Chapter Text
It isn’t strange for Alec to call Andrew up to his office to go over some of his security reports, but it is strange for Alec to be pacing by the window when he shows up, and it’s definitely strange for Alec to immediately tell him to come in and close the door behind him.
“Is everything alright, Sir?”
“Yes,” Alec says, though there’s an edge to his voice that implies otherwise. “I just have a request that’s… not strictly off the books, per se, but-”
“Understood,” Andrew says, not needing Alec to explain himself. This isn’t the first time Alec did something that wasn’t sanctioned, and Andrew doubted it’d be the last. Andrew trusts his judgment, however, and is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that whatever it is will be worth the risk.
“I’m not sure you do,” Alec says. “There’s a group of young warlocks causing trouble, selling services to mundanes who don’t know what they’re asking for. They’re summoning some rather powerful demons that need to be caught and returned, but… the High Warlock doesn’t want this on the books, because he doesn’t trust the Clave to be fair in their punishment of the children.”
Sometimes Andrew wonders if Alec knows how good he’s getting at wording what he says to hit all the right points to convince people to agree with him - it’s rather politician of him, and if the rumors of his bid for Inquisitor are true Andrew doesn’t doubt he’s going to do well there. Using the fact that they’re children as a reason for leniency, rather than the sympathies of the warlock who made the request, is clever.
But the mention of the High Warlock doesn’t escape Andrew, either. “Lorenzo requested this?”
Lorenzo hadn’t said anything to him about it. Andrew wondered how long this was going on, how long he’s kept it from him during their dates the past week or two. At least this answers why his boyfriend seemed more than a little distracted lately.
“He did,” Alec confirms. “In fact, the current plan is to keep this to himself and Magnus, and they believe that with a Shadowhunter to use the Alliance rune with, the combined strength of the four of us will be enough to carry this out without drawing unnecessary attention. That is, if you’re agreeable.”
So there it is. Alec isn’t looking for someone to cover for him, he wants Andrew to be the fourth person on this secret mission.
“I thought with your relationship with Lorenzo it might be easier with you than someone he doesn’t know as well, or trust as much. Don’t feel like you have to. I can always ask Jace or Izzy or someone else if you say no,” Alec adds quickly.
Andrew considers the offer. The idea of sharing powers with Lorenzo… his first reaction is to be excited by the idea of having magic at his fingertips, and then eagerness to be useful to Lorenzo in something he obviously feels strongly about. On the other hand, it sounds intimate, at a level that they might not be at quite yet. And what if he isn’t strong enough, or he messes it up? Andrew’s been on countless routine missions before but this one carries more weight than all of them combined no matter how ‘casual’ Alec tries to make it sound.
All it takes is one thought of how Lorenzo would react to having to work with Jace instead of himself for Andrew to decide he should at least try - if not to prove to himself that he can, then for Lorenzo’s sake. If it’s that important to Lorenzo, then it was important to Andrew.
“I’m in. What’s the plan?”
---
That’s how Andrew ends up in the middle of a ritual he would otherwise have no business being in. He can tell that up until now Magnus and Lorenzo were both doing their best to cover their increasing concern the longer the demon in front of them remains bound, but not sent back to the realm it came from. He knows Alec can feel it too - they aren’t strong enough and there’s no telling how much longer they can hold this before they’re properly overpowered.
“Bane…” Lorenzo grunts out, his tone cautious.
“We’re fine,” Magnus snaps before the question can even be raised.
“Magnus,” Alec tries. “We can all feel it.”
“I’m almost there,” Magnus insists, the words strained.
Andrew exchanges a concerned look with the others, one that Magnus doesn’t see with his eyes closed to better concentrate his energy, and reminds himself that Magnus would never put Alec in unnecessary danger. Either this is worth the risk, or he really does have it under control - either way it’s all Andrew can do to offer what little energy he has left to make that a reality.
The demon in the middle of their circle snarls.
“Perhaps if you hadn’t cut yourself off from your father and your birthright you’d be strong enough on your own,” the demon hisses directly at Magnus, trying to get under his skin. It doesn’t appear to work as Magnus remains focused, so the demon turns with a devious glint in its eyes to look between Alec and Andrew. “And you bring Nephilim, allowing them access to our powers? It’s unnatural. Abhorrent,” the demon spits out the last word before a slow smirk spreads across its mouth. “Perhaps if your Nephilim toys want to play Warlock so badly they should get the full experience...”
