#imbeelingwithit

Over the years, he’d raided many demon hideouts with his siblings, and not once had they come across any live animals other than the rats that occasionally scurried about the rundown buildings that some demons favored.

He inspected the dogs as much as he could without moving any closer, which he could see put them on edge. Each of them had scars littering their bodies that Alec was sure had come from both dogs and humans—or demons, as the case may have been.

Alec backed up to the foot of the stars, wanting to call for Jace but not startle the dogs with his raised voice.

“Jace,” he said as quiet as he could be while still being heard.

The dogs were on high alert, ears perked as they watched him. One of them let out a low growl when he spoke.

“What is it?” Jace responded, mimicking Alec in volume.

“There are dogs down here,” Alec told him, tone conveying his surprise.

He watched Jace appear in the doorway from the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze on the dogs, all three of whom were staring back at him with cautious eyes.

“What? Really?” Jace asked in disbelief.

Alec turned to look at him and nodded. Jace cast a glance over his shoulder and then, once he’d determined it safe to do so, descended the stairs with his seraph blade drawn.

“You’re sure they’re not possessed?” Jace asked. “The last thing we need are three vicious demon dogs.”

He’d gotten low enough on the stairs to see the dogs for himself. Their eyes reflected the glow of Alec’s witchlight, making them shine like mirrors in direct sunlight.

“And three dogs like that to boot,” Jace breathed. “They could do some damage with demons inside them, couldn’t they?”

All three of them were so skinny that they ought to have appeared less intimidating, but Alec was sure that life had been too cruel for their size to hold them back in that regard. Jace was right that any conflict with them was unlikely to end well.

“They’ve been in a fighting ring before,” Alec observed, ignoring Jace’s question. “Look at them.”

He held his witchlight higher to make sure that Jace could see the marks on their bodies, but he lowered it quickly when all three of the dogs shrank back further and growled.

Jace let out a low hiss as he finally took in the scars. He crouched down to put himself on the dogs’ level, though he was still farther from their cages than Alec was.

“Those look like they were bad when they were new,” Jace said. “Most of them haven’t healed properly either.”

“I doubt whoever owns these dogs, human or demon, cared much about healing their wounds.”

Jace nodded, his eyes rising from the dogs to meet Alec’s.

“What do you think we should do?”

Alec knew that the ball was entirely in his court. Jace would help him do with the dogs whatever he deemed necessary, but for once, Alec had no idea what the best course of action was. He turned back to the dogs, crouching down beside Jace.

The animals looked powerless in their cages. There was no doubt that they’d been broken. They expected nothing from humans except abuse. Alec couldn’t see how they were meant to get them out of there when the dogs incapable of trusting them. Just moving his hands towards the lock of one of the cages would surely result in sharp canines snapping at his fingers.

“They’ve been trained to fight,” he said slowly. “Do you think they could get along with each other if they weren’t in here?”

Their cages were spaced apart as to keep them isolated from each other. Someone hadn’t wanted them close to each other. Alec wondered how many of their wounds had been caused by the very dogs they occupied the room with.

“I don’t know,” Jace answered, sounding a bit put out to be giving such an answer. “I don’t know the first thing about dogs or dog fighting.”

They stared at the dogs for a few more moments.

“Maybe we should just call the mundanes,” Jace said hesitantly, as if he knew that Alec would throw out the suggestion. “We’ll rid this place of demons and stick around to make sure no more show up and go after anyone. Animal control can take the dogs.”

“And then euthanize them?” Alec asked, his throat growing tight. “That’s what they do with the animals they catch, right?”

Jace shrugged, though his frown suggested that he’d thought of the same thing.

“We can ask Clary, but I think they’d have a good chance of living. Don’t the mundanes care more about that these days? At any rate, they know how to handle dogs like this a lot better than we do.”

They may have known how to handle the dogs, but Alec couldn’t shake his fear that dogs such as these wouldn’t be the ones that were allowed to live in the shelters that the mundanes operated. Though he had only discovered these dogs minutes ago, he didn’t quite trust people he didn’t know to keep them safe, and for some reason, that bothered him more than it should have.

