Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“No more bets, ladies and gentlemen, no more bets.”

The croupier dashed the tiny white ball around the inside rim of the slowly turning roulette wheel as the bodies crowding the table all seemed to take one single, common inhale of breath, holding it in anticipation as one. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of chips were balanced in their respective piles along the board, the white and blue of Alec Lightwood’s twenty bucks amongst them. Thirty pairs of eyes watched the ball slow and skitter over the gulleys - 14, 2, 0 and coming to a rest amid groans of dismay and cheers of delight on... the notch that bore his age.

“Black, twenty-eight!”

Dammit!

He cursed under his breath, it had been a toss up between that and twelve, his actual birth date and he watched as his chip was scooped up by the croupier’s rake into the mess of other losing bets. Beside him, the groom-to-be Jace had also lost, but one or two of their group were gleefully counting the little stack of new chips pushed in their direction.

“Going again?” Jace pushed some errant strands of blonde hair out of his eyes and grinned sloppily at Alec. He was pretty drunk, but somehow still alert enough to keep gambling. A Las Vegas bachelor party was not something to be missed by sleeping off copious amounts of alcohol in one’s room and Jace had set out determined to make the whole group enjoy every second of their weekend.

“Yeah, a few more rounds. I’m hoping my luck picks up soon.”

Alec took a sip from his own drink – some kind of house cocktail, a blend of cheap vodka, fruit punch and bitters. He grimaced as the alcohol burnt down his throat. He hadn’t been a drinker since college, this was one of the exceedingly rare occasions when he had more than a couple of beers and perhaps a vodka or two.

“You want to get lucky?” Jace grinned, pushing a fifty dollar chip over to the number twenty-three, his fiancée Clary’s birthdate. His voice sing-song yet slightly slurred from far too much alcohol. “You know what I said Alec...”

Oh, Alec knew alright. Jace’s sniggered threat to buy him a hooker for the night as a thank-you treat for organising the weekend. Alec rolled his eyes and selected another twenty dollar chip of his own, this time just trusting his gut rather than picking a birthdate or other significant number. He dropped it on the number eight along with another punter’s much larger stake.

“With the roulette Jace, not with some poor kid probably just trying to pay his way through school with blow-jobs and spanking.”

Jace cackled out a messy laugh, nudging up against Alec’s arm as the croupier closed the round to new bets, “Is that what you would like, huh?”

Alec glared at him and crossed his arms firmly over his chest. He wasn’t entertaining this conversation and certainly wasn’t about to start discussing his uneventful sex life with his brother. Not that there had was that much to discuss; he’d thrown himself into his work as soon as he’d graduated and had barely found time to unpack his cramped Sunnyside apartment let alone have a relationship.

He ignored Jace and continued to watch the white blur of the ball as it whipped around and around, gradually slowing and dropping down towards the numbered gullies.

“Red, thirty-four!” the croupier called, pulling in the losing chips and depositing the winnings in front of their happy new owners a group of which, Alec still was not one of.

"What I would like, is to win a few dollars at roulette and have this night not be a complete wash out!” Alec sighed, feeling the last twenty-dollar chip in his pocket that he had promised himself would be the limit of his roulette betting.

“Well, I’m done,” Jace slung one arm around Alec’s shoulders and patted him on the chest. “Going to head over to the slots for a while. I’m sure that luck of yours will change soon enough.”

He grinned woozily at Alec, a smile that he knew all too well - he was either really pleased with himself or just really drunk. He assumed it was the latter.

“Fine. That luck gets one last round to come good - last twenty bucks,” they bumped their fists together. “Then I’ll catch you up.”

Alec ran his eyes over the table once more, trying to pick a birth date, an anniversary, an age – something, anything, that called out to him that it was lucky. But as the seconds ticked by before the round was closed, it was the number eight again that drew his eye. Like the last round, there was already a stack of chips occupying the square. He counted them as he placed his one meagre twenty next to them: purple striped five-hundred-dollar chips, ten of them.

Five thousand dollars!

He glanced around the table to try to guess who the high roller was that was seemingly happy to bet just over his two-weeks salary in one go but everyone crowded around the table seemed just as concerned where the ball was going to land as the next person, whether they had thousands or just a few dollars at stake.

The chatter dulled to a low murmur as the croupier spun the wheel, releasing the ball careering around in the opposite direction. Five, ten, fifteen revolutions at full speed before it began to slow and then another ten at least before it dropped down towards the waiting numbers.

Double zero

Twenty-five

Twenty-nine

“Black, eight!”

Someone clapped him on the back as a stack of chips were pushed in his direction – seven hundred and twenty dollars worth to be exact, an excellent result for him but nothing compared to the other punter’s winnings.

“Finally!” he said to himself, splitting the pile and stashing one half in his pocket as ‘banked’ winnings. The other half was still in play.

His seven hundred was nothing compared to the stack of chips pushed over to the other winner on number eight. Dark blue five-thousand-dollar chips, three stacks making one hundred and eighty grand in one swoop. Alec followed their trajectory across the table to see who the lucky winner was, curious to see the reaction of someone winning that much money.

The winner was a very well dressed young man around his age, maybe a year or two older with neat dark hair and a surly, slightly annoyed kind of smile. His annoyance seemed to stem from the man at his side and the over enthusiastic hug he was receiving. That was when Alec Gideon Lightwood forgot how to breathe – the man giving the hug was absolutely stunning. Tall, muscular frame wrapped deliciously in a crisp dark red shirt, old fashioned suspenders at his biceps holding the sleeves in place. Hair swept up dramatically into a mohawk of sorts, with golden highlights that matched the subtle shimmer dusted on his cheekbones. The man with the thousands of dollars' worth of chips was trying to ignore the congratulatory hug and now kiss that was being planted on his temple.

Alec knew he was staring, he assumed his mouth was slightly open, and to both his horror and embarrassment he realised that the beautiful man across the roulette table had noticed him.

And then, he winked and mouthed the word 'hello'.

He was wearing dark eyeliner and curious gold contact lenses. He looked ethereal, other worldly, hot as hell. There was no world in which he should be so much as existing in the same space as Alec Lightwood let alone paying him attention. He froze, unable to mouth ‘hello’ back, or smile or do anything other than just stare as the beautiful man pressed his body close to the high roller and ran one finger down his chest, all the time maintaining the most intense eye contact Alec had ever known. His imagination picked up exactly where it was intended to – what it would feel like to be held close to that firm, muscular chest, those arms around him, those fingers with their painted nails unbuttoning his shirt...

Alec pocketed his chips and made a dash for the safety of the slot machines, Jace and the other guys. Somewhere where he didn’t have to watch the most beautiful man he had ever seen getting more closely acquainted with his companion and feel the level of desire and absolute burning jealousy that he was starting to succumb to.

It was close to one in the morning when he finally managed to bundle a singing, slurring and overly affectionate Jace into bed and took himself down to one of the quieter bars in the hotel to unwind from the noise and energy of the night. The house cocktails had left him nicely buzzed but the desire to keep drinking to excess had never really been his thing so he nursed the single whiskey blend in his glass, turning it around in his hand as he watched the large, square ice cube slowly melt.

He felt the scrape of the chair next to him and became aware of someone sitting down but he didn’t look up. No drunken conversations at one AM with random people in random bars in Las Vegas were ever going to be an intellectual stimulus and something that he would regret not engaging in. He kept his eyes firmly on his drink, even when the newcomer spoke.

“What’s a good looking guy like you doing drinking alone?”

It wasn’t what he expected. These kind of conversations were usually more sports or women orientated, two topics that he was woefully unacquainted with. He still didn’t look up though, getting hit on wasn’t in his plan for the evening either and Alec Lightwood liked to stick to his plan.

He shrugged, “Just taking a moment. Vegas can be a little...”

“Much?” the voice answered. A drink was set down in front of him and Alec glanced up briefly to note the angular martini glass being held between slim fingers with painted nails. He slid a business card across to the bartender, “Santiago can pick up the tab on this one, my dear. He’s had a really good night thanks to me.”

There was something in the subtle softness of the man’s voice that suggested more than just a fun night out on The Strip but Alec let it float past him. Being bored to tears hearing about someone’s conquests when he himself was in such a severe sexual drought was another reason to not talk to strangers in bars in the small hours. The glass was picked up, then momentarily returned as the man took a mouthful of his drink.

“I saw you at the roulette earlier. I’ve been a little busy with other business else I’d have found you sooner. I really couldn’t let the evening end without saying hello.”

At that, Alec couldn’t help but look up into the mirror behind the bar indirectly at the person sitting next to him. It was the man from the roulette table. The despicably hot one. Now he knew what a ‘really good night’ meant.

“Roulette?” he asked, expecting a ‘no’. He was pretty sure he was right, but just wanted to confirm his suspicions about who this man was and why he was talking to him were accurate.

“No, I’ve been assessing bedroom ceilings. It’s not glamorous, but I like to make sure my clients all have a good experience.”

I knew it! He exclaimed to himself, shocked that his brother had gone through with his threatened plan. He’s a hooker. JACE!!? However much has this guy cost?

Alec downed the rest of his whiskey in one mouthful. Of all the hundreds, maybe thousands of sex workers in the city Jace had picked the one who was completely, exactly, one hundred percent his type. He even smelled good, his cologne a mix of something soft and musky that was tantalising to the senses.

“Ceilings. Right. Of course.”

Oh Jace...

Alec Lightwood did indeed like to stay on plan, but that didn’t mean the plan was unchangeable. His self imposed ‘no hook-ups’ clause for the weekend hadn’t factored in meeting someone who aesthetically ticked every check mark of every list he’d ever made in his head or on paper, ever.

“How about another drink?” The man nodded to the bartender to replace Alec’s empty tumbler with a full version which he was really rather glad of. This was going to take more courage and way less inhibition and overthinking than he could muster after just a couple of drinks, he would need further liquid reinforcements.

The man slid the full glass towards him and their fingers touched briefly as Alec took the drink. The touch was followed by a smile that was steeped in all manner of suggestion and possibility and promises of things Alec didn’t dare dwell on. He glanced at his lips, then his eyes – soft pink versus dark eyeliner and those damned gold contacts. He could already feel his heartbeat starting to ramp up in his chest with the gravity of what he was quickly contemplating doing.

This man was a hooker who was here for Alec and only Alec for probably an hour or so.

He started to quickly run through the alternatives in his mind. On one hand he could say good night and return to his room, get a good night's sleep before the flight home the next day and have a few hundred dollars extra in his pocket.  But breathing in the scent of the man's cologne, feeling the heat from their arms grazing together, the Alec Lightwood who was travelling back to New York the next day; back to work the day after seemed so very far away, so very disparate to the Alec Lightwood being hit upon by an unexpected ten-out-of-ten guy in a casino bar in Vegas, so perhaps it wasn’t so bad if he let his hair down for an hour? The man undid another button on his shirt, letting it gape open far enough for Alec to see the very top of very defined abdominal muscles.

“Just one more,” he rasped, his throat tightening with the realisation at what he was agreeing to do. “I’m not really a big drinker...”

This was it, a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something desperately out of character but damn, he could never hope to get with someone that hot conventionally.

“Just this one,” his new acquaintance confirmed, placing his hand on Alec’s knee sending a brief jolt of electricity through his body as he squeezed gently. “We wouldn’t want to do anything reckless now, would we?”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Alec was awake for a good long moment before he prised one eye open. The long drapes were doing an excellent job at blocking out the light but there was just the slightest chink of bright desert sunlight slicing through the gloom, enough for him to make out the shape of furniture and the doorway. It was also enough light for him to realise that, although the dark blue stripe on the edge of the pillowcase was the same as the last time he remembered going to bed, this wasn’t his room.

He edged himself to the side of the bed and stared down at the floor, the smallest of movements threatening to have him rush to the bathroom and throw up whatever he’d eaten the night before. Had he eaten? Had he already thrown up? He didn’t remember a damn thing.

His clothes were strewn across the room, notably his underwear was hanging on the arm of a chair. A quick double check under the duvet confirmed that yes, he was naked. He rubbed lazily at his eyes, willing them to open a little more and work a little better. As he pushed his fingers up into his hair, the second surprise of the day was that it was clean and washed, not a trace of the product he’d used the night before to tame his wavy locks.

When did I take a shower?

Carefully, Alec rolled on to his back to focus on the light fitting, hoping it would help to stop the room spinning. On the other side of the dramatically large bed was a person-shaped mound and the mound was breathing. Remarkably, his eyes were suddenly quite awake and he stared wide-eyed at the back of the other person’s head desperately trying to remember who they were and why they were in bed together.

Alec, what have you done? Who is that?!

He slipped out of bed and darted over to snatch his underwear off the chair, quickly locating his pants and shirt as best he could with the room lurching around him. He stumbled in to them one foot at a time, hopping hopelessly to try to keep balance but it was pointless. He tripped and stumbled into a table, hitting his shin and loudly cursing as he stared in horror at the bed.

The person-shaped mound groaned and two arms appeared out from under the covers.

“Uuugghhhhh... why is the world so loud?”

The covers were pulled back and a head with messy black hair and half closed eyes squinted at him.

It was the man from the roulette table. The man who he’d sat and drank whisky with. The man who he’d...

The hooker.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed, I should have gone back to my room. Jace is going to kill me, however much extra is me spending the night going to cost?”

Alec pulled on his shirt and found his shoes, trying to not look at the man in the bed who had started to sit up. He had a mark on his neck – a hickey! Alec blushed furiously at the possibility that he might have made it.

“How much extra? Do you mean the room? It’s fine, it’s my hotel.”

“Your hotel?” Alec started to back away towards the door, aching for the handle to miraculously appear in his hand. He had no idea what the man meant, probably that he was such a regular that he had an account or something.

Finally the door. Finally he could escape from this highly unusual version of Alec Lightwood who had drunken one night stands with exceedingly handsome and downright sexy in a freshly-showered-no-makeup-no-contact-lenses kind of way hookers.

“Last night, I’m sure I had a great time... whatever we did. Th-thanks.”

With the door safely closed behind him, Alec took a moment and leant against the polished wood, gripping the handle tightly as the world continued to spin. 

What have I done?

Magnus watched the door swing shut and flopped back into the bed. Whilst far too many of the details of the night before were a hazy blur, some even lost to the black hole of 'completely forgotten never to be remembered', he did remember one thing. How good it had felt when Alec (surname unknown) had kissed him and messily made out with him in the shower before passing out together on the bed. He fell back to sleep with a smile on his face; it had been a good night. Probably.

“Flight NK300 to Newark Liberty International is now ready for boarding at gate...”

Their boarding group was so far down the priority list, Alec pulled his cap a little lower over his eyes and relaxed back into his uncomfortable airport seat as best he could. It had been a long hungover day since checking out of their hotel room at lunchtime, a day of being grilled by Jace and the other guys as to where he had been and what or who he had been doing until after nine AM when he’d stumbled out of the elevator from the penthouse to his own room around the twentieth floor and woken Jace up by loudly parting company with the contents of his stomach in the bathroom.

Jace’s poker face when he’d said ‘you know who I was with’ had been far better than anything he’d managed at the actual card tables over the weekend. He’d seemed completely oblivious and Alec sure as hell wasn’t going to advertise it in front of all his friends that he’d spent the night with a sex worker.

That was a problem he hadn’t any clue how to approach - how to bring up the matter of him spending the whole night with Jace’s ‘treat’ and if it was going to cost him more money? How did you pay for that kinda service anyway? Did he swipe his Visa? Or cashapp the guy? Was he just a QR code on a website to Jace? More worryingly, what even was he to Alec? He’d tried to remember what happened after those first few drinks in the bar – it had been so easy, talking about everything and anything, they had just clicked and he hadn’t laughed so much in months.

He unlocked his phone again, opening the picture gallery. Of course, the photo was still there. Timed at 5.43am, him and the man both holding up an oversized cardboard Instagram frame, their faces turned to each other as if they were about to kiss. The collage of lettering on the bottom of the frame made Alec’s blood run cold for the hundredth time that day.

Magnus and Alec - Just Married

It had to be fake. Just a joke, right? Las Vegas was known for the hundreds of Little White Chapels offering oven-ready weddings for two hundred bucks or so. There was one right by their hotel even! Surely they’d just taken the picture as a joke?

