Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It could never be said that Alexander Lightwood wasn’t good at being changeable. Was he adaptable? No. Go with the flow? Absolutely not. Capable of rationalizing other people’s decisions outside of his own strict moral code? That one he thought he could do, despite what Izzy had yelled at him after he’d first heard of what mundanes referred to as the Puppy Bowl.

What appeal people saw in making innocent, orphan dogs fight each other on screen he’d never know, and he’d turned away from the tv ad that’d caught his eye through the store window in sheer horror too soon to really find out.

Izzy had never let that one go, but he didn’t see what would’ve been so bad about him confronting the obviously complicit store clerk inside. Coincidentally, it has also been the last time Jace had been able to convince him he didn’t have to always be the “Sober Person Who Makes Sure Jace Doesn’t Make Bad Choices”. He’d been way too willing to enable Alec’s puppy freeing whims that night, which completely defeated the purpose of him being his own handler.

Lots of things were outside his reach, especially early on in life. When he lay in bed as a teenager after a full day of wondering what exactly Jace saw in the new blonde transfer, for example. Funnily enough, he was absolutely not confused about her interest in him, but it was in these moments he felt just how out of reach some things were.

The crescent shaped scars permanently etched into the palm of his hands were a pretty good reminder too.

He had to be changeable. With an adopted brother who excelled at everything without even trying, and a full flesh and blood sister who broke every rule so artfully it made people question why they existed in the first place, changing himself wasn’t a suggestion, but a requirement.

And Alexander Lightwood made that requirement into an artform.

“Don’t pick your nails Alexander.”

“Stand up straight Alexander.”

“Control your siblings Alexander.”

“Alexander the mess!”

“Does that look like the center of the target to you?”

“Alexander these tears.”

“All this training and still you’re ages behind Jace, I don’t know how you’ll ever catch up.”

“Alexander these feelings…”

That last one required some additional corrections. The time his mother had caught him staring at a certain scarred training instructor came to mind.

“Alexander people could see, I can’t protect you from your own stupidity forever. And a circle member, really?”

The irony of this comment only hit him much, much later, alone in the dark of his bedroom after what had been one of the worst days/weeks/months of red haired chaos in his life. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so utterly and completely exhausted, but he couldn’t go to sleep just yet. Something ached deep in his chest, searching for a way out. Something too warm and too big and felt like it might choke him crawling out of his throat if he waited any longer to set it free.

After getting up and placing a locking rune on his door, tamping down on the connection he shared with Jace, and triple checking to make sure neither of his siblings had decided to do what they called sleepover surprise and he called heart attack in a box; Alec slumped slowly to the floor at the end of his bed, and let out a desperate, gasping sob. Well, he meant it to be laughter, but as life often seemed to go for him, the silent shaking quickly turned from the beginnings of laughing (not giggling no matter what anyone said about it) at his parent’s hypocrisy, to silent tears.

The hard end of his bed frame dug into his back, an attempt to ground himself to this room in this time in this place, pressing hard against the scars that now seem so pointlessly endured. His hands gripped his elbows too tight, pressing them closer and closer to his body in an effort to hold together the things inside of him that he could feel rapidly breaking apart.

All of the times he’d silently completed this same routine to make sure he was alone in his room. All those moments of lowering himself down to the cold, hard, uncaring floor with a wince, and facing the door just on the off chance someone managed to get in. Biting down on his sheets or a pillow or a stray wrist guard, just to make sure he followed his mother’s directive to a T. One shaking hand doing its best to trace an Iratze closer to the marks, but his own weakness being his undoing as he added just another burning line amongst the many already scattered across his back. The tears gathered in his eyes and created a familiar rhythm against his legs as he gave up on using the stele and poured out the rubbing alcohol Izzy was always “misplacing” until his jaw ached and bile was climbing up the back of his throat.

The bottle would clatter too loud for his ringing ears as he had tried to place it upright next to him, failing at yet another thing as it tipped over and had spilled into an ever growing puddle next to his now collapsed self.

A blink and he was back in his sore but otherwise untouched body. His muscles were still shaking like they did back then, the ones in his back especially he could feel jumping and twitching in remembered aches, but at least now he was able to relax them one by one. Taking deep breaths and peeling his now stiff and sore fingers off his elbows until he could use the back of his hands to roughly dash the tears and sweat from his face. His trembling fingers sought out the familiar groove in his palms as he did his best to come to terms with his forever shifted worldview.

“Alright Alec you’ve got this, think it through, make it make sense, do what you’ve been taught to do. Fix the problem.”

Nails pressed in harder, clearing his mind with a spike of pain as his middle finger on his left hand grew slippery with something more familiar to him at this point then his own parents. Speaking of them-

One, his parents were part of the circle. Which leads him to-

Two, clearly his parents had been wrong about things, many things. Following a balding megalomaniac into a crusade against your literal sworn and sacred from the angel duty felt like a pretty severe lapse in judgement. Which leads him to-

Three, if his parents had been wrong about this-thing. This very big, very wrong, very obvious could not be a louder red flag man on the street with a doomsday sign as the world ends behind him thing, they had to have been wrong about so much else. There was no way people who would listen to the complete and utter bullshit that came out of Valentine’s mouth would be perfectly perfect in every other way. Which leads him to-

Four. And at this point Alec realized he had come to the very laughably obvious conclusion that he was sure Jace and Izzy would’ve understood already. That their parents weren’t the only things keeping him in check from completely ruining himself and their family legacy. In fact, they were the ones who had completely blown it to little bits in the first place.

At this stunning and frankly, he thought to himself dejectedly, plain as day conclusion his breath hitched again. It seemed his body was desperate to remind him that he was one wrong thought away from falling away from this newly discovered rebellion he didn’t yet feel safe to voice out loud. Instead, it clung to the very front of his mind, as if a strong flick to his forehead would send it spinning back into the traitorous void it had come out of. He held it, if only so he could have some measure of control over his body that was quickly failing him in a way it hadn’t since he was a teenager.

“But” the thought began to whisper to him again as his lungs began to burn, “They’ve been wrong about something before too. They tried to pretend to be overjoyed when they ‘discovered’ you were just like Jace, but they knew long before they told the Clave.”

A sharp press of his fingers and then a release. Startled, his eyes blinked and he shook his head as if to clear water from his ears. The breath he had been holding escaped in a surprised rush, and he took another breath, this time without hesitation, and slowly let it out as the static that had begun to cloud his vision faded away. His bedroom door reappeared as it finally cleared, strangely unchanged despite the entire world having tipped on its axis.

A stray twitch of his finger from his body being held too tense for too long had him holding his hand up so that Alec could see it by the moonlight peeking through his window. A bead of blood lazily making its way down his arm. It’s inching closer to the sleeve of his long sleeve shirt, partially rolled up at some point in the night, snapped him fully back into his body. His desire to not have to figure out how the washing machines worked won out over his desire to stay in this spot until the world made just a little more sense again.

His legs shaking he managed to awkwardly flip himself onto his knees and from there use the bedframe to hoist himself into a semi-dignified standing position. That famous Shadowhunter grace was clearly on display as he old man shuffled into his bathroom and almost tripped over that common enemy in the night, thin air, as he fumbled for the faucet handle.

Hand now not actively bleeding onto his panic sweat soaked shirt (maybe he’d have to figure out that machine after all) he took a cautious glance at his reflection in the mirror.

Thankfully, he looked just the same he always had. Black hair, tanned skin, blue eyes, deflect rune still standing out starkly against the skin of his neck. Despite the epiphanies he’d come to, despite how fundamentally changed he felt on the inside, he was still the same Alexander Lightwood on the outside.

Maybe a little paler, maybe his eyes were a little more bloodshot, maybe his hands wanted to rip out his hair and dig into his palms a little more than they had before Clary came crashing through their lives.

No. That was a lie.

Despite all the new that Clary had brought with her, despite all the chaos and confusion she’d introduced into his previously carefully ordered life, she had also brought him.

Magnus Bane.

And strangely enough, for someone who prided himself on his ability to roll his eyes and scoff at even the cheesiest Hallmark movies Izzy (and surprisingly so) Jace would try to trick him into watching on his rare free night, Alec felt his face grow hot at just the thought of his name.

If the Alec in the mirror seemed to gain a little color back into his cheeks that was completely a coincidence, and something he’d take to his most likely early grave, Anyway, as soon as he’d felt the traitorous heat start to bloom he’d quickly darted his eyes away from his reflection and onto his rapidly pruning hand still under the cold water. So even if it was there, no one was there to witness it, which in the eyes of his parents' teachings meant it basically hadn’t happened.

