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Healing runes were pretty great.
When Alec was fourteen, he’d fallen from the beams of the training room ceiling during fencing practice. It was Jace’s fault they were up there, naturally, but Alec probably should have known better by then. He’d taken the cross-hilt of his rapier right between the ribs on impact, punching through skin and down into muscle. It had been a valuable lesson to throw pointy weapons away from you if you were free-falling from a height and, also, that nothing good ever comes of pretending to be pirates.
A couple of hasty iratze runes applied by an only-slightly-panicking Jace and Alec had been mended enough to pretend absolutely nothing had happened by the time Hodge came to check on them.
Healing runes had gotten them out of dozens of close calls, scores of mundie ER trips. But there was always that scary moment in between ‘healed’ and ‘not healed’ where he knew he had to keep still and quiet and take shallow breaths. It was so easy for everything to tear back apart if you pushed things too hard, too fast.
Walking up to Magnus’s apartment for the first time after they’d gotten back from Alicante felt a lot like that scary in-between moment. Precarious, delicate, like everything would fall to pieces again with the wrong words.
So in the spirit of caution, Alec opted for remaining completely silent. No words were better than stupid words and Magnus had been awfully quiet on the ride over as well. But that was good, right? That meant that they could still do comfortable silence like they used to.
Unless it wasn’t a comfortable silence, Alec realized with dismay. It was pretty uncomfortable now that he was thinking about it, and maybe Magnus wasn’t saying much because of Alec’s current mime routine. Alec lacking something to say hadn’t stopped Magnus from chatting to him in the past. Their first three dates had run largely along those lines until the kissing started… Was he allowed to just come right out and ask if this was a comfortable or uncomfortable silence, or was that one of those things that normal people didn’t do?
“It’s sweet of you to see me home,” Magnus said, just as they started up the stairs. “Very gentlemanly. Full points for chivalry.”
Alec glanced at him, trying get a read on the warlock’s current sarcasm levels and coming up with the mental equivalent of a big red NO DATA FOUND message. Magnus looked… well, like he’d spent the last week being tortured in a demon dimension and then verbally going toe-to-toe with the Clave for a grand finale. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t still perfectly capable of leveling a square city block with magic if he needed to.
But there were still bands of purple and blue bruises around each of Magnus’s wrists where’d he been chained up. Alec couldn’t stop looking at them. Maybe, just this once, having a Shadowhunter bodyguard for the night wasn’t such a stupid idea.
Alec shrugged. “I don’t think I could live with myself if you survived all of that and then got taken down by a… a rogue vampire or a pissed off faerie or something on the way home.”
“Or a door-to-door salesman,” Magnus said, “They’re known to be downright bloodthirsty.”
Alec opened his mouth, closed it again, and lapsed back into what he really, really hoped was comfortable silence. They cleared the first-floor landing and started up the last stretch towards the apartment.
“What I mean,” Magnus added quietly, “is that I appreciate your company.”
He deftly tumbled something across the backs of his fingers which gleamed in the dim light of the narrow stairway and held it out to Alec. The weight and shape of the small key were painfully familiar as soon as Alec took it. Why did it have to be that key? Shaking off the shock-hazy memory of setting it down on the kitchen table before leaving the apartment for what he thought was the last time, he nodded and jogged up the last few steps to unlock the door, swinging it open for Magnus.
Magnus studied him, his expression unreadable as he made his way more slowly up to the landing to join him. Holding the door, Alec offered the key back, and watched in fascination as Magnus’s expression flickered from surprise to hurt to sudden exasperated amusement.
“Oh, bless your unromantic little heart,” he sighed. “You’d think a Nephilim of all people would know a symbol when they saw one. I could’ve just as easily changed the locks and you could’ve used one of your charming break-and-enter runes…”
He reached out with both his hands, his long fingers curling Alec’s closed around the key and pressing them back to his chest with the slow gentleness of a ritual.
“It’s a gesture, Alexander,” Magnus said. He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head. “If you want it to be. Understand?”
Alec gaped, then felt himself turn pink. “I… No, yes, of course I… Gotcha.”
Magnus passed his hand over his mouth, which hid his smile but didn’t do anything against the laughter in his eyes.
“This,” he explained with deliberate slowness, taking hold of Alec’s shoulder and steering him into the apartment, “This is also a gesture.”
Alec felt as giddy with nerves as the first time he’d been here alone. “I think I’m with you so far,” he said. He shut the door behind himself, watching as Magnus took off his jacket and slung it over the back of couch. “I’m not really good with gestures.”
