sh fanfic nexus

a network of fanfic writers within the shadowhunters fandom! this is is where you can find all works produced by members of the network. APPLICATION STATUS: closed

[magnuslightwoodbane]

hidden gems

read on ao3

follow up to

warning for violence

The Clave had, unsurprisingly, been incredibly unhelpful in something they deemed as a “solely warlock” problem. Alec being there at the time was apparently his own fault. He thinks that the representative he’d spoken to was still disgusted by Alec’s decision to “taint” the Lightwood name by joining it with a Downworlders’, with Magnus Bane’s, rather than actually believing that it wasn’t something they could poke their noses into like always.

That’s okay, though. Alec knows loopholes like old friends, and this means that so long as Magnus leads the investigation, they have a lot more leeway as to process AND punishment.

(He thinks of themselves as they far more often than not now; he and Magnus are a team, and if you wrong one you wrong the other no matter how slight the injustice.)

Keep reading

[magnuslightwoodbane]

hearts in hand

read on ao3

Alec Lightwood is beautiful. Alec in a fight is a spectacle. Alec in a battle frenzy, blood staining his teeth as he grins, far too wide, and his eyes focus laser sharp on his next victim?

He is glorious.

All at once, he is avenging angel and ferocious predator, and Magnus is watching his movements as though they are the brush strokes of a Renaissance painter and the air is the canvas. Usually, Alec is controlled, aware of every move he makes, like he ought to be as both a leader and a primarily ranged fighter. Magnus can’t deny that there is still control in his muscles, but it has shifted somehow, and he can see Alec relying on pure instinct in a way he doesn’t often. Alec is refined power, and as he breaks a demon’s spine with his bare hands, here he is in all his raw potential.

Neither of them had been expecting the night to end this way. Magnus had been invited to a surprise warlock conference, here in New York, which Lorenzo claimed to know nothing about – he may have actually been telling the truth, since he waved his own invitation in Magnus’s face. He had brought Alec with him, partly because he always wanted Alec by his side and partly because the invite was addressed to Magnus Bane and he had balked at that, immediately deciding to bring his husband to show the host that they were Lightwood-Bane, thank you very much.

As it turns out, it’s lucky he did, since the whole party was an elaborate trap.

It had been suspicious when the lights had switched off and the windows and doors of the hall had slammed shut, plunging the room into darkness, but there was a reason that warlocks were stereotyped as being over-dramatic. When the wave of magic rolled over the guests, not seconds after, Magnus had known they were in trouble. Instantly, he identified it as a magic limiter of a sorts – all warlocks had varying reserves of magical energy, and this spell was designed to sap a certain amount of it.

It was incredibly illegal to use, since it could kill warlocks below a certain power level, but Magnus figured the user probably didn’t care about silly things like laws or morals.

It had immediately killed a young warlock among their number that Magnus didn’t recognise, causing fury to rise in his veins, and the chaos arising distracted them all – possibly what had been intended. Fortunately, the perpetrator hadn’t counted on Alec.

“Magnus? Demons,” he’d called out, back straight and eyes sharp. The crowd responded with shock.

“How many?”

“Lots.”

Magnus looked at the panicked faces of his people, before clenching his eyes shut and focusing on himself, reaching into his magic. “I have enough reserves left to summon your weapons or to put up a shield for fifteen minutes, Alexander. Which?”

Alec doesn’t hesitate as he picks the shield. It’s one of the things Magnus loves and occasionally hates about him.

Magnus conjures up a wall of force, barely visible except for the shimmer in the air, and it only serves to make Alec more ethereal as he activates runes and pulls out a seraph dagger he’d had strapped to his calf the whole time. He stands there then, and waits, completely still with his back straight and his muscles tense.

The demons burst into the room like a flood and Alec waits, surveying the numbers, before he unleashes a massacre.

He moves with deadly grace, so much so that Magnus simply cannot keep up with all of his movements despite how intently he is watching them. He sees highlights only; Alec stabbing and slicing and killing, embracing the purpose he was quite literally made for. He drops to the floor and slides underneath a large quadrupedal demon, stabbing upwards and opening its gut as he moves, before flipping up to cut a humanoid ones’ throat. He loses the dagger by throwing it and impaling a skittering shax demon to the wall, screeching as it flies to his fate, but that only serves to make him deadlier. He whirls round, breaks two legs off of a nearby antique table and uses them to impale the heads of the two that dared get close to his makeshift weapon. He breaks the end off a curtain rod leaving it wickedly sharp; uses a corner to jump up high and thrusts it through a neck, severing the head as he spins round and lands on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce.

