soulmate is only ten years old, surely Nephilim society would wait until their children are at least thirteen before making them train for hunting. 

“Stupid Nephilim, not keeping track of his arrows,” Magnus grumbles. “That’s almost thirty arrows in the past two months! I would like to think that a shadowhunter would at least know how to put arrows away after training and not leave them everywhere.”

“Do go easy on them, Magnus,” Ragnor snorts from the other room. “It’s not like they had a choice in what family and life they were born into.”

“They still have the option to run away,” he grumbles, knowing he’s being irrational.

“Surely you don’t want them to be homeless at ten years old?” Ragnor says, entering the room with two cocktails, handing one off to Magnus before plopping down on a chair. 

“Maybe,” Magnus whispers, he looks over at his friend and sees the raised brow. He rolls his eyes, “Okay I don’t, not really.”

Magnus knows he’s being unkind to his soulmate. But after everything in recent years with the Uprising and the Circle, it’s hard not to associate all shadowhunters into the same category especially when so many members of the Circle turned tail and came crawling back to the Clave. And the Clave willingly brought them back into their ranks with a slap on the wrist. Magnus rolls his eyes at the thought of Robert and Maryse Lightwood being allowed to look over the New York Institute as their punishment. Those two should have been put behind bars for all that they did for the Circle.

“Don’t you think you are being a bit dramatic?” Ragnor asks as Magnus takes the seat across from him. 

“Me? Dramatic? Hardly, my dear Cabbage,” he says dramatically, hand on his heart. 

“Right,” Ragnor snorts. “Just a gentle reminder that you are getting upset at a child for being born into a life he had no power over just like you with Asmo-”

“Don’t,” Magnus snaps, his glamor flickering for a moment. “Don’t ever compare my upbringing to that of a shadowhunter.”

Ragnor doesn’t say anything else which he kinda feels bad about. His friend also knows better than to talk about his father in such a casual way. The two fall into a tense silence as they go through the books scattered on the table. He sighs, glancing over at the two vases of arrows that he’s put in his library. Ragnor is probably right, but he’s not going to tell that to the old fool’s face.

Magnus will apologize later, right now he wants to focus on the spell they’re working on and not about the shadowhunter.

The day they do meet is not by fate, no, more so Clarissa Fairchild, who Magnus had almost forgotten about. It’s been a couple of years since her mother brought the frightened child to his doorsteps to wipe her memories. Seems the girl has fallen into shadowhunter hands after her mother goes missing. He wouldn’t put it past the rogue Circle members that were in his club a few nights ago to be the reason.

As he examines the ruby necklace, a memento of another time in his life, a shout echoes across the basement and something whistles past his ear. Turning around he sees a Circle member fall to the ground dead with an arrow to the heart. 

Magnus feels his own heart stop as he turns to watch the archer descend the staircase and make his way to the corpse, to search for life. Magnus feels his skin turn warm and start to tingle, like a lego piece snapping into place. A whisper of a no slips past his lips. The shadowhunter must feel the same as he stands from checking the body he stands straight. Hazel meets brown as the man, the shadowhunter, stares at him in shock.

It’s him.

Magnus doesn’t wait for the man to reach him. He summons a portal, ignoring Clary’s cry to wait, and steps back into his loft. His breathing is erratic and it feels like his heart is about to explode. 

His soulmate is here, in New York. What is Magnus going to do? He can’t leave his post as High Warlock, not with Circle members making a reappearance. His people need him to protect them. Over the blood pulsing in his ears, he hears a cry, immediately snapping him out of his thoughts. Reaching out with his magic he feels that his hideout has been infiltrated. Dammit, he shouldn’t have left this place for that girl. 

Magnus can worry about the ache in his chest later, his people need his help. 

He doesn’t even wait for the Circle members to notice him, magic blasts out of his hands attacking any person who dares to enter this safe haven. When he finds out who leaked the location, he’s going to ban them from New York. He doesn’t have use for someone who would rat out his own people. 

“Your magic is strong, warlock,” the Circle member taunts. “Much stronger than that horned warlock I killed this morning.”

“Elias,” he says solemnly. He throws a ball of fire at the man who easily dodges it. They circle around each other, the man’s grin never leaving.

“So that was his name, lucky he sold you out before I took his warlock mark,” the man laughs.

Magnus knows he shouldn’t let his anger get the best of him, but he still finds himself lashing out at the Circle member, trying to disarm him. The man's grin turns even more sinister and something in his stomach tightens.

“Cats eyes,” he points out. Magnus didn’t even realize his glamor had dropped. “Would be a nice addition to my collection.”

Before Magnus can reply an arrow sings past him and lands in the man’s leg making him stumble. Magnus doesn’t wait for him to recover and deals a finishing blow. The Circle member collapses on the fallen bookshelf and Magnus feels like he’s frozen. That feeling in his stomach wasn’t from the Circle member, it was from him.

Magnus spins and sees the same shadowhunter from the club stand there, bow still raised, panic in his eyes. The man releases a breath and lowers his bow, eyes rake over the Circle member’s body before turning to Magnus. Magnus steps back, magic sparking at his hands ready to fight. 

The man opens and closes his mouth, trying to say something but nothing comes out. His eyes show only concern and worry, but that can’t be right, no shadowhunter would ever look at him like that. He glances at Magnus’ hands and the look disappears to something more neutral, closed off but not before Magnus catches a glimpse of pain.

“Alec!” A male voice shouts from down the hall, Alec glances behind him taking his eyes off of Magnus. The man must have a death wish for taking his eyes off of him. Magnus could easily take him out now, but his body won’t let him. “That’s the last of them.”

The shadowhunter, or Alec, nods his head and turns towards Magnus again, “We should go join the others.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Shadowhunter,” he bites back, hoping to get a reaction out of the man, but Alec doesn’t even flinch, just nods his head again.