Loud, echoing footsteps signalled the arrival of Izzy and Clary at the cellar door.

“What are you still doing down here?” Izzy asked as her shoes clicked against the stairs. “There aren’t still any demons, are there?”

“No,” Jace said, stowing away his seraph blade at last, which Alec noticed made one of the dogs slightly less tense. “None that we’ve found at least.”

Once the dogs came into the girls’ sight, they both gasped.

“Oh, no,” Clary said quietly.

She took a step forward, already close to tears as she took in the sight of the dogs.

“They look awful,” Izzy commented.

Her eyes were wide as she took a few hesitant steps forward. The dog closest to her scooted backwards in its cage, its ears alert, as Izzy stooped down to look at it.

“We have to help them,” Clary said. “We can’t leave them locked up like this.”

“Where are we meant to take them?” Jace asked. “I’ve already told Alec that we should call mundane Animal Control.”

It was clear from the way Clary’s mouth tightened that she didn’t like that idea, but she didn’t immediately argue with the suggestion.

“There has to be somewhere else they can stay,” Izzy said, her back to Alec as she watched the dogs. “Between all our friends, you don’t think someone’s willing to take in a dog or two?”

“I don’t know that anyone could take in two of these,” Jace pointed out. “These were fighting dogs. I’m not sure we should test how well they like each other.”

He looked down at the closest dog, taking in the way its hackles were raised.

“Or us for that matter.”

“Could we bring a dog into the Institute?” Clary asked. “Or are there rules against that sort of thing?”

Her tone made it clear that she expected there to be. She certainly hadn’t seen any animals running about in the time she’d been there, and with all of the people living there, she would have expected a pet or two. She hadn’t even seen a goldfish.

“I think that’s the discretion of whoever’s head of the Institute,” Izzy said slowly, aiming a pointed look at Alec.

He sighed. He’d wanted to take the dogs since he’d seen them, but he wasn’t sure that it was the wisest decision, even if Izzy and Clary were as moved as he was. He couldn’t help but remind himself that his responsibility was, first and foremost, to the Institute. Bringing these dogs in wasn’t just a possible annoyance but could very well be a danger.

“The Institute is hectic,” he said carefully. “It might not be the best place for an abused dog.”

After a second of hesitation, Izzy nodded, accepting it better than Alec had expected her to.

“What about Simon?” she suggested instead, looking at Clary. “Think he’d be up for a new roommate?”

Clary shrugged, but there was already a small grin on her face.

“I’d say it’s worth a shot. What kind of threat could a dog be to a member of the undead?”

She was already pulling her phone out of her pocket to type a quick message to her best friend. A response came with remarkable speed, and Clary’s face lit up further.

“Which one do you think fits him best?” she asked Izzy. “He says he trusts our judgment.”

Izzy’s grin turned mischievous as she analyzed the three dogs. One of the pit bulls was undoubtedly more scared than the others as it sat there trembling in its cage, but the other two seemed so similar in temperament that Alec wasn’t sure how she planned to choose between them.

She did select one of the dogs with relative ease though: the less terrified pit bull.

“Time for the moment of truth,” she muttered, inching closer to the dog’s cage.

“Wait,” Alec said, holding up a hand.

None of the others had noticed him pull out his phone, and they were startled by the command.

“Magnus is on his way,” he explained. “Just wait. I’d feel better knowing we had a way to restrain the dog that wasn’t impaling it in the side. Besides, he can portal you to Simon. I don’t think that dog is going to make it very far on the streets. You don’t even have a leash.”

Izzy accepted his idea easily enough, but she kept calmly talking to the dog, still bent over its cage when Magnus arrived at the cellar. He looked a little frazzled after being woken up from his sleep at such a time of night, and he appeared almost amused to find them gathered around the dogs.

“This was certainly unexpected,” he said, leaning in to peck Alec on the lips.

