I don't own The Mortal Instruments or the Infernal Devices.
" 'He is very pretty. For a human.' 'He's very broken' said Magnus. 'Like a lovely vase that someone has smashed. Only luck and skill can put it back together the way it was before. -Magnus Bane, Cassandra Clare (The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince)
Alec had sworn to himself that he wouldn't go to see Magnus no matter what Heaven challenged his resolve with… But nothing.. No matter how strong his Clairvoyance rune was supposed to be.. He couldn't have seen this coming. Not at all.. And Isabelle..Izzy..strong and confidant Izzy had been been torn to pieces.. She was crying for Angel's sake. Alec could have counted the times he'd seen Izzy cry on a single hand and he'd probably have fingers left.
But she was crying now and she was angry at the same time. "Don't.. Just don't talk to me!" She screamed at Robert and Maryse. Then she turned and fled, from Alec and her parents. From her family.
Alec whirled to face his parents. "What the Hell is she talking about… It's not true is it?" Maryse bit her lip and Robert shifted uneasily on his feet, whether he was doing it consciously or unconsciously, he was shifting away from Maryse. Alec's eyes were trained to pick on the faintest movements during a battle. The movement and body language didn't go unnoticed.
Alec felt like he'd been physically slapped.
He took both a literal and figurative step backwards. Shaking his head, a shudder went through his entire body. Tremors, as if the very earth was shaking beneath his feet and trying to knock him down.
His parents. The last people in the world he'd ever thought would betray one another.
He thought of the marriage runes that bond Shadowhunters to each other, were they not as powerful as he'd been lead to believe?
He'd thought his parents loved each other and yet he wanted to slap himself for not seeing it sooner. Everything had been going downhill since Max's death, dad moving to Idris and spending less time in New York. Isabelle had said something along the lines of Robert only staying because of Max and now that Max wasn't around to hold the family together, it was crumbling. Fast.
Maryse reached out a hard to comfort him, expression concerned and pleading. Alec retreated yet another step.
"No." He whispered the word on an exhale, trying to make his denial a reality by breathing it into the air.
"..it's not true, why would you not tell me… You told Izzy! Why not me?" "This isn't something you would have wanted to know, we were trying to protect you Alec.. " Maryse trailed off when the words came out wrong.
"So what you're saying is that I needed protecting but Izzy didn't? Maryse flinched. " I was trying to protect Isabelle in a different way."
Alec scowled. "By ruining the way she views men?
Robert snorted disdainfully.
"You're one to praise opinions of men. You think that warlock is a saint when in fact he's the very opposite. Or did you forget warlocks are part demon, what lies has he told you that make you believe you know all the ways of the world." Alec reeled back, and even Maryse was shocked. "Robert!" She snapped, she turned back to console Alec, her son's face was twisted into a mask of pain and loathing. "Don't you dare being Magnus into this!" Alec snarled, spitting venom at his father before turning and fleeing like his sister before him.
And that was how Alec found himself throwing the door to the warlock representative's house open.
Magnus running into the room responding to the loud banging sound of the door hitting the wall, fingers spitting out sparks, eyes flashing in defensive anger.
Shock flittered across his face when he actually saw who it was. "Alec?" The tone was confusion, melding with concern as the warlock studied the shadowhunter's face.
Alec gave no verbal response, not really sure why or what made him come here of all places for comfort when- at the moment his and Magnus's relationship was about as stable as walking on thin ice, about as stable as his parents relationship Alec realized with bitter irony.
The young shadowhunter could practically feel the bile in his stomach.
Magnus on the other hand was troubled by Alec's sudden unannounced visit, and he couldn't help but recall a time long ago when another shadowhunter had visited him in a similar unannounced fashion, pleading with the warlock to assist him in the removal of a curse.
Alec and Will had been gifted with similar looks and the same occupation of shadowhunter but that was where Magnus believed their similarities ended. Personality wise Will matched Jace better, to the point where- if Will had been alive and the same age as Jace- they would have gotten alone either very well or horribly depending on how you looked at it.
