and she was there all pink and gold and glittering. by @katlisha
Helen likes to think of herself as a dedicated student, but even she can admit that, recently, she’s been studying the cute dark-haired girl who seamlessly mans the café in Ouroboros Books more than her college notes. Not that that matters, really, because it’s summer, full of family days and music and sun-warmed laughter. But deep down, she longs for a summer romance straight out of a song, and she can’t help wondering whether Café Girl might be the one she’s been waiting for.
Aline agrees to help out at the bookstore as a favour for Alec. It doesn’t hurt that she can put her tip money towards her travel plans, dip into the shop’s recently expanded queer lit section during quiet periods in the café, and tease him about his crush on the effortlessly charming man who brings his niece to the children’s weekend book group. Really, she’s already winning, and she doesn’t expect anything else to come of it. But there’s a blonde girl with a sunshine smile who stops by the café almost every other day, and Aline wonders whether maybe the summer’s greatest joys are yet to be found.
aka the bookstore/coffee shop/summer au (that’s a thing) ft. heline.
Luke doesn’t move, not at first. His body won’t carry him the few steps ahead. He’s not sure how he’s even standing.
But he is. He stands there and he stares, watching Clary and Jace embrace and the tender relief on both of their faces. He feels Alec’s hand on his shoulder, and he blinks.
“You okay?” Alec asks under his breath, and Luke can hear the relief in his voice as plainly as he can see it in the set of Jace’s shoulders.
He can’t speak, his mouth open for a few seconds like it’s forgotten all sounds. He can’t tear his gaze away from Clary.
He can’t look away from the fiery red of her hair against the backdrop of Paris, the city she’s always adored from afar. He can’t look away from her hands cupped tightly around the back of Jace’s neck. He can’t look away from her soft smile as the two whisper to each other.
She’s so much like her mother, he thinks, and the thought is equal parts proud and happy as it is utterly destroying. He couldn’t protect Jocelyn, not when it mattered. He couldn’t keep her safe, just like he hadn’t kept Clary safe.
But Clary isn’t Jocelyn.
He takes a deep breath, the air rushing out immediately as Clary’s gaze lands on him.
Clary is here. Clary is safe.
She steps out of Jace’s embrace, and Luke thinks her eyes are suddenly more wet than they were a moment before. He closes his eyes, blinks, not even slightly embarrassed at the immense relief he feels when he sees she hasn’t vanished in a puff of smoke as soon as he looked away.
He takes another breath. “Yeah,” he tells Alec. “I’m okay.” He feels Alec’s hand slide off his shoulder, sees him step back to give them space from the corner of his eye.
“Luke.” Her voice is breathy and tired and choked but it’s the sweetest sound Luke has ever heard.
“Hey, kiddo,” he whispers as he folds her into an embrace.
Magnus needs to do warlock-related grocery shopping and Alec volunteers to help. It’s a little weird, but it’s all part and parcel with the whole ‘dating an immortal’ thing. Right? Takes place sometime between Season 2 and 3. (ao3 link here)
Alec can always tell when Magnus is working on new magic because the apartment door is dirty with warding and he can hear, faintly, the rumbles of house music vibrating through the doorjamb. The average noise muffling charm doesn’t work as well when you put your hands right on the edge of it. Alec knocks for a good thirty seconds before he nears the music volume drop. He knocks again.
Magnus answers the door looking a bit distracted – barefoot, wearing sweats, a soft sleeveless hoodie, and a great streak of white oak ash across his forehead. The air around him smells vaguely of orange juice and ozone. The warlock blinks at him.
“Alexander,” he enthuses, lighting up, then seems to remember he was in the middle of something. “Uh.” He starts to reach for the ash with some intention of cleaning it off, stops, looks mildly exasperated. “You have terrible timing. I’m not really presentable and I’m engaged at the moment.”
Alec raises a hand with a bag of take-out hanging from it.
“Dot said you’d been working on a new spell and you never eat when you do that, so...”
Magnus contemplates the take-out bag. “Very well. You’re allowed.” He snaps his fingers and Alec feels something pop in the air directly in front of him. “Come in. Come in.”
