He had fucked up (again).

Or so he thought.

Anyway.

Maybe it wasn't too late yet.

But Magnus's face when he threw Alec out had spoken for itself. "Being thrown out speaks for itself," muttered Alec, and let himself sink down the wall by his window. He closed the curtains, and finally felt alone. His head was buzzing. A lot had happened in the last few days. He'd nearly assisted in Magnus's execution, and today he'd featured in his persecution. Even before today, the Valentine-incident was something that they should have long since talked about, but Magnus hadn't been ready yet.

And then all the dead shadowhunters had turned up.

Azazel's curse. Of course, his rational side figured he could not have known, and that was probably true – he could not have known, not really. But it dampened his mood how he felt he should have. He dearly wished he had trusted his gut for Magnus's sake. Didn't Isabelle always tell him to be less repressed? Then again – Valentine. He loathed Valentine, and he hadn't wanted to blindly, foolishly fall for his tricks. Alec's sexuality was out in the open since his 'wedding', and in particular conservative shadowhunters didn't even try to hide their disrespect. People talked at the Institute and in Idris, and if it weren't for his otherwise pretty much spotless integrity, seriousness, his fighting abilities, his legal knowledge and compliance, the Inquisitor would, in all probability, never even have considered to name him head. Not that she had decided to name him head. In the light of recent events, she'd chosen Jace. Jace had named him head, Jace had taken a stand. He was behind him, and so was Izzy. And with Izzy came a considerable part of the downworld.

He reminded himself to focus. So, generally speaking, yes, it would have been unlikely for Valentine to know about his and Magnus's secrets and the lucky charm, but impossible? No. About that, Jace had been right. Annoyingly, Clary's father usually was ten steps ahead of them. And because he was still in the process of fighting the stigma and thereby redefining his position as 'the gay Lightwood boy with his infamous warlock boyfriend', lately more than ever he had to think a couple of times before deviating from any superior's orders. Deviating from rules and orders wasn't his thing, anyway. He could and swore to himself he would in the future, but there must needs be an extremely good reason. Tracking downworlders – they were going insane. That would have gone too far. Their fear should have caused them to move closer together, but instead, it seemed some were ready to accept another war. Were they asking for it? Uprising 2.0?

Nevertheless, he hadn't been able to spear Magnus unfathomable pain. The warlock almost never was at a loss for words, but this time they escaped his emotions. Magnus would not talk much to him about it. He had hidden it well, but Alec could sense he hadn't been too willing to meet with him this afternoon, and thanks to Alec's stupidity, he'd ended up throwing him out. Alec ought to have trusted Magnus, plain and simple. He was an idiot. Afterwards, he hadn't handed the hair over for investigation. He had told the Inquisitor she was sounding just like Valentine instead. And because that was true, it had felt good.

Magnus was unwell since the incident with Azazel, but he said he was fine, bored, needed a change – he evaded the topic. And although Alec knew what it was like to be unable to phrase your own feelings when all they did was overwhelm you, confuse you, and hurt, it was not something he had expected from Magnus. Which was stupid, since he was just as human, partially only, but Magnus was the sort of downworlder who could not deny their human nature, even though it might be simply because they did not always want to. Yeah, Magnus was the sort of downworlder willing to love a closeted shadowhunter like himself. What good had actually come of it for him? Very little, not to mention today's DNA-sample in a paper bag. Magnus deserved so much better, much much better than any of this. He deserved a boyfriend who trusted him, a boyfriend who trusted himself. Alec had good instincts. Why didn't he act on them?

It was not just rare, it was unprecedented for Magnus not to reach out to Alec for the rest of the day, and Alec sincerely didn't know how to interpret the warlock's absolute silence. "Maybe it means you're a total fuck-up, duh."

