two steps to the left | 6.4k | raphael santiago character study | canon divergence | dimension travel | saphael | asexual raphael | rosa & raphael | rated: t
After surviving the Soul Sword Massacre, Raphael Santiago is pulled into another world and forced to watch himself live a life as a mundane. This Raphael is a law professor in Melbourne, has a close relationship with Rosa and is married to Simon Lewis.
It is the life he has always craved. It is the life he can never have. Still, it makes him rethink some things, like the possibility that someone would marry him despite his disinterest in sex.
.
This is my second fandom trumps hate gift for 2023 @fandomtrumpshate, this time for @myulalie, a character study of Raphael Santiago taking place after 2x10 in Melbourne. I appreciate her patience and I hope people enjoy this!
Everyone, the lovely @tobythewise got me a gift, which was fan art from the amazing @sealionsam for my Jimon fic! It's just so lovely that I had to share ❤😍
Written for the @malecdiscordserver advent challenge - join us here
(Read on AO3)
For the first time this series I have really leaned into my crack tendencies... Enjoy!
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“Jingle bells, Alec smells, Magnus laid an egg,” Jace sang tunelessly, his beer spilling as he rocked from side to side in time to his little tune.
“You’re hilarious, you know that right?” Alec said flatly, glaring at his parabatai over the rim of his own beer glass.
“What? You do smell.” Jace wrinkled his nose up, “Especially after training.”
“Whatever. Anyway, you’re talking nonsense. Why would Magnus lay an egg?”
“I don’t know,” Jace shrugged and slammed his glass down on the table, causing liquid to slop over the side. “Simon,” he yelled, “Why would Magnus lay an egg?”
Simon slid back into the booth they were occupying at the back of the Hunters Moon, stealing Jace’s drink and taking a swig. “What?”
“Why would Magnus lay an egg?” Jace asked again, squinting at the vampire.
“I have no idea what you’re on about at all?” Simon explained, as baffled by all of this as Alec was.
“You taught me the dumb song…” Jace explained, “You know ‘Jingle bells, Alec smells, Magnus laid an egg.’”
Simon burst out laughing, his eyes watering and face turning bright red with mirth.
“Jace, that song is about Batman and Robin normally,” Simon tried to explain, sucking in gasps of air as his body still shook with suppressed laughter. “Robin is also a type of bird. You know? Something that would actually lay an egg. Of course your version is nonsense.”
(read on AO3)
(This week’s @ficletinstruments art prompt: Underwater Meeting)
It’s supposed to be a nice, relaxing day. Maryse and Luke rented a house by a lake for a week and invited the family to spend the weekend, and knowing Max might enjoy the company of someone else closer to his age Magnus brings Madzie along, too.
The air of calm is shattered the moment Max runs back up to the house from playing tag with Madzie. He’s drenched and alone.
“Mom! Alec! COME QUICK!” They don’t question the look of panic in the normally collected expression of the youngest Lightwood, trusting that if he’s this beside himself something must be truly wrong. Alec’s chest feels horribly tight at the realization that Madzie isn’t with him.
Max runs to the edge of the water and stops, pointing to a spot farther out where there’s an obvious disturbance beneath the water.
“She thought I didn’t see her, but she went under water while she was hiding and didn’t come back up. I tried to swim there but she’s too deep, I can’t hold my breath long enough.”
Maryse tenses and turns to Alec in immediate alarm only to be hit with a wave of confusion when Alec only shakes his head and Magnus comes up behind him laughing.
“She’s using her gills to breathe. She could stay down there for hours.”
“She-- that’s not fair ,” Max whines.
“You’re right, it absolutely isn’t. What do you say we beat her at her own game, eh Max?” Magnus offers.
“...how? I can’t reach her. There’s no rune for breathing underwater.” Max sighs.
“If you’re up for it - and if your mother allows it, of course - I know a bit of magic that could get you down there just long enough to tag her found.” Magnus pauses long enough to look over at Maryse, who appears hesitant.
“It isn’t dangerous, is it?” She questions.
“Of course not. I’ll have full control, I’d never let any harm come to Max,” Magnus swears, and only turns back to Max after Maryse finally nods.
“What do you say, Max?”
A few minutes later Max, entirely encircled in a sealed bubble of magic with enough air to last him 10 minutes, is dropped into the middle of the lake where Madzie’s breathing leaves a wake of ripples along the otherwise still lake water.
