Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The club felt like a live thing, the music pumping through the air felt palpable, like if he allowed it to, it would physically move him. The beat was something faintly recognisable, more base than actual music, something you could move to without having to think.

There was a phrase he had heard mundanes use, dance like nobody can see you, or something to that effect. He liked the idea of that, of being able to lose yourself without a worry of someone’s eyes on you. Alec moved with the knowledge that he was being watched, stalked, and he could always feel those eyes on him.

He liked it, the feeling of being the source of someone’s attention. Of course, attention was not something he was short of, people loved to look at him. Beauty clouded their judgement, they thought about fucking him before they realised what he was. Before they saw the danger.

The eyes though. They knew what he was capable of, they were capable of far worse. He knew this intimately, it frightened him, and it excited him more than he could fathom. The tremor of desire mixed with the tangible fear almost choked him, but he thrived on it.

Many people stared at him, but few approached him, because most people knew he belonged to someone else. He should have warned the fae that entered his space, he should have pushed them away when they touched him. Should have stopped them from kissing him.

But he didn’t. He embraced the heady feeling of someone wanting to crawl into your skin with desire. Knowing that he would be punished, knowing that he would be this persons last kiss. That they would be dead before they even realised the mistake in touching something that wasn’t theirs.

When the air heated up, Alec stepped out of their space, watched the panic in their eyes as blue flames tore through them. He almost felt guilt, for a second, as if he still truly felt, as if he wasn’t so far fallen.

Between one blink and the next Magnus Bane was standing on front of him, his eyes, those eyes, blazing with a mix of anger and desire. Alec wanted to run from him, almost as much as he wanted to never be apart from him again.

Toxic want coursed through his veins. Alec knew he would suffer tonight, he would be shown he belonged to Magnus in every way, he would come into dawn screaming for release, or the opposite. Depending on Magnus’ mood.

He should be running, trying to escape the pull of the warlocks presence, protect himself from the infallible truth. Someday Magnus Bane will kill him too. But instead of running Alec welcomes the inevitable, breathes the air of death and destruction he had caused, and takes the hand outstretched to him.

Chapter Text

After finally making up, and drinking what Jace could only describe was enough to kill a ravenger demon, he and Alec decided the roof was the best place to finish this bachelor party.

It reminded him of when they were teenagers, they would come up here to get away from, well, whatever it was they wanted to escape from that day.

Silence settled around them as the noise of the city echoed from below, the bottle of whiskey they had swiped from Robert’s stash grew emptier as they passed it between them.

Jace, emboldened by alcohol, finally asked the question that had been gnawing at him, that Alec had touched on so briefly earlier.

“Do you love him?”.

Alec frowned and took a long swig from the bottle. Jace could feel the quick thrill of panic through the bond. He wasn’t really expecting his brother to answer him, it would mean admitting something they had never actually spoken about.

But to his surprise, “No”, Alec half whispered as he set the bottle down, sighing “I don’t know him, really, not yet”.

As Jace was about to ask a follow up question Alec said “Do you remember Patrick Highlaw?”. Jace nodded, he remembered Patrick, he had been Alec’s roommate at the academy for a couple of years. His family ran the Edinburgh institute, still did as far as Jace knows.

Alec turned to face Jace, “He kissed me, once, after the academy Christmas party. We were drunk, it wasn’t even really a good kiss, but it was something. It made me feel, for a second, that I wasn’t so alone”.

Jace could feel a spike of pain through the bond.

“Everything in our society, in our family, in my brain, is telling me this is wrong, that I shouldn’t feel this way. About another man.”

Jace sighed and reached for the bottle taking a swig before handing it back, “and what do you think”.

Alec downed the last of the whiskey, getting up to set the bottle down on the edge of the roof. Looking towards the city, Jace could feel the warring feelings coursing through him, fear, a hint of despair, the usual self loathing, but also, just the very tiniest bit of hope.

“I think I could love him, if I had the chance”.

Chapter Text

The minute Alec blinked his way into consciousness he knew he was not in his own bed. He was lying on soft sheets, the faint light of the morning sun leaving dancing shadows across a dark wooden floor. The smell of a chilly morning wafted in the slightly open window.

He could feel someone breathing softly on his neck, realised that there was an arm thrown around his waist. It took him all of 30 seconds for the memories from the night before to come flooding back. His stomach fluttering in anxiety when he remembered everything that had happened.

Cocktails, Alec remembers having far too many cocktails - not enough that his decision making was impaired, but enough to have given him a buzz, enough to make him a little looser.

Cocktails had turned into deep chats, which turned into them sitting a bit closer, which turned into a chaste kiss, which Alec deepened into something more tangible, a bright messy clash of lips.

It was exhilarating, to want someone so much you burned with it, to have someone want him back equally desperately. It was everything he didn’t even realise he had wanted, everything he never thought he could want.