Indeed, his rational self was the one who had continuously let him down in the first place. And it was not just that he had fucked up, the overall situation had been fucked up. It still was fucked up. Even more than before, if that was possible. Really, somehow their situation was always fucked up. And even though they had been torturing him, even though the Clave had never exactly treated him with kindness or at least respect, Magnus had still been able to shove all that aside and had tried to re-captivate Valentine the immediate second he got the chance. What must have disappointed him earlier was not that he believed Alec was suspecting he'd had anything to do with the shadowhunter killings. No. Magnus was disappointed because Alec, "by the fucking wholy order of the Clave," would go and approach him for his hair, urging Magnus not to be "overly dramatic. Alec, you're a hero." Like Magnus, many of the leading downworlders from New York which Alec had gotten to know recently were a lot more cooperative than the Clave presented them to be.

And then there was always Magnus. Accepting humiliation from the clave (what choice did he have?), but not from his boyfriend. If Alec meant to be with Magnus, he would have to start vouching for his own beliefs right now. Jace had given him the chance to do it.

Magnus.

Magnus. He was so full of Magnus that he could not function. Luckily, he'd given his first orders already. Now he was waiting for something. Something he wanted to do. Yes, he wanted to do something, but what? Magnus. How was someone like him even possible? Again and again, he made Alec see. Magnus ever only seemed to care about Alec's integrity, his true self. Yes, who Magnus wanted to be with was Alec. And if that involved Clave-business, he wanted Alec to be the voice, not the mouthpiece. Alec knew that Magnus didn't doubt Alec's heart, but he doubted his choices. "Old habits die hard – if at all," he thought, doubtful himself. It was a dangerous automatism to revert back to his old ways, Alec knew that. It wasn't really what he wanted either. Part of it had been that they had been Jace's orders, too. Bad excuse, though. Not valid.

He was just trying to comprehend his behavior, explain it. Not justify it. "Across the board, we simply deem them all to be worthless and evil, but in some of them beats a kinder heart than in all of us taken together." Alec shook his head. No race with a tad of human blood could be either completely good or completely bad. Impossible. That was the beauty and the curse of being human at all, hosting and continuously fighting out both. "A mix of human, angel, and demon is what we are." Shadowhunters and downworlders could be very much alike. More often than not, being 'evil' was a choice. A question of attitude. "The Clave. Valentine. Some of Valentine's old followers are even in the Clave."

"So much about us is determined by our actions, by what we choose to do or not to do." Alec would know. For fuck's sake. He hated himself when he was sulking. He wished he were ready to go, ready to head out. He wasn't. Not yet. But he was anxious, impatient.

With regard to Magnus, whether Alec wanted him to or not, he had seen through him right from the start. Today, too. To him, it was like as if he were an open book, and although Magnus was committed to it and loved the plot wholeheartedly, sometimes, at the mere turn of a page, their story would hurt and shame him. Alec bit his lip. Had Jace gotten to Maia and the concert yet? Where was his message? Hadn't he said he'd let him know?

In the past, Magnus had always made an effort to understand and guide him (most people were unable or unwilling to do either). And when Alec decided to lead them into a dead end no matter what, then, still, Magnus had at least cared enough to ask again even though he had said he would not ask him again, ever. Without Magnus, Alec would still be so much farther removed from his own self. Married to Lydia, certainly, forever responsible for another ruined life. Caught for good in a "strong" union "that makes perfect sense," born out of his fearful desire to hide and get rid of "myself. I wanted to correct a flaw that shouldn't ever be one, for the sake of what?" Magnus "and Isabelle, and Clary, and Jace, too,…anyone close to me but mom, really," had made him see that not corresponding to the Clave's norms did not necessarily make you unnormal or unworthy. Around Magnus, Alec snorted, 'normalcy' kind of was a non-existing concept anyways, and, as a matter of fact, that was awesome.

It was scary, and it was liberating. Exhilarating. It meant adventure and discovery. He no longer agreed with the idea that personal desires and family duties must be mutually exclusive in his case. No doubt, Alec's relationship had to have been the second or third strongest reason why the Inquisitor had chosen Jace over him. For the most part, she'd wanted to show her newly gained grandson she loved him – also, she wanted him to follow in her steps. Bitchslapping Alec had been a convenient addition.

