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I. Introduction
Alec was sixteen when he realized that he was asexual.
He’d done some reading, when he’d realized that he was gay. Nights of staying up late, scrolling through mundane articles and social media posts on his phone, being constantly on edge in case somebody found out. He knew what it meant to be gay, to be trans (he would help Janet Silverwain officially change her name in the Institute records a few years later), to be asexual. He’d just never thought that “asexual” could apply to him.
So, at sixteen, he assumed that he didn’t feel like other people seemed to because he didn’t like girls — that was why he couldn’t understand wanting to hook up with somebody for a night, why he’d never understood when people talked about urges or complained that they hadn’t gotten laid in too long. Alec thought, privately, that he’d rather date somebody who really mattered to him; who cared about him, loved him, supported him — Alec never thought about having sex with him. And, of course, that type of relationship was never going to happen, not for Alec, so it didn’t matter.
Alec knew that he was in love with Jace, and while that definitely entailed wondering what it would feel like to kiss him, Alec had never felt any desire for anything sexual . Jace was beautiful, but Alec wasn’t attracted to him. Not sexually, at least. But still — maybe that just meant that Alec wasn’t in love with Jace, after all.
It was only when he and Jace became parabatai that Alec convinced himself that he wasn’t exactly allo. Before, Alec could tell himself that everybody felt like he did, but with the incontrovertible evidence provided by the bond, he had to accept that he’d never felt the kind of attraction that Jace, clearly, was feeling.
Alec taught himself how to block out Jace’s emotions when he was hooking up with somebody, and tried not to think about yet another thing wrong with him.
~
The mundane articles never said that there was something wrong with being ace, but they also said that it was fine to be gay, and they were wrong there. For Shadowhunters, at least, not liking women meant that you couldn’t carry on your line, couldn’t bolster the failing Nephilim population with a string of babies to become perfect little soldiers. Since the Mortal Cup was missing, it was even more crucial that Alec contributed. If he was ace — if he didn’t want to have sex at all — then he was just a bit more broken, a bit more useless. It was another part of himself to shove into a box and hide away, while he was married off to a nice, respectable, Shadowhunter girl.
Alec had wondered, a little, if he was gay, after all. He knew he wasn’t attracted to girls, but if he wasn’t attracted to boys, either, did that mean that he was just aromantic? He had never experienced the slew of crushes that Jace and Izzy seemed to have — it’d only been noticing that boys were pretty, and then Jace, and Jace was complicated, because Alec loved him (as a parabatai or as something else, he wasn’t sure). Maybe it was normal to wonder what it was like to kiss a boy.
But then he’d see one of the couples in the Institute — not his parents, but other couples, who walked around holding hands and kissed quietly in the halls and held each other up when they stumbled — and Alec was hit with a wave of longing for that.. He wanted to be able to hold a man he loved like that, impossible as it was. He was pretty sure that aromantic people didn’t wonder what it would be like to kiss somebody who knew them, loved them, heart and soul.
It would, Alec decided as he got older, have been easier if he’d been aro. At least he wouldn’t feel the pain in his chest when he saw a couple kissing in the park, or when his parabatai was off flirting with a seelie girl he’d take home for the night and then forget about. If Alec was aro, he could marry a girl and not have to mourn everything that he’d be missing.
II. Izzy
Alec loved his sister, he really did, but sometimes she got on his nerves.
Like now, for instance. She’d been bugging him to go to a club with her in the hopes that he’d “find somebody to spend the night with”, and when he’d refused, she’d started going on about some sort of app where you could find people to hook up with — called Grindr? He was doing his best to block her out. (He had a pile of reports to correct, and another pile of documents to read over and sign, and a to-do list of things he needed to petition the Clave for — running an Institute was a two-person job. Not an eighteen-year-old’s.)
“Alec.” Izzy waved her hand between his face and the report he was looking over — Jacob Silverwain wrote fairly good reports, especially compared to his twin sister, but a sarcastic comment about how much easier it would’ve been if the Clave had supplied him with more weapons wouldn’t go down well in Idris — and Alec finally looked up at her. “Hermano, I get that you don’t like clubs, and that’s fine, but seriously. You need to loosen up a little!”