“Take that stupid face.”

He may have turned into a lovestruck fool overnight, but at least he was clearly still a rational one.

“Right, because rational people call their face stupid and act like they’ve turned into that mundane snake head lady over a little crush.”

In an effort to prove his own internal monologue wrong, further proving just how rational he was, Alec forced himself to meet his own eye line. Turning off the faucet with quick movements, and rolling his shoulders back to reach his full height.

His chest rose and fell slowly, his left hand cradled in his right as he allowed himself the embarrassingly preteen moment of picturing just what Magnus would say if he was here right now.

“Alexander, we must stop meeting in these risque situations.”

A phantom hand gently caressed his elbow. The cool touch of rings remembered, but not fully felt in this moment, grounding him more then they had any right to.

“I mean really, I heard you Shadowhunters were masochistic, but there’s no need to hurt these beautiful hands just to get my attention.”

The teasing tone brought with it the faint, remembered smell of sandalwood and something deeper, burnt sugar? Maybe the ozone before a lightning strike? Something familiar and thrilling all at the same time.

“There are much more…pleasurable ways to bring me to your side.”

A carefully crafted smile, one that let the concern shine through just enough to be soothing, not suffocating like so many others tended to be.

The hand at his elbow drew up his arm, leaving a warm- no, burning trail in its absence. He shivered at just the memory of the touch. It caressed him as if he was something gentle, something worth holding.

At just this imagined memory he felt every bit of desperately suppressed, shoved down on praying hands and knees, strangling want come to the surface. Every thought, every promise, every pledge made in the dark on his hands and knees next to a nail polished stained bottle of rubbing alcohol.

Let me be good enough.

Let me be deserving.

Let it all be worth it.

Angel let me have this one thing.

As the phantom hand continued its journey, it settled on his back. Comforting warmth began to seep down over the scarred skin. Moving as syrup might.

“Or maybe” a thought interrupted this moment he’d hold onto until Raziel took him, and by the Angel if this was only what he could imagine did he even dare risk the real thing,“like caramel left in a pan for just a little too long.”

The heat, the cut on his hand, the barrage of feelings he normally never let see the light of day, let alone the normally peaceful parts of his life. It was all becoming overwhelming. When he was younger the dark of his room may have been for those kinds of secrets, but now the most he got up to in this space was a halfhearted attempt at pretending he got the appeal of those playboy magazines Jace had not so secretly hidden in his closet. This train of thought was taking him into dangerous, maybe even addictive territory.

The heat grew, and as it did so did the now mounting pressure which seemed to come from both the inside and outside. The urge to rake his nails along his back to relieve some of it nearly overcame him before he clenched his hands tightly around the rim of the sink.

He knew what would make it better. He knew that all he’d have to do to bring himself relief was give in. But Alexander Lightwood had been told for half his life to fight almost every part of himself, and even as he gave up one fight, this one continued on.

But it couldn’t for much longer, even he at his most stubborn could always tell when he’d let it carry on for too long. Let the fantasy go too far. His back twinged once again with renewed pain, or had it truly gotten better in the first place? The muscles spasmed and he jolted closer to the sink as a sharp hiss escaped through his teeth.

The comforting voice of Magnus was silent now, or maybe his subconscious had decided he didn’t deserve even that for this complete loss of control tonight.

Comfort was not a need for Alec, and with one final exhale that morphed into a bitten off cry, they appeared.

As pale and useless as a leaf in the dead of winter, they started as they always did, an appearance as underwhelming as it was painful. Quickly though, they became more. The shape solidified around him, almost seven feet wide when stretched as far as they could go, for now they huddled close to his back. Mocking him, pretending like their arrival was as sudden and traumatic for them as it was for him. The deepest black they could be, but as he shifted to adjust his weight to accommodate the new additions to his back, flashes ran across them like oil on water.

His first secret, his first shame, the first and one of very few things he could never completely change.

His wings.

“Oh Alexander.” a fond voice purred.

From the corner of his sleep deprived vision, he saw a brief flash of comforting brown turn into a deeper, richer gold, Newly revealed pupils widening in something he craved more than air but couldn’t bring himself to name, wandered slowly over the newly revealed appendages.

“I don’t think I ever could’ve imagined a sight more exquisite if I lived another 1,537 years.”

A startled snort of laughter escaped him as this version of Magnus faded away as quickly as his wings had appeared. The reminder of his habit to over exaggerate his age distracting him for just a moment. His breathing came easier as his ribs accommodated the added weight, and with those parting words he was able to regain as much control as he needed to bring his thinking to the only logical conclusion.

His parents had been wrong before, in terrifyingly, life changing, ways.

Hopefully they could be wrong about this new, but achingly old, want too.

Chapter Text

The first time they’d appeared was also the fastest time Alec had ever made it to his mother’s side.

He was a Shadowhunter, raised to kill demons mercilessly and without fear. Trained to know the most efficient way to take out the thing that goes bump in the dark. The one and only time he’d told his parents about the monster in his room had been the very last. This was partly because of the Institute wide alarm that had gone off, as well as the following lecture about the fact that no demon would sneak into a little boy's room just to stand in the corner like the one in his nightmares had.

In his defense his mother had rushed off to rally the troops before he’d gotten to the part where the demon had been wearing that hideously violent pink and green hat he’d seen in the mundane magazine the day before. That may have clued her in.

All that aside when his wings had… come in? Had their time of the month? Went through the big big change?
Sometimes he swore he and Jace shared way more than just feelings, those just couldn’t be his thoughts.

The point is, he had maintained that he could’ve outrun a Cherufe demon in his hurry to escape the feathered thing that had appeared violently on his back

He’d been six years old, entirely too old to be running to his mommy about childish things, but he thought he’d discovered a new type of chicken demon and that it was trying to discover his insides. When he ran into his mother, literally, in his hurry to race around the corner of the Institute’s gothic exterior from where he’d been taking a rare break, the look on her face all but confirmed his suspicions.

Running into anyone was something he hadn’t done since he was a baby. The thing on his back was messing up his balance, and making him toddle around like Izzy in her new hot pink snow boots.

“Mom, mom, mom!” he chanted frantically as he clung to the fabric of her perfectly ironed skirt with his sweaty fists.

He hoped this benediction would help him more than calling out for Raziel had when he had fallen to the dirt and felt his back split open.

Even at this young age Alec knew better than to act this way when faced with pain. But Angel above his back hurt. He was sure the demon had halfway crawled its way into his body by now, and the sight of someone who could fix anything, even him, filled him with relief.

He looked up at his mother’s face, frantic for some kind of reassurance, instead he found just the opposite.

“Alexander, what have you done?” Maryse stumbled back a step, pushing her oldest away from her forcefully. The grip on his shoulders was tight, too tight, but it did nothing to drown out the sea of agony that crested over his shoulder blades and around his ribs.

“Alexander”, she breathed out in a low moan, twisting him around frantically to confirm what she’d feared had been happening. “Oh Alexander, how, what” she paused, taking a deep breath, “What happened?”

The blood on his back, just beginning to dry, cracked and flaked under his mother’s rough handling.

“I- “ another twinge of pain, this time as his heaving lungs still struggled to expand under this new weight. A small, very quiet part of him murmured that he should’ve been able to catch his breath by now. A different kind of worry began to creep into his mind.

“I don’t know mom I-” a deep breath “I was just walking and my back hurt and I thought it was from training but then it really really hurt and-” another heaving breath whistled in, “it felt like when Church scratches my hands but so much worse and I promise I’ve been good today and I didn’t mean for this to happen-” another breath and why couldn’t he just get enough air? “I promise I’ve been good what is it what did I do am I cursed am I changing into a demon am I-” he couldn’t breath why couldn’t he just breathe.

The world blurred around him as the air seemed to grow thicker. Something that had remained constant since, well, forever, was becoming as unfamiliar as the things on his back. It was just so heavy.

Somewhere in his oxygen deprived mind he realized that he was moving. In between his childish babbling his mom had picked him up and was now walking-

(never run in the Institute Alexander, not unless there’s an emergency, You’re a Lightwood, you have to set an example.)

-at a brisk pace through the halls of their home. At first, he felt relieved. Finally, she’d figured out what demon had attacked him and was taking him to the med bay where she’d fix everything. She’d know what to do, and if she didn’t she’d call the Silent Brothers. Or maybe, it was bad enough to call in a warlock to fix him.

