art theft isnt what it used to be. now you can just right click save. you used to have to break into a museum. there were lasers and stuff. you don't even have to have a grappling hook anymore.
I know myself well enough to know I would not be very good at fanbiding and that would mainly frustrate me, so while I love fan binding and admire those who do it, I've never dabbled.
I have never regretted that decision more than I did waking up from the dream I recently had, where I excitedly bought a rare copy of the novel that Goncharov (1973) was based on, opened it up, and found that it was a hollowed out "book safe" for keeping valuables in.
@copperbadge were you looking for the Goncharov novel ?
I tracked down a copy of this invaluable classic and somehow got my hands on a near pristine copy secondhand from the 4th printing. It’s lost the dustjacket, alas, but that means I got it for like £5 and not the £4200 a first edition printing in fine condition goes for.
(Who’s the author? *looks at smudge on spine* uhhhh Mkkhill Montanann)
It looks right at home in my bookcase 🥰
Under the cut: a look inside at what the book holds:
Just kidding.
It holds only the air of regret and disappointment.
i need to make a shoutout post for the ioway tribe's bee farm products right now
esp this:
THE LOTION BAR.
why do i love it so much? bc it repels mosquitos WAY BETTER THAN BUG SPRAY. Not only does it make ur skin smell like honey, it forms a waxy seal that buggy chompers cant bite through.
it also soothes bug bites, rashes, and itchy skin.
my partner has the Yummy Blood that mosquitos find irresistable. we tried so many repellents, the wristbands, the candles... nothing seemed to keep them away. out of curiosity and desperation, we tried this lotion bar and the results have been life-changing for us. it is EXCEPTIONAL.
if u or someone u know is bug bait, i cannot recommend this tribe's beeswax bar enough. please support native businesses, ditch the bug spray. this stuff works, and smells, way way way better than anything else.
I wish it wasn’t a hot take that a story in which two characters of any gender prioritize their purely platonic relationship over any other romantic or sexual interests they might have is a textually queer story
A lot of people really don’t understand amatonormativity as another dimension of “there is a right way to love people” that we have to dismantle.
Amatonormativity 101: Amatonormativity, a term coined by Elizabeth Brake, is the very prevalent idea that there is one relationship type that is above all others. This relationship is an exclusive/monogamous, committed, romantic and sexual relationship.
According to amatonormativity, this specific kind of relationship:
Is something everyone wants (or should want)
Is the most fulfilling relationship it is possible to have
Takes precedence over all other relationships in your life
This goes hand in hand with heteronormativity, which says that this ideal relationship also has to be straight. But if you remove that part, all the normative forces of amatonormativity still exist. And they suck for just about everyone! Amatonormativity says aromantic and asexual people will never experience the “highest” form of love. It says single people are inherently less happy than people in a romantic relationship and should always be actively looking for one. It says sex without romance or romance without sex are both lacking a fundamental part of an ideal relationship. It says polyamorous people are failing to choose the one person they can be fully devoted to. It says that your monogamous, committed, romantic/sexual partner is the most important person in your life—more important than your family, your best friend you’ve known all your life, etc.
I hope we can all agree that is something queer people, and also people in general, would benefit from dismantling!
Now let me talk about an example of what I was referring to in the original post.
If you’re not familiar, Elementary is a TV series based on the Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s a modern day adaptation featuring Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective for the NYPD, and Joan (rather than John) Watson, his sober companion and eventually detective partner.
Sherlock has many casual sexual relationships with women throughout the series, while Joan has a string of romantic relationships with men. Neither of them is textually queer (although Sherlock feels very aromantic-coded, if unintentionally, and I personally think an aro reading of both characters has merit).
However, the two of them share a relationship that defies amatonormativity. Sherlock and Joan share almost every part of their lives together—first because Joan is monitoring Sherlock to help maintain his sobriety, but soon because they have actively chosen to remain in each other’s lives. They eventually become partners as detectives but are also functionally life partners, living together, sharing their resources, taking care of each other emotionally and physically. At multiple turning points in the story, they express their love for each other. Throughout this progression, their relationship never becomes romantic or sexual. While Sherlock continues to have casual sex and Joan continues to go on dates, it’s clear that Sherlock and Joan remain each other’s most important person.
This relationship defies amatonormativity, and in my opinion that makes it queer. Queer as in breaking boundaries, defying norms, challenging the idea that there is any right or wrong way to love someone.
Now it’s time for my real hot take. There is a reason I used Elementary as an example, instead of the many other pieces of fiction that have a very similar dynamic between two characters of the same gender.
Those stories—stories that center a platonic relationship between two characters of the same gender, a relationship that remains platonic but is deep, devoted, and prioritized over other relationships in the character’s lives—are textually queer. They are not textually gay (although yes, many of them are subtextually gay). But that does not stop them from being queer stories.
If you want to read into whatever subtext might be there and interpret that relationship as a gay romantic/sexual relationship, that's great. But I wish more people shared my opinion that this is not making a previously normative story into a queer one. Usually, it’s trading heteronormativity for amatonormativity, creating a relationship that defies different norms.
I’m not saying that one or the other interpretation is more valuable (in general—which one is most meaningful to you is a personal preference). I think they’re both queer interpretations of the story. However, given how often stories like the ones I’m describing get accused of “queerbaiting” or simply “not being canonically queer,” I’m pretty sure my opinion on this is not widely shared.
In conclusion: Queerness is a much broader set of concepts than just gay romance. We should consider amatonormativity another dimension of oppression that queerness is in opposition to. Ship or don’t ship whatever is more fun or meaningful to you but please don’t assign moral righteousness to one kind of queerness while erasing another. Also, please be nice to aro and ace people, we already have enough to deal with. I wish none of this was a hot take. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Been wanting to write that epic frotfest where woobie slave!Steve Rogers runs away with werewolf Loki and they ride off into the sunset? Come on in, we’d love to have you!
IIBB is a panfandom mini-bang challenge. This means that if you sign up to participate, you agree to make a complete piece of fanwork by the assignment deadline. For 2026, we will be accepting fic, art (including comics), fanmixes, podfic, and vids. Detailed guidelines are in the rules. If you would like to make fanwork in another medium, let us know and we’ll be happy to include it!
IIBB 2026 will run from July 25 - Sept 27.
Sign-ups open July 25 and close August 1.
Assignments are due Sept 27.
If you have questions or concerns, feel free to drop us an ask!
‘There could have never been
two hearts so open,
no tastes so similar,
no feelings so in unison,
no countenances so beloved.’
