CHAPTER 4 – THE MONTH BEFORE
When Alec 'finally' finished the class with the trainees, he wanted nothing more than to go home and snuggle up to his boyfriend. But no, he couldn't do that because he had plans.
And that's how he found himself walking down the hallway to Clary's art room. When he entered, he was quite taken aback with awe when he saw all her artwork: paintings of different places in the Shadow World and the Mundane World and sketches of people(he didn't know who). For once, he felt intimidated by her.
"Ready for your first lesson?"
"Oh, hey. Yeah, I'm ready."
Clary clapped her hands excitedly, earning herself an eye roll from Alec. She walked over to her easel and pointed towards Alec's.
"So you want to give Magnus a painting for his birthday, right?"
"Yep."
"Then our primary focus in going to be on the painting aspect of art….."
And so the classes had begun.
They worked on developing and honing Alec's skills in painting. Clary started with the basics and moved to advanced techniques as the months went by. She also noted that Alec was a quick learner, so he picked up on everything she said pretty soon. In other words, he didn't need to be told the same thing twice.
Soon, there was only a month left until Magnus's birthday and Clary deemed Alec ready to start that painting.
"I suppose you have the image you want to paint in mind?" Clary asked nervously. Izzy had shown her the photograph and it was perfect. She held it in her hand as she waited for Alec's reply.
"To be honest, I'm not sure. The date we went to in Paris was amazing. But there were so many picture perfect memories and I can't choose." Alec said a little dejectedly.
"Umm…How about this one?" Clary said hesitantly and handed Alec the picture Izzy had taken. Alec looked at her confusedly but took it anyway. His eyes flew wide when he saw what it was.
It was a picture of him and Magnus standing close with the lit up Eiffel Tower in the background. His heart was bursting when he saw the way in which the two of them looked at each other, with so much love.
"Alec, I'm really sorry about taking that picture on your date I know it was wrong but you weren't trained enough to paint from memory it took me two years to do that and…Oof!"
Clary's rambling was interrupted by Alec hugging her in a bone-crushing hug. She was startled and stood frozen. Alec let go a few moments later and his were shining. "It's beautiful. Thank you," he said and Clary thought she was hallucinating. She had expected Alec to get mad at her, yell at her for taking the picture and what not. Thanking her was something she hadn't even 'dreamed' of. She let out a sigh of relief, "I'm glad you like it! Now, the painting's going to take at least two weeks to finish and another week to get it framed and ready, alright?"
Alec nodded and walked over to the easel that had been reserved for the painting.