Magnus shoved thoughts of William away violently. William was the reason he and Alec were in this mess in the first place… If Camille hadn't mentioned Will and if Alec hadn't been eavesdropping.. Things wouldn't have turned out the way that they were.
"Alec.. What's wrong?"
Despite Magnus's attempt to sound formal the way he did with most clients, the warlock couldn't seem to prevent an undertone of concern for Alec's well-being from slipping into the last part of the sentence.
Magnus mentally shook his head. The Lightwood boy had gotten to him, try as he might, Magnus still had some feelings for Alec even after the boy had conspired with Camille behind Magnus's back.
Magnus forced himself out of his thoughts and focused on Alec's broken and hurt expression.
"I'm blind." Alec hissed in a tone of bitter, self-loathing that took Magnus by surprise.
Alec continued his bleak monologue, rapidly spitting words out with an angry intensity, no pausing for breath. Just an angry stream of words.
The lack of pauses left no room for Magnus to interrupt even if he'd wanted to.
Sometimes people just needed to vent.
"...and Izzy is crying and she hardly ever cries and I'm a blind idiot because I didn't see any of this coming and I should have because it seems so obvious...and I'm just so angry for not seeing it!" Alec finally ran out of oxygen and had to take a breath.
Magnus kept his own voice at a more normal volume. "Let go of that dagger." he insisted, as if gently trying to coax a child into temporarily giving up a favorite toy.
Alec's eyebrows furrowed in confusion before his eyes flickered to his hand, where his fingers were holding a dagger in a vise-like grip.
Alec stared at it numbly, trying to remember how exactly it had gotten into his hand and how long it had been there.
Magnus stepped forward and gently unclenched Alec's fingers from around the hilt of the weapon and carefully set the object aside on a small decorative table by the door.
Alec had apparently decided that he'd taken enough of a break and broke out of his quiet state to resume his long winded rant.
"They didn't tell me! They're my family they're my family and they didn't trust me enough to tell me!" Here Magnus did intervene Alec's downward spiral unable to watch it go on any longer.
Magnus felt Alec go tense when Magnus embraced him, unlike times before, Alec didn't relax completely and despite Magnus's better judgement telling him to let go he didn't.
"Hush," Magnus soothed, "I know you shadowhunters have talents but even shadowhunters have to breathe." Magnus chuckled softly. A shaky breath from Alec was his reward for his efforts but Alec remained tense.
Magnus brushed his fingers lightly over Alec's shoulders, to his forearms and down to his wrists, his fingertips leaving the faint blue glow of magic in their wake as they went.
Alec breathed a small sigh as he felt his shoulders relaxing, the tense feeling in his muscles bleeding away.
It was a similar effect as that of a healing rune.
"Now," Magnus spoke again, carefully watching Alec's expression. "Why did you come to me? You could have gone to Jace or to comfort your own sister but you came to me…with all of the recent… Disagreement in our own relationship I wouldn't have expected you to come to me, from the sound of things you should want to avoid me like the plague."
"I was planning to avoid you, but then my father started talking about you and I just couldn't stand it anymore."
Magnus breathed a sigh and his fingers retreated from Alec's wrists. The warlock graced the shadowhunter with a knowing smile. "I think I can handle criticism, I have thick skin."
"I took offense on your behalf, and I know that we're not on the best of terms right now but I just had to talk to someone and I was probably being selfish coming here anyway."
Magnus held Alec's shoulders tighter. "My feelings don't matter right now." Magnus assured. "Yours do. You came here because you trust me to see you when you feel at your weakest I have enough decency to do something to help you."
"Why?" Alec's voice echoed with broken confusion. "Because, aku cinta kamu." Magnus whispered, brushing away Alec's tears as he said it.
Magnus sacrificed the bed and spent the night on the couch, it was clear that Alec didn't want to go back to the Inquisitor's house and face his parents and Magnus was one to oblige. He and Alec had shared a bed before but to do so now- what with their relationship on hold and the news about Alec's parents- would have been awkward to say the very least.
