#ohfreckle

"I know," Alec grumbles, fighting the urge to pout. Really, he's not sure what he's got to complain about; "I need to go find Magnus and make sure whatever this was isn't going to kill me, since the guy who did it isn't coherent enough to reliably tell me himself" had proven to be an absolutely flawless excuse to call off his patrol early, and it's not like he's upset about getting home sooner than he'd thought he would and therefore getting to spend that much extra time with Magnus. It just feels slightly less than dignified to have to be inspected for the side effects of drunken Seelie magic like he’s fresh out of the Shadowhunter Academy, that's all. Plus, the glitter is itchy, and he can feel it all over him, a fine, gritty, uncomfortable layer. It's making him feel hot, and he shifts slightly, trying to get comfortable.

"I'm beginning to doubt that he really did anything to you at all, actually," Magnus muses, running his hands over Alec's abdomen now. "That is, he certainly blasted you with magic, but I'm not sure it actually had any effect. He may have thought you were also a Seelie, and tried to do something that doesn't actually work on mortals, or..." He trails off, a little crease appearing in his brow, and Alec looks down to see that while his hands have stilled, the magic around them seems to be pulsing. "No, all right, there's definitely something."

Alec shoves his sleeves up to his elbows, idly scratching at his forearms. The longer he sits here, the hotter and itchier and less comfortable he seems to feel, which is a little strange; one of the wonderful things about living with the High Warlock of Brooklyn is that the climate control is always perfect. The loft keeps itself perfectly adjusted to the preferences of its inhabitants, except right now, Alec can feel sweat starting to gather at the small of his back. He frowns.

"There's something, all right," he says. "I feel..."

Magnus glances up at him and must find something alarming in his face, because he immediately lowers his hands, the glow of his magic fading away. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Alec says at first, then changes his mind. "It's hot. I feel —"

But he finds that he can’t get out the rest of the sentence. It's as if he can't quite focus, his thoughts wanting to do anything possible except go in a straight line. He grimaces slightly, and then frowns more deeply when Magnus' hands come up to cup his face, one thumb brushing over his cheekbones. Magnus' touch is cooling, but almost uncomfortably so, the feeling like a shock to his system.

"You don't feel hot to me," Magnus says, half to himself, "so the effect isn't physical, whatever it is — though of course that doesn't mean it can't be physically damaging... Do you feel anything else? Dizzy? Numb?"

"Not numb," Alec says. On the contrary, there's a bit of a tingling sensation in his extremities, now that he stops to think about it. "Itchy, though — can you get right of the damn glitter?"

Magnus nods, then snaps. There's a beat, and then he frowns and snaps again. He doesn't bother doing it a third time, though he does reach out to try and physically brush the glitter away, which isn't any more effective than trying to remove it with magic had been.

"Ah," he says. Then, suddenly, his eyes narrow. "You said you felt hot? Itchy? Are you confused — are you having trouble focusing?"

"Yes," Alec says. "I’m — do you know what it is, then?"

"I might," Magnus mutters, his hands glowing blue with magic again. "I think I was looking in the wrong — ah."

Alec shifts, squints, shivers a little. "Ah?"

Not meeting his eyes, Magnus curses, his hands flaring even more brightly blue as he sweeps them in broad strokes all around Alec's body. "It may not have been malicious, but it is dangerous," he says. "I was right, too, when I said he must have mistaken you for another Seelie — but I was wrong in saying that that must have made the magic less effective. It did the opposite."

"It's worse?" Alec says. "It — made it worse?"

"Yes," Magnus says tightly, and then all at once the magic seems to burst outward from his hands and sweep through Alec's entire body, every cell lighting up with the bite of cold, where normally Magnus' magic feels quite warm to him. "Oh, damn it, sometimes I hate being right."

"Magnus, please just tell me what's wrong," Alec begs, squeezing his eyes shut tight for a moment. "I need to — should I go back to the Institute? Should I go try to track down the Seelie? What's wrong?"

"Nothing will be wrong if we handle this quickly," Magnus says. "Luckily, I think we've caught it in plenty of time — it's a good thing you came straight here. But it is a bit of a nasty piece of work, so we have to take it seriously. I hate messing with Seelie magic," he mutters as an aside, wrinkly his nose. "So messy."

