A/N: This is a piece of crap but it has Malec and also guinea pigs and I think that makes up for it. Any grammatical/spelling/logic corrections appreciated.

Alec bursts in the door at three oh two pm, expecting the worst. All the way here he's been running scenarios though his head—Magnus hurt, Magnus cursed, Magnus dying—each more dire than the last. Because if Magnus wasn't in terrible pain, why would he call Alec in the middle of the day, saying only "I need you to come over" in a gut-wrenchingly terse voice before hanging up?

Alec of, course, has dropped everything to rush to the warlock's flat in case he needs to hold his dying lover's hand.

What greets him when he arrives is not at all what he is expecting. He stands in the doorway in open-mouthed disbelief, staring at the scene in front of him on the living room floor. The only thing he can think of to say is "What is that?"

Magnus smiles up at him from where he's lying by the sofa, pure joy shining from his green-gold cat's eyes. "Do you like them?"

"Do I…them?"

"Them. I got one for each of us. The shop down the road was having a sale, so I got some. You've been looking so glum lately that I thought…well, I thought they'd cheer you up a bit. I do so hate to have a moody Alec skulking around the place." He rolls over and sits up, revealing another of the creatures in question. "You do like them, don't you?"

Alec can't think of anything to say. On one hand, he's glad that none of the terrible things he'd been imagining are true. On the other hand…this is what Magnus called him over for? Really? He thinks maybe his boyfriend has finally gone insane. Or maybe he was always insane and it's just making itself known now. One look at his face shows no amount of arguing is going to change his mind, so Alec retreats silently into the kitchen to sit at the table and puts his head in his hands.

"Congratulations, Alexander," he mutters into his palms. "You are now the proud owner of a guinea pig."

Magnus wanders in some time later, holding one of the squealing creatures and letting the other snuggle in his collar. "Here," he says, putting the one in his hands down in front of Alec. "You can have the black one. I was going to let you choose, but then I was afraid you would choose Twitch and I didn't want that."

Alec looks up at him through his fingers. "Twitch?"

"Because he twitches. Look." Magnus reaches up and retrieves the guinea pig from his collar. He places him on the table next to the other. "See?"

Twitch does indeed twitch. He twitches his little pink nose and his little white tail and even the tan splotches around his eyes that sort of look like glasses if you squint at them right.

"What are you doing to your face?" Magnus asks curiously, and Alec hastily unsquints his eyes.

"Nothing." He turns to look at the other guinea pig, a coal-black creature that hasn't moved from where Magnus set him. "But Magnus, what are you going to do with two of these?"

"Keep them." Magnus sounds surprised that he would ask, as if bringing home guinea pigs is a regular occurrence. "Feed them. Play with them. Fly them around the room if I get bored."

"You aren't home enough to feed them properly. They'll starve!"

It's not that Alec is jealous of the guinea pigs, not at all. He just doesn't want to see them starve to death, and he knows that if they stay he'll end up with all the responsibilities.

"Sure I am. I haven't taken a job outside Brooklyn in ages; I'm home all the time. I need something to keep me from going insane from boredom."

"Chairman Meow will eat them," Alec tries, but looking at the little balls of fluff on the table he can feel his resolve weakening.

"Chairman Meow and I have had a very sincere talk, and we have come to the understanding that these are pets, not food." Magnus picks up the tan-and-white splotched one—Twitch—and seeing the look on his face as he cuddles it Alec gives in.

"All right," he says reluctantly.

"Great!" Magnus lights up immediately. "So what are you going to name yours?"

Alec reaches out a finger and cautiously stroked the creature's head, almost afraid he'll press to hard and accidentally kill it. "Ashes," he says, without knowing why. It just seems to fit him. "Ashes the guinea pig."

Magnus is obsessed with his new pets for about a month or so; then, as Alec knew it would once the warlock got bored, all responsibility falls to him. "You're certain they're both male, right?" he asks one day as he cleans the cage.

"Yes," Magnus calls from the other room. "I checked specially. Guinea pigs are about the only animal besides cats that will let me near enough. I think they like me. I was their king once," he adds, wandering into the kitchen with an armful of old, dusty-looking books.

"I don't want to know," Alec mutters, scraping soiled shavings into the trash. "I really do not want to know."

Fortunately Magnus is already involved in one of the books or he would probably force Alec to sit through the story just from spite.

Alec finishes cleaning the cage, adds new sawdust to the bottom and transfers the occupants back inside. He's not sure, but he thinks Twitch feels heavier than usual.

"How much are you feeding these animals?" Magnus inquires a few weeks later. He's sitting on the sofa pretending to read instructions to a spell he knows by heart and really watching Alec play with Twitch, Ashes and Chairman Meow on the floor.