Yet again, today Magnus's reaction had been necessary for Alec to question himself, to stop blindly following orders: voluntarily, Alec would never punish anyone for being how and who they are so long as they meant and did no actual harm, so why punish himself for being gay? Why the hell track every downworlder – prooflessly? Because the Clave wanted that? What they wanted was to simultaneously get rid of and reinforce their 'other'. Yes. And to them, Alec was an other, too. A threat. A possibility for change. To them, change meant overthrow. Would they ever consider that a change of thinking was necessary, or else they'd end up destroying each other – who but they themselves would be left once they were finished with everyone else? Maybe Alec could help them along, help them change. His friends were up for it. He had support.

Leading the way, Magnus had repeatedly helped him make traditions change, "especially those based on their, on our, idiotic shadowhunter-ignorance and that stupid arrogance that results in people like Valentine." Sure, he hadn't crashed his wedding solely for Magnus, of course he'd done it for himself, too. That was true. But Magnus had been his main motivation. Him, and becoming ever more conscious of how Clary's father and the Clave were different in degree, not really in kind. He ought to have inferred that sooner. In a sense, Alec even had to hand it to Clary. She was living proof that it could be a good thing to be different from your parents, or to be different in general. With respect to Alec, she had definitely been one of the unpleasant onsets of his very own profound rethinking process. He abhorred the memory of when that demon outed him. "Deceeeeived," he sighed, and closed his eyes.

He had started out hating Clary not because she came to them as a mundane, but because Jace was smitten with her instantly, and because that had meant for Jace and him to be less close. Additionally, Jace had started to just ignore all their rules and laws. He had never exactly been a conformist, but that was because he hadn't been raised to take over the Institute, "what a grim sense of humor life has, huh." That had always been Alec's responsibility, it had been his purpose. "A very grim sense of humor." Via neatly fitting in, always doing the Clave's and his parents' bidding, Alec guessed he had tried to compensate for being gay, it had been something to hide behind.

For the longest time, being Jace's parabatai had been the only way to channel his 'forbidden' feelings, the only male union Alec had felt safe to enter, the only male union that was officially allowed – and it was comparatively easy for a secretive guy like Alec to conceal anything going beyond brotherly love within it. When Clary appeared on the scene, though, being so close to Jace had no longer felt very good. On the contrary, it had been excruciatingly painful. Miserable, just like she'd said.

None of Jace's flings had mattered to him, Alec realized, because they hadn't truly mattered to Jace. And yet, going on Clary's ilegal 'mission' had quickly caused them to cross paths with Magnus. After the memory incident, the warlock had tried to comfort him, but it was more than that. Yeah, from that moment on that Magnus had declared open season on him, everything had been turned upside down. Things reached a point of no return. By all means, Clary had pissed him off so much with her "Blah blah, why do you always look so miserable, it must be hard to be in love with Jace when he's straight and everything...blah." Mind, it had only pissed him off half as much as it had frightened him; all of a sudden, everyone seemed to be on the verge of ruining an illusion Alec had desperately tried to maintain. For his own sake, too. "If I am that obvious, maybe Jace has understood now as well," he'd thought, and he'd given it a shot. A fail – everything was put to rest. Well, Clary had hit the nail right on the head, and what was no big deal to her and what was okay for Izzy – and a mystery to Jace – could well have meant the end of his life as he knew it then and there.

Back then he hadn't yet considered how that might be a good thing. To be perfectly honest and absolutely fair, what reason did he ever have to even dare think into that direction? Not one, not even during the wildest of his wildest dreams. Didn't he know his mother? "Maryse anyone?" He loved her, but he had always known how part of his environment would react. And hadn't the Inquisitor enjoyed rubbing it in today. And hadn't that made Alec do something he regretted "a-fucking-gain?"

