A/N: So guys, I've been meaning to do a Malec fic for a while now and when this idea
hit me, I just had to get it out there to see what you guys thought! :D
Now guys, I'm only on City of Fallen Angels, so if you review, please don't give
anything away from Fallen Angels and Lost Souls, okay? Thanks!

Disclaimer:

I don't own Magnus, nor Alec (as tragic as it is) or any other of Cassandra's
characters. Nor do I own the mortal instruments.
It sucks, I know.

Aquaphobia

Chapter One

Vampires, Werewolves, Fairies, Warlocks.

These are all the known Downworlders.

Except, there's another.

Legends of half-human, half-fish creatures go back thousands of years. Everyone has seen pictures of mermaids. Sightings were made by the early Arabs and the Greek Pliny in 586 A . D. Many medieval sailors claimed to have seen them and such reports continued right into the 1900's. Most sightings by sailors were probably normal marine creatures, such as manatees, dugongs, or sea-cows (now extinct). These appear to cradle their young much as a human would carry a baby. It is possible that sailors, seeing these unfamiliar beasts, would assume that they had stumbled across some sort of humanoid species. Mermaids described by the famous explorer, Christopher Columbus, were almost certainly manatees. He reported seeing three mermaids in the ocean off Haiti, in January of 1493. He said they "came quite high out of the water", but were "not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men."

All sea-faring cultures have mermaid tales. In the Breton ballads there are the 'Morgan', sea-women, and 'Morverch', sea-daughters; in Ireland and Scotland there are 'Merrow'. The Aegean Sea, it seems, was full of such creatures. In Greek legends there are mermaids that can sink ships and sirens that lure sailors to their doom. In a silvery cave, live the golden haired Nereids or sea nymphs that helped sailors fighting perilous storms. They are depicted as human from the head to the waist, with either a bird's body or a fishes' tail. Other sea dwellers from Greek legend include the 3000 Oceanids, the daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys.

Similar creatures live in lakes and rivers. In Slavic mythology there are the Rusalki, the spirits of young women who have met their fate through drowning. They appear in the form of beautiful fish-women or mermaids. They have lovely hair, fine features but sad fathomless eyes which tell their tragic tale. They entice young men, taking them to the river floor to live with them.

Of course, this had been hundreds of years ago. Things had changed since then.

As for the theory of evolution, the fairfolked mermaids of those times developed to adjust with their surroundings, especially to fit in to the rapidly modernizing world. As materials were developed to build towns and cities, rivers and oceans that had once been the habitat for these mermaids began to disspate, making way for the tarmaced roads and motorways to get from one place to another. Of course, one fault in these stories were the fact that there weren't just women, there were men as well.

Eventually, the mermaids evolved into the beings that surrounded them, abeit vampires or warlocks or fairies. Never werewolves though. Their bodies could not handle the strain of a change on the occasion of a full moon. The mermaids and mermen were cleverly disguised, blending in with the rest of the world, the only trait that exposed them being water. A single, innocent drop of water on the skin of a mermaid/man can transform them back to their aquamarine form. No matter where they are or what they're doing. Their gills would form and their tails would return. Most of the merfolk cloaked themselves with excuses such as the image of aquaphobia or pretending to be unable to swim.

The same as they adjusted into downworlders, the merfolk evolved into mundanes.

And Shadowhunters.

Maryse Lightwood had been a mermaid. With a long history of asphyxiation and hand sanitizers, she had spent a great deal of her life away from water. Not even her husband, Robert, knew of her merfolk history, as she stayed quiet about it. Most merfolk were ashamed of what they were, since no-one knew that such a form of downworlder even existed. By the time she had been inpregnanted with her son, most of the merfolk were extinct whether from dying of natural causes or being hunted down by wannabe believers. But the last thing she had wanted was to have passed down her mer-genes to her son.

She first discovered what he had become when she had first bathed him in their house in Idris. Little scales formed in the boy's neck as soon as the water touched his skin, his tiny baby legs morphing into a small emerald green tail. His fingers webbed together and his eyes narrowed into tiny fish slits. Maryse had been so horrified that she had fled to the New York Shadowhunter Institute with her infant boy and pregnant baby bump. She hadn't told Robert about her son's muttation. She stayed in New York until she gave birth to her daughter, Isabelle Lightwood, and left her children in the trusting arms of Hodge Starkweather to return to her husband because she was unable to face the turths of what she had done to her son. Luckily, Isabelle didn't have the traits of the merfolk. Because Maryse wouldn't have been able to handle the knowledge that she had poisoned two of her children with the horrifying genes of a mermaid.

