#two ships

Well, that’s not quite true. Magnus might like to retain his mask, wrapping his position as the High Warlock of Brooklyn around him like the most steadfast cloak, but Alec’s seen enough to know that Magnus has a heart of gold.

It’s a little bruised, a little battered, but it beats strongly and no amount of makeup or sarcasm or devil-may-care wit can hide the way he’s seen Magnus drop everything to save a friend-- or anyone that comes to him looking for help.

Alec’s breath stutters as Magnus hits particularly sensitive area. His nails drag down Magnus’s back-- no doubt leaving scratches that won’t be particularly welcome in the morning-- and Magnus gasps as maintains the almost frenetic pace.

Losing every goddamn thought in his head, the only thing Alec can focus on is the heat of Magnus’s skin against his, the way he can almost pretend that this is so much more than it is whenever his eyes are closed.

Like this, there’s nothing but the two of them.

He loves it. He hates it.

A little while later, the room is silent except for their harsh breathing. As his pulse slows back to normal, Alec wonders for the thousandth time why the hell he keeps coming back.

It’s more than a good fuck. It terrifies him, the thought that he’s so far gone that a part of him-- most of him-- doesn’t even want to think about walking away from this.

It’s not much but if it’s all he can have, then he’ll hang on until there’s nothing left to hang onto.

Magnus doesn’t say anything in the dim room but Alec hears the clinking of ice cubes as he no doubt summons a drink. He hears the clearing of a throat and when he looks over, it’s to see Magnus holding out a glass of water with his free hand.

Alec takes it, drains the glass in a few, efficient swallows. It’s refilled automatically, this time with something that would make his eyes water if he lingered, so he doesn’t. He throws back the few fingers of whiskey just as steadily as he’d downed the water a few minutes ago.

The burn is welcome. It scratches an itch that Alec never had before he met Magnus. With a dry laugh, Alec wonders at just how much has changed in the past few years. Before Magnus, Alec couldn’t hold his liquor worth a damn and he had less than zero interest in changing that.

Now, he almost craves it after a hard day-- after a hard night.

Liquor tastes like mistakes and regret with a particularly bitter undertone and it seems only fitting to indulge after he goes another round with the most goddamn cryptic man he’s ever met.

“Something funny,” Magnus asks, breaking the laden silence. His voice holds idle interest at best and Alec feels his wandering gaze, can’t help the shiver that runs up his spine as Magnus reaches out and strokes a firm hand over his chest, trailing an appreciative path down his stomach to land on his hip.

If he didn’t know better, he’d say the touch was covetous.

How lucky then that Alec’s never been fond of lying to himself. Others, maybe. But he’s always painfully, tragically honest with himself.

Mouth tipping up into the faintest hint of a smile, Alec just replies, “I’m just remembering the first time we did this. That first time after.”

That’s the thing, Alec thinks, swallowing hard and avoiding Magnus’s gaze. It’s been a few years of this shit.

They’re both fucked to hell but Alec can’t find a damn to save himself and his stupid, traitorous heart.

They’d met a handful of years ago. Alec, the newly appointed Head of the New York Institute, green in most ways and devastatingly unaware of the pain and pleasure of a satisfying game of cat and mouse.

He’d met Magnus one night at the Hunter’s Moon. Overwhelmed and feeling one inconvenience away from drowning, he’d escape the cloying grasp of the Institute and made his way to a Downworld bar.

He’d had a single glass of wine when someone had sat next to him at the bar. Set to ignore whoever it was-- Alec wasn’t the most social under the best of circumstances, let alone when he was in the grip of a downward spiral-- he’d nonetheless found himself turning to face a voice that was as smooth as it was captivating.

Long day, darling? I think I know what can help with that.

Looking over to see a steady gaze, Alec had lost himself in warm brown eyes and when the man offered to get him another drink, he’d nodded wordlessly.

Magnus had charmed him and then he’d challenged him and the combination of the two was heady enough to make Alec’s head spin.

Sitting at the bar, they’d talk for a long while before Magnus had nodded toward a now empty pool table.

Do you play, he’d asked idly, taking a sip of his martini.

With that, they’d headed over to the pool table. Magnus had beaten him at pool and before he quite knew what happened, Alec had found himself falling through a portal.

That first night, Alec had been inexperienced but oh so willing and when he’d found himself leaning against a brick pillar with Magnus on his knees, he’d wondered why the hell he’d waited so long for this. He'd come out before his appointment to Head but he'd still been frustratingly inexperienced. No one had caught his eye and then Alec was so busy that he couldn't even think of pursuing anything even if he did find someone he liked.