Nevertheless, Clary had meant what she said, it was no big deal to her. Whereas he used to think Izzy accepted him simply because she loved him enough, because he was her brother, there were apparently places in this world where love and relationships were set no boundaries based on sex, or race, or status, or whatever. As a guy, you were allowed to love another guy. No big deal. Nothing wrong with that. And so for him, too, change could come. A change of thought, of heart, of life. He had had no choice but to get over Jace – crappy enough –, and it had always been a rocky path, still was, probably, "considering that I've pushed Lydia to the back of my mind again. And it's not just that Magnus hasn't been in touch since we've made the attacker's identity public, since Jace named me head and since we've officially apologized to the downworld. I've not reached out to him either." With the warlock's help, he had been making progress, slowly, not altogether steady, but lately it had all started to feel so good. Why had he had to take two steps back after taking one forward? Why? Alec had finally felt in line with something, with someone – and now? Why could he never let himself have nice things? Why betray Magnus's trust again? Some day, Magnus might be fed up, and Alec couldn't even blame him.

"Overly dramatic. I am a shitface."

Honestly, Alec was not sure how to deal with any of it. He had barely figured out how to look at himself in the mirror again after "killing" Jocelyn – next to Magnus's almost-execution the other thing he was not entirely responsible for, but then again yes –, and right now he kind of felt cursed, yeah, he felt he brought nothing but pain and misery upon his peers, lots of fucked up shit for the people he was supposed to take care of. Nice. How was he going to blow up the ground this time to make it right?

"Certainly not by wallowing in self-pity," he thought, "and by being of use for no one. Which leads me back to…Jace?"

Impatiently, he yanked his cushion up because his back was starting to hurt. The Institute's walls were thick and old, and he was starting to feel cold. His room might be considered plain, sterile even, but for him it had its hidden gems and comfort zones.

This niche was one of them. If you kept the massive curtains closed, you might even escape nosy sibling-intruders, at least sometimes, if it was your lucky day. Tonight, they were all out and about; Izzy was likely showing this British guy, Sebastian – who he really couldn't stand –, some of her favourite spots in New York. Little did Alec know she actually wasn't, and that she was at Simon's concert, way too close to Raphael for Alec's taste. It wasn't that Alec didn't see how Raphael felt guilty for what he'd done to his sister, but he'd have to do a whole lot more than just help them out on their missions to redeem himself. And Jace… Alec checked his watch and his phone. It was past 11 already, and still he had no new messages. He should long have taken care of Maia by now – little did Alec know things were the other way round... Or maybe the fact that he hadn't messaged Alec yet meant that Magnus hadn't bothered to show up downtown.

Alec closed his eyes again and reached out for Jace's vibes.

Jace was clubbing. That almost caused Alec to smile. It was so much like Jace – any authoritative day was an authoritative day too much. Things had to be balanced out. No last name in this world would be able to stop Jace from being Jace.

Alec could tell there were fierce rhythms and liquor involved if he focused on his parabatai hard enough. Maybe even sex. He was not up for Jace's escapism, though. Compared to what had happened between him and Magnus, right now Jace had luxury problems. By some miracle, Valentine was not his father, so he wasn't Clary's brother 'anymore', and he had finally uncovered some truth about his past. He was a Herondale and would always be a Lightwood, and that wasn't so bad. Ah, and 'poor' Simon was a ridiculous person in so many ways, and Alec more than anyone was utterly aware that Clary would not be able to suppress her feelings for Jace forever, no matter how badly she wanted to do right by her vampire friend. He supposed Simon was nice enough for a mundane-vampire crossover, cheerful, always ready to make an unnecessary joke. Alec saw that girls liked that, but he himself wasn't really known for his exceptionally good sense of humor. Regardless, there was no way Clary could talk herself into loving Simon like that much longer. Being parabatai, a part of him had experienced first-hand what Jace had felt, and he had shut up about it when it all had been impossible. Jace's heart had been broken, too. Not much longer… Actually, Jace's aura was surprisingly happy at the moment.