"Magnus."

"Sorry," Magnus says, exhaling sharply through his nose. "It's just a little — well. To put it bluntly, Alexander, it's a sex spell."

"Oh," Alec says, a little blankly. Then, slowly, the thought filters through his mind properly, and he starts to get mad. "It — so he roofied me?"

"That's one way to look at it, yes," Magnus says, squeezing his eyes shut tight for a moment and pinching the bridge of his nose. He's clearly frustrated, but strangely, Alec feels remarkably calmer now that he knows that — however unintentionally — a Seelie sprayed him with sex glitter. It makes everything make just a little bit more sense, from the way his skin still feels hot and stretched thin over his frame to the way he feels his eyes going a little heavy-lidded. And it definitely explains the way his throat goes dry when he looks at Magnus, though that one's not exactly out of the ordinary.

"Is it going to wear off?" Alec asks, his voice slurring slightly. The longer he sits here, the more intense everything seems to feel, and either he's crazy, or it's accelerating, each passing moment speeding faster and faster towards — something. He doesn’t quite know what, but given the nature of the spell, he can obviously guess.

Magnus frowns again, but opens his eyes, his hands dropping to move in slow, sweeping arcs around Alec's body once again. "It should," he says a little dubiously, and then immediately swears again. "Unless all the ways you're different from a Seelie mean that the effects won't fade like they should."

Alec frowns. That, obviously, does not sound good. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I can’t really be certain," Magnus says, but his tone is grim enough that Alec knows the caveat probably isn't worth much. "But if I'm understanding the impact this is having on you correctly, it's not going to just — go away the way it should. For a Seelie, this is just a harmless little party drug. But Seelie drugs are complicated; angel blood and demon blood combined allows for some complex physiological effects. But you, Alexander—" He laughs, short and sharp. "You only have half the puzzle pieces. You don't have demon blood, so instead of fading in a couple of hours, we can either give the magic what it wants, or..."

He doesn't say exactly what, but the way he trails off is more than enough. Alec doesn't exactly like to talk about the possibility of Magnus being hurt or dying, either; he more than understands not actually wanting to say the words.

"Well—" he says, trying to keep his own voice relatively even. "Well, then what does it — what does it want? What do we need to give it?"

Magnus grimaces a little. "It's a sex spell, remember?"

"Oh!" Alec replies, taken aback. The relief is so immediate and overwhelming that he doesn't even stop to think, at first, about why Magnus would still sound so upset if the solution is that simple. "Oh, well then that's — that's easy, isn't it?"

"Easy," Magnus says. He sounds bitter, Alec realizes with shock, and unhappy, and clearly Alec is missing something very key, here, because he can't fathom what it is that would suddenly make the idea of having sex with him make Magnus sound like that. His immediate thought is that he must have done something wrong, and anxiety snakes through him in an instant, but — Magnus hasn't moved away from him, hasn't tried to put any distance between them. He has to try and keep himself from jumping to conclusions, has to —

"Do you not want to?" he blurts, and then immediately winces, even before he has a chance to take in Magnus' look of blank shock.

There's a moment of silence before either of them manages to say anything after that, and then when Magnus does manage to say something, his voice actually cracks on his surprise.

"What — Alec, it's not about whether I want to," he says, very much with the air of someone who has been shocked into blunt honesty. "I'm not the one who's being held at metaphorical gunpoint. The problem is whether or not you want to — or not even that, it's whether or not you have the option of saying no, even if you do want to."

Another pause, as Alec's mouth drops open and he tries for several long seconds to formulate an answer that's even slightly intelligible. "But it's you," he says eventually. He feels a little stupid saying it, and his voice is bewildered even to his own ears. "I mean — how long have we been having sex? Why is this different?"

"Because you don't have the ability to say no!" Magnus says, his voice close to boiling over with a potent mixture of worry and frustration. "Whether or not you would doesn't matter in this case as much as the fact that you can't. I know that you wouldn't. I believe you. But I don't like that you couldn't. I don’t like that some — some Seelie whose name I’ll never know took that away from you, however unintentionally."