“Apologies,” Alec says, turning around and leaving the library but halts, looking at something on his left. Magnus follows his gaze and realizes he’s looking at the multiple vases of arrows he’s kept over the years. Alec’s face stays blank but the grip on his bow tightens before he continues his way out of the living room.

Strange, Magnus thinks. He thought the shadowhunter would have demanded Magnus listen to him or even drag him to where everyone else is. Instead he’s letting Magnus choose to go with him, giving him the option to run tail if he wanted. 

Of course, Magnus won’t do that, he realizes with a sigh. He doesn’t know how many of his people made it out alive, all of them probably scattering the second the Circle members entered the hideout. He’ll need to notify friends and any families of the fallen here. 

With a wave of his hand, Magnus rids the loft of any dead circle members and teleports their bodies to the ocean. Let the sharks have their fun with them, he doesn’t care. In another wave, he teleports the bodies of the fallen warlocks to another safe haven he has in New York and a fire message to Catarina about what happened and where she needs to go.

When Magnus enters his living room he catches Alec with his head down and a girl with long dark hair rubbing a hand up and down his arm looking at him with concern. Something in his chest aches and presses a hand to his heart. Is that what Alec is feeling? He hates it. He doesn’t want to feel what the shadowhunter is feeling. 

He must be projecting his emotions because Alec flinches, pressing a hand to his chest and looks up at him. Again the pain that he sees disappears by that blank look. The girl catches Alec’s change and looks over at him and sends Magnus the most heated glare he’s ever received. 

He doesn’t have time to deal with that. He puts on his High Warlock persona and makes a show of his magic. Clary, to no surprise, is as stubborn as her mother and refuses to leave without getting her memories back. So he tells them what they all have to do to get them back. None of them argue to his surprise, though the blonde boy tries but is stopped by Alec with a hand on the shoulder. 

The summoning goes off without a problem. All of the shadowhunters listen to his explanation of how the ritual works and that they must not let go of each other’s hands. When Magnus explains that they must hold hands, the sister, Isabelle, moves into a position that forces Alec and him to hold hands. Magnus tries not to let his frustration show and accepts the positions. 

The second he and Alec’s hands touch, it’s like the final piece of their connection is sealed. He hears Alec let out a gasp and the hand in his grips tight before loosening. Magnus looks at Alec and the shadowhunter is not even glancing at him, he continues to stare at the wall opposite of him. Magnus feels an incredible sorrow fill his chest that makes him want to curl up and cry. 

Alec shows no outward sign of what he’s really feeling and something pokes at his heart that this is not the first time that Alec has had to mask his emotions. He shakes off the feeling, looking away from Alec to see everyone else staring at him waiting, though Isabelle is still glaring at him. 

The demon asks for a memory of the ones they love the most. Of course, his is Ragnor, his oldest and closest friend. Jace, who he finds out is Alec’s parabatai, and Isabelle’s are of Alec, which warms his heart or well maybe not his, he looks over at Alec and sees the soft smile on his face as the shadowhunter sees himself reflected in the tornado of smoke in the center. He doesn’t even catch what Clary’s memory was, too enraptured by the kindness shining in his soulmate’s eyes.

When the summoning is over, Clary collapses and is caught by Jace. He scoops the unconscious girl and leads her out of the loft with Isabelle, a quiet thanks as they pass him, leaving Alec and Magnus alone in the room. Alec hasn’t looked up from his hands since they let go, rubbing the hand that was entwined with his.

“Thank you for helping us,” Alec speaks softly. 

“I didn’t do it for you,” he says.

“I know.” Alec finally looks up from his hands and there’s a small smile on his face. “I’ll let you be. Have a good night, Magnus.”

The shadowhunter doesn’t wait for his response and rushes out the room to catch up with his family leaving Magnus alone. 

Alone.

Something that Magnus has been used to for decades now. His heart had been protected under a lock and key for so long and then Alec, this shadowhunter, his soulmate had to barge in and rip the lock off the cage. 

Magnus doesn’t want to feel like this. He liked it better when he was alone and didn’t have a soulmate, when he didn’t feel this much in his chest. The people he knows who have met their soulmates have told him about how they felt butterflies the first time they met their other half. That it felt like they were whole for the first time. Magnus doesn’t feel whole, he feels rage at the universe for giving him a shadowhunter as his soulmate.

Magnus doesn’t care how kind Alec may or may not be.

He will never fall in love with a shadowhunter.

Of course, that wouldn’t be the last time he saw Alec. He made it clear that he was not interested in getting to know the shadowhunter and thankfully Alec respected that. Again throwing Magnus off about his view of shadowhunters. 

Now Jace definitely fits that shadowhunter personality. Brash, rude, demanding, following red heads around like a lost puppy. Magnus rolls his eyes as the blonde’s gaze never leaves Clary’s as she word vomits in his living room fretting over Luke. Luke, who is in the state he’s in because of Clary, and Simon who couldn’t listen to simple orders. 

One would think that the girl would take her time to recover after getting all of her memories back. It seems that when she discovered the location of the cup, she snuck out of the Institute and met up with Sherman only to get kidnapped which led to a fight between a Beta and an Alpha werewolf which led to a new leader to the New York pack and-

Lilith, Magnus needs a drink.

He sends Simon and Jace off to fetch ingredients for him to help with the potion that would save Luke. Which leaves him and Clary to wait for them to return. Magnus focuses on the potion to make sure it doesn’t turn sour.

“So,” Clary says. “You and Alec, huh?”

Magnus almost drops a vial in the cauldron. “I beg your pardon?”

“You two are soulmates right?”

“And what gave you that idea?” He grits. 

“The stuff in Alec’s room,” she shrugs, wandering around the apothecary. “He has a whole bookshelf full of trinkets and vials exactly like the ones in here.” Clary pokes at the vials on his shelves, he almost snaps at her to stop. “It’s really incredible, you can tell he took great care of them all.”

“Is that so?” 