The demon lashes out at Andrew and Alec simultaneously with something that feels like a burst of energy. It breaks their grips on Magnus and Lorenzo’s hands and throws them back against the wall on either side of the room. Andrew hits the stone with a thud, his entire body tingling, before slumping down against the ground without the energy it’d take to even try and stand back up to rejoin Lorenzo and Magnus. He glances across the room to see Alec equally motionless.
Magnus instinctively takes the power they’d been using to keep the barrier going and channels it into an immediate shot of deep crimson magic that’s finally enough to banish the demon, and not a second too soon. The demon’s cry fades to silence as Magnus drops to his knees in exhaustion.
“Andrew-” Lorenzo starts, the single word strained and weak. Lorenzo manages to remain upright just long enough to make it over to him. “Are you hurt?”
Andrew isn’t sure how to answer that. His shoulder is bruising from where he hit the wall, he can feel that forming already, and he doesn’t remember being this exhausted in his entire life, but more than that something feels wrong. He isn’t in pain, but something he can’t place is just… off.
“I don’t… think so?” Andrew manages.
“What was that?” Alec asks, propping himself up into a sitting position across the room.
Neither Lorenzo nor Magnus have the magic left for a proper examination but satisfied that everyone is physically okay enough to travel each open a portal home, Magnus and Alec going back to the loft to recover and Lorenzo taking Andrew back to his house to rest.
---
It takes two full days of sleeping and eating and sleeping some more before Andrew feels well enough to return to the Institute. Okay, maybe there are a few extra activities in there that he and Lorenzo could’ve forgone to recover faster, but he’s certainly not complaining.
Something still feels off but he doesn’t mention it. With the warlocks who summoned the demon to deal with and backed up work at the Institute when he and Alec return, the last thing they need is a vague, probably just in his head worry to add to their list of problems to deal with. For the most part, Andrew manages to ignore it.
That is, until a few weeks later when Alec comes to him in the surveillance room, checking to make sure they were alone before speaking.
“Hey,” Alec starts slowly, in that way which implies he has something he’s still not sure how to say on his mind. “How have you felt since we banished that demon?”
“You mean since that demon hit us with whatever that magic was?” Andrew questions.
Alec nods. “So you definitely feel it, too?”
“It felt like my blood was tingling for days,” Andrew admits. “And something still feels off, but I can’t pinpoint what, so I haven’t brought it up.”
Alec is still nodding. “Same,” he agrees. “Magnus took longer than normal to recover, but when he did he gave me a quick once-over and didn’t find anything wrong.”
Still, if they both still felt the same strangeness this long after it was over, it had to be more than nothing didn’t it?
“Maybe Isabelle could run some tests, just to cover all our bases?” Andrew suggests.
“Sure,” Alec agrees easily. “I’ll have her set one up.”
---
It’s only a day after Isabelle took samples from each of them and said she’d let them know what she turned up before she’s already calling them back to her lab.
“I’m going to need a longer range of samples. You’ll both have to come back once a week for the next… let’s say three weeks, just to be sure,” she says as casually as possible.
“Sure of what?” Andrew asks immediately.
“I don’t know,” Izzy admits. “By all accounts, you’re physically fine, don’t worry,” she adds quickly.
“What aren’t you telling us?” Alec demands more directly.
“Nothing! There’s nothing to tell, not until I have more samples to compare,” she insists, but there’s an edge to her tone that neither of them like. As wary as they are of Isabelle’s obvious avoidance there isn’t much either of them can do about it.
So Andrew waits.
---
Three weeks later Andrew and Alec are both back in the lab, and Isabelle hasn’t stopped pacing since they arrived.
“Alright, I need you both to just… not freak out, okay?”
“That isn’t helping,” Alec says immediately on edge.
“What is it?” Andrew prompts.
“So, I ran the tests. I couldn’t be certain at first when the original samples came back matching particular elements of warlock and vampire DNA we have on file, but after comparing the ones from last month to the ones from yesterday…” Isabelle hesitates, hands wringing in front of her, biting a bit on the corner of her lower lip.