- Persuasion, Jane Austen
sometimes it feels like you’re going nowhere — just turning in the same spot over and over again, until you’re dizzy with doubt, confusion, and overwhelm. but all this spinning is a part of the process. the way clay doesn’t resist the wheel and trusts the motion, you can, too. so when life puts you in a loop, be gentle with yourself, and remember that even the clay spins in circles before it becomes 🌀🥣💌🫧
In conversation with multiple posts going around discussing technical literacy and typing skills…
I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is less than 35 Words Per Minute
I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is less than 35 WPM
I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is 36-45 WPM
I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is 36-45 WPM
I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is 46-55 WPM
I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is 46-55 WPM
I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is 56-69 WPM
I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is 56-69 WPM
I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is faster than 70 WPM
I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is faster than 70 WPM
I'm on mobile/ vanilla extract option
Remaining time: 1 day 23 hours
➡️ Take a typing test here (and you need an actual, physical keyboard for this):
The industry-standard benchmark used by employers and typing certifications worldwide.
➡️ 'Typing classes' refers to computer skills classes you might have had in school; you can also count games or other related typing training your parents might have had you do.
➡️ Across 3 different typing test websites*, the (english language) world average typing speed is 40 WPM.
From the comments "In my experience clothing on anyone looks best when it is done with confidence. We are all different shapes and sizes. I was really struck by your post on dressing well that included John Goodman in a faded t-shirt and jeans. He rocks it!"
Excellent advice, whatever gender or style one is looking for. Thank you
I'm a trans guy and Derek, I can tell you my wardrobe has improved a huge amount simply by reading your threads. The "dress for your body type" stuff never worked well for me; your threads about putting together an intentional look and for getting a good fit - that's 99% of the game.
I get this question a lot. I don't have strong views on how transmasc people should dress, but since I often get the question, I've thought
really good thing about eartha kitt I wanna be evil is how easy it is to invent new verses. I wanna be evil. I wanna throw cats. I wanna be evil. I wanna wear hats
Narwhal - Keep coming back to the same place. ( undersea prompts )
Plus also:
@movetoheavens asked:
hiiii i saw you opened prompts for your tangential tuesdays and i just wanted to say i come from ao3 and i really loved your "ashes of roses" fic and the idea of alec having to experience all these poisons from hodge so i wanted to prompt something about alec idk having to go through all this harsh training to be HOTI and still somehow ending up to someone that's so soft and gentle idk honestly up to you i just love your writing
1: Thank you! Sorry I failed to write for like three years, (maybe hyperbole? I'm terrified to check the date on this tho, so maybe not), I hope you still see this!
2: This is not really about Hodge or Alec's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Childhood, but it does brush up against some of that. (And also Magnus wonders the same thing, about how-the-fuck Alec is so nice so. yk. thematically appropriate? hopefully?)
daggers of hissing light
1.
Alexander institutes a regular date “night” after they’re married, blocks it off on his work agenda and asks Magnus to show up at the Institute to pick him up for it. He even tells Magnus to drag him out by any means necessary if Alec is being difficult about finishing up one last thing before they go.
“Any?” Magnus asks, eyebrows lifting and magic sparking between his fingertips.
Alec sighs, but he's smiling when he nods.
Magnus shows up early the first time, just in case it takes a little longer than expected, but finds Alec is finishing up a sparring session with a Shadowhunter Magnus doesn’t know. He’s hanging up twin daggers, something similar to but longer and thinner than the ones Magnus has seen Clary use, and the other man is wiping his face with a towel as he leaves. Alec smiles at Magnus, then turns back to Jace, who is already rolling his eyes as Alec reminds him not to bother him for anything less than an apocalypse.
“Here I was rather looking forward to the dragging,” Magnus mentions when Alec comes up to him in less than five minutes with damp hair and clean jeans and one of his soft grey shirts clinging to his shoulders.
And that smile; Magnus will never get tired of the way Alexander smiles at him.
“Guess we’ll have to see if you get a chance next week?” Alec offers Magnus his arm, and they stroll out precisely in time to see the sun rising up over the skyline.
2.
The next week Magnus shows up even earlier, wandering up to a literal viewing gallery he’d never been in before, one long hallway with portraits and busts of previous Heads along one side, and an ornate stone balustrade overseeing the training rooms on the other.
Training room, singular.
It's broken up by walls and screens and weapon racks and hanging mats and assorted cabinets, but he’s realizing from up here that’s it’s really all a singular gigantic hall, the length of the entire building. He’s struck still by the mental image of the entirety of it full of Shadowhunters, training or marching or fighting or planning tactics to use against him and his kind, an entire fucking battalion prepared to mow them all down.
He closes his eyes and swallows.
He opens them again to find Alexander looking up at him, a raised eyebrow the only sign he suspects something of Magnus’ distress.
Magnus waves him back to work, and reminds himself that the only way things will continue to get better is if they don’t all give up in despair, and now is not the time to borrow nightmares. The art gallery behind him does not help the disquieting feeling of being under siege though, stern glares and condescension from blank eyes of stone and paint.
Well, then. He refuses to be intimidated by sub-par nephilim artwork; that would be embarrassing. He lifts his chin and turns and faces them all. He walks the whole room, looking at the assorted plaques and labels, barely recognizing the Maryse Lightwood on the wall in comparison to the Maryse Trueblood he’d had coffee with a few days ago. He tries to find where Alec’s eventual portrait will join the parade of grim faces, and wonders who the Clave gets to make these. Shadowhunters assuredly don’t support their own as anything except soldiers, but neither do they allow anyone else to represent them.
They’re not any of them particularly appealing, martial and formal and dark, but they’re also, he’s forced to admit, not poorly made. There’s an ornate F in the corner of one portrait, and Magnus remembers Jocelyn, a Fairchild before she’d been a Morgenstern, a woman who’d clearly been trained in art before he’d met her. She had to have learned when she’d still been an active-duty Shadowhunter, and he wonders how many of these might have been made by Fairchilds, if their line was permitted their art as long as it served the Clave first.
Permitted or perhaps expected, required, to hone an aptitude the Clave found useful?
Magnus wonders if Clary knows.
He wonders if she wants to know. He wonders if he wants to know, if this is something he could ask, should ask, if it means anything at all besides he was right that most nephilim don’t care how anyone else might see them, might try to show them to the rest of the Down World. If he was right in the fact that the Clave gives none of them any choices about what they do in service to their cause.
He files it away.