Alec frowns a little, squints at the intense, unreadable look on Magnus' face, and reaches over a little hesitantly to clasp his hand. "Look," he says, keeping his voice as level and clear as possible, though his mind feels anything but. "I'm not sure I can really have this conversation right now. I mean, I'm — it's all a little—" He gestures wildly with the hand that's not holding Magnus', trying his best to convey the way it feels like he's trying to think through syrup, slow and sticky and sweet. "But I — I understand that you're not huge on the circumstances. I'm pretty sure I understand why? But maybe we can... you know, when I'm less..."

He gestures again, and Magnus reaches up to snatch his hand out of the air before he can get very animated.

"'I'm too impaired to even have this conversation, so we should just go ahead and have sex and talk about it later' is not the watertight argument you probably think it is," he says dryly. Then he sighs, slow and audibly frustrated, and squeezes both of Alec's hands where he's brought them to settle in his lap. "But, unfortunately, in this situation, I think you might be right. It's not like I can just sit around a few hours and wait for you to sober up..."

Magnus still doesn't sound entirely comfortable, so Alec tries his best to be cautious and respectful when he leans in to kiss him, just a gentle brush of lips. "I'm sorry," he says, the thought clearer and more sobering than any he's had in a while. "I don't want to put you in a position like this."

"It's all right, Alexander," Magnus says softly, squeezing his hands again. "It's not as though it’s your fault, and... well, to your own point, it's not as though this isn't how the night would have ended anyway, more likely than not. We just have a few additional wrinkles to work through with the situation that we weren't expecting."

"Right," Alec breathes. "Wrinkles."

When he leans in to kiss Magnus again, it's significantly less cautious, though he does still pull away after just a few seconds, not really giving Magnus an opportunity to respond in kind. He leans back just enough to tempt Magnus forward, and the gambit works: Magnus shifts from being on his knees on the floor to crawling up into Alec's lap with sinuous grace, his eyes glittering. By the time he's got one knee on either side of Alec's hips, Alec is breathing hard, his chest heaving at nothing more than the teasing press of Magnus' legs through the double layer of their pants and the slight, reluctant quirk of his mouth.

"Magnus," he says, or rather, croaks; his chest feels tight, his heart pounding in his throat. Magnus smiles at him with only a hint of reluctance remaining, arms wrapping around him, hands scratching and catching in the hair at the nape of his neck.

"I'm sure it's starting to get a little uncomfortable for you," he murmurs, his eyes flickering down from Alec's eyes to his lips to the hollow of his throat. "Seelie drugs are just as dangerous for me as they are for you — you don't have demon blood, I don't have angel blood... So I don't have any personal experience, but I've certainly known those who were more than willing to take the risk. I've heard stories."

For all that he's on edge and humming with arousal, Alec hasn't actually taken much time, to this point, to realize the impact of the drug on him physically, other than how hot and sensitive he still feels. It takes only one brief, gentle roll of Magnus' hips, though, for him to realize that those lesser sensations have just been there to distract him. Magnus presses their cocks together, even through multiple layers of fabric, and Alec gasps out loud, the sound shockingly sudden and inescapable in the otherwise-quiet loft.

"That's what I thought," Magnus hums, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. Then, without any sort of warning, he ducks down to nip at Alec's jaw, his earlobe, his throat, trailing little kisses and bites inexorably downward until he finally reaches the point where Alec's neck connects with his shoulder. There, he bites down with significantly more force, licks over the bite with warm, wet flashes of tongue, and then sucks, just hard enough to really entice but not quite hard enough to satisfy the pulsing need that's settling low in Alec's abdomen.

"Raziel," he hisses under his breath, his hands fluttering uselessly up and down Magnus' sides. Magnus bites him again, and he curses even louder, his voice breaking in the middle of the word: "Fuck. Magnus, I don't know if I can—"

"No teasing tonight?" Magnus says, pulling back just far enough to look Alec in the eyes again. He takes the opportunity offered by this slightly greater distance to start working at Alec's clothes, pushing his jacket down off his shoulders and slipping his arms from the sleeves, and then working his hands up under the t-shirt underneath until he can strip it quickly off over Alec's head. "Now that's a crying shame."