When Alec first discovered what he was, he broke his collarbone.

Hodge had insisted upon his using hand sanitizers as a child and where Isabelle went for swimming training with their good friend Jace, Alec was told to stay at home and work on weapons training. Starkweather had made sure that Maryse's secret was well-hidden from his son. Right up until the day he died. After that, Alec had been old enough to look after himself. So, after a particularly difficult training session that had left him sweating and sticky, Alec had made the decision to take his first ever shower.

As soon as he jabbed the shower button to get the water pouring from the nozzle, and as soon as the first droplet of water hit his head, he'd dropped to the floor like a stone. He smacked the shower floor for a reason he wasn't sure of and cracked his collarbone. Isabelle had been the one to find him in that state. She had been just has stunned as he was. But she switched off the shower none-the-less, helped him dry off, before carving a healing rune into his neck. They'd spent the rest of the night researching what had happened in Hodge's old library, soon discovering the truth about their mother.

Of course, they never divulged the information to anyone. Not even Jace, who they shared the Institute with since Hodge was no longer with them.

Alec was content for things to stay that way.

"You coming to the party tonight?" Isabelle asked. Alec laughed-a dry and sarcastic sound-and watched his sister's spoon as she stirred the soup in the spot. Herself and Jace were attending a party tonight at some warlock's place. Isabelle noted her brother's incredulous expression and whined. "Aw, come on! You have to come!"

Alec had a habit of staying in the Institute now-a-days, deciding that staying where it's driest would always be the best bet. When Isabelle brought him up on it, a thousand insane-but not impossible-senarios would pour from his mouth: What if this Warlock's apartment flooded? What if someone spilled their water and he stepped on it? What if there was a tsunami?

"A tsunami?" Isabelle scoffed. "Really? That's your excuse? There might be a tsunami?"

Alec shrugged. "Could happen," he replied. "You don't know."

"You're insane," Isabelle concluded. "I doubt mom stayed indoors when she discovered what she was."

"We never knew our mom," Alec pointed out. Isabelle gave him a pointed look that made him want to jump off a cliff. "Okay, how about I keep a hold of the reins while you guys go out in case a demon shows up or something?" His little sister scoffed and ran the top of the wooden spoon under the tap. Alec watched the water bounce off it, small, glittering balls of crystal rebounding off, and splattering, the sides of the sink.

"No Alexander, you're coming with us," she said with finality. Alec winced at the use of his full name. There was literally no getting out of this. With a laboured sigh, he nodded his head in submisson. Isabelle grinned. "Yay! I'm so proud of you!" She whipped around to hug him, the spoon pulling out from under the tap and sending droplets of water towards him. Alec ducked out of the way just as the aqua drops nearly touched him. "Holy Shit Alec, sorry!" Isabelle yelped.

Calming his beating heart-which had jerked into a frenzy from the panic of turing into a flailing fish on the kitchen floor-Alec shook his head. "It's fine," he said. "You missed me."

"Well, would have been quite the escapade," Isabelle mused. "Still, all we would have needed was my blow dryer, am I right King Trident?"

Alec groaned. "Don't call me that," he said.

"Call you what, Posiedon?"

"Oh, shut up."

~xXx~

Magnus Bane. The High Warlock of Brooklyn. How the hell did Isabelle get an invite to one of his parties? Completely baffled, Alec followed his sister, his parabati and his parabati's girlfriend, to the warlock's apartment. He felt ridiculous, it was definetly the last time he let Isabelle dress him. The ankle boots she'd forced him into made clip-clop sounds against the tarmac, the little metal buckle attatched to the sides glinting in the moonlight.

They stopped at a set of steps leading up to an apartment door. While Isabelle buzzed this Magnus man's house buzzer, Alec tugged on his black skinny jeans, trying helplessly to make them cling less. Isabelle was hell bent on dressing him up to look as what she claimed as to be 'smokin' hot'. Well, if this is what it took to look good then he wasn't that interested in it. It was too much hard work.

While they waited for someone to answer the door, Clary-Jace's girlfriend-formed a huddle with Isabelle, both girls whispering and giggling. Jace himself was looking at Alec with an amused glint in his eyes. "Love the get-up," he said.

"Shut up," muttered Alec, adjusting his black waist coat irritabley. The little metal chain around his neck bumped against the buttons of his shirt, making a soft clinking sound. "I'm doing it for Izzy."