Alec shook his head, turning back to the report and crossing out the last sentence, but Izzy reached forward and yanked the whole pile off of his desk. When he raised his head to glare at her, she continued.
“There’d be no chance of anybody finding out. Jace and I sneak out all the time. I doubt if anyone would even notice.”
People most certainly would notice if straight-laced Alec Lightwood snuck out for the night, but that wasn’t why Alec didn’t want to have a one-night stand. “Stop, Izzy. I’m telling you, I don’t want to do that.”
She slid into the chair across from him. “Why not?”
A thousand reasons, none of them the main one, rose to mind. I’m busy. I have a reputation. I don’t want to hook up with a girl. “I don’t want to hook up with a random person who I’ve never met before.”
“Because you want to get to know them first?”
“No, I — I don’t want to have sex with anyone, period.” Alec was beginning to regret the words almost as soon as they were out of his mouth, but if he could tell anyone about this, it would be Izzy.
She blinked at him, clearly caught off guard. At least she didn’t look disgusted. Alec hoped she wouldn’t pester him about it — he really didn’t want to talk about one of the many ways he was broken.
“Okay,” she said, and wrapped him in a hug. She didn’t ask for more information, didn’t press him to talk. Alec relaxed into her hold and breathed.
~
Izzy didn’t stop trying to meddle in his romantic life, of course, but she stopped suggesting Grindr. She stopped suggesting anything that implied a hook-up, actually, dragging him to clubs so that he could “meet somebody” but without the suggestive look she’d paired it with before. She tried to get him to go on blind dates and even to expand his circle of friends.
Alec still found her prodding irritating, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been before. It was less — less embarrassing, he supposed, and it reminded him less of all the broken, missing parts of him.
(He didn’t notice it until much later, but she never specified the gender of whoever it was that she wanted to set him up with, either.)
III. Magnus
When Alec met Magnus, his first thought was that he was beautiful.
Of course, Alec stuttered and failed to be a functioning human being — because honestly, this man was stunning, what was he supposed to do? — but Magnus just smiled at him and suggested that they join the party.
Then there was Luke’s injury, and Magnus holding out his hand for Alec to lend him his strength, and staying up far too late talking until Alec fell asleep on the couch, and Alec thought that this was what he wanted — somebody who he could talk to, where he didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to hide away everything he felt behind the emotionless facade that people assumed was his default. Somebody who listened to him.
Alec had never felt like this, so immediately, so irrevocably. There was Jace, of course, but it’d taken months for Alec to warm up to him, and anyway, what he felt for Jace was different. He’d convinced himself that he was in love with Jace because that was the safe option, since there was no chance of anything coming of it, and also because Jace was the only boy he knew well. It’d always been confusing with Jace, too, because of the parabatai bond and Alec’s worries over his lack of sexual attraction to him — with Magnus, the feelings were still confusing, and new, and overwhelming, but definitely romantic.
But then Lydia had arrived. She was the perfect solution, a way to become Head and fix the broken Lightwood name and keep his family together all in one stroke. And Lydia was smart, and Alec could already tell that they’d work well together — as far as arranged marriages went, this one would be good. They could be friends.
And, a treacherous voice whispered, if you don’t want sex, what would be the good in choosing a man? Alec knew that his relationship with Lydia wasn’t, and could never be, romantic — but what was the difference, really, between friendship and romantic love, if that romantic love didn’t involve sex? If he was asexual, what did it matter?
It did matter. Alec wanted to fall in love, wanted to date somebody (Magnus, another voice said, you want to date Magnus) but then again… when had what Alec wanted ever factored into it?
And even if he did choose Magnus, if he gave up his dream of being Head, what were the chances that it would actually work out? Magnus was a downworlder, for starters, while Alec was a Shadowhunter — could a relationship even work between the two of them? And while Alec didn’t think any less of him for all the people his file had said he’d been with (probably only a fraction of those he’d really been with), it meant that Magnus was experienced, and he had expectations. Even the way Magnus had flirted with him implied something sensual — sexual. Would Magnus want a relationship without sex? Would he stay, if or when he learned how broken Alec was?
