title: a drug for fallen angels
fandom: the mortal instruments
characters: alec lightwood (+ et al.)
information: AU | multichapter | inspired by kevin zegers' arc on gossip girl as damien dalgaard
summary: the one where alec lightwood is a drug-dealing shadowhunter
01. for my bones have found a place
The Institute was completely awash in silence. None of the Institute's inhabitants were arguing nor was there any of the usual clamor originating from the weapons room. Alec Lightwood padded quietly down the main foyer of the building, wearing mundane clothing rather than his black Shadowhunter gear. His normal choice of mundane clothing, however, with torn collars and mismatched holes not intended as a fashion statement, was replaced by uncharacteristically new designer clothes.
Alec walked a few blocks away from the Institute before hailing a cab in the chilly fall air. He wound his blue scarf tighter around his neck and hastily directed the driver to East 55th Street. Alec paid the cab driver his fare and walked down the block to the building emblazoned with the number 300. A young man leaned against the old stone infrastructure dressed in an expensive suit and a bored expression plagued on his face.
Having spotted Alec, the man walked towards him. "You must be Alec, Robert's son."
Alec nodded in response. "I don't have much time. Do you have what I asked for?"
The man only shrugged. "Names are only a formality." He motioned for his driver to drive up, and opened the black car door to retrieve a locked briefcase.
He handed it over to Alec, fully aware of its contents. "It's a pleasure doing business with you."
Knowing better than to peer in the case to reaffirm what was inside, Alec began to pull a thick envelope from his coat pocket instead. The man reached out a hand to stop him. "Take the car. Leave the payment under the backseat."
Partially relieved the exchange would be quicker than most, Alec ducked inside the door and gave an address a couple of buildings away from the New York Institute to the driver. He removed the stuffed envelope from his pocket again, and ensuring the driver was not looking at him through the review mirror, proceeded to hide it under the backseat. A crumpled piece of paper fell down at his feet, featuring the scrawl of the numbers "143." Alec slipped the paper scrap in his pocket and put his payment in its place.
The payment was done in full, more than enough to cover the stock in his briefcase. The weight of it told him he had not been cheated, although it was the first time he had bought from this particular supplier. His last supplier had unwittingly chosen to work in the direct company of demons. When one of them caught wind of what she was doing, Isabelle found the mutilated remains of her body in the back alley of Taki's.
Alec had heard of the man through the network of illicit drug dens that had recently sprung up over New York, who claimed this particular dealer had quality supply directly siphoned from the dens of London. Arranging a meeting had been more complicated than Alec had anticipated. The man had insisted the exchange be conducted out in the open street, but otherwise the trade would have fallen through and Alec would have been faced with hungry, demanding customers.
He meticulously chose the day where the Institute would be empty, all except for him. His parents were in Idris to deal with matters of the Clave, Jace had his tongue down Clary's throat somewhere in Central Park, and Isabelle had gone off to watch Simon's band play a gig at a hipster coffee shop.
/
Alec crept up the stairs of the Institute, briefcase in hand and the crumpled sheet of paper in his pocket. Isabelle and Jace had not returned from their dates, much to his relief. He pushed aside a pile of demonology textbooks at the foot of his bed to make room for the briefcase. The knobs of the lock were turned to the combination "1-4-3," where it opened with a resounding click.
Spilling out of the briefcase was packet upon packet of yin fen, a silver powder extracted from demons and specially curated in certain circles of warlocks. It had recently become a trend in Downworlder clubs. Occasionally, Alec was able to discreetly make transactions with desperate Downworlders while hunting with Jace, Isabelle, and Clary. Jace would be fixated on Clary or making the most sarcastic remarks possible about the situation, whereas Isabelle would be busy flirting and smiling her way through the place. Left lingering in the background, Alec would slip away for moments at a time with a packet and returning with a small wad of cash.
Alec fetched a book on healing, The Shadowhunter's Guide to Not Dying When Runes Don't Work, from the bottom of his bed. It had been hollowed out to create a temporary storage chest. Carefully, he removed each of the packets and lined the inside of the old book. When the briefcase was emptied out, Alec slipped in the first few pages of the book above the yin fen to conceal it.
Alec took the briefcase and yin fen-filled book and placed it behind a loose wall panel in his closet. The panel of wood was obscured from view by a mandelin and covered by a few of Alec's oldest and arguably beyond the days of being worn sweaters. He rummaged around on his bedside table for his stele, before scribbling a quick mandelin on the briefcase. It vanished from view by a simple glamour, but made note he would have to dispose of it soon.
He changed into more comfortable yet ripped clothing to avoid questions, although it would be more like congratulations from his siblings on his newer, hole-free clothing. Shutting the closet door, Alec wandered downstairs to the library to preoccupy himself until Jace or Isabelle came home to tell stories of their adventures out in the world, where they were not holed up in a velvet armchair reading books on Shadowhunter and Downworlder relations before the Accords.
/
"Have you been reading the entire day?" Jace's voice carried from the doorway. He ran down the steps leading to the main parlor of the library, feet thundering.
Alec tore his eyes away from Shadowhunter and Downworlder Relations Through the Centuries to glance up at Jace's figure, leaned against the banister. "I'm up to the section about disgraced Shadowhunters, the ones who enjoy the company of demons more than they should. Iblis demons are some of the most popular."
"Fascinating stuff." Jace launched himself into the sofa closest to Alec. "At least Iblis demons are shaped like a human. That should make things a bit easier."
Alec ripped a piece of the paper scrap in his pocket to use as a bookmark. The number "1" stuck out on a page detailing the convoluted history of Carson Hightower and his Iblis lover. "I'm guessing your date with Clary went well?"