Perhaps he’ll let it go. Perhaps he’ll add it to his list of random Alec questions that, despite regularly getting answers, never seems to get any shorter because there’s always always more. He smiles, backtracks along the railing following the sound of Jace’s heckling voice until he’s overlooking his husband.
Alec’s sparring partner clearly isn’t the same Shadowhunter he caught a glimpse of last week, but she still isn’t someone Magnus recognizes. Magnus wonders idly if he should start doing a better job of learning their names, but gets distracted soon enough by how nice a view it is, Alec and sweat and skill and strength and flexibility. The almost musical click clack of two pairs of fighting sticks making contact as they circle and come together and break apart over and over again are a counterpoint to the low warm tones of Alec’s voice just audible beneath them, though it’s not clear enough for Magnus to understand any of the words; it’s soothing and oddly peaceful for something so inherently about violence.
It’s a pleasant enough way to spend his time.
Especially as he knows he’ll have Alec all to himself soon enough.
3.
The next week Alec is in an actual firing range. Shooting range? Magnus is using terminology based on cops and guns in tv shows, who knows what the Shadowhunters call it.
Magnus doesn’t see Jace observing; it’s just Alec and yet another unknown Shadowhunter. A thought intrudes, an echo of last week’s, that maybe Magnus is more distant from his husband’s Institute than is ideal. Institutes are usually run by a pair of married Shadowhunters —as even Magnus knows— and while obviously he couldn’t (and wouldn’t want to) be recognized by the Clave or Council in any official manner, it’s possible there are ways he could help, could be here for Alec regardless?
He’s not sure if he’s capable of letting himself be accessible to Shadowhunters as a group rather than specific individuals. They’ve been on the other side of that line they drew between themselves and the Down World for so long…
Jace shows up in the gallery and leans against the railing while Magnus is still considering if the rank and file would want a warlock even knowing their names, much less being involved in their day-to-day, even if he is their Head’s spouse; especially again that he is their Head’s husband rather than wife.
Jace doesn’t say anything, looking down at Alec and mostly ignoring Magnus, but he did wind up here not that long after Magnus did. It might be just a coincidence, but perhaps he was observing after all, and Magnus missed him?
“I know I am biased,” Magnus begins a few minutes later, pausing while Jace scoffs at him in not unjustified derision. “But he’s very good at this, isn’t he?”
“Which this?” Jace glances at him sideways, just enough of a smile on his face to warn Magnus that he’s going to be difficult. “Getting sweaty so you can ogle him? He does seem to have prioritized that.”
Magnus considers sticking out his tongue. Or possibly casting a very small lightning bolt at Jace’s feet.
Jace’s smile widens at whatever Magnus’ expression does. “Archery then? You know he is. That’s why you wanted his bow and arrow for payment for Izzy’s trial, wasn’t it?”
Magnus gives him the look that that deserves, and considers upgrading to a medium sized lightning bolt.
“What?” Jace returns his glare with an overtly fake innocent look. “Whatever else could you be asking?”
Before Magnus can think of a properly scathing but not actually injurious reply, they’re interrupted by Alec himself, calling up to the gallery. “If you’re free to annoy my husband, you clearly have enough time to give Fuller some attention, don’t you?”
Jace laughs, his eyes glow gold, and he leaps over the balcony to the room below like the adolescent menace that he probably always will be.
The Shadowhunter—Fuller, Magnus reminds himself—coughs to cover his own laugh. “Does Herondale even know how to use a bow?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Alec claps Fuller on the shoulder, “let me know what you decide.”
He turns, shoulder-checks Jace just hard enough to interrupt him before he can say whatever nonsense he’d been thinking, and starts out of the room.
“Meet you out front?” Magnus calls down.
Alec grins up at him in agreement. “Give me five.”
4.
Magnus snoops through Alec’s calendar properly so he can show up at the beginning of Alec’s sparring session the next week. Jace might be a certifiable asshole, but he is also not wrong about how much Magnus enjoys the view.
Plus, that way he’s got a better chance of catching that week’s name, of adding it to the new list in his mind, the things I’m learning about the Institute list. He wants more on it before he brings up his question to Alec, because he thinks he needs to know more before he can really figure out what his question is, what it is he thinks might help, or that Alec might need, or even that he might need to know, to help them continue to learn to communicate better, to prevent them backsliding into any of the terrible assumptions they used to make about and for each other.
Alec’s in yet another room this time. Back to one designed for hand-to-hand or close combat sparring, unlike the archery range from last week, but there are actual mats on the floor, and practice blades on the walls, unlike the live blades Alec always uses when he’s sparring with Jace.
It makes Magnus think his sparring partner is younger this week, even though she has the same ageless beauty of most nephilim that makes it hard to tell anything beyond child to adult to old.
Jace is also there, answering the question Magnus never asked, that he’d probably seen Magnus arrive and wandered up to visit on purpose the previous week. He’s more focused on Alec this time, and Magnus wonders if it’s because it’s hand-to-hand, much more of a Jace specialty than last week’s archery, or if it’s because this Shadowhunter really is younger and less experienced and could use the extra attention.
Or is being taught a different sort of lesson? Magnus wonders as she takes an especially hard fall.
But no.
Alec helps her up, his voice soft enough Magnus can’t tell what he says, though that very softness implies enough. Not punishment, clearly training.
Alec adjusts her stance, and then does the same thing he did before, at about half his previous speed, so she can see how it worked, where and why she was vulnerable. He moves her through it a second time, and when she shakes her head at him, a third.
And then Alec shifts his stance to mimic hers from earlier, has her try to knock him down, over and over until she manages it.
Even then, they're still moving faster than any mundane sparring Magnus has ever seen; he can barely follow what they're doing and he is very practiced at tracking how Alec moves.
And then they go back to full speed, a vicious dance around each other, Jace occasionally calling out comments or suggestions. Magnus has no idea how Jace can tell what they’re doing, what she’s apparently doing wrong, what Alec is doing in turn to get her even incomprehensibly better.
Nephilim are fucking terrifying, which is not a reminder Magnus needed, or can enjoy, even if he knows they have to be, to survive hunting demons the way they do. Even if he can’t regret that it makes his Alexander very difficult to permanently harm or kill, despite Alec’s tendency to fling himself into danger after maybe half a second of deliberation, well before anyone else has even noticed they’re in trouble.
He frowns down at the three of them until they’re done, still trying to figure out what it is he knows, what he doesn’t, and if he’s approaching his husband’s life and work and duty in the right way. Is there a right way? Is he at least not approaching it in a wrong way? He’s not sure.