Of course, all that was purely academic, because Alec was marrying Lydia. What Magnus would do in the impossible situation of dating Alec was utterly irrelevant.
(That didn’t stop Alec from thinking about it.)
~
Alec was standing at the altar, stele in hand, when Magnus burst in.
He was gorgeous, as always, but he looked tense — nervous, maybe — and a little bit hopeful, and Alec wanted to get to know him, to have the chance to fall in love with him. And the fact that Magnus had come here, to the Institute, crashed Alec’s wedding, in the faint hope that he could change Alec’s mind — well, if he would do that for Alec, might he not manage to deal with Alec’s asexuality?
And even if Magnus couldn’t deal with it, even if this new thing between them that might be nothing or might be everything didn’t work out, Alec wanted to try. He wanted to know what it was like, to be out, to be with somebody, and for once, he wanted to take something for himself.
So, he did.
~
Actually telling Magnus that he was asexual took some time.
At first, it’d felt too soon — they hadn’t been together for long, and Magnus wouldn’t expect anything like that for a while longer — but then Valentine got in the way, and suddenly they’d been together for nearly two months and Alec was spiralling.
He wanted to tell Magnus, wanted him to know, if only so that he wasn’t so anxious whenever he thought about it, but then again — what if Magnus left? What if he didn’t want to stick around when he knew the full truth? Logically, Alec knew that he almost certainly wouldn’t — he loved Alec, had said so and proved it — but pointless worries were piling up in his mind anyway. But if this was something that Magnus would leave him for, wasn’t it worse to — to lead Magnus on under the impression that eventually they’d have sex, when Alec himself knew that wasn’t going to happen?
(Alec had even considered, at one point, just trying to do it with Magnus, but the thought of it put an unpleasant feeling in his chest, revulsion coiling in his gut, and that seemed like a sure-fire way to ruin all that they had.)
But Alec had waited so long to say this — would Magnus be upset that he’d held it back for so long? Then again, waiting even longer because he was scared wouldn’t make that any better. So what to do?
Alec had never been one to shy away from a difficult conversation — or any difficulty, for that matter — and he didn’t want to start now, but how on earth would he even bring this up? Hey Magnus, I realize that you’re probably expecting us to have sex at some point, but that’s never going to happen, hope you don’t mind, please don’t break up with me?
In the end, it didn’t go precisely like that.
~
They were kissing, Magnus sitting on the kitchen counter because he wanted to be taller for once, Alec standing between his legs and leaning up to kiss him. It was a heady feeling, kissing Magnus, and it never failed to make Alec’s brain stutter to a halt, making him forget all the worries about how to tell Magnus that he was asexual and how Magnus would react.
Magnus pulled back first, but only far enough to meet Alec’s eyes with his unglamoured ones. “Alec, do you want this to go any further?”
It took a moment for Alec’s mind to catch up with what Magnus was saying, still stalled on the sight of those beautiful golden eyes, but when Alec did process the words, he hesitated.
If he did say something — would Magnus stay? He’d talked himself around in circles, over and over and over again, trying to convince himself that Magnus wouldn’t leave. But what if he did? All the arguments he’d given himself before ran through his head again, and Alec was still standing there, hesitating, and he really needed to say something soon—
“If you don’t want to, that’s completely fine,” Magnus said softly. “I love you, sayang, and that won’t change, whether we have sex now, or in ten years, or never.”
Alec swallowed. “And — and what if it is never?” He didn’t — couldn’t — meet Magnus’s eyes, unwilling to see whatever emotions were there. Surprise? Disgust? Hurt?
Warm fingers curled underneath Alec’s chin, gently nudging him to look up, and Alec was helpless to resist. Magnus’s eyes were golden, unglamoured, and full of love. “Then we won’t.”
Helpless to do anything else, Alec leaned up to kiss him again, hoping he could convey everything he didn’t have the words to say. “I love you.”
“And I you.”
~
They ended up on the couch, seated at opposite ends but facing each other, hands and feet tangled together between them. Looking at Magnus, reassuring himself that he hadn’t left, wasn’t planning to leave, was helping to loosen the tight bands of anxiety around Alec’s chest.