Blood mats his hair, drips down the sides of his face, but either Alec is too focused to notice or he simply revels in it. There is bloodlust in his eyes as he faces down the last two demons, and Magnus thinks that he can see desperate fear in the way one cowers slightly and bares its fangs. It lunges as Alec does, but Alec feints, steps to the side at the last second and leaps onto its back. He punches with a tremendous force, plunging his hand into its back audibly cracking ribs, and it thrashes and howls in pain as Alec grits his teeth and pulls. The demon collapses, Alec standing triumphantly atop it clutching the beasts’ still pulsing heart aloft in his hand. Magnus, despite the incredible sight that is a victorious Alec, shirt ripped to shreds and soaked in blood, cannot help but notice the last demon that had stayed back open its maw and extend a gruesome tongue towards him. He shouts, but there is no need, because Alec catches it in his other hand, twists, and pulls with all of his rune-enhanced strength, tearing it out whole. The demon stops in its tracks as blood pours in a torrent from its mouth, pooling on the floor as it collapses, shudders, and stills.

The air is quiet; calm once more. Alec’s shoulders heave as he breathes heavily, eyes darting around the room to check that there are no more foes to face, before he lets his muscles relax and drops his gory trophies. In Magnus’s eyes, he is a work of art, unrivalled by any master or indeed, any other Shadowhunter. Alec smiles at him, in that lopsided way he sometimes does, and Magnus lets the shield drop, the shield they’d never even needed thanks to Alec’s sheer prowess, his unbridled ferocity.

As the team of Nephilim Alec initially summoned for backup in the fight arrive to escort the gathered warlocks to safety, Magnus steps forward, irreverent about the blood and ichor sticking to his boots and the bodies strewn in his path. He grasps Alec by the shreds of the shirt still hanging off of him and kisses him. Alec’s hands rise up on instinct but Magnus doesn’t care, cannot care, about the blood smeared across his own face and neck, about the fact that they have an attempted mass murderer to catch and bring to justice, because Alec is solid beneath his palms and Alec’s tongue and lips slide hot and heavy against his own.

Alec may be a perfect soldier, an expertly crafted weapon of the angels, but in this regard he is Magnus’ and they will worship each other over any god.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

Alec has held Magnus a thousand times.

The first time was in Magnus’ loft, after Luke had been bitten and the Alpha venom had been searing his veins. Magnus had looked up at Alec and asked for for his strength. Alec hadn’t even considered denying him. The warlock had been sturdy in his arms even as he shook with the exertion. His hair had tickled Alec’s chin; between bursts of energy, Alec had found himself trying to place the scent. Then it was over. Magnus had collapsed into Alec’s chest, warm and solid, and Alec had not been able to remember the last time he had held somebody other than his siblings. Perhaps never.

The next time had not been for weeks. Not until after Alec’s wedding that wasn’t. The drama of the ceremony had been quickly swept away with the revelations of Valentine and Hodge, everyone running around helplessly. And yet Alec and Magnus had, at some point, managed to find a quiet moment. An empty hallway. Alec had not remembered exactly getting there, his head swimming with security and orders and everything, but suddenly there had been quiet. And Magnus. He had been pulled into strong arms - warm, Magnus was still warm - and they had simply stood there. Revelling in silence. In each other. The scent of Magnus was stronger than before, no longer masked under the ozone of magical exertion, and Alec had been able to finally place it as sandalwood. Soft and sylvan. Alec had breathed in and clung to Magnus tighter. The Institute buzzed with chaos, but in their embrace, they were alone.

The next time he held Magnus with that desperation, they were not alone. It had been directly after the massacre in the Institute. Jace, Valentine, the Soul Sword. Alec had sprinted around, looking, asking. He had not looked at the bodies. That was a last resort. The walls had quickly become too much, closing in on him, taunting him that he was alone, alone, alone. He had to keep running. He only stopped when he reached the daylight, fresh air, gasping it in but not stopping for a second, continuing to look around for anyone, anything, that could tell him that Magnus had not been in the Institute-

And then there he was. Alec had clung to Magnus like a lifeline, taking in his presence, his life, the warmth of his body. Sandalwood found his sinuses and Alec had breathed.