“Just spit it out, Iz,” Alec says, his anxious tone matching how Andrew feels though he’d never snap at Isabelle that way. One of the perks of being related.
“I think the two of you stopped aging,” she says.
“What?” Alec sputters, eyes wide.
“You think?” Andrew asks, wondering how much uncertainty there is here.
“Okay, I know, pretty much. The tests seem pretty conclusive but it isn’t like I have anything to base it off of. No one’s ever just… become immortal before. But there’s nothing else this can be.”
Immortal. Somehow it seemed less severe when she’d originally said ‘stopped aging’, though they mean the same thing. But to hear the word immortal, it held a certain weight to it, one that Andrew didn’t like one bit.
The room is silent for a long time after that, the significance of Isabelle’s findings settling over them. It’s suffocating.
“No,” Andrew says, shaking his head. “No, that has to be wrong. Do another test. Another dozen tests! It has to be something else.”
“Does it?” Alec speaks up suddenly. “Remember what that demon said before it lashed out at us?”
Andrew tries to think back. “It said sharing warlock magic was unnatural,” he remembers.
“It said something about giving us the ‘full experience’ of being a warlock,” Alec recalls. The moment he says the words Andrew remembers, though he hadn’t before. It just sounded like nonsense at the time, just gloating to distract them. “What if it cursed us?”
Andrew pales at the thought. He grows still, trying to remind himself to breathe. “Then there has to be a counter, doesn’t there? Some spell that will undo it, or a potion, or--” the words tumble out of Andrew’s mouth in a panic. “--or something.” He looks over at Alec who fell into a strange calm, and looks almost guilty for a moment, though Andrew can’t imagine why. “Alec?”
“What if I don’t want to undo it?” Alec says quietly.
“What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t you-” but his words fall away abruptly. “Oh.” Magnus. Of course Alec wouldn’t mind the idea of immortality if he gets to spend his eternity with the man he loves. But Andrew doesn’t have that.
Andrew has a new relationship with a Warlock he isn’t sure even loves him, let alone loves him enough to spend forever with him. That isn’t what Lorenzo signed up for. That isn’t what Andrew signed up for! And if they can’t find a way to reverse this Andrew knows he’s facing the reality of an eternity entirely alone and he isn’t sure he can handle that.
No, scratch that, he’s absolutely positive he can’t handle that.
“It’s fine. We’ll talk to Magnus and Lorenzo, and-”
“No.” Andrew says the word immediately, Lorenzo’s name snapping him out of his spiraling thoughts. “No, you can’t tell Lorenzo.”
All he can imagine is the fact that the second Lorenzo finds out this is over - they’re over - and he doesn’t want that. Not yet. It’s still so new, Andrew doesn’t want to scare him away before he ever gets the chance to really know him. He deserves that much, he thinks selfishly.
“You have to tell him,” Alec says.
“Not yet. Please, Alec,” Andrew pleads. He doesn’t care how desperate it makes him look. He needs time to process this, to figure it out. “I’ll tell him, I swear I will, just… not yet.”
“I have to tell Magnus,” Alec points out, but his expression softens at the look on Andrew’s face. “But I’ll ask him to keep it between us. I can’t promise he will, I can’t make him, but I can ask.”
“Thank you,” Andrew sighs.
The number of thoughts that cross Andrew’s mind at that moment is staggering. He thinks of the number of people who would literally kill for a chance at immortality. He thinks of what he can accomplish with potentially limitless time to learn and improve, the skills he can develop, the people he can help.
He thinks that even considering the positives, if given a choice he wouldn’t choose it, and the guilt of something like this being wasted on him is overwhelming.
“I’d like to take the rest of the day off if that’s alright?” Andrew asks, and his own voice sounds weary in his ears.
“Of course, Andrew,” Alec agrees immediately. “Are you alright, though? You can stay here if you want, or come hang out and the Loft with me for a bit.”
Andrew knows that Alec wants to make sure he isn’t unstable or about to run off and do something stupid, a concern he’s grateful for even if it isn’t needed.
“I’m fine, really. I just need some time to process,” Andrew reassures him, giving what he hopes is a reassuring smile to both Alec and Isabelle before leaving the room and heading straight for the exit. He isn’t sure where he’s going, he just knows he needs to get out of there and clear his head.