"Tease me on nights when it doesn't have life-or-death consequences," Alec breathes, just before pulling Magnus toward him by looping his arms around his neck and kissing him soundly, nipping at his lower lip in retaliation for the bruise that will no doubt bloom under his collar by the morning.

"Oh, you're not that close to the edge, I think," Magnus says as they pull apart. His voice is still even, but his breathing is certainly not, Alec notes with satisfaction; he starts working on his own shirt as he talks, though his eyes never leave Alec. "You've got several hours yet before you'd really start to feel the ill effects, and even then you'd have a few hours more before it got truly dangerous."

"I’m not so sure about taking that chance," Alec replies, reaching out to help him with the buttons down the front of his silky blue top. “Better safe than sorry.”

Magnus hums dismissively, but he flings his shirt aside to join Alec’s and then places his hands just over Alec’s ribs, starting a steady trail downwards that’s totally counter to the aloofness he’s trying to portray. He fingers the button on Alec’s jeans, gaze flicking up so that their eyes lock, and then he pauses a moment, his hands stiling again.

“You’re sure?” he says, quietly. His eyes flicker over Alec’s face.

“Of course I’m sure,” Alec replies, feeling almost unbearably fond. He feels like the sentiment might need a little proof, though — just in case — so he leans down, catching Magnus’ face between his hands and kissing him and kissing him until absolutely every thought has gone out of his own head. When he surfaces again, his pants are gone, or at least shoved far enough down his thighs that they’re out of the way, and Magnus has one hand curled loosely around the base of his cock.

Alec makes an almost wounded little noise when Magnus’ hand flexes, his grip tightening almost imperceptibly and then loosening again. Magnus responds with his own wordless noise: a considering hum accompanied by another little squeeze.

“You really are feeling it, though, aren’t you?” he asks, his tone wondering. Alec doesn’t bother answering, or even nodding; he just keens a little, presses his hips up into Magnus’ touch, and throws his head back, his eyes fluttering shut.

It’s over remarkably quickly after that — perhaps unsurprising, given how worked up Alec is, how hot and close and sensitive everything feels. Magnus barely gets a few good strokes in before Alec is choking on his own breath, his whole body gone taut with need; if not for the chemical influence, the amount of time it takes for him to double over, pressing his face into the crook of Magnus’ neck, and come all over his hands would be positively embarrassing.

There’s a long pause in the aftermath, the silence broken only by their heavy breathing. Alec’s eyes are almost entirely shut, so he feels more than sees the familiar little flicking motion that Magnus uses to get rid of the come, but his eyes struggle open when Magnus says “Oh!”, a soft sound of surprise. When Alec looks down, he sees the Seelie glitter fading off of his skin, disappearing in patches until, in mere moments, it’s as though it was never even there at all.

“Well,” he says after a moment, turning his arm this way and that to make sure that all of the glitter is truly gone. “That was easy, after all that.”

Magnus hums an assent, grabbing Alec’s other hand to flip it around and run his fingers over it himself, likewise checking for any remaining traces of glitter and, based on the way he nods and then squeezes Alec’s hand in his own, finding none. “I’m still not exactly thrilled that you got blasted by Seelie sex magic without your consent, but… yes. It certainly seems to be gone now.”

Alec smiles at him, leaning down for a light peck on the lips. “It wasn’t exactly how I was expecting my night to go, but it also didn’t turn out to be the end of the world,” he says, squeezing Magnus’ hand right back. “I love you. I knew you’d figure out what it was, and figure out how to fix it. I trusted you. And, hey — it worked out pretty well, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I guess you did get your happy ending.”

“Mmm,” Alec agrees, then narrows his eyes a little, his voice dropping into a slightly lower register. “And the night’s not exactly over yet.”

“Alexander,” Magnus replies, dropping Alec’s hand so that he can link his arms behind Alec’s neck instead, his eyes glittering. “Whatever could you mean?”

“Let’s go to bed,” Alec murmurs. “No offense to the Seelies, but I don’t really need anything extra for a night with you.”