Max floats to the bottom, bumping the bubble against Madzie to catch her. “Found you!” He shouts victoriously before the bubble carries him back to the surface, with Madzie swimming behind.
“No more magic, that’s cheating!” Max insists.
“Fine. No more runes, either,” Madzie counters, looking at his recently activated stealth rune.
“Fine. But you have to count to 100 if I can’t use my speed rune!”
With that he’s off again.
Alec doesn’t say anything when Madzie wanders off when she gets to 50, and Magnus doesn’t comment when Max activates a balance rune before hiding in a tree the next round.
For now they let them be kids, while they still can.
Magnus turns to smile over his shoulder at Alec, holding out a hand to twine their fingers together.
Alec hums, squeezing Magnus’ fingers and moving to his side.
“As long as it’s food. I don’t care. I’m starving.”
Magnus grins.
Alec had been on patrol all afternoon. Magnus knew he’d forget to eat lunch so he’d shown up at the Institute for an impromptu lunch date.
“I know a great place near the loft-“ Magnus starts and then cuts himself off when there’s a loud crash from further down the hallway where the training room is.
Before he can turn to send Alec a questioning look, Jace stumbles out of the room looking incredibly smug.
He grins wider when he sees Alec and Magnus in the hallway.
“Oh, hey,” he says, his smile not dimming in the slightest.
Muffled cursing sounds from the training room and Jace looks over his shoulder, eyes widening.
“Jace you little shit!”
Magnus recognizes that at Izzy’s voice and raises his eyebrows.
“Ah shit,” Jace says, turning back to Magnus and Alec, “that’s my cue to get the hell out of here.”
And with a final salute Jace runs down the hallway, disappearing around the corner.
Izzy comes out of the training room a moment later, eyes flashing.
“Where is he?” She asks, eyes narrow and calculating, “the fucker. I’m going to end him.”
Alec points her the way Jace had gone and she stomps after him.
“Should I be alarmed?” Magnus asks, glancing sideways at Alec.
Alec just laughs. That fondly amused chuckle that only ever occurs when he’s with his siblings.
“No,” he says, “Don't mind them. Its April 1st. They’re going to be at it all day. They’ve been doing it since we were kids and Jace replaced Izzy’s staff with a real snake. They’ll intensely prank each other all day and the Institute will probably end up in shambles. But we’re used to it by now.”
Magnus shakes his head and laughs as well.
Izzy and Jace are both intense and committed. He has no doubt that they won’t go easy on each other.
Idk if you're still taking prompts but like what about Lorenzo telling Magnus how Alec begged him to help Magnus. How his boyfriend broke down crying to the High Warlock to help save him.
things we do for love(read on AO3)
Magnus reaches for the door handle instinctively, the already heavy pit in his stomach growing when he forces himself to retract it, reminding himself he has to knock now.
Distinctly aware of the sound of moving furniture inside, he waits nearly an entire minute before the sound of footsteps finally approach the door and it swings open.
“Why, Mr. Bane, what an unexpected surprise,” Lorenzo greets. “Do come in - pardon the mess, I’m in the midst of a little redecorating.”
The regret over coming here at all is immediate. The are portraits on the wall that aren’t his - not just Lorenzo’s portraits, but portraits of Lorenzo, hanging in a space that used to hold a piece gifted to him from Ragnor two centuries ago. A quick scan of the room shows almost all of his furniture and decorative pieces gone.
It’s like he never existed here at all, and Magnus feels sick to his stomach.
“Like what I’ve done with the place? It was in dire need of some sprucing up.”
Magnus hates it. It’s gaudy, tacky, and every last inch of it screams of someone trying much too hard to look impressive.
“It suits you,” Magnus manages, the most civil he can bring himself to be.
“If you came here to beg for it back, I’m sorry to say–” Lorenzo starts, but that’s as far as he gets before Magnus cuts him off, eager to keep his dignity about this aspect of his visit at the very least. “I’m not. I already told you - it’s just a place. And it’s yours now, a deal’s a deal.” The words feel hollow. They’re ones he repeated more than once since they made the agreement, words he says over and over again to Alec, to Cat, to Lorenzo, and most often to himself. Magnus hasn’t believed them a single time but it must sound convincing because Lorenzo nods.