He wasn’t stupid, he was six not a little kid, he knew his mom hated warlocks. She wasn’t subtle about it. The curl of her lip, the tilt of her head, the way she refused to call them by their name, just Warlock, made that clear for anyone to see. That must be why, he decided with a feeling of relief, she was so mad about the feathered thing on his back. It must need a warlock to fix it, and his mom hated it when she had to demand one of them to help.

That he could fix. His mother’s bad feelings about allowing a warlock into the Institute would disappear once he was better and able to make this up to her. She’d be mad for a while of course, he’d probably have to work twice as hard in training to make up for what was surely a mistake on his part to let this happen, but he knew how to fix something like that. First step, he had to figure out how to stop the blood that was ruining his mother’s silk shirt as it acted like a makeshift bandage against his sluggishly bleeding wounds.

It was then he realized with a jolt that they were heading towards the bedrooms. Specifically, taking the side route he and Izzy took when they didn’t want any of the older Shadowhunters to know they were sneaking to each other’s rooms in the middle of the night. The way that Izzy swore no one else ever used. The way that also happened to go right past his parents room.

Why would she take him here? Could she fix his mistake on her own? Was the problem that simple to solve?

A wave of embarrassment washed over him, dulling out the throbbing in his back for a moment before it came back with a vengeance. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, he’d embarrassed himself enough already. Maybe this was something common, maybe even something he’d learned about in his lessons with Hodge.

His racing thoughts were interrupted as he was shifted to the side so Maryse could quietly open and close his parent’s bedroom door. Dumping him onto their bed, all covered in Institute issued greys, she turned without a backwards glance and pulled out her stele to draw a locking rune with shaking hands above the knob.

Her eyes darted to Alec, and then, with a look inside them that his six year old mind struggled to name, she flipped her phone open to make a call. She kept her eyes trained on her oldest child as her husband's voice echoed down the line, and Alec’s mind began to wander, every couple words breaking through the haze.

“Not sure… Blessing… clearly… with what?... saw…” he struggled to keep, and so focused instead on taking stock of just how much everything hurt.

Upside of lying on his back; it had taken away most of the heaviness in his chest, it rose and fell like he’d been given 10 laps around the institute for refusing to participate in hand to hand. Not that he ever did that, but some of the other kids didn’t know how to reset their shoulders yet, and they needed a break afterwards. Keeping their hiding spot a secret was worth the ensuing run. Now though, he was just glad that awful tightness had gone away.

Downside of lying on his back; whatever was clinging onto it did not appreciate being squashed, and kept sending shooting pains through his back and down his legs.

Rough hands hauled him upright quickly, too quickly. He let out a cry of pain as several small, very new, somethings were yanked from his back. Quills? Teeth? Venomous spines? Panic flooded his body and he fought the hands that held him in place.

Crack

A sharp sound filled the air and his cheek suddenly stung. Blue eyes met grey as his mom looked down in horror, not at her own hand, but at her oldest child in front of her.

“Alexander, your father is on his way,” she spoke to him low and urgent, like she did to the Clave officials in out of the way corners where she thought he couldn’t hear. “He’s going to fix this, but you’re going to have to be very brave and very quiet while he does. Can you do that for us?

A hand, now caring, brushed his sweat soaked hair off of his forehead.

He inhaled shakily to cover the whine of pain that wanted to escape, “I can do it Mom but-” he was cut off by a sharp knock at the door and Maryse practically flying to ram her shoulder against it.

“Just a minute!” She called out in a falsely calm voice, her feet adjusted on the floor to better brace her body.

“Maryse for fucks sake let me in.” His father’s voice had that quality only a man who is utterly sure of his choices and utterly over everyone else's can take.

His mom sighed with relief before unlocking the door and cracking it open just enough to look through. Robert Lightwood pushed his way in, not once glancing at his son, now hunched at an awkward angle to keep his back still and his lungs working, and flipped open the dusty book resting in his arms.

His dad, who had faced down even Izzy’s infamous “cookies”, who Alec had seen drag an open fracture through the Ops Center, who had (before Alec was too old for it) held him after a bad fall or a training accident, was scared. He hid it well, but his hands betrayed him, his fingers flipping frantically through the book trembling slightly.

“Ah hah!” The book crashed down on the edge of the bed as Robert spread it open to reveal a complicated rune spreading over two pages. Its edges curled up like the ends of a boar's tusks, four lines intersected in the middle, and overlapped in such a way that they formed a kind of cage in the center before branching out into several, smaller, curled lines.

As Alec stared at it, frantically running through every rune he’d learned, a cold feeling swept over him. It trickled down his back and had his breath going all shuddery again.

Robert’s stele appeared from some mysterious place, twirling into existence from, seemingly, nowhere, and a hand reached out to steady his son.

“No no no no no”, his heart pounding Alec scrambled back as far as the bed and his new appendages would let him. He didn’t get very far before a hot ache, like pressing on a fresh bruise, bloomed across his back as he ran into the endof his parents bed.

Fear like he’d never felt before filled up his chest, and for a six year old boy who’d been attacked by a feral drunk owl not an hour before, the bar was pretty high.

“Please I-, I’ll fix it, just don’t put that on me please!” He didn’t know where this fear came from. Deep in the recesses of his mind he wondered why he cared so deeply about this ruin at all, but all he knew was that he would do anything, give anything, be anything, to keep it off him.

A hand on his ankle dragged him roughly forward, his dad behaving as if this was a normal day. Like he could be having a routine conversation with one of his friends about this later and none would even blink an eye.

So what’d you do today Robert? Oh you know, same old same old. Woke up, kissed my wife, went to work, tortured my son with this rune I found in some random old book. You know how it goes.

Something was shoved roughly into his open mouth to drown out his cries.

Alec kicked and squirmed and clawed, a shadow rose up behind him in response and tried to curl around him like a shield against the world, but the pain had already begun.

Shadowhunter runes famously were not meant to be a good time. Something about the suffering made them closer to the Angel, making them think twice about if they really needed the boost or if they just wanted to see in the dark so they could find their missing glasses or jump 20 feet over the Ben and Jerry’s factory fence.

This was beyond what Shadowhunter’s knew pain to be.

This was all consuming, endlessly burning. From the tips of his toes, to his veins struggling to pump blood to his frantically beating heart, even to the ends of his hair he burned and burned and burned. All the while his back spasmed so tightly he was forced to arch off the bed. Something inside of him was fighting against the rune, pleading and begging him to get away to save them.

But Alexander Lightwood was changeable, and if this is what his family needed from him, he would give it up willingly.

It felt like the pain would never end and had never actually begun. There had never been a life without this pain, all he’d ever known in this moment was agony beyond what he could endure. As he tried to stop fighting the pain a rush of heat swept through him. Something shifted and then-

they were gone.

Cool air (or maybe just normal air, but anything was bliss compared to the slow cooking he’d just experienced) washed over his feverish skin as he was finally able to lay flat on the bed. His muscles jumped at every movement, but still and unblemished as the skin above them now appeared to be.

He’d never felt more hollowed out in all of his short life.

He thought he’d feel relieved, the drunk chicken monster riding his back had been valiantly destroyed. But all he could feel was something that was too big, too intense for his six year old mind to comprehend. He’d never felt this way before, and it wasn’t until much much later, when his parabatai started to shut down his side of the bond for the first time, that he was able to identify this.

Loss. Mourning and loss like everything wonderful and good in the world had been ripped away and dangled just out of his reach. Tears rushed down his face. Silently he curled onto his side to avoid the feeling of the absent something that now occupied his every moment. Without realizing his face grew damp with tears and his breathing, now easier, grew ragged again.

He didn’t care when his father left the room, slamming the door behind him. Cursed book still open to the rune he’d forcibly carved into his lower back and sitting innocently at the edge of the bed.

Maryse ran her hands through her hair, straightening the bits that had come loose as she had held his hands away from clawing at his fathers arms.

Her eyes looked damp for a moment too, but as quickly as Alec registered this, they turned to him and hardened. Her footsteps clipped against the hard cement floor as she knelt down to his eye level. Now suddenly acting like touching any part of him might send him breaking apart again.

“Listen to me Alexander” she mumbled low and urgent, too close to his face and yet he longed to be pulled closer into her arms. “This-” her eyes darted quickly to whatever had been on his back, “you can’t tell anyone about this. Do you understand?”

“But-”

“No” Her hands tightened on his shoulder. He almost welcomed the pain when it reminded him for a brief moment of what he'd lost.

Her angry voice seemed to echo in that space inside him.

“You can’t ever tell anyone about what’s happened. About what you saw on your back.” Maryse paused, searching his face. Trying to see if he was still her loyal son, obeying without question or want.