The Lightwoods trained together, most mornings. They were all three of them drift compatible, in any combination. No one had ever seen anything like it. The techs were still trying to work out a good way to balance the input so all three of them could share a jaeger, but until then they just rotated shifts, two on a mission, the third back in Ops, snarking at them over the radio. 

Though Jace and Isabelle only drifted for training. They were very good for pushing uncertain new trainees forward, but they pushed too much in an actual fight, their drift moving each of them faster and faster until the jaeger couldn’t keep up, and the system flared out.

Luckily they’d had back-up when they figured that out. Alec had almost attempted to grab a jaeger and pilot it on his own to go get them; Luke had barely managed to keep him on the comms to keep his siblings stable while Branwell and Monteverde took out the kaiju.

Everyone came back fine. 

It was nice when that happened.

Magnus was still mad he hadn’t figured out some sort of governor to keep them in check. Alec had just laughed when he’d heard Magnus complaining. Said no one could keep those two in check, no reason to think tech could either. 

Alec kept them in check though.

Alec kept everyone in check. 

Except for Magnus’ imagination, which tended to get distracted by the shift of Alec’s shoulders under his shirt at least once a day.

Magnus never told Alec that he was trying to make the governor for Alec, not his siblings. He was trying to make it so Alec could have a break, so Jace and Isabelle could go out without him, so Alec would be at least a little bit safe sometimes, so he wouldn’t always have to be their shield.

Magnus knew perfectly well that Alec wanted to be their shield, that he wouldn’t thank Magnus for potentially putting his siblings in more danger, but Magnus couldn’t help it.

Isabelle thanked him instead. 

She came by the labs on her off days, helped tweak the tech and play with the weapons. Watched the way Magnus watched her brother, and smiled.

She smiled at Magnus this morning, too, and pulled Jace off to the side, challenging him to something or other, keeping them both busy. Like always happened when he had the chance, Magnus let his attention turn back to Alec... who was looking back at him. Alec lifted his eyebrows, and Magnus almost dropped his hand weight on his foot.

Magnus looked away, swallowed, finished his set. He put his weights away, and finally let himself look up again. Alec was still looking at him, his staff braced on the floor as he leaned against it. Alec lifted his chin, and Magnus couldn’t help but follow the motion, let himself be pulled, didn’t try to stop himself from standing and walking closer.

“Care to join me?” Alec asked, a hint of a smile lurking somewhere in his eyes, in the tiniest lift up on the side of his mouth. 

Magnus blinked at him in surprise. 

Alec shrugged, as if Magnus had managed to ask why out loud. “I’ve seen you doing your Tai Chi routine, kinda want to see how well you’d do against someone besides your own shadow.”

Alec’s eyes flickered and glanced up and down, an appreciative sort of glance, and Magnus felt a lick of hunger, hot in his gut, and smiled back. “Got an extra staff?”

“I do.” Alec grinned, and Magnus’ nostrils flared because oh, the man wanted to play. He could do that. He was going to enjoy doing that.

Alec tossed his staff over, and it was still warm from the grip of his hands. That should not have been as distracting as it was, wondering how hot Alec’s palms would feel if Magnus could touch them directly.

Magnus looked up as Alec stepped forward, a new staff in his hand, and his eyes as sharp and hungry as Magnus felt. They both shifted their stances a little, but neither of them moved for a moment. Magnus let his focus widen and narrow, both at once, watching Alec’s feet and shoulders and the flick of his eyes, ignoring everything else as much as possible.

By the time Alec moved, it felt like Magnus already knew where he was going, like his staff knew where to be even before Magnus did. He blocked, and countered, and Alec’s grin widened. Back and forth they went, round and round, more like dancing than sparring, beat by beat and step by step, and it was hard to hold in the laughter, sheer delight bubbling up through Magnus’ chest. Again, again, hit, block, lead, follow. Alec’s eyes were the brightest thing Magnus had ever seen. 

His skin felt hot, he could feel the rasp of each breath in his throat, the slow trail of sweat down his spine. He blinked, apparently for just an instant too long, because Alec did something Magnus couldn’t quite follow, and suddenly he was flat on his back staring at the ceiling. He laughed at last, the sound ragged as he tried to breathe, and he let his staff fall out of his hands and roll to the side. 