Jace nodded in faux understanding. "Oh yes, of course you are," he said. Jace himself just decided to come just dressed in his ordinary shadowhunting clothes which, of course, he pulled off without even trying.

"Jace, don't start," Clary said. She turned to Alec and smiled. "You look really nice Alec."

Alec made a small attempt at a smile. "Thanks," he replied briskly, turning his back on the door and trying to re-button the unbuttoned buttons that Isabelle had insisted added sex appeal. The boots were killing him, so he bent down and loosened the buckles. The right one got stuck so he tugged on it so hard he thought it was eventually going to break off.

"Well, I've seen it all now, a Shadowhunter defeated by some buckles," Jace said. Alec could practically hear the smirk in his tone and rolled his eyes, swearing under his breath as it refused to come loose.

"Need help?" Isabelle asked.

"No, I've got it," Alec quickly replied. Small indents were burning into the sides of his fingers where the metal dug into his skin when he pulled. It didn't hurt that much but it was making it harder to tug on. He was determined to get it loosened though, lest he stand up and give Jace the amusement of not having been able to loosen a smiple boot buckle.

"Well, that's new."

The new voice was smooth and silky, sending a chill down Alec's spine. He gave the buckle one last almighty tug and straightened up. He turned around to see Magnus Bane leaning causally in the doorway. Glitter dusted the warlock's cheeks and hair, blue eyeliner tracing his eyelids. His cat-like eyes were predatory and sent yet another shiver down Alec's spinal cord. His own eyes widened to find the warlock staring right at him in particular.

"Open your door to find someone already bending over in front of you," the warlock mused, a smile breaking out on his face as the shadowhunter blushed. "Definitely something new." How must have that looked? Alec swallowed, his throat suddenly bone dry, and chewed the inside of his cheek in embarrassed horror. Well, at least he got his buckle loosened . . .

It was then he noticed that Jace and Clary and Isabelle were gone, already disappeared into the party. "Sorry," he murmered, his eyes drifting to the ground on instinct. He could feel Magnus' grin burning into the top of his head as he became fascinated in the concrete below his feet.

"I wasn't complaining," Magnus replied. Risking a glance up, Alec found the warlock's eyes still on him. There was something to the gaze though that he couldn't put his finger on, something deeper than your ordinary stare. Alec tried to pinpoint it but he just couldn't find what it was. It had turned into a warlock par shadowhunter stare down which Alec hadn't noticed until the clouds above their heads grumbled with thunder.

Thunder lead to a storm which lead to lightening which lead to rain which lead to water which lead to getting wet. The thought alone being terrifying in itself, Alec quickly weaved past Magnus in his doorway, murmering another apology before disappearing into the party where there was no rain to worry about. He immediately noticed Isabelle, Clary and Jace at the bar and sighed in relief, hurrying over to them and dropping onto a stool beside his sister.

"Where did you go?" Isabelle asked, holding a martini glass of pink liquid that was topped with frothy smoke.

"Nowhere," Alec replied a bit too quickly.

Clary was stirring some lime green concotion in a tall glass with a little orange umbrella. She brushed her bright red hair behind her ears. "When we slipped inside, Magnus seemed to be pretty interested in watching you buckle your boots," she said. Jace snorted, picking up his glass and trying to hide his smirk by taking a drink from it.

Alec flushed, diverting his attention to trying to sort out his shirt buttons again. "I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered.

Isabelle nudged him, her smile bright enough to light up the entire room. "Magnus is hot, do you like him?"

"Pff, no," Alec replied. Isabelle opened her mouth to say something in response when Clary suddenly swore, patting down her pockets with a renewed haste. She grabbed Jace and pat him down as well, hoking in his pockets.

"Well, if I had of knew you were going to be this forward, I would have worn less layers," Jace commented as Clary spun him around and checked his back pockets.

"Damn it," she swore. "I left my purse back at the Insitiute."

"Wait," Alec said, "if you were looking for your purse, why are you checking his pockets?"

Clary sighed, ignoring the question and threw her head onto the bar. "I'm such a moron. I can pratically see it on your beside table Jace! Right, can we go back? All of us?"

"Why all of us?" Isabelle enquired, scooping the froth off the top of her drink with her pinky finger. "Can't you and Jace just go back?"

The redhead shook her head gravelly. "I do want to come back you know."

Alec frowned, "What do you mean want to come back-oh, right." Jace was grinning like a chesire cat, unable to hide his glee in his girlfriend's implications.