They didn’t go all the way, but far enough that Alec can feel the burn of a blush starting when he thinks about it. Not embarrassment really, but rather a disbelief that he had actually experienced something like this. With Magnus Bane, who was, Alec truly believed, the most gorgeous man on the planet.

Alec was all caught up in his own thoughts when the man himself shifted closer to him, squeezing him gently, “you’re thinking too hard shadowhunter”. Alec huffed out a laugh, turning himself in the circle of Magnus’ arm, “you can’t actually read minds, can you?”.

Magnus just smiled and pecked him on the nose, before kissing him gently.

“I thought you’d be gone when I woke up”, is what he said instead of answering the question.

Honestly Alec himself was surprised he hadn’t bolted for the door the minute he woke up, but there was someone about Magnus that made him feel safe.

So Alec kissed him again. He could hear nothing but the sound of their lips, the shift of their bodies on the bed, and the sound of his own heart beating.

“I don’t think I ever want to leave” he whispered into the space between their swollen lips, savouring the feeling of possibility, thankful he’d said yes to those cocktails.

Chapter Text

Dinner with his parents, even now, after everything they’d been through, was a tough affair. Despite how much they had both changed, they still struggled to not snipe at each other at every given opportunity.

Alec could feel a headache coming on, but overall this hadn’t been the most harrowing experience. It was the first time they had all had dinner together, Maryse, Robert, Alec, Magnus, Izzy, Simon, Jace, Luke. Plus a newly returned Clary, who to her credit, hid the occasional confusion well as she tried to remember stories and events they inevitably brought up.

It was past dessert, and coffees were coming when it all went to shit, and Alec can’t even say it’s not his fault, because it is. Izzy had asked about Max’s upcoming exams at the academy, and Maryse had casually mentioned that they had let him leave. He would be tutored by Diana, a formidable woman who basically ran the Los Angeles institute.

Realistically, Alec knew this wasn’t unusual, many shadowhunter children were tutored at home. Particularly those who lived outside of Idris. But their parents had always been belligerently insistent they go to the academy.

His mother continued, “and we know you didn’t really enjoy your time there Alec”.

She said it so flippantly, like he simply didn’t like it. Alec had hated the academy, he didn’t fit in, he never made any friends and it was oppressive to be surrounded by boys who only wanted to talk about girls. Every year he felt more and more alone, and he remembered finally breaking down, begging his parents to let Hodge tutor him when he was fifteen.

His father had tried to be the middle ground but his mother had been so angry, that he would be so weak. It was, he remembered, the last time she ever hit him, because it last time he ever cried in front of her.

The memory was so sharp in his mind he didn’t realise that someone was talking to him, until Magnus touched his arm and the world came flooding back. His mother was still talking, about curriculum, and exams, and over her voice Alec could hear a whistling noise. He suddenly felt the need to escape, to get as far away from her as possible.

His heart was pummelling against his chest as he did everything he could not to burst into tears right there at the table. He felt unreasonably panicked, like something awful had happened, when nothing had happened at all. He pushed himself up from the table, ignoring his mothers sudden silence, and his siblings questioning faces, leaving without even stopping to get his jacket.

He walked and walked, desperately trying to quell the panic rising in him, until he realised he was home. It had to have taken him at least 45 minutes to walk here, but it felt like he had left the restaurant seconds ago. It was a testament to how much Magnus trusted him that he hadn’t immediately tracked him, he obviously knew Alec needed space.

He opened the loft door, almost expecting his entire family to be inside, but they weren’t of course, it was just Magnus, sitting on the sofa drinking tea as if it was any other night. But Alec could see he was holding himself purposely to look nonchalant, when in reality he had to have been worried.

But he said nothing as Alec sat beside him, only reaching his hand out, which Alec gratefully took. He tried to put into words how he felt, back then, now, and how he loved his mother, and he knows she’s changed and that Max deserves this version of her.

Magnus nodded and held his hand throughout, saying nothing, not making Alec feel silly or small for being upset, just quiet comfort while Alec released his thoughts haphazardly until they eventually made sense.

“I know Max deserves this version of her, what I don’t understand, is why I didn’t”.

That was the crux of it, no matter how much either of his parents changed, or grew as people, he would never get his formative years back. He would always live with the fact they didn’t love him enough to change, whether that was fair or not, it was how he felt.

That’s when the tears finally came, and Magnus held him as he cried the long overdue tears for his younger self, who had deserved so much better. For himself now, the man who is fully grown, who had done everything to fix himself, but is still so utterly broken in some ways.

He thought of all the things he needed to say his parents, to his mother in particular, and he wondered if their relationship would ever fully recover. He hopes it will, but he also knows he needs to fully submit to the heartbreak, and the pain. Allow their relationship to break so they can rebuild something with a better foundation.

He wonders if they’ll come to him. If his mother has truly changed enough to be the one to reach out first, he’s not sure if she will. He hopes she will. He deserved better, and he still does, and deep down he still has the hope that they’ll fight for him, that she’ll fight for him.