Applause filled the background, like rain on a roof, but he ignored it, watched Alec as he stepped forward and offered a hand. Magnus grabbed it, and they both pulled him up to his feet, forward until they were standing almost too close together, the only thing between them their own clasped hands. 

Magnus lifted his chin, kept his voice low enough that only Alec would hear him beneath the noise around them. “Maybe I should have pulled you down to join me on that mat instead?”

“Maybe next time, when there’s not an audience?”

Magnus closed his eyes and swallowed, let himself feel the heat of Alec’s breath against his cheek, let himself imagine more. Magnus opened his eyes with a sigh. Alec was still smiling, his body radiating heat from the exercise. He was so close Magnus could feel his chest lifting just a little with each breath, though he looked much less tired than Magnus felt. 

Magnus could feel the width of his own grin; there were worse ways to get worn out. 

There were also better ones.

“Join me for dinner?” Magnus asked.

Alec’s smile quirked sideways, and Magnus felt almost breathless as he waited for an answer. “And breakfast, if we’re lucky?”

Magus almost coughed, and his eyebrow lifted with surprise. “And here I thought you were so reserved, Alexander.”

He could feel Alec’s breath catch, could see him stare at Magnus’ mouth for a moment before he answered. “Some things are worth saying out loud.”

Magnus was strongly considering kissing, until a hand slapped him on his shoulder and they startled a step apart. 

But Alec didn’t let go of his hand.  

“Don’t suppose I could entice you to the dark side, Bane?” Luke asked, smiling as he glanced from Magnus to Alec and back again. 

“Please don’t.” Magnus almost startled again at Cat’s voice off to the side.“Unless you want the jaegers to all over-heat because no one figures out a better coolant formula.”

As Magnus turned to look at her he realized the gym was full, more so than when they’d started. Clearly more than half the staff on post had come to watch them. They were all just now starting to turn away, and he remembered the sound of that applause, full and rich and filling the air. Apparently their sparring/dancing/flirting routine had both lasted longer than he’d realized, and drawn more attention than he’d expected.

Luke sighed, and stepped back, shaking his head. “I do like it when the jaegers work.”

“Though maybe a trade?” Magnus almost stepped backwards at the greedy glint in Cat’s eyes as she spoke. “You can play with our boy if we can play with yours?”

Alec made a soft affronted sort of noise, and Magnus squeezed his hand. 

Luke tilted his head. “Continue.”

“You can put Magnus through your pilot training, even put him on rotation if it works out, if we can get Alec in for extra monitoring.”

Magnus frowned and opened his mouth, but Cat shook her head at him before he could speak.

“He seems to be drift compatible with at least three different people. That’s unusual all on its own, but it’s on top of being able to balance a three-way drift with Jace and Isabelle. I’d like to figure it out. See if we can make drifting easier on the pilots.”

“I’m in if Magnus is,” Alec answered before Luke could. 

Of course he is. Easier on the pilots meant easier on his siblings. No way Alec could turn that down. Easier on him probably never crossed his mind. 

Training meant training with Alec. Magnus refrained from thinking about too many with Alec possibilities, at least while everyone was still staring at him. Clearly, their little dance had shown how well they might work together, and it wasn’t always easy to find people who were drift compatible. 

It wasn’t easy to find good techs, either. Magnus could turn training down, but he didn’t want to; he liked the idea of joining Jace and Isabelle in watching Alec’s back too much.

“I guess we’re both in then.”  

He saw the flash of Alec’s grin in his peripheral vision. Cat and Luke just nodded.

“Take the morning, Magnus.” Cat’s lips twitched, as if she was holding in something a bit more suggestive. “Back in the lab after lunch.”

“You too, Alec.” Luke looked possibly even more amused than Cat. Magnus had to work at it not to roll his eyes at them. “It helps to spend some time together before we start the drift sims.”

Alec grunted. 

Magnus turned, and bit his lips to hold the smile in. There was still too much color high on his cheeks, and Magnus was pretty sure Alec was blushing. “Shall we?”

Alec’s head tilted sideways, and there was that smile again, small and almost arrogant but mostly pleased. “Definitely.”