Alec had tried to convince Magnus that he'd be just fine on the couch but Magnus was having none of it. After an argument Alec relented and marched into Magnus's bedroom slamming the door.
Magnus settled on the couch, too troubled to sleep he contented himself with watching the shadows on the ceiling until dawn light chased them away.
He rose from the couch and rolled the tenseness out of his shoulders, making his way to the doorway of his bedroom, hoping that it wasn't locked. It wasn't. He pushed it open gently.
Alec was still sleeping, his face turned towards the door. Magnus inched into the room and knelt down to look into Alec's face, he looked at peace in his sleep. Magnus reached on a hand and traced Alec's closed eyelids with his fingertips.
Alec muttered in his sleep and shifted slightly. Magnus felt his own lips twitch into a melancholy smile.
"Alec, Alec wake up." Magnus whispered. Alec muttered once more before an understandable sentence made it past his lips. "No, let me sleep for eternity." Magnus smiled again and continued to trace Alec's eyelids. "Sleeping for eternity is impossible." In response Alec opened his eyes, the blue irises standing out against the white of his skin and the lingering shadows in the room.
Magnus felt an odd sense of guilt, he hadn't been lying when he said he loved Alec. Not once. He had never lied to Alec- withheld certain information yes, but he'd done that to protect Alec and had ended up hurting him anyway.
No more lies. No more half-truths. Alec deserved better. Brutal honesty.
Magnus stood, drawing his fingers away from Alec's face, resisting the urge to touch him again.
"You should go." Magnus insisted, voice sounding more flat than he meant.
Alec looked up at Magnus, slightly bewildered with the sudden change in him.
He sprang up from the bed as if he'd been suddenly pushed. Gaze flicking from Magnus, to the bed before an expression of slight embarrassment came over his face. By the Angel this was awkward. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. "Yeah- you're right I should go." an odd sort of hopefulness entered his tone, some part of him hadn't woken up to face the truth that him and Magnus were at the moment no longer 'a thing ' as Isabelle sometimes called it. Isabelle. Oh god! His sister. He'd forgot about his sister who no doubt was suffering her own emotional turmoil. All hopeful thoughts of staying with Magnus. Both physically staying in the house with him and staying in a relationship. Vanished temporarily from his mind, replaced with- the temporally forgotten- concern for his sister. He felt instantly guilty.
"Izzy." He said, half to himself but Magnus heard anyway and smiled reassuringly. "Go to her." He insisted. Alec was already running from the room, out into the living room, pausing to reclaim his dagger which was still on the little table where Magnus had set it.
A letter was underneath. Alec squinted at the name. Meliorn. The faerie council representative. Alec vaguely remembered Isabelle knowing him from a while back. One of Isabelle's slightly longer-lived relationships. Alec raised an eyebrow in curiosity. He thought about asking Magnus what the letter was about but he didn't want to pry and risk another argument that had the potential to make his current standing with Magnus worse.
So he just turned his dagger in his hand and turned away from the table, heading for the door, he was aware of Magnus watching him, and he turned to look over his shoulder at the warlock, intending to thank Magnus for his hospitality, the 'thank you' was on his lips but before he could say anything Magnus spoke.
"You're sure you're okay?"
Alec blinked and his mouth snapped shut. His expression turned into something determined. "I'm working on it." Alec reassured. Magnus gave him a strange melancholy smile that seemed to surface from some other place in time, like he was remembering something else as he looked at Alec.
"Good." Magnus said, almost half to himself. Alec gave him a half smile before turning and walking out the door.
He marched up the steps of the Inquisitor's house- his father's house- no one met him by the door. There was no sound of voices- yelling or otherwise. At least not at first. Alec made his way up the stairs and started to hear noise coming from his bedroom his bedroom? He raised an eyebrow- this time in confusion. His hand was on the door knob, the words half way past his lips as he pushed the door open "Izzy are you-." He wasn't really sure if he had been going to say "are you okay?" Or "Are you in here?" He'd been expecting to see Izzy or even his mom or dad. Who he hadn't been expecting was Simon.
"What's he doing here?!"