Magnus shot him a quick fond smile, heading for the kitchen. “You manage the big impressive ones when it counts.”
Alec knelt to unlace his boots and almost immediately received a face full of grey fur as Chairman Meow trotted over to mash into him affectionately. Alec scratched him under the chin, grinning when the tabby shut his eyes in bliss and started up a rumbling purr, his claws kneading into the carpet.
“Yeah, yeah, I missed you too,” Alec murmured, giving the Chairman a last stroke and smiling as he got to his feet.
Taking a moment to leave his jacket next to Magnus’s on the couch, he looked around, stalling slightly as he tried to figure out what to say. What was there to say? He’d said ‘I really am sorry’ so often that the words had long since lost meaning and fell like half-dead balloons. ‘Thanks for trusting me again’ seemed weird and forced, and ‘I read the notebook’ was obvious and seemed leading, and ‘I’m so incredibly glad you’re not dead’ went without saying…
He frowned and surveyed the living room again. The apartment was the same as when he’d left it. When it came to Magnus, that was weird.
He headed into the kitchen and found the warlock staring at a tumbler of something amber as intently as though he were casting on it. The little lights in the kitchen ceiling cast the circles under Magnus’s eyes into deeper shadow.
“Everything’s the same,” Alec said. This is why Clary and Simon call you Captain Obvious, he decided with a mental sigh. He made a vague apartment-encompassing gesture when Magnus glanced up at him.
“You were expecting a dartboard with your face on it?” Magnus suggested. “It seemed tacky. Also, my ranged weapon skills are somewhat rusty and it would be a shame to gouge holes in the walls.”
Alec shook his head, making a face. When Magnus slid the tumbler over to him with a fingertip, he took a grateful sip, feeling the drink warm him from the inside out. The first drink he’d had since the wine in the demon realm.
“Besides which,” Magnus murmured, seemingly to himself, “it wasn’t like that.”
Alec passed the glass back to Magnus, lining it up so their fingers brushed, trying to convey his thoughts through touch alone. Trying to say he knew perfectly well it wasn’t like that, that there wasn’t a single thing vindictive about how it had gone down, and also that wasn’t what he was worried about.
“You always change the place,” he insisted. “Sometimes weekly.”
“I’ve been busy,” Magnus said. “A regular whirlwind tour of detestable places. Alicante, which I don’t like; the Faerie realm, which I can’t stand; and a demon dimension, which I abhor entirely. Here’s to home sweet home.” He raised the glass with a forced smile and downed the rest in one long swallow.
Not just any demon dimension, Alec thought. Your father’s realm. And when are we going to talk about that unholy elephant in the room…?
“What’s wrong with Alicante?” Alec said. Even if some of his recurring nightmares tended to be set in the Glass City now, it was hard to imagine not enjoying a visit. Even scarred by battle, it was beautiful and rich with idyllic nostalgia.
Magnus quirked a smile at him. “It’s your heaven, Alec, not mine. I do hate to shatter your illusions, but the vast majority of Nephilim tend not to look at me the way that you do.” He slipped around the island between them and curled his fingers around the back of Alec’s neck, pressing a slow kiss to his lips. “You’re the exception. Entirely exceptional…” Magnus whispered on a breath, and kissed him again.
Alec leaned into him, his hands finding Magnus’s hips as he returned the kiss, savouring the warmth and taste he was sure he’d lost. He pressed forward, deepening the kiss, and found his fingers tangled in the material of Magnus’s shirt as tightly as he held his bow in battle. Like their lives depended on it.
Even the Glass City didn’t hold a candle to the sense of perfect belonging he felt being with Magnus, no matter where they were.
“I intend to drown myself in the shower until I’m convinced my hair doesn’t smell like a hell dimension anymore,” Magnus murmured against the sensitive skin beneath Alec’s ear. “For those in the audience less than adept at reading subtle cues: this is your formal invitation to join me.”
Alec gave a soft laugh, his breath catching as Magnus kissed his throat. Particularly from this position, he knew damn well Magnus’s hair didn’t smell like a hell dimension. He smelled like hair gel and cold nighttime air and the ozone-crackle of portal magic. But there were times after bad missions where you showered to scrub off something deeper than surface dirt and demon slime. Alec understood that.
“Well,” he said, his voice not even close to steady, “You can have a shower to actually get clean or you can have one with me, but I’m pretty sure both together isn’t going to happen.”
Magnus made a small mournful noise and dropped his forehead onto Alec’s shoulder. “The world is a cruel and unjust place.”