He closed his phone, checking that Jace hadn’t seen the photo or noticed the distinct lack of colour in his cheeks.

Surely it wasn’t real. He hadn’t got blind drunk on a bachelor weekend in Las Vegas and married a hooker... had he?

Chapter Text

Magnus was still in his pajamas, relaxing on his balcony with an espresso and the first of the weekly update reports open on the tablet balanced on his knee when he heard the door of his terribly exclusive penthouse close. There was only one other person who had a key these days – his lawyer and long time acquaintance Raphael Santiago. Raphael would always deny that they were friends but Magnus had seen something quite exceptional in him as a legal intern and hired him directly the second he passed the Bar exam. Raphael was cool and calculating, a shrewd business man and quite the opposite of Magnus in so many ways but their personalities complemented each other with seemingly little friction. Except that is when Magnus had done something exceptionally stupid. Which was why Raphael was now there framed by his open French windows, almost vibrating with anger.  

Magnus continued to scan through the New England operational summaries, feeling Raphael’s glare on him but refusing to look up, let alone say the first word. The resulting anger that was preceded by silence was always much more dangerous with Raphael. Ordinary-level annoyances were characterised by shouting and plenty of huffing and sighing and usually the questioning of Magnus' morals or business acumen. Silence foretold something much worse.  A folded letter was thrown at him, skittering across his tablet and falling to the floor. He glanced down at it, then up at Raphael with a raised eyebrow. The seal of the State of Nevada was quite clearly emblazoned on the letter head.  

“Good morning Raphael, care to explain why you’re throwing something that looks suspiciously legal at me when suspiciously legal things are one hundred percent your remit to manage?”  

“Care to explain to me why a marriage licence has been filed for you and your new husband ?” Raphael countered, reaching over and picking the letter up off the floor. He opened it fully and spread it out over Magnus' tablet to command his full attention. The heading and seal number were both quite clear, it certainly looked real enough.

He paused, coffee cup frozen at his mouth mid sip as he scanned over the words.

Magnus Bane  

Alexander Gideon Lightwood

Sacred Heart Wedding Chapel, Las Vegas, Nevada.  

He closed his eyes and finished his coffee in darkness, only Raphael’s breathing, a distant siren and the roaring cacophony of his own racing thoughts keeping him from silence. Magnus had done many, many reckless things in his past and yes, there were more times than he cared to remember when Raphael had to extract him from liability and financial suicide through the courts but surely there was no way he had gotten married in Vegas? Sure, he had gone all out – especially after Raphael won all that cash betting on his birthdate. He’d woken up with a vicious hangover and had practically been wheeled from the penthouse and loaded into his jet like cargo and safely tucked into one of the squishy leather seats for the flight back home to New York. Roulette, blackjack, roulette again. He had been pretty sober when he’d accompanied the manager around to survey the latest renovations to The Ebony Sands - his pride and joy, the flagship property of his Western US hotel portfolio. Then he’d had some drinks, chatted to some guests... He felt like he could almost remember but it was all too hazy which annoyed the hell out of him.

“Who the hell is Alexander Gideon Lightwood anyway?” he exclaimed in frustration. He was sure he’d remember a name like that which meant that there was only one possible reason why this document existed.  “It’s obviously some kind of poorly executed fraud, the license is probably a forgery.”

Satisfied that he had gotten to the bottom of the problem, Magnus put his cup down and went back to his reports. “It’ll be an idiot somewhere thinking that they can blackmail me, but I have you to look after me, cariño .”  He looked up and smiled sweetly at Raphael, “You’ll get to the bottom of it in no time won’t you?”  

Raphael folded his arms, his expensive suit crinkling at the elbows. He glared at Magnus, sometimes his boss really did underestimate his tenacity.  

“He’s a veterinarian, runs his own practice out in Flushing. He booked six rooms at your hotel on The Strip two weekends ago for a bachelor party. They ate in the Creole Grill both nights, and tipped well. He was at the same roulette table as us when I got my big win, and you were drinking with him for four hours that night in The Entry bar; you left together and came back fifty-seven minutes later and went to your room. Together. He left the next morning.”  

Magnus’ expression had turned from dismissive to panicked. The guy with the endlessly beautiful brown eyes... He swallowed, his voice coming out strained and hoarse.  

“Alec...”   

“You do remember!” Raphael threw the marriage licence at him, making Magnus flinch a little too dramatically. “What the hell Magnus?! You do realise this guy could take you to the cleaners for alimony or a settlement or something like that! No pre-nup, no background checks... Dios !”  

“Are you sure it’s real?” He grabbed the document back, smoothing it out to frantically inspect the detail yet not knowing in the slightest what he was looking for. His eyes flicked from the paper to Raphael and back, desperately searching for a sign that he hadn’t given up the legal rights to half of his entire empire in one drunken night. He’d liked Alec, he’d liked him a lot but certainly not to the tune of millions' of dollars worth.  

“I’ve already ran the verification checks. It’s real, you’re married. Again. Congratulations. ”   

Magnus slumped down into his chair, the disbelief clear on his face. A soon to be ex-husband to add to his growing list of ex’s who’d all just seen him as a meal ticket or a pay day and truthfully, who he’d fallen in love with fast enough each time to have now burnt himself permanently. He buried his face in his hands, grasping at the messy dark hair falling over his forehead before dragging his fingers down his cheeks and staring at Raphael with this warped new and pained expression.  

“So what now?”  

“He’s a nobody, no connections, no power.” Raphael plucked the license off his lap and folded it back up neatly. “I bury him in legal paperwork and offer him an arbitrary settlement of a few hundred thousand and get this marriage annulled as soon as possible. You don’t even need to see him again, I can handle it.”  

He’s a nobody.  

Something in the way Raphael dismissed him in such a flippant yet arrogant manner strangely didn’t sit right with Magnus. He felt uncomfortable thinking of the sweet man with the handsome smile who’d made him laugh until his ribs had hurt as ‘a nobody’, an inconvenience to be swept under a legal carpet and dispensed of. Whilst he absolutely didn’t intend to stay married to him, something inside was starting to nag at a feeling that he should, he could be better this time. He closed the report on his tablet and gave Raphael his full attention. They had known each other long enough for his ‘serious face’ to be easily recognised.  

“I want to meet him first. Serve the preliminary papers but arrange for us to meet.”  

“OK, I’ll advise him to bring representation...”  

“No,” Magnus cut him off dead. “No counsel, just Alec and I. I know you’re just itching to sink your teeth into him, but not yet, my little legal bloodsucker.”  

With a fresh coffee in his hand, Magnus stared out from his balcony, watching the traffic moving slowly up towards the bridge and into Manhattan as he tried to piece together the memories of that night in vain. Images swirled around him, too blurry to make out the detail other than Alec’s smile and the tractor beam of his gaze that had captivated Magnus at the roulette table. Raphael had not been at all pleased as being treated like his ‘queer stooge’, someone male for him to flirt with and fawn over to gauge if Alec’s reaction would be positive. Interested. Available .  

Yes, he really had liked what he remembered of Alexander Gideon Lightwood DVM, ACVS of Sunnyside, Queens. His husband. 

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“It’s OK, it’s just a scratch” Alec assured the fretting man holding the angry ball of grey fluff that was a kitten that had just had it’s booster shots. He dabbed at the blood dripping down his forearm with an antiseptic wipe – being attacked by frightened cats was all in a days work. But the sharpness of kitten claws was something he would never get used to!   

“It’s fine. I’ll live,” he said with a smile, reaching out tentatively to rub the kitten between it’s ears. “You’re really gonna hate me the next time you’re in here little guy...”   

After sending the notes through to the reception staff to book the kitten in for it’s neutering procedure, he updated his calendar status to ‘available’ to trigger the next patient being sent in. Behind him he heard the door close.  

“OK, what can I do for you today Mr...” he said as he turned around to be faced with an exceedingly sharp dressed man looking far too well put together and expensive to be anywhere near Queens.  

“Santiago. I am the head of private legal counsel for The Bane Group. I assume you know why I am here?”  

Alec leant back against the desk, taking stock of the man standing across the examination table. He didn’t seem to have any type of animal with him whatsoever which meant no, Alec had zero idea why he was there. The Bane Group though... It sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t place it. Maybe it was an advert on the bus he took to work, or he’d seen it on the TV.  

“This is a veterinary clinic, Mr Santiago, we treat animals here. Birds and hamsters,” he gestured to the scratch on his forearm, “Violent kittens. You don’t appear to have any of those with you, so whatever The Bane Group is, or whoever you are – I don’t know and I don’t think it’s anything to do with me.”  

“Oh but it is, Mr Lightwood. You and it are more closely acquainted that you seem to realise.”  

“In what way?” Alec folded his arms, this was getting tedious now. He didn’t have time for riddles and games when there was likely a waiting room full of poorly pets outside.   

“The Bane Group owns the Ebony hotel chain. You stayed at the Ebony Sands and targeted the CEO, Magnus Bane, getting him drunk or drugged or whatever else you did to him in order to manufacture this little marriage scam of yours.” Raphael took a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket and tossed them onto the metal table. “If you think you can win in court, you’re wrong. The marriage will be annulled and you will be satisfied with what I deem a sufficient amount to make you disappear from Magnus’ life forever.”  

He straightened his jacket, ensuring it was hanging perfectly again now the weight of the papers had gone.   

“Sign those and bring them to our office on the corner of fifth and east eighty-second. Tuesday morning, eleven o’clock. I’ll let you know then when the court date is. Goodbye Mr Lightwood.”  

Alec stared at him in shock, all ability to talk had completely evaporated from his brain. Of course, that’s where he recognised that name from - The Bane Group... the Ebony Sands hotel in Las Vegas... Magnus Bane ...   

Don’t worry, he’d said, it’s my hotel.  

“Hang on wait a minute!” he exclaimed, finally regaining control over his faculties. “I didn’t drug him, or trick him – we got drunk. Blind drunk. I had no idea who he was, I only knew his first name from this stupid picture!”    

He pulled his phone out from his pocket and held it up for Raphael to see the incriminating photograph that he still had saved in his gallery. He wasn’t sure if it was Magnus’ undeniable allure or the fact that he himself looked so damn happy with his arms around the other man that had stopped him from deleting it.  

“Just married, huh?” Raphael said sarcastically, “How sweet.”  He took a step towards Alec, there was just something about him that was slightly menacing and it was all Alec could do to hold his ground and not step back, even though he was a good few inches taller. “I have known Magnus for many years, he is a good man, impulsive and reckless but good.” His voice was dangerously soft, but Alec couldn’t help but notice the note of care hidden quite deep within what was going to turn out to be a threat. “I won’t let anything or anyone bad happen to him, Mr Lightwood. He has enough to deal with as it is with Camille and the others... You will not become another problem.”  

Chapter Text

The rest of Alec’s day had been a struggle and a bit of a blur. After finishing his early afternoon clinic of paying customers, he took a bus and then a train out to Bayside where he volunteered three afternoons a week looking after the medical needs of an animal shelter’s residents. The afternoons frequently turned into evenings and occasionally he would be there all night if a particularly difficult or neglected case came in. It was something his mother still looked down upon – wasting his talent not just on animals, but for free too!  

She had wanted him to become a medical doctor... He’d had the offer of a place at Stanford in his hand and had turned it down in favour of veterinary science. But you could be a millionaire by thirty! She’d lamented, reluctant to let go of her dreams of him becoming a rich surgeon and following his father and his grandfather into medicine. The volunteering really had sealed his fate as the black sheep of the Lightwood family, never mind that he shared a cluttered, rented apartment in Sunnyside with his business partner rather than living in or at least near the family home in Manhattan.   

He’d stared at the legal papers the whole journey there and then the whole journey back to his corner of Queens. A tentative search for Magnus Bane on line returned too many gossip sites and tabloid press articles and even the damn Forbes Rich List. Who was this man who he was now sure was absolutely not a hooker? A minor celebrity? A socialite? A (and he could barely bring himself to think it, let alone say it) billionaire ?  

It was late in the evening when he trudged up the three flights of stairs to his front door – the legal papers in one hand and a bag with two takeout containers – one soup dumplings and one fried rice in the other. He dropped the still tied bundle of papers onto the counter and set about his food, splitting the disposable chopsticks there and then, eating his rice whilst still standing up.   

“Hey Alec, everything good?” The curly blonde head of his roommate and business partner Andrew Underhill popped up from the sofa where he was laying, scrolling through his phone. When he saw Alec’s pained expression and the speed at which he was shoveling rice into his mouth they were both causes for concern – everything wasn’t good.  

“Something’s obviously wrong,” he hopped off the sofa and walked over to the kitchenette where Alec was standing, mid-mouthful, about to deny everything. “Wanna talk about it?”  

That was indeed the question. Did Alec want to talk about it? Did he want to let anyone know what an irresponsible idiot he had been? Everyone was going to think the absolute worst of him – loose morals, poor choices, not the expected behaviour of a Lightwood. He had completely underlined his Mother’s opinion of him as the black sheep of the family. There was no way he was going to be able to keep this quiet though, his family name was far too well known in the city. Any instance of a Lightwood being in court would be around the late lunch afternoon tea set that his Mother fraternised before the day was over.  

“I’ve messed up. Badly.”  

Andrew raised an eyebrow, “Not at work, surely? You’re the best vet I know!”  

“No, not at work,” Alec sighed and slumped against the counter. “I did something really stupid in Vegas that has come back to bite me on the ass.”  

“Oh. Money or...?”  

“I got married Andrew. Married .” He pushed the tied bundle of papers over towards his friend. “And this is the legal mess I am now embroiled in. I’ve not looked at any of it yet. I just don’t think I have the energy tonight.”  

“Married. Wow... OK. To who? Mind if I look?” Andrew picked up the paperwork. Alec might have found the wide-eyed expression on his face comical had it not been directed towards himself. “Magnus Bane?! Surely not the Magnus Bane?”  

“I didn’t know who he was! My social media feed is all family stuff, cat videos and updates from the charities I support. I had no idea.” Alec opened his soup dumplings and scooped one up with the disposable plastic spoon. “I actually thought he was a hooker. Jace had threatened to buy me a ‘treat’.”  

“Seriously? Alec... So did he proposition you or..?”  

“I honestly don’t remember. I remember whiskey and talking and waking up in bed with him the next day.”  

“You went to bed with him?” Andrew couldn’t help but grin and clapped Alec on the shoulder, “Nice one buddy, he is a catch...”  

Alec shook his head, munching on another dumpling as Andrew started to read over the first page of the legal papers. “Yeah, a real catch. A whole bunch of stress and anxiety.”  

“And seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of hush money if you sign a non-disclosure and annulment agreement.” He stared wide eyed at Alec. “Seven hundred and fifty grand, Alec. You could buy an apartment, or open the animal hospital you always dreamed about...”  

The last soup dumpling fell out of Alec’s open mouth back into the foil tray as he stared in disbelief at his friend. A sudden rush of cold adrenaline thundered through his body and he dropped the food tray onto the floor as his hands began to shake. The internet had told him that Magnus was rich but Raphael’s veiled threats of an amount to make him disappear hadn’t for a second registered as actual cash coming his way. Andrew was still talking but his words didn’t seem to be making any sense. Something about two hundred thousand a year alimony for thirty years and a hefty sum in a pension trust. Something about set for life. Something about not going to the media or disclosing any details of the settlement. It was his final words that dragged Alec’s consciousness back to the kitchen and set his temper alight.  

“...and after the court hearing you’ll never have to see him again.”  

“So I’d just be his dirty little secret, my silence bought for what? Spare change to him? I don’t want it. Not a cent!”  

“But Alec,” Andrew put the papers to one side and crouched down to help him clean up the food from the floor. “You’ll be set for life. You’ll never have to work again.”  

Alec thought back to the photo on his phone. Although he had been so, so drunk, the happiness he could see in his eyes didn’t look fake. The laughter he remembered from the bar. The way he’d felt when Magnus first looked at him across that roulette table. Alec had liked him, he’d felt something that was the tiniest, faintest spark of something before he’d gotten lost in the moment and lost at the bottom of a bottle. And to think Magnus wanted him to disappear under a gagging order and a payoff.   

“I just want a divorce, an annulment, whatever it takes to put this whole Magnus Bane debacle in the past. The thought of taking his money makes me sick.”  