As he holds Magnus now, it is nothing like those times. Nothing like the care, love, relief. Nothing like the thousand times in between, in bed, on the couch, wherever they were when the desire struck one of both of them to just hold and be. Now, Magnus shakes in his arms. He wails and thrashes, hands beating against Alec to let him go, let him run. He burns against Alec’s body, but not with life. This heat is only rage. He is wild with it. Alec takes a breath to steady himself, reassure his footing. The scent of Magnus’ hair under his nose makes him recoil. There is no sandalwood here, no care and love for his body like this. Magnus’ hair is greasy and unwashed, the smell of natural oils coiling unpleasantly into the back of Alec’s throat.

The fighting stops.

Magnus’ balled fists do not unclench, but they do stop their pummelling. Instead, they curl into Alec’s shirt. His body ceases thrashing and reduces to trembling instead. The grunts from his mouth melts into sobs, and then Magnus is crying, breaking down against Alec. His body is stiff and shaky, weeping only coming to a crescendo, and for a moment Alec has no idea what to do.

And then he holds Magnus.

It is unlike any embrace they have ever shared. There is no joy. No relief. Only the two of them, one broken, the other straining to keep together his seams.

Together their bodies shake.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

Rag and Bone Sympathy

Read on ao3.

Alec Lightwood has never been a first choice.

He has always been an extra. The contingency plan. The one gazed upon with disappointed eyes, met with a sigh and a begrudging gesture. He is passed over the first time, every time. He has made his peace with it.

When Jace asks Alec to be his parabatai, young eyes shining, Alec could not, in a thousand years, ever say no. As they grip hands and hold tight, Alec does so with the knowledge that this is a matter of convenience. Jace desperately wants a parabatai - a partner, someone to anchor himself. None of the other young shadowhunters are particularly keen to tie themselves like that, and Isabelle is barely old enough to participate in training. Circumstance makes the decision for Jace; it is an unspoken fact that if he had a choice, he would not have picked his quiet, brooding, too-serious brother.

Keep reading

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

Be Still and Know Your Sign

They wait until Magnus is gone to descend upon the palace.

It begins with a summons from Earth. The High Warlock of Khartoum requires advice on some matters of politics, and Magnus owes her a favour from long ago. His change in realm, he tells Alexander, has not erased the history of his friendships. It is rare that he should return to the surface; he has not done so since he went back for Alexander. Their love paired with Magnus’ gentle encouragement had coaxed Alexander down, and since then, Magnus has had everything he needs. His kingdom and his heart. But even a prince of hell has his debts, and so Magnus must go. He rises from his throne, magic sparking blinding blue against the endless crimson of the dimension. He and Alexander kiss for a long time, Alexander’s fingers curled into his lapels, Magnus’ hands on the other man’s hips, until they have exhausted every breath the have. The portal Magnus rips from air swallows him with the promise of return.

News travels rapidly. The prince is gone. His pet is left alone.

The children of Edom collect to storm the interloper.

The black black mass moves towards the palace, writhing and screaming. It shudders with anticipation; a thousand starving demons eager for their revenge against the man who lounges beyond the palace gates. Intruder. Shadowhunter. Hatred shakes them, as natural as as their limbs move against the sand. An angel has invaded Edom. Taken its throne. They will right this error.

Onlookers stay silent. They already know the ending to this storm.

The palace’s walls breach for the mass without hesitation.

Keep reading

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

When Alec proposes to Lydia, he does not use the Lightwood ring.

The metal burns freezing cold around Maryse’s finger.

In some way, she resents him for it, resents both of them. The wedding preparations are already underway, the news travelling through the channels of the Clave, and yet Lydia Branwell does not wear a ring. It feels like an out. Some loophole for the future, a sign that she will not be trapped within the Lightwoods, will not have to bear this burden as the rest of them do.

Maryse checks herself.

It is an honour. Not a trapping.

Of course, she does know the reason for Alec not asking for the ring. Has known it for almost a decade now. To Alec, this is not about growing family, adding new members to their prestigious ranks of blood and union. It is political. And beyond that, it is a veil.

Keep reading

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

All he has is fear.

It fills his stomach and creeps up his throat. Freezes his limbs and leaks out of his eyes. He sits for hours, and then for hours more. It seeps from his pores and makes his hands shake wildly.

Magnus lays unmoving in the hospital bed.

He sleeps on, the monitors tracking something soft and steady, yet the apparent peace brings little comfort. Because this… this cannot be Magnus. There is no colour here, none of the vibrancy that surrounds the man at every moment. The man in the hospital bed has flat black hair against desolate white sheets, dark skin sunken to a pallid grey. He is still, has been for hours, and fear grips Alec harder, a new wave of terror pushing him under as he thinks of this, the idea that it could be the end, that his final memories of Magnus will be like this. Nothing but greys.