Clary nods, smiling as she picks up a vial off his table, inspecting it. “Yeah, he got really upset with me when I tried to pick up one of the items. Even went as far to wipe my finger prints off the thing. You can easily tell they’re his greatest treasure.” Clary’s smile turns to a frown. “Though last time I went to talk to him, he had put a bed sheet over the shelf.”

Oh. That information does something to his heart, like something has a vice grip around it now. Magnus shakes his head, clearing himself of the feeling, and goes back to the potion.

“Maybe he’s upset that he realized I’m a warlock,” he snorts.

“No, that wasn’t it. When I first saw it, he had this soft, delighted smile on his face. He had said that he hadn’t met the warlock who was his soulmate yet, but that he was eager to meet them. Said that he hoped his runes wouldn’t scare you away and that he could prove that he would care for you the way he cared for the items he got from you through your connection.” 

The vial that was in his hand drops to the table. Clary jumps at the sudden sound and turns to him in surprise.

Surely Alec didn’t think that way about him. He was an abomination with demon blood, Alec was a shadowhunter with angel blood. There’s no possible way they would work and yet, Alec knew his soulmate was a warlock before he even laid eyes on Magnus. Had a bookshelf full of the items he had lost over the years.

“Why?” He mutters quietly. “He’s a shadowhunter whose soulmate is a warlock. We’re not exactly the perfect match.”

“Why should that matter?” Clary asks. “It is clear that Alec doesn’t care that you’re a warlock. His mother is a different story though.” Clary rubs her arms up and down her arms like a shiver passed through her. The accurate reaction when talking about that woman. “I don’t understand how he just stands there while she speaks to him like that.”

“Like what?” His mouth feels dry, the blank face from a few days ago makes sense now. With a mother like Maryse Lightwood, finding out your son has a warlock soulmate probably didn’t go over well. He’s positive that Alec’s other siblings didn’t get that treatment, especially Clary and Jace who discovered they were soulmates. 

“Like he’s inferior for having a warlock as a soulmate. The first thing she did when she stopped by his room was berate him for still having that bookshelf, like he should be ashamed of himself for displaying who his soulmate was so openly and that she thought she told him to toss out anything that wasn’t useful.”

Magnus feels like there’s no air in the room. He leans forward on the table and stares into the bubbling concoction. 

With each new thing he learns about Alec, the less his view of him is so harsh. 

“That’s when he had covered the bookshelf,” Clary whispers, biting her lip. “Ever since their mother came back to the Institute that spark in Alec’s eye is gone.”

“Maryse does have the personality of a brick,” he chimes in hoping to lighten the mood. 

Clary doesn’t take the bait and instead looks at him with sympathy. “I don’t remember much about when we came here last, my memories are still a bit jumbled, but I know that when I woke up, no one knew where Alec went. Jace said to let it go, that he gets that way sometimes, but I couldn’t help feeling like something wasn’t right. When I found him he was on the roof, shooting arrows, one after the other until his hands were bleeding.”

“Why are you telling me this,” he rasps. His heart is beating out of control. Was Alec that hurt by his rejection? He was a shadowhunter, he should be relieved that his warlock of a soulmate doesn’t want to be with him. It wasn’t like Magnus would be upset if Alec left. Something about that thought makes his heart stop. 

“Because you both deserve happiness,” she says. “And I think Alec at least deserves a chance before you kick him to the curb.”

Magnus doesn’t know what to say to that. What could he say to that? For centuries he’s kept away from shadowhunters as much as possible and now he was fatefully connected to one. Why should he be the one to make that step? It wasn’t like Alec was taking the first step.

That’s because you rejected him before he could, his mind unkindly reminds him.

Magnus doesn’t get the time to ask more questions about Alec as Luke starts to seizure on the couch. He tells Clary what still needs to be done with the potion as he rushes over to Luke and pour his magic into the werewolf’s body to slow the spread of the poison. 

He loses track of time, just focusing on making sure that Luke makes it through this process. Just as he starts to feel his magic flicker, the door to his home bursts open and there’s a warm body catching him as he falls back.

Magnus huddles closer to the warmth, clasping his hand around the one that takes his. 

“Use my strength,” a voice whispers in his ear. “Take what you need.”

Magnus doesn't waste a second, siphoning magic from the person behind him. It’s like being shot with adrenaline, the other person’s energy practically shoving its way into his body. It’s definitely a first for him. Anytime Magnus has asked to share strength with someone, there is always a tug from the other person, not fully trusting Magnus to not abuse the power the other is giving him. Magnus feels no resistance from whoever he’s taking magic from. For someone to trust him that openly and blindly that they just give him their very essence brings tears to his eyes.

He’s going to have to thank whoever it is once he’s sure that Luke won’t die on him. Maybe even take them out to dinner as a thank you. As if they heard his thoughts, Jace and Simon rush through the living room and hand over the last ingredient to Clary who tosses it in the cauldron. Moments later, the trio are rushing over to the couch and pouring the potion down Luke’s throat.

The reaction is practically instant. Luke is no longer seizing on the couch and the dark veins around his wounds are receding. Magnus stops his constant flow of magic and drops. Or would have dropped, if the person behind him hadn’t caught him preventing him from making a fool of himself.

He just settles into the person’s arms and closes his eyes, focusing on his breathing. He used more magic than he had planned tonight and he feels exhausted. Not as exhausted as he thought he would be he realizes. That’s when he feels the hand still in his squeeze down and rub the back of his hand with their thumb. The person he’s leaning against begins to speak to Jace.

He jolts at the person’s voice, realizing just exactly who he is resting against. He opens his eyes and whips his head to Alec’s. Alec who is staring down at him with concern and worry that makes his heart ache. Magnus hurriedly lets go of their entwined hands and finds the strength to stand up. He doesn’t look back at Alec.