“Sometimes we have to make terrible choices,” Alec agreed, smiling. He traced his fingers down the line of Magnus’s spine. “Go have a nice shower. I’m not actually going anywhere.”
Raising his head, Magnus studied him, his cat eyes gleaming with interest. “No?” He ran a fingernail lightly down Alec’s cheek. “I would have thought you had places to be, shadows to hunt. Busy schedule now and all that.”
The instinctive tremulous little voice in the back of Alec’s head was the first time chime in.
He wants you to leave. You’re just getting in his way, cramping his style, as usual.
But the shreds of self-confidence he’d been slowly stitching together since he’d met Magnus fell reassuringly into place a moment later.
Don’t be stupid. By the Angel, just look at him. That is not the face of a man who wants you to leave.
Alec shrugged, smoothing his hands down Magnus’s sides. “They know where to find me if the world starts ending again. I’m here with you. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
Something in Magnus’s expression turned soft and warm and honest, and Alec’s stomach did a little flip of happiness as Magnus bent to kiss him again.
“I do believe there’s hope for your romantic side yet,” Magnus said, punctuating the sentiment with another quick kiss like he couldn’t help himself. When he stepped back, he was smiling. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” His fingers slid down Alec’s arm like he wanted one last touch before he had to let go entirely, and when he slipped down the hallway already unbuttoning his shirt, it wasn’t without looking back.
Alec shook his head and rubbed his hands over his face, taking a moment to collect himself, reminding himself of all his terrific logical reasons for not running after Magnus. Very good reasons for taking things a bit slower this time and not swan-diving right back into the bright easy pleasure of tangling himself up with Magnus until words were unimportant and touch and taste were all that mattered anymore.
He exhaled a quiet curse and paced around the kitchen, wishing the drink hadn’t been a conjured one so he could actually refill the damn thing. He checked the fridge out of habit and wasn’t particularly surprised to find it empty save for a couple of jars of something Alec wasn’t about to examine any closer. He’d long since learned Magnus was far more apt to use the refrigerator for entrails than for leftovers.
Closing the door, the edge of a photo peeking out from under a take-away menu caught his eye. He tugged it free for a closer looking, his insides executing a strange lurch-twist when he recognized it.
Bordeaux, France. It was probably Alec’s favourite picture of them together, because neither of them knew it was being taken until the owner of the cafe had brought it to them after the fact. So Magnus hadn’t been doing any dramatic poses and Alec hadn’t been actively trying to make himself invisible and they’d just been kind of looking at each other with matching smiles, their chairs pushed close together, Magnus’s hand up like he was about to fix Alex’s collar or touch his cheek. Here were two extremely guarded people wearing their hearts on their sleeves; Alec was looking at Magnus like he was the answer to every question he’d ever had to ask himself, and there wasn’t anything but honest, helpless love in Magnus’s eyes.
Alec glanced towards the bathroom, listening to the sound of running water, then looked back at the photo, running his finger along the edge of it. It gave him a funny little pang even now. The fact Magnus had held onto it while they were broken up and had even kept it out, half-heartedly hidden, was kind of unfathomable. The good kind of unfathomable though - the Magnus kind of unfathomable.
He slid it back under the magnet, switching things around so the photo was in front, then headed into the living room.
As soon as he laid down on the couch, Chairman Meow took that as his cue to launch himself onto Alec’s chest and make himself at home. Alec smiled and smoothed the tabby’s fur.
“I saw your toothmarks in the corners of some of the pages, so I know you helped Magnus write his story,” Alec commented to the cat. “Thanks for that. I’m sure you were a terrific editor.”
The Chairman settled down like a Sphinx on Alec’s chest with his paws in front of himself, purring contentedly and half-closing his eyes. Alec kept petting him, his mind drawn inescapably back to the notebook. He’d read it, more than once. Hell, he’d been carrying it around like it was a newly discovered Instrument, like the world depended on him memorizing the names of the people Magnus had lost, which most people hadn’t actually known had been important to Magnus in the first place.
Ragnor Fell. Raphael. Woolsey Scott. Even Camille…. There was so much history there, centuries of it in some cases, and Magnus had held onto his smile and his sparkle and his jokes after each death because there were people watching him. Because that was the armor Magnus Bane had forged for himself, like glitter-crusted titanium, dazzling and completely impenetrable.
The enormity of that much loss was the crushing kind and Alec understood exactly why Magnus hadn’t wanted him to have to bear the knowledge of it. There were no simple answers and the ones he’d received had knocked him back on his heels, exactly like Magnus had known they would.