"Quarter of a cup of food daily, just like it says on the box. Why?"

"No reason," says Magnus, going back to his spell, but he can't help but notice how large Twitch is getting. Something occurs to him, in the far back regions of his mind. "No reason at all."

Alec thinks about pressing further, but decides against it. He bets that he can guess what's going through the warlock's mind. It's the same thing that's been going through his every time he feeds his pets.

It's not until one evening in June, six months from the day the guinea pigs moved in, that both suspicions are confirmed. They just on their way home from dinner and a movie—one of those Chuck Norris films that Alec likes so much—and Magnus is commenting that Alec has become more attached to the creatures than he has. Alec is protesting that he has not, that he just doesn't want to see the poor things starve to death as they would under Magnus's care, and so what if he feels the need to play with them so often? They begin a good-humored argument that lasts until Magnus pushes open the door and catches sight of the cage that has taken up residence on the kitchen table. He stops, and Alec runs into him from behind, pushing him out of the way.

"Magnus…"

There is now no doubt in either of their minds that Twitch is not the previously thought male.

"You said they were both boys! And you said they were fixed!"

Alec stands above his boyfriend, who had taken a seat at the kitchen table after confirming what was in the cage.

"Guinea pig genders are very hard to tell apart," Magnus says defensively. "I guess I was just wrong." He thinks that it physically pains him to say the words.

"You guess. You guess. Well, you guess correctly, and now we have five guinea pigs instead of two, and what are we going to do about it?"

The warlock says nothing. The ringing silence in the flat is broken only by the sound of the five newest residents suckling. Alec watches him watch them and thinks that he'll have to pick up more sawdust.

Magnus, it turns out, has no idea what to do with baby guinea pigs but every aspiration to make their lives glorious. One moment he's worried that Twitch isn't a good enough mother and is asking Alec if he should separate them and bottle-feed the young ones; next second he's concerned that he is hovering too much and vows that he would leave them alone. This only lasts for an hour at most, however, and then he's back sitting next to the cage and wondering out loud if he's doing this right.

Alec has retreated into the den with Chairman Meow after Magnus forcibly ejected him from the kitchen, saying that his making lunch was "too loud" and would "disturb the sleeping piglets." The cat has long since been banished, since Magnus found him trying desperately to reach one of the babies with his claws through the bars of the cage. Alec thinks they probably share the opinion that the three newest additions to the household look more like naked rats than anything else.

He tries to tell himself that it's just a phase Magnus is going through, that he'll get bored of them soon enough and eventually forget that they ever existed, but he can't help feeling a little hurt that a few naked rats are getting more attention than he is. In retaliation he curls up in the corner with a book and a blanket, snuggles Magnus's cat and refuses to come out. He doesn't think Magnus notices.

He doesn't. He's so wrapped up in his guinea pigs that he doesn't even realize Alec's not in the room and not answering when he talks to him. He moved Ashes unceremoniously to a cardboard box that he found in the supply closet and is now sitting as close to the cage as possible with a laptop, reading everything he can find about raising baby guinea pigs and not following through on most of it. It occurs to him several hours later that he hasn't seen either his boyfriend or his cat in a while, but he figures he'll go find them in a minute and promptly forgets about them.

Alec gives up around midnight and goes to bed, stomach growling uncomfortably. He thinks briefly of trying to sneak home but decides that at this point it's really not worth it. His last thought before he falls asleep is that pretty soon he's going to chuck the guinea pigs out the window, animal cruelty or not.

Magnus falls asleep under the kitchen table, using the laptop as a pillow. His dreams are full of small furry squealing creatures, Ragnor Fell, and creepy Peruvian natives. He wakes at five o'clock in the morning, absolutely freezing and sore from sleeping on the linoleum. He's on his way to snuggle in the bed with Alec when it occurs to him that he should check on his little ones, and while he's doing that he figures that he should fill Twitch's bowl and also feed Ashes, and then he gets lost just watching the three babies sleep adorably, and suddenly it's seven o'clock and Alec is wandering into the kitchen remarking that if Magnus was going to get up this early he could have at least made coffee.

They repeat this scenario for over a week. Alec is getting increasingly frustrated as his attempts to get his boyfriend's attention come to nothing. Magnus doesn't want to go out to eat, he doesn't want to go for a walk, he's too absorbed in his guinea pigs to go to a movie. Alec debates just going home until the warlock remembers to miss him, but he's afraid that if he leaves Magnus will forget to eat.