Where before Alec would’ve jumped at the chance to show his mom how good he could be, how obedient and deserving, all he felt now was a hollow acceptance. The place inside of him that had felt so new and terrifying moments ago was gone, and instead something cold creeped out from his center and down his limbs. Twisting its way down his fingers until they buzzed and numbed, he clenched them just to see if they were still his. They moved a half a second too slow, and a new muscle in his back twitched in response.

Nails dug in. “I won’t ever tell.” his voice felt like it wasn’t his own. A stranger spoke for him, one that had never felt much of anything at all.

A pause.

“Good.”

The click of heels.

The door shut.

The cold spread.

Alec gave himself one moment. Just one. Curled on his side in his parents bedroom, a place he had previously never been allowed to go into, his hand tucked up under his chin, his body trembling every couple of seconds from the aftershocks.

The air wasn’t thick anymore, and it came in too fast and too much. His body felt weightless, like it might float away at any second, and the cold spread with every breath. Alec was far above his body now, looking down at the blood on the sheets and the purpling mark on his cheek.

His fingers twitched.

Alexander Lightwood got up out of the bed. He busied his aching self with stripping the bed and dragging the contents to the basket in the corner. He carefully avoided touching the dusty old book that slid to the floor as he pulled the sheets away, mind curiously blank as he paused to look at the rune inscribed on the still open page that pulsed with every heartbeat.

A pillow case had somehow made its way into his hands. With a shuffle of his feet and some careful prodding he closed the cover and managed to get it into the makeshift bag.

One last look around to check that he hadn’t left any traces of blood on his parents' things. His mom must have changed her shirt somewhere in the chaos, as it sat crumpled in the same basket the bedsheets were in. He needed a new one himself. While the rune had made the things on his back disappear they’d done nothing for the rips and blood they’d left on his shirt.

Something glimmered in the dark of the room.

The cold retreated just long enough for Alec to feel the slightest bit of appropriate childlike curiosity for his age. He darted forward to pick up the shining thing and held it to the meager light of his parents dying bedside lamp light bulb.

Oil on water rippled in his hands. He cradled the feather as gently as he’d held Izzy for the first time. Like it was made of the same fragile glass that depicted the angel Raziel in the church windows. It was warm, almost burning in his palms, and he knew once he felt that heat that although his parents had fixed him, changed him, he would have to let them down at least one more time today.

Pillow case firmly in hand Alexander Lightwood left his parents bedroom cleaner then when he’d entered.

He went to his room to change his shirt and tuck his new treasures somewhere to look at in the dead of night when he could safely feel that warmth again.

He walked calmly down the hallway to Izzy’s room, it was his job to make sure she got up for breakfast in time, and he was already bordering on late.

It was 7:34 am when her door was opened and Alec stepped through into the darkness to start his day.

He didn’t have time to dwell on the aching cold inside of him, he had things to do.

Chapter Text

Jace always had to outdo Alec.

Most of the time it had to be intentional. No one just happened to fall into a triple backflip off a demon's head, yell “Parkour!”, and crash spectacularly through a seemingly paper thin warehouse wall. No matter how much Jace insisted his antics were all coincidence, Alec knew better.

Still, he wasn’t sure he could blame the arrival of Jace’s wings on him the same way he could the splinters he had to pick out after pulling him from the debris. His left elbow still throbbed sometimes from the bit that’d poked him as he tried to get a maniacally laughing Jace out in one piece. 

He’s pretty sure even Jace doesn’t have the ability to spontaneously give himself an angel's blessing.

Reasonably pretty sure.

Mostly reasonably pretty sure.

In true Jace fashion the first of many, many incidents happened right where everyone wants traumatizing things to happen.

In front of all their peers and teachers in a classroom.

Or, more specifically, the sparring room floor. 

Really, if Alec was being honest, the whole thing started off with him being proud of just how much of an upper hand he was managing to keep over his recently adopted brother. Ever since he’d arrived Jace had interrupted his carefully managed routine of taking care of Izzy, walking through a haze following directions mindlessly, and attempting to find an oreo flavor other than original that didn’t taste like toothpaste.

He was a soldier of the clave not a soulless monster, and a guy had to have hobbies. 

The point was, when he saw the chance to take Jace down a peg or two, he took it without hesitation.

(Alec wasn’t trying to say he never had the upper hand. In fact he thought that he and Jace were pretty well matched in terms of simple hand to hand combat. The problem normally came from the new feelings that would pop up during the worst times. Like when they were sparring, or when Jace put a hand on his shoulder to walk by him in their shared bedroom and the heat crept through his shirt and lingered for hours, or when Jace did just about anything that brought up the squirming feeling that started in his stomach and crept up his throat.)

The chance to prove that the feeling was just simple jealousy, or the desire to win, was too good to be true. Alec eagerly jumped at the lack of a challenge. 

It wasn’t like Jace seemed to be trying very hard to hide that he was off his game. His eyes were unfocused, every few seconds they’d drift off to the side before snapping back to the sparring match at hand. Whenever it happened he seemed almost startled, like he’d been expecting a hand held out to help, not a fist coming up to feint a punch. The sheen of sweat along his forehead, the flinch away from the obviously faked hit, his foot slipping just a little too far to the left to keep his balance. It was all the opportunity Alec needed to twist the sloppily thrown return punch up over his own shoulder, and throw The Great Annoyance onto the mat.

Of course, instead of just slamming onto the mat and walking it off like any other Shadowhunter would’ve done, Jace exploded.

Not in anger at finally being beaten, not in surprise from hitting the floor, not in happiness over Alec’s victory.

No, Jace could never just lose, he had to finish a simple hand to hand match where he should’ve lost his breath at most, with blood and screaming and a lot of creative word use. 

Blood was a weird thing. Alec had seen it many times in his twelve long years in the Institute. It was a common thing really, Hotch had stitched up his own training accidents more times then he could count when his mother decided it had been his own fault and he didn’t need an Iratze. He’d spent countless hours huddled in his room growing listless from its loss, wondering if the towel pressed to his back was worth it, or if it should slip away and him with it.

Jace’s blood was different. 

His own blood barely made him flinch, but looking down frozen at the few drops now growing cold his pant leg had his mind going blank. 

A groan of pain escaped from his adopted brother’s clenched teeth, his body curved over itself like he was trying to escape the pain. Their eyes met and Jace’s hand crept out towards Alec, it spasmed inward as he grasped desperately at anyone who might help him, an instinct long beaten out of him by his dad that he just couldn’t tamp down. The pool of blood crept slowly outward, creating a twisted halo like effect, the deep red-purple color contrasting with the shine catching on his new wings.

Wings.

Wings.

Alec felt like he’d been the one thrown to the training mats. 

They were beautiful. There was no other word to describe them. Pretty or handsome or cool would never do them justice. They were beautiful . 

Unlike Alec’s own wings, Jace’s were pure white. At first glance it seemed like light was coming from the wings themselves, but as Alec took a stumbling step forward and sank to his knees to do something, he realized that the feather’s themselves reflected the light, creating fractals that spun around the room as Jace reached a hand back to feel them.

“Don’t-” Alec grabbed him before he could touch the mangled skin on his back. It wouldn’t do Jace any good now to grasp at the still bleeding wounds. 

“Alec what,” Jace’s eyes were focused now. Wide and panicked as his breath came in short puffs. Alec noted with a detached kind of interest that every time he breathed the lights from his wings moved like a disco ball. In any other circumstances he’d ask him how it felt to be hanging above a junior high dance, but now didn’t feel like the time.

The harsh gasps echoed strangely in the now empty training room, the other students had been cleared out once the nature of Jace’s injury was made clear to Hodge, and he’d run out to go get anyone more qualified to deal with the situation. 

A particularly hard squeeze on his hand had Alec looking back at Jace. His tongue licked his lips before his heart wrenching pleas filled the silent space. 

“Please Alec please I know you don’t like me-” at this Alec inhaled sharply to say, what, he wasn’t sure. There was no world where he could admit that he liked Jace a little too much, but seeing him like this wasn’t something he could stand. Before he could get a word in, Jace plowed on, “I know I’m here and I messed up your life but please, please it hurts.”

 The resignation in his voice was what did it. Jace spoke with the same cadence as a dead man walking. Like someone halfway to the gallows wrapping the noose around their own neck. At that moment Alec knew that he wasn’t asking him to fix his hurts, he was asking him to put him out of his misery. For a boy who had been forced to kill the thing he loved just for loving it, this was an unforgivable offence. Alec wasn’t even sure Jace knew what had happened to him. Did the light reflecting onto the walls seem like something offering him salvation or dooming him? 

