Chapter Three: H is for History
September 2008
If someone had asked Magnus to consult his proverbial crystal ball and predict which of Alec's parents would be the first to leave the safety of the Institute and venture into Brooklyn to visit their son at the place he lived, he would have put a great deal of money on Maryse.
And he would have lost a great deal of money.
More alarming than that, and Magnus wasn't generally alarmed by the loss of money - since the Nephilim and rich mundanes were always willing to pay ridiculous sums for simple things, though he had found himself agonizing over his bills to the Nephilim now that he was dating one of them - was that Robert Lightwood had presented himself at the door when Alec was catching and killing, hopefully without getting hurt, a pack of Eidolon demons attempting to ruin the Hamptons for said rich mundanes spending Labor Day weekend there.
"Can I get you coffee?" Magnus asked, fidgeting where he stood against the breakfast bar and Robert stood awkwardly near the stainless steel refrigerator. "Tea? Water? Something alcoholic?"
"It's eleven in the morning."
"You just arrived from Idris. Is it not five there? An entirely appropriate time to have a drink?" Magnus badly wanted a drink. Alcohol would make this awkward encounter so much easier. Or more forgettable. Whichever helped most in the end.
Robert considered that for a moment and then nodded. "Whiskey, if you have it."
Magnus spun for the liquor cabinet and selected the best bottle of whiskey, not daring to expose the hidden panel with all the special alcohols Robert would probably say broke some archaic Nephilim law or another. "Ice or straight?"
"Ice."
He prepared two whiskeys on the rocks and handed one to the man he couldn't decide whether to think of as his boyfriend's father, his boss-type person, or the would-be police who was just looking to get him in trouble. Gesturing toward the living room area, he wasn't surprised when Robert sat stiffly on the edge of an overstuffed club chair. Magnus took a seat on a wingback chair and tried to act casual. "Alec texted a little while ago, if traffic isn't too bad, he should be back in an hour." Magnus sent a silent prayer to gods who wouldn't listen to him, a demon's son, that it would be an hour.
Robert glanced warily around the apartment, and Magnus wondered if he expected belly-dancing, tutu-clad Raum demons to pop out of the walls at any moment. "This is… a nice place you… have here," he said carefully. "How long… have you lived here long?"
Magnus appreciated the attempts at conversation, awkward though they were. "Three years, two weeks, one day."
The Nephilim in the club chair blinked. "That's… precise."
"I get a new apartment when I get a new cat," he said with a shrug and a sip of his drink and almost grimaced, he did not like whiskey, "and Chairman Meow's bir… er… I got my cat that long ago."
Robert nodded politely, as though this made sense, and he nearly dropped his drink when the smallest cat he had ever seen appeared on the arm of his chair, curling a tiny tail around its front paws and fixing wide eyes on him. "This is your cat, then?"
Hiding a smirk, because jumpiness when holding drinks apparently ran in the Lightwood family, behind his glass, Magnus nodded. "Yes, that's Chairman Meow. And thank you for not commenting on his size like… others have."
"Others?" Robert held his hand where the cat could sniff it, and gently scratched behind his ear when he rubbed against his fingers.
"Jace." It was a risk, complaining about Jace to his adoptive father but Magnus gambled on the fact that Jace had grated on Robert's last nerve a time or two.
"Ah," he replied with a knowing nod.
"He asked if I was sure he wasn't a hamster."
A cough covered a laugh and he shook his head. "That is rude. In his defense, I suppose, he's only ever known Church when it comes to cats."
He waved off the flimsy defense. "Association with demonic cats does not give one the right to compare my cat to a hamster."
Robert started in surprise. "Demonic? You know Church's history? He's just… always been at the Institute. I always… sort of… wondered about him."
"I brought him to New York in early 1879." He was not surprised the Nephilim had considered the explanation of the cat who never died to be of little importance to future residents of the Institute. He was surprised that Robert cared enough to ask but… maybe it was just more polite conversation. In any case, he went on with the story because it filled the awkward silence. "He lived at the London Institute and the one… of you who had brought him there, er, left and the cat missed him after he… was gone so I thought a change of scenery might help him."
"But the demonic part?"
Apparently he really was interested, so Magnus wrapped up the story by giving a brief, vague description of what the Black sisters had meant to do. "It would be in your histories under Axel Mortmain and the automatons he created, if you're interested in the details."
"Was my family involved?" he asked as Chairman Meow hopped off the arm of the chair and onto his lap, where he sat down again in the same position on Robert's right leg.
Magnus winced, remembering Benedict Lightwood and forcing himself to focus more on what Gabriel and Gideon did. "Well, yes," he admitted, "they were. You're better reading your histories or any family journals your family has than listen to me prattle on."