When they broke apart, Magnus looked at the three dogs, zeroing in on the one Izzy was crouching next to.

“Is this the lucky one going to Simon?” he asked.

At Izzy’s nod, Magnus sighed.

“Go ahead and let it out then,” he said, raising his hands to be prepared at a moment’s notice.

Izzy did as instructed with hardly any restraint. The dog had calmed somewhat since she’d been whispering to it, and when its cage door swung open, it did nothing but continue to sit there, staring at Izzy with wide, nervous eyes.

“Come on,” Izzy urged in the same gentle voice she’d been using previously. “It’s time to go meet your new owner. Living with a vampire will be much more exciting than those demons.”

It took far longer than was normal for the dog to come out, but it did eventually do so, walking up to Izzy and sitting down quietly beside her, still watching her as if it expected her demeanor to change at any moment.

“Getting it through the portal will be a challenge,” Clary remarked. “Especially since it’s likely never seen anything like it before.”

“I have a suggestion,” Magnus said, raising one hand to gain their attention. “I could momentarily sedate the dog. The spell is harmless, and I can assure that it wears off only moments after it’s at Simon’s. It’s still likely to lash out when it wakes up and discovers it’s in an unfamiliar place, but that’s already a consequence of the portal.”

“We should try it,” Clary said. “At least it’ll get it there.”

Izzy gave a short nod. The dog watched as she stood from her crouch.

“My recommendation is to get up in one of those canoes Simon has hanging around before the dog wakes. At least until you can judge its reaction.”

Izzy nodded at Magnus, and a split second later, the dog was asleep. Izzy and Clary lifted it together and carried it through the portal as the two other dogs cowered in their cages.

“I can take this one to the Institute,” Jace said, motioning to the doberman. “We can always keep it in a spare room until we see how well it does around people. We have plenty of those.”

He stooped down to the dog’s level.

“How would you like that, buddy? An entire room to yourself, and maybe one day, you can have the run of the Institute?”

The dog tilted its head to one side, making Alec wonder if it had ever been spoken to before in the excited tone that Jace had used.

“It’s better than any idea I’ve got,” Alec admitted.

Magnus sensed his worry and took a slight step forward, placing one hand gently on his boyfriend’s lower back. Alec leaned in to the touch, feeling a sense of calm coming over him that he might have believed was the result of magic if he hadn’t known Magnus was capable of creating the effect by his mere proximity.

Jace was watching the dog with the same intensity that Izzy had watched the last one, and despite his parabatai’s earlier instinct to call animal control, Alec wasn’t sure that he could have convinced Jace to part with the dog anymore.

“What about ‘Seraph’?” Jace asked the dog. “Would you like that for a name?”

“Seraph?” Alec and Magnus repeated at the same time, disapproval in their voices.

“What?” Jace shot back.

When the high pitch of his voice startled the dog, he forced himself to be calmer.

“It sounds cool,” he said, though he sounded a little embarrassed to have made the suggestion after seeing the reaction it got. “Being named after a blade is pretty badass. It works.”

Magnus chuckled, and Alec offered only a slight shrug in response.

They followed the same process they had for the first dog, but the newly dubbed Seraph didn’t come as easily as the previous dog, and Magnus had to sedate her—the ascertained—before they’d gotten her out of the cage.

“Be careful with her,” Alec warned Jace. “I’d prefer not to come home to a parabatai who was bloodied by a dog after fighting demons all night without a scratch.”

Jace looked downright offended as he stood with the dog cradled gently in his arms.

“I’ve got this,” he said. “As you rightly pointed out, I’ve faced demons far more frightening than this dog.”

“Don’t,” Alec warned. “Being overconfident is the first step towards getting bitten.”

Jace shrugged, shifting the dog in his arms. The animal looked downright peaceful now that she was asleep. Alec desperately hoped that waking up in the Institute wouldn’t send such a shock to her system that she lashed out, but it was hard for him to imagine her reacting any other way.

When Jace was gone, Alec turned to Magnus.

