Disclaimer: Do I look like Cassandra Clare to you? No? Well then. In that case, I don't own nothing. :D I just borrow Cassie's characters, because I like to screw with them.

A/N.: Chapter 2 - enjoy. It's a bit shorter than I had intended it to be (and a day later than planned), but alas, I have a life, too ^^. On a side note: I just did a one hour show on the radio for one of my Spanish courses and it was fucking awesome. Can I change my dream job from teacher/writer to radio presenter, please?


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The ceiling was empty and vast and perfectly white save for the tiny cracks just above the night table which he had been studying all night while sleep was eluding him, and most of the day which he had spent lying on the bed, lost in thoughts. Alec had never noticed them before, and briefly he wondered whether he had simply not seen them or whether they had just appeared recently, a malicious reminder of the decay all around him. Of his own decay.

Alec hadn't felt that tired since he had watched the body of his little brother burn to ashes.

On his nightstand, his cell phone went off. Alec didn't need to look at the caller ID to know who was calling him. Magnus had been trying to call several times throughout the day, but he had simply turned his phone on mute, only leaving the vibration alert turned on to make sure he wouldn't miss any important calls, and ignored his boyfriend's attempts to talk to him. He needed time to think. Time to figure out what he wanted. Time to figure out how much he'd be willing to give up.

The phone stopped moving, only to start making those annoying buzzing sounds again a few seconds later.

For a moment, Alec considered throwing it at the wall and smashing it, but he knew he wouldn't be able to come up with a good excuse as to how he managed to break his phone without even being in a battle. Also, it would be irrational to blame the cell phone for his growing headache. It clearly wasn't the phone's fault.

This wasn't helping at all. Abruptly, Alec sat up, grabbed the keys to Magnus's apartment and strode out of the room. If he wanted answers, he'd have to go and see him. Camille had raised more questions than actually providing him with any useful information and he was wracking his brains over it. He needed to know the answers.

But sometimes he wasn't so sure whether he'd actually want to hear them.

An almost eerie silence filled the long corridors of the Institute, and the sound of his steps reverberated loudly from the walls. Isabelle was on a date with Simon, Jace was God-knew-where, probably getting himself into trouble again, and as far as he knew his parents had some business to attend to in Idris, leaving him alone in the huge mazes of the church.

Dully, Alec wondered when he had stopped feeling comfortable in the place he had called home for most of his life.

Before, he hadn't minded being alone here – he had liked the solitude, the quietness. But it was all different now. The silence was different: sharp and cold and painful. It left a hollowness behind that reminded him how it used to be filled by Max' laughter, the sound of soft steps scurrying across the corridors, the crumpling of paper whenever he turned one of the pages of his beloved mangas. Alec swallowed audibly. Thinking of his little brother was too painful, and so he pushed the thoughts far away.

Maybe this was one of the reasons he tried to avoid the Institute as much as possible lately. It was easier to repress his feelings and the memories when he was somewhere else, keeping himself occupied. The holiday with Magnus had been a blessing for him, taking him far away from his feelings of guilt and failure and sorrow. If he was completely honest with himself, though, Alec would have to admit that even then he hadn't quite managed to leave those feelings behind completely. They were always there, nagging at him, underpinned by the quiet voices inside his head telling him he was being egoistic, that he should be in New York supporting his family, that he shouldn't leave them to deal with the pain alone.

"Alec?"

He had just passed the kitchen when the voice sounded from somewhere behind him. Alec turned around, surprised. "Mom," he said, "I didn't think you were back already."

Maryse was seated at the kitchen table, her fingers caressing something he only recognized upon closer inspection. It was one of Max' toy soldiers, the one he'd held in his hand when he had died. His mother looked incredibly tired and pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes, which missed the spark they had once held. For the first time, Alec mused, she looked as old as she was, maybe even older, as if the weight of her youngest son's death lay heavily on her shoulders, pressing her down, crushing her.

Immediately, the cold knot of guilt in his stomach returned. He and his mother had never been particularly close – neither he nor she were especially good when it came to feelings and relationships, and while he had always know she cared for him, there had always been a distance between them that they had never managed to overcome. Still, he knew that she needed him right now. She needed his assistance, his support, his strength, to get through this hard time. And here he was, running away from her, from his family, from everything, leaving her hanging when she needed him the most.

It felt as if he was betraying her, somehow.

"Was there an emergency call?" his mother asked, ignoring his earlier statement.

When he shook his head, she visibly relaxed, as if the thought of him going off to fight demons was suddenly scary to her. It probably was, he guessed. As a Shadowhunter, you always led a risky life, but it wasn't something you constantly thought about. Losing Max, though, had been like a slap in the face, and had alerted her to the fact how fast she could lose another child.

Maryse looked at him expectantly, her eyes silently pleading him to stay with her. Alec shifted uncomfortably. "I was just on my way to Magnus's."

Her face fell, and Alec felt like an asshole.

"I see," she murmured.

Alec looked at his shoes, because he didn't think he could stand looking her in the eye. "Well...yeah. I guess, I'll be going, then." He turned around, but his mother's voice stopped him once more.

"About Magnus," she began, hesitantly, "I've been meaning to ask you...how serious is this? This relationship with him, I mean?"

"I love him," Alec replied, keeping his voice steady.

Maryse smiled weakly and nodded. "You have changed so much since you met him." There was a hint of nostalgia in her voice, but no disapproval.

Alec blinked. Had he really changed? He supposed he had. He was growing up. "...I feel better now that I am not invisible anymore," he whispered.

He hadn't meant for Maryse to hear it, but apparently, she had. "You were never invisible, Alexander."