Robert raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"
"One dark spot," he admitted reluctantly. "The sons of the dark spot behaved with all honor and dignity befitting good Shadowhunters."
"Much like how my children behave consistently with honor and dignity whereas I have not always done so."
He said it as a statement but Magnus heard the question. He had expected that he would have to talk to Maryse or Robert, hopefully not both at the same time, about what he saw when Rachel Whitelaw was killed at some point. It appeared that the point had come. "I haven't told Alec anything about that," he said, because it seemed important that Robert know it.
He waited until the cat curled himself into a tiny ball on his leg to speak, buying time by not wanting to disturb the tiny creature. "You could. I wouldn't blame you."
"I could, I suppose," he agreed, swallowing the last of whiskey in his glass and debating getting more. "I won't."
Robert turned the glass in his own hand, trying to figure out a way to have the conversation without digging a hole that he couldn't get out of, or one that Alec would want to bury him in when all was said and done. "I don't want to become… I don't want what I did to become something that stands in the way of Alec's happiness," he said, stumbling only once before he found his footing with the words he wanted to say. "I give you permission… blessing… whatever the proper word is… to tell him."
Magnus did not think there was a proper word for Person A who murdered someone else, not quite in cold blood and more in a fevered frenzy, telling Person B, who witnessed said event, that he could tell Person A's son, who was also Person B's boyfriend, about said event. "While I do appreciate the sentiment," he said carefully, "I'm not telling him. We've talked about my history. He's asked me questions. He's asked me not to tell him things about people he knows unless he specifically asks. I respect that.
"And this, Robert, what happened that day when Alec was a child… that is not my story to tell first. Tell him about it or don't. It doesn't matter to me. If you do, you can tell him I was there. I'll talk to him about it after that, if he wants."
The cat was purring on his leg then, and it somehow helped Robert relax. "And I respect that. I should… I want to tell him, and Isabelle about who I was but… I'm afraid of losing them completely." The relaxation was gone in a heartbeat at the thought of losing his children. And he wasn't at all sure why he was confessing this to his son's warlock boyfriend. It was a very surreal situation.
"I'm not a family therapist, and I really do not want to be your family therapist," Magnus said, being as bold with his magic as Robert was with his words and refilling his glass with a flick of his fingers, "but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to consider that they know what the Circle was, what the Circle did, what was the most horrible about the Circle but… maybe they don't know why someone might have been inclined to follow Valentine into the Circle."
"From someone who did it," he finished.
Magnus made a noncommittal noise and gestured toward Robert's now empty glass. "Refill?"
Robert accepted a refill and let the complicated topic drop as he stroked Chairman Meow. "It's an inventive name you gave him," he said, "especially given his size and who Chairman Mao was."
Talking about cat and cat names was easier. Magnus breathed a little easier. "My last cat was The Great Catsby - he loved nothing more than lounging around on velvet pillows and eating caviar." He wasn't sure Robert Lightwood would have read The Great Gatsby and would understand the reference but conversation was conversation.
"That fits as well." He sipped his drink and tried to open up a little more as well. "We thought about getting kittens when Alec and Isabelle were small but we were worried Church would eat them or something."
He snorted and coughed. "Probably."
"I wanted a cat when I was boy too, two of them actually because I had names in mind but it required two cats. My parents refused."
Armed with further proof that the Good People gene struck the Lightwood family at random, Magnus found himself a little interested. "What were the names?"
Robert looked out the window as he answered, unable to look a warlock in the eye when he said it. "Butch Catsidy and the Sundance Kitten."
Laughter escaped before he could stop it, appreciative laughter. "Those are perfect names for a pair of cats, Robert. You surprise me."
He smiled in spite of himself. "Well, if you… and Alec want the names for future cats you get… they're yours."
Magnus did a doubletake. Robert Lightwood had allowed that his son might acquire future cats with the warlock whose apartment he presently lived in. It wasn't a traditional blessing, or even statement of approval, for a relationship but it was, at least, an acknowledgement that Alec had chosen Magnus and that he would not try and stand in the way. If history could be eased and awkwardness lightened over cats and what to name them, Magnus did not intend to argue for more.
The conversation ended when Alec got home, and looked absolutely horrified to find his father there. He fixed his expression quickly, after shooting Magnus a nervous glance, and asked his father if there was something wrong that brought him to New York.
"It's your birthday tomorrow," Robert said, as if that should explain anything. A look of regret and pain flashed on his face when Alec just stared at him. "I came to see you on your birthday."
Magnus saw the slow, shy smile on Alec's face at that attention he was clearly not used to always getting. He claimed he had a lunch date with Catarina, which Alec knew he did not, and promised to be back to have dinner with the two of them before leaving Alec alone with his father. Which was something everybody needed more than they knew.