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗  

“The thought of you turning down that money makes me sick!”   

Maryse had been the first to speak, the rest of his family were still staring at him in shock from around the table. Alec Lightwood, the dark horse, the black sheep, the whatever other simile you wanted to use to highlight how he absolutely hadn’t followed the path that his parents’ had wanted him to up until this point in his life and certainly wasn’t going to start now. He had explained the situation calmly, trying to keep all hint of emotion out of his voice. How he knew he had acted out of character and how sorry he was for his behaviour and how he would not be accepting any money as he was as much as fault and didn’t want to be a financial burden on someone who he had known for a matter of hours.   

His mother had been incandescent, immediately painting him as the poor victim in the situation.  

“That man took advantage of you, it’s only proper that he make amends!”  

He pushed his fork through the mashed potatoes on his plate, his appetite non-existent from the moment he’d decided he had to tell his family what was happening. It was simple enough: he would return the papers unsigned and refuse the alimony. He would go to court and agree to a net zero liability annulment. He would walk away with his pride battered but intact.   

“He didn’t take advantage of me, Mom. It was one night, one stupid night. Why does he owe me anything for one night? I don’t want him to be a shadow over my whole life and vice versa. I want to make a business on my own merit, off my own hard work. Not on the hush money from some rich guy I met in a bar. Imagine if anyone ever found out...”  

“I can’t believe you got married. You never do things by halves, Alec huh?” Jace leant back in his seat, swinging it into a two legged balance. “I just knew something happened in Vegas,” Jace smirked, “You were so cagey the whole way home. I...”  

“Jace, you’re partly to blame here,” Alec interrupted him, not needing to hear Jace’s likely sarcastic commentary on the events. “If you hadn’t teased me all weekend about paying for a hooker...”  

“You did what?” Clary put her own knife and fork down sharply and glared at Jace across the table; he abruptly stopped rocking on his chair and sat up straight. “And just how were you going to arrange that, huh? Do you have much experience of soliciting sex workers?” She pushed her chair back and stood up, excusing herself to the kitchen, Jace immediately following her.  

“I obviously wasn’t going to do anything... Clary... Clary!”    

Alec barely looked up as they left; it was just him and his mother now sitting next to each other in an uncomfortable silence. Her anger at his reckless behaviour and the supposed damage to their family’s reputation had been quickly turned towards his reticence to accept the financial settlement on offer. He stared down at his now-cold dinner, at a loss as to what else he could say to persuade her that his decision was made.   

She sighed and reached out to lay her hand on his forearm, squeezing him gently.   

“It just feels like you’re making a mistake, Alec. I am only thinking of you and your future. This money would set you up for life! It’s madness to turn it down.”  

“I know Mom, but... I don’t want anyone to think I did this on purpose, that I’m some kind of gold digger. I’d rather it was all just forgotten.”  

That was one of the reasons for sure, the one he could rationalise and talk about. The one that wasn’t attached to the deeper pang of hurt that Magnus was happy to buy his silence and pay for him to disappear, that the night had meant nothing to him, just a mistake. Alec was just a mistake.   

Why was he so hurt by that thought? Why had he let Magnus Bane get under his skin so much after one night?  

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗  

The building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Eighty-Second street was a beautiful six story early twentieth century mansion of red brick and carved marble directly opposite The Met nestled beside an imposing modern office tower. He’d taken the 7 train to Grand Central and bought a coffee, needing the forty block walk north to clear his head and calm his nerves. His suit was from his graduation, cleaned and pressed and stored in a bag for three years; his shirt was new, his tie borrowed from Andrew who had also insisted on him borrowing a watch that wasn’t stopped and a leather satchel that was in much better condition than the tattered rucksack he used for work. There was a small, polished brass plaque on the wall informing any interested parties that this was where ‘TBG - The Bane Group’ could be found; this was where Magnus was, somewhere in this beautiful, architecturally impressive but slightly out of place building. He shifted the satchel on his shoulder – the weight of the unsigned papers within it seemed to have increased as the street numbers did and now at eighty-second, he could have sworn he was carrying a brick or two in there.  

The offices were a mixture of modern decor and traditional elements – a glass table, minimalist chairs, a leather Chesterfield sofa, beautiful high ceilings with curved fleur-de-lys mouldings and ornate light fittings. It was the polar opposite to both the clean, sterile veterinary surgery he spent most of his waking hours in or the cluttered, unorganised but homely space he shared with Andrew. There was a coffee machine in the waiting room and he helped himself to another latte, drumming his fingers nervously against the counter as he watched the creamy brown liquid drizzle into the mug. Coffee was something familiar, something he understood.  

"Hello Alec,” said a voice behind him. “Thank you for coming.”  

Alec turned around sharply, annoyed that he had been taken by surprise and then doubly annoyed at the discernible uptick of his heart rate when he laid eyes on the owner of the voice. Magnus looked every bit the Fifth Avenue gentleman and was as well suited and comfortable in his surroundings as Alec was uncomfortable. A dark grey suit with a soft sheen, jacket unbuttoned, grey shirt unbuttoned at the collar, slim pants, everything obviously meticulously cut and fitted to him personally. The gold contact lenses were gone, as was the dramatic quiff and gold highlights but his eyes were still lined in dark pencil and he still smelled incredible.  

Magnus Bane, his husband .  

For a split second, Alec wanted to rip the papers in his bag in half and push the other man down onto the sofa and kiss the lip balm right off him. The nagging thought that had been bothering at the periphery of his conscious mind since the meeting with Raphael galloped right through into his brain front and centre. He didn’t want to disappear. He didn’t want to forget about it all, take the money and run. He wanted to get to know this man. He wanted Magnus Bane. The prominence of the thought completely sideswiped him and he immediately felt his defenses go up. He reminded himself that this man wanted nothing to do with him, the cold clarity of the legal agreement had made that quite clear. Sign here, add your bank details, thank you and good bye; there was no room in those papers for feelings or heaven forbid – vulnerability. Alec decided there and then that he couldn’t let even the slightest hint of being interested in Magnus, let alone liking him, show.  

“Hello,” Alec took the papers out of his borrowed satchel. “I’m going to save you the trouble of wasting any more of your time or money on this utter mess. I don’t agree to these terms because I don’t want a cent of your money, not now and not in the future. File the divorce, or annulment or whatever it needs to be, I’ll sign it and walk away and then we can be rid of each other for good.”  

Whilst Alec had been quite restrained after his first and only real delve into Magnus’ personal and very public history, Magnus himself had not been so unobtrusive into wanting to find out everything he could about Alexander Gideon Lightwood (thank goodness for that unusual name!) His online presence was limited to Instagram where he mostly shared links to fundraisers for various animal charities in and around New York and Long Island. He had a brother who didn’t look a thing like him and a sister who was his double. There was another younger kid, brother perhaps? Son? He didn’t really take selfies, but he always smiled in group pictures and by God, his smile was pure sunlight and Magnus couldn’t help but smile back. He had no connections with the circles Magnus usually dated in, was nothing to do with the cut-throat hospitality world where he plied his trade and nothing in common with the absolute greed of pretty much every one of his ex’s. On paper he was a breath of fresh air and Magnus really, really wanted to breathe him in.  

He had watched from his window as Alec paced up and down the sidewalk for a full ten minutes before coming into the building. He’d then watched him on the CCTV camera in the lobby, and then the one outside his office. He had rehearsed what he was going to say over and over, how this legality was all a formality that they could discuss as adults, maybe over dinner... He hadn’t expected Alec to immediately turn him down before he’d even had a chance to make the suggestion and the rejection hurt.  

“I... You don’t want anything ?” Magnus’ could do little to hide the initial note of disappointment that crept into his voice.  

Not even a date? Not even my number?     

He coughed, clearing his throat and repeating himself a little firmer. Surely he had negotiated his way in and out of enough deals in the past that he could handle this one a little more professionally? His words finally came out as a statement rather than a question.  

“You don’t want anything.”  

“Look, we both know that it was a mistake,” Alec pressed out, determined to protect himself from the voice in his head that urged him to drink in the allure of the man opposite. He was elegant and composed, soft hair that begged to be ruffled and a defined jaw that he ached to feel in his hand. How he wished he could remember what had happened between them; Magnus was the most captivating man he had ever met. "We got drunk, we got married, it was a stupid mistake. Nothing in that makes you owe me a cent. I can’t take your money; I won’t.”  

“And you’ll go to court and just sign the paperwork without anything for yourself ?”  

Magnus had been absolutely right, Alec Lightwood didn’t care about money. It was a check in the box next to ‘completely different to all my ex’s’ which didn’t help matters.  

“Yes,” Alec dropped the sheaf of papers onto the low coffee table between them. “Send me the court date and I’ll be out of your hair.”  

His full coffee untouched on the machine and legal papers laying on the table, Alec turned and left before he could change his mind and do something irrational, like walk over and kiss him.  

Chapter Text

Magnus was restless. He had been unable sit and wait in the air-conditioned lobby for his car to the airport, so was pacing up and down in the humidity of Key West with his phone to his ear listening to his best friend Catarina telling him about her daughter’s play date with another kid from her Montessori school. He was really trying to keep the conversation away from Alec and the impending court hearing but Catarina was his best friend and he was desperate to talk to her and get her opinion on if he was actually losing his mind by thinking about Alec Lightwood seemingly constantly. Unfortunately for Magnus, Catarina was also the judge hearing his case and whilst that did give him a sense of comfort as she was the most level headed, balanced person he knew, it also meant she couldn’t really talk to him about the details.   

“Magnus, I’m already treading a fine line of impartiality as it is. If this wasn’t a clear cut case, I just couldn’t hear it.”  

“I know Cat,” he complained, “But it’s driving me to distraction. He said he wanted nothing to do with me and I should really just accept that, but there’s this little corner of my brain that keeps whispering to me to try and change his mind.”  

“Magnus,” she sighed; Magnus knew exactly the expression that went along with that tone. “Is this your love of the chase? Do you think he’s just playing hard to get?”  

“No, it’s not that. It’s not. Cat, I’ve watched the security footage back from us talking that night a hundred times...”  

“That’s not normal behaviour, Magnus...”  

“Please, just listen. He didn’t let me buy a single drink. Every time I tried to pay he stopped me. He didn’t make a single move on me until I nearly fell off my stool. He caught me Cat and kissed me and got down on one knee and proposed! It was the most romantic thing I have ever experienced...”  

“Magnus, do you remember anything that happened? Or is this all just your best guess from fuzzy security footage?”  

“I do not have fuzzy footage! My camera system is 4K, thank you!" he protested. "That’s how I can be sure, I can see it with my own eyes and you know how good I am at reading body language? You’ve always said it’s like my magic power. I can just tell by looking at us on that footage that I am in to him and he is me. The way he looked at me Cat, like I was a gift from the heavens...”  

“You were drunk enough that you don’t remember getting married , how can you be so convinced this was anything more than just a fun hook-up? I mean, I assume he’s good looking?”  

Magnus nodded emphatically into his phone. “Oh Cat, yes. He’s something else...”  

“Yeah, OK so it’s not really a surprise you were in to him then. You are a magpie Magnus, you do like pretty things...”  

“Cat... It’s not like that. I can’t explain it, he... I...” Magnus couldn’t find the words to describe how he’d felt watching himself and Alec back on that saved footage. Every smile Alec flashed him at the slightest touch to his knee or shoulder, every lingering stare when the other looked away – they had sparked a fire deep within Magnus that he hadn’t let burn for a very long time.   

It was something. There had been a connection, and although Alec had left him standing there in his office in shock, staring at unsigned papers and a cold latte for longer than he would care to admit… Magnus was determined to not give up that easily.  

“Magnus,” her voice was smooth and level, calming and very matter of fact. “Good looks and possible chemistry aside, do you really want to stay married to a guy who you simply do not know?”  

He was quiet, his pacing stopped and he stood still watching the silver-grey limousine pull up outside the hotel and the concierge bring out his luggage.   

Did he want to stay married to Alec Lightwood?  

No, of course not. That was an insane idea, they barely knew each other.  

But also, yes. He inexplicably wanted that man in his life.  

No, that was madness, what was he thinking? He didn’t have time for a relationship let alone a husband.  

But maybe it was time to change that. Maybe this was a sign.  

Yes.  

No.  

Maybe ?   

“Catarina, I...” he hesitated. Cat was overseeing his divorce hearing in less than 72 hours. He couldn’t dump this level of emotional baggage on to her especially after Raphael had already used every drop of charm he had to talk her into taking the hearing, wanting to keep the circle of people who knew the details as small as possible. “My car is here. I’ll see you Wednesday. Love to Madzie.”   

He blew a kiss into the phone and hung up the call before Cat could start interrogating the unsure tone and the question in his voice that was so obvious to his oldest and best friend. He poured himself unceremoniously into the back of the waiting limo, lounging dramatically over the seat to enjoy the contrast between the warm humidity outside and the refreshing chill of the air conditioned car and tried not to think about Alec Lightwood.  

His soon to be ex-husband.  

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Wednesday morning couldn’t come soon enough for Alec. The days had turned into weeks which had turned into a month since he had walked out of Magnus Bane’s office on the corner of east eighty-second and fifth and fallen into the biggest pit of regret he had ever known. His stomach had sank the moment Magnus hadn’t argued with him, or stopped him, or ran out after him in the street under the pretense of ‘you forgot your coffee’ and stopped traffic to kiss him in the middle of Fifth Avenue.  

He closed his eyes to chase the image out of his head – it had been like that the whole month. He would be going about his day and all of a sudden Magnus would pop up on TV, or staring out from a magazine at the kiosk on the corner near the veterinary surgery. He had opened a new hotel in Florida's Key West and had held the celebrity party to end all parties and the media just couldn’t get enough of him. Nowhere seemed less safe though than Alec’s own mind. Magnus invaded his thoughts morning, noon and night. One of those nights, Alec had such a vivid dream of them kissing and touching each other gently under the drenching spray of a luxurious rain shower in an anonymous bathroom that he couldn’t be sure if it was a dream or a an actual memory.   

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d debated calling the office and leaving a message wanting to talk to Magnus but not knowing what to say. Every time he went to dial the number, it was the thought of Raphael’s warning that held him off – you will not become another problem. This marriage was a problem, he was a problem. One that Magnus obviously wanted to be rid of.   

“Who are you kidding?” he asked his reflection in the subway train door. “You neuter cats for free in your spare time and are a total disappointment to your family. What have you got to offer a guy like that?”  

The train rattled around its final bend and came to a screeching halt at Borough Hall station. The announcement called out that this was the stop for the Brooklyn Court complex; Alec stared at the open doors but couldn’t move. He was going to get divorced today. Legally removed from Magnus’ life, never to be heard of again. The revised paperwork that had been couriered over had made all of that quite clear. Magnus’ swirly signature elegant on the papers, but messy and haphazard on the copy of their marriage certificate that had been included in the appendices. He forced his feet into action and stepped off the train, pushing his way through the exit barrier and out into the Brooklyn sunshine.  

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“All rise.”  

Catarina nodded at the court clerk and took her seat at the head of the dais across from Alec and Magnus who had Raphael by his side. Alec had elected to represent himself, there was no need to pay for a lawyer, he could say ‘no thank you’ on his own and for free. He shot a glance over at Magnus, he was sitting very straight and upright, but staring down at his own hands clasped in his lap. He looked impeccable as always, a sober dark suit complemented by a peacock blue coloured pocket square folded into three points.   

And then he turned to look over at Alec, looking away instantly when he saw the other man already staring at him. Alec too broke the gaze, focusing on the ceiling of the courtroom which was unremarkable large square tiles and synthetic daylight strip-lights. After a moment his eyes drifted back to Magnus who was doing a very bad act at pretending to not be looking back at Alec, his sideways glances quite unsubtle and obvious.  

Alec didn’t look away. How could he? Magnus was undeniably the most handsome man he had ever known. A delicious, intoxicating mix of hard, angular masculinity and dark eyeliner juxtaposed with the smooth waves of his swept back hair and soft pink lips… Was he smiling? Was that a smile?  

“Mr Lightwood?” Catarina paused, there was no way he had heard a single word she had said about the process for finalising the divorce. His mind wasn’t even in the room, probably not in Brooklyn – definitely back in that hotel room in Las Vegas from the way he was staring at Magnus. “Mr Lightwood, are you paying attention to these proceedings?”  