Well, the vampire certainly adored and felt a lot for Clary, but Alec knew exactly how he, or bloody Raphael or bloody Meliorn or bloody Sebastian or bloody anyone, looked at his sister – a look he did not appreciate much either. They said his sister was a force of nature, and from what Alec saw, he was pretty sure she would happen to susceptible Simon sooner or later. Who would have thought that the Lightwood children of all people were all about the downworlders?

Normally, he would of course have felt pity for Jace. Inevitably, he always shared his pain, but since Jace seemed to be doing fine enough to forget his promise, Alec thought it was fairly ok to leave him be. If that was what Jace wanted and needed, he should have it. With regard to all of them his prognosis was that time would reveal loads of solutions to very few problems.

By the angel, he was so angry with himself, and he felt so ashamed. And helpless, since he had no actual words, just thousands of thoughts doing a non-stop 360. Not too long ago, his feelings had been mainly a mixture of shock and relief. Realizing Valentine was actually Magnus and Magnus was Valentine had not left them much time for thinking, with the Inquisitor being on the brink of executing Magnus and Valentine on the run. Basically, action had prevented the truth of the matter from sinking in up until he and Magnus, restored to his own body, got to sit on the warlock's couch. Alec had not known what to do or what to say. They'd cuddled up together, and Magnus's silent suffering had kept reinforcing Alec's sense of guilt. But they hadn't spoken much. It was never his strong suit, talking. Unless you meant to talk shadowhunter business and lethal missions. Despite desperately wanting to let Magnus know he understood exactly what it felt like when your own body was violated by a curse, he could not bring himself to speak up just yet. He was working on it, he was getting there. It was just that Magnus was hurting very badly, and Alec was too aware of his own part in Magnus's pain. He was afraid he'd act up, and he generally wasn't sure if Magnus wanted Alec around at all right now. His Clave-performance had given Magnus the rest, Alec was sure of it.

When he'd made his one and only statement about the impact of the agony rune, Magnus had been staring into nothing, at something or someone long gone, eyes blank. Never before had Magnus's eyes looked dead when they were unglamoured. Normally, without the glamour they were at their most vibrant. Witnessing Magnus's pain hadn't been far from being branded with that rune himself. If anything, it had been worse. But his mouth remained shut because a not-so-friendly reminder let him know that, besides allowing Magnus to be tortured, Alec had also been the one to drag him into the execution chair. And he had shoved him against a wall, had threatened him. Oh yes, Alec felt amazing. Not. Had he mentioned the hair and the paper bag yet?

Throughout their still-young relationship, he had relied on Magnus. On his eloquence, on his self-confidence, on him approaching and encouraging him again and again. Even though Magnus had often said to him that he was just as shaken and unsettled by Alec and their situation as he knew Alec surely was, he had concealed it very well. Alec sighed. Looking up at the moon, it pulsed and shuddered through him again that that was because Magnus had been sure of one thing: Alec. When tearing down those walls that were a century thick, he had somehow already determined Alec was worth it. Alec knew it was true and yet couldn't help twisting his mouth – him and 17 thousand others. Alec had done the maths more than once. Subtracting some generous 16 years, Magnus had been dating people for about 384 years. Let's just say, obviously there must have been plenty of one night stands involved – even he was with him for more than eight days now. "Push that aside, don't do him injustice," he warned himself, "it's muddled enough as it is." He knew Magnus well enough to see that, apart from maybe Camille, he had rarely truly felt at ease, let alone at home with someone. Seen from this angle, Magnus must have lead a very lonely life so far, multiplied by more than 16 thousand people. All the same, something in him had left it all behind and had chosen to try again with Alec. His insides clenched. He missed him, and he hated to disappoint him.

Evidently, rationality and reason aside (Alec did not think he knew much about love just yet, even so he was sure that reason does not go very far where love comes into play), Magnus's trust was, Alec guessed, smashed to bits when he had done to Magnus what he had done.

