#s2ep09

Not that there’s (much) cause for real concern. He wouldn’t go out there with any intent other than to breathe. It’s a far less frequent thing for Alec to activate his surefooted rune and take the express elevator to the ground. Jace, however, can attest that it’s been known to happen.

Until the night of Max’s party, Alec hadn’t realized what he was actually flirting with.

He keeps waiting for someone--probably Jace, but these days it might even be Magnus--to make the connection. To realize how accustomed he’s become to taking the drop.

That was, in the end, the true fear Iris’s spell had caused to manifest. Clary’s loathing and blame were just a convenient vehicle. He knows, deep inside in a place that not even Magnus nor Jace are privy to, the spell preyed upon some microscopic worry that must have been calcifying in his brain like a grain of sand inside an oyster, that one day something would drive him to do for real what he’d been rehearsing for weeks.

How many times have you practiced that jump, Alec?

Does it count, if he didn’t consciously know that was what he was doing? If he only wanted--just for a few seconds--to feel weightless, unburdened by either concern or gravity? To feel the wind sweeping past his face, and the gentle explosion of cool air in his lungs when he sucked in that involuntary gasp as he fell?

If he’s honest with himself, it was a habit that started before Jocelyn died at his hands. It even started before Valentine took Jace. He can’t pinpoint when, nor can he really say why.

In the not-so-distant past he might have blamed Clary for it, but he’s trying not to do that anymore. That’s another terribly destructive habit he’s acquired along the way. It is, in fact, a habit with a body count attached.

Alec knows what he said to Jocelyn before his hand plunged into her chest.

He can’t actually remember saying it, but he knows.

the demon must be feeding on negative emotions--anger, hate, rage...

In those brief moments when the demon had control of him--

...always the favorite child...

--he’d taunted her with the malice he’d been cherishing against both her and her daughter.

...i’m done living in your shadow...

The attempted murder and downfall of his parabatai. The disgrace of his family. The fact that his world no longer resembles the sane, stable, predictable place it had been.

All that, he laid at Jocelyn’s door before he killed her. He knows he did.

Those constricting bands are tightening around his chest again. He can’t feel his lungs inflate. He wants more than anything to be out there, up high, where he can draw a breath. And if he needs to, he can activate his rune again and fly.

Who the hell am I to judge you, Izzy? How can I, when my own addiction has been slowly devouring me without me even realizing it?

“Alexander?”

He jerks. When did Magnus walk in? How long has he been trying to get Alec’s attention?

“Can we go for a walk?” Alec rasps, the breath in his chest insufficient for powering his voice to any volume that might resemble surety. “A park? The river? Around the block? Just...anywhere.”

Without a word, Magnus flings a portal into existence. Alec doesn’t hesitate to accept Magnus’s proffered hand. He doesn’t know where they’re going, but he doesn’t have to. Magnus will take him where he needs to be.

The scent of pine and moss and decomposing leaves fills his nose on his first breath. There’s a cool, misting rain on his face. Alec flings his head back and breathes.

“We’re in the Cascade Mountains,” Magnus says calmly. “There’s a lodge not far from here with a cell tower. If the Institute needs you, I’ll portal you back to their doorstep immediately, but I just thought perhaps this might be better than city air.”

It is. Alec nods appreciatively, but he’s too busy inhaling and exhaling to speak for a long moment. The starlit dark is too calming to use his witchlight or night vision rune, so he feels along the damp tree trunks until he comes to a cool, flat boulder large enough for them both to sit.

“I don’t understand it,” he says at last, fumbling for Magnus’s hand until he can lace their fingers together. “I’m happier the last couple weeks than I can ever remember being. And yet I’m--”

“Hurling yourself off ledges?” Magnus’s tone is gentle, because that’s what Magnus does when reassurance is called for, but his fingers tighten fiercely around Alec’s.

“Yeah. That.” Alec draws another deep breath. “I forgave my mother.”

He can almost hear Magnus’s confused blinking. “Okay.”

“After Max’s rune ceremony. Even with everything she’s said and the way she’s been. To me. Izzy. Jace. You. When she needed it, I let that go and forgave her. The way Clary did for me.”

“I would expect no less of you, Alexander.”

“Shouldn’t you?” Alec scoffs. “It’s not like I’ve made a habit of being forgiving or even, I don’t know, gracious about, well, anything.”

“No one can deny you’ve taken some body blows recently.” Magnus’s fingers explore his in the dark, twining and stroking. “Made some incredible adjustments in your life and worldview. A certain shortage of...let us say ‘generosity of spirit’...is understandable. Up to a point.”