Isabelle rolled her eyes and placed a hand on Clary's shoulder. "Oh sweetheart, we've all been there. Okay, we'll go back. Hopefully Magnus will let us back in after . . ." Alec's eyes drifted to the window, his heart sinking when he saw the glass being battered with rain.

"I'm going to stay here," he said.

Jace did a double take. "What? Are you hoping to pick up a fairy or something?" he asked.

"Ha ha," Alec replied dryly. "No, I just want to stay here."

"Will you be okay on your own?" Clary asked.

Isabelle looked out the window as well, her eyes widening in realization. "Oh," she said. "Oh, yeah, he'll be fine. He is the oldest after all. I'm almost 100% positive he can look after himself." Alec gave her a skeptical look.

"Almost?" he asked.

"98.9," replied Isabelle. She scruffed his hair with a grin before flouncing back out towards the door. Clary smiled at him and pecked his cheek before following his sister out the door. Jace just slapped his back before quickly joining Clary and Isabelle in the hasty retreat. Sighing, Alec turned back to the bar and took a look at what his sister had been drinking. It smelled funny but when he took a tiny sip of it, it didn't taste that bad. Like strawberries and cream in liquid form.

He kept careful not to spill anything or let any of the drink touch his skin. As long as it went directly into his mouth, he was alright. He had to keep hydrated somehow and he was lucky that he was able to let H20 into his mouth without turning . . . well . . . scaly. Alec hated himself when he was wet, that was why he never let himself near water at all. The scales, the gills, the webbed fingers . . . Alec shuddered at the thought. The last time he had turned, he had been eleven. Now he was eighteen and he had successfully avoided water. Which was an accomplishment since salt water oceans take up 71% of the earth and water in itself is 326 million trillion gallons on the entire planet. Alec wasn't an expert in math, but that was a lot of water.

Deciding to go try and find a bathroom to refix his hair after Isabelle's ruffling, Alec pushed back from his seat and wove through the crowds of various downworlders to find the room. Alec didn't like to think of himself as one of them. Not that he hated them, of course not, he had no qualms towards downworlders and their lifestyles, it was just he didn't feel like one of them. When not touched by water, he was as human as they came. Well, as human as they came when you're a seraph blade weilding, demon fighting, rune wearing, half mer-folk, shadowhunter human.

He pushed into the first room he stumbled upon, after being pinched by a rather handsy fey in a highly private area, and shut the door tight to give himself some space from the partygoers. He rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and sighed. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, blinking back the sleep in his eyes. Why was he so tired all of a sudden? Realizing that he wasn't in a bathroom at all, Alec sighed heavily at the bed pushed up against the back wall. Walking a path that didn't feel his own, he sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes again.

He wasn't sure when he fell asleep, but he became aware of the fact he was lying on his back on the bed. His eyelids were heavy and all he really wanted was to go to sleep. He thought of going back to the institute, but the soft pitter patter of rain against the loft's roof indicated that option was impossible. Deciding to stay in the bedroom until it passed, Alec shut his eyes for what he had said to himself was only going to be five minutes . . .

Alec jolted awake a few hours later. The rain was still beating down, battering the loft's roof and windows. There were no signs of the party anymore, outside the bedroom being as silent as a synagouge. Cursing, Alec tried to sit up, only to find that there was something sitting ontop of him. Well, not a something, more like a someone.

"I was wondering when you were going to wake up," a voice purred through the darkness. "It's lovely to see those pretty blue eyes again." Alec blinked, his vision sharpening just enough to see the face of the person ontop of him. Cat like eyes, sparkling with glitter . . . Magnus Bane. Oh God, how was he going to explain falling asleep in one of his spare rooms? He opened his mouth to start explaining himself when something caught his eyes. Something Magnus was holding.

A tumbler of water. Moving in fluent circles, brushing the insides of the glass like waves crashing on the shore. Alec seized up at the sight of it, his eyes locked firmly on the liquid like the warlock was hanging a glass of acid over his head.

Magnus' happy expression read all different levels of trouble as he blew Alec a kiss before tipping the tumbler ever so slightly.

So a single drop of water fell out and splashed against the shadowhunter's forehead.

A/N: Tell me what you think guys! I love feedback (as long as it's nice!)
The idea of the water touching skin thing came from an old nickeloden programme I used to love called H2O just add water :)

Remember what I said about spoilers! I don't want anything ruined! :D

Please R&R!