There was a moment of silence, but Magnus spoke before it became too awkward. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Alec blinked. He’d assumed that talking about it was a given — Magnus deserved to know — and it was heartwarming to learn that Magnus, at least, didn’t think so. Still, Alec found that he wanted to talk about it, wanted to say the words he’d only ever thought, not said.
“I’m asexual,” he started. “And I — I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner—”
“Don’t apologize for that, love,” Magnus said softly. “You were worried that I’d react badly, and I don’t blame you for waiting.”
“It’s not really fair, though. I mean, you should know that I’m not going to — that I won’t—”
Magnus shushed him, leaning forward to press a finger to Alec’s lips. “You had absolutely no obligation to tell me anything of the sort.”
Alec huffed, smiling a little. Magnus wasn’t mad that he’d waited so long, didn’t seem to mind at all that they weren’t ever going to have sex, and it was only now that he realized what a weight that had been on his mind. The new lightness was startling, beautiful, relief and love mingled together to buoy Alec up.
“It took me longer to figure it out than it did to realize that I was gay, even when I learned what ‘asexual’ meant. I didn’t match up the word with what I was feeling.” Alec traced idle shapes on Magnus’s leg, stretched out beside him, not paying much attention to what he was drawing. “It’s easier to notice that you’re attracted to the wrong gender than it is to realize that you’re missing an entire aspect of attraction.”
There was a suddenly fierce expression on Magnus’s face, and he leaned forward, forcing Alec to meet his eyes. “There is nothing wrong with you, Alexander, and you’re not missing something.”
Alec blinked at Magnus for a moment in surprise at the other man’s vehemence. He disagreed, but it was hard to remember why when Magnus was looking at him like that — like he was important, and beautiful, and whole, and worthy of love. “I — okay.”
Magnus leaned back, satisfied — for now, at least — and changed the subject. “How did you figure it out?”
“It was when I was bonded to Jace. He’d get horny, and I’d have no idea what was happening.” His mouth quirked up slightly in a wry smile at the memory of how confused he’d been by the feelings coming through the bond.
“What are you comfortable with?”
Alec looked down at his hands, still tracing patterns on Magnus’s legs. (Absently, he noticed that he’d been drawing the love rune, over and over and over.) “I — I’m fine with kissing, obviously, but anything else…”
Glancing up at Magnus, Alec saw that he was smiling softly. “I don’t mind, Alexander. As I told you before — I love you, and whether or not we have sex is utterly irrelevant to that.”
“I — thank you.”
Judging by the expression on Magnus’s face, he wanted to protest that there was nothing to thank him for, but he didn’t say so. Instead, he changed the subject. “Does anyone else know?”
“Izzy,” Alec replied. “She was bugging me to go out and hook up with somebody, and I blurted it out. After, she just changed tactics and tried to convince me to go on a blind date.”
Magnus smiled. “I’m glad you had her, then. But I’m curious — did you ever take her up on that offer?”
Alec shook his head. “It never seemed worthwhile. I didn’t want to date a girl, and the Clave wouldn’t let me date a boy, and anyway, I figured no relationship would work out when the other person found out that I was asexual.” Looking at Magnus, Alec had never been more glad to be proven wrong. “And until I met you, while I noticed that boys were good-looking, I was only ever romantically attracted to Jace — which was honestly mostly the parabatai bond and him being the only guy I was close to.”
Tilting his head, Magnus looked at him curiously. “You didn’t have any crushes, when you were younger?”
“Not really, no. I didn’t really feel much romantic attraction until I met you.” He hadn’t paid much attention to that at the time, but perhaps it was strange.
“Have you considered,” Magnus said slowly, “that you might be greyromantic, or something else under the aromantic umbrella, as well as ace?”
