If you can't be with the one you love . . .
By M.A. Blackthorn
Disclaimer: Cassandra Clare and her publisher own the Mortal Instruments. I'm just fangirling it up like it's my job with all due respect.
A/N: If the thought of boy on warlock kissing grosses you out, I suggest you take a step back and re-evaluate your obviously narrow worldview. Once you've opened your mind to the wondrous possibilities of Alec/Magnus action, come back, read, and review.
"Take my strength."
Three words. Just three. A pithy phrase but he'd been too long among the esoteric to discount the symbolism, no matter how scoff-worthy he found numerology. A half-eaten memory of a phrase - things always happen in threes - slunk through his brain like wine. Perhaps irony was one of those things that happened in threes.
He felt the words roll off his tongue, natural as air. As they passed his lips, they drew a line between his mouth and Magnus'. The weight of them drew the line taut, shortening the distance between them just as certain other distances were rapidly widening. Magnus' lips floated closer to his, barely a whisper of a touch, hesitant. Stopped. The battle raged beyond but for a span of three breaths - things only happen in threes - they stopped.
"Take my strength."
He closed that short distance, colliding with Magnus in what felt like the least romantic way possible. Magnus responded with a ferocity he'd expected but had yet to experience. He'd always been so careful, so freezingly slow, like a deer caught in some mundane's highlights. He wondered briefly, wildly, if his lips would bruise, if Magnus would mark him the way he marked himself with gloss and sparkles and magic.
When Magnus pulled away, the line was still there, twinkling dirty in the reflected light of the river. He would later swear to himself - but never to anyone else - that he could see it there shimmering between them like a line of fishing wire. Down the line, he felt his promise flow into Magnus, felt his reserves of strength pour from his body like honey.
"Take my strength."
Three words. Popular wisdom would have him believe things always happen in threes. Good things, bad things, all the essential word combinations. That three worded phrase he couldn't bring himself to say to anyone, or at least to anyone who needed to hear it, who didn't already know. He couldn't - wouldn't - bear to let those words pass his lips. He didn't have the strength for those three words, but he had the strength for these.