So here's another from the 24 Fics in 24 Days Challenge. I think I was half asleep when I wrote this because when I went to edit it, some of the grammar/spelling was horrendous. It's all fixed now, though. I hope. Anyway, enjoy!
The great grandfather clock in the foyer of the institute chimed loudly through the beats of unperturbed silence pounding through the building. Alec counted the rings with something akin to fascination until they came to an abrupt halt after nine chimes. That meant, if he was right about the time they'd gotten in, that it had been four hours since his parents had disappeared from the infirmary. He could vaguely recall them mentioning calling someone, perhaps a warlock, but their voices had been so very muffled as the world swung around him. He had half a mind to go after them, to check that they hadn't vanished into thin air and left him an orphan like the poor little girl in the book he'd been reading yesterday afternoon, but the pain that exploded through each inch of his body every time he so much as thought of moving shut that thought down fairly quickly.
He'd probably have a nasty scar from this, he thought absently as he traced lazy patterns over the spinning infirmary ceiling with his blurry eyes. His parents had lots of scars from demon hunts, littered like silver roadmaps all over their skin, and he thought he wouldn't mind being a little more like them. Besides, all real shadowhunters had scars and it was past time he received one of his very own.
Unfortunately, Alec noted with great displeasure that scars apparently didn't come at the push of a 'badass' button and required a fair amount of excruciating pain to make an appearance. He'd prefer if his body didn't feel like it was self-combusting every time he twitched, if it counted for anything at all.
It didn't, Alec knew that. He'd just have to bear with it until the infinitely slow Silent Brothers decided to show up and heal him already. He would have hoped they'd place something of a priority on a dying eight year old, but apparently that was not the case.
At some point during his musings, Isabelle had snuck into the room and taken up residence on the end of his bed, watching him with wide eyes that burned with the wild curiosity of a little girl who'd never gotten a chance to see the world. She barely even seemed to notice the gaping hole in his side or the demon poison currently working at stopping his heart.
"What was it like?" she inquired, all but bouncing up and down as she leaned in closer to him. Alec groaned in response, deeming it a suitable reply when his whole existence felt like it'd been salted and burned. He wished that were the case; maybe then the demon poison would have been exterminated and he wouldn't be in the process of dying a very slow and very painful death.
"Isabelle," came a sharp voice from the other side of the room. "Leave your brother alone. Can't you see he's been injured?"
He could just make out the sour expression on his sister's face before she muttered something under her breath that he would have smacked her for if he weren't in the process of feeling excruciating pain rip through him at every second. The bed shifted distressingly and moments later she was bounding out of the room with one last angry look towards the displeased woman standing just inside the doorway. Alec's mother let out a heavy sigh, moving until she was hovering at his side, hands brushing his wet bangs away from his burning forehead.
"It was an arachnoid demon," she said informingly. For a brief moment, Alec was confused by the statement. He was the one who'd been ripped into by it, didn't she think he already knew what had bitten him? It wasn't until his distorted vision managed to find a way to encompass the tall figure behind her that he realized she wasn't talking to him but the warlock she must have called to heal him.
There was a touch of warm, gentle hands over his chest before the man spoke in a voice that sounded like sweet honey and the hot cocoa his mother used to make him. "It would be best for you to leave while I heal him. Otherwise we run the risk of me losing my concentration and making things worse instead."
He could vaguely hear the heavy breath his mother let out and the mutter of, "Just heal him, please. I don't care how much it'll cost me. Just don't let my baby die," before his hand was squeezed one last time and the comfort his mother always managed to bring him was gone with the clicking of hard heels against the tiled infirmary floor. He was alone again, not counting the strange warlock who was regarding him with eyes like the vicious devil of a cat that lived in the Institute with them.
A rustling of fabric ascended through the room and suddenly the hands were back, flitting over the gash in his side, the pounding in his temples, the stone in his chest. He could hear words in another language, one he found quite beautiful when falling from this strange man's lips, as the warlock worked his magic with a soothing hush every time Alec tried to turn his head to look at him. There was an odd feeling that followed the stranger's hands, like cool water was flowing through his aching bones and replenishing them of their strength with a single brush of its gentle tide. Alec would have squirmed at it if it weren't for his sudden inability to so much as consider moving.