“Are you all right?” Alec asks once they’re leaving together.
“Yes,” Magnus assures him immediately. “I’m worrying a thought around, and I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out what it is.”
Alec nods, and takes Magnus’ hand, and tells Magnus about Izzy’s latest research project. She’s trying to re-balance throwing daggers so they need less adamas, (a useful goal for something that gets literally thrown away and can’t always be retrieved), but are still effective. He’s apparently hoping he’ll be able to use her results for new arrows, something with even more punch than he usually has.
Magnus sets everything else aside and enjoys asking every ridiculous question he can come up with, whether it’s likely to be helpful or not. Neither of them will let his worries sit forever; they’ve learned better than to just ignore things when they come up, but they can give each other some grace, first.
5.
Jace is up in the gallery when Magnus arrives next week, arms crossed over his chest as he looks down at the stone tiling beneath his boots.
“Am I in trouble?” Magnus asks, mostly joking.
Jace blinks as he lifts his head, and his smile is quick enough that Magnus believes him when he shakes his head.
But Jace doesn’t relax his posture, or lower his arms.
“Are you?” Magnus tries next.
Jace wrinkles his nose. “No.”
That one was less convincing.
“But?” Magnus tries again, damn he must really like Alexander, this should be so much more annoying than it actually is.
“Alec won’t say it, but I’m not helping, either. Or not enough.”
Magnus hums, and it’s his turn to lean over the railing to look down at Alec as he greets this week’s Shadowhunter, glancing at Jace sidelong so he doesn’t have to make eye contact while he’s thinking. “I’ve been wondering about that myself, if I’m helping enough.”
Jace hums back and joins Magnus on the railing.
They watch as Alec greets his latest… Magnus still doesn’t know what to call them. They’re not victims. Trainees makes it sound like they're not all adult Shadowhunters.
He’s tempted to start calling them chicks; there is something protective in the way Alec assesses them, and his husband is assuredly inclined towards being a mother hen.
Torres, a surprisingly mundane name in Magnus’ opinion, to go along with Fuller from the archery range, accepts the staff Alec hands him, and Magnus finds himself leaning a little further forward to watch.
And not just because they’re pretty.
“He’s good at this, isn’t he?” Magnus asks again.
Jace’s gaze shifts, his eyelids lowering a little as he assesses the view below them. “If you mean the training and evaluating, yes. He is.”
Magnus waits. Jace’s voice and chin had both lifted as he spoke, as if he was thinking, as if he wasn’t quite done.
“Can you believe he learned how to do that from Hodge?”
Magnus shudders delicately. Starkweather would always be a Circle villain to him, both for what he'd done with Valentine and how ruthlessly he'd trained the young Lightwoods when they were children; Magnus is aware it’s more complicated for Alec and Isabelle and Jace.
“Well, part of it, anyway.” Jace tactfully doesn’t mention the shudder.
Which is a weird thought for Magnus to have, Jace and tact, but it’s not inaccurate. “Which part?” Magnus asks.
“The assessing their combat skills.” Jace nods down at the pair as Alec steps back and adjusts his partner’s grip, and then they’re going again. “And the being better than everyone else in the building.”
“Except you,” Magnus offers, both to try and help with whatever it is that’s bothering Jace, but also because it seems to be generally accepted by everyone that Jace is the best fighter they’ve got.
Jace shakes his head. “I’m bullshit next to him.”
Magnus turns and lifts his eyebrows. “You beat him when you spar all the time, according to Alec.”
“It’s not about being better at sparring.”
Magnus tilts his head toward the training going on beneath them again, to Alec very clearly keeping control of the situation, of every move Torres makes, of the pace of their spar so Torres doesn’t over-reach or misstep or fail to practice the forms that Alec is working him through. Alec is so clearly managing the training, even if Torres is, Magnus admits to himself, doing better than Magnus did after he lost his magic. Not that Magnus was at his best. Not that he hadn’t suspected, even then, that Alec let him win because he could tell Magnus was freaking out about everything. Not that they weren’t the both of them that easy to distract with very stupid flirtations.
Not that either of them minded that last part.
“It’s not just about being better.” Jace is frowning again, bringing Magnus out of memories both pleasant and terrible, bittersweet and lingering. He suspects that this is what Jace was worrying over when he arrived. “I can win a fight, but that doesn’t mean I know the best way to stay ahead of them so they don’t get too discouraged.”
Magnus’ chest aches, and he has to swallow. “I’ve had that problem with magic and a few warlocks I’ve known.” More than a few, in fact. If they're older than ten or so when they’re found, he’s learned to refer any new warlocks to someone else for training.
Jace meets his eyes for the first time, and something in his shoulders eases, as if he can tell Magnus means it, that he really does understand how much it hurts to try and help someone, to try and show them what they could do, what you can do with them, or for them, and have them think you’re boasting and trying to show them their place instead.
Magnus boasts melodramatically and loudly and on purpose now, and he sometimes almost forgets that it had started in self-defense.
Alec never boasts, even when he should.
Magnus doesn’t think that’s what Jace means, or not entirely.
“He doesn’t need my help assessing their combat skills, and I can’t do the rest of it.”
“What’s the rest of it?”
“Everything else?” Jace shrugs.
Magnus raises his eyebrows at him.
“I’m not being difficult on purpose,” Jace offers with a wry twist to his mouth.
“For once?”
Jace’s expression flashes through a smile that falls off his face almost as quickly as it had shown up. “Alec spars with them and he gets them, in some way I don’t. He knows their departments, their regular duties, but he also knows what they’re good at besides fighting, what they want to work on versus what they need to work on, what they don’t want to work on and how much of that he can get them to do despite that. He knows exactly how hard he can push, especially if he needs something unusual, or wants to change how things have always been done.”
The ache in Magnus’ chest has risen into his throat; he swallows it back down without saying anything.
“I don’t get any of that.” Jace’s voice is low and his shoulders are tight again. “I can plan a patrol schedule so their skills match up, but if I don’t have Izzy double check it, periodically they hate each other and start requesting transfers in a few months, and I know part of it is that I’m a Herondale and their Head’s parabatai so they’re not sure if they’re allowed to disagree with me, or ask me to change something, but part of it is just that I didn’t get them right.”
He trails off, shrugs again.
“I don’t know how he does it either,” Magnus offers. “I am excellent at portraying a High Warlock to everyone around me, even people who’ve known me for literal centuries, and he sees right through it.”
“You’re not that tough.” There’s a slight wobble in Jace’s voice, gratitude and bravado both.