He asks Jace and Simon to help carry Luke to the guest room, ignoring the heat in his cheeks and the quick beatings of his heart. He hastily follows the men into the bedroom, making sure Luke is comfortable. He’s not ready to address that whole situation waiting for him in the living room.

As he gets Luke comfortable, his mind wanders back to Alec. He wonders if one of the others called Alec for help, but no, there would be no reason for them to notify Alec that he would need assistance. None of them but Clary knew about Luke’s deteriorating state and she was too busy making sure the potion was good to go when the others returned with the missing ingredient. 

He pauses fluffing Luke’s pillow and presses a hand to his chest as it aches. He had been so focused on healing Luke that he didn’t even notice his connection to Alec was so open. He doesn't feel much from Alec, but he understands now, why Alec knew to come to the loft. Magnus must have called out to him and Alec came running to help.

He doesn’t understand the Shadowhunter. Magnus couldn’t have made it more clear that he wasn’t interested in getting to know him. Yet, he still showed up, saved his life twice, helped Clary get her memories back and even assisted him in saving Luke, all without Magnus asking him to. He held Magnus close to his chest and let him practically drain him of his Nephilim energy to save Luke. The part of him that he kept under lock and key for so long slowly pours out and a warmth spreads through him at the fact that someone would do that for him without him asking, begging them to do so. It’s what he always wanted in a partner.

Why should the fact that him being a shadowhunter change that? Clary’s words from before also ring in his head, that Alec kept everything he lost and displayed them proudly in his room and told others about him, other shadowhunters. 

He’s hit with a yearning in his chest that makes him want to try. To maybe get to know Alec a bit and see what the shadowhunter is like. He’s never given Magnus a reason to think that he’s hostile. If anything, Alec has been giving him the space he’s asked for and was only dismissed when Magnus told him off. It’s Magnus who’s the one that’s been hostile. He should fix that, go talk to Alec. He should start by saying thank you.

Magnus excuses himself from the room and goes back out to the living room. Millions of thoughts race in his head, wondering what he should say, how he should say it. But when he reaches the living room, Alec is nowhere to be seen. Magnus steps towards the couch and looks at the entrance to his loft and doesn’t see the shadowhunter. 

His foot hits something on the floor. Magnus’ breath catches as he finds a small trash bin filled with bloody rags. He looks at his couch and sees that the blood stains are gone. 

Alec cleaned up the mess for him. Alec probably felt how depleted of magic he was and didn’t want him to exert himself anymore. The smell of lavender waffs through his living room, getting rid of the metallic smell of blood and decay.

He doesn’t know why that makes his eyes water. Alec did all of this without being asked to. He was being kind again, like he has been since he and Magnus first crossed paths. Magnus was just too stuck in his past to realize it. 

Not anymore, he decides, clenching his fists. He’s not going to let his past dictate his happiness anymore. He has a chance to be happy with the man who the universe has chosen to be his soulmate and he’s going to make the most of it.

*

Alec knows better than to be here.

This is dangerous. Magnus’s loft is dangerous. Not because of Magnus, but because of what it means. The unraveling of a carefully walled-in life.

He’s about to say as much—well, not that, but some excuse as to why he has to leave before the aching in his heart can keep him here, when Magnus raises a finger to his lips.

And everything in Alec stills for the first time he can remember.

He can hear his heartbeat pounding louder in his ears, but everything else is—quiet. His vision narrows in on Magnus, the glitter under his eyes, the subtle vibrancy of him. And suddenly, he can’t remember why anything else is supposed to matter.

It’s quiet. It’s never quiet.

And Magnus is the opposite of a quiet person, but still everything in Alec settles before him. He thinks he might stop breathing if Magnus were to actually touch him.

Magnus doesn’t touch him. He does, however, watch Alec rather knowingly as he invites him to stay.

And Alec wants to stay. Here, in Magnus’s orbit. He knows he shouldn’t give in to that want, that it could tear out the cornerstone of everything he’s so carefully built.

He stays anyway.

*

Magnus is a flurry of sharpness and blue, his grace tempered by anger. Alec can’t tell if Magnus is angry at him or at the world or both. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

What does matter: Magnus is a sharply-moving thing that sets him alight. Alec so rarely feels alight. What matters even more: under Magnus’s quickfire anger is a deep distress that brings all of the lines of him into relief. Alec wants to hold him until he softens again.

Magnus stalks closer to him, the silk of his shirt shifting over his shoulders. His eyeshadow is dark and hollowing, his eyes glint in the dim light of the loft. He has such a natural grace to him, an ease of being that Alec’s admired since the first moment he saw him—though Alec’s starting to suspect that it’s not actually ease at all. Rather, Magnus’s existence is hard-won and tenuous, an act of continuous strength and balance and delicacy.

Alec admires him all the more, knowing that, feeling that, because his own life has also been built against a current, different from Magnus’s but precarious all the same.

And Alec can’t tell him—any of that. He can’t tell him that he’s so beautiful it makes Alec’s chest hurt. That the thought of leaving the loft, going home, leaves an aching cavern under his ribs. He can’t tell him, because this—him, Magnus, them, if there even is a ‘them,’—is the precarity threatening everything.

Magnus circles around him, leaning in close. Alec can smell his cologne, and has to close his eyes for a second to get his bearings. He feels Magnus’s magic brush his neck, so like a flame but cool to the touch. It feels like mourning for something they should have been able to have.

What about love? Magnus challenges.

And Alec thinks, despairingly, what about it? What about it, Magnus?

*

What about it.

Alec looks at Magnus at the far end of the aisle and thinks, I could love you. He’s never thought that about someone before, not in that way. He’s not sure he ever will again.

When he walks toward Magnus, his vision tunnels. All he can focus on is Magnus, the details of him: the streak of red in his hair, the velvet of his jacket, the glitter under his eyes. Everything else is so bright and loud—the shocked gasps, the murmurings, the very air.