Magnus had been locked up doubly: in Valentine's body and in the Institute's cellar. What it must have been like for the warlock to reach out to the one he loved without success, Alec couldn't begin to imagine. He'd been fighting for his life, trying again and again to break through to him, all the while staring into Alec's eyes, cold, hateful, disgusted. It would have ended in his death if Valentine hadn't interrupted, and despite everything, Magnus's last words would still have been, Alec swallowed, "Alexander, please." With an unsatisfying thud, his fist hit the window glass. "Hey," he thought, "hey, I'm Alec, the Clave's mindless puppet on a string. Nice to meet you." Not anymore.

It tasted extremely bitter that Magnus himself was likely trying to rationalize Alec's behaviour, because Alec was quite sure it could not work. That's the thing when you are and aren't to blame: the outcome is negative in either case. Plus, you blame yourself. "Enough. Stop. Overthinking. You've been at that point already. Forward." Always always always, these words resounded in Izzy's voice, and he knew that she was right. Whereas she might be a little bit too impulsive, he clearly thought too much, was too careful, and neither of them was doing too well with that. The middle ground must be nice, he thought. "Max, hopefully." Although Max came after Isabelle, he suspected, and that was why he wanted her to teach him. She knew herself best, and she might be better at emphasizing with their younger brother's thoughts. It would make both of them grow. Alec would never have broken out of the Institute like that – he simply couldn't understand what had driven Max to do it.

Disgusting chills ran down his back any time it hit him that it had really been Valentine whose face he had cupped with his hand that day, that it had been Valentine who he had folded into his arms. And, believe it or not, it hit him often.

Suddenly he was repulsed by the pillow's soft fabric pressing into his back, so he removed it. A frosty stone wall was much more fitting. Frosty like Alec; Alec Lightwood who had shown Magnus Bane – a scared, tortured Magnus – multiple sides of himself the warlock should never have gotten to know. Never. As best as he could, Alec had tried to reconcile the idea of Valentine's face alight with Magnus's soul. It was absurd and obscene to switch these two people, to fuse bits of the one with the other. "And still I should have realized…" The one you love caught in the body of the one you hate most. He was still going in circles: call it what you want, Alec felt he kept failing and betraying Magnus, and now that he had had so much time at his hands to think ceaselessly about everything that had happened, it was no longer a surprise to him that all Magnus had responded to his plea with had been silence and a raptured breath. Or that he'd thrown him out today.

There likely was nothing Magnus knew Alec could do to fix this. And if there was, how could it be Magnus's task to tell Alec what to do?

What he had not yet been able to say to Magnus either was that he thought he could now understand how the warlock was able to say that Alec's ageing would never cool his attraction for him. A body, as beautiful or handsome as it may be, is nothing but a shell. It is always the inside that counts. And Alec had fucked up at seeing through that one shell, had chosen to ignore all the clues. It did not help either that Jace had warned him about Valentine, that his brother had cast aside his doubts. Jace could never have known enough to be a proper judge of the situation, and technically Alec had known that. Jace wasn't to blame, he, Alec, should have put the pieces together – Magnus acting strange, and Valentine claiming he was not Valentine, and so on. Had Valentine cried for his mother during his hearings? Alec somehow did not think so.

Magnus never liked to speak of his mother or his past in general, which was why Alec knew only little. He guessed she was a reason for his sadness. That Magnus preferred to remain silent wasn't exactly okay with him, but it was something that would and should naturally evolve with time, not overnight. It was something Alec could accept for the moment. What mattered was to help Magnus through this and apologize for his behavior earlier. Alec did not want to lose him. "Even if you're doing a poor job at demonstrating that."

Eventually, he rose up and considered to go looking for Jace, maybe have a drink, too. Pretty much immediately he scrapped the idea. Chances were drinking would make him worse. He checked his phone. Nope, no messages. That was not a bad thing per se, because it also meant that nothing too dramatic was going on in New York right now. Alec, the new head of the New York Institute, closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled.