Something gasps through the terror. It takes Alec a moment to realise that it’s his own fingers. His nails dig into his hand, half-moons sinking against flesh in a bite of pain. His tendons tighten and he digs deeper, and he finds more tears in his eyes but this time they are of relief. The agony against his skin is a reprieve. Something, anything different to fear.

At last, when it becomes too much, he removes his fingers. Examines the skin. The marks. The sting remains, but it lightens with every second. Alec’s stomach lurches. No. No.

He digs his thumbnail into the side of his hand.

He breathes out the relief in a sigh.

He looks back to Magnus. Tries to imagine him as he should be. Puts colour back into the pallor before him.

He digs in harder.

He waits.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

Pls write sth about that jelous scene from magnus' pov. That scene is just way too adorable

IT’S THE CUTEST THING ON EARTH AND LUCKY FOR YOU I ADORE IT

Alec laughs.

For a moment, Magnus freezes.

It’s familiar. Him in one chair, his partner in the other, accusing him of jealousy and laughing. Mocking. Calling him insecure and unreasonable. He thinks of Camille’s high titter at him confronting her, asking her about the man she had been pressed up against at a party an hour earlier. She would tell him he was being ridiculous, deride his fears. A week later, he would find them two of them in his bed. The laughter would return.

This sound is different though. Lower. Sweeter. Surprised, not mocking. Not sneering or taunting.

This is Alexander.

“You’re jealous,” he tells Magnus, not for the first time, and there’s a shock in how teasing it is. But then, as Magnus comes back, takes in the sight of his smiling boyfriend, he understands.

To Alec, it is not Magnus who is ridiculous. It’s… the situation. The concept. The idea that Alec would ever look at anyone else, would ever have eyes for anyone but Magnus. Alec’s love is ridiculous, almost comical in its singularity, and he cannot help but be amused by any suggestion of the other.

Alec laughs not because he would look at another man, but because he knows he never could.

Alec laughs, and Magnus melts.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

For twenty-four years, Alec’s world is black and white. Demons, night, gear, downworlders. Institute, paperwork, his own sick face, shadowhunters. There are two realms, and Alec passes between them. Keeps them in check. The two hues must remains apart, and the world will be in order.

Then he meets Magnus, and everything is soaked in colour.

Everything grows. His heart, his mind, his scope. New York is no longer rooftops and alleys; instead, it’s restaurants and Central Park, kisses under street lights, diners in the early hours filled with giggles and teasing and stealing each other’s fries. And the earth is no longer Manhattan. They travel to Japan, Italy, Croatia, Zimbabwe, Vietnam. Once, Alec even convinces Magnus to portal them to Antarctica for five minutes, just to see. Afterwards, Magnus kisses Alec’s freezing fingers back to life, his lips too busy against skin to form an “I told you so”.

The world expands and Magnus is the epicentre.

And then it shrinks again, even smaller than before. The size of a hospital bed.

The cheap sheets are a sea before the solid land of Magnus’ body. Alec grasps his hand, clings to it, holds on tight in the desperate hope that he can stop Magnus from drifting away into space.

Magnus begins to die.

Alec’s world withers.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

There’s always a surge of magic when Alec is around. Magnus can’t help it. He is both Pavlov and his dog in this situation. His heart beats faster, his skin tingles, his magic bubbles and sings. The power connects him to everything, and Alec has become his everything.

Alec asks to move in and it fizzes.

The spell of mortality forced him to reconsider so much, and this was one of them. He may have infinite time, but Alec does not; sixty years is not long, and even that is a hopeful guess that ignores the average shadowhunter lifespan. His Alexander is finite, and so Magnus wants to savour every moment with him.

Magnus agrees, and his magic churns.

Their hands meet and it boils.

“I love you,” Magnus says, and it overflows.

Something is wrong.

His nerves fill with it. Seethe with it. His head aches, brain stings, blood blisters his skull as it mixes with magic, screaming against the flow of his veins in pursuit of filling his head. It froths like love, but it is twisted and grotesque, warmth turning into burning pain. He feels himself fall and he cries out, begs for Alec. “Please help me,” he thinks he shouts, but Alec merely watches in horror.

Magnus’ magic screams.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

He’s dreaming.

He knows he’s dreaming.