When he kisses Magnus, it’s quiet. It feels like the first time he saw him, the first time he stayed the night in Magnus’s loft: that sudden clarity that shears through everything he’s constructed in his head. This is what matters: the way Magnus leans into him. The realness of his chest under Alec’s hands. The kiss feels like a declaration—of everything he hadn’t been able to say before, of everything he’ll want to say, someday.

So when he finds Magnus afterwards, it rolls so easily off his tongue, this simple request that seems to mean so much, that harkens back to their first moment together, and an Alec who had to stay silent for his own protection—but no longer.

“You wanna go get that drink sometime?”

*

It’s shockingly easy, once he starts doing it, for Alec to tell Magnus how he feels about him. It’s like the words spill forth from his mouth almost unbidden, like they can’t hide in the darkness any longer, and he wonders how he didn’t choke on them, before, when he was unable to speak.

“I don’t care how many people you’ve been with,” he says, almost started to find that it’s true. He doesn’t care about any of the complications. All he cares about is Magnus now, and how he feels about him, which is—well, he sort of still doesn’t want to think about just quite how big that feeling is.

Magnus looks sort of shocked, but allows Alec to kiss him, leaning up into the touch. And Alec says what he wanted to say when he first saw him, what he’s wanted to say every time after:

“God, you’re so beautiful.”

Magnus melts, looking away over Alec’s shoulder with a sort of pleased embarrassment. “Flatterer.”

“I’m only stating the truth,” Alec tells him.

“Yes, you always are, aren’t you?”

Alec isn’t entirely sure what he means by that, but Magnus is looking up at him with a gentle, warm smile on his face, so it must be good.

Alec leans in to kiss him again.

*

Magnus is holding the omamori charm like his hands have forgotten how to hold. Like this is the first thing they’ve really needed to hold. Alec is starting to get concerned by his silence when Magnus looks up at him and says, “You got this—for me?”

Alec nods. “It’s supposed to bring you luck and protection.” He thinks he might have been embarrassed by it, once, this gross sentimentality, but he isn’t now. He knows there’s no functional utility to the charm. That isn’t the point. He wants Magnus to carry a piece of him with him, and just hopes that isn’t too much to ask for.

Magnus tentatively closes his fingers around the charm like it might vanish from his grasp. “I— thank you, Alexander.”

Alec pulls Magnus close to kiss him, feeling his chest light up when Magnus hums into his mouth, reaches up to twine a hand in his hair.

“No need to thank me,” he says when they part. “Just let it do its job, okay? Let it protect you.” And then, because he feels almost compelled to say it: “I couldn’t handle it if you got hurt.”

Magnus hums again. His hand is still on the nape of Alec’s neck, and he strokes softly at his hair.

“I will try.”

*

It turns out Alec’s the one who needed the protection charm.

Though what he really needs protection from is himself, because he’s always thinking about Magnus. Including, and especially, when he’s in the middle of a fight and a demon is coming at him.

He cuts it straight through with his seraph blade, but not before it gets him in the side, claws cleaving through his gear. Alec hits the ground hard, and at first he thinks, maybe it’s not so bad.

Then he tries to push himself up, and his vision shatters into a million colors, and he thinks, oh, right. Venom.

He’s vaguely aware of Izzy crouched over him, yelling into her phone, but whatever she’s saying is too far away to hear.

*

It’s startling, to come to in Magnus’s bed. Because it’s not that they haven’t shared a bed before, but they don’t do it regularly, and Alec’s always a little wary of encroaching on Magnus’s space, pushing too far.

He stretches out on the sheets, trying to come back into his body. His side is sore, but less than should be expected, even from an iratze. And as he pushes himself to sit up, his hand closes over something that was sitting in his palm.

The omamori charm.

“This was meant to be for you,” Alec says before he can think about it.

And Magnus, who’s sitting beside him, dead quiet, staring off into space so intensely Alec’s not even sure he’s heard him, startles and looks at him.

“Alexander,” he says instead of addressing Alec’s comment. His voice is quiet, disused, grief threading through it. He leans over to help Alec sit up with gentle hands. “Shh, don’t move too much, you’re still not fully healed.”

Alec groans as the act of sitting up aggravates the scar tissue in his side. “What happened?”

Magnus looks away again. His hands twist into each other. He looks very tired, Alec notices suddenly. “Venom. Don’t worry, I extracted it. It will take another few days for the wound to heal completely, though. You’ll have to take it easy.” He rubs at his ear and still doesn’t look at Alec.

It hurts, to see him looking so distant. Alec tries to call out to him. “Magnus.”

No response.

“Magnus.”

When Magnus stays looking away from him, Alec reaches out and takes his hand. He places the charm back in his palm.

Finally, Magnus looks at him. There are tears brimming at the corners of his eyes.

“This was meant to protect you,” Alec says, closing Magnus’s fingers over the charm.

Magnus looks down at it. “You needed all the help you could get,” he says. And then, looking back up at Alec, “You worried me.”

It seems to pain him a little, to admit it.

“I’m sorry,” Alec says.  

“No.” Magnus shakes his head. “No.”

And they’re still sort of new, they still don’t really do this. But still Alec tugs on Magnus’s sleeve, pulls him in close. “Come here.”

Magnus follows his pull, climbs into bed with him, and Alec pulls him close. Magnus hesitates, then tucks his face into the curve of Alec’s shoulder, pressing up close to him.

“Don’t let me hurt you,” Magnus murmurs, ever wary of Alec’s wounded side.

“Never,” Alec promises.

*

Don’t let me hurt you, Magnus had said. Don’t let me hurt you. As if he could ever.

Alec, on the other hand…

He’d yelled at him. He’d yelled at him, and now Magnus is missing, missing in an Institute full of dead Downworlders, he could be lying somewhere hurt, or dead, and does he even know? Does he even know that Alec loves him?