Magnus vanishes from the door, disappearing into his apartment. Alec steps carefully across the threshold, feeling the on-skin slide of whatever Fuck Off enchantment lies passively across the open door, dragging across his shoulders like fingers. Magnus’ magic has a certain texture to it, familiar as the smell in the man’s clothes. Alec shrugs it off with a physical roll of his arms then feels the ward pop closed behind him again, the door swinging shut of its own accord. The house music grumbles quietly near the floorboards somehow.
Magnus is clambering onto a large wood table in the centre of the living room. Alec has never seen this particular table in Magnus’ apartment before and all the furniture has been shoved into the corners of the room to make space for it.
The table is choked with half-used candles fused to the wood with melted wax, dozens of protection charms iron-nailed into the side of the table, ribbons twisting in tangles of knot wards. Magnus crouches on top of the table, glaring down at the alchemic circle half drawn there, twiddling a length of chalk between slender and extremely dusty fingers. His nail polish is chipped.
“How long have you been at this?”
“I’m not sure, I jostled a few temporal lines to speed things up and lost some time.”
Alec rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
Magnus grins at him. “Did you really come out here just to make sure I’m fed and watered?”
“I used to own a cat when I was a kid, so I need to give you at least that amount of attention.”
Magnus presses a hand over his breastbone. “Be still my beating heart. The romance.”
Alec sets the food down on the couch, then approaches the table and the warlock crouched on top. He peers cautiously at the designs Magnus is putting down.
“What are you working on?”
“A new kind of protection spell.” Magnus brushes chalk dust from a mark. “One to employ as a backup when dealing with demonic entities. If done right, it should generate a kind of barrier making it impossible for a named entity to exact physical harm.” Magnus’ gaze is on the tabletop as he speaks, gears visibly spinning behind his eyes. “It is a difficult challenge. It can be done, has been done in the past, but recreating the method…”
“You gonna come down and eat or do I have to come over there?”
“Just a moment,” Magnus says, leaning down to scribble something.
Alec takes a seat on one of the couches shoved to the side of the room. He takes the moment to study Magnus, absorbed in his work, still in a way that was seldom true of Brooklyn’s high-energy High Warlock. He seems to have forgotten his promise of ‘just a moment’ and drops his weight onto knees, reaching across the table to fill in a blank space. Frowning. Erasing it with his thumb and trying again. The candle-light shifts warm gold across the lines of muscle in his arms, glowing against the planes of his cheekbone when he ducks his head to mutter at something.
“I can feel you looking at me,” Magnus says, not stopping in his writing.
Alec props his chin in his palm. “You’re fun to watch when you’re working.”
Magnus snorts, sitting back on the balls of his feet, one hand braced against the table. “You mean when I’m covered in dust and in need of a shower?”
“You could snap your fingers and not be dusty.”
“That would ruin the creative process.”
“Get off the table and come here.”
“You’reruining the creative process,” Magnus mutters, but without a trace of meaning it.
Alec stretches a little, casually. “For a five-hundred-year-old warlock, you’re very easily distracted then.”
“Nice try. I’m not telling you how old I am.”
“Eight-hundred?” Alec hazards.
“Rude.”
“Fine. Keep your secrets.” A pause. “But, honestly, is there a reason you don’t tell anyone your age? Like, beyond the fact you find it kind of funny to lie outrageously to confuse people? Other warlocks seem to have no problem bragging about their actual years.”
For a moment, it seems like Magnus is going to ignore him.
Then:
“To lay a spell on someone, the more intimate and complex of curses, you are best armed with knowledge of your target. The more I obfuscate, the more difficult it is for more powerful enemies to arm themselves against me. I am Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, but that is only the most shallow facet of my identity and the older I get, the more obscure the Truth of me is buried.” He looks up. “It’s just safer for me to keep details hazy.” He grins to break the beat of sobriety. “Annoying others is just a perk.”
Alec is working up a sarcastic answer when all of the ribbons hanging from the table jolt and start spinning wildly, caught up in a wind that does not blow on the same plane of reality as the apartment they hang in. Magnus, seeing this, goes, “Oops,” and quickly swipes away a mark on the table and extinguishes a candle between his thumb and forefinger. The ribbons stop spinning and hang peacefully again.