But while it was hard, the thought of Magnus being so alone under the weight of his long life was… intolerable. So Alec would learn how to carry that kind of weight. And they would damn well figure out how to dance this dance together, not as entertainer and captive audience, but as partners this time.
Alec let his mind drift until the Chairman’s noisy purring had devolved into soft snores. He was in danger of falling asleep himself when a thought struck him and he sat up slightly with a frown, jostling the tabby enough to receive a grumble of feline protest.
“Long shower,” he murmured, “Even by Magnus standards.”
The tabby used Alec’s stomach as a launchpad and hopped up to the back of the couch, marching over to stomp out a less-fidgety alternate bed among their jackets. Alec sat up fully and looked over the back of the couch, focusing his senses.
Nothing. No running water, no off-key singing, no unnerving crackles of magic. Silence.
He was on his feet and rushing for the bathroom, moving on instinct and sudden adrenaline. He was at the door within seconds, but it was somehow still enough time for a hundred horrible scenarios to play themselves out in vivid colorful detail in his mind. He threw open the door and Magnus, who was sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a towel around his waist, perfectly unharmed, flinched violently and then blinked at him.
“Dramatic entrance,” he drawled. His eyes narrowed. “And you’re shaking. What’s…”
“Nothing, nothing,” Alec assured him quickly. He glanced at his hands, curious, and discovered that he was indeed shaking, a fine uncontrollable tremor. “Sorry. Just had one of those ‘wow, it’s suspiciously quiet’ moments and thought… I don’t know what I thought, actually.”
That something bad happened. That the Seelie Queen wanted revenge on me for Meliorn. That the Clave made one of these insane awful moves that they keep making. That your father followed us back…
He blew out a breath and automatically looked Magnus over for injury again. Nothing but droplets of water sparkling on his golden skin, still dripping from his hair like he’d started to dry himself off and then had simply given up and sat down.
“What are you doing anyway?” he asked.
Magnus’s expression did something funny then, like a struggling engine that needed a couple of revs to get going, faltering before finding an easy knowing smile.
“Out-waiting you, clearly,” Magnus said, “I knew you wanted to join me, deep down inside.”
Alec shifted his weight from foot to foot, then moved over to sit next to Magnus on the edge of the bathtub. A rogue puddle of shower water soaked through his socks, which he ignored.
“You don’t always have to be that,” he said.
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “Beg your pardon? Be what?”
“That whole, um…” Alec waved his hands vaguely, realizing with some dismay he was going to have to be more specific than general flailing if this was going to work. He sighed.
“You don’t have to be the magnificent High Warlock of Brooklyn for me. You can just be Magnus,” he said, “I won’t tell anyone. I’m actually pretty okay with secrets, except when it comes to keeping them from you apparently.”
He cut himself off before that ramble could go full-blown. Magnus hadn't even taken a comb to his dripping hair yet and it hung in dark tangles, sending the occasional rivulet of water down his skin, raising goosebumps in its wake. Alec reached over to brush the wet strands off Magnus’s forehead so it didn’t drip into his eyes.
“The High Warlock of Brooklyn does occasionally descend from his fabulous pedestal to shower like everyone else,” Magnus said.
The defensiveness in his tone was minimal. Alec knew they were both remembering the first time he’d stayed the night here out of something more than sheer exhaustion, the first sensory-overload nerves-on-fire time Magnus had taken him to bed, and how they’d fallen asleep tangled together afterwards.
Alec had woken up somewhere around three a.m. with panic in his throat like he’d swallowed demon toxin and had slunk off to the bathroom so he could hyperventilate without waking Magnus up. He’d sat on the edge of the tub just like this until Magnus came to find him, and he’d held Alec and whispered reassuring things about them taking it slow, and nothing having changed, and nobody having to know unless Alec wanted them to know…
In short, they both knew damn well this was not the posture of a man who was a-okay.
Alec brushed Magnus’s wet hair back over his ears, then leaned in and kissed away the beads of water that had pooled in the hollow juncture between Magnus’s throat and shoulder.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said softly. “Please.”
“Everyone’s acting as though it’s over because Sebastian is gone,” Magnus said in a quiet rush. “And here I am, still afraid. Still waiting for hell to rise. I trust my dreams of blood and bone, Alexander. It’s not over. It’s only just beginning. You live this long and you realize that it’s only ever just beginning.”
Alec nodded in silence. There was too much hurt and unrest in the wake of this for it to be over. The Seelie Queen. Asmodeus. The Clave was standing in a dark room with a book of matches, blind to the powder kegs being stacked up around them.