“Only because you see me through Alec’s perspective.”
Jace doesn’t disagree. They're both aware they could say the same thing about Magnus’ opinion of Jace.
“You said you run your schedules by Isabelle?” Magnus isn’t sure why he asks, isn’t sure what he’s trying to figure out, but it’s all of a part, somewhere. Somehow. He thinks he’s almost there.
“She doesn’t get what Alec does either, the what they can do versus what they could do, where to push. She doesn’t have the patience for it.”
Magnus allows a grin. She’s endlessly patient with her experiments, but Isabelle does not put up with anything or anyone who can’t keep up with her, or is worrying about something she doesn’t care about.
Jace grins back, this one steadier than his last attempt. “She’s just better at the gossip, so she knows if I stuck two people who broke up badly together, or something.”
Magnus leans back on his heels, only half-hearing the clack of staffs still continuing beneath them. “There is no way Alec is paying attention to the interpersonal gossip.”
“Ha.” Jace shakes his head. “You’re not wrong, and yet he bypasses most of the issues somehow.”
“Magic,” Magnus waves a hand dramatically through the air. “Of a singular Alexander kind, apparently.”
Jace snorts. “I did try to ask him how he did it, once, and he didn’t even understand the question.”
Magnus sighs. That sounds about right. Alec is remarkable in his ability to see what’s actually around him, and yet completely unable to see himself in at all the same way. “My beautiful husband, so smart and so dumb simultaneously.”
“Sneaky even though he can’t lie to save his life?” Jace says. “That’s another weird one.”
“What has he managed to be sneaky about lately?” Magnus asks, willing to follow any tangent that’s about his husband.
“Well.” Jace nodded back down at the training. “He rotates the schedule enough that I’m not sure anyone else has figured out that he’s set to go through the entire conclave twice this year.”
There’s a weight to Jace’s words, some implication that Magnus doesn’t get. “Is that unusual?”
“Most Institute Heads aim for once per year, and a lot of them aren’t too worried if it takes closer to two years to finish.”
“So double the work with half the manpower?” Magnus frowns.
Jace shakes his head, cutting Magnus off before he can follow that thought to comment on Alec’s tendency to be overly responsible.
“Different priorities.” It’s Magnus’ turn to give Jace a side-eye. “He has delegated most of the day-to-day supervising, the inventory management and assorted scheduling to their separate departments, and then most of the analysis of those numbers to his aide, so he just keeps up on all the final tallies without having to do the counting himself.”
“That’s remarkably sensible of him.”
Jace barks out a short, sharp laugh. “Weird, huh?”
“Exceedingly.” Magnus feels his shoulders ease as the last of his frown relaxes away. “Though he does seem to be doing less paperwork now than when he was Aldertree’s lacky, or Acting Head?”
“Yeah,” Jace agrees. “I didn’t notice then, because I was an idiot–”
Was? Magnus mouths, but refrains from saying aloud.
Jace still notices, and kicks at Magnus’ ankle. Surprisingly gently, for a Shadowhunter.
“But,” Jace continues, “he doesn’t have to get approval for everything before he does it now that he’s properly Head, so it’s actually less back-and-forth with the Clave than before.”
“So more time for this,” Magnus leans forward again, looks down to see that Alec and Torres are just talking now. “Whatever it is that he’s doing.”
“More time for you, too.”
Alec looks up, and waves at the both of them, and Magnus can’t help but smile and wave back.
“Happy to take all the time I can get.”
Jace snorts, and they neither of them have figured out the answers to their worries, or possibly even what their questions are, but it’s nice, knowing they’re all in it together.
Whatever it is.
6.
The woman going through training next week is named Lindsay; Magnus is startled to realize he already knows this when he sees her, rather than having to try and catch it when Alec or Jace talk to her. She’s also not primarily a field agent from what he’s seen. She usually wears actual glasses and always has a tablet and maybe a headset, but very seldom much of the standard-issue ubiquitous black leather.
She’s still a Shadowhunter obviously, twisting and turning and blocking and striking with her practice blade with standard ruthless efficiency. Only… after about two minutes of watching he finally picks up on something that ought to have been blindingly obvious.
She’s clearly not as accomplished as some of the other Shadowhunters he’s watched. (Still terrifying, but not quite as much of that impossible too-fast grace that is, now that he’s not having it aimed against him, endlessly beautiful as well as frightening). And despite having seen Alec control his training with better fighters, with staffs and bows and fighting sticks and blades, (with Magnus the few times they’ve tried this), Alec still seems to be just the barest bit faster and stronger.
Alec could assuredly knock her on her ass immediately, and while he obviously wouldn’t do that for training or assessment or whatever odd flavor of nephilim bonding this is, it’s not at all apparent in his pacing or stance or breathing how much he must be holding back, that he is, as always, in complete control of how fast and hard she has to work to keep up with him.
Magnus spends about half a minute trying to figure out how to do the magical equivalent, and gives up when he realizes he doesn’t have a fucking clue where to even start. You’d have to mask your magical signature, but not entirely, and you’d have to choose less potent versions of spells without them looking any different, and you’d have to cast as quickly as any instinctively trained block or shield without it ever actually just being a reflex, because you’d have to adjust it to the level of skill of the person you were working with, which means you’d have to know exactly what they could do in the amount of time it took you to inhale and shift your grip on your magic or weapon, and then be sure enough of what they would do that you exhaled and struck out in the right direction.
He understands Jace’s frown from last week even better now. Alec is in fact doing something even more remarkable than Magnus had realized, and he seems to have figured it out, and had to continue doing it, entirely on his own.
Magnus is a little embarrassed at how long it took him to notice. Not the fact that Alec keeps such tight control of how he interacts with his people; that had always been obvious. Alec has always been about self-control, about quick assessments and knowing exactly what to say, what not to say to his people, or during Cabinet meetings, and when dealing with the Clave and Council, even if Magnus doesn’t generally witness that last one directly. It’s more a question of the degree of… manipulation? That sounds more negative than what Alec’s doing, though he supposes it’s not inaccurate.
Sneaky but painfully honest, both at once.
To be fair to himself, his husband is currently engaging in physical activity that he is very good at, and also teaching people, which gives him laser focus and makes his usually discreet compassion the slightest bit more obvious, all of which do in fact make him inexplicably even more attractive (and distracting) than usual, so it’s not as if there wasn’t already plenty for Magnus to keep an eye on.
But still.
Magnus should be doing better.
He’s just not sure how.
He should probably just ask Alec at this point, but he’s been worrying at it long enough he wants some sort of conclusion before he makes an idiot of himself.