He hadn’t. Greyromantic — somebody who sometimes didn’t experience romantic attraction, but sometimes did. “That would… explain some things.” He’d have to think about it — honestly, he’d most likely end up overthinking it — but it made sense. The way he’d never felt what he felt with Magnus before, the way he’d never had crushes…
Somehow knowing that Alec didn’t want to discuss it any more at the moment, Magnus easily changed the subject, suggesting that they watch a movie. Alec fell asleep curled up on the couch with Magnus, leaning into his side with one of Magnus’s arms around him. He’d always felt safe in the loft, and now, secure in the knowledge that he was loved despite everything, he slept better than he had in years.
IV. Jace
“Magnus has been good for you, you know,” Jace said, leaning against the door to the training room.
Alec looked up at him. He’d been beating up the punching bag, but his hands were wrapped and, for once, it was just training, not some attempt to punish himself. It used to be that he’d find himself with bloody knuckles at least once a week, pushing himself to punch harder, run faster, shoot straighter.
He hadn’t done so in three months and counting.
And yes, Magnus probably deserved most of the credit for that. He’d helped Alec quite a ways along the path of self-acceptance — well, dragged Alec down it, kicking and screaming, more like — and between the way the world had more or less accepted that Alec was gay, the fact that he’d achieved his dream of being the Head of the Institute, and the way that Magnus didn’t mind at all that he was ace, there weren’t many reasons to beat himself up until the pain drowned out all the voices in his head.
“I know,” Alec replied. “Clary’s been good for you, too.”
Jace looked surprised. “Really? Don’t you hate her?”
“Maybe at the beginning, when you three were running around doing your best to start a war, but I’m your parabatai. I can tell how much happier you’ve been since you two got together.” And despite the disaster that had been Clary’s introduction to the Shadow World, Jace had been more stable, too — Alec wasn’t the only one who’d been spending less time beating himself up in the training rooms.
Through the bond, Alec felt a surge of happiness from Jace, along with a touch of embarrassment, and he changed the subject. “Speaking of the parabatai bond, you’re going to have to teach me how to block it off when you and Magnus finally have sex.”
Alec froze. He’d been planning to tell Jace that he was asexual at some point — well, he’d been considering telling him — but the old panic was rising up in his chest. Sure, Jace had been fine with his being gay, despite all his worries, but that was just liking a different group of people. Asexuality meant not experiencing that form of attraction. For a long time, Alec had believed that it meant he was broken — wouldn’t Jace think the same thing?
“Alec?” Jace looked worried — reasonable, since Alec had just hit him with a totally unexpected wave of anxiety. “What’s wrong? Are you nervous about your first time, or—”
It was a way out. If Alec wanted to, he could say that yeah, he was worried about having sex with Magnus, refuse to let Jace press him, and escape. Eventually, though, in months or in years, Jace would start to wonder — Alec wouldn’t be able to evade him for a lifetime. And he didn’t want to spend his life hiding this from his parabatai.
“I don’t want to have sex.”
Alec didn’t want to look up at Jace’s face, but he could feel the confusion in the bond. “Like, you don’t want to have sex with Magnus?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Alec thought, and explained. “I never want to have sex. I’m — there’s this word the mundanes use. Asexual.”
“So you love him, but you don’t want to have sex, because you’re… asexual?” Jace wasn’t showing any signs of disgust yet — all that Alec could get from the bond was a mixture of confusion and surprise.
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” The surprise and confusion was settling into acceptance, and Alec couldn’t believe that it could be this easy. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Alec blinked at Jace.
“Yeah. I mean, I obviously don’t understand what it’s like to be asexual, but I’ve slept with people I don’t love, and it makes sense that you could love somebody and not want to sleep with them.” Jace shrugged, almost nonchalant.
Alec was standing there, gaping at him.
“I’ve known you’re gay for years, this isn’t that diff—”
“What?” Alec couldn’t possibly have heard that correctly. “You — you knew?”
“I mean, yeah. Hard to ignore it when your parabatai is the only guy who wasn’t fawning all over Lily Malhotra when she spent a year here.”
Lily Malhotra had been skilled with a dagger, and Alec could clearly recall his irritation with his Shadowhunters’ continuous distraction when she was in the room. She’d been a moderately good fighter, but Alec had made no attempt to encourage her to stay in New York — she wasn’t worth all the people who’d risk their necks to show off to her.