Alexander cannot dance like this.

They tried, once. Magnus had found an ancient phonograph amongst his things and Alec had been fascinated with it. Magnus indulged him, magic winding around the crank until the mouth sang a sweet piano melody. The sight of Alec gently swaying to the music had been too much to resist, and Magnus had pulled him into a waltz. Alec was terrible, of course - ballroom dancing is not on the shadowhunter curriculum. He’d had two left feet, stumbling twice at every step, until eventually they had to stop altogether to simply cling to one another and laugh, a joyful harmony to the piano.

Now, though, Alec moves as though he was born with dance in his veins. His grip is steady yet tender on Magnus’ wake, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he glides gracefully from step to step. The music lifts - had it always been playing? - and Alec effortlessly raises his arm to spin Magnus underneath. As soon as Magnus completes the move, Alec grins and dips him.

It’s perfection.

It is not his Alec.

And yet, somehow, Magnus knows that this is all he has. His shadowhunter is only available to him in imitation; his real being is locked away, kept from Magnus. He cannot remember how, or why. He simply feels the ache. The loss of his Alexander.

Magnus clings to the dreamed fake.

It is all he has.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

It is not his magic.

Alec can tell that much immediately from the colour. Pages swirl in a hurricane of old gold, a bright legacy of wealth and fortune. To some, it would be beautiful. A breeze of arcane prosperity.

The gold makes his stomach turn.

He’s used to blue. Indigo light warming the air, kissing Alec’s skin as it passes, settling everything with a wave of power and care. It was never bright, ostentatious, like this. Alec watches and his corneas sting.

And then there is the feeling.

That indigo, the fire pushed from Magnus’ veins, never burnt. Whenever it touched Alec, snaked around him playful and possessive, it had always been a whisper of heat. A tenderness that warmed him from the inside out. Alec would brush his fingers through the stream and be tickled right back. It enveloped him and he would happily breathe it in and it filled his lungs with sweetness.

The gold prickles.

As the pages settle, Alec’s wrist brushes the edge of the yellowed mist, and a thousand needles stand to attention beneath his skin. He recoils immediately, but the sensation does not fade. His other hand rubs over the spot, and as his skin presses together, something flashes before his eyes. Cold eyes. An ornate room. A smile soaked in manipulation.

Magnus smiles at him, and Alec’s chest is burned by molten gold.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

It’s a statement to do this inside the Institute. It always is.

Alec’s room is familiar, singularly endeared to Magnus amongst the homogenous dormitories in which the shadowhunters reside. He hasn’t spent too much time here - far less than Alec has spent at the loft - but the memories that he does have of the place are… very pleasant. He doesn’t have to spend too long reminiscing though, because as soon as the door is closed Alec is kissing him again, cupping Magnus’ jaw and moving their mouths together like a man desperate for salvation. Magnus grips him back in kind, returning the kiss, sliding his hands up the back of Alec’s shirt. He pulls away to suck on the shadowhunter’s pulse and he earns a sharp gasp.

The significance of their coupling in a place such as this does not escape him.

These halls were carved for nephilim for themselves and themselves alone; the grounds are consecrated with their self-appointed superiority. This very room was designed to provide some small comfort for a shadowhunter in their lifetime of following duty. In the vast years of construction on the New York Institute, surely no nephilim ever predicted that a downworlder could find their way this deep into the building, let alone one with such potent demonic birthright as Magnus Bane. They could have never thought that he would be invited so fervently by a nephilim to share his bed, to hold him and love him and fuck him.

There’s a power trip that comes with the affair. Magnus knows Alec feels it too; it is sacrilegious to allow a being such as Magnus to do this in the Institute, and the deference leaves Alec panting and keening every time. It’s a power that Magnus hasn’t felt since he lost his magic. He grabs at it, desperate.

His grip on Alec’s hips will surely leave marks.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

Alec has always suspected the integral part that magic played in their sex life. From the moment Magnus first touched him, Alec felt lit from within, and he only glowed hotter with every subsequent touch, caress, movement, pleasure. It only made sense, Alec thought, that Magnus’ prowess in this area was aided by his skill in magic. He was, after all, quite magical.

When Magnus lost that, became Mundane, amongst the grief and guilt and shame, it crossed Alec’s mind that perhaps sex might be… different. He doubted it could ever be bad with Magnus, but he anticipated their intimacy scaling back in intensity.

As he arches back into his Institute bed, he finds that isn’t the case.

