Continuation - Serum I. There are six serums. Enjoy.

Serum I

Breathe in, breathe out. This is the beginning.

The Hollow Lady peeled away from the wall the moment one hour ran out. She snapped her thin, twiggy fingers and The Insight disappeared. Magnus swallowed hard, not taking his eyes off of Alec's face. This was the last place he wanted to take Alec on his birthday. Six weeks wasn't enough time, he knew. Another year would have been better. Or two, or three. And maybe Alec would have had that time if he was a mundane - but he wasn't. He was a Shadowhunter and every day they didn't talk or think or acknowledge his painfully present mortality was another day spent teetering on the edge of oblivion, praying to God that Alec wouldn't fall off.

It was putting a major damper on Magnus's romancing.

Alec didn't see the Lady, but Magnus knew he could feel her, staring at his back with her cold green eyes. Magnus was old - The Hollow Lady was ancient. But she was also fairly good spirited when it came to love, which was why the only token she'd asked for was money.

"A decision?" she asked.

"I'll do it," Alec whispered. He squeezed Magnus's hand so tight his knuckles turned white. "I want to do it."

A thin smile spread on her narrow face. "Good boy. Money?"

Magnus leaned back to reach his wallet, rolling his eyes. He pulled on the little disco ball zipper and yet another wad of cash spilled out. Of course he'd earned that money by conjuring things out of Tiffany's and selling them to less than desirable, fairly oily men in creaky boats, but whatever. Money was money. Alec avoided looking at it as he tossed the bills at The Hollow Lady. She caught it and tucked it inside her shirt. After a moment of silent deliberation she picked her way over to the low sideboard beneath the stain glass attic windows. The skylight creaked open with a flick of her wrist, allowing cold air and moonlight to flood down around Alec. The boy shivered and Magnus bit his lip.

"Are you okay?" asked Magnus. A big part of him wanted to ask 'Are you sure?', but he knew that would only complicate things.

Alec nodded. They met eyes, Alec's twinkling a bit. "This isn't going to turn me into a camel or anything, right?"

"Ew. Camel's spit."

A glass vial clinked sharply and Alec jumped a foot in the air. "Okay, I'm a bit nervous," he admitted.

"Don't be," said the Lady as she turned around. She had a dimly glowing black goblet in one hand and a decanter filled with dark violet liquid in the other. "You're Shadowhunter, right?" Alec nodded and The Hollow Lady looked grave. "This will be difficult then. The blood of the Angel rejects our magic in this form. You will most likely be ill for the first week."

"Okay."

And then it began.

O-O-O

The woman pushed her silk shawl off of her shoulders and stretched a pair of thin wings with crumpled, off white feathers. They fluttered in the moonlight and the rested gently against her shoulders. Her eyes fixed on Alec's face, she poured the liquid into the goblet while speaking that strange language Magnus was fluent in - Warlock speak. Thick steam rose out of the Goblet. It smelled sweet and familiar. The moonlight seemed to get brighter and he felt his skin tingle, but that was probably all in his head. He searched for Magnus's face past the glare of the moon and saw that his boyfriend's head was bowed reverently.

Oh God. What had he gotten himself into?

Alec wiped the sweat from his forehead. Why was he sweating? It was so cold with that damn window open. The Lady set the goblet down in the center of the table and began to trace glowing blue lines around it on the surface of the table. It looked like some of the things Magnus drew, only older. And the words she was saying came faster, louder. Suddenly a hot wind picked up and swirled around the table. The dim glow of the goblet grew until it was hazy, as though he was seeing it through water.

Her face lit with blue from the sparks, the woman said, "Breathe in, breathe out. This is the beginning, Alexander Lightwood."

And he did just that. He inhaled slowly and then exhaled in a long gust, like he was trying to hold off a panic attack. This was it. This was the moment. Immortality was just a step away. For a moment his nerve wavered. He grabbed Magnus's hand and found his eyes again. They were so bright, so happy, even though he was trying to look impassive. Magnus was just as good at holding his feelings back as Alec - only Alec knew how to find them. This decision wasn't his - it was theirs. The only reason he was doing this was because he wanted to share Magnus's life.

