#human!alec

I wasn’t very inclined towards the Flufftober or my other Halloween Horror prompt, but I did like this Halloween dialogue prompt I found. 

Day 10: “Stop putting your potions in the fridge!”

*

If Alec would write a book about anything in the world, of his years of poor life choices and horrible luck thrown his way, he would title it: How To Live With A Witchy Roommate.

Alec had first learned about the truth and expanse of Magnus’ abilities by accident. Magnus had been conducting a spell to have poor weather with hopes of deterring a professor from showing up to class to give their bimonthly death exam. Unfortunately for him, he exposed Alec to magic and failed that month’s tests. Since then, Alec has been privy to knowledge of how to cure moonsickness, remove attached entities - both benign and malevolent, change the color of someone’s hair by certain Latin phrases, and anticipate the weather two weeks in advance. All of which Magnus was very unwilling to share with him, but he learned very early that Alec rarely gave up on things.

The first and most important thing Alec learned was to retain and protect the secret of the witch. Under no circumstances, unless dire, was a witch allowed to reveal themselves as a magical user to a non-magical one. The result of the encounter would result in disciplinary action - as stated mockingly by Magnus - by the highest authority of the Council, and the non-magical user will be removed from magic’s way. (Alec never quite understood why he was an exception to this, and Magnus never elaborated when he did ask.)

The second was to never mess with the witch’s familiar, Chairman Meow. He was not to be confused with the wandering spirit guide, Church, who happened to appear in the apartment from time to time despite being on the twenty-third floor. The Chairman was soul-bonded to Magnus in ways he would rather not have discovered. When needed, and allowed, Magnus could see through the eyes of the feline and wander the city without ever stepping foot out of the flat - or hide under Alec’s bed to see what he did in his spare time.

Number three was to keep out of the apothecary when the door was closed. An open door meant that either harmless chemicals and ingredients were being used, Magnus was researching something for a client, or that it wasn’t being in use. A closed door meant danger, harmful potions, and products, or it wasn’t being in use. Alec could tell the difference when he approached and the door would suddenly slam shut in his face, inches from his nose.

The other rules fell into line with the years that passed. Water the plants. Do not get close enough to Charles the Orchid for him to release a potent hallucinogenic gas. The plants in the window are not meant for consumption - and no, they cannot be kept in the apothecary, because the other plants will complain about how they smell. The parlor chair is reserved for emergency resting only. In the case of an emergency, the bust of Cleopatra is to be saved. Let Queen Victoria crash.

Then there were some rules that, despite being called “rules”, were never followed by all houseguests.

“Magnus,” Alec cried, holding the orange juice container at arm’s length. “Stop putting your potions in the fridge!”

“Stop putting your food in my potion-fridge,” came the cry back.

“This is the community fridge and you have a non-magic user - What even is this?” Alec had nearly half a mind to smell the bottle, but a larger part screaming at him to not even think about how that would result. He carefully poured the contents, a dark purple sludge, down the kitchen sink with hot water and the disposal on at full blast.

“Don’t -” Magnus barged in in all his glory, an open black silk top with matching bottoms. Alec was lucky he wasn’t wearing his other robe which he found only wearable when it was the only thing touching his skin.

Both men watched at the final drop of mystery gunk fell from the lip of the container into the sink and erupted with a small puff of smoke that made the air smell like freshly cut grass.

“You didn’t.”

Alec shrugged, tossing the container into the trash alongside the other dead potions he had found earlier in the week. “I clearly did.”

Magnus’ eyes darkened, but the tips of his fingers lightened with shooting sparks of blue electricity. “You better run, Lightwood.”

“You can’t use magic against me.” It was number six in the Rules and Regulations of Magic-Makers and Other Magic-Wielding Creatures book.

Magnus threw a small burst at the tips of Alec’s bare toes. The cold bite of power made him leap back. “Watch me.”

Alec had pushed Magnus on plenty of things; cleanliness, the treatment of the mysterious Church, which way the toilet paper was supposed to be hung. Taunting him to use his magic was not one of them. If anything, they both knew he would do it. That’s why Alec bolted out of the kitchen and through the dining room and front foyer with Magnus hot - sparkingly cold - at his feet.

Rule number whatever, Alec recalled amidst the hallway sprint, don’t leave artifacts lying in the hall.

Alec grabbed the Shield of Lancelot - Magnus had objected to its hanging on the wall due to the ‘improper’ lighting of the city - and held it up against a handful of half-assed electrical current. The magic bounced off of the metallic curve, allowing the sparks to fall flat on the floor.

Magnus pointed a plainly painted finger at the shield. “You better not have damaged that.”

“Me?” Alec carefully returned the object to its place along the wall. “You’re the one chasing me with your sparky fingers, Mr. Thunderbolt.”

Magnus loosed something mixed between a whine and a growl, spinning his hands together with the fingers orbiting each other. The space between his hands held small shards of white light. The power of the current in his hands made the hair on Alec’s arm stand on end. “I’ll show you a thunderbolt, Mister -”

A sharp feline cry came from behind Alec, followed by a bump to the lower back and a swipe along his left flank. Magnus’ power stopped.