The rising sun should be a blessing after one of the darkest nights the Institute’s ever seen. But it means less than nothing to Alec, not without—

“Alexander—”

Alec spins around and crushes Magnus in a hug, effectively cutting off anything else he might have been going to say. He can’t breathe for the relief crashing through him, but he manages to say into Magnus’s shoulder—

“I love you.”

He can’t bear for Magnus to go another second without knowing it.

“Magnus, I love you, I— by the Angel.” That’s all he can say, the rest is swallowed by the relief of Magnus’s presence.

Magnus pulls away to look at him. He looks sort of startled. “I—” he tries to say, and has to pause to center himself. “I love you, too.”

Alec hugs him again, because he’s so overwhelmed with feeling that he has to, and Magnus hugs him back, shaking a little.

“I thought I lost you,” Alec says, clinging to him.

Magnus shushes him. “I know.”

*

It’s even easier, after that, saying it to him. Even when Magnus is struggling, and has a hard time accepting it, Alec will say it to him.

When Magnus comes home after a tough client—

“I love you.”

When Magnus is going through one of his spells where all he can manage seems to be sitting out on the balcony, smoking cigarette after cigarette—

“I love you.”

When Magnus is shaken and hurting after the incident with Azazel, barely able to handle anything from Alec at all—

Quietly, and from a distance— “I love you.”

Alec tries not to feel hurt when Magnus doesn’t always say it back.  

*

It’s hard not saying it to him, when they’re broken up. Even harder than not being together is this: not being able to let Magnus know how loved he is.

Standing in the alleyway outside the Hunter’s Moon, looking at him, the words get caught in Alec’s throat. He’s not sure he can handle it if Magnus doesn’t say it back.

Magnus watches him, arms wrapped around himself. God, he looks so tired, Alec thinks. So tired and stressed beyond belief. And Alec realizes that however much Magnus may have stood by his decision, this has been incredibly hard on him.

Alec steps closer, grateful when Magnus doesn’t move away, but actually seems to soften as Alec approaches.

“Magnus…” he takes another step closer, “I love you.”

It feels like breathing again, to say it.

Magnus softens further. “I know,” he says, and then, “I’ve missed you.”

How Alec’s missed him, too. They’ve been working so closely together recently that it shouldn’t be possible, but he’s missed him.

He gets close enough to pull Magnus into a hug, and Magnus lets him, going boneless in Alec’s arms, like he’s been putting so much effort into holding himself up that the moment the opportunity comes to let it go he can’t help but collapse.

Alec holds him up, keeping himself upright solely on the warmth and solidness of Magnus in his arms, the relief of having him there.

“I love you,” he says again, into Magnus’s hair, and Magnus lets out a sort of whimper against his throat. “I love you.”

*

Magnus struggles with saying it, is something Alec’s realized. And it’s not that Alec doesn’t feel loved; Magnus shows him. He magicks hot drinks into Alec’s hands when he comes in from the cold. He gives him a hug when he can sense Alec’s feeling down and doesn’t know how to ask for it. He’s always there when Alec needs him, before Alec even realizes he needs him. But saying it aloud, committing to it—Magnus rarely does it unless Alec does it first.

So Alec tries to say it as much as possible.

He comes up behind Magnus when he’s working in his apothecary, wraps his arms around him, presses a kiss into the side of his neck. “I love you.”

Magnus tilts his head up to look at him, offers him a smile and a kiss on the check. “I love you, too. Now shoo before you distract me and I accidentally blow up the apartment.”

“Mmm, might be worth it.”

He comes to find him when Magnus gets lost in his thoughts, when he’s standing on the balcony, staring out over the city, a drink in his hand but not sipping from it.

Alec stands beside him, leans against him, letting Magnus support himself on him.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking about,” he says, “but I love you, you know.”

Magnus leans his head on his shoulder. “I know, darling. I love you, too.”

He wakes him with a soft kiss on his lips, runs a hand through his hair. Magnus always melts into it, wakens to look at him with unglamoured eyes.

“I love you,” Alec tells him, wanting it to be the first thing he hears when he wakes up.

And Magnus looks at him with this soft wondrous expression, always caught off guard by it.

“My darling,” he says, pressing a hand to Alec’s cheek.

Alec will keep saying it first until Magnus believes it.

*

If Alec has to have last words, he knows what he wants them to be.

Magnus comes careening down the alleyway toward him, skids to his knees in a way that must tear up the fabric of his pants, never mind hurt. “Alexander—”

Alec takes Magnus’s hands from where they’re hovering over him and holds them in his own. “Magnus—”

“Shhh, don’t talk, you’ll—” Magnus swallows harshly. “Save your strength.”

And Alec knows he doesn’t have long, but he has to say it to him, even if, especially if, it’s for the last time.

“I love you.” The words are broken and jagged, pushed out around the arrow driven through his lungs. They shear right through Magnus, his expression crumples, his hands on Alec’s chest fluttering desperately.

“No, no, don’t, please, darling—”

But Alec’s already fading, satisfied that at the very least, he’s told Magnus what he needs to.

*

Afterwards, when the hole is gone from Alec’s chest, and Magnus has a new one carved in his, Magnus lies down beside him in their bed, tracing a finger back and forth over the scar tissue on Alec’s heart. He’s wearing one of his silk robes open on his chest, and Alec can’t help but think that Magnus should have a scar, too, anything to show how he’s actually feeling inside.

“I love you,” Magnus says, still quietly dragging his finger across Alec’s skin. “I should have said it, before.”

“Before…?” But Alec thinks he already knows what Magnus is talking about.

“Before,” Magnus insists. “When…” you were dying. “I should have said it back to you.”

“No, Magnus, it’s okay—”

“It’s not.” Magnus lets out a sigh. “I suppose I was thinking—oh, I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. But the point is, you deserved to hear it. You always deserve to hear it. I’m sorry that… I have a hard time sometimes. Saying it.”

He sounds so sad about it. Alec doesn’t want him to feel that way, especially not now, when things are already hard enough.