“I’m not ready for it to start again,” Magnus sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m tired. I’m so tired…”
“But it’s not starting now-now,” Alec offered tentatively. “I mean, you’re right. You’re completely right. There’s always more coming, but not here and now in this bathroom. Right? Because if the next big world-ending battle is going to start in here, I should probably go grab my stele so we can do this properly.”
He watched as Magnus’s hollowed-out expression twitched into the barest of smiles and then he was resting his damp head against Alec’s shoulder.
“We may be safe for the moment,” Magnus allowed, twisting his fingers into the material of Alec’s shirt. “Impressive though it may be, I doubt my cosmetics collection will be anyone’s first target of retribution.”
Alec twisted around so that he could hold him properly, getting slightly soggy in the process. He rested his cheek against Magnus’s wet hair and closed his eyes, just staying that way and feeling the warlock’s breaths slow beneath his hands. He traced patterns over Magnus’s bare skin with his fingertips: runes for protection and strength and calm and love, and love, and love…
He felt Magnus’s smile against his collarbone.
“You used to draw that one on me,” he murmured, “after every time we made love. I thought… very briefly, mind you… that it was meant to be an ‘A’. A for Alec. I thought you were claiming me.”
Alec blinked, his fingers falling still. In retrospect, the love rune did look a bit like a fancy capital A. He hadn’t known how long Magnus had been on to him.
“You looked it up in the Grey Book,” he guessed.
Magnus nodded, lifting his head to look at him, some of the old sparkle coming back into his gold-green eyes.
“If there was any part of the Alexander Lightwood enigma that could be solved by basic research at that stage, I was quite willing to invest the effort,” he said, and grinned.
Alec laughed, feeling his face suffuse with heat. “I guess some things are just easier to say without… saying.”
Magnus nodded. “Why do you think I wrote out my stories?” His smile was tentative, and it made him look incredibly young. “I know that’s not the end of it. We have a lot of ground to cover and I know you still have questions. One notebook doesn’t answer everything.”
“An encyclopedia set wouldn’t answer everything,” Alec admitted, tracing the edge of Magnus’ towel where it circled his hips. “Even though the illustrations would probably be pretty interesting.”
“That’s certainly one word for it,” Magnus said, amused. “The idea of alphabetizing isn’t entirely terrible however. Sometimes I forget little details. And the occasional decade.” He shivered when Alec’s fingers found his skin, watching him intently, and Alec was suddenly poignantly aware of how quickly he could have the man naked. And of how still Magnus was holding, how carefully he was waiting for Alec to make the first move. Of how patient he’d always been.
Alec pressed forward and kissed him, so suddenly and fiercely he nearly took them both right into the tub. Magnus grabbed onto his tee-shirt, though Alec had him around the waist. When Alec let him up for air again, Magnus’s breath had gone quick and shallow, his eyes dark.
“Not that I’m complaining, but why…?”
Alec grinned and shook his head, unsure of how to explain that while he’d always believed falling in love to be a one-time deal, yet every so often he just fell completely and ungracefully in love with Magnus all over again.
“You waited a pretty long time for me to work up the nerve to tell people we were together,” he said. “I mean, it was a big thing, but it was still just one thing to be said.”
Magnus’ mouth twitched. “If memory serves, you didn’t actually tell people anything so much as orchestrate some fairly dramatic non-verbal communication. Definitely a step up from interpretive dance in my opinion, although with the right choreography we could have…”
“Shh,” Alec ordered, even though it made him laugh too. “Bear with me a minute. I’m trying to make a gesture here.”
Magnus’ eyes fairly crackled with amusement and he gestured grandly, his long fingers somehow finding their way to Alec’s belt loops for a finale. “Oh, by all means then, carry on.”
“You were patient because you knew some things are hard to say,” Alec pressed on. He looked at Magnus then, serious. “You’ve always been patient with me. So now it’s my turn to be patient for you. We’ll take it as slow as you want, however you want. Alright?”
Magnus blinked, the humor in his eyes traded out for something startled, something true, something that made Alec think he wasn’t the only one who knew about love catching you off-guard sometimes.
“Alright,” Magnus said. When he kissed him, Alec could feel the smile playing over his lips and the devastating care with which Magnus had always touched him. “Alright. Thank you.”
Being able to heal wounds with magic was pretty great. But better still was that first full breath you could take again afterwards, knowing you’d been put back together, and although there was probably going to be a scar, trusting that it would hold.