Magnus always integrated his magic into the everyday; it was as though it were another limb, reaching out seamlessly with the rest of the warlock’s body. And as with his other appendages, he found great pleasure in teasing Alec with it, humming inside him, pressing close against him until the force inhabited them both as one. Now, without that, Magnus dedicates himself to making up for the loss. His mouth breathes hot air against Alec’s ears; his tongue marks possessive routes down his chest; his fingers curl inside him and twist and rub until Alec is ablaze.

When Magnus is on top of him, thrusting into him, Alec cannot believe that he ever thought that Magnus’ skill relied on his magic. Because this intensity, this adoration and worship and zeal, is contained within Magnus at his most raw. It flares from the core of him, not from within any one appendage. Magnus kisses him, rocks deeper and harder, and Alec moans and clutches at him helplessly. Even without so much power, Magnus is capable of ruining him.

Alec allows himself to fall to destruction.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

The weight of Magnus’ cock is heavy on his tongue. It’s a comforting familiarity, the slide of the member against the threshold of his lips a sensation he’s felt countless times before. And yet the pleasure never wanes. He sucks hard on the head before sliding his mouth back down the shaft, and Magnus’ cock twitches deliciously. Alec moans.

Fingers pull his hair warningly. A reminder that this is a punishment.

Alec is a loud lover. It came as a surprise to him and Magnus both - Alec is a stoic man in his everyday, even during his softened moments in their home. He prefers quiet dignity to loud authority. And yet when Magnus is above him, touching him, in him, he lets loose everything he has been holding. His voice rumbles and gasps, peaks and drops as Magnus moves. His tongue sings filth into existence. Even a sharp order of silence from Magnus only works for a short time - it isn’t long before his song of pleasure returns to sing the warlock’s praises. Of course, it calls for punishment.

Which is why Alec is now on his knees, worshipping Magnus.

It’s a concept based on stimulation; on Magnus receiving pleasure while Alec must wait. And yet it fails. The feeling of Magnus’ cock on his mouth, teasing his gag reflex, is a kind of eroticism that Alec could have never imagined before he met Magnus. The heat of the warlock warming his tongue, the taste of his skin, the knowledge of the pleasure that he is giving to his lover. He pushes deeper onto Magnus’ cock. He gags, choking, but he does not pull off. Instead he waits, letting the moment the pass, admiring the sounds of his own delight.

Above him, Magnus moans.

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

Monica,,, I don’t know if it’s just me but Hozier’s dinner and diatribes is such a Malec song please write a fic please 😫🙏🏻💕

Listen. I was so ready to be like “Sorry I don’t really do prompts” but then this sprang from my dumbass brain fully formed because hozier will never let me know peace. I hope you enjoy it!

A loud, forced laugh catches Alec’s attention. He’s pulled from his fog to look at the woman - she may be a Bridgestock, off the top of his head - who is speaking to the Inquisitor, face pulled into a forged smile. Around them, a few others echo in chortles. The Inquisitor mirrors their false expressions and continues her story, speaking grandly for her rapt, glassy-eyed audience.

All the Greater Demons in the world have nothing on the hell that is Clave parties.

Alec has been here for an hour and a half and already his entire being is rebelling against this event. His body is hot and constricted by his suit. Cheap wine and lackluster food sit obnoxiously in his stomach. His jaw aches from endless menial small talk, tongue heavy in his mouth with the weight of politics and shit-talking. He sighs and shakes his head, turning to see if there is anyone else with whom he is obliged to have a conversation. He’s just sinking into resignation at another vaguely homophobic conversation when he catches sight of someone. The tension in his chest sighs away. His reprieve stands just across the room.

Keep reading

[thattrainssaile-deactivated2023]

Dona Eis Requiem

Alec Lightwood is a sinner.

He has been from a young age. It is at first against his will, of course. He always strived to be perfect, to be obedient, to do everything he needed to as a son. Siblings babysat, his room kept clean, his homework always completed on time. Yet despite his efforts, he was always met with disappointment. Frowns from high up on his parents’ faces. He was made precisely aware of his errors, reprimanded for everything he missed while he was focused on other tasks. Alec apologised, swore to do better, resolved to pay more attention. And yet the criticism continued. He pursued sanctity, but could only achieve sin.

For a long time he cried about it. And then he remembered that such weakness is another transgression. He stopped crying. His muscles ached with tension every evening after days of fighting against his own immorality. If he was tired enough, the pain felt like purity.

He dedicated himself to absolution.

Keep reading