One more week.
Maybe two.
7.
Maybe three? Magnus pushes his decision out yet again, because he’s not there the next week. He’s in the Labyrinth with a new warlock who has to have someone else go step-by-step through grounding his magic in the Spiral with him, because he’d had a deeply shitty first year in the Down World and is too magically scorched and emotionally exhausted to pull it off safely on his own.
Magnus knows the feeling. Plus he’s powerful enough, and their magic resonates together well enough, that he’s clearly better fitted to the task than anyone else.
Alexander had understood completely, which was somehow both gratifying and annoying. His husband absolutely respects Magnus’ skill and duties, which is wonderful. But Magnus wanted to pout that he was missing date night, and Alexander had taken it with enough grace that’d he’d feel like an idiot if he didn’t do the same. He is the one who’s not there.
And now he’s done with their latest grounding session and they have to take a break and he’s too restless to focus on research and he misses his husband and now he’s thinking about date night and now he’s thinking about what he might be missing during their pre-date night… ritual? Observation? He doesn’t even know what he’s doing every week in that gallery, not really.
Maybe he should figure that out.
These trainings clearly aren’t just a way to pass the time, not blocked off in the schedule like they are, not with Jace there and reasonably helpful each week, not with Jace worried about how they’re going.
They’re important, and Alec’s never talked about them with Magnus, not directly.
Magnus doesn’t think Alec was hinting at them indirectly with their weekly date schedule, either, for all that that’s what brought them to Magnus’ attention. Alec is usually quite good at just saying something, if he wants Magnus’ opinion. Unless he thinks he shouldn’t, but he hasn’t been upset at catching Magnus observing the last few weeks either.
Does Alec not want to talk about it, or has it not occurred to him that there’s anything to say to someone outside the Institute, even if the someone is his husband?
Or is he waiting for Magnus to ask? Which Magnus has not done, still trying to figure out what it is he needs to know, what’s appropriate for him to know as someone who will never, can never, truly understand what it is to be nephilim or Shadowhunter.
Is Alec also considering that, waiting for some intangible clue they’ve neither of them figured out yet? Some sign that Magnus wants to know more, wants to engage more with this side of his husband’s life? Has Magnus not made it clear that he’s here for everything and anything Alec could ever share?
Is he really there for everything though? Magnus remembers that shiver down his spine at the size of the training hall, the ache from the fake eyes surrounding him that first week in the gallery, the questions he’s added to the bottom of his mental list and never gotten around to asking.
Has he somehow been trying to ignore everything Shadowhunter about his husband, like he can be two different people, one for the nephilim and a different one for Magnus?
Oh, that would make Magnus a right asshole, wouldn’t it.
Is he doing the same thing the other way, too, keeping everything Warlock out of their home as much as possible? It’s easier, isn’t it, to just avoid the nitty gritty of Down World interpersonal complications, of Labyrinth politics, of deciding what’s not for Shadowhunters vs what is part of the life he shares with his husband?
Oh shit, is he a coward and an asshole?
No. Magnus told Alec what he was doing this week, why he had to leave, all about poor Nathaniel who he was helping, about Injala, the member of the Warlock Council who had requested Magnus’ aid. And Magnus does ask about the Institute, but he's only now realizing that Alec usually puts his work away and asks about Magnus’ day instead of answering, and hmmm.
Has Alec decided these things have to be separate? Should it be? Did he decide that on his own, or does he think he’s following Magnus’ lead? Because Magnus only talks about magical theory or downworlder assistance or warlock duties when he has to change their plans, or if Alec explicitly asks about something specific he’s seen Magnus do.
Is this a more pressing issue than Magnus had realized, or do they just need to address this particular balance a bit more purposefully?
Does Magnus have the slightest idea how they’re supposed to do that?
8.
Magnus recognizes the Shadowhunter in Alec’s sights again when he gets back, if only because he’d been here when the man had arrived as part of a small group of young adults on some sort of apparently standard training tour. Sagewood, Magnus thinks, though that might have been the short pale blond next to him. Ember something?
Shit. He’d even been trying to pay more attention to these things. They all kind of look and sound the same though, all too young and pretty and self-righteous to bother trying to tell them apart once he gets past the small circle of Lightwoods and their direct connections.
Which is probably one of the thoughts that had led to how close he’d been to calcifying before Alexander, so maybe not one to linger in.
There’s a crack from below him that interrupts his wandering thoughts, something that sounds suspiciously like a broken bone, but he glances down to witness none of them stopping. They don’t even really slow down, the young man just shifting his weight and his grip as he keeps going, and going, for what feels like an eternity to Magnus but is probably less than five minutes, until Alec knocks him down and he slaps the mat in surrender, even as Jace is already stepping over to help activate his iratze.
“Good job, ” Alec says, “you lasted longer this time.”
Magnus is hit with the incredibly disturbing realization that they’d broken something of his on purpose.
He adds ‘grievous bodily harm as normal Shadowhunter training method?’ to his list of Alec questions. He will not enjoy any possible answers, and Alec probably won’t understand why it’s even a question at all, which is something Magnus does not at all want to deal with; that makes him think it’s probably important that he does.
Maybe not in public though.
He heads out to the front entrance to wait. He wonders as he goes why it had never occurred to him that that many people were never born so ruthless. He’d never believed that being a downworlder meant his people were any less varied and complicated than mundane humanity, but he’d seldom applied that same logic to half-human nephililm, beyond noticing the occasional less-bigoted outliers.
By the time he’d ever seen a young nephilim scout, even at 12 or 14, they were always already Shadowhunters, and he’d never thought more than glancingly about how that wasn’t a race but a job, a job not a one of them could opt out of. Angelic blood didn’t mean they were all naturally graceful, inherently vicious, rather everything he’d ever blamed the Clave for was something they’d done to themselves, not something that they had to be.
Perhaps Valentine’s terrible parenting had only been a question of degree, not fundamentally different from Shadowhunter business as usual, just like his politics.
Which is an obvious conclusion once he’s made it, but the Shadowhunters are so good at hiding their children, keeping them well behind Institute walls when they’re not in Idris, that it’s easy to forget that they weren’t all just born fully-fledged violent assholes. Clary should have made that obvious, but she’d slid so well into the violence that it was easy to forget how extraordinary her circumstances had been, how much had been thrown at her so quickly.
She had also been raised by Jocelyn, who’d been a stab first, ask questions never sort of person.