Alec knew what he had to do.

He lay his body down on the mat so his eyes were level with Jace’s

He laced their fingers together.

“This is gonna hurt,” Alec’s voice was quiet, it didn’t matter because everyone had fled the room long before this moment, but this was a quiet moment for quiet things. So his voice stayed low. “And you might even hate me after. You might hate me for a long, long time; but trust me, this is what’s best for you.”

A shuddering sigh left Jace’s lips, his breath smelled faintly like the off brand syrup they put on the Institute made waffles. Tears began to trickle silently from his closed eyes. It was clear he thought he knew what Alec meant, and maybe it was better that way. If Jace believed Alec was putting him out of his misery, he’d be much easier to deal with. 

“Can we stay like this for a minute?”

“Yah.”

Alec didn’t really know what Jace meant. Stay here sticky in the pool of blood? Stay here under his new laser light show? It had already been long enough for someone important to have been alerted, they should’ve carried out Alec’s plan a piping hot second ago, but as the two boys lay on the mat, covered in one's blood, he began to understand. 

In

And out.

A year later, during their Parabatai ceremony, Alec felt the same connection. That same shared breath. How they did it without runes or fancy words neither of them could figure out, but they both remembered that moment on the mat. Everything in the world had faded away, (including that every present cold), and all that remained was-

In

And out. 

Alec’s anxiety kicked in through the newfound peace in his chest and allowed him one more.

In

And out.

Before he had to move. 

In one smooth motion he pulled both himself and Jace up onto their knees, the blond boy leaned heavily against Alec, his face twisted in pain as his wounds tugged painfully against any motion.

Alec pressed his forehead harshly against Jace’s.

With a quickly cut off cry, some careful maneuvering, and a tangle of prepubescent limbs, the training room was silent again. 

✳✳✳

Before Alec knew how to read, he would spend hours pointlessly hunched in his closet trying desperately to make the tangles of lines and squiggles in his pillow case book mean something . The mark on his back seemed to ache every time he opened it, so he knew that it had to be the key to getting back what he’d lost.

The ache had absolutely nothing to do with him sitting hunched over on the hardwood floor, nose pushed closer and closer to the pages until he more resembled a pretzel then a boy. No way that caused his back to hurt, not a chance nope!

As he grew older the ache remained, but the words did eventually straighten themselves out.

And with them his questions. 

Those Reading Rainbow tapes maybe had a point after all, despite that annoyingly catchy jingle.

The original name for what he was was probably much more pretentious and flowery, because although Shadowhunters were utilitarian to their core, they loved a good dramatic name. All that remained of the original translation of the name after centuries of passing it down from hand to hand and language to language, was its most basic form; Raziel’s Blessing.

Alec had scoffed when he’d managed to sound that out. It sounded like something in a children’s book, or maybe the Bible. Something sickly sweet that parents read to their kids before bed and then laugh about over a bottle of wine. An oversimplified way to teach overly simple children the importance of faith, trust, and all consuming devotion to the omnipotent all knowing figure in the sky. A promise that if you were good enough, then He might reward you with magical mystical bird powers.

It sounded ridiculous.

But so did a tramp stamp rune. 

So Alec kept reading.

It was meant to be omen as much as it was meant to be a blessing. The book detailed that the wings appeared on Shadowhunters who would need everything they could get to survive the fight they had ahead of them. In one particularly wordy portion it described how scholars had theorized that Raziel had foreseen a battle so deadly, so cruel, so unaccountably awful that it would herald the end of the Shadowhunter race. In his infinite wisdom Raziel had blessed his favored warriors strategically, generation after generation, to head off the threat before it could truly begin. Picking warriors or great thinkers or, in one memorable passage, little girls who needed to temporarily pretend to be part bird part human in order to help her village survive very human and very destructive raiders. Individuals who could be in just the right place at just the right time to change the curve of time ahead just enough that they could fulfill their duties. Whatever the reason, one thing was kept constant, those who received Raziel’s blessing achieved great things. So no pressure on Alec at all.

For years after reading the book, he strove to be better, to be someone worthy of the monumental gift given to him. He was a good son, a perfect brother, an exemplary Shadowhunter. He did it to make his parents proud, but also to show them that he was worthy. That he wouldn’t let them down if they would just let him have his wings back again. Because Alec saw what they saw too, that he was flawed, judged and found lacking, changeable but not quickly enough. 

Two simple facts governed his life. 

One, the book said that his wings were a blessing.

And

Two, his parents had seen that he was unworthy of it. 

He had no choice, he would be better.

(Years and years and years past his young selfs revelation, past the confusion that was to come, he lay next to Magnus in their bed. His wings spread out behind him on the magically extended mattress as he whispered this story to the dark. Magnus’ hand tracing soft, swirling designs up and down Alec’s shoulder, and they both, for now, ignored the tears that dampened his pillow. When he was done, they both existed in the dark for a moment, before Magnus began to speak. Magnus told another tale. Not to show Alec he was wrong, not even to make him feel better. The hurt was there, and it would always be there, Magnus just wanted to give it a softer place to rest. He told a story of a young couple, foolish to be sure but young all the same, and just barely escaped with their lives thanks to the child that grew between them. The child who had been conceived under Valentine's reign. Under the reign of a man known for his cruel experimentation, and willingness to do anything to further the Shadowhunter race. He told of their fear when they found that he was one of the few every generation to receive Raziel’s blessing, and how his wings, though beautiful, were not traditionally angelic. He told of their panic, and how it morphed into something more terrible, and how they let it control them. When the stories were done blue eyes met gold, and something long on guard finally settled.)

✳✳✳

As Alec dragged Jace through the halls of the Institute, seraph blade in one hand, more helpful then he should be considering he thought he was being dragged to his own public execution, Alec thought about hungerstones. 

Hungerstones were used in ancient societies. They were huge rocks found naturally in rivers or streams that, when unearthed from a drought stricken river, signalled famine and hard times ahead for the surrounding peoples. When he learned about them from Hodge he remembered wondering why they were needed. Why couldn’t people just look around them and say “Huh, looks like our children are starving and our animals are dropping dead, maybe someone should do something about that?” He recalled thinking that there had to be something wrong with mundanes that made them want to shove their heads into the nearest sandy hole and talk about how good it tasted, rather than suck it up and face their problems. 

Now he thought maybe this stupid blessing was like that. Some kind of oh shit sign meant to put everyone on high alert, bring out the best in them, maybe even remind them of Raziel’s original purpose given to them years ago. Maybe he’d add his own passage to that damn book, it could be titled “Why Shadowhunters being Dumber than Rocks Force some to become Metaphorical Ones”. 

If he made it through these next couple hours he’d give it some serious thought. 

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall and turned him and Jace to the side. Propping Jace up against the wall, Alec gripped the blade's handle once more before spinning it around toward Jace. “You need to take this” he spoke quickly, partly out of worry that they’d wasted so much time in the training rooms, and partly so he couldn’t give himself the chance to back out. 

Blinking in what was most likely genuine shock, Jace mumbled “What?”, taking the blade automatically from Alec. 

Shirt already off and thrown to the ground, Alec spun so his back was facing Jace. Hoping that he was too out of it to question the many lines criss-crossing him, Alec gave him the directions he hoped would free them both.

“Listen, I know this won’t make any sense right now, but Hodge has had time to notify Maryse ten times over. They’ll be out looking for us, for you, and I’m not sure what she’ll do to you once she sees what’s happened but I know how to make sure you get to keep your wings.”

“Wings” the dazed look in Jace’s eyes cleared a little at that, “I thought maybe, I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating from the blood loss. They’re really real ?” The blade dipped lazily towards the ground as all of Jace’s attention went to the specks of light dancing across the walls.

Alec groaned at the sight, grit his teeth, and sharply barked “Jace!” He startled back to draw his gaze to the blade in his hand. 

“Alec what-”

“There’s no time Jace! You don’t know-” a hand dragged through his hair roughly, they didn’t have the time . He couldn’t in the span of seconds explain to Jace how losing the wings meant losing a part of yourself. How it would be better for him to run than to risk losing that spark he’d just recently gotten back after the tragic end of his old life. How this moment, this one right here, might be the key to making sure neither of them had to hide this part of themselves ever again.