"There," said the man shortly after the great clock finished its ten abrupt chimes. The invisible force that had been keeping Alec perfectly still for the past while was lifted with the word and the young boy took the opportunity to finally tilt his head and get a good look at the warlock, now that his vision wasn't swimming like the east river.
He was still tall, even when slumped tiredly in the armchair beside the bed, with great spikes of black hair full of every colour under the sun. He was a walking rainbow, to put it lightly, with neon jeans and a tight red shirt adorned with something that glittered like diamonds under the soft light of the infirmary. Alec noted the jack thrown haphazardly over his sheet covered legs, hanging half off the bed and appearing to be in danger of tumbling right off, didn't really fit with the rest of the man in that it was a boring black like everything Alec himself owned and looked to be well-loved with the seams fraying threateningly and the front decorated with a fair amount of tiny holes. It was strange, he thought absently to himself as he stared unabashedly at the man beside him, that while even the warlock's shining shoes were bright and new and flashy, he wore at the same time something so worn and old.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to stare?" the strange man inquired tiredly, yawning as he gave Alec a vaguely disinterested look. The young boy frowned, sinking further down into the rock hard bed below him. He was at least fifty percent sure the pillow his head was currently perched on was actually filled with rocks and not the plush down of his bed upstairs in his room.
"Are you magic?" Alec asked him, squinting at the faint sheen of something sparkly covering the man, who's expression shifted to one that was much more amused than before.
Leaning forward, he wiggled tanned fingers in front of Alec's face before promptly snapping a shower of blue sparks into existence. Alec's eyes went wide with awe as he reached up to grab unabashedly at the man's hand, bringing it closer so as to inspect it further.
There was no trace of anything out of the ordinary. "How did you do that?"
The warlock grinned, cat eyes flashing in the light with a wild mischievousness. "Magic," he replied simply, wiggling the fingers Alec still had yet to let go of again. Smiling softly, Alec let his hand drop.
"That's amazing."
The glittery man appeared mildly taken aback by the statement. "Is it?" he asked innocently, though his eyes had gone suddenly unreadable as he regarded Alec with a new intensity.
Alec nodded adamantly before sinking back down onto the rock hard bed with a yawn, feeling suddenly exhausted. Neither of them said anything for a long moment and Alec's breathing had slowed considerably, his eyes drooping dangerously, by the time the man spoke up again.
"You should sleep," he said softly, reaching forward to brush the young boy's bangs back in the same manner his mother had what must have been at least an hour ago.
"Will you be here when I wake up?" He wasn't sure what prompted him to ask it exactly, but later he would chalk it up to drowsiness and delirium from having been used as demon chow by an overgrown spider.
"No," the man replied honestly, standing with a wide stretch that popped his spine and swinging his jacket back over his shoulders. Alec tried not to be too disappointed by the dismissive response, but he must have failed miserably by the huge softening of the warlock's expression. He hesitated for a second before sinking back into the armchair at Alec's bedside and adding, "But I'll stay until you fall asleep."
Smiling now, Alec thanked him and curled comfortably onto the side that didn't feel like it'd been repeatedly bludgeoned by a four by four. The man let out a small laugh, though Alec had absolutely no idea what was funny, and ran a gentle hand through his hair with a whispered, "You're welcome," and a soft sigh moments later. Alec didn't know what he was sighing at, either, but he didn't spend time thinking it over as he sunk into the easiest sleep he could ever remember having.
Right before he drifted off, Alec realized he never caught the warlock's name. It was too late, though, as barely a second later his mind succumbed to the sweet callings of unconsciousness, aided by the comforting brush of a warm hand over his forehead. He didn't know why, but he was immensely overjoyed that the man had stayed even just a few minutes longer.
Let me know what you thought?