"Yes. Yes, I was. Maybe not to you, but to the rest of the world. And it was okay. I was fine with it, with standing in Jace's shadow. I never asked for anything else. But now -" Alec took a deep breath. "Now I want more."

His mother nodded again. "Does he make you happy?"

Alec thought back to the jolty beginning of their relationship, to his own awkwardness and Magnus's frustration, to the heartbreaks and the tears and the laughter. He remembered the times when Magnus had saved his life, the secret meetings during the night, the stolen kisses in the dark. He thought back to their holiday, strolling through the cities hand in hand, lounging on big sofas without doing anything in particular except for enjoying each other's company. He thought of Magnus's hands on him, leaving trails of fire in their wake, and how the warlock looked when he smiled in his sleep.

"Yes."

Most of the time, he did. And then there were the times when being with Magnus tore him apart. But that wasn't really Magnus's fault, and Maryse didn't need to know about it.

She smiled again, broader this time, and Alec took this as a sign that their conversation was over. He walked out quickly, his feet automatically carrying him down the path he'd walked so many times in the course of the last few weeks. The air was cold, and grey clouds were darkening the sky. At least he made it to Brooklyn without getting wet. As he trudged up the steps of the narrow staircase leading to Magnus's loft he silently wished that he didn't have any customers at this moment, for he wasn't sure for how long he could hold back the questions.

The door slid open with a low creak. As soon as he was inside, the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled his nose. A second later, Magnus emerged from the kitchen, two cup of Starbuck's coffee to go in his hand and a wide grin on his face. As usual, he was barefoot, and dressed in dark blue jeans that hung low on his hips, and a pink Madonna T-shirt. "Hello beautiful," he said and swept in to give Alec a chaste kiss on the lips and hand him the hot beverage. "I thought it was you."

Alec looked at the coffee. "How did you know I was coming?"

"You weren't exactly sneaky when walking up those stairs." Magnus grinned at him, but the smile quickly vanished when he saw the expression on Alec's face. "Are you alright? You weren't hurt, were you? I was worried when you didn't answer the phone and didn't come over last night so-"

"I'm fine." Alec cut in somewhat brusquely.

Magnus frowned, clearly not buying it. "You don't look fine. You don't sound like you're fine, either."

"We need to talk," Alec said bluntly.

Magnus's eyebrows rose and disappeared under his hairline. "Oh?" He tilted his head to the side, his eyes transfixed on Alec. "Will this be the kind of talk where it would be advisable to sit down first lest I get a shock?"

"You can sit down if you want, but I think I'd rather stay standing." Alec took a deep breath and, while watching Magnus flop back onto the couch, decided it would be best to be straightforward. "What is the price for immortality?"

Magnus almost dropped his coffee. "What?"

"The price for immortality," Alec repeated stubbornly. "We talked about it a couple of days ago, remember? I asked you whether you wanted the Book of White to search for a spell to make me immortal. You said you didn't, because immortality has a price. You never told me what price."

"Indeed, I didn't," Magnus said, suddenly looking very closed off. "It is not something you want to know."

"How can you know that?" Alec challenged. "I want to know it, Magnus. I need to know. I need to know you're not just refusing to make me immortal because you don't want to spend the rest of your life with me."

"Alexander," Magnus sighed. "We've had this conversation."

"Perhaps we haven't discussed it fully enough."

The warlock buried his face in his hands, grinding out something that sounded like a very colourful curse in a language unbeknownst to Alec, but maybe that was just because the sound was muffled by his flesh. Alec waited impatiently. Finally, Magnus raises his head again and motioned for Alec to sit down next to him. "Come here," he said and shifted on the couch until he sat cross-legged and could look Alec straight in the eyes.

"Alec," he began, taking the Shadowhunter's hand into his own,"I love you. You know I do. In fact, I love you more than I have ever loved anyone else in my seven hundred years of life-"

"Eight hundred."

"Details." Magnus brushed it off. "Now stop interrupting me. I want nothing more than to spend eternity with you, Alexander Lightwood, and if there was an innocuous way for you to become immortal, I would not hesitate to ask you to walk that path with me. But there isn't, so this is absolutely out of question. The price is too high."

"Why don't you let me decide that for myself?" Alec asked softly.

"Because right now, you're not thinking rationally, and when you're not thinking rationally, you're almost as reckless as Jace."

"What if I'm willing to pay the price?"

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. You're not thinking rationally, and in this state you probably would be willing to pay it." Magnus sighed. "But I don't want you to pay it."

"Why not?" Alec demanded.

Magnus looked him straight in the eye. "Would you want to sell your soul?" he asked gravely. "Because I don't want you to. You wouldn't be the same anymore."

Alec lowered his gaze to their hands, which were still intertwined. Magnus's skin was cool and soft under his own calloused hands. "Camille said there was another way," he said quietly.

This time, he was sure, Magnus would have really dropped his coffee had he still been holding it. The look on his face was a mixture of surprise and utter horror. "Camille?" he repeated incredulously. "You've – you've been talking to Camille?"

There was no point denying it, so Alec just shrugged. Magnus let out a surprisingly fervid chain of curses, got up and began pacing up and down at an incredible speed. "I can't believe that. You actually – actually went to Camille. How did you even find her? And you believe her?"

Alec shrugged again. "She also said you were one of the few who could perform the spells."

Magnus stopped abruptly, his back towards his boyfriend.

"Is it true?" Alec asked. "Is it, Magnus?"

When the warlock finally turned around, his face was twisted in pain and sorrow. "Yes," he whispered almost inaudibly. "Yes it is."


A/N.: Yeah, cliffies :D So, you know the drill. Reviews = love = more motivation = faster updates. So, tell me what you think, please?

See you next weekend (hopefully - if everything goes as planned^^)

Love,

Dustland-Fairytales