“I can’t afford that.” Alec’s eyes burn and he wipes them quickly. “That demon...latched onto something in me. We even spoke about it, when we were briefing before the hunt. We talked about profiling the people in the Institute, coming up with a list of who might be at-risk for a demon that feeds on anger. I should have been the first person we looked at. I should have been quarantined, locked away somewhere I couldn’t--”

“Hindsight is meant to be a learning tool, Alec, not a scourge.”

His throat grows thick and tight and he swallows hard. “I know. That’s why. I forgave my mom because if she’d been in the Institute that night, Jocelyn would still be alive.”

To his credit, Magnus doesn’t try to protest or reassure Alec that surely he didn’t have it in him to do such a thing. Because all the evidence incontrovertibly demonstrated that yes, he did.

The ramifications of that imagined scenario played themselves out in his mind, stark and inexorable, the way they had a hundred times since he’d realized what was festering inside him. Max’s bereavement. His father’s blame. Jace’s loss of the only mother he’d ever known. Izzy being denied the opportunity to ever find any reconciliation of her own.

He would have destroyed the family he’d never wanted anything more than to protect.

“I’ve been trying to get rid of it. The anger. I don’t want to hurt anyone that way again. I mean, what if Valentine has another one of those things?”

He feels the shift of Magnus’s slight shrug. “I’d be less concerned with that than simply finding some peace of mind.”

“But tonight--with Raphael--” Another long breath. Cold air quenching the burn in his chest. Another. And yet another. “I don’t know how to let go of it.”

There’s too much else to say there, and Alec doesn’t have the words. What he’s building with Magnus, this relationship, is brighter and better than anything he’s ever known. It’s its very own force of good, a softly glowing source of light and a blanket of rightness wrapped around his shoulders to keep out the dark and the chill.

But the anger will destroy it if given a chance. Alec’s sure of that. He’s already seen hints of how it could happen, right after Jace disappeared and Alec was lashing out at everyone, Magnus included. He’d driven Magnus away, and he doesn’t ever want to do that again.

“I think it’s a process, Alec,” Magnus says after a long moment. “Being aware of it, trying to rectify it, those are solid first steps. But it doesn’t happen immediately. Making one decision to forgive one person, however significant, isn’t enough.”

“Not enough.” Alec hands his head. “Story of my life.”

“No.” Magnus says quickly. “Whatever voices are saying that to you are wrong. You know they are.”

“Do I? Izzy--”

“Isabelle did what addicts always do. Find someone to blame. Some way to make their addiction someone else’s problem and not something they need to conquer on their own.”

Alec jerks his hand out of Magnus’s. “She’s not an addict.”

“Yes, Alexander. She is.” The anger swells and his lungs start to tighten again, but Magnus’s implacable voice kept coming. “But that doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, or that she can’t be helped. If she wants to be. It has to come from her. But right now her addiction is calling the shots, making her say things she otherwise wouldn’t say. Especially when she’s high, because it feels good and she’ll say or do anything to protect and justify that feeling for as long as she can. Unless or until the cost becomes too steep.”

...you didn’t even notice when something was wrong...

“Just because she wouldn’t say those things doesn’t mean she’s wrong.” Alec springs up from the boulder like he’s got rocket boosters attached to his ass and starts walking. Uphill, not down. Somewhere with a break in the trees, maybe a ledge or overlook. He needs to be higher. After a moment of scrambling, Magnus catches up to him, laying a hand on Alec’s sleeve to keep them from getting separated in the dark. “Why didn’t I see it?”

“Are you sure you didn’t?” Magnus asks quietly.

The question goes through Alec’s chest like a spear. The weeks of Izzy pulling away from everyone, looking so afraid and just...depleted. “Of course I did. But--”

“--but she had a perfectly plausible explanation for her uncharacteristic behavior. So you didn’t inquire any further, because the real cause was unimaginable, and because you trust her. That’s not something you should blame yourself for.”

“I didn’t inquire any further because I was too caught up in you. Us.”

The glow of budding affection. The thrill of anticipation and discovery. The flare of arousal and explosion of passion long denied.

Magnus’s heartfelt plea comes in an urgent rasp. “No. Don’t use us as a bludgeon with which to punish yourself.”

“I won’t.” Inhale. Exhale. Every breath carries the crushing burdens of fear and obligation a little farther away. “I can’t.”

He can’t do that to them. They are an island of goodness in the middle of a churning, storm-ripped sea. He can’t regret seeking refuge there.