He took a deep breath. “Jace, do you trust me?” A kaleidoscope of emotions crossed his face. Alec couldn’t pick out any one of them as they mixed together, but he recognized the one he landed on. Pure stubborn determination. A sharp nod brought a cool wave of relief. “Then I need you to do what I say and quickly.” Alec waited for a sign, anything that showed him Jace understood where he was going with this. The blade in his hand, his back bared, he wasn’t sure he could say outloud what he needed Jace to do, but it needed to be done.

“You want me to-”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Even now they barely needed words.

In

And out.

The soft schwing of metal through the air was all the warning Alec got before Jace followed the two most obvious lines on his back with the sword and bright hot familiar pain blossomed across his body.

Alec pulled his stele out from where he now sat on his heels crouched over on the ground.

Here was the worst part of it all. The part that made the pain in his back fade away to a gentle sting. The part that made him want to curl up here in this hallway and tell Jace to just run and leave him behind. The part that made him want to call the whole thing off and let someone else handle everything for a change. 

The book showed how to reverse the rune.

When he’d first seen it he’d snapped it shut, hardly daring to breathe. The thing he craved and ached for right down to the marrow in his bones was literally in his hands, and it was so simple. All it required was one line down the middle of the rune.

That was all.

It had originally been used to camouflage the wings. For if the Shadowhunter found themselves in dire straits and had no choice but to hide them away from demons or warlocks or vampires. To protect Raziel's most precious blessing.

It said nothing about hiding them from other Shadowhunters. 

Alec tentatively opened the book back up, wary as if it might leap from his hands and take away its knowledge with it, and stared. The warm feeling that had come over him when he understood the meaning of the drawing in front of him faded back to the cold that always waited, and he closed the cover.

It didn't matter anymore. This no longer belonged to the book. It was his knowledge to carry.

And carry it was all he did.

Until now, when he wasn’t sure what his parents would do with Jace and his wings, and all he knew was that he was so tired of feeling cold and scared and the knowledge had just become too heavy to hold.

A quick slash down of his stele was all it took.

The book had shown what it would look like, the line down the middle made the design look like it had wings of its own.

For a brief moment he worried that it wouldn’t work through the blood spilling down his back.

Then that moment was over, and he knew he was wrong.

So, so wrong.

Agony poured through his body, heat reached every corner of him, ripped him apart and left nothing but shreds behind. He had no idea of what was going on outside of the burning husk he had turned into. Was Jace okay? Have they been discovered? He was almost certain he was screaming, but he was also certain that his throat had burned up already. 

He wasn’t a stone, he had been an idiot to think that even for a second. He was paper, ash in the wind and oil to the flame. 

It was a trap, it had to be. This wasn’t a way to get his wings back, this was a punishment for daring to think he was worthy of them. The fire licked around his fingers and made his bones crackle, he swore he could hear his skin hissing from the heat. Maybe if he’d been good enough strong enough brave enough enough enough enough they all ran together in a line and then the line was burnt by the flames and then-

A break.

It wasn’t cooler, it wasn’t less painful, and it definitely didn’t make him feel more confident about the status of his ability to scream, but something changed.

Then little by little the rest did too.

Until finally he came around, curled up on the ground with a shaking hand in his sweat soaked hair, something was making a high pitched whining sound and whoops that was coming from him. The heat remained, but now it felt different, less like he’d been lit on fire and more like he’d laid out in the sun way too long. His skin felt tight and new, but at least now he knew he had skin, and-

Oh

Oh

His breath rushed out of him in a sigh that quickly turned into a sob, he went to knuckle his fist to his mouth without thinking, but Jace’s other hand intercepted it in a rare show of affection and held it tightly.

Both the boys were bleeding, but somehow to Jace it had felt important that Alec was spared this bit of pain too. 

They lay behind him in a tangled heep, he could feel the sharp points of the primaries digging into the delicate skin that lay beneath the feathers. The book had said that regular grooming was still required, and that the rune wasn’t meant to be used for long stretches of time. The new muscles around his rib cage and up his back ached like he’d run, (flown?) miles, and every little movement made it worse.

Sitting up, dislodging Jace’s helping hands with a shrug, he heaved his wings up from their position on the floor, and into a more respectable upright position on his back. They may look slightly like a bedraggled chicken, but he was hoping their position of “Oh! Wings! Gosh golly how did those get there?” would distract from the fact that his were clearly not newly emerged. 

Alec’s wings were much wider than Jace’s. As Jace stood to get a better look at Alec’s new appendages, he noted absently that it was probably due to their heights, Alec still towered above his brother, despite Jace’s insistence otherwise, and his wings did the same. They arched up over his head and reached to just below the tops of his heels, from the corner of his eye he saw the familiar oil on water shimmer as they caught the light of the sconces on the walls.

“Holy shit” Jace’s loud exclamation broke the silence. He couldn’t fully see his own wings, so Alec’s were the first glance he got at the figure he himself might now cut in the shadowed hallway.

Alec was suddenly filled with the desperate need to explain himself, “Maryse, Mom, she hid them when they first showed up. There’s a rune,” he twisted with a sharp pain to try to show Jace the now split mark on his back, but was stopped with a hand to his shoulder. 

“So you’re not going to, you know” Jace’s eyes darted down to the abandoned blade on the ground, then quickly back up to Alec’s eyes, “because either way is fine honestly, but I’m kinda getting a little lost on where we stand on living through the day here.”

“No!” it burst from Alec’s throat before he could stop it. “No, we’ll show them together, in the Ops room. If it was just Hodge and our training group they might be able to keep it quiet, but two of us in front of the entire Institute? They’ll have no choice, they'll have to let us keep them.” 

Or they could decide that neither of us are worthy, drag us in front of the council, and use our wings as decoration above some rich council member's mantelpiece. 

But Alec decided to keep that thought to himself. 

“We just have to act shocked, like neither of us know what’s going on or how this happened. Can you manage that?” Alec asked while bending down to rip up his shirt, he had to make it look like the wings had burst through without looking like it’d been mauled.

Jace gave a breathless laugh, “Yah no I don’t think that’ll be a problem for me right now.” His hand landed heavily on Alec’s shoulder, and he pulled him closer until their foreheads came together with a soft thunk . “Thank you, really that doesn’t begin to cover this, but thank you. I owe you so many favors. I'll throw any of our sparring matches however you want whenever you want for the rest of time.”

“Alright disco man” Alec said with a snort, “Hey can you play Dancing Queen on command now too or is it just the light show?” 

“At least I don’t,” Jace paused and looked Alec’s wings up and down, “Damn man I have nothing, how’d you get the badass wings and mine do this.” He flung both hands to gesture at the surrounding walls that were currently sporting a bedazzled touch. 

Voices came from far off down the hallway behind them, reminding them both of the time limit to this plan. If Maryse managed to find them here, now, there was a high chance she’d find a way to cover this all up and get the rune on Jace too, and Alec knew he couldn’t let that happen. 

Privately, deep down where he’d never admit it, a very selfish part of him also knew that he wouldn’t survive the cold for that long again, not now that he could feel just how warm being whole made him feel. 

“C’mon” Jace seemed to gain back some of his normal attitude and was eager to take charge now that Alec had shown he wasn’t going to honor kill him in the hallways of their home. “I can’t wait to see the look on Izzy’s face when she sees these things.”

They wrapped careful arms around one another and stumbled off towards the Ops room where a soon to be angry Maryse, and soon to be in awe Shadowhunter population waited unknowingly to receive their new blessed.

Chapter Text

Izzy swore up and down that she hadn’t been upset at all, but after hacking and searching through years of surveillance camera footage, she proved herself wrong.

The reveal was a shit show of epic proportions, as expected. Maryse never would reach that shade of red again, but it came with more warmth than Alec could’ve ever expected. He had been right, pretending he and Jace had received Raziel’s Blessing together? It was something straight out of their own mythos. Maryse had no choice but to grit her teeth and act like Alec’s wings were as much a shock to her as everyone else, at least in private. After their Parabatai ceremony, when Jace would finally feel the fresh aching wounds on his back from their stunt, he wrapped his arms and wings around Alec, mumbling desperate apologies as well as promises. 

Promises that he would never be alone with them again, and that by itself would have been enough.

But learning to fly alongside his brother was more than enough too. 

Years and years passed, and what felt like ages after that moment on the training mat Alec was a semi functional, Raziel blessed Shadowhunter, head of the institute he’d been basically running by himself since he was a teenager, and now he did it all with a boyfriend.

He, Alexander Gideon Lightwood, had a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend, Magnus Bane, the High Warlock of Brooklyn and way out of his league. That last bit was something Magnus would deny with everything in him, and probably with a golden glint in his eye, but Alec knew the truth.