Alec frowns. “What was that?”
“Hmm? Oh. My signal wards? They tell me visually when there’s something encroaching on my spell work.”
“What?”
“Means I’ve attracted the attention of a spirit or entity and it’s best to pull back.” Then, when this vague explanation gets him a look, Magnus says, “This particular spell invokes protections from higher but non-angelic powers. But setting anchors for it is somewhat like throwing a dart at a board in another dimension, hoping it will stick.”
“Except someone might throw the dart back in your face?” Alec hazards.
“Yes, precisely.”
“So that was… something thinking about attacking you?”
“Oh.” Magnus sees where he’s errored in Alec’s worried tone. “Oh. No, Alec, not necessarily,” he says, hopping down from the table. He crosses the room to take a seat beside him, gesturing emphatically. “The wards don’t detect intent. They just tell me when entities of a certain nature and size are… turning their awareness to my casting spell. It would be very difficult for one to reach me here. They could sever my enchantment, which would be a setback but not physically dangerous. It’s safe.”
Alec quirks a brow. “Your idea of safe and the average idea of safe don’t always align though.”
Magnus lays a hand on Alec’s shoulder and squeezes a little. “I promise I don’t plan to blow myself up in my own apartment.” He animates brightly. “I haven’t done thatsince the 1920s and only because I was drunk.”
“Reassuring.”
“I’m sober as the grave. Now stop fretting and hand me the chow mien.”
Five minutes and three entire take-out boxes later, Alec glances at the man wolfing food next to him. He has bedhead, raccoon eyes, and there’s ash in his hair. His skin gives off a faint metallic ether somewhat specific to magic-use and usually masked by an expensive cologne. His hoodie is rumpled, like he’s been sleeping in it. It’s… interesting. Alec tries to study his partner in a state of zero presentation because, really, Magnus has presentation down to second nature. This side of him is rare enough it needs cataloguing.
“What?” Magnus says. He’s giving Alec a side-eye.
Alec clears his throat, looking back to the food. “Hmm? Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I can’t stare at my boyfriend?”
Magnus tilts his head. “Your flattery goes a long way. Continue.”
Alec shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t… get to see you doing this very often. That’s all.” He takes a bite of dumpling. “It’s kind of hot.”
Magnus arches a brow. “You’re a man of puzzling preference, but I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Look, Magnus. Do you need any help doing some of this stuff?”
“I appreciate it, but I’m okay.” Magnus says this around a mouthful, reaching for a water bottle.
“Well, I’m off the clock for a bit. So if there’s something you want company doing, I’d love to help.”
“Oh, it’s a lot of boring errands.”
“I don’t mind.”
“It’s basically warlock grocery shopping and homework.”
“That’s fine.”
Magnus eyes him. “I can’t tell if I should be suspicious or delighted you’ll tolerate grocery shopping to be with me.”
Alec maintains his conversational pointedness. “I am just taking an active interest in my boyfriend’s professional life. Which is, like you said, totally safe and boring grocery shopping so there’s no reasonI wouldn’t be okay coming along.”
There’s a silence.
Magnus grabs the fortune cookies. “I’m taking these,” he says with more performance than necessary, then stands up and walks into the kitchen.
Alec tosses his hands up. “Whatever it is you’re doing, I want to help. You are constantly volunteering to help me and the Institute. Let me help you with your work for once.”
“Hmm,” Magnus says, banging around in the kitchen.
“You think I can’t handle it?”
Magnus pokes his head back in the living room. “No, I just think it would be somewhat unpleasant when I’m quite capable of doing things on my own. I’ve had, literally, centuries of practice.” He ducks back in the kitchen. “I’m perfectly safe.”
“I know, Magnus. You throw fireballs.”
“Damn skippy I do,” Magnus says flipping on the garbage disposal for some reason.
Alec frowns and stands up, following Magnus’ path to the kitchen.
“What,” says Alec, “the hell is that?”
There is a… well, it looks like a grubby white radish in Magnus’ fist except it’s shaped somewhat grotesquely like a doll. The moment Alec lays eyes on it, a dark knot in what would ostensibly be its face begins to hiss and then, horrifyingly, to scream. Magnus seems largely unaffected by the wailing and stands contemplating the sink and the screaming vegetable one after the other. Alec tries to say something, but the screaming emitted from the vegetable is vibrating in his bones, sending crawls of gooseflesh down his spine.