...you deserve to be happy…

Lydia said those words, but Izzy has always believed them with her whole heart. In her right mind, she’d never dream of blaming Alec for being distracted by something so new and strong and right.

Yet she does blame him.

Ergo, she’s not in her right mind.

Alec stops and turns to him, there in the middle of the midnight forest. He turns his face up to the sparse canopy and lets the drizzle dampen his skin.

She’s not in her right mind. Which means he has to find a way to help her get there, not just drag her around expecting compliance, or assaulting the one person she feels safe with. Or running away to lick his wounds because she managed to hit him where she knew it would hurt the most.

“Alexander--” Magnus speaks slowly and carefully, as though examining each word as he goes, discarding unsuitable variations. “Allow me to suggest that if you want to let go of your anger toward others, the first step has to be letting go of your anger toward yourself.”

That make sense, and yet…

Alec’s arms creep up, folding across his chest like a barrier. His lips lift in a well-rehearsed sneer. Whatever it is Magnus is trying to probe doesn’t want to be touched and he curls defensively around it. Alec can feel it swelling, ready to burst like a cyst spewing poison as a last line of defense. Mutually assured destruction.

“Oh really?” Condescending. Cold. He hates that note in his voice and he especially hates it directed at Magnus and why does he do this? “What am I angry at myself for?”

Magnus’s eyebrow twitches, a fleeting look of wry amusement tugging at his lips, as though Alec’s bristling is entirely predictable and not something he has any intention of indulging. “I can’t imagine. But I’m sure you can figure it out.”

It’s entirely disarming, that refusal to engage. A gentle needle puncture to aspirate the poison away, rather than risk it exploding all over everyone in the vicinity.

Alec pokes gingerly at it, because of course he knows what’s in there. A hundred accusations of inadequacy all stacked atop one another. Not the straight, dutiful nephilim scion his parents need. Not the attentive, supportive brother his sister needs. Not the positive role-model Max needs. Not the unimpeachable leader the New York Institute needs.

Not enough.

Never enough.

Magnus examines his rings in the dim light, and remarks softly, “I submit again that the voices feeding your anger are...distorted. Inaccurate.”

Only somewhat, in the case of his parents, but yes, point taken. It’s always seemed easier to blame himself for not coping with the weight of all the expectations crushing him than to examine them and see if they were reasonable, or if they even existed at all.

And forget telling someone he wanted to please that they needed to have more realistic expectations.

“You don’t expect anything of me,” Alec blurts, peering at Magnus.

“Not true. I expect you to treat me with respect. I expect you to be the good man I know you are.” He cleared his throat. “Who, incidentally, is not the sort of man who beats up my friends without first ascertaining all the facts. And before you begin self-flagellating on that front, a simple apology and an effort to rectify things and do better in the future will suffice. But it’s highly convenient, don’t you think, that in order to meet my expectations, all you have to do is what you already wish to do?”

In other words, find a way out from under the rage that demon had used to burrow into him. Find a way to stop lashing out at others. He doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, but if he doesn’t, everything he values is going to end up in ruins.

He’s not sure how he ends up wrapped around Magnus. The sounds of the forest are gentle. The whisper of rain hitting the leaves on the ground. The occasional rustle of nocturnal wildlife. The deep susurration of their breath is thunderously loud in his ears.

Holding someone who isn’t family like this, just for comfort and closeness, is entirely new, but it’s a balm on his soul and it helps push back the rage and bewilderment.

Which is, of course, when his phone chimes with an alert.

“I’ve got to go,” he says before he even bothers to look at it. But Magnus is already summoning a portal.

As much as he regrets interrupting this time with Magnus, for once the prospect of returning to the Institute doesn’t fill him with dread. There’s a kernel of something taking root in his mind, a hint of the first way to wrest things back into equilibrium. He’s not sure what exactly it will be when it comes to fruition, but he knows he must nurture it.

As promised, they step out of the portal onto the sidewalk just outside the Institute’s wards.

“Be careful, Alec,” Magnus says as he closes the portal. “The downworld is ready to tear itself apart.”

“I will. Thank you.” He captures Magnus’s hand before he can step away. The kiss he gives Magnus is a mere brush, an affectionate benediction, but he does it here in full sight of the Institute, something he hasn’t done since the day of his wedding, and that’s important. “Tell Raphael I’d like to apologize personally, if he’s willing to see me when there’s a chance.”

“I will, Alexander.” Magnus’s gaze is tender, and that small smile makes any effort Alec might expend for his happiness worthwhile.

Setting his shoulders, he turns away from the temptation to linger and strides toward the Institute.

It’s time to fix things.