“I yes, I… affidavit, sign…”  

“I asked you, why you did not want to accept the settlement from Mr Bane?”  

“Objection!” Raphael jumped to his feet, about to step out from behind the desk. “I do not see what relevance that has to today’s issue?”  

Catarina was quick to shut him down.  

“Mr Santiago, this is a divorce hearing, not a trial. You might object to my asking, but this is my court room and I want to know why he turned down the money. It was not an insignificant sum.”  

As Raphael sat down in frustrated silence, she turned back to Alec. “Mr Lightwood? I assume that your family are not lacking in assets, but I am surprised that you didn’t jump at the opportunity to better your own situation. Most people would find it hard to turn down a guaranteed income of that magnitude.”  

Alec shrugged, “Why should he owe me anything anymore than I owe him? If this was a real marriage, surely both parties would be treated equally. Not that I have anything to give, but I won’t be thought of as a charity case, or a gold digger. Sure, there’s things I could do with the money, the charities I volunteer for are always under-funded and there’s always more animals to help in this city. But I want to make my own way in the world and be responsible for my own future, not dependent on hand-outs and not someone’s little secret to keep quiet with a few thousand dollars.”  

“Mr Lightwood,” Raphael interjected, “You will still be a little secret as you put it. There is still a non-disclosure clause in the agreement. No going to the media to sell your story.”  

Alec could feel the anger starting to bubble and froth inside him; he didn’t have much of a temper but this accusation was too much.  

"You think I would do that?” The question was directed at Magnus, although it was Raphael who answered.  

“My job is to be suspicious of anyone or anything that might hurt the name of either Mr Bane, or TBG. Once you realise what you’ve thrown away, I would not be surprised one iota if you sold your story of being seduced by Magnus Bane. The magazines will lap it up and fill in the gaps however they see fit.”  

Alec's fists balled against his thighs and he pressed his words out through gritted teeth. “How can I sell a story that I don’t remember? The sordid one night-marriage?! Yes, I liked him. Yes, we had drinks and I don’t really know what else happened other than I likely stayed the night in his room. I don’t even know if we kissed let alone who proposed!”  

“We definitely kissed,” Magnus said quietly, turning to look at the flustered Alec. “I have security footage and my staff in the bar that night confirmed it: you proposed to me.”  

He’d watched the footage so many times now that he felt like he actually remembered it. Magnus didn’t know what they had been talking about before, he didn’t know what they said after, but he knew that Alec had held him tightly in his arms and kissed him before clumsily dropping to one knee and quite obviously proposing to him. And he had said ‘yes’.  

Catarina was silent for a moment, watching the unspoken exchange going on between Alec and Magnus. Why did they both look so... sad? For two men who should be pleased to put this messy marriage behind them and move on with their lives, it just wasn't adding up.  

“You’re being uncharacteristically quiet, Magnus" she said, "You could have ruined everything you’ve worked for and lost half your business for the sake of a one-night stand. You’re so lucky he’s not a money grabbing piece of work like…”  

“Judge Loss,” Raphael’s voice was deadpan as he stood up again. “I’m sure you can appreciate that my client is a busy man. Your questioning feels like nothing more than gossip and hearsay. Can we move straight to closing letters and direct the attorneys to finalise the paperwork? I think we’re all ready for this debacle to be over.”  

Catarina raised one eyebrow and sat back in her seat, folding her hands neatly in front of her. Raphael was a damn good lawyer, but boy did he know how to get on her bad side.  Magnus’ phone call and the way they were looking at each other would have been enough to make her act, but Raphael’s curt remarks were what pushed her to react in a less than normal fashion.  

“I will legalise this separation, but on one condition,” she pointed at Alec then and Magnus. “Ninety days. I order you to live together as a married couple for ninety days and then I will notarize your divorce.”  

Magnus and Alec both stared at her in utter disbelief, neither finding words. Raphael stood up to start his rebuttal of what he saw as an absolute travesty but she ignored them all and continued.  

“Magnus Bane, if you forcibly remove Alec Lightwood from your home before the three months is over, I will grant him full alimony and fifty percent of your estate. And you Mr Lightwood, if you leave I will hold you in contempt of court and have your veterinarian license suspended.”  

“Cat! I can't live with him, we hardly know each other!” Magnus began to protest at which she shut him down immediately.  

“Magnus, plenty of married couples live together for years without really knowing or even liking each other. I suggest you get used to having someone around, your ninety days starts tomorrow.”  

Chapter Text

“You’re not serious?” Alec finally found his voice. “I have a life! A business to run! I can’t just put that all on hold to play happy families with him !” He winced, his words had come out much harsher than he had intended. The shock judgement had immediately kicked his overthinking brain up a gear into full panic mode. Where did Magnus live? How would he get to work? What would Magnus think to his job? The volunteering? Then more detailed, nuanced worries started to hammer in to him – would they have to eat together, socialise, where would he even sleep?   Just how 'married' did she expect them to be?

He stared at Catarina in abject horror as he watched her shake her head. Her serious expression melting into a feint smile momentarily.  

“Mr Lightwood, at some point you and Mr Bane wanted to spend the rest of your lives together. All I am asking for is three months. It will be good use of that time for you both to reflect on your rash decision and understand just how serious marriage truly is. It’s not something to jump into after a bottle of whiskey and a couple of hours of flirting.”  

“Catarina darling," Magnus purred, trying to hide the note of anxiety in his voice. "I know how serious marriage is, thank you. Been there, done that.”   He suddenly felt the need to position himself as more authoritative than just the bemused husband who didn’t know what he had agreed to. “Forcing us together is not going to be some kind of magical panacea to cure me of whatever you think you’re curing me of...”  

“I’m sorry,” Alec interrupted him, “You two know each other? Am I just some kind of pawn in whatever game this is? I’m sorry but I’m not uprooting my life for your entertainment!”  

“Oh, I am not entertained by this situation in the least, Alexander” Magnus huffed. “The last thing I need is to have to babysit a house-guest for three months.”  

He glared at Alec. Alec glared right back.   

“Ma’am,” he pointed at Magnus, “I can’t spend the next three months with someone who clearly doesn’t want me around!”  

“Is that what you think, huh?” A knowing smirk tugged at Catarina’s lips. “Mr Lightwood, Mr Bane, I will see you in ninety days. Mr Santiago, I’ll leave it in your capable hands to make the arrangements. Court adjourned.”  

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Maryse Lightwood looked terribly out of place among the knickknacks and general busyness of Andrew and Alec’s shared space. He had called her on the way back to his veterinarian surgery from the court and she was waiting for him when he got home later that evening armed and ready for a fight. She stood in his bedroom doorway.  

“Alexander, he is a billionaire!” she clapped her hands together with each word, emphasising her point. “You have to get him to make you leave. You have to put your ego aside and do what is best for the family!”  

Alec ignored her, continuing to throw jeans and t-shirts into a bag.   

“This could change the life trajectory of every single person you know. You could help so many charities, and good causes, buy Jace and Clary a house, Max a house, yourself a house. A ranch even! Alec, please listen to me!”  

He was listening, that was the problem. She was making very valid points and he didn’t like the logic behind them as it was solid. He could do so much good with the kind of resources  on offer, not that he couldn’t have done that with Raphael’s original amount but this was a hundred times, a thousand times more valuable.   

He sighed long and heavy, pulling his fingers through his unruly dark hair. Why was life insistent on putting him in these impossible situations?  

“And just how would I get him to throw me out? I’m hardly ever not at work, sometimes Andrew and I don’t see each other for more than a ‘hello’ as we’re passing in the corridor from one week to the next.”  

“I don’t know, Alec,” she said through gritted teeth, her patience was wearing thin. Alec simply was not engaged with the reality of what he could be in line for and it was frustrating beyond belief. “Maybe for such a life-changing amount of money you should take three months off work and focus on being a pain in his ass!”  

He gave her a withering look, there was no way he could do something like that. Either of the somethings. Abandoning his patients and leaving Andrew with all the work of running the surgery was as impossible to him as the thought of purposely trying to upset Magnus.   

When they had left the courthouse Raphael had bundled Magnus into a waiting car more like a bodyguard than a lawyer. He was clearly angry at Judge Loss’s directive and almost growled at Alec that a car would be sent to collect him the following afternoon. Alec had argued that it would need to be after seven as he volunteered on Thursdays which seemed to annoy Raphael even further.   

He and Magnus hadn’t spoken after their heated words inside. Alec had followed him and Raphael out of the court and hadn’t been able to gauge his mood: anger, frustration and annoyance were all strong candidates. He didn’t want to think that maybe it was because of what he’d said. The heat of the moment had brought out an insecurity that he hadn’t really known he had.   

He liked Magnus and knowing it wasn’t reciprocated was a hard truth to swallow.  

“I don’t want his money Mom...” he said quietly, the last part of the sentence staying unspoken.  

I want him.  

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Just after seven that evening, Alec found himself in the back of a limousine surrounded by butter soft sand-coloured leather and polished walnut. The driver was a young man called Elias who had informed Alec that he was taking him to Magnus’ New York loft in Brooklyn and that the journey would take around thirty-five minutes depending on traffic.   

“Uh... Which neighbourhood?” Alec asked tentatively, his mind already running through the possibilities for train connections to get him back to work the next morning.   

“Brooklyn Heights” Elias replied, adjusting the rear view mirror to catch Alec’s eye through the privacy screen that separated them. “You really don’t know very much about Magnus Bane, do you?”  

“No,” Alec sighed, sinking back into the comfort of the seat. “I’ve apparently lived under a Magnus-free rock all my life. Anything you can tell me about him? Any hints for making the next three months bearable?”  

Elias paused for a moment, a small smile tugging at his lips.   

“He’s kind, generous, more like a friend than a boss. My advice to you is don’t get on Raphael’s bad side as Magnus trusts his opinion like the gospel. Oh and one more thing,” he caught Alec’s eye again. “Don’t mention his ex-wife Camille. They had a very nasty, ugly, expensive break up a few years back. He tries to downplay it, but I think she still has a hold over him.”  

“Oh...”   

“He always said he would never marry,” Elias slowed the car and turned off the road into an underground parking lot, looking back at Alec again as he waited for the barrier to rise. “So I don’t know what you said to him to change his mind but it must have been something special.”  

“I wish I knew...” Alec muttered to himself.  

Magnus had been pacing since lunchtime. He’d walked the length of his office on Fifth about a thousand times, then unable to concentrate on the next tranche of ideas for refitting a whole suite of rooms out in Dallas, had gone home to pace up and down his loft instead.   

He’d had the guest room deep cleaned and prepared with new bedding and all new towels and amenities. He had included a walk over to that side of his loft in his nervous patrol to double check, trying to avoid the drinks cart as he both wanted to but equally didn’t want to get drunk. Alec had met drunk Magnus, flirtatious and fun. He had met scared Magnus, quick to attack or defend himself when he felt cornered by Catarina’s eagle-eyed judgement. Now he would meet TBG’s Magnus – perfectly polished and proper. The Magnus the outside world knew.   

He stopped to look at his reflection in the mirror by the front door. He’d chosen black that morning: Henley, jacket and pants all in the same dark hue with just his jewellery and deepest burgundy boots giving a brief edge of colour to the outfit.   

Alec could meet this Magnus with no problems, he could keep up his walls for ninety days or ninety years if he needed to. He just preyed that he had the strength to not give in to the voice that still whispered to him that Alec was kind and genuine and that he should open his heart and show him his real self.  

The loud knock at the door made him physically jump and immediately flustered he smoothed his hair, put on his best smile and opened the door.  

“Alexander.”  

“Magnus.”  

He ushered him inside and closed the door.

Eighty-nine days to go.

Chapter Text

I’ve never met anyone like you before in my entire life...

Me neither. You’re so... genuine, so different to everyone else. And it’s a good thing, it makes you special.

You’re special, Magnus, one of a kind. Marry me?

Marry you? Right here? Now?

Yes.

...

...

OK.

Neither spoke, they stood with an awkward silence hanging around them, Alec clutching his overstuffed backpack and Magnus twisting one ring nervously around his finger.

It was Magnus who finally broke the silence, “Look, I don’t know what Catarina – Judge Loss – was thinking with this ninety-day clause but we’re here now, so let’s try to make the most of it OK?”

Alec didn’t know what else to do other than his default of an eye roll and shifting his backpack higher up his shoulder. He crossed his arms, hugging himself to try to keep grounded. He was tired, it had been a long and exhausting day physically and mentally and all he wanted to do was take a nap. He didn’t have the energy to stay and talk with Magnus, especially as his casual lounging-at-home outfit had raised him up in Alec’s affections from unobtainable rich party-boy to something much more akin to relationship material. He could feel himself staring, drinking in the softness of Magnus in the simple Henley, buttons mostly undone.

“Where’s my room?” he sighed, through pure fatigue rather than annoyance but it sounded enough like the latter than he could have sworn he saw Magnus flinch.

“To the left,” he gestured towards a set of closed double doors. “You have an ensuite and a sitting area and of course clean linen...” His voice trailed off to nothing as Alec followed his direction to the guest room and disappeared, closing the door behind him.

“Make yourself at home.”

Two hours later and the growling of his stomach woke Alec from his nap. He must have been really hungry, he thought, as the bed was the most comfortable one he had ever slept on and he absolutely did not want to get up. The room was just as tastefully decorated in muted golds and natural mossy greens as the rest of the loft and Alec couldn’t help but wonder if the other bedroom, Magnus’ bedroom, looked anything similar.

Magnus. He really hadn’t done anything to enamour himself to his new housemate; he’d hardly spoken, said nothing to the current situation and gone straight to bed. It was decided then, he would get some food inside him and he would try to talk to Magnus man to man, set some ground rules for the next three months and figure out how he was going to survive living in such close proximity to the most handsome and attractive man he had ever known. First though food; he opened his favourite delivery app and suddenly realised that he didn’t even know the exact address of where he was to order in food. He had no alternative, he was going to have to go back out into the living space and talk with his host. He assumed Magnus was still awake as he could hear soft music drifting in through his closed door from the living space. He picked up his T-shirt from where he’d dumped it on a chair and stepped barefoot out into the loft.

Magnus looked up from his laptop when he heard Alec’s door open. The other man wandered slowly over towards him, pulling the same T-shirt he had been wearing earlier back over his head giving Magnus just one delicious glance of his taught stretched-out abs. He didn’t close his laptop, but he didn’t continue typing either – his daily diary tidy-up could wait a moment or two.

“Hello, care for some tea? It’s valerian and orange blossom, good for sleeping… although you don’t look as if you need any help there.”

A nod and the briefest smile from Alec saw him put his laptop aside and go to fetch another blue and white china cup, the same as the one he was drinking from. He set the cup across from his own and poured the tea, pushing it further towards one side of the table in a silent request that Alec come and sit in the armchair opposite.

“You do have a choice you know,” Magnus began, cradling his own teacup as he watched Alec take a seat. “You probably shouldn’t go home but you can leave, I’ll have you put up in a suite in my Manhattan hotel and no-one will need to know that you didn’t stay here.”

“Thanks, but that would be in direct violation of the court order and I can’t afford the risk of losing my practice license. I don’t have endless wealth to fall back on like you.” He sipped the tea, it was sweet but earthy, not something he would usually drink but rather pleasant all the same. A glance at Magnus confirmed that he was watching Alec intently, being the full focus of that gaze again had him looking away quickly. “Besides,” he said quietly, “You’d be lying to your friend. I can’t let you do that for me.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Magnus’ lips which he hid behind his cup. As grumpy and stoic as Alec had initially seemed, with his raw honesty and messy dark hair he was certainly endearing.

“Well, in that case how about we get to know each other a little better? I’ll go first: Magnus Bane, thirty-two, CEO.” He looked expectantly at Alec, hopeful that this could be the start of their first real conversation.

“Alec Lightwood, twenty-eight, veterinarian. One sister, two brothers all younger. Parents divorced, overbearing mom in Manhattan, father in LA with his girlfriend. You?”