"Take the goblet and drink when you're ready," said the woman.

Alec felt the corners of his mouth curl up. He let go of Magnus and took the was ready.

Now, Alec had some experience in drinking potions. It was a side effect of being an indiscriminate food whore in a Warlock's kitchen. But of all the spiked drinks and cakes and cabbage rolls he'd ingested, nothing matched the Elixir of Eternal Life. Although all of the food he'd eaten at Magnus's tasted like food, he knew he was in trouble the moment it was down his throat. Before the fur and the antennae came, the potioned food seemed to turn waxy and wrong.

Not the Elixir.

He pulled the cup back after draining it, making a face. "Grape juice?" he asked. Warm grape juice at that. Ugh.

"Grape Kool-Aid, actually," the woman chuckled - if you could call it a chuckle. She sounded a bit like a set of bagpipes getting stepped on. "It was the first thing I saw in the icebox."

Icebox? he thought.

"The magic is in the cup, the moon, and the birthday - not in the liquid. The Kool-Aid is just a transfer agent," Magnus explained.

Alec set the cup back on the table and stared down at his arms. "I don't feel any different."

And that was when the potion hit him. The sudden urge to vomit, sleep, die, and hit his head against the wall struck all at once with enough force to flatten him on his back. A screaming headache overtook him and all of his veins felt like they were splitting. It was no where near 'sick'. It was agony. It was a demon attack multiplied a thousand times. Before his body forced him into unconsciousness, he saw a pair of cat eyes hovering above him.

The first step to forever. No words Justin Bieber knew could begin to explain how terrible forever felt.

O-O-O

Three days later, the sickness had petered out into something that resembled the flu. Alec was tucked into his bed at home, bored out of his mind. His head hurt too much to read but too little to sleep. Alec was painfully aware that a new episode of The Office was playing that night and he wouldn't be able to see it. Curse Magnus for getting him addicted to TV. Magnus had visited him of course, each time looking a little less guilty. Now that he didn't appear to be on the verge of death, Magnus was sending him a million texts a day, swearing that next year he would make his birthday the best day of his life. Now that his life was going to be significantly longer, he could only imagine what that birthday was going to be like.

Maybe there would be fondue. Alec loved fondue.

He put his phone on silent and covered his eyes with the cool side of his damp cloth. If he slept more he'd get better faster, and if he got better faster he'd be able to get back out sooner. Isabelle, Jace and Clary needed him to be healthy. For all of his faults, at least Alec had some common sense. God knew that Jace and Clary had none.

Alec was almost asleep when his door creaked. He peered one eye open and then fought back a grimace at the cloth obscuring his vision. Luckily enough, knew by smell who it was. His mother's perfume floated over to his bed as she picked up his puke bucket and then drifted away as she took it to the toilet in his little bathroom. On her way back she cursed. "Alexander," she whispered to herself. "The moment you're better, you're cleaning this damned pigsty of a room."

The bucket thudded lightly beside him and the mattress dipped where she sat at the edge. Part of him wanted to acknowledge her, but the majority of his mind just wanted to sleep. He felt her cold fingers skim his forehead and rest lightly, like she was checking his temperature. With a little tisking noise she pulled her hand away. And then her lips gently pressed against his unwashed hair.

"My poor little Alec," she sighed. "Always getting the flu."

Minutes later, the door clicked shut and Alec didn't know whether or not he should feel guilty about what he'd done.

I'm sorry for the Justin Bieber... You think your town has Bieber Fever? Come live in Ontario. Ugh.

This is probably completely unrelated and something you don't care about at all. The other day I was sick and my mom came into my room to clean out my sick pail, and as she was leaving she tripped over a stack of books. My Froot Loops ended up all over my Percy Jackson poster. :(

-Cara