And now Magnus is forced to wonder if she had naturally been like that, if she’d been raised into it, or if Valentine had pushed her over that edge. Had she ever had a chance to be anyone else?
Had any of them?
(Does anyone?)
How in all the hells had Alec kept a hold of that endless well of devotion in his heart surrounded by all of the Clave’s everything?
Magnus makes it all the way outside, leans against a railing, stares up at the grey-tinged false-dawn beginning to lighten the sky, and waits.
“You done worrying that thought around?” Alec had stood silently for awhile, just looking at Magnus, before he’d stretched his ridiculous legs enough to skip half the stairs on his way to Magnus’ side, before he’d said anything.
“Not at all,” Magnus sighed, “but I got it stuck so it’s not spinning anymore, so I’m going to have to figure out what it is regardless.”
Alec tilts his head, a hint of a frown between his eyebrows, his mouth lifting up on one side in a smile that Magnus can’t interpret, rueful, amused, confused, something else entirely? “Tell me about it?”
“Walk with me?” Magnus counters.
“Of course.”
It takes a block or so before Magnus manages to start. “Do they mind that I’m watching their evaluations?”
“Not if they want to stay Shadowhunters.” Alec sounds almost amused, and Magnus stops walking to stare at him. Alec just raises an eyebrow. “Spouses are always the same rank, you know that?” Alec’s voice trails off as Magnus’ expression makes it very clear he did not know that.
“Fuck.” Alec lifts his head and stares up at the sky for a moment. “How the fuck am I so bad at this, Jace knows and this conversation was just as much of a surprise to him, too.”
“What.” Magnus manages.
“Parabatai and spouses are always due the respect of the highest ranking partner. They’re not always literally recognized in the chain of command, but the rank is there?”
Magnus blinks at him.
“It’s how Jace could make me Head?” Alec clearly doesn’t mean to be making every sentence a question, but he also can’t seem to manage anything else. Magnus sympathizes. “I was potentially Co-Head regardless of anything he or Inquisitor Herondale did, he just made himself not Head so I could take over?”
That kind of makes as much sense as anything else Magnus has ever figured out about nephilim, but... “I’m a warlock. A husband warlock, even.”
Alec pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs, drops his hand again so he can meet Magnus’ eyes. “It’s the same loophole as the trial, really, it never occurred to anyone to put a limit on spousal privilege, because obviously anyone of rank would only ever marry someone suitable, I thought you knew that, I’m sorry, I.” He stutters to a stop and Magnus can’t read his expression at all and what the fuck I’m Co-Head of the New York Institute?
“But I’ve never done anything to help, you’re doing the whole job yourself!” Magnus can’t tell if he’s angry or sad or still just confused, but he’s pretty sure he’s been a shitty husband somewhere in there.
“Magnus.” Alexander cups his jaw, stopping him before he can stomp around or fling a hand out or spiral or anything else. “You’re the only reason I can be Head, what are you talking about?”
Magnus blinks again, but he’s never been able to resist Alec’s touch, so he lifts his arms, and settles his palms against the back of Alec’s hands. “I am very confused right now."
“Head is a two person job mainly because most Shadowhunters are too power-hungry to let anyone else do anything useful in their Institute.”
Magnus manages an almost smile, trying to be amused but not quite making it.
“But I like coming home to my husband and having time to spar and patrol with my parabatai and visiting Izzy in the armory even when she looks like she’s about to kill everyone with whatever new toy she’s sharpening, so I let my people actually be in charge of most of their own shit so I don’t have to be.”
Magnus snorts at that, the amusement winning.
Alec flashes a smile at him, and his grip loosens, his hands relaxing, dropping, though he makes sure to hold Magnus’ on the way down so they don’t lose contact. “You are the reason I realized I didn’t want to do everything myself just because that’s how I was trained, how I realized I didn’t have to.”
Magnus almost blushes, but then Alec shrugs, and oh no, there’s something sly in his expression, Magnus isn’t sure he’s ready for—
“Or actually, Catarina yelling at you for overworking yourself and not delegating things made me realize I agreed with her, and if I wanted you to take a break I maybe needed to figure out how to slow down myself.”
Magnus’ jaw drops, but he can’t muster up any real annoyance because he’s right, they have had so much more time together lately and it’s not just because the world stopped attempting apocalypses at them. Magnus has been passing along more clients and non-emergency Down World problems than he used to because he so often does have plans with Alec or Catarina or Madzie or Maryse or Maia or Raphael or Isabelle or… “How didn’t I notice that.”
“I’m very distracting?” Alec grins at him, and oh, Magnus kind of wants revenge for that, but he mostly wants to kiss him.
Because he always wants to kiss him more than anything else.
So he does.
And Alec falls into it the way he always does, and there are no words for how much Magnus loves him.
And then he drops Alec’s hands, does a very dramatic spin, hooks his arm through Alec’s, and starts walking again.
Alec almost stumbles, which is deeply satisfying on an incredibly petty level, that they’re now both off balance for this conversation, but Magnus has never claimed to not be petty.
“Explain the broken bone in there, it was very disturbing.”
“Uh.”
Magnus isn’t sure if Alec’s still in kiss mode or really doesn’t understand why that sort of thing made Magnus shudder, so he gives him a moment.
“There’s no real way to know how you’ll respond to an unexpected injury in the field until it happens, and if you take too long to recover the first time because you don’t know how your body is going to react, you’re likely to get injured again, or someone else will when they’re trying to cover your back.”
“Or worse than injured,” Magnus manages, heat in the back of his throat, his eyes.
“Or worse,” Alec agrees, barely louder than a whisper.
Magnus doesn’t like to think about or worse, and it takes him a moment to get past it.
“That’s why you need to train with all of them, too, isn’t it? So you know how they react, so you can figure out where to send them, who to send them with?”
“Partly.” Alec turns, aiming for one of those tiny neighborhood parks they both like, one with slightly overgrown flowers that are usually open and full of bees first thing in the morning. “They’re also less likely to overthink my orders in the field even when they don’t like my politics if they’re familiar with how I fight.”
“And when they know you can kick their ass?”
Magnus can hear a smirk in Alec’s voice. “That too.”
There’s something…
“Is that why you scheduled date night and these trainings together? So they get reminded of the ass-kicking right before you remind them of the politics?”
“Yeah,” Alec agrees, as if that’s a completely normal train of thought. “Isn’t that why you started coming early?”