He takes Magnus’s hand and kisses his knuckles. “It’s okay. I know how you feel.”

“Do you?” Magnus’s gaze is searing and very sad. “Do you really?”

“Yes.” Alec tugs him in until Magnus is lying pressed against his side, his nose tucked in against Alec’s neck. “You show me, don’t you? I know that you love me. I always know.”

Magnus still seems unsettled, but he stays against Alec’s side. “You’re good at that,” he finally murmurs after a long silence.

“At what?”

“Just— saying how you feel.”

Alec supposes it’s true, though he wouldn’t phrase it as the statement of fact Magnus seems to think it is. While it’s true that he’s never exactly been known to mince words, growing up he doesn’t think he was ever truly honest with his feelings with anyone. Not before Magnus.

“Maybe,” he says. “I don’t know.”

“You are,” Magnus insists. “It’s something I love about you. I can always count on you to be honest with me about how you feel.”

There’s something almost wistful in his voice, and Alec pulls him closer, pressing a kiss into his hair.

“Okay,” he concedes. “How’s this for honest feelings? I love you. And it’s going to be okay.”

They haven’t talked about his magic yet. Alec’s not sure if this even counts as “talking about it.”

Magnus sniffles. “How?”  

“I don’t know,” Alec says, and he really doesn’t. “But it will.”

*

It doesn’t get better. Alec doesn’t know how to make it better, not when Magnus won’t let him.

Or, rather—he does know how to make it better. But not in a way either of them is going to be happy with.

Magnus is staring at him like he doesn’t even know who Alec is. Like he’s been transported to a darker world, one where the few truths he still holds have been turned on their heads.

Alec hates that he’s brought him to such a place, hates that it was necessary. He hates himself for the things he’s saying to him, terrible things, hates watching them embed themselves in Magnus’s chest. The spark in you is out for good. I’m not in love with you anymore.

And—Alec’s never lied to Magnus like this. He lied about the Soul Sword. But he’s never lied to him about his feelings for him. Not ever.

He wonders if Magnus can catch the disingenuousness in his tone, or if his feeling that he doesn’t deserve kind words is too deeply ingrained to allow for it.

Apparently it’s the latter. Magnus doesn’t try to follow him as he walks away. The slump in his posture isn’t just grief, but resignation.

It makes Alec’s chest want to cave in, the knowledge that some part of Magnus has just been waiting for this moment. Maybe that’s why he never pushes, never asks, never says anything first.

But it’s too late for Alec to try and remedy that now.

Magnus probably wouldn’t believe him anyway.

*

The last thing Alec expects is for Magnus to storm into his office the next day, magic flaring along every inch of his skin. Some part of Alec thrills to see it, that spark back in his eyes, even if it’s now mainly anger, and directed at him.

“How—” Magnus starts after he’s slammed the door shut and locked it. He stays over there, not coming any closer to Alec. “How dare you—”

It’s evidently too late to try and hide the deal from Magnus. Alec can only hope that this won’t invalidate it.

He raises his hands in self-defense, respecting Magnus’s wishes to stay on the other side of the room even if all he wants is to be closer to him. “It was the only way—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t care that you summoned Asmodeus.”

Alec blinks. “You… don’t?”

Magnus crosses his arms. “Well, that was incredibly stupid, Alexander. But quite frankly, it’s secondary.”

Alec’s about to ask, secondary to what? when Magnus stalks closer to him and he figures he’s about to find out.

“How dare you—” Magnus is clearly trying to maintain his composure, but his voice starts quivering, and there’s a catch in his throat when he speaks— “say those things to me? Those awful things, I— I thought you loved me.”

Alec tries to swallow around the pain in his throat. “I do,” he says quietly. “I had to make you believe it.”

“Oh, I believed it.” Magnus turns away as if he can’t bear to look at him any longer. “For a moment, anyway. But then I thought, you’ve always told me how you feel. If you had been feeling those things all along, why wouldn’t you just say so?”

“Magnus—”

Magnus practically hisses at him. “Let me finish.”

Alec lets him, taking a step back for good measure.

“I didn’t deserve that,” Magnus says, as if he’s convincing himself of it as he says it, “those things you said to me. I didn’t deserve it.”

And despite the perversity of the situation, Alec can’t help but be sort of proud of him, for saying that.

Magnus deflates, then. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

Alec wonders if he’ll leave, wonders what he could possibly say to keep him here, but instead Magnus just backs up to the wall, slides down it so he’s sitting on the floor, puts his face in his hands.

Alec comes cautiously around to the front of his desk, sits on the floor with his back against it so he’s at Magnus’s level.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “I didn’t mean any of it.”

Magnus huffs out a weak laugh into his hands. “I know, that’s the worst part.”

After a long moment of hiding his face, Magnus finally looks back up at him.

“How is it fair, Alec?” he demands. “How is it fair that you’re the one who’s hurt me, yet the only person I want to go running to about it is you?”

Alec thinks this is probably more honesty than he’s gotten from Magnus in a long time. He tries not to think too deeply about that.

“It’s not fair,” he says.

At that, Magnus pushes himself back up, straightening himself out. A jolt of panic runs through Alec at the idea that Magnus will leave, leave before Alec can make it right.

But Magnus just says, “I have to go deal with my father. And I should probably ensure Lorenzo is no longer a chameleon while I’m at it. Will you meet me at home tonight?”

Alec scrambles to his feet. “No longer a what? Wait, you got your apartment back?”

“Yes… please don’t ask how. I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yes,” Alec says, hope starting to banish the despair that’s been overtaking his chest, “of course.”

Magnus nods once, and then he’s gone, and it’s only after he’s left that Alec realizes exactly what he said:

Meet me at home.

*

When Alec gets to the loft later, Magnus is sitting on the couch with a drink, looking vaguely singed and unsettled.

Alec sits down tentatively beside him. “You okay?”