“No, just me. Only child. Dad’s not really around any more and my mother...” Magnus paused, momentarily surprised that he was about to willingly give up such personal information about himself. He was usually a closed book, preferring to let only his well curated persona out in to the world. The last person he had opened up to had thrown his heart in the trash and he had sworn blind he would never do it again. He sipped his tea, keeping his eyes trained on the pale brown liquid in the cup.

“She passed away when I was a boy. So yes, just me.”

“I’m sorry...” Alec said quietly, immediately noticing the note of nervousness that had just crept onto the edges of Magnus’ voice.

“No need Alexander, it’s all in the past, let’s not talk about such a depressing topic,” Magnus started airily, immediately letting his brick wall of professionalism rebuild around the polished perfection of the carefree Magnus Bane persona the world knew. “I’m the man I am today because of the hardships I’ve had in life. It’s not all been plain sailing to get here!”

The change in his tone and the way he avoided eye contact as he stared over towards the sparkling lights of Manhattan peaking out from behind the Brooklyn Bridge and framed perfectly by the loft's grand French doors did not go unnoticed. Alec suddenly felt quite annoyed that he had given Magnus way more information that he had received in return and that the topic of family was apparently now closed. He retaliated with a pointed, quite direct question. “Where is ‘here’ anyway? How many hotels do you own? Just how rich are you?”

Magnus didn’t say anything for the longest of moments; Alec might have thought he was thinking up a lie or a well practiced answer to such a question when in reality Magnus found that he was suddenly terrified to tell him the truth.

But he did nonetheless.

“Seventeen...”

“Seventeen? Hotels? Oh, OK. That’s way less than I thought, I mean... my Mom said...” Magnus was staring past him but with an obvious correction to his assumption there on his lips.

“Not hotels… dollars. I’m worth seventeen billion dollars Alexander. I have three hundred and four properties currently and expansion plans for another nineteen in the next five years.”

Alec’s last mouthful of tea was poorly timed leaving him coughing and red-faced, his sharp inhalation at Magnus’ answer forcing tea into his windpipe. He all but dropped his cup on the table and gasped for air.

Seventeen billion!

“Oh goodness, don’t die on me! I can just about manage the media circus of a living accidental husband but not a dead one!” Magnus leant forwards, his brow furrowed in concern as Alec tried to regulate his breathing. His joke was there to hide his actual feelings of wanting to reach out, to help, to comfort; he hated talking about money but there was just something about Alec that made it impossible to lie.

“Seventeen… And Judge Loss… would make you… give half to me?”

“Yeah, she’s hilarious isn’t she. Let me get you some water and I’ll tell you a little more about Catarina.”  

He returned with a glass of water and sat back down opposite Alec, a drink in his own hands that certainly wasn’t tea. He stirred it thoughtfully with his little finger and took a sip.

“Before she was a judge, Catarina was my lawyer. My divorce lawyer to be specific. She helped me reach a somewhat amicable position with my ex-wife who pretty much wanted to see me penniless and in the gutter. I owe what fortune I had left to her, and it’s how I was able to build what I have today.”

Alec watched him closely, there was an emotion there behind his words but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Sadness? Anger? Regret maybe?

“I vowed to never get married again and let someone use my heartache to bankroll their own business interests.”

Bitterness, that’s what it was, and definitely regret. He actually felt a little sorry for Magnus in that moment. Up until now, all Alec had thought about was how this predicament was going to affect his life and his circumstances. He had given little thought to why Judge Loss had insisted on this clause, and even less on how Magnus might feel about it.

“Why did she set you up like this then? Putting you through three months of misery of having to be reminded of your mistake every day?”

A mistake?

“Alexander, you were never...”

Magnus was interrupted by the ringing of Alec’s phone. He shot over an apologetic glance and answered it.

“Hey... She’s eating? Great, and her blood sugars? OK, good. Thanks for calling.” He looked sheepishly at Magnus, embarrassed that their conversation had been interrupted. “Diabetic McCaw that had a seizure. She’s OK though. Speaking of which...” His stomach growled then at precisely the right moment to reinforce his question. “What’s the address here? I need to order some food, I am absolutely starved.”

“You haven’t eaten? I’m so sorry, I didn’t think to ask!" Magnus pulled his phone out, glad of the distraction. "Get whatever you want, call my concierge service and they’ll sort everything out. Here, give me your phone number and I’ll send you the details.”

Alec read out his number and immediately Magnus sent him a message with a phone number and a web address to download an app that he’d never heard of. As Alec saved both the concierge’s and Magnus’ number in his phone, Magnus himself was busy typing out another message.

“All sorted. They’ll send you a login for the app but in the meanwhile just give them a call, you’re already registered on my account. Look, Alec,” he leant over the table and picked up the empty tea cup, “Getting married certainly wasn’t on my plan for this year, but we’re stuck together for three months and until that’s up, please treat my home as your own. It’s the least I can do for getting you mixed up in whatever this little game of Catarina’s is.”

Later that night, with a full belly of the best Portuguese food he had ever had and his morning commute to West Brighton planned in detail (with a back-up plan should there be a problem on the F-train), he lay on his bed staring at Magnus’ number in his phone. It seemed strange to message him when he was still sitting just outside the door watching an old black and white movie on the TV with a martini in his hand but it felt equally strange to go out there an invade his private space just to say thank you. So message he did before turning on his alarm and turning off his light ready for sleep.

[Alexander Lightwood]

Thanks for the concierge number. That arroz de pato was the best I’ve ever had, appreciate it. 89 days and counting.

Magnus wasn’t paying much attention to his movie, he had been too busy thinking about what Alec had said. He turned the TV off and looked down at the message on his phone. Eighty-nine days suddenly felt like it was going to pass too quickly. It was all a mistake, they should never have gotten so drunk and gotten married. But Magnus had wanted to talk to Alec from the moment he’d seen him across that roulette table, so meeting him? That hadn’t been a mistake, he was certain. He glanced over at Alec’s door, what was he going to do – burst in and suggest they do... what exactly? Fool around again? Go on a date? Get to know each other and let Alec be the first person he had really felt anything for since her?

He sighed, shaking his head and admonishing himself for this current train of thought. It was late and he was patently tired to be having such crazy un-Magnus-like ideas. He typed out a reply and hit send, before pocketing his phone and heading to his own bedroom.

[MB]

Any time. M.

Chapter Text

Alec stood in the hallway, the black door to the penthouse looming up ominously in front of him. He had no clue if Magnus would be at home, if they would speak, what he might say so he took a moment to compose himself. It had been a relatively normal day of check-ups, vaccinations and routine operations until he had received an email from Finger Snap, the concierge service with his login details which seemingly could deliver the entire world at the ‘click of a finger’. Magnus had messaged him the entry code for the front door of the penthouse loft and reiterated that he should treat the place like home. Something that technically should be relatively simple to do as he was used to sharing a space with Andrew. The key difference being that as much as he tried to not think about it, he wasn’t desperately attracted to his regular roommate in the way he was to Magnus. Maybe in a few days he would pluck up courage enough to start dropping hints.

He opened the door and was surprised to see a woman laying on the sofa, her feet crossed on the arm and no sign of Magnus anywhere.

“Hello?” he said tentatively, not sure how common knowledge it was amongst Magnus’ circle as to who he was. “I’m Alec, I’m staying here for a while...”

“Mr Lightwood,” she turned around and smiled at him. “How lovely to see you again.”

“Judge Loss! Is... Is everything OK?”

Catarina swung her feet around and sat upright, “Absolutely. Just waiting for my friend.”

“Magnus, right. He mentioned that you knew each other.”

She smiled warmly at him, “Indeed we do. How is he treating you? Are you settling in OK?”

He glanced over at the closed door to his more than comfortable bedroom and nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything else I need. The loft is beautiful.”

“Mmm, yes. It’s a great space,” she nodded at the spiral staircase over near the kitchen, “There’s a roof terrace as well as the balcony. It’s gorgeous in the summer, I’m sure he sunbathes naked up there.”

Catarina couldn’t help but laugh, a soft pink blush had immediately raced across Alec’s face as he had obviously allowed a mental image of her (semi-joking) comment to form in his mind. She patted the sofa next to her, “Come and sit with me for a moment. He’s just in the shower, we’re going for dinner.”

He took a seat on the same chair he had sat in the night before, wondering if he was talking with the Judge or the Friend? Erring on the side of polite caution, he posed the question that had been plaguing his mind since the court hearing.

“Ma’am, I have to ask. Why are you making us live together like this? We hardly know each other, we met just that one time, it’s not like we have a relationship other than the legal mishap.”

“Mr Lightwood, I love my friend dearly but sometimes he just doesn’t know what is good for him. Or in this case, who.”

“Me?!” Alec barked out a laugh, but Catarina only nodded and continued to smile at him. “You think I’m good for him? We have absolutely nothing in common, he’s a somebody and I’m most definitely a nobody!”

Before she could answer she was cut off by the sound of Magnus’ voice and then he was walking out of his bedroom in nothing but sweatpants and a liberal covering of water droplets dripping from his sopping wet hair and running down his bare chest as he rubbed the wet strands with a towel.

Alec unashamedly stared at him, his mouth dropping open slightly. His chest and abs, the sweatpants clinging to his slim hips, his dark hair scraped back from his face. He was like a literal wet dream made real. He forced himself to look away before things started to stir and he started to get uncomfortable.

“Ughh,” Magnus hadn’t noticed him sitting obscured by one of the large upright brick columns and he groaned salaciously, which did nothing to help Alec. “I feel like a new man after that shower. Honestly Cat, I don’t know what’s gotten into me today. I’ve tried but I can’t do anything without thinking of... Alexander!”

He stopped dead, his face a picture of shock at seeing Alec sitting casually across from Catarina. He was still wearing dark blue work scrubs with his name embroidered in white on the left side, dark chest hair tufting out of the shallow ‘V’ shaped neck. He looked tired and slightly sweaty and Magnus suddenly realised the he wanted nothing more than to drop into his lap and kiss the stress of the day off him.

It had been like that all day. Alec Lightwood invading his thoughts at any and every moment and the shower had done nothing to wash away the lingering image of Alec pulling his T-shirt over his head that had plagued Magnus’ entire day.

He was suddenly acutely aware of being half naked and without a scrap of makeup nor hair product. Perfectly fine for Catarina to see, but not Alec. He slung the towel around his shoulders and hugged it to his chest with crossed arms.

“I didn’t know you were home! I uh, I hope Cat is behaving herself and not telling you all of my darkest secrets?”

“And steal the pleasure from you?” she quipped, “Never.”

Catarina smirked at Magnus’ obvious and supremely out of character self-consciousness before turning to Alec who was clearly eating Magnus up with his eyes whilst trying to look unaffected. Their shared awkwardness and shared interest in the other was begging to be nurtured. Magnus needed someone good in his life and now, more than ever, she was sure that ‘someone’ was Alec Lightwood. She silently congratulated herself on her plan which seemed to be progressing just as she had hoped.

“Mr Lightwood, may I ask you a question?”

“Y-yeah sure, and call me Alec, please.”

“How long does it take you to get ready to go out?”

“Uh...” he furrowed his eyebrows together, a little thrown by the unusual question. “Twenty minutes maybe?”

She stood and picked up her purse. “It’ll take him thirty to do his hair and makeup so you have ample time. Magnus, I’ll see you at the weekend.”

“Cat, wait! Where are you going? We have reservations!”

“Mags, you have reservations. Take your damn husband to dinner.”

Alec hadn’t exactly planned for any dinner dates in his ninety-day stint as Magnus’ housemate and felt woefully underdressed in a plain grey shirt and trousers with Magnus sitting next to him in the back of a limousine in the most elegantly cut suit he’d ever seen. Magnus had remonstrated at the change of plans only briefly and with little actual conviction before walking Catarina to the door and whispering a goodbye into the kiss to her cheek.

“Sorry for spoiling your plans.”

Magnus looked up from his phone, it was the first thing Alec had said since they’d left the loft.

“You don’t need to apologise for anything” he said briefly, continuing to type furiously into his phone.

[MB]

You’re unbelievable.

[Cat]

Thank me later. For all of this.

[MB]

I do not date! I should never have told you I liked him.

[Cat]

Well, you did and he obviously likes you. Get to know each other. Let him in.

[MB]

I can’t Cat.

[Cat]

Mags, he’s not her.

Alec watched him out of the corner of his eye, his face lit up unnaturally by the screen’s pale glow. The angle of the light picked out unusual shadows around his eyes and lips but it did nothing to detract from his striking features. His brows were furrowed slightly and he was pursuing his lips just a little as he typed.

[MB]

Yes. Quite aware of that.

[Cat)

What’s stopping you?

[MB]

He’s too wholesome. I’m a chaotic mess.

[Cat]

You’re a good man and you deserve happiness. It’s time you took a breath, stepped back from the chaos and realised that.

The car pulled to a halt outside an Italian restaurant on the edge of the East Village where the Bohemian lights of the eclectic stores and trendy restaurants gave way to the colourful residential walk-ups that typified this corner of Manhattan. The windows were strung with dried herbs in bunches and intricately twisted corn dollies that somehow looked both pretty yet slightly unnerving. Magnus walked around from the other side of the car, buttoning his jacket.

“The food is incredible. You uh, you like Italian?”

Alec nodded, giving himself a quick once-over to make sure his shoes were tied, zipper closed and shirt tucked in. It was the best he could do next to Magnus in what must have been a two-thousand-dollar suit. He did look good though, there was no denying it, down to his gleaming jewellery and neatly polished nails.

Magnus fiddled with the button on his jacket, trying to hide the slight tremor in his hands. He hadn’t been on an actual date with someone he actually liked for non-business purposes in over five years but it could have been a hundred. He tugged at his jacket once more and gestured for Alec to go ahead of him.

The aroma of olive oil and sweet herbs filled the air as the door swung open and Alec breathed in the enticing scent deeply. It had been hours since he last ate a rushed sour cream covered baked potato in a quiet moment between morning clinic and his first surgery session. They were shown to a secluded table, close enough to the other diners to allow the soft ambience of the room into their conversation but tucked away enough to provide an extra touch of privacy.

“I can’t remember the last time I had Italian food” Alec said, looking longingly over the menu. “It’s probably my favourite.”

“Mine too, I come here far too often for my trainer’s liking.”

Alec raised an inquisitive eyebrow which provoked an answer delivered deadpan, with a mischievous grin and a pat of his flat stomach.

“Arancini are the mortal enemy of the six-pack.”

His mock-seriousness was too much and Alec couldn’t stifle his laughter. He thought back to earlier on when Magnus had wandered into the living space shirtless and had spoken before he realised what he was saying.

“Didn’t look like you have anything to worry about to me.”

“Oh?” Magnus leant back in his chair, a surge of confidence starting to bubble up. “Alexander, were you checking me out?”

“I feel like I shouldn’t answer that. Don’t want Judge Loss to hold me in contempt of court for being nice to you when I’m supposed to be your punishment.”

“Punishment? Is that what think?” Magnus laughed. “It’s quite the opposite. It’s you who has the rough end of this deal.”

He was interrupted by the server arriving at their table with a large decanter of sparkling water to take their order. They ordered food and Magnus asked for a wine recommendation, with a bottle of white quickly being brought out that was indeed delicious. It was just a regular dinner, in a regular restaurant and Alec relaxed into his seat, feeling the most at ease since before Raphael stormed into his surgery and dropped his bombshell.

Their conversation flowed seamlessly; Magnus had so many stories that seemed to meld the most ordinary of situations with the most extraordinary of names. His acquaintances read like a Hollywood who’s who and Alec couldn’t help but be charmed by his down to earth descriptions and anecdotes of so many household names. He surprisingly found it simple to mix tales from his mundane life into Magnus’ extraordinary world as the other man’s interest in his work days filled with tending to cats and dogs was absolute. Conversation stimulating, food impeccable, the service attentive but demure, the evening passed by in a happy blur of laughter and getting to know each other.

It was over coffee when his second to top button was open and Magnus’ tie was loose that Alec remembered his forgotten question from the start of the evening.

“What did you mean, I have the rough end of this deal?” he asked.

Magnus toyed with his coffee cup, running a finger around the rim as he bathed in Alec’s inquisitive hazel gaze. The evening had been a delight and he could have almost convinced himself that Alec was enjoying his company.