Which was sort of the entire problem, Magnus didn’t know the truth. With everything that had happened since the start of their relationship, there hadn’t seemed like a natural time to pause and ask his boyfriend the second most important question one could ask, “How do you feel about feathers in the bedroom?”. If he ever ended up building the courage to tell him, he absolutely was not doing it that way, no matter how many times Jace said it had worked out great for him and Clary. 

Trying to do the opposite of what Jace suggested normally got him what he wanted, which was what led him here, to Magnus’, no, their loft. Surrounded by colors and soft things that made him feel safer in the short time he’d called this place home then the cold stone walls of the Institute ever had. He’d gotten them dinner from their favorite Italian place, had set up the record player with some vaguely romantic sounding music, and forgone the traditional candles in favor of not lighting the edges of his wings on fire. It was all perfect, except for the creeping pit of anxiety and shame sitting heavy in his stomach.

Every few minutes he shivered just a little, barely noticeable to anyone who didn’t know him, but Magnus knew him almost too well. He’d walk through the door, see Alec sitting stiff and shaking from clenching the muscles in his legs and grinding his jaw, and hopefully he’d confess that he knew all along about the wings and let Alec avoid this whole thing.

He blamed Jace for this. Alec knew that honesty was important in any relationship, but honestly speaking Magnus had never outright asked him what the small rune on his lower back was for. The most he’d done to acknowledge it was press a kiss into it and occasionally laugh at its placement. He obviously had no suspicions on its true purpose, and most likely thought it was a prank played on him by a sleep-addled Jace on a particularly late patrol. His brother had been the one to sit him down and force him to talk about why exactly he still hadn’t told Magnus about his feathery little problem months after the dust had settled and everything was, mostly, calm again. 

Ding

Think of the devil…

Alec glanced down at his lit up phone to see what was supposed to be an encouraging message from his parabatai. 

U got ths!!!/1! If he gts mad whip out ur dck!!?!

Against his will a snort escaped at Jace’s inability to send a coherent text before the anxiety caught up again. He dropped the phone onto the table facedown with a clatter, and rubbed his hands roughly against his jeans in an attempt to distract himself.

He knew logically that there was no world where Magnus Bane, lover of all things strange and different, was disgusted by his wings. His partner, the man who could crumble buildings and had promised to smite his parents the second he gave the word, wouldn't find the thing that made him different upsetting. If anything he’d be overjoyed to discover something new about his lover.

He knew this logically, but his thumb now digging into the palm of his hand when the rough texture of his pants wasn’t enough said otherwise. 

What if Magnus was mad he waited so long? What if he secretly had a deep seeded fear of birds that he’d been hiding? What if he actually didn’t love Alec as much as he thought he did and this was the thing that made him realize that and he broke up with him on the spot and kicked him out of the loft and- 

Down the hall the front door slammed open and closed so quickly it became one harsh sound. 

“Those fucking” a heel flew down into the living room, “pin-headed” the smell of burnt sugar filled the air as Magnus drew closer, “feather-addled half cooked fucking morons!” a startled Alec shot to his feet as the second heel made an appearance into what looked like a very expensive vase next to the sofa. Finally he rounded the corner and Alec came face to face with a sight that had all of his anxieties melting away. With a grumble about magically enforced heels versus magically protected vases and an annoyed wave of his hand, the shards reassembled back into a perfectly intact vase, now with a heeled boot trapped inside of it. Magnus spun to face his partner and froze when he saw the dinner Alec had set up. 

He stood still, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, taking in the dimly lit room. Dark blue eyeshadow shimmered on his eyelids, while a black line of kohl swept out into a perfect point. A faint dusting of gold on his cheekbones matched the gold on his fingernails, and somehow managed not to clash horribly with the mixed metal necklaces hanging low on his chest over his slightly unbuttoned shimmering top.

He was beautiful.

He was Alec’s. 

He might lose him today. 

“Alexander what is all this?” Taking a breath to answer Alec paused as he was pulled into a chaste kiss. Magnus ran the soft pad of his thumb over his cheekbone, and when Alec opened his eyes again he looked down to his partner softly smiling up at him, cat eyes on display. “Did I forget one of our many anniversaries? Or perhaps you’ve got bad news to deliver darling? If you’ve accidentally let the Chairman out, don't worry he’s just tricking you, he will come back for his supper.”

Alec blushed a deep red at being struck silent by a simple kiss, and managed to get out “We haven’t had a nice night in with only us for a while, I thought maybe we could eat together? Maybe watch some of that show you mentioned wanting me to see?” 

Magnus gasped in delight and clasped his hands together. His rings made a soft clinking noise and Alec couldn’t help but wrap his arms around him and pull him tight to his chest. Now muffled Magnus laughed and said “Sweetheart you don’t need to do so much convincing, really. A night in with you and Project Runway was something I thought I’d have to force upon you. Not stumble into after the world’s worst kind of day.”

At those words Alec’s anxiety came back at full force. Maybe he should push this off. Magnus had already had a bad day, and did he really need to make it worse by revealing something he’d kept hidden for so long? Jace would understand when he told him about the boot throwing, everyone knew how serious Magnus was about his footwear. He’d just started magically sizing it down when Izzy asked, and that was only with a literal signed contract that she’d quote “whisper sweet nothings to them before she went to bed each night”. He had insisted that was magically necessary but Alec privately had his doubts. 

Also, his brain rambling this far into shoe territory did not bode well for any immediate adult conversations.

The point was that maybe his greatest secret didn’t need to come out right right now.

A hand warmed by the perpetual flow of magic that ghosted under its skin carded through his hair, drawing his attention back towards the now concerned look on his boyfriend’s face. 

“Alexander,” Magnus’ tone had shifted from irritation at the world to worry for the man in front of him. “In my annoyance with my feathered problem I didn't even think to ask how your day had been. I’m sorry beloved, is everything all right?”

Alec could barely focus on his words when Magnus gently guided them both to the sofa, waving a blanket over the two of them, and pulled him closer with one hand while the other remained in his hair. With a hum of satisfaction he slumped closer until he was resting on Magnus’ shoulder, pushing his head slightly into his hand until, with a huff of amusement, the hand resumed its gentle scratching. “What um,” a wave of warmth crept down his spine and the smell of burnt sugar grew stronger, “My day was fine, I'm just tired.” 

Tired didn’t begin to cover the ache that had settled into his bones from holding himself so tightly for so long. He back throbbed with the desire to release his wings and have Magnus run his hands through the feathers the same way he was currently working through a knot in his hair. He wanted the hard part over with and the part where he felt silly for ever thinking that Magnus could love him any less to be here already. 

His phone buzzed with another text from someone, probably Jace, reminding him that he couldn’t skip time the way he so desperately wanted to. 

But he could push it off just a little.

“You said you had a feathered problem?” Alec wasn’t sure if Magnus would hear him from the way his face was buried in his shirt, hiding from the steady pain in between his shoulder blades.

As if reading his mind Magnus’ hand smoothly crept behind his back and, with a little more magic, began to rub unnaturally warm circles right over the ache. “Alexander,” the hand briefly left his back and lifted his chin up so he was looking Magnus in his golden eyes. “You can talk to me about anything angel, even if I’ve had a day full of running after chickens whose heads I wanted to cut off.”

Alec snorted at the image, ducking his head back down to encourage the warmth to come back. “You piss off the seelie again?” The squirrels around their neighborhood had enjoyed growing wings and flying, but Magnus had considered picking up hard drugs from the stress. 

The hand came back, “Honestly beloved, that would’ve been preferable.” The hand circled over a particularly raised scar, pausing to smooth away a wrinkle in his shirt before moving on lower, towards the rune Alec would have preferred not to think about. “No, I had the stupendous honor of dealing with members of the Blessed all day long.” Magnus poured as much disdain into the word honor as Maryse did into the word hug. 

Suddenly, the warmth from his boyfriend's hands felt suffocating. 

“The Blessed.” Alec said, making his tone as flat as he possibly could, his mind racing, trying to see all the possibilities. Maybe Magnus meant it in a funny way, the kind that Alec didn’t always pick up on right away. Or maybe he’d met a group of religious chickens who called themselves the Blessed. There were so many possibilities, and he could think them all through once he remembered the breathing patterns Izzy had taught him. He was not having his secret revealed because he had a panic attack over chickens in nun outfits. 

“Unfortunately,” 

Was it in for seven or out for seven, fuck, he pulled back as gently as he could so he could see Magnus’ face. He was leaning over to grab one of the desserts Alec had brought home, waving his fork in irritation with a crease right between his perfectly manicured eyebrows.