“Then why are you here?” Lorenzo’s eyes narrow, immediately suspicious.
“What did you take from Alexander?” Magnus doesn’t bother to beat around the bush before asking.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
And, to Lorenzo’s credit, Magnus sees what appears to be genuine confusion register across his features. Not that he believes it, but it’s convincing.
“Oh, come off it. You didn’t come back to help me out of the kindness of your heart; you’d just as soon watch me die on that hospital bed. So, what did you ask him for in return?” Magnus’ hands are balled up at his sides to keep them from shaking, clenching and unclenching, useless. If he had magic Lorenzo would already be pinned to the nearest wall until he answers… then again, if he had magic they wouldn’t be here in the first place.
“I didn’t ask for anything-”
“You aren’t a goddamn Seelie, Rey,” Magnus snaps. “So quit talking circles around it. What did Alec offer you? What did you get out of helping me.” He’s mostly upset at himself, frustrated that he didn’t think to ask this before agreeing to the action back at the Institute. Alec denied trading anything for it and Magnus dropped it with him because he didn’t want a fight with his boyfriend, not now, not over this. But he’s not going to be so quick to let it go with Lorenzo.
“I might as well be, because I’m not lying about this. He didn’t come to make a trade - he came to make demands, and when that didn’t work-” Lorenzo smirks. “He was ever-so-quick to point out that you’re no longer a threat to me. So what did I have to lose in keeping you alive?” The smug look on Lorenzo’s face is infuriating, but he’s finally giving him the answer he wants and so Magnus contains the worst of the rage he feels flare up as Lorenzo continues. “Let’s just say the two of you have more in common than I thought. The poor boy begged me to take it back, to undo the deal we made. He broke down and cried,” Lorenzo pauses, eyeing Magnus. “Right where you stand now. ”
Magnus looks down at his feet, picturing the room around him, imagining Alec standing across from Lorenzo just like this with tears in his eyes and pleading words on his tongue. His heart aches at the thought.
He despises everything about it, but it explains the way Alec avoided his gaze earlier when he asked about it, insisting nothing happened. It startled Magnus enough to see Alec beg him to take Lorenzo’s help, he can barely imagine Alec with all his stoic strength breaking down in front of Lorenzo Rey, of all people. He hates himself for putting Alec in that position. Up until this moment he could imagine Alec storming in all fire and rage, bow drawn. The stark contrast of the reality Lorenzo describes is almost too much for him to consider.
“Sobbing over a dying, helpless warlock… what a peculiar Shadowhunter you found yourself.“ Magnus thinks he sees a momentary softening in Lorenzo’s expression, a flicker of sympathy, but it’s gone just as quickly. “It was all quite touching. I’m not heartless, contrary to popular belief. Plus, your boyfriend made it very clear he wasn’t going to stop until I agreed, and I’m a very busy man these days. I understand your concern, though - I’m certain he would’ve agreed to anything to save your life.”
“So why didn’t you ask for anything?” Magnus has to ask, because it doesn’t sit right with him. He of all people can appreciate the power of Alec’s sad, hurt expressions, but not when it comes from the man who took his entire life from him.
“…because sometimes having someone as powerful as the Head of the New York Institute owe you a favor is a better trade than any physical object.” Lorenzo says the words as simply as if he’s discussing the benefits of whole milk over fat free.
And there it is. Magnus has no way of telling if Lorenzo is lying to him - maybe he actually did come back because he felt guilty, and for no other reason. Maybe he was hoping for a moment like this where he could use Alec’s words to him against Magnus. Or maybe he wants to keep Alec’s debt to him in his back pocket for as long as possible, a trump card to pull in a desperate moment.
Whatever the reasoning, Magnus knows that Alec is telling him the truth. There was no trade. And instead of trusting him, all Magnus did was bring himself here to feel even worse about his current situation and the struggle he continues to put those foolish enough to love him through. He was probably better off not knowing the specifics about Alec’s visit but there’s no taking it back now. He came here for answers and he got them.
“Are we done here, Bane?” Lorenzo prompts, and Magnus comes back to himself, remembering where he is and what he’s doing here as he shakes himself from the spiral of this thoughts.
“Yes,” he says, turning to leave this place for what he hopes is the final time. Magnus doesn’t look back. “I have a dinner to get ready for.”