“Alexander,” he said finally, “You have had to uproot your home life, move across the city and put up with my chaos at the whim of my caring, yet misguided friend. I know you don’t want to be in Brooklyn and be so far away from your home and work and I know you don’t particularly like me and my money and what I stand for so yes, I believe you’ve been put in this situation by Cat purely because I told her I liked you and she obviously seems to think she can use the law at her disposal to match-make. It’s embarrassing really. She is always trying to save me in some way or another, she means well honestly she does, but you and I, we’re so painfully different.”

Magnus had completely talked himself out of thinking Alec might be interested in him, instead reverting to his guarded, polished self with a fifty-foot bulletproof wall of protection to hide his heart behind. Alec was still looking at him steadily and with no hint of what he might be thinking available for reading on his face. Magnus suddenly felt a little ashamed at how easily he has let his guard down and gestured to get the staff’s attention to bring his jacket.

“Look, I’m going to go, I have work to finish before bed. You’re welcome to come with me or just call Finger Snap when you’re ready and they’ll send a car. There’s some pretty good bars around here, I’m sure you can find a little fun.”

He stood, jacket eased onto his shoulders and looking like he was prepared to dash out at full speed. Alec leant over and grabbed him by the forearm.

“Hold on, you like me?”

Magnus begged for the ground to open and swallow him whole. Should he lie and protect himself from the obvious laugh and rebuttal that was coming, or tell the awful truth that yes he liked Alec Lightwood and was secretly over the moon that Catarina had given him a chance to get to know him.

“I uh... I mean...”

The affect of his hesitation on Alec was immediate. He seemed to shrink as he let his grip on Magnus’ arm soften and drop.

“As a friend? Or...?”

No!! No way! I like you like you!

“Yes!” Magnus almost gasped at the well-timed way out of this awkward moment where he might have had to open his heart to another person. “Of course, as a friend!”

Oh, how Alec had wanted the answer to that question to be ‘no’. But here he was, obviously firmly in Magnus’ friend-zone. It was as he had said, they were so painfully different and Alec knew then that he had been a fool to even think for a moment that there could be something more between them. He forced a smile.

“For the record, I don’t dislike you Magnus and I’m sorry that my behaviour so far has made you feel like that. My head is firmly out of my ass now; from hereon in I’ll be the model housemate. No drama.”

No drama.

Later that night, long after Alec had gone to bed, Magnus found himself standing on his balcony listening to the feint sound of a siren crossing the city somewhere beyond the blinking lights of the Manhattan skyline. Camille had been drama personified; everything about their relationship had been dramatic, emotional, tragic. Alec Lightwood in contrast just oozed fun, consideration and stability.  

And Magnus had friend-zoned him.

He buried his head in his hands, mumbling to himself the most loaded of questions. "What have I done?"

Chapter Text

It had been a struggle keeping his growing feelings for Magnus hidden, but somehow Alec had made it through their first month of living together by admiring Magnus in secret. Their friendship had blossomed; whilst quite different characters, their core values were fully aligned. They were both passionate about their work and cared deeply for the people they served. Although not blood relatives, Magnus considered his friends family and when he had accidentally met Jace one evening as he was dropping Alec back following a suit fitting his personable nature had seen him somehow immediately invited to Jace’s wedding. It was the universe playing some bizarre trick on him, Alec supposed, that they had met on Jace’s bachelor party weekend and now Magnus was there as his ‘plus one’.

He had met the rest of Alec’s family at the rehearsal dinner the night before and was swiftly taken under the wing of Izzy and Clary and guarded from Maryse’s polite but surly comments. They had mutually agreed to not explicitly tell the rest of the wedding guests that they had inadvertently gotten married in a Little White Chapel in Las Vegas during a whiskey-fuelled drunken night, but that Magnus and Alec had become ‘friends’ through his work – not that Magnus owned a pet and would ever need the services of a veterinarian - but it seemed like a reasonably simple and innocuous lie to uphold to explain why Alec’s date was a multi-billionaire sometime socialite.

Although he wasn’t his ‘date’, was he? They were ‘just friends’ - well that was what he had reluctantly told Dot, the dancer friend of Clary’s mother who had keenly asked about their situation. Just friends seemed to have been the opening of the floodgates and it hadn’t taken much persuasion for her to get Magnus onto the dancefloor and it seemed Magnus himself was as capable a dancer as she was.

Part of Alec was loving watching him move. He was graceful and exuberant and had the brightest, most brilliant smile on his face and they laughed and hugged through the break of one song to the next. Part of him hated it; a jealous, frustrated part that knew he couldn’t ever be enough for Magnus to see him as anything other than a short-term inconvenience. The music switched to a slower song, not quite romantic but definitely something to hold your partner closer and he hoped for a moment Magnus would take a break but he didn’t, instead he let Dot wrap her arms around his neck and held her as they swayed to the music.

“Dance with me?” Izzy held out a hand, beckoning her brother to his feet. Alec shook his head. There was no way he could be that close to Magnus in this moment. If he saw a lingering look, or if she moved to kiss him...

“No. Can’t.” He folded his arms in defiance, his look turning into more of a glare as the song went on and the dancing continued. Izzy turned to follow his thunderous gaze and drew in a sharp ‘oh’ of surprise when she saw what he was glaring at. She looked back at Alec, then back to Magnus.

“You’re jealous!” she exclaimed, “You like him, don’t you?”

“No!” he snapped, batting her still outstretched hand away. “I just don’t see what they could possibly have in common to be so chatty so quickly.”

“Other than they’re both single and good looking. But you’re right big brother, what could they possibly see in each other?!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, dance with me.”

“Izzy, no. I can’t...” he protested as she dragged him onto the dancefloor, surprisingly strong for her small stature in comparison to his. It was a distraction he didn’t need. He had to keep watch over Magnus; if something happened, he just didn’t know what he would do. Whilst absolutely not begrudging him happiness... he wanted it to be with himself.

“Come on,” she insisted, grabbing both his hands and moving his arms, her infectious spirit finally thawing his sour mood. He relaxed, letting her lead but not until he’d shuffled around a little, turning them so he was facing Magnus’ direction. If he had to dance, he would make damn sure Magnus was in his sights at all times.

A few years before, Dot had danced in a show off Broadway which had been directed by a friend of a friend of Magnus’ mother. He had helped fund the project in her memory and had gone to the opening night to raise it’s profile. He didn’t remember speaking to Dot that evening as he’d chatted with all of the ensemble cast for hours at the after-party, but she definitely remembered speaking to him and it would seem that he’d told her about his own supremely brief stint as a dancer when he was in college. It had been far too long since he’d danced a step, but it had taken no time for muscle memory to kick in and the steps to come cascading back to him and as they danced, they talked about the theatre, what Dot was working on now and her plans for the future.

The theater had been his mother’s life and she had saved every penny of three jobs to afford the airfare to emigrate from her rural village in southern Sumatra to New York to attend The Juilliard School on a full scholarship. She had graduated with honours, began her career on stage and then met his father. He himself had arrived less than a year later, and a year after that his father was out of the picture.

She’d devoted herself to her young son and the stage and had left both an endearing legacy and a sizeable trust fund when she passed away in the summer of Magnus’ fifteenth year. His father had paid for boarding school and holiday care but had little to do with it himself and Magnus had enrolled himself into business school fully self-funded and hadn’t heard from his father in ten years.

That was where he met Camille, bright as a button but mean as a rattlesnake. He’d fallen in love; she’d found someone to co-sign their first property deal. It had been Camille obviously who had suggested he was better off focussing on growing their business rather than funding ‘pointless little plays’, and the Magnus who had been gas lit completely by her had made that production with Dot in the cast as his last. That’s how it began, one hotel then another and another and all thoughts of the theater and dancing were quickly pushed aside.

Theater and dancing, the things he’d loved as a boy and tried to hold on to in vain as Camille had pulled him deeper into the corporate world. He hadn’t seen it clearly then as he did now - the hotels were his business and he adored what he did, but delighting and entertaining people had been his mother’s passion as much as it was his, a passion he had let fall by the wayside until here, surrounded by people unknown to him just a day earlier but who he now felt would like to have in his life for good. He wanted his world to be about more than just money and power; he wanted something more.

As the music slowed, he felt a sudden overwhelming glow of affection for Dot, for and the long forgotten world which she inhabited, for his past and what could be his future and he gave her the hug he wished he could give Alec as they continued dance.

“Thank you Dot,” he smiled down at her, “You’ve reignited something in me that’s been forgotten for far too long.”

“Oh?” she smiled back, lightly tossing her hair over one shoulder. “A good something I hope?”

“Incredibly,” he spun her around and pulled her back in close, “I’ve been putting all my energy into my business for so long I’ve forgotten about me. What, and who I need in my life.”

On tiptoes she leant in and whispered into his ear, her lips ghosting his skin. “What could the CEO of The Bane Group possibly need that he doesn’t already have?”

“Someone to trust my heart to” he said quietly, barely audible over the music. A momentary pause, her breath light against his ear, then a sudden feeling of awkwardness washed over him. He loosened his hold around her shoulders and went to move away but her hand was soft on his face and she pulled him back in and kissed him.

Startled, he pulled back and let his arms fall to his side. She looked at him with wounded eyes, and shifted awkwardly on the spot.

“Dot, I’m so sorry. I can see how that sounded... You’ve a truly beautiful soul, and if things were different I’d be a lucky man to have you in my life... but I already have someone.”

I just need to tell him.

“Magnus, it’s OK. I just thought...” she looked away to hide her blushed cheeks. “Maybe one too many glasses of champagne, they make it so easy to get caught up in the moment and do something rash.”

He grinned, “You have no idea!”

A sudden movement caught his eye and across the room he saw Alec pushing his way through the swaying dancers towards the door, his sister calling after him. She looked quite confused as if she wanted to chase after him but was holding back purely because Alec’s body language screamed ‘leave me alone’.

“I think I should go check on Alexander, he just left looking slightly perturbed.”

She paused for a moment, as if to read the worried expression on his face like the open book that he currently was. It was with a sharp realisation, that all the pieces of this puzzle dropped into place. Magnus had said he already had someone, it was now blatantly clear who that someone was.

“Maybe he didn’t like me kissing you. He has been staring at us since we stood up to dance. He’s not especially subtle.”

“He has?” Magnus stared at the door where Alec had disappeared, his heart starting to thump in his chest. Had he completely misread this whole situation and overlooked the fact that Alec Lightwood hadn’t wanted to just be friends?

“I’m sorry Magnus, he said you weren’t together. If I’d have know I...”

“It’s OK, we’re not but...”

“You want to be. I get it.” She squeezed his arm warmly, “Go, go to him.”

“Alexander?”

Magnus had followed the staff’s directions that the man who had stormed out moments before had gone up to the roof terrace. He’d followed and was soon surrounded by the twinkling lights and air conditioning units of a hundred other rooftops of Manhattan. Alec was standing off to one side, staring uptown towards the Chrysler building.

“I can’t do this any more.” He didn’t turn around, not even when Magnus walked slowly towards him. “I’m going to take you up on that offer of an apartment. I can go tonight, can you make that happen?”

“Alec, is this about Dot?”

He turned around and captured Magnus in his gentle, hazel-eyed gaze. “I don’t want to get in the way any more. Your home should be your own to enjoy in peace, I’m just intruding.” He went to leave but Magnus stopped him with a raised hand.

It was such a loaded statement. He clearly meant Dot; obviously assuming Magnus would be taking her home, to his bedroom. He couldn’t let Alec continue to tie himself in knots like this; it wasn’t fair on either of them.

“You’re really not, honestly. Can you just wait a moment, please? Let me explain.”

Magnus stood his ground, making sure he kept Alec from pushing past him and disappearing back into the venue. However uncomfortable this was going to be, they needed to talk, that was clear. “Alexander,” he took a deep breath. “I lied to you.”

“You lied?”

“I said I wanted to be friends. I don’t.”

“You don’t.”

“I don’t. I like you too much for that. The last month... I was scared to admit my growing feelings for you... I’ve been hurt so many times before that I...”

And just like that, Alec’s world ended and restarted in a heartbeat. Reshaped and shifted by Magnus in a few words. He reminded himself to breathe and scooped Magnus’ lapels up in his hands and kissed him firmly on the lips. Five seconds passed, ten, then twenty and still they didn’t part. He hadn’t remembered kissing Magnus the first time, but it was quickly becoming clear to him how a drunken and inhibition-less Alec would have been overcome with something that made him propose.

They finally broke apart just enough to breathe, foreheads still resting together, noses touching.

“I don’t want to be friends either,” he murmured. “Since the moment I saw you at the roulette table, I was so gone for you.”

As they kissed again, the quietest, smallest voice deep down inside Magnus whispered insistently to him.

This is your husband.

Chapter Text

Alec sipped his coffee, watching the distant aeroplanes circling around to land at La Guardia airport. He would miss this view, this balcony, this incredible Indonesian coffee that Magnus had said came from a coffee plantation close to his maternal grandparents’ home that he had invested in when he had made his first million. He would miss it all, but not as much as he would miss the sweet kisses and soft caresses that came with the coffee. It all felt so surreal still: he would live his regular life, go to work, go to the shelter, meet his sister for lunch, talk to his newly-wed brother and then he would take a train and cross a street and be welcomed into the building by a smartly uniformed doorman and whisked up to the penthouse in a private elevator where often Magnus would be reading, or cooking, or sleeping if he’d worked nights. He would be greeted with that brilliant crinkle-eyed smile and kisses that sometimes lead nowhere and sometimes lead to the bedroom but always came with a genuine flush of happiness between them both.  

They hadn’t done anything more than touch and kiss and explore each others bodies with lips and fingertips and Alec had been pleasantly surprised at his own willpower to ‘take things slow’ as Magnus had requested. He knew there was still trepidation only just underneath the surface for Magnus, the ‘messy breakup’ that Elias the driver had mentioned always seemed to halt any intimate moment from becoming something more. Alec wanted more; he wanted everything.  

Whilst they had talked about their families, their work, their hopes and dreams for the future, the matter of ‘the money’ and ‘the divorce’ had not come up. Alec felt a tiny twinge of pain whenever he thought about the ninety days coming to a close that he couldn’t identify. A good veterinarian was well trained to analyse symptoms and diagnose underlying problems in patients who couldn’t explain it themselves but now he was the one unable to explain. It wasn’t about moving out – he felt quite ready to return to his own space, and it wasn’t about the impending legal process as logically they should never have gotten married in the first place. 

It was… did it mean… were they breaking up?  

“But that’s just stupid…” he told himself. Married, yes but boyfriends ? He had no idea. 

“What’s stupid, Alexander?” Magnus swept up behind him in a delicious scented haze of cologne and hair wax. “Anything coming from your pretty head is unlikely to be stupid in any way.”  

His lips found Alec’s cheek and after the gentlest of pecks, Alec instinctively turned around to meet Magnus’ mouth with his own, the kiss quickly dissolving into a smile. 

“You’re too kind,” he grinned, “I assure you I’m quite capable at having really stupid ideas.” 

“Like marrying a drunk hooker you met in a casino?” 

Alec didn’t know what to say. He wanted to scream No! You’re not a mistake!! He wanted to tell him just how ridiculously happy he felt every morning he woke up knowing he would be in the arms of Magnus Bane at one point during the day. But how could he say that? A billionaire and a just-about-making-do veterinarian. They just wouldn’t work as a couple. 

“I’ve probably made worse decisions…” he smirked, aiming for a touch of sarcasm to blur the edges of what he was really feeling. He set his coffee down and gathered Magnus into his arms, his twenty-dollar Target T-shirt at stark odds to the bespoke tailored suit that Magnus was wearing. “Did I ever tell you, you look great in a suit?” 

“I do, don’t I?” Magnus preened, hooking his hands up around Alec’s neck and losing his fingertips in the soft curls at his neck that really were long overdue a visit to a barber. 

Alec stared deep into his dark eyes and felt a sudden rush of something unexpected. 

“I’ll miss you.” 

“The business trip? It’s only two days Alexander, then I’ll be right back here for you to do with as you please.” 

He didn’t correct him. It wasn’t the two days trip that he was thinking about, it was the lifetime that was going to follow the previous, best ninety days of his life. 