“A mandrake root,” Magnus says airily. “A big one too. It’s mad that it’s not under my sink anymore and I don’t think it’s going to fit down the disposal.”
He points to the cabinet to Alec’s left.
“Can you get the blender out?”
Slowly, his teeth pulsing weirdly in the bones of jaw, Alec get the blender out and sets it up on the kitchen island by the stove range. Magnus plugs it in and pops the top off, then starts cramming the thrashing root into the top with both hands.
“So…” Alec says slowly. “You need this for…?”
“A binding element for one of my potions.”
“Should I be worried about that scream?”
“No. I’ve extracted the deadliest part of its wail already. At most your ears might pop a little. Just plug your nose like you’re on an airplane.”
“Wow. Okay. This seems…”
“Like weird warlock shit?” Magnus says helpfully.
“I mean, yeah,” Alec says, expression like a man watching a trainwreck but unable to look away from it. “Uh, I guess I knew you’d have to get ingredients for your work but I… thought you had people who did that for you?”
“I do,” Magnus says, perfectly reasonable, not at all like he’s shoving a howling mandrake root in a blender. “But some things you just do yourself. Like dragon charming. You should really just do that personally, not fair to ask an errand boy to risk it. Not cheapeither.”
“Like whatcharming?”
“Aha!” Magnus gets the lid on the blender and hits ‘puree’. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the compound blender whine and the screaming. “They aren’t REAL dragons, you walnut.”
“Right,” Alec says, looking unnerved.
The screaming is done and there’s a gross mulch in the blender. It’s still kind of… moaning? No, kind of growling? Magnus pops the container from the stand and gets a Tupperware. Alec watches him pour the lot into the Tupperware. The Tupperware has a binding sigil on the lid and Magnus snaps his fingers and the sigil flares briefly, then settles. The Tupperware sparkles a little.
“Not everything is ancient tomes and goblets,” Magnus says when he catches the face Alec is making.
“I know that,” he says.
“Do you?”
“Yes. Of course. The Institute is the definition of magi-tech. I get it.”
“Okay,” Magnus says, still clearly amused. He stows the mushed mandrake in the fridge. “If you really want to accompany me, I have a few more ingredients that I need before I give this spell a test run. It’s somewhat unpleasant work and you, honestly, do not have to come.”
“I want to come,” Alec says with emphasis.
Magnus sighs. “Masochist. Very well.”
He snaps his fingers and a jacket drops out of the air into Alec’s arms. Magnus is suddenly wearing what appears to be a brown wool overcoat but Alec can see about a dozen anti-evil wards sewn into the lining and hem. The jacket in his arms hums similarly with protection. Magnus flips the hood over his head and zips the front all the way up. The collar is so high it stops just beneath his eyes.
“Uh,” Alec says.
“I told you it would be unpleasant,” Magnus says, muffled.
Alec puts on the jacket. It’s just a touch too small for him, suggesting it’s one of Magnus’ but as he flexes, he feel the fabric shift, the threads un-sewing then re-sewing themselves to let out the shoulders and waist. By the time he zips it up, it fits perfectly. The hem appears to have lengthened about half a foot. Magnus crosses the room and brushes the shoulders and lapels of the jacket with his fingers, lining it with an infusion of extra magic that makes Alec’s nose itch.
Magnus studies his face for a moment. For what, Alec isn’t sure, but he suspects a look of doubt so he just glares at the warlock for effect. Magnus smiles. Then he turns at the waist and twists his palm out toward the living room. Blue light sparks at his fingers and the air before the foyer siphons open, dimensions splitting along a magical fault line and tunneling through reality and crackling with quantum energy. An otherworldly wind kicks up, whipping their clothes and air.
Magnus offers him his elbow in gallant kind of way.
“Oh boy,” Alec says, sighing. “You’re going to make me regret pushing this, aren’t you?
“Nooooo,” Magnus soothes in a way that is downright threatening.
Alec glares and takes Magnus’ arm. He immediately presses his hand over Alec’s, pulling his elbow in tight against the side of his body.