“I mean, I know Jace is one of them and I mean no offense to you Alexander, it's not a bad reflection. No one in the downworld thinks badly of you for being bonded to one of them.”

Alec felt the tightness coming back to his legs, they ached with over use and the desire to lean back into Magnus and pretend he couldn’t hear what he was saying was so strong he was almost choking on it. His hands formed into fists under the blanket where Magnus couldn’t see. He was talking about Shadowhunters, about Alec and his brand of weird specifically. But it wasn’t, he didn’t hate Alec, it was just the ones he dealt with today. Alec could show him his wings and Magnus would love them because he loved him and-

“Honestly though, I could’ve guessed just from the way he behaves he was one of those feathered nuisances.” Magnus punctuated this with a violent stab into his chocolate cake. “I mean, six hundred years on this Earth and every single one of them just embodies the worst a Shadowhunter could be.”

Magnus loved him. He was so sure of this. If he knew what he was saying, how it made Alec feel, he’d stop immediately. Alec just had to figure out how to open his mouth and speak and this could all be over. 

“They’re all such arrogant pricks, every one of them is so full of themselves I’m surprised they don’t pop from it.” Alec leaned back instinctively as Magnus jabbed a piece of chocolate cake on the end of his fork Alec’s way before popping it into his mouth. “Jace, I can honestly say, is the best one of a very, very bad bunch. The ones today, you should’ve heard them Alexander, they were just awful to me and Cat. Told her she could stop holding her breath and asked me if I needed a mouse to chase. I’ll turn them into mice next time I swear to-” He cut himself off with another bite. 

Alec willed his breaths to slow and his muscles to untense one by one, the way that Izzy had demonstrated. It was just the ones today, they did sound awful Alec could admit. Many of the Blessed got over inflated egos from everyone acting like their farts were from Raziel himself. He could understand Magnus being fed up after a long day of Shadowhunter microaggressions. “I’m sorry Magnus they sound-”

“And those wings!” A piece of cake finally found its way onto the Persian carpet as Alec was interrupted. “They’re ridiculous. The audacity of them, they rip my people’s marks right from their bodies but they march around strutting those gaudy things? Huge and ugly and a waste of space just, ugh!” The cake was put out of its misery with a final stab of Magnus’ fork before he threw it back onto the table. Alec almost envied it, the cake didn’t have to navigate this minefield of a conversation. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t tell him now, or could he only tell him now? If he didn’t say anything and Magnus found out about his wings later, wouldn’t that make him twice as mad? That Alec had tricked him into being in a relationship with someone he would’ve hated if he’d known the truth? But it’d been so long already, maybe too long. He just needed to be honest, he just needed to take a deep breath and tell Magnus everything. He loved him, he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes of the past, he wasn’t going to keep secrets just to draw this out a little longer. Licking his lips to try to return some moisture to his mouth he managed to force out a whisper of “Magnus I-”

At some point while Alec was lost in his thoughts Magnus had gotten up off the couch to continue his rant, loudly, and with more hand gestures than he normally allowed himself that close to his breakables. “- hate them Alexander. Obviously Jace is the exception, but the rest of them I can’t stand to be around them I-” Magnus looked over at Alec as he said this, eyes bright with feeling, which cooled when he saw how Alec looked. “Oh my Alexander I’m so sorry.” 

His breath left him in an audible whoosh. Tears that he didn’t notice gathering in his eyes threatened to spill forward. For a moment Alec felt relief so powerful he was dizzy from it. Magnus knew. Somehow he took one look at him and just knew. And he was sorry and he’d take everything he’d said back and maybe then Alec’s back could just stop feeling like it might catch fire. 

The couch cushions dipped as Magnus relaxed once again and took his hands.

“My darling, I have been so uncharitable to you tonight.” His lips brushed Alec's knuckles in a pantomime of a kiss as he spoke. “I had a hard day, but you set up this lovely dinner and all I’ve done is rant about your parabatai. I’m truly sorry my love, can you forgive me?”

Alec began to roughly wipe his eyes before Magnus’ hands took over for him, swiping his tears away with a gentleness reserved when it was just the two of them. “I’m fine Magnus I’m sorry I just, I didn’t know you disliked Jace so much it caught me off guard.”

“No! Alexander no I’m so sorry that’s not what I meant at all.” Magnus took a deep breath, staring out of the balcony window before he continued, his voice now softer. “The downworld has suffered at the hands of Shadowhunters you know this and” Magnus held up a hand to stop Alec’s instinctual apology, “I don’t need an apology from you for it. My darling Alexander, you have treated me and my people with nothing but kindness beyond what I could have ever hoped for from any outsider, let alone a Shadowhunter.” 

A hand on his cheek had the last of the heat in his back melting away. His eyes blinked heavily, when did he get so tired, he just wanted this day to end. 

“The Blessed, they have always been the worst of the perpetrators. Their word was believed above all, even their fellow Shadowhunters. I’ve seen them lie to their superiors just to get an innocent downworlder arrested for the smallest things, and their wings.” Magnus shuddered, his shoulders drawing inward and his fingers trembled against Alec’s cheek. “I’ve seen them slice cleanly through a vampire's neck before. Friends, standing by me one second and the next cut down faster than I can save them. Having to work with them today, it was just a reminder of things I would’ve very much preferred to have left behind,” He took a deep breath, “but I took that out on you Alexander and I’m sorry. Jace’s wings are beautiful and, if I’m being honest, look about as dangerous as bubbles, no sharp edges to be found, much like his mind.” Magnus gave a small laugh, trying to see Alec’s feelings on the matter and Alec,

Alec wanted nothing more than to be changeable one more time.

What he was, would hurt Magnus. Not just physically, with his feathers designed to cut flesh so efficiently there was rarely any pain, but just his presence would hurt him. How stupid was he to think that Magnus would want to look at, let alone touch things that had caused him to lose so much. Alec thought back to his fantasy of Magnus grooming his wings, smoothing out the broken feathers and making him feel like more than just the weapon he was clearly supposed to be. 

He flinched back from the desire as now, Magnus was no longer content, maybe even happy to do this act for him. Now in his mind Magnus’ hands bled as he cut them on razor sharp edges, but he didn’t stop. Barely able to stand the sight of his wings he moved quicker than before, causing his beautiful arms to begin dripping red to the ground the same way his tears poured from his face. He was shaking and desperately biting his tongue to keep his pained gasps silent, all while Alec just sat there. Content and oblivious to the man he loved most in the world suffering for his selfishness. 

“Alexander”

Alec blinked and he was back in the dimly lit loft. The Italian food he’d brought home now cold, the man he loved sat in front of him, looking increasingly frantic the more time went on without Alec saying anything. “Darling, please let me know what I can do.” Magnus’ voice broke through the final barrier preventing Alec from responding. Angel, he’d really fucked this whole night up hadn’t he. 

“I’m fine Magnus, there’s nothing to forgive.” He choked out convincingly. Magnus’ face fell in that way it did when he wanted Alec to think more highly of himself then he clearly did, (it appeared frequently after meetings with his mother).  

“There is my darling boy, I spoke horribly of your parabatai and truthfully it has no bearing on anything now, it’s all just old ghosts coming back to haunt me.” Magnus waved a hand in the air, as if he was vanishing ghosts with a wave of his fingers. 

Alec took a deep breath.

In

And out.

On the inhale he took all of it; the confusion, the disgust in himself, the fear, he gathered all up inside of himself and he-

Exhaled, and put it all deep, deep down. 

“It’s fine Magnus I get it. Plus,” he looked at the man he loved in his golden eyes and gave a soft, genuine smile, “I’m a Shadowhunter, I can take care of those ghosts for you.” 

Magnus groaned and shoved his shoulder with a sigh of “Alexander!”, before he burst into tearful laughter that Alec gladly joined in. Bringing their foreheads together Magnus sighed, his breath filling the space between them with warmth and ozone. “I’m genuinely sorry my beloved, and as a recompense for ruining this wonderful dinner you arranged I’ll take you anywhere you want to go next weekend, how’s that sound?”.

“I just want to be where you are.” Alec whispered in the charged air between them. He wrapped his arms around Magnus before he could reply and pulled him in for a slightly more desperate hug then he meant to. Hooking his chin over his shoulder so he could hide the guilt in his eyes, Alec clung to him as he sent out a silent plea to Raziel.

“Please, please, I have never prayed to you like I’ll pray to you now. Just this one thing, and I’ll follow your word until my dying day. Just let me be changeable enough to keep this one thing, please.”

For Magnus he’d do anything.