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

It wasn’t often that Alec had to bring his work home, and he had hoped against hope that nothing would happen whilst he was obliged to stay at Magnus’ place but he couldn’t find an alternative carer who could take the tiny kitten that had been handed in at the shelter that evening. Dehydrated, cold and very hungry he took it home to keep a close eye on the drip in it’s tiny foreleg and feed it mushy food every few hours. It was so young and harmless and Alec couldn’t really see an issue with him caring for it at the loft – it wasn’t about to take over the space anytime soon! 

His morning had started at five so by seven that evening he was napping on the sofa, the kitten asleep next to him in his crate. A sharp knock on the door, followed by the rattle of the handle woke him with a start. Magnus rarely had visitors – never in fact, only Raphael and he would let himself in soundlessly and appear like some kind of supernatural apparition. The knocking continued, turning more into a banging fist and then a voice.  

“Open this damn door! I know you’re in there!” 

A woman.  

Alec rubbed the sleep from his eyes and glanced down at the kitten who was still fast asleep. 

“I’m glad none of this is bothering you...” he grumbled, stumbling over to the door.  

The woman standing in the hallway only stood as tall as his shoulder but her glare was fierce enough to make him take a step back into the apartment and as the door was now open, she followed. 

“So, you’re the one trying to steal my man and my money!” 

“I... what? Your man? Who the hell are you?” 

She swept past him and dumped her bag almost on top of the kitten’s crate before pouring herself a straight vodka from Magnus’ drink cart.  

“Camille Belcourt, Magnus’ wife.” She downed the vodka in one mouthful and stared at him defiantly, a smirk on her perfect red lips. “Ugh, no ice. I can see he has definitely lowered his standards.”  

“His wife?” Alec could feel his rarely aroused temper start to rumble; this woman was setting his nerves on edge. Maybe it was the disrespect for his patient’s personal feline space or the sneer she was giving him as she blatantly sized him up. “Don’t you mean ex -wife?” 

“Technically yes,” she perched on the arm of the sofa. “But you should know,” she purred, “Magnus still loves me. It just takes him time to forgive and forget. But he will.” 

He glared hard at her on the kitten’s behalf, and also, he hoped, Magnus’. He had never said that he didn’t like her, no one really had. She was the spectre in his life that seemed to exist in some dark realm on the periphery of his past - never discussed, barely mentioned, and now she was here.  

“Look,” he walked quickly over to her and shoved her bag away with his foot, crouching down to check on his patient who had been rudely awakened. “I don’t know about any money. Magnus’ private affairs are just that – private. We’re just friends.”  

It was close to painful for Alec to say those words but although he knew next to nothing about this woman, he could tell instinctively that he shouldn’t give anything away. 

“Friends, right. Whatever.” She stood up, her head barely meeting Alec’s shoulder and poked one immaculately manicured finger in his chest. “Get this stupid marriage annulled. He’s already giving away too much of our money to all the other charity cases he had one night stands with and had to pay off to appease his own guilt or whatever it is. I’m not having an ex-husband loitering in the wings wanting a slice of my pretty little pie susu.” 

Alec was about to retaliate when he was interrupted by a plaintive little meow from the kitten, keen for some attention. He knelt down and opened the crate door, stroking the little face that rubbed incessantly against his knuckles.  

“I’ll do whatever Magnus wants me to do,” he said quietly, focussing his attention on the little cat. “I trust his lawyers to do what’s best for him.” 

“Santiago?” she scoffed, “Another one of Magnus’ charity cases. Always throwing himself and our money at every stray he finds.”  

She scooped up her bag and swung it over her shoulder before lightly kicking the kitten’s crate. “He always wanted one of these ugly things as well. Strays, he just can’t help himself.” 

Alec could barely contain his anger, working his jaw in silence as he pushed down every rude and obnoxious thought that popped up in his mind. Getting into a fight with Camille and shoving that handbag down her throat would make him feel better in the moment but probably wouldn’t serve him in the long run.  

The door swung open with a bang and Raphael stood in the doorway looking positively livid. His voice a dangerous low growl, he pressed out his words through tightly clenched jaws. 

“Get out, Belcourt. You are in breach of your own restraining order. You’ve got five seconds before I call the cops.” 

“The restraining order is against Magnus,” she turned to Alec as if doing him a favour, “To stop him fawning after me like a lost pup. And my dearest Raphael,” she turned back to face him after happily acknowledging Alec’s slight grimace, “Magnus as you well know, is not here.” 

“Four... Three...” Raphael took his phone out, tapping in 9-1-1.  

She smiled at Alec again and it was the look a snake might give it’s prey before lunging in for the kill. “Remember what I said, Dr Doolittle,  annulment! You don’t want to get on my bad side, I bite!” 

“Out!!” Raphael hissed at her, jostling her out with the heavy black door and slamming it shut once she had gone. He turned to Alec.  

“Whatever she said, do not believe a word of it. She is a pathological liar and an utter bitch. What Magnus ever saw in her...” 

“How did you know she was here?” Alec continued to fuss the kitten, not knowing where he stood any more. Did Magnus still love that woman? Was she lying? Should he demand an annulment rather than a divorce? What about that threat she had just left there hanging over him? 

“Security called me. Saw her on the camera charming her way past the new doorman. She has a restraining order. These things go both ways, you know.” 

“She said he still loves her,” he said, his voice suddenly sounding much more vulnerable than he expected. “Always would.” 

“Unlikely. Look, Magnus and Camille – it was passionate, a fire that burned too hot too quickly. He did love her, but she used him from the very beginning. When they split, she took the money she was awarded and went into partnership with some equally rich Russians and started her own rival hospitality business. She just can’t bear him to have anything without her shadow tainting it. She’s obsessed with him but tries to make out that it’s the other way around. She meddles in all his relationships, all his business dealings. She’s always there but he just can’t seem to bring himself to cut her off completely. He vowed he would never fall in love and get married again and give her the satisfaction of seeing his heart break once more when she inevitably chased away his new wife,” he nodded towards Alec, “Or husband.” 

Happy that the kitten was settled once more, Alec closed the crate and checked on the hydration bag slowly filtering through the drip. It was a lot of information, more than Magnus had ever offered himself and it did nothing to help Alec feel any more certain of the role he was playing in Magnus’ life.  

“I guess some vows are easily broken after a bottle of whiskey.”  

Raphael looked at him curiously, “He told you already?”  

“Told me what? I meant the marriage. What do you mean?” 

He thought back to the message exchange he had shared with Magnus just that morning. 

>>>I don’t want him to leave Raphael, could we start drawing up a post-nup, something that protects us both?  

>>>What are you saying Magnus?  

>>>I’m falling in love. I don’t want to lose him.  

“Nothing. Yeah just that. Seriously, don’t let Camille get inside your head because she will, she is an expert at it!” 

Raphael opened the door again which miraculously hadn’t dropped off its hinges after the force of his slam. “Oh, and the cat...” 

“He’ll be gone before Magnus is back. Don’t tell him please? We never talked about animals in the loft...” 

“Well... I just hope that cat doesn’t have an owner,” he smiled, “I doubt Magnus will want it to leave.” 

Any more than he wants you to.  

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ 

Magnus hadn’t intended on taking a red-eye flight back to New York that night but then again he hadn’t intended for Alec to ever meet his ex-wife. He stood in the hallway outside his own door, momentarily gathering his thoughts. 

He didn’t know why he was so apprehensive, Raphael had said she’d only been there for a matter of minutes – just how much damage could she have done in such a short time? Would Alec even still be there? What if she had somehow driven him away with her lies and total contempt for him? Camille had made it her absolute responsibility to drive a wedge between him and anyone he even remotely liked, uncovering even the faintest trace of scandal and threatening to ruin careers or livelihoods. In every case Magnus had been so embarrassed by her behaviour that he had indeed given away generous sums of money to try to make amends and to avoid a drawn out court case that would dredge up all the heartbreaking details of his divorce yet again. He tentatively opened the door.  

The lamps by the sitting area were dimmed, and there was an equally feint light coming from Alec’s open bedroom door. Magnus closed the door softly behind him and took his jacket off, draping it over the upright handle of his small travel case.  

“Alexander?” he said softly, slowly walking further into the room. He didn’t know why he felt so nervous – this was his home, he had every right to be there but somehow he felt as if he were intruding. The coffee table had been pushed aside and in its place was a large wire crate that looked sterile and out of place in Magnus’ tastefully decorated loft. As he approached he noticed the door was open, and there was a small dark blue animal bed and a litter box and what looked like a small fluids bag, like you would see in a hospital. There was no sign of either the crate’s occupant or Alec; he turned to the open bedroom door. 

“Alexander?” 

Curled up on Alec’s bed was a small colour point kitten, white with orange-brown tipped ears and feet with a blue bandage wrapped around one foreleg. Fast asleep next to it was Alec, himself curled up with both knees tucked in to his stomach and the ends of his pyjama bottoms riding up over his calves. He was shirtless, a sleepy mess of dishevelled dark hair and pale skin dotted with the odd freckle here and there. One arm was tucked neatly under his head and the other stretched out towards the cat. His mouth was slightly open to allow the softest of snores out and he probably hadn’t shaved in two days. 

He was beautiful; soft yet raw and real and nothing like any of the superficial people Magnus usually allowed into his life. He was wholly captivated and knew that listening to his heart was the only viable option. He didn’t want Alec to move out. He didn’t want to get divorced. He didn’t want to betray the feelings that had blossomed inside him. 

Magnus backed out of the room and crept into the living space to fetch the crate. No kitten under his roof would have to walk further than necessary to use the litter box! He placed the crate just inside Alec’s bedroom door and was about to leave when the kitten stirred and stretched out to his full length next to Alec’s forearm. Powerless to resist, Magnus tiptoed over to the bed to stroke the fluffy belly presented to him. 

“You are adorable...” he whispered, delighted to feel the kitten start to purr under his fingertips. 

“No one’s ever said that to me before...” Alec mumbled, sleepily opening his eyes. “You like cats?” 

“I love cats,” Magnus confirmed. “Is it OK to pick him up?” 

Alec nodded, still half asleep. He wasn’t quite ready to wake up fully yet just in case this was a dream. Magnus wasn’t due back until the following day, yet here he was, scooping the kitten up and kissing its little head. With the kitten returned to its crate, Magnus turned back towards the bed.  

“Raphael told me you had a visitor.” 

Alec sighed and stretched himself out long and lean, not unlike the kitten moments before. Dammit, it wasn’t a dream; he wouldn’t have allowed any mention of that snooty woman into his subconscious. He sat up and crossed his legs. 

“Yes, Ms Belcourt . Came to warn me off ‘her man and her money’,” he pulled at the bottom of his pyjama pants where the hem had frayed. “She introduced herself as your wife. Are you two still...?” 

“Oh god no, absolutely not!” Magnus took a step towards Alec, “May I sit down?” 

He nodded, “Sure.” 

Magnus perched himself on the edge of the bed, and loosened the top two buttons of his shirt. The thin rose gold chain he was wearing underneath glinted through the gap and almost instinctively Alec reached out to touch it. The brief gesture of tenderness calmed Magnus somewhat, Camille apparently hadn’t done that much damage. 

“I used to eat out every night - restaurant openings, influencer events, business meals. Alexander, I have rarely dated in the last year or so and the people I did meet I never brought home. I might not spend that much time here, but this is still my safe space. I haven’t spent as much time here at home in the past ten years as I have since you moved in. I rarely stay here in the loft for more than a few days at a time before I’m elsewhere in the world, but since I met you I’ve not wanted to be anywhere else.” 

He tentatively slid his fingers into Alec’s. “I really really wanted to keep her away from you. I felt something so strongly for you and wanted to get to know you on my terms, just the two of us. Like normal people. So I turned down everything and laid low...” 

“Low? Magnus, we’ve been out for dinner more times in the past three months that I would normally go in a year!” 

“OK, comparatively low. Places she absolutely wouldn’t be seen dead. All the places I used to love when I was younger. Places where we could talk and relax away from sneaky paparazzi and prying eyes.” Magnus lifted Alec’s fingers to his lips and kissed them gently. “I wanted you all to myself.” 

Alec’s butterflies stretched their wings and fluttered to life in his gut. Magnus’ words dripping like golden nectar in his ears and nourishing them into activity. A smile cracked at the corner of his lips and he found himself looking away, suddenly embarrassed at the intimacy of the split second moment. 

“Why is she still so interested in your life?” he said quietly, feeling that this was the best opportunity he would have to encourage Magnus to willingly talk about his past. “She’s your ex, why does she care so much?” 

“She’s always said that I owe her for getting me into the hospitality business. Took the credit for everything we built together and pretty much for everything I did after we split. She said I would never have made it without her...” he tapped his finger against his temple, with a rolled eye and a smirk. “She’s deluded, obviously.” 

“What about the others?” 

“Others?” 

“She said you paid off your other ex’s.” 

Magnus rolled his eyes again. “Ahh, yes. Making me out to be some kind of frivolous, coldhearted playboy again. She has used this one so many times before.” He turned to face Alec, pulling his legs up underneath himself to kneel on the bed. “I had to Alexander,” he said gravely. “The people I mostly become close to are in the public eye and they certainly didn’t deserve her threats and vitriol. She would have her lawyers dig up even an unpaid parking fine and blow it way out of proportion, threatening to go to the media every damn time. Threatening to ruin reputations, careers, anything she could to keep me single. I just felt so bad that I’d put people through that...” He looked down at his hands, wrung tightly on his lap. “I was embarrassed, truth be told. CEO of an international hotel chain yet unable to keep his ex-wife out of his personal life. Pathetic.” 

 “I met her for five minutes, Magnus. She seemed like an absolute nightmare.” He leant forwards and wrapped his hands around Magnus’. “She was mean to the kitten too. Awful woman.” 

“Terrible,” Magnus found a smile. “The absolute worst. No idea what I saw in her.” 

They sat in a comfortable silence, Alec winding his fingers around Magnus’, feeling the cold steel and silver of his jewelry comfortingly familiar against his fingertips. He leant forwards just enough to be able to run his hands deliberately up and down his firm arms, crinkling the expensive shirt fabric under his palms. Magnus seemed lost in thought, his eyes closed as Alec’s fingers found their way up over his shoulders, cupping his face gently. He opened his eyes and nothing, not even the golden contact lenses he’d worn that night in the casino, could compare to the dazzling brilliance of the depths of Magnus’ dark irises.  

Alec caught his breath. God this man is incredible.  

“Can I kiss you?” he murmured, ready to drown his senses in all things Magnus. His answer came in the shape of Magnus grasping a firm hold of his shoulders and pulling them both down onto the bed, Alec on top, lips firmly pressed together. He shifted his weight to a more comfortable straddle and as their kisses deepened, both of their bodies responding with the heat and firmness of arousal. Magnus’ hands found their way under the waistband of his pyjama pants, his fingers digging in to the curve of Alec’s butt and pulling him even closer. He broke the kiss with a frustrated sigh. 

“I want you,” Magnus lifted his hips up to press harder against Alec’s body to reiterate his point. “I want you, us, this.” 

Alec paused, wanting to be absolutely sure that he hadn’t inadvertently pressured Magnus into this in some way. He propped himself up to put space between them and held Magnus’ gaze, his heartbeat loud in his ears. “You’re sure?”  

“Completely.”   

Their clothes discarded in a heap on the floor and the sweet scent of vanilla hung in the air from the slippery gel Magnus had dribbled generously over himself, Alec’s soft huffs of breath and moans of pleasure as he let Magnus push inside him filled the room. Their kisses unending, lips staying connected as they moved slowly together; fingertips against heated skin, hair, hard flesh. Breaths mingling, Magnus’s coming faster now and more ragged as Alec brought him closer to the edge of pleasure. Sweat beaded his chest, his fists lost in crumpled bedsheets. Muscles tensing, curled toes and then and Alec’s name tumbling from his kiss swollen lips.  

Magnus’ release was more than Alec could endure. The body beneath him that moments before had been coiled tight now surrendered in the soft afterglow of bliss clawed his heart wide open and laid it out for the taking. The height of his pleasure reached, pinpricks of white light at the edges of his vision as he screwed his eyes tightly shut and gave himself over to the inevitable.  

His breaths mingled with Magnus’ name and the bliss evident on his face he stopped moving, just feeling Magnus inside him. And in those seconds that felt like hours, time stopped to allow Alec to fully acknowledge that he had completely fallen in love with Magnus Bane. 