“Don’t let go of me.”
“What happens if I do?”
“Well, nothing fatal of course, but you’d have a bad time.”
“Are you being dramatic or serious?”
Magnus pouts. Alec can’t see his whole face, but he knows the warlock is pouting. “Can’t I be both?”
“Let’s go, tough guy.”
Magnus beams and together they step through the portal.
When they reach the other side, the air hits Alec like a physical blow. It knocks him back a step before his grip on Magnus pulls him up short and he catches his balance against the warlock, grabbing his shoulder. The wind is roaring around them, so strong it beats the long grasses flat around them, waves of red grass rippling in crimson and silver beneath a hazy moon. The air stinks like iron. He can feel the wards in his jacket flaring as they deflect… something in the wind. Snapping randomly a bug zapper assailed by gnats.
“Are you alright?” Magnus’ voice is only just loud enough to be heard over the roar.
“Yeah!” Alec squints into the horizon, a ragged blur of dark shapes about 400 meters out from the centre of the field they stand in. “What is this place?”
“The Wailing Forest,” Magus shouts back. “It’s on the edge of Seelie territory! Stay close!”
Alec slips his palm down Magnus’ arm, grips his hand tight, feels a surge of heat that suggests Magnus is using some kind of charm to hold them bound. Then they hiked forward into the howling head wind. The gale is so powerful, Magnus is leaning all the way into it, like he’s pushing against a wall. Alec suspects without their jackets, whatever malevolence rides on the air would be biting at them. A literal biting wind.
“Almost there!” Magnus says. He has one arm up, shielding his eyes.
Alec squeezes his hand. “I’m good!”
Magnus nods and they stomp determined forward until, at last, they reach the edge of the gnarled treeline… and the wind immediately dies. Magnus stumbles slightly, over balancing in the sudden lack of resistance and this time it’s Alec that grabs his partner’s arm, pulling him upright. Magnus makes a gratified ‘oof’ sound and tugs his hood down. He beams at Alec.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.” Alec slowly tugs his own hood down. “So where did the wind go?”
“Oh, it only manifests outside the forest, to keep out living things.” Magnus gestures a little to the canopy around them. Ash white branches arch delicately, creaking softly in a gentle wind. “The Wailing Forest is otherwise quite peaceful. A sanctuary for fey things. I think it’s quite beautiful, actually.”
Alec points. “That fucking tree is bleeding.”
Magnus looks over his shoulder and, indeed there is a tree, many trees in fact, that are oozing fleshy red fluid from the knots in their trucks, hemorrhaging red at the roots. The bark is split like wounds, glistening with fresh gore and where they bleed, thousands of silvery butterflies gather. Feeding and fluttering lazily at their strange veins.
Magnus turns back to Alec, nose wrinkled somewhat.
“It’s… still very peaceful,” he hazards. He lifts his shoulders. “Peacefully bleeding?”
Alec gives him another look.
“Fine. I admit, it’s a little unnerving.”
“Well,” Alec says, looking around. “The butterflies are pretty.”
“Hmm,” Magnus says.
Alec deadpans. “They’re super dangerous aren’t they?”
“Oh, well…” Magnus waves a hand. “Only if you have an open wound.”
Alec gives his warlock companion a more pronounced look.
“I’ll just…” Magnus gestures. “I’ll just get this bark and we’ll be on our way.”
They portal back to the apartment where Magnus puts the bleeding bark in a Ziplock bag which he also fills with red wine, various herbs, and then scribbles spells in Sharpie. Alec isn’t sure how he feels about watching his boyfriend write spells in Sharpie. He knows technically, it’s not the medium but the caster that makes all the difference but that fact Magnus can make magic work via Sharpie on Ziolock bags is… well, it’s something.
“Don’t tell people I do brewing this way,” Magnus mutters. “I’m older than most warlocks and they still want to use cauldrons and scales for everything.” Magnus makes a face. “We have electric kitchen scales now. They’re lovely. I’m all for a nice set of traditional balance scales, but c’mon.”
“You’re worried,” says Alec slowly, “that the other warlocks will be snobs about Ziplock bags?”