"It was great, but I have a feeling I enjoyed it more than she did."
"You took her to Central Park, didn't you? Aren't girls supposed to like that sort of stuff?"
"I'm sure you're an expert on what girls like and don't like." Jace laughed. "You should write your own book on it. I'm sure the rest of the hopeless male population will worship your advice on pleasing the women in their lives."
Alec gave Jace an annoyed look. He crumpled up the rest of the paper, now reading "43," and chucked it at Jace's head. Deftly, Jace caught the paper ball in midair and proceeded to throw it into the fireplace.
"Ran into a hydra demon. Clary thought it would be a good idea to behead a few of its heads." Alec opened his mouth to interject that Clary had done the worst thing possible when facing a hydra demon, but Jace continued on, knowing what Alec was about to say."I could have told her that two more heads would sprout up in its place if I wasn't busy laughing at her. I slashed at it a few times with my seraph blade, easy enough. The conclusion of my date featured a dead hydra demon and an angry girlfriend."
"Angry?" Alec asked, doubting Clary had the capacity to stay infuriated with Jace for long.
"For a total of one minute; it was a new record."
"I don't think so. Remember that time you she caught you —," Alec started.
Jace waved him off. "We don't need to talk about that."
"Don't need to talk about what?" Isabelle emerged from the hallway and made a motion for Jace to scoot over.
"Alec here was giving me advice on how to talk to girls. They're tricky little things, you see," said Jace. Isabelle smacked him in the arm.
"Yes, because Alec's such an expert on these things." Isabelle settled herself against the far end of the sofa.
"That's what I said," Jace remarked.
Alec deliberated throwing his book at either his sister or parabatai, but thought better of it, since he would be the one responsible for applying the irtaze. "You two are fantastic company, did you know that?"
/
Isabelle was scurrying around the kitchen, throwing ingredients into pots and giving it the occasional stir. "This will taste better than last time, I promise."
Simon lounged on a stool by the kitchen counter, animatedly arguing with Clary over the appropriateness that was Eric's newest batch of lyrics for The Biting Spirals.
"'Hooked on you like the cocaine in my veins; Feel free to dangle me from those metal chains' is not something you should be singing in front of ten-year olds," Clary said exasperatedly.
"It's not Simon's fault the only audience he gets are pubescent preteen girls," interjected Isabelle. She tasted some of what she had bubbling in a nearby pot and frowned at the foreign taste. Trying to remedy the food, she removed a small rack of spices from the cupboard.
Simon made a face. "Last time I checked, Isabelle, you were not a pubescent preteen girl."
"No, but she cooks like a toddler," said Jace. He was leaning over the edge of the counter, making an effort to decipher what the clump of food in the pot was supposed to be.
Isabelle wacked him with her wooden spoon, smearing the brownish liquid on his arm. "Be careful, you're running out jokes when it comes to my cooking."
"No, I don't think so." Jace hopped over the kitchen counter, and despite herself, Clary gave a small scream. He ran his arm under the sink, where the brown liquid swirled with the rushing water and created a slimy mess. "What is this supposed to be?"
"Stew," Isabelle answered, as if Jace has just asked her if there were any carbs in eating paper.
Alec, who had been occupied by reading about Carson Hightower's untimely death at the far corner of the kitchen counter, snapped his eyes away from how the Iblis demon had bound the naked Shadowhunter to a bedpost and tortured him to death. Why someone would think write a detailed account of the event was beyond him. "Stew?" he said cautiously, as if the word was a loaded grenade bound to explode in his face.
Isabelle rolled her eyes and gesticulated wildly at the stove. "Yeah, stew. You've eaten stew before, haven't you, Alec?"
"I've eaten stew, and then I've eaten your stew. They're two very different things."
His sister huffed and brandished her wooden spoon his direction. "Do I need to hit you with this spoon too?"
/
The five of them gathered in the main atrium of the Institute, all in various stages of formalwear. Isabelle was wearing an outfit typical for Isabelle, although Clary looked like she spun around in Isabelle's closet a few times and ended up with what she was wearing. She had insisted they attend a Downworlder party of a prominent vampire in mundane society. Alec's sister had all but blackmailed Alec into going, who appeared to hesitantly capitulate to his sister's threats, yet had intended to drop in and meet with clientele nevertheless.
Isabelle forbade anyone from bringing Shadowhunter gear, and drew the line at two seraph blades each, as long as they were hidden from view. She ignored all of Jace's protests, but unbeknownst to her, he had hidden several more. His success had lasted until they were about to leave and Simon pointed out something sharp and shiny sticking out from his belt.
"Isabelle, you can't expect us to go to a Downworlder party unarmed," Jace reluctantly pulled two seraph blades under his shirt and handed it to her.
She took them and deposited them in a drawer by the door. "For once, can we go to a party and not have everyone think we're there to chop their head off?"
"That's what we do."
"We do that 95% of the time. This is that lone 5% where we enjoy ourselves, even you Alec, and return home without being covered in blood and dirt." Isabelle made a motion with her finger for Jace to turn around, on the hunt for more hidden weapons.
"I find blood and dirt are fashionable accessories, but that could just be me." Jace quickly spun his heel, a blink or you'll miss it moment, before wrenching open the Institute door. "Are we going to this thing or what?"
author's note
started august 2014, recently revived. chapter two is already written.
AU, borderline crack!fic that occasionally takes itself much too seriously at times. this isn't my area of expertise, but it is shameless fun.
inspired by kevin zeger's arc on gossip girl as damien dalgaard; all season three and four episodes featuring kevin zegers' were marathoned.