"Inhale."

"Exhale."

Jace was either drunk or getting laid (or both), so, strictly speaking, he was no option. A little reluctantly, he decided to message Izzy instead.

"Izz, I only just found out I got to leave the Institute and run a paramount errand (you haven't spotted Magnus anywhere, have you?). I'll put you on attendance for minor Institute business if that's okay? Please be ready and prepared in case of an emergency. Let me know if anything very serious comes up and I'll be there to help (yep, that's an order). Have a good one, A."

Should he text Magnus? Would he answer? "Don't make it too complicated, Alec, just get going," he muttered to himself as he grabbed his jacket. Hastily he scribbled a note for the shadowhunters on watch duty and left it on his new desk. No, sending Magnus a message was not necessarily a clever thing to do. In mutual agreement, they had decided that they would keep a low profile concerning their cell phone conversations (unsurprisingly, Alec was the one to stick to that much more rigorously). If information got into the wrong hands, disasters might happen. "Yaaaah, they happen anyway…" And here he had another formerly ignored reason why Valentine couldn't have known anything detailed. Great.

The night air was nice, and it wasn't that cold yet. Alec wouldn't have taken one of their motorbikes one way or the other, because he usually preferred to walk. Walking helped him think, and at night, he didn't even mind the mundanes so much. All colors agree in the dark.

"Hey Alec, sure thing. Is everything alright? Do you need help? What can I do? Keep in touch! I."

"Not sure yet. Could go either way, I've fucked up today. Will update you. I hope everything will be all right. Be careful. A."

"Hey, sorry I'm late - my good looks interfered. The air is clear, there are no potential targets around. I'll let you know. J."

As he crossed Brooklyn Bridge, Alec decided he had to give Magnus a choice. Intruding seemed wrong, he was walking on delicate ground anyway. He found a nice spot in the park, sat down on a bench, and started looking at the screen of his phone. For ten minutes. He wasn't having any revelations. And the couple eating each other's faces somewhere nearby in the shadows didn't do much for him either. Magnus. How could he convince Magnus to meet him?

In the end, he took a picture of his view and forwarded it to the warlock, adding his current location. Immediately upon hitting 'send', he felt foolish. Near the shore and cheeping softly, a duck family of five or seven huddled together, Alec couldn't tell from afar and didn't want to go any closer or else he'd frighten them. There was just enough light to make out they were there at all. It was a nice sight, without doubt, but Alec felt sheepish. What else to do but wait, and think about Valentine and a single black hair in a paper bag. Suddenly, he was not at all sure anymore that Magnus would come and meet him. "Hey hey, not here," giggled the girl. Embarrassed and unintentionally jealous, he shifted his gaze down to his feet. Somehow, feeling lonely had been more bearable before he had gotten a taste of what things could be like.

After half an hour, he officially congratulated himself on his stupidity, and got up. Maybe he should go looking for Jace and join the party. Maybe he'd have some fun? Alec kicked away a piece of wood, because he knew fully well he was making contemptuous fun of himself. His reasons were the same as before. To enjoy a drink, he had to be relaxed, and Alec wasn't the sort of person that was able to relax in a room so stuffed with sweaty strangers you could barely move. "Who sends a picture of blurry ducks from Brooklyn Bridge Park after an argument? And without comment?" He did, apparently.

The sudden, soft vibration of his phone startled him. Nervously, Alec span around. If you knew him well enough to be allowed a gaze at his phone when it made itself noticed – well, then you knew that it only ever vibrated for the High Warlock of Brooklyn. A 'precautionary measure'. Izzy found it was hilarious, but she didn't unveil his secret (hush hush, nobody knew!).

"I'm all for a duck test, but I'd rather not carry it out in Brooklyn Bridge Park. My door is open."

Without hesitation, Alec got going. He didn't need to be asked twice. A duck test?