“Being a snob about things is fifty percent of being a warlock. So yes.”
“You’renot a snob.”
Magnus shoots him a look. “That’s a filthy lie and you know it.”
“Fine. What’s next on the list.”
“A tricky one. Siren hair.”
“Siren, like mermaid siren?”
“That’s the kind. Yes. I have a relationship with a few siren clans in the pacific rim so I can probably ask them, but the majority will be migrating into deep sea this time of year. I need a group that will still be in shallows and amenable to a drop-in.” Magnus is scrolling through his phone as he says this. “Local weather looks… ooh. Okay. That’s promising.”
“What?”
“Storm front near some favored hunting grounds near Somolia.”
“Is this dangerous?”
“Not for a Shadowhunter or myself. Only mundanes can be pulled in by a siren’s call.”
“Not sure how I feel about interacting with sirens. They hunt people.”
“Yes, they do, but to be fair: there aren’t many sirens in the world and this particular batch hunts commercial fishing vessels that are stealing from locals.”
“Still.”
Magnus shrugs. “You wouldn’t feel as bad if you knew the suffering these people cause. Sirens feed on ill intent. They get nothing out of killing the kind-hearted. That said, they’re more likely to try and seduce the kind-hearted into being one of their own, so mind that. You’ll be like candy to them, I imagine.”
Alec arches a brow.
Magnus is too busy pulling on rainboots to notice. The rainboots came from nowhere and he notices a second pair has materialized on the floor next to his feet.
“I might drop us in a tide pool,” Magnus explains.
“Okay.” Alec pulls on the boots. “Let’s go meet some sirens then.”
Magnus waves a hand and another portal roars open. They walk through together.
They do, indeed, come out in a tide pool of sorts. Alec’s boots hit ground on an uneven batch of wet rock studded with barnacles and bird shit. He can hear the scream of gulls all around and a wave crashes against the face the shallow cliff behind them, throwing sea water up his back. He peers around. They seem to be on a kind of jagged island in the middle of the sea. He can’t see any land. Just the curve of the earth against the blue sky.
The rocks descend down into a flatter bowl of tide-pool and half-submerged stone and there, among the jagged edges of the rocks, lounging in the waters and sunning themselves on the smoother stone, are most definitely sirens.
Slender and silvery, more snake than fish, their long black and steel-colored tails coil endlessly, slithering and bristling with spiny fins. Their ostensibly human parts are only just so – serpent frame giving way to an androgynous waist, torso, and arms. Their ribs are gashed by massive gills. Hands webbed and clawed. Their hair, long and black, is too thick at the strand to be anything like actual hair. It’s oily and writhes a little when they comb razor sharp fingers through the mass of it.
Magnus picks his way down the rocks toward a trio of them near the shallows.
When they notice his approach, the strange creatures immediately animate. Not in… a human way exactly. The begin to hiss and scream. Their hair ripples and bristles like the hackles of an animal off their heads and now that they’re facing forward, Alec can see their massive black eyes take up inhuman portions of their skulls, that their pretty human lips spilt back at the corners into eel-like hinges, full of needle teeth. They reach eagerly for the warlock.
“Magnus…” Alec says slowly, a touch of fear in his tone.
“Hullo, dears,” says Magnus, ignoring him.
The three sirens scream in what must be delight. Magnus kneels down and receives three… relatively normal human hugs, except that the sirens’ hair coils in in prehensile masses around the man’s shoulders and head, like a thousand feelers sliding along his clothes. Magnus, for his part, seems comfortable with it all and kneels there with the three strange creatures who sit back to look him up and down while he talks.
“I know. It’s been forever. I’m sorry. How’s your work?”
More horrible screaming.
“Really? That was you three? Impressive.”
One of them preens a little. That, Alec recognizes. They continue to hiss and hack at Magnus, who seems to have no problem understanding them and for a time they discuss the weather, the state of the oceans, something about the Titanic, and then one of the sirens looks at Alec. She (it?) elbows the warlock in a decidedly human way and he looks at what she’s looking at – Alec perched somewhat awkwardly on a rock, watching them.
“Oh, yes. This is Alec. He’s with me.”
All three of them hiss and paw excitedly at Magnus’ jacket.