But as he'd given himself to Magnus, Alec couldn't help but wonder that he'd had no idea what he'd been missing. It was everything he'd wanted and more and it'd taken everything he had to leave the next morning without waking Magnus, without another taste of what he'd gone so long without.

The next morning, though, he was out of the loft and back in his office before the sun was up. That afternoon when he held the first Downworld Cabinet meeting and Magnus walked in-- they’d both been stunned and the afternoon had been filled with blatant flirting on Magnus’s side and a desperate attempt at stoicism on Alec’s.

He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid, that he’d slept with the High Warlock. It was the height of unprofessionalism and he’d been terrified of anyone finding out, of that single misstep displacing him as the Head of the Institute when he’d worked so long and hard to make it.

Still, that night he’d found himself back at the Hunter’s Moon and then back in Magnus’s bed and now, a few years later, Alec’s shoulders don’t ache nearly as much as his heart.

No one knows where Alec spends his nights. No one knows that Alec and Magnus have been having an affair for years. Magnus has never said anything about making it more and Alec can’t quite shut down the thought that he’s nothing but a convenience to him, that he’s irreplaceable, something new to keep his interest for a little while before Magnus inevitably grows bored with him and moves onto somebody that could give him exactly what he wants.

Most of him wonders what Magnus would say if he asked to stay one morning, if he didn’t leave before the birds started singing.

If he lingered, if he woke Magnus up with breakfast and a kiss, would he be soundly rebuffed? Would this arrangement of theirs come crashing to a halt?

Christ, he wants more. He wants everything but he keeps silent and takes what Magnus deigns to give him. What started out as a swirling mix of lust and fascination and a desperate need for relief has turned into love.

It’s mostly the same except for when Alec remembers that this is all he’ll ever have.

And then it tastes like ash.

They talk about nothing in particular. They fuck and Alec loses himself in the feelings that grip him in a stranglehold, in the man that makes him wish and dream and hope against goddamn hope. Alec leaves and they don’t speak except for vague texts and hoarse pleas that used to make Alec blush but now just fill him with heady satisfaction.

Their professional relationship is above reproach, not a hint of familiarity bleeding into their tones. Magnus stopped flirting awhile ago and Alec didn’t know how to find the words to say he missed it.

He still can’t find the words to tell Magnus how much he loves him, how much he wishes, futilely, that they could have more, that they could bemore.

In the morning, Alec wakes to the light of his cell phone, the alarm he’d set a few hours before going off.

Sighing in the dark, he scrubs his hands over his face roughly. He’s so fucking tired and something tells him sleep wouldn’t do a damn thing to fix it.

Turning his head, he sees Magnus on his back sleeping peacefully. He almost reaches out and touches his face. He wants to sweep a thumb over the jut of a cheekbone, the curve of his jaw.

He’s reached a hand out before he quite knows what he’s doing. Jerking back like he singed his fingers, Alec squeezes his eyes shut and takes a shuddering breath.

Swallowing hard, he throws the covers off and swings until he can place his feet on the cold floor.

It’s grounding. It’s devastating.

He works on his breathing for longer than he’ll ever admit and he’s just about to stand up when something stops him.

“Stay.”

Everything in him stills at the word, hushed in the dark room.

His breath catches as a hand lands on his back, achingly familiar but still so damned mysterious. Magnus’s hand sweeps over his shoulder and down his chest. It sets a trail of fire wherever it touches and Alec takes a deep breath that sounds startlingly like a gasp.

He hears the rustle of sheets as Magnus sits up and then there’s a kiss being placed over his deflect rune and he hears Magnus’s breathing before lips touch the shell of his ear.

“Stay,” Magnus repeats. His voice is hoarse and Alec can almost, almost convince himself that it’s edged in desperation, that’s it’s a plea and a prayer and everything he’s dreamed of hearing since Magnus first beat him at pool ages ago.

He turns his head and meets Magnus’s eyes. His glamour is down like it only is when he’s feeling too much, when they’re wrapped around each other and nothing else in the world matters so much as them.

Alec doesn’t say anything for a moment. He studies Magnus-- the streak of eyeliner smudged under his eye, the crease of the pillowcase on his cheek, those brown eyes that he never stood a chance against.

Closing his eyes, Alec feels Magnus lean closer and nose along his jaw.

“Okay,” he finally says, voice hoarse with the way his throat is aching. “I’ll stay.”