Magnus nods, reaches up to touch the tips of his hair. “It’s just a bit of smoke.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Magnus sets his drink down abruptly. Alec’s ready for anger, accusation, can’t help but feel he deserves it.

What he isn’t ready for is for Magnus to sigh and say, “This was all my fault.”

Alec tries to protest. “No, Magnus—”

Magnus raises a hand to stop him. “In a way,” he clarifies, “because I don’t think I—” he lets out a heavy sigh. “I’ve never been honest with you about how I feel. That’s what led to all of this.”

Alec shifts tentatively closer to him. “Magnus… it’s okay. I never want you to have to do something you’re uncomfortable with.”

But Magnus just shakes his head. “One can’t grow that way, Alexander. I’ve gotten too used to… not growing.”

Alec isn’t sure this is really the moment for Magnus to be berating himself over his perceived weaknesses, but neither of them has ever been any good at that sort of timing.

“You’ve been living one way for a long time,” Alec says gently. “It’s okay to have trouble with changing, all of a sudden.”

“It’s not just that, I—” Magnus has let Alec get closer all this while, and Alec manages to reach out and grab his hands. Magnus sighs at the touch. “I’m not used to someone like you, someone who won’t… take what I say as reason to leave me. Whether what I say is good or bad, love or suffering, someone always takes it as a reason to leave.”

Like I did last night, Alec thinks with a wrenching pain in his chest, but doesn’t say it.

“And so, I’ve gotten rather good at not saying it,” Magnus finishes, lips twisting.

“You deserve to be honest,” Alec says, “and not have it held against you. If someone has a problem with that, that’s on them.”

Magnus nods. “That’s the advice I’d give someone who came to me with this issue,” he agrees. Then he looks down at their joined hands. “And yet, difficult to put into practice.”

“So, let’s practice it,” Alec says. “Tell me how you feel. Don’t hold any of it back.”

Magnus lets out a small laugh. “I think I’ve already told you off well enough today.”

“That’s okay.” Alec squeezes his hands. “Say it anyway.”

Magnus looks back up at him tentatively. After a moment, he says, “It hurt me, to hear you say those things. I’ve heard it all before, mind you, but it hurt more, hearing it from you. I know you didn’t mean it,” he adds quickly as if he thinks Alec will jump in, “but it hurts all the same.”

“I’m sorry,” Alec says, heart squeezing, even if he’s honestly not sure he wouldn’t make the same choice. Magnus does have his magic back, after all.

Magnus nods. “I know, darling.” He’s quiet for a moment, contemplative. “I’m sorry, as well. I wish I was the type of partner who was as open with his affections as you need.”

“You think you’re not? You think I don’t—” Alec flounders for words—“feel loved?”

Magnus raises a challenging eyebrow. “You felt you were dispensable to me. Or am I wrong?”

Alec starts to deny it, but realizes he can’t. His behavior’s already made his feelings clear on this matter.

“And besides,” Magnus continues firmly, “it’s also something I want for myself.” He says it like the sentence doesn’t quite fit in his mouth. “Starting… now.”

And he turns to Alec and takes his face in both hands. “I love you.”

Alec pulls him close and kisses him with all the desperation of having recently thought he’d never get to again. He kisses him with all the pride he feels for this man, who wants so much but asks for so little, finally taking something for himself.

When Magnus pulls away, he tucks his face into Alec’s shoulder, and Alec draws him down so they’re lying on the couch, Magnus resting on his chest.

“I expect lessons, Alexander,” Magnus says.

“On what?”

“Emotional bluntness. I want to know how you do it so easily.”

Alec runs a hand through Magnus’s hair. “It wasn’t always easy.”

“Somehow, I can’t imagine even a young Alexander Lightwood tiptoeing around anything.”

“Not tiptoeing, but— I don’t know. There were a lot of things that I just—never told anyone, before I met you. Never thought I would be able to tell anyone.”

Magnus doesn’t lift his head from Alec’s neck, but Alec can tell he’s listening carefully.

“Being able to tell you that I love you…” For the first time in a while, Alec struggles to find the words. “You can’t overestimate how… powerful that is to me.”

Magnus does look up at him then. His gaze is soft, fond with a tinge of melancholy.

“It feels powerful,” he says.

Alec cradles his face between his hands. “It’s okay if it takes you a while to get the hang of it. You have a lot of history to work against.”

Magnus laughs quietly. “That’s an understatement.”

“It’s okay,” Alec repeats, “because I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Magnus nods. “And neither am I.”

He puts so much weight into it that Alec knows he’s serious. About trying. About being vulnerable. About being honest with himself.

Alec vows to himself that he’ll do better, too, try to meet him halfway instead of jumping forward without him.

“I love you,” Magnus says, and okay, maybe Alec did need to hear him say that more often, because everything within him blooms to hear it.

He pulls Magnus close and kisses him.

*

Coming home to Magnus has always been a blessing. But there’s a new sort of warmth in Alec’s chest when he sees him now, now that they’re married, now that Magnus is settled.

Magnus is on the phone when Alec gets home, so he busies himself making drinks. He still can’t do it as well as Magnus, but he’s working on it.

Magnus flings his phone across the room when he sees Alec is finished with the drinks. Alec’s not sure if he actually hung up the call or not.

“I see my workday is finished!” Magnus says as he comes over to him.

Alec hands him a drink, rolling his eyes. “Not sure it’s much of a workday if it falls apart at the slightest distraction.”

“Oh, but what a lovely distraction.” He throws Alec a wink, which is relatively unsuccessful given he’s trying to take a sip of his cocktail at the same time.

“Acceptable?” Alec asks once Magnus has tasted it.

Magnus beams up at him. He smiles at Alec differently now, with the full force of his emotions, not holding anything back. There’s an exuberance to him now that Alec had only caught glimpses of before, this riot of color and energy in his heart, now fully on display.

Alec loves him so much.