“Yes. He’s is. Don’t start.”
Delighted hissing.
“No. I’ll be very cross if you try any of that.” Magnus digs in his pocket and produces three metal compacts. He holds them up, pops one open to reveal a mirror inside. “I seem to recall that you were running low on these?”
The sirens clap their spiny hands in glee and accept the bribery. Alec’s skull is starting to ache from listening to them scream. One of the sirens leans in and drops a kiss on Magnus’ cheek then goes back to playing with the compact, admiring herself in the reflection. Alec notices that the image in the mirror… looks absolutely nothing like the creature holding it. There is a man peering into the mirror, golden-skinned, dark-eyed, and beautiful. Hypnotically beautiful in fact and familiar…
Alec blinks.
The siren is looking at him now.
She smiles, baring a thousand needle teeth.
“So that’s what you like,”she says.
She’s still definitely screaming. Alec can hear the hissing, creaking, horror of her voice, but overlaid in that is a man’s voice as well. Warm and teasing, weirdly familiar. He realizes, a little slowly, that the human voice she’s speaking with sounds somewhat like Magnus sounds when they’re in bed in the morning and he’s not – the siren is suddenly in his face, coiled around the rock he was crouching on like a boa constrictor, and her hands cup his face.
“You could come with me,”she says. “You could both come with ussss.”
“Stop that,” Magnus is saying somewhere.
Alec is vaguely aware the Magnus is trying to extract himself from the other two sirens who are clinging playfully (he thinks?) to the warlock’s arm. They’re nuzzling his face and neck. They’re baring needle teeth. Alec feels a dull wriggle of worry, which is odd, because he feels like he should be way more worried about this. About how Magnus is trying to pull them off but they just kind of keep hissing and holding on.
The worry is enough to break through his distraction. He leans back from the siren, presses a hand against her shoulder to get space… which is when he realizes the creature gripping him is hellishly strong. Much stronger than him. She’s steel. Her fingers around his neck are sinew and bone and she’s smiling, lips splitting at the corners and he imagines that sea serpent body coiling and crushing a small boat. Easily. He imagines, suddenly, that these three are much younger and smaller and how their sisters must be…
“Thank you,” Alec says, “that sounds nice. But I have to get back to work.”
The siren pouts.
“Okaaaaay,”she hisses and slides boredly away from him.
The other two let Magnus go and slide into the water and just like that, they’re alone again. Magnus stands up. In his hand is a fistful of worm-like black fibers, still wiggling like separate living organisms and Alec wrinkles his nose.
“Siren hair?” he says.
“Yes. Sorry about that. I didn’t think they’d get a hint of glamore over you.”
“Well, they didn’t exactly…” Alec says, standing up straight.
“No. They were just teasing, but still.”
“So when a mundane looks at a siren… they see a person they want?”
“Not a person necessarily. Just anything they want.”
“Huh,” says Alec.
Magnus smirks. “What did you see?”
“Not sure,” he says. He thinks about it. “For a minute, I think I saw you…”
Magnus blinks. Then laughs. “Good answer.”
Alec isn’t sure if he should insist – no, really, the person I saw in the glamore was definitely some version of you– or if that would be embarrassing. So, he just smiles while Magnus pulls open another portal and, again, offers Alec his hand. They walk back through together.
Magnus finishes bagging and tagging ingredients and takes a shower to get siren slime out of his hair. By the time he gets back, he seems to have given up on being productive and climbs over the back of the couch to lie down next to and somewhat on top of Alec. His hair’s still damp from the shower, dark and unstyled. He smells like soap and the clean cotton in his T-shirt and Alec tries to ignore the dumb surge of happiness that rolls through him when the warlock settles his weight against his chest like there is no question that’s where he should be.
“Thanks for running errands with me,” he says.
Alec smiles. “Thanks for letting me.”
There’s a comfortable a silence for a while.
Magnus is picking at his shirt a little. “You know,” he says, “I still worry from time to time you’ll finally really realize you’re dating a warlock.”
Alec snorts. “Magnus, I think if I hadn’t figured that out –”
He waves a hand and Alec quiets.
“Hear me out.”
