Happy birthday, Ash.

Father's Day

"Alec?"

"Hmmm?"

"If you got to name a baby, what do you think you'd name it?"

The bed creaks as Alec rolls over. He's gotten used to Magnus's random trains of late-night thought, which often derail and crash into each other and they would somehow find themselves talking about how to best extract intestines from a wolf. "What gender are we talking?"

"Girl," Magnus says decisively.

"Um…I never really spent much time thinking about it, to be honest. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason," Magnus murmurs vaguely. "No reason at all."

"Okay." Alec rolls back over to his side of the bed and puts the pillow over his head. After a moment he says, "But you know, I always thought Elyse was a nice name."

"I said no, Magnus."

"Alec, think about it. It could be the best thing that ever happened to us."

"I'm just not ready. I'm too young, I've had no experience, I know I'm going to mess it up. I can't do it."

Magnus sighs. "How much longer will it have to be? Four years of marriage, Alec—you're already twenty seven. How much readier can you get?"

Alec looks away. Magnus is giving him the puppy dog eyes again, the way he does whenever this subject comes up. It's clear he wants this badly, but Alec can't make himself say yes. Still, the warlock has a point; Alec isn't getting any younger. He's just not sure he's ready for this kind of commitment. But on the other hand...well, to be honest, he wants this too. "Let me sleep on it, okay?"

The way Magnus lights up, it's like Alec has said yes already. Which, as he gets ready for bed, he realizes he has.

"Why does this have to be so hard?"

"I guess they want to make very sure that we're up to this." Alec rakes his hair out of his face and pulls the stack of papers closer so that he can fill out all of his personal information for the eighth time. "I mean, you have to admit we're kind of suspicious."

"I'm not suspicious, I am perfectly normal. And they already know my eye color and birth date and height and weight and mother's maiden name—"His face darkens slightly, but he recovers himself. "Why do they need it all again?"

"You were the one who wanted this, Magnus. You would think you knew what you had signed up for."

Magnus gives a noncommittal grunt and goes back to filling out papers with his sparkly pink pen.

"Why are you shrieking I am trying to sleep."

"ALEC ALEC ALEC ALEC ALEC ALEC LOOK WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL."

Alec rolls over and sits up. "Can't a person sleep in on their birthday? I thought thirty was supposed to be special or something."

"GET YOUR BUTT IN THE KITCHEN AND COME SEE WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL."

"Alright, alright, I'm coming." He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and pads down the hall to where Magnus is dancing around waving a paper in the air. "What is it?"

Magnus stops dancing and shoves the paper under Alec's nose. "Look."

Alec squints at it. Without his contacts in all he can see is the word "ACCEPTED" stamped near the bottom in red, but from Magnus's excitement he can guess what the small print says. He can feel excitement building in his chest and a smile spreading across his face. "We did it," he says quietly.

Magnus reaches over and pulls him into a bear hug. "Happy birthday, darling."

"Congratulations on covering me with pink paint. I look like a wad of cotton candy."

"It's very becoming, Magnus. You should paint yourself pink more often."

Magnus throws the paint brush, which Alec catches with ease. "Now, now, Magnus, you're trying to be mature, remember?"

"Hmph. Mature is completely overrated."

Alec grins. "I suppose you're right," he says, and lobs the brush back, effectively catching his boyfriend in the ear. "That's ten point for me and zero for you. Do you admit defeat?"

"I admit that we're not going to get this room painted in time if you keep painting me and not the wall." Magnus swipes at the wall with an air of mock arrogance.

"You started it," Alec mumbles. "And anyway I don't understand why we have to paint it in the first place. I voted that it was done once you cleaned all of your stuff out of it."

Magnus swipes the wall again. "It has to be perfect. I've wanted this for so long, I'm not risking anything messing it up."

Alec concedes to this point and bends over to refill his paint pan. Midway down, he realizes that this was a bad idea, but he doesn't have time to react before Magnus's brush hits his backside.

"Score!" Magnus shouts, and does a little victory dance. Alec sighs and wonders if, despite his age, his boyfriend really is up to the responsibility he's about to take on.

"Isn't this wonderful, Alec?"

"Yes." Alec can't think of anything else to say.

This morning, as he was putting on his best suit and tie, he'd felt the all the flickers of fear of the last three years. What if this wasn't the right thing? What if he messed it up? What if it had all been a mistake? What if he truly wasn't ready?

Somewhere in the back of his mind he recognized that it was Father's Day. How fitting, he supposed, though he was too nervous to fully appreciated it. He lives in a kind of fog during the whole process and doesn't really come back to himself until they're back at the flat and he's standing over the crib, looking at the tiny figure within.

"Elyse," he says to himself, feeling the word roll off his tongue and trying to connect it with the baby in front of him. "Elyse."

Magnus finds him there half an hour later, still staring at the baby and almost unable to believe that this tiny person belongs to him. Magnus wraps his arms around his husband, kisses him on the cheek and whispers, "Happy Father's Day."

Please note that I know nothing about the adoption process, and that if I got something wrong I do not want to hear about it. this was fluff written for a friend on a deadline, and I do not expect any of it to be accurate. Any accuracy is purely accidental.