In retrospect, his lack of interest in her had probably been more obvious than he’d wished, but he’d thought that his reputation for standoffishness had been enough to explain it.
And Jace had known. All those years of worrying, of hiding, of shutting down the parabatai bond so that his secret was kept — and all along, Jace had known.
Alec strode forward and wrapped Jace in a hug, like he’d always done ever since that first hug when he’d just arrived in New York. Jace relaxed into the embrace, as he had always done.
Only for a moment, though. Soon enough, Jace shoved him playfully away, complaining that Alec was sweaty, and Alec laughed at the weight that had vanished from his shoulders.
V. Conclusion
Alec lay on their bed, curled up in Magnus’s — in his husband’s — arms.
They’d left the wedding reception early, amid many teasing looks and comments — Raziel, Consul Penhallow had winked at him as he left. Everyone had assumed that he’d been in a hurry to leave to have sex with his new husband (or at least, everyone except those few close family members who knew the truth).
For once, Alec didn’t care. He loved Magnus, and Magnus loved him back, and that love didn’t involve sex. The opinions of the rest of the world were irrelevant.
Alec had spent so long worrying about what the rest of the world thought of him, struggling to live up to unachievable expectations. Magnus had been the catalyst that helped him to break through all those assumptions about who he was and who he should be, the reason he’d learned to love himself. For so long, he’d hated his sexuality, but now the world knew he liked men, and the world could accept that or not — he didn’t care.
Alec had hated his asexuality for a long time. Ever since he’d realized that he wasn’t sexually attracted to anyone — anyone at all — he’d wished he was different, wished he was normal. Now, though, he knew that there was nothing wrong with his sexuality. He’d accepted that he was ace, that he was demiromantic, that some people would never understand that. He wasn’t lesser for it — it was just a part of who he was.
And it was all thanks to Magnus. Magnus had changed Alec’s life irrevocably, and Alec wouldn’t have it any other way. Because of him, he’d come out as gay in front of the most prominent Clave officials and become Head of the Institute anyways, learned to accept his asexuality and told his siblings about it. And now Alec was married to the love of his life — the man who had the power to destroy the world or rebuild it any way he wanted, but who would never do so, because he was the kindest and most selfless man Alec knew. And then, like a miracle, he’d chosen Alec; chosen to marry him, been willing to give up so much for him — gone to Hell for him, literally.
(Well. Perhaps Magnus would tear down the world for Alec, if it came down to it.)
“What are you thinking about, sayang?” Magnus asked, running a finger along Alec’s cheek.
“You,” Alec replied. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, you know.”
Magnus blinked, glamour falling away, a slightly surprised look on his face, almost as though he hadn’t known. Alec continued. “Before you, I — I never looked forward to my life. It was always hollow, the path that I saw ahead of me — get married, force myself into uncomfortable sex with a woman who I’d never love, become Head of the Institute… You changed all that. You gave me something worth living for.”
There was so much love in Magnus’s eyes. “I’d tell you to save it for the wedding vows, but we already did that, didn’t we?”
Alec smiled up at him, feeling like the world could be overrun by demonic hordes and he wouldn’t particularly care, provided he could keep this. “I love you, Magnus Lightwood-Bane.”
A smile spread over Magnus’s face, like he couldn’t help it, and Alec couldn’t look away. (He never had been able to look away from Magnus, anyway.) “Lightwood-Bane, hm?” Magnus said, teasing. “I don’t know… It’s a bit of a mouthful.”
“Shut up,” Alec retorted. “You love it.”
“Indeed I do, Alexander Gideon Lightwood-Bane.”
Alec could tell that he was grinning just as giddily as Magnus had been. “Not fair you don’t have a middle name for me to use.”
Magnus shrugged, somehow making it seem elegant despite his position lying down on his side, and leaned in to press a kiss to Alec’s nose.
Laughing slightly, Alec pulled Magnus closer, lingering fears of losing him to Edom making his grip tighter than it would have been otherwise. Magnus held him close, too — he had his own fears of being stuck in Edom to contend with, after all.
“Go to sleep, sayang,” Magnus whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”