Alec moves his arm, so it’s looped more easily around his boyfriend’s waist. Magnus makes no move to sit up, so he intends to have this conversation while lying down. Specifically, not looking Alec in the face. So, he’s anxious about the conversation. Alec keeps his tone even.
“I’m listening.”
“Right now, things are… normal. In a sense. You’re young and pursuing your career and doing your duties for the Clave. Things work. We make them work. Like any other couple with bizarre, dangerous jobs like Shadowhunting and being a warlock.” He pauses. “I just think about… later.”
“Is this the immortal talk?” Alec says.
“Excuseme?”
“The talk where you point out I’m going to get old and you’re not,” Alec says. “That I’m mortal and you’re not? That I can spend my whole life with you, but it’s going to be a blink of an eye for you? That I might resent you for that when I get older for some reason?”
Magnus sits up, so he can look Alec in the eyes. “Don’t make light of it, Alexander.”
“I’m not. I’m just saying, I’ve thought about this.”
“Thinking about it and living it are two very different things,” Magnus says quietly. “Not to be cruel, but it’s easy to say that when you’re young and beautiful and you don’t feel time, but I feel time. Not like a mortal feels it, but I’m old. I know what it does to people, not just physically but emotionally and I just…” Magnus looks away, like there’s something in the room that might give him a way to say what he’s trying to say. “I just dread the day, you feel time like I know you will. Feel how it’s not equal between us.”
Alec moves a hand, slowly, tucking it up behind Magnus’ head, his thumb set behind the curve of his ear. Gently, he guides Magnus’ gaze back to his.
“I’m not gonna say that I won’t feel some kind of way about that,” Alec says softly, soberly. “Like you said, I’m young and stupid.”
“That’s not what I –”
Alec waves his other hand and Magnus quiets this time.
“We’re going to have to deal with it one day. Yes. For sure. It’s going to happen and when it does, it’ll be tough and we’ll have to have awful adult conversations about what makes us uncomfortable and how we deal with it. Personally, I feel like it’s going to be much worse for you having to deal with…” He grimaces. “You know, when I get old. When I stop looking like I should be withyou and more like I should be your dad or something.”
“Alexander –”
“Ah, let me say this.”
Magnus settles, his gaze patient but anxious.
“I’m just saying… right now I’ve thought about it. A lot. I over think everything. You know that. And I’ve definitely over thought the logistics of dating an immortal, being with an immortal, you know, forever. If that’s where things went.” He clears his throat. “And I’m just saying I think I’m good with all that as long as you’re good with all of it. As long as you are okay with the fact I… I’m just not going to be around as long as you.”
Magnus’ hands tighten in his shirt a little. His face is hard to read and that is like a hand closing in his stomach and twisting.
Alec runs a thumb nervously along Magnus’ jaw. “Are you okay with that?”
“Of course I’m not ‘okay’ with it,” Magnus whispers. “Every time I think about it I…” He stops. Shakes his head. “But I would never let my fear of eventually losing you be the reason I lose you now.” He swallows visibly. “And you should know… if we get years or decades down the road and it does turn out to be too much for you… if being with an immortal is too –”
Alec immediately brings both hands up, gathers Magnus’ head in his hands, and pulls his mouth down against his. The warlock jerks briefly in surprise before relaxing into it, relaxing against him, body to body and for a moment everything they were talking about slides into the background noise of thought. Alec is a little proud of the fact that he manages to derail a centuries (millennia?) old being with the correct application of hair pulling and tongue, but it’s a temporary respite.
Eventually, he pulls back, settling in with Magnus’ forehead pressed to his. So, he can speak as directly as possible.
“I’d never do that to you,” Alec whispers. “I’d never let it get that far and leave you.”
“It’s okay if you did –” Magnus starts to say.
“Stop that.”
“I have so much time.” Magnus is breathless, an underlain anxiety in his words. “You only have so much time, Alexander. If you change your –”
Alec leans up and kisses his forehead.
“No. No, I’m not going to do that. I’ll stop before it gets that far. I swear.” He kisses Magnus again, on the nose, on the mouth, down his throat, pulling his head down so he can say it in his ear, “I won’t do that to you. I promise. I love you and I’d never do that to you.”
Magnus shivers and it seems to go through Alec too.