The guinea pigs begin to look more like guinea pigs and less like naked rats, and if Alec wasn't holding such a grudge against them he might even call them cute. Magnus, who has nothing against them, thinks they're absolutely adorable, but then he thought that since the day they were born and Alec thinks his sense of adorability is slightly skewed. He's named them Pickle, Poptart and Twitch Jr., and Alec finds himself thinking that if they ever have kids he's not going to let the warlock do the naming. Then he pushes the thought away because kids? What is he thinking? He's in no position to think about having kids.

Magnus starts weaning them at eleven days, but his apartment really isn't big enough for two whole days the squealing between Twitch and her babies across the room is deafening. Alec escapes and goes demon hunting with Isabelle because he's pretty sure that if he doesn't kill something he's going to do something he'll regret.

When three weeks go by and Magnus's guinea pig fixation shows no sign of waning, Alec puts his foot down.

"Magnus, I like pets as much as the next guy, but if you can't look up from your guinea pigs long enough to see that the entire apartment is in dire need of cleaning then this has gone to far. I love you, but I can't stay here and be treated like I don't exist. I really don't appreciate being considered less interesting than a small fluffy animal. Magnus, either the guinea pigs go or I do."

"That's nice, honey, but not right now. There's money on the dresser if you want to go by yourself, though."

Alec gives up and gathers his things to go home. He hopes that Magnus will eventually notice he's missing, and if he doesn't, well…Alec would see what to do then. As he's about to leave he has a sudden thought and grabs a piece of paper to write his complaint on. He leaves it on the fridge because he's pretty sure Magnus will get hungry and look there at some point. Then he leaves, making sure to slam the door behind him. He doesn't think it makes much of a difference, but it gives him some small amount of satisfaction.

He regrets leaving as soon as he gets home. Robert and Maryse have returned from Idris—again—and both have come back in full quarrel mode. They cannot seem to be in the same room for more than thirty seconds without one of them picking at the other. Jace has gone out with Clary and probably won't be back for quite some time; no one knows where Izzy went. Alec rattles around the nearly-empty Institute for a while before finally settling in the library with one of the few fiction books he has. It's one that he hasn't gotten around to reading before, and he's several chapters in and still trying to figure out what the story's about when his phone rings.

It's Magnus.

"Hello?"

"Alec, where are you?"

"In the library at the Institute, reading The Lord of the Rings, why?"

Magnus heaves a sigh on the other end. "Because…look, Alec, I'm sorry. I really am. I shouldn't have acted the way I did and it was selfish, and…you know what, can you come over? Apologies are really hard to do over the phone."

Alec tries to fight back a smile before deciding it's useless. "Sure. I'll be there in ten."

It's a bit more than ten, actually, but Magnus doesn't seem to mind. He begins apologizing again as soon as Alec comes in the door, and continues until Alec cuts him off because he really doesn't know what to do with an apologetic Magnus. So to let him know he's forgiven he wraps his arms around his boyfriend and pulls him into a kiss. Magnus makes a muffled exclamation of surprise before realizing that there were a lot better things to do with his mouth.

Once apologies and forgiveness are administered, and the two of them break apart and come back to reality, Magnus says, "So what are we going to do about the guinea pigs?"

"Give them away, I suppose." Alec eyes the cage with distaste. He can no longer imagine someone actively desiring a guinea pig.

"I suppose," Magnus echoes. He's also eying the cage, but with quite a different expression than Alec's. "I don't suppose we could keep them?" he asks hopefully. "If I promise not to get too caught up in them?"

"No."

So the guinea pigs are distributed to various families on the block, some behind parents' backs. The apartment seems very empty without them, and Alec even inexplicably finds himself missing Ashes. He hopes he went to a good home.

Alec really isn't surprised that Magnus seems to forget about the whole ordeal as soon as the last guinea pig is given away. Before all of the sawdust has been swept out of the kitchen he has formed an obsession with knitting. Alec supposes he prefers this to guinea pigs because Magnus can at least talk while he knits, and knitted projects don't need feeding every day. Chairman Meow is finally allowed out of the bedroom, and the look on his face when he sees all the string is priceless.

Everything's back to normal—or as normal as everything can be when one is dating a warlock. There are still random explosions from the workroom sometimes, and once Magnus dyes Alec's hair blue while he's sleeping, which Alec does not appreciate, but over-all everybody's happy.

Then one day Alec comes over looking for someone to cuddle and finds Magnus in the middle of the living room floor.

"Magnus, what are you doing?"

Magnus looks up at him and smiles. "Do you like him?"

"Do I…him?"

"Him. Isn't he adorable? I found him at the zoo—they were going to put him down."

"Magnus…"

Alec sinks down on the couch and wonders how to tell him that they are not keeping the baby orangutan.