“There’s still one more dog,” Magnus pointed out before Alec could speak.

Though the words were for Alec, his eyes were on the dog in question, watching it with an oddly intense curiosity.

The remaining pit bull was as far as it could get from Magnus and Alec while in its cage. Its back was pressed up against the rear bars, and it was making itself as small as it could manage.

“I don’t know what to do with it,” Alec admitted. “Who else do we know who could take in a dog?”

“I could.”

Though there was some reluctance in Magnus’ voice, he was serious. When Alec turned to him, he merely shrugged off Alec’s concern with a wave of his hand.

“It’s not ideal,” he continued. “The cats that use my balcony as a refuge will need to be safe. I refuse to turn them away, but I’m sure I can make arrangements that will keep everyone happy. That dog certainly needs a place to stay as much as they do, and I know you’re not about to leave it here or call the mundanes.”

It was true that Alec couldn’t find it in himself to get the mundanes involved, and though he hated the idea of thrusting an unwanted dog on Magnus far more than he was bothered by doing the same to Jace or Simon, he couldn’t turn down Magnus’ offer.

They opened the dog’s cage, and though it growled, it didn’t try to lunge like Jace’s Seraph had. They waited patiently for it to come out, and when it did so, Magnus gently sedated it like he had the others. They discovered then that it was female, and Alec secretly hoped that Magnus came up with a name capable of topping Jace’s choice of ‘Seraph.’

When the portal dropped them in Magnus’ loft, Alec laid the dog gently on the carpet before standing. He and Magnus stood at the edge of the room as the dog awoke. Immediately, she began growling again, but she grew calmer when she noticed Alec and Magnus, as if they were now the one familiar thing she could cling to in the new space.

It took a while, but eventually she began hesitantly sniffing at her surroundings. It assured Alec that, at least in time, she would be okay in the loft. Still, neither he nor Magnus dared to approach her, letting her make her own decisions about what to do in a space for possibly the first time in her life.

Alec and Magnus had collapsed on the couch, pressed close together as they tried to avoid moving around too much and frightening the dog.

“I’m really sorry,” Alec all but whispered.

He still wasn’t certain how loud he could speak without it spooking the dog, but he wanted to err on the side of caution.

Magnus turned away from the dog to look at him, one eyebrow raised.

“For what?”

Alec sighed, tilting his head to the side as he thought.

“When I called you for help making a portal, I didn’t mean for you to get stuck with a dog.”

Magnus couldn’t help but laugh.

“Love, I know, but I have to admit that you looked rather adorable when you were concerned for them. There was no way I could leave one of those dogs behind when I knew how much it would upset you.”

Alec’s heart twisted in his chest, and he could feel his cheeks turn a slight pink.

“Still,” he continued, pushing through, “she’s not going to be the easiest dog to take care of, if any dog is easy. You probably won’t be able to have people over...well, possibly ever. Depending on how she does, I guess.”

“I am aware of the consequences,” Magnus said, not without fondness. “To be honest, what I’m least looking forward to is the walks. I can’t say I’m excited to see how she reacts on the streets of New York.”

Alec let out a few choice words.

“I hadn’t even thought about that,” he admitted.

Magnus waved one hand.

“There are solutions. I can always portal us to a secluded area of Central Park or maybe even the middle of nowhere if it would better suit her.”

Alec frowned.

“That’s a lot of work for you just to take a dog on a walk.”

Magnus chuckled.

“A lot of work? Lest you forget, Alexander, all I need to do is wave my hand and the portal appears.”

“Magnus,” Alec replied in a disapproving tone, “you know what I meant. It looks simple, but it’s not actually nothing. It takes energy for you to create a portal.”

Magnus’ over the top smile changed to one that was gentler, fonder.

“That’s true, love, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. The dog will be fine; I’ll be fine.”

Alec wasn’t convinced, and Magnus shuffled closer to him on the couch, if that were even possible, pressing their sides firmly together and weaving an arm around his shoulders. He pressed a kiss to Alec’s cheek.