Chapter Text

“You’re very cheerful lately.” Andrew turned his chair around from the desk he was working at to watch Alec as he went about checking on all of their current inpatients. He was humming softly to himself and for once not complaining about poorly written notes or minor lapses in procedure as he would normally. For Alec Lightwood, it was a very uncharacteristically good mood.

“I guess," Alec was checking in on the kitten that he had taken back to Magnus' loft. Magnus had informed him that once the kitten (whose new name he insisted should be Chairman Meow) was fully recovered, he had to bring it home for good. In Alec's mind, he was decided that he would be accompanying the kitten. The thought made him grin. "Got a lot to be happy about.”

“Oh?” Andrew crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at his longtime business partner. “Happy to be coming home tomorrow?”

“Well, actually no...” Alec stopped what he was doing and turned to face his friend. “I’m kinda thinking that I might... stay...”

“Stay?” he said, unable to contain the note of surprise in his voice - this was the direct opposite of what he had expected.

Alec hadn’t shared too many details about his time with Magnus other than conceding that the apartment was beautiful and he could order takeout as much as he chose on Magnus’ bottomless delivery accounts. He hadn’t told Andrew about the dates, the dinners they’d shared taking apart everything from politics to ‘were Ross and Rachel really on a break?’ He hadn’t told him about the good morning and good night kisses. He hadn’t told him about the moments of such intensity when being so close to Magnus made him feel like his heart would crash right through his chest. How he felt when Magnus touched him, or when he felt Magnus tense with pleasure under his own lips. He hadn’t told Andrew any of that, but it was there, so obviously there for anyone to see if they paused for a moment to look.

Andrew stood up and grabbed the other vet by the shoulders, pure excitement twinkling in his eyes. “You’ve slept with him, haven’t you?! Alec, are you dating Magnus Bane?”

Keeping a straight face and denying the truth was beyond Alec and the grin that broke his usually scowl was broad and sparkling as he nodded emphatically.

“Yes, for a few weeks. After Jace’s wedding actually. He’s just... I love him Drew. He’s incredible.”

“And he... feels the same way?”

No answer. At the hesitation in replying Andrew let his grip on Alec’s shoulders that might have turned into a full blown hug given a more firm ‘yes’ from his partner loosen.

Finally he conceded, “I don’t know, I think so? He... we...” he tumbled over the words, not knowing how to admit that he had no solid evidence on which to base his assumption other having blissfully woken up that morning in bed with Magnus curled up beside him and the sweet memories of the night before still very fresh in his mind. Andrew questioning him could just be the start. What then? His mother? Magnus’ friends? The tabloid press?! His overthinking threatening to spiral, he shrugged himself completely free of Andrew’s hands and defiantly crossed his arms.

“Aren’t you pleased for me?”

Having known Alec for so long, Andrew knew that tone of voice and that posture far too well. His friend was about to close off and not mention Magnus any more and that certainly wasn’t what he wanted.

“Yes! Of course I am! It’s just... Really unexpected.” He finished what he had started and pulled Alec into an awkward hug, “I mean though... wow! Magnus Bane! And you’re moving in with him!”

Alec nodded, finally yielding to his friend’s arms and hugging him back, happy that his oldest friend’s initial concern seemed to be evaporating.

“Not wanting to make this about me,” Andrew took his spot leaning against the desk again. “But are you going to keep working? What about when he’s not living in New York? Are you going to travel with him or stay here or..?”

“Andrew, relax. It’s all very new.” Alec turned his attention back to the overnight-ing animals in their hospital crates. He felt a little more comfortable with Andrew not being able to see his expression for the rest of that sentence as he knew just how tentative the whole ‘moving in permanently’ situation was. “We haven’t really talked about the future yet,” he said airily, trying to keep the note of anxiety out of his voice that he knew was itching to break through. “We’re just enjoying being together.”

“But he asked you to move in? That’s great ..” Andrew hesitated at Alec’s slightly awkward demeanour. Something wasn’t quite right. “He has asked you to move in?”

“Well, no not exactly but I’m pretty sure he will.” He turned around to face his friend and could feel the flush of embarrassment starting to tease at the neckline of his scrubs.

“Alec...”

“It’s all good Drew, I can feel it. Everything just feels right.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“Everything just... it just feels right Cat. He hasn’t packed any of his clothes and hasn’t mentioned anything about leaving. The ninety days is up today... I’m loathe to admit it, but you were right. He is good for me and I have completely and wholly fallen for him. Cat, I’m going to ask him to stay.”

Phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, Magnus paced up and down, his body bursting with far too much nervous energy for sitting still. He’d decided that morning when he’d woken up in Alec’s bed, smothered in the scent and warmth of sleeping Lightwood snuggled tightly against his back that he didn’t want to say goodbye.

“Magnus!” He could hear her clap her hands in delight, “I am so happy for you! You know, I just had this sixth sense that you two were made for each other.”

More silence, sufficiently long enough to make Magnus want to fill it with something irreverent; Cat truly had known exactly what he had needed better than he had himself. Finally she broke the silence, her voice now calm and soft.

“You know Magnus... you’re still going to have to attend court...”

“I know, Caterina. I’ve thought about nothing else since our first kiss, I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, you don’t have to get divorced.”

“That is the problem,” he laughed, leaning against the doorframe. “There’s a part of me that wants to roll about laughing at the absurdity of staying married to a man I’ve known literally for three months.”

“But?”

“But there’s a bigger louder more obnoxious part of me that wants to holler from the rooftops that Alexander Gideon Lightwood is my husband and I love him!”

The sudden sound of raised voices growing louder in the corridor sent an immediate, reflexive shudder of ice-cold adrenaline surging through his body. Growing louder, getting closer, he recognised them both. One was the doorman, the other...

His own voice now quiet and bristling with anger, he managed to press out his final words to Caterina through tightly gritted teeth.

“Cat, I will call you back. It seems I have a visitor.”

He flung the door open with a crash before she could bang, or rattle the handles or do anything other than flinch in surprise at the unexpectedly loud noise.

“What the hell do you want, Camille?” he growled, standing broadly across the open doorway blocking her way. He knew she would just push past, she always did, but he was going to make it as difficult for her as he could.

The doorman who had obviously ran up the stairs whilst she’d taken the elevator was breathing heavily, huffing out his apology whilst trying to regain his composure. “I’m so sorry Sir, I tried to stop her. I’ve called security but...”

“She’s an insufferable bitch who refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer, aren’t you?” Magnus smiled sourly at Camille; she held his glare and returned it firmly.

“There’s no need for security, I’m a welcome guest, aren’t I Magnus darling?” she purred, “You wouldn’t throw me out, would you?”

Every fibre of his being wanted to do nothing more than wait the few moments for security to arrive and see her hopefully dragged down the hallway, kicking and screaming if he was lucky. But he found himself standing aside and calling off assistance and closing the door once she was inside.

He turned around, his back firmly against the door to ground him. He could feel the first drops of sweat anxiously forming between his shoulder blades – why did she have this affect on him still? Business meetings with millions of dollars at stake were nothing compared to Camille Belcourt and the power he still let her wield over him. His mind desperately scrambled around trying to find any other reason for her being there than Alec, but in vain. She’d already tried to get her claws into him indirectly, there could be no question that she was going to try and ruin things directly this time and Magnus was just that tiny bit afraid that he would let her.

“So, mister ‘I’m never getting married again’ has gotten married again! How lovely. And to a man too! How very woke of you.”

The first knife cut – an attack on his sexuality; he grimaced knowing worse would likely come.

“What do you want?” he gripped the door handle behind him, fighting the urge to argue that recognition of his bisexuality was not woke, just an irrefutable fact. She turned away and started to walk towards the french doors to the balcony. They were closed: Magnus preyed he could momentarily be bestowed with magical powers to throw them open and launch her out into the Brooklyn sky. But alas, no.

She opened them herself and stepped out on to the balcony.

“Do you remember all the times we made love out here?”

“I try not to,” he said, following her but staying inside the safety of the loft. “I try to not think about you at all.”

“And how is that going for you, Magnus my sweet?” She smiled, picking up one of the books – Alec’s books – from the coffee table. “'All Creatures Great And Small'? I suppose that this is your little hubby’s isn’t it? How quaint.” She dropped the book back on the table where it hit at it’s corner and fell to the floor, pages splayed open. He tried to ignore it.

“Magnus, you can’t be married to him. What about us my darling? What about our future?”

She walked slowly towards him, the lioness stalking its prey. She traced a line down his cheek with her finger; her hands were cold. Her eyes seemed to bore a hollow right into his soul. He loathed that he still let her get to him.

“I’m the only one who truly understands you Magnus. I was the one there for you when you were odd-jobbing at theatres to make rent money in college and I am the only one still by your side now when you have everything you could possibly want. What you have, we built it together. All of this animosity about your business and my business... we are better working with each other, not against.” She was right there now, right in front of him close enough that he could smell the expensive lotion she used on her skin. “Just you and me against the world Magnus. You know it makes sense.”

She pressed her lips against his but he was a statue, unmoving. He didn’t want this, didn’t want her anywhere near him. He wanted Alec and only Alec. He stepped back; the biggest step of his life.

“No Camille, nothing about us ever made sense. We were young and I was stupid to listen to you. All you ever wanted was someone to be your punching bag, your scapegoat. I don’t want to be with you.” He took a deep breath and said something he’d longed to say to her for years, that the image of Alec burning brightly in his mind’s eye spurred him on to get out. “You are so bad for me. I’m glad we got divorced.”

She stepped away, her brows twisted in clear frustration at his reaction, or lack thereof. Momentarily the dangerous smile returned and there was an evil glint in her eye as she shifted her attack up a notch.

“Alexander Gideon Lightwood... What a very normal, boring man he is.”

Hearing his name from her lips made his blood run cold like ice through his veins.

“He’s far too vanilla for you Magnus. Nothing of any interest to report – apart for one unofficial caution for marijuana possession in High School. Quite the little goody-goody. But his family? Now that’s a different story. Dr Lightwood seems to have more interest in his secretary than his patients. Wouldn’t it be awful if something were to be leaked to the media? What if it got misconstrued into a possible malpractice suit? Would be awful if that got into the news, he’s really quite well-known in New York... I’m sure it would ruin his and the family’s reputations.”

She wouldn’t, would she?

Of course she would.

Pushing down the sensation of nauseau that threatened the moment his plan was formed in his mind, he took a deep breath to still his nerves. The feeling was visceral, an immediate tug in his guts that demanded action. He would not have her threatening Alec or his family, he needed her off the scent of any Lightwood ‘dirt’; he needed her out of the loft, then out of his life for good. In that moment he could think of nothing better. 

“Alec Lightwood...” he began slowly, pacing himself to ensure his words had some semblance of truth. He couldn’t say ‘Alexander’, there was no way his voice wouldn’t have betrayed him. “Alec Lightwood is just some loser guy that I accidentally married when I was blind drunk. Cat bet me one dollar that I couldn’t put up with him for ninety days and you know how I can’t turn down a wager...”

He was dying inside. Talking about Alec like that, denying him, was simply awful. He thought about Alec’s smile, his laugh when he was telling a funny story, his compassionate smile or concern when he took a call from the veterinary surgery. He thought about his soft hair and the feel of his lips against Magnus’ skin, both soft and welcoming but sometimes heated with passion. God dammit! He needed this over with now and Camille gone. He needed to get Raphael to file a water tight restraining order against Camille to keep her away from them both and he needed Alec in his arms right where he belonged.

He rolled his eyes theatrically whilst inside he was screaming.

“Seriously Camille, I can’t believe you’d think for a minute I was actually into him? Please... he’s a nobody!”

Alec stumbled back from the door, his heart in his throat and the blood rushing loudly in his ears.

Just some loser guy.

Loser guy.

Loser.

He barely felt the door of the opposite loft hit knock against his back, stopping his retreat as he stumbled across the corridor. The lightness he’d floated back to Brooklyn with that afternoon, absolutely convinced that this was the start of his and Magnus’ shared future, had dropped into a desperately heavy shackle around his body, a dead weight pooled in his gut. He slumped against the door, Magnus had been pretending all along! It was nothing more than a bet! Just rich and powerful people taking advantage of a nobody like him and having a bit of fun at his expense.

His vision swam as he staggered towards the elevator, fumbling for the call button. He had to get out of there, he had to get home.

“Elias,” he croaked to the concierge in the lobby, “Can Elias drive me somewhere?”

Only once in the cool dark solitary safety of Elias’ limousine did he relax. As they drove away from Magnus’ building, Elias adjusted his mirror to look back at Alec.

“Everything OK Mr Lightwood?”

“Yeah,” he said glumly, the tone at complete odds to the words. “Everything’s fine. My ninety days are up though,” he turned to look out of the rear window, the bright sky looked dark and ominous through the tinted glass. “I don’t have any reason to stay.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

With pleasure.

Raphael had been more than happy to add another task to his workload, relieved that Magnus had finally seen sense and decided to cut Camille out of his life for good. The legalities for Magnus and Alec to stay married were almost finalised, the outline sitting in Magnus’ inbox ready for him to read.

The meeting with Camille had of course turned nasty, raised voices and accusations and both of them dredging up events from their past and going over bitter old, well walked ground. He had eventually kicked her out with the stinging promise of his lawyers contacting her. She’d laughed it off as a baseless threat which had infuriated Magnus even more. Camille had never believed he could accomplish anything without her guidance, and her opinion of him hadn’t changed.

He had returned to the balcony with a glass of his favourite white wine, his thoughts fully on Alec. He’d messaged him as soon as Camille had left hoping to make plans for that evening but still, hours later and it remained scathingly marked as read but not replied to. It shouldn’t have bothered Magnus as much as it did, he was mature enough to know that people had lives and were unlikely to be attached to their phones twenty-four-seven, but in the time they’d been together Alec had never not replied as soon as he’d seen a message; something was different and it was feeding the already uncomfortable feeling that Camille had left him with and was growing it into something much more potent and quite sour.

He was roused from his thoughts by a notification on his phone from Finger Snap to say they had arrived, accompanied by a brisk knock - the familiar clipped rat-tat-a-tat delivered like morse code.

Confused, Magnus left his half drank wine and went inside to answer the door. He hadn’t requested anything, wasn’t expecting a car and wasn’t scheduled any deliveries. He opened the door to the young woman in the smart burgundy uniform of the concierge service.

“Hello Sir, I’m here to collect Mr Lightwood’s personal effects.”

“What?” Magnus’ brows knitted together in further confusion. “His personal effects? Why? On who’s authority?”

It was her turn to be confused now, “On Mr Lightwood’s. He asked for his things to be brought to our office and held for him to pick up.”

“What?!” Hands shaking, Magnus opened his phone again and typed out another message.

>>>You’re moving out? Alexander, we need to talk.

He watched it for a moment to see if Alec would read it but its status didn’t change - not just unread but this time undelivered. Where could Alec be that he wasn’t even getting messages? His phone was never switched off because of his work, surely he hadn’t blocked his number?

“Look, I have no idea what is going on. Get me a car, do you have his address?”

“No Sir, I’m sorry, he never registered his home address with us.”

“Dammit... I have no idea where he lives!? Can you find out somehow? Surely Raphael must know? He knows everything about everyone.”

She nodded and started to tap out a message into her phone. Almost immediately a response popped up underneath. “Actually, Elias drove him home earlier today Sir. Maybe he remembers the address.”

Absolute relief washed over him, he would go to Alec’s apartment and make sure that the things he needed to say were said. He had no desire to get divorced, he wanted Alec Lightwood in his life for the next ninety-years, not just ninety-days. He almost kissed her in happiness but then his brain replayed what she’d said and something suddenly felt off.

“Drove him? From where? From here? When was he here? I’ve been in all day?”

She wrote another message; another quick reply.

“He was here this afternoon, he arrived shortly after Ms Belcourt but left almost immediately.”

Turning her phone screen towards him, she showed him a screenshot from the security camera outside Magnus’ door. Alec standing right outside the door... listening.

The relief Magnus had felt just moments before drained away along with the colour in his cheeks as realisation suddenly hit him like the opening of a dam; he was drowning in it, overcome with the power of it as it cascaded over him and threatened to knock him off his feed.

Alec must have overheard what he said to Camille and thought it was true.