“That’s not fair.”

The Chairman circled Alec with care and precision. At the dip of Alec’s leg, the cat crawled into the small space in his lap to claim his spot, saying: Don’t you dare.

“You’ve turned my own cat against me.”

Alec stroked the back of the familiar, pulling out long purrs. Magnus stiffened, throwing his hands on his hips. He muttered something in a language Alec might have heard before but would never translate.

“That potion was for a client. I’ve been working on it for almost a week -” Magnus paused, loosing a frustrated groan.

“I’m sorry,” Alec fessed. “But to be fair, I almost drank it. Whatever it was.”

“Hair serum.”

Alec furrowed his brow. “I thought that only takes a day to make.”

The Chairman left his spot in Alec’s care, moving to dance in circles around Magnus' ankles. “Werewolf hair control before, during, and after a first transformation.”

Alec hummed. That was new. “The potion bottles are to the left of the sink, for future reference.”

Magnus scoffed. “I think I’d know that. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Magnus drawled to pick up his familiar, “I have a potion to remake.”

There was something in the way that Magnus walked that had Alec’s eyes following wherever he went. He stayed on the floor, listening to Magnus shuffle his feet, murmur something to the cat, then move around the kitchen. Silence. A cabinet opened, and the same swear word filled the air.

“Find it?” Alec mused, standing.

Greetings! I found a prompt: He was sentenced to 500 years in this new body. And I decided to run with it. I hope you enjoy!

Short Playlist:

Flesh by Simon Curtis

Problem by Natalia Kills

I Just Wanna F. by David Guetta

Birthday Cake by Rihanna

Not beta-read.

Pandemonium had its strobe lights streaming left and right; bodies were moving seamlessly on the floor; and the wafting smell of lust and desperation stuck to the air. The club was always open from dusk until the last stroke before dawn. Most of the buildings around this strip were the same. Its loud, pulsating music could be heard anywhere within a three block radius. It would be a stroke of luck, or perhaps misfortune, if it were to be any other way.

Alec and Isabelle Lightwood made their way through the sweat-heavy, body infested club that was, and always will be, Pandemonium. The Lightwood siblings had thought it was about time to visit the infamous club, rather than spend their ungodly hours awake at the diner down the street that had amazing tacos at two in the morning. Not to say that they were bored of their nights together - they weren’t - but they needed something else. Something that would get the liveliness back into their step and the lightning thundering in their blood again.

Isabelle’s eyes surveyed the crowds first, paving the way for the pair. Alec kept his eyes dusting every so often across the waves of people before resuming back on his sister in the event of any daring stray hands that came her way. He’d like to keep his record at one pair. It had not ended well for the owner.

There was nothing of real interest there. There were the typical freshies who thought that it’d be great to spend their eighteenth birthday in the club; the twenty-one year olds who wanted to spend their birthdays drinking; and then the desperate floaters trying not to have yet another lonely night. Alec could see them all. He wanted to think that Isabelle didn’t, or perhaps didn’t care enough to do so. She was just trying to float too. She must have found something, however, because she stopped in the middle of one of the clumps of people and her face twisted upwards into her signature grin.

“What?”

“Him.” Alec followed her gaze across the endless sea of unidentifiable figures, unimportant to him, and saw the object of her interest. There was a man, a god of a man, sitting in - of all things - a throne. It was a large golden chair adorned with various gemstones and swirling black marks that resembled tribal tattoos. He was sitting with his arm extended over one side of the chair while the other was propped up on the elbow, fingers twirling, dancing, enticing someone to come closer. Everyone in the club had stared at least once, and for at least a minute. The man was practically the embodiment of charisma and lust - no. Chaos.

Alec could see the way his eyes vaguely scanned over the bobbing heads as though they were merely trinkets or ghosts - materialistic and non-existent. He watched a few women try to make their way into his secluded space, but they were stopped by a brooding, dark man in the corner that even Alec hadn’t seen. Everyone that got too close were immediately removed and the man didn’t even bat an eye at them. Alec watched the last person, a man this time, be hauled off before returning his gaze and found his piercing gaze set solely on him. He moved, and as he did, so did those eyes. The room was no longer stimulating his senses. He was electrified by the god staring at him from across the club.

“They say he’s a demon,” his sister’s voice came through his muddied brain. He almost didn’t recognize his own sibling. The man was still staring, always staring at him. He could feel the power buzzing at the base of his skull, calling. Alec hadn’t realized he was now standing several steps ahead of Isabelle. 

When he finally regained his speech, his voice came in rough rasps, “Demons aren’t real.” Demons were part of a fairy tale. They were told to young children who misbehaved. There was simply no such thing in this world, in this universe. There were only manipulators, con-men, and assholes. Those were the demons of the world.