“No,” Magnus can’t help laughing at that. “Darling, no one’s brain besides yours works like that, I came early for the gratuitous sweating and competence and seeing you with your shirt plastered to your chest, which I thought was incredibly obvious of me.” Alec almost stumbles again, but Magnus keeps going. “Jace knew that’s what I was doing, and absolutely gave me shit about it when you were shooting your arrows with that Mr. Fuller a few weeks back.”
Alec makes a slightly pained noise in the back of his throat, and Magnus can’t help but actually giggle. “You’re very pretty, and very good at what you do, and I have made it clear I enjoy both those things tremendously, you should not be surprised.”
Alec is blushing now, but Magnus can be magnanimous and refrains from commenting. For now. “Speaking of. Have you had this part of the conversation with Jace as well? Because he also thinks he’s not helping enough.”
“What.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He glances sideways long enough to see Alec mouth what again, and feels his amusement soften. “We’re both incredibly impressed and unnerved by how good you are at hmm.” Magnus hums, trying to think how to describe a thing that he’s starting to suspect Alec might not even realize he’s doing. “Controlling the narrative when you’re training?”
“What?” The third time seems even more bewildered than the last two.
They’ve made it to the park, which is in fact very sweet smelling and audibly buzzing, and Magnus pulls Alec down to sit on the bench with him.
“Even when training, when you’re not trying to win, most people cannot temper their own skills the way I’ve seen you do, cannot balance what they’re capable of to match the person they’re training. Not without being obvious about how much they’re holding back, anyway.”
Alec stares at him. “I’ve seen you work with other warlocks, you don’t overpower them, you’re helping them, I don’t?” Alec’s voice breaks, confusion heavy in his expression, and Magnus grips his hands tightly in his own.
“I work with settled warlocks, those who have come well into their power. I do not train new warlocks much older than Madzie, because I am so much more powerful than them it makes them think I’m trying to overshadow them.”
“You would never,” Alec’s frown is deeply offended on Magnus’ behalf, and he smiles, leans over to kiss Alec’s cheek.
“I know that, but most people who are just starting to learn can tell they’re overpowered, and over-react trying to protect themselves from that, even, perhaps especially, when they know they can’t.”
Alec frowns. “Is that why trainees and new transfers always actually seem to be trying to fight with Jace, instead of learn?”
"Probably.”
Alec’s frown somehow gets even frownier, which is adorable. “That’s stupid.”
Magnus’ heart aches too much to laugh, but he does smile. “It’s human nature though, being scared of something you can’t understand, can’t yourself do.”
“But how else do they think they’ll learn how to do it?”
“It’s not logic, darling, seldom even conscious.” Magnus tilts his head. “Much like the way you sidestep the issue entirely, apparently?”
“I just.” Alec swallows, his gaze dropping down to their hands, tracing their fingers, following the way they’re holding on to each other. “I just don’t want to hurt them.”
Magnus’ grip tightens.
“I have to, sometimes, but I make sure they know when that’s what we have to do, Sagewood knew that’s what were practicing today, I wouldn’t ever just…”
Magnus has to close his eyes. Alec clearly knows the difference between what Jace does when he’s sparring, that he’s stronger but wants you to be stronger too, versus the person who’s better and uses that against you, then thinks you ought to thank him for it.
Alec’s survived that difference.
“I may be too angry to have coffee with your mother next week.”
Alec squeezes, and Magnus opens his eyes again. “It was Hodge, actually.”
Magnus doesn’t try to hide the surprise on his face. “But Isabelle and Jace?” Don’t recognize that like you do and he trained them too?
“Anything Hodge did was so much less than his so-called father that Jace never even noticed.”
Magnus winces. That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. Fucking Valentine being Valentine.
“And Hodge could see how Maryse dismissed Izzy, how Robert coddled her, so he passed over her almost entirely.”
Magnus curls his lip, disdain burning in his throat. “Jace thinks you learned how to evaluate and train so well from Hodge.”
Alec sighs. “I learned what I didn’t want to do.”
“They both still think well of him, or the him from before Valentine came back at least.” And they both love you too much to do that, if they understood. Magnus doesn’t have to say that part, they both hear it.
Alec’s lips tighten, then relax, and he sighs again. “He was trying to show us what unscrupulous really looked like, so we could survive it. I can’t respect how he did it, but I can’t forget why, either. Or that I’ll never know if that’s part of why we did.”
Magnus opens his mouth, then closes it again. He can see the evidence for that conclusion, and also that Alec’s right, there’s no way to prove it either way. “Agree to disagree on how forgivable that is?”
Alec huffs out a breath, almost smiles. “Agreed.”
Magnus pulls him into a hug, and eventually they both relax, Magnus’ head resting on Alec’s shoulder as they smell the flowers, and listen to the bees, and watch the sky get brighter, even if it doesn’t quite manage blue past all the city haze.
It’s not until almost afternoon, (late enough they should both be asleep but aren’t, though they have made it to the bedroom at least, light blocking curtains drawn and only two dim bedside lamps still lit), when Magnus brings the actual original question up again.
“So the fact that you always dodge questions about the Institute is more you’re trying not to work too much than weird Shadowhunter secrecy?” He lays his first necklace in his jewelry box, using the vanity mirror to watch Alec behind him.
Alec grunts in the back of his throat, eyes closed where he’s sprawled across the top of their comforter, waiting for Magnus to join him. “Have I been dodging questions?”
“Yes.” Magnus shrugs, continues putting his jewelry away. “But I have too, because when we actually get to spend time together, I am also avoiding work, so.”
Alec’s hum is somehow amused, though Magnus is not entirely sure how a monotone noise pulls that off.
“We should perhaps actually talk about work occasionally, so I know when I’m doing something Shadowhunters might get hung up on, and vice versa.”
“I know it’s uncomfortable, though.” Alec’s eyes open, but he doesn’t look away from the ceiling, doesn’t make eye contact, not even just through the mirror. “Watching people practice skills that have usually been used against you and yours.”
“Ours now.” Alec glances over at that, not quite surprise, not quite relief, but not as confused as Magnus was feeling that morning either. “Isn’t that the whole point of getting married in the Institute and shoving ourselves into all these loopholes?”
“Yeah.” Alec breathes.
“Well then.” Magnus pauses, admires the view. “I guess we need to add a work-date to the schedule somewhere too, so we don’t keep distracting each other because there are nicer ways to spend a day than work.”
Alec snorts, but doesn’t disagree.
Magnus turns to look at him directly, moves closer, leans over until he can kiss Alexander, warm and soft and sweet.
Magnus stays there, one arm keeping him braced against the bed, eyes closed, lingering, slowly sighing out a breath. “I love you,” he whispers.
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