“I’m flattered that you care,” he told Alec honestly. “I don’t know of many people who would put this much effort into convincing me not to take the dog when I’ve already agreed to do just that.”

Alec flushed, a look that Magnus found utterly adorable on him.

“I feel bad,” he muttered, looking down at his lap. “I promise to help. I can come over every morning and feed her, and I’ll definitely buy the food so you don’t have to. And I know I can’t portal her to secluded areas, but I can at least walk her around if you make the portal for me. You won’t have to do that much work really.”

Magnus couldn’t help but laugh. Alec looked a little embarrassed, and Magnus cupped his cheek, encouraging him to look him in the eye. He pressed their foreheads together, leaning in to press a quick kiss to Alec’s lips.

“I’m flattered, but if you’re going to do all that, Alexander, then you might as well move in.”

Alec froze, and Magnus realized immediately that he might have said more than he’d meant to. The idea of asking Alec to move in with him had run through his mind before, but he had never thought to actually ask.

“Was that a joke?” Alec asked, voice raspy. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

“Do you want it to have been a joke?” Magnus asked slowly.

It had been one, really, but only because he had never expected Alec to say yes. He would gladly lie and say it hadn’t been one if Alec responded differently than he’d expected.

“I’m head of the Institute,” was Alec’s answer.

Though it might not have made sense to some, Magnus understood what he was saying. He didn’t answer, waiting for Alec to continue on his own.

“I’ve never heard of the head of an Institute living anywhere except at the Institute they run.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Magnus pointed out. He was allowing himself to become hopeful even though he was likely to regret it. “I never thought I’d be dating a Shadowhunter, but here we are, and I don’t regret it.”

Alec smiled at him so brightly that crinkles appeared around his eyes.

“It would be nice,” he admitted to Magnus in a hardly audible voice, almost as if saying it louder meant they might be found out by someone who would stop them.

But Magnus was quite certain that no one would be able to stop them if they set their minds on something. If anyone were capable, they would have done it by now. In all of his years on earth, Magnus had never been with someone who seemed so determined to keep their relationship progressing no matter what outside forces they came up against.

The Magnus of the past would have been astonished with how much trust Magnus of the present placed in Alexander Lightwood.

“We could do it,” Magnus said, feeling butterflies of anticipation in his stomach. “It’s not like we’re unprepared for it, with how much time you already spend here. I already have the fridge stocked with your favorites. You already clean everything when I tell you that you don’t have to. Now you can feed the dog.”

Alec had watched him throughout his speech, nodding as an ever growing smile worked its way onto his lips.

“Let’s do it,” he said with a level of enthusiasm that made Magnus’ heart stutter in his chest. “How soon?”

“Now?” Magnus asked. “I’m up for now.”

Alec actually giggled, and it made Magnus collapse into his own laughter. Alec leaned into him, kissing him for longer far longer than Magnus had anticipated when he was vibrating with the anticipation of moving Alec into the loft.

“How about tomorrow?” Alec suggested once he’d found it in himself to pull away. “Tonight I’d rather just stay here.”

“Right. It’s better not to disturb the dog on her first night here.”

“Mmhmm,” Alec hummed. “That was exactly my reasoning.”

Magnus let out a short laugh before stretching himself up far enough enough to kiss Alec, making it even longer than their last kiss. Things were going well until Alec suddenly stiffened and pulled away.

“What is it?” Magnus asked, alarmed at the sudden change in demeanor.

“The dog,” Alec said, craning his neck around Magnus to get a glimpse at the animal. “She needs a name.”

Magnus turned to look at the dog and sighed. She had curled up on one of the chairs without them noticing, so Magnus figured there was no hope of teaching her to stay off the furniture. Not that he would have brought himself to do it even if he’d had the opportunity to stop her. Not after her past. He felt that letting her on the furniture was the least he could do.

“That’ll go on tomorrow’s to do list,” Magnus declared. “We’ll even move it to first, above moving you in here.”