“Hmm. They say he wasn’t always like… this.” Alec broke the link between their gazes to turn to his sister. Her dark gaze was set on him as well, but there wasn’t any hum or buzz that drifted over his skin. The heat and pulse of the club suddenly hit him. “He had a different shape then. Now he’s stuck like this.”

“A legend. At best,” came a voice from behind, and the entire surrounding area silenced like the calm before the storm.

Alec didn’t need to turn to know who it was. It was him. He could feel the back of his neck crawl and it took everything he had to refrain from turning into a puddle in the middle of the dance floor. Alec finally did turn and it felt like it was an eternity before he was looking into the same eyes that had frozen his world. Up close, the man was certainly other-worldly. Alec could see how some may believe that he was a demon. There was a glimmer of something in his dark irises that made them appear to glow and shine in the shadows, and even more so when the strobe lights would hit from the side. It was magnificent. 

“Is it true?”

A smirk from the god. “Are all legends true?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Another, wider grin. This time it resembled the look that an animal would give to its prey. “Do you think mine is true?”

“Yes.” There was something about the man that Alec couldn’t seem to shake, or ever forget. He die long before he’d ever forget those eyes. Other legends, however, like King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Tarzan, were clearly made for the masses. They were merely stories told to teach lessons and show the power of telling exaggerated truths. But this man in front of him had something that the others didn’t, and Alec wanted to know what it was. “I don’t know why, but I do.”

“Good. Join me?” At this point, all Alec could do was nod. The man extended a hand that was adorned with many, many rings. Some were small, others larger, but each one had a story to tell about the man. “Very good.” The god led them both to his roped off area and had the shadow-shrouded man pull up another, simple, chair from beside the bar. Alec humbly took the lesser chair of the two, even though it did nothing to resolve the growing amount of glares he was getting by the inhabitants of the club. It was as though the man had dragged in mud - the horror. The man, instead of showing any inclination of uncomfortableness or weakness, barked for more music, more fun, and then everyone went back into the swing of things like Alec wasn’t even there. A few patrons, however, might have been wishing it was true. Not that Alec would let them have the honor. Amidst the crowd, Alec easily spotted Izzy. She had moved closer towards where he was now stationed, and it warmed his heart to know that she had his back as he had hers.

“What do you see?” he asked suddenly from beside him. His eyes looked particularly golden in the wavering light. For a moment, Alec had thought that he’d meant his sister, but the way he kept surveying the crowd and then turning back to him told him otherwise. He decided to stay neutral.

“People.”

“And?” And… Alec didn’t know what else there was. It couldn’t get any more simpler than that. The man prompted, or more like encouraged, Alec to look back out into the sea of people. He tried again.

“People having fun, losing themselves - and finding themselves at the same time.”

“Better.”

Alec sighed while the man beside him chuckled. He couldn’t see what was so funny. “What do you see?”

“I see Life,” he mused. “And I see Death. You can’t see one without the other.”

Alec turned and looked at the man, properly looked at him. He looked at him in the same way that, perhaps, he would have rathered him to look at the people bouncing around like balloons. Instead, Alec could see the same twisted light of Life and Death within those pools of gold and darkness. His body was so young, and yet he could see the tired, longing in his eyes for something more - or perhaps, something less, much less. “I see.”

It was then that the man actually turned around and made the real, electrifying contact that they had made earlier in their brief meeting. It made the heat rise in his blood and the sense that anyone else was there in the room go away, except for Isabelle of course. He would always be attuned for her.

“You see.”

Alec hummed and turned back to the crowds. There wasn’t any need to explain. Surely for someone who had so many years locked away behind those eyes, one would be able to read what another was thinking. “I see you.”

“Indeed. My name… is Magnus.”

“Alec,” he supplied in turn and extended a hand. The man, the god, Magnus, stared at it like he handed him a business card without him ever asking for one. A flicker of something flashed through his eyes before he effortlessly took ahold, flipped, and kissed the back of his hand. “Is Magnus your real name?” The emphasis was applied heavily on the real. There was another flicker, this time recognizable - understanding, and more mischief.

Magnus leaned and leaned until his lips were a ghost over the shell of Alec’s ear. He could hear of the tales and legends of the Earth if Magnus could speak it all in a single breath. “You couldn’t pronounce my real name,” he whispered instead.

Alec’s heart lurched. “And?” So Magnus told him. He told him his True Name, and the raw power and emotion settled into the base of his spine, chest and skull like the weight he had been missing, yearning for for a very long time. It was practically a jumble of vowels and a handful of other letters. Alec was worried he’d never be able to actually use it. He poised the first syllable on the verge of his lips to practice, but was stopped by the man’s hot finger, silencing the very thought of trying.

“Only call when you need me. Any time. Anywhere.” Alec found himself speechless and nodding yet again. It was then that Magnus held his hand as an invitation towards him, and motioned back towards the floor where life beckoned. “Dance with me.” Another nod. Alec allowed him to lead the way, sparing a quick glance to Izzy in passing - who gave a big thumbs up - and took his spot beside the god.