Author's Note: Look, guys! Timeliness! Amazing, right?

Z is for Zs:
Alec fails to catch them.

The sleep deprivation started on Monday.

Early in the morning, Isabelle knocked on Alec's door and informed him that there was a demon in a park abducting small children. The police had found the body of a four-year-old girl that morning, wrapped in some kind of pink, fluffy cocoon. He hopped out of bed and put on his gear, then spent the entire day hunting down what Jace dubbed, "the elusive Cotton Candy Demon."

It was certainly elusive – even with the help of Isabelle's ruby pendant, they didn't find it until well into the night. And a park wasn't a good place to be at night. It was prime real estate for the darkest of magical creatures: a spot of wilderness in the middle of one of the largest urban sprawls in the world, where they could be close to a vast and diverse food source but still remain in their comfort zone. The faeries in the area usually managed the worst of it for territorial reasons, but they were only willing to do so much.

They found the Cotton Candy Demon up in a tree. It was something distantly related to a butterfly and a paper shredder, and a formidable foe. By the time Jace finally decapitated it, all three of them were sliced and diced from head to toe. Not to mention that they had to cut down another two bodies from the tree – fortunately they were only small dogs, not children.

When they returned to the Institute covered in ichor and blood, it was already two o'clock in the morning. They dressed their wounds, wrote healing runes on each others' skin, and doped up on pain killers, but were in too much pain to get a wink of sleep.

Alec and Jace had promised to help Luke out with some renovations for his bookstore – which was literally falling apart – on Tuesday, so he downed a few of those energy drinks that Magnus loved so much and joined the werewolves in some hearty construction. They were rewarded with pizza and beer – "Don't tell Jocelyn or Maryse I let you drink," Luke warned – and somehow ended up in a lycanthrope bar with Maia and some of her buddies, most of whom were burly men with more hair on their chests than Alec and Jace had on their entire bodies combined. Of course, drunk Jace had an even bigger mouth than sober Jace, and the bar erupted into a Nephilim-hate fest which resulted in an unconscious Jace with a bruised jaw. Maia smoothed things over long enough to rescue Alec, who hoisted his idiot parabatai over his shoulder and surreptitiously disappeared. Later, Maia would suggest that neither of them step foot in the bar ever again.

Maryse's lecture lasted until the next morning. She yelled at them in her pale blue bathrobe until her voice was hoarse and her two disgraced sons had pounding headaches. Then she dismissed them. Wednesday was spent recovering from a killer hangover. Eventually Alec just laid numbly in the bathtub, wishing his body would stop producing sour vomit. Izzy was helpful, at least. She made him a pot of coffee after she snapped a picture on her phone.

Despite Robert's efforts to mollify her, Maryse was still too peeved for Alec to stay at the Institute on Thursday. He escaped in the early hours of the morning after glimpsing her expression at the breakfast table and wandered around the city, stopping at nearly every coffee shop along the way to grab a cup. He dropped by Magnus's apartment only to discover that the warlock had gone to an important "business meeting" – which Alec knew really meant "fashion show" – in Milan and wouldn't be back until Friday. Too jittery from the coffee to sleep, Alec used a laser-pointer to play with Chairman Meow until he got a call from Isabelle, who frantically informed him that the Cotton Candy Demon had a nest of little Cotton Candy demons that were terrorizing Central Park in their mother's absence. He geared up and ran to help, fighting giant larvae covered in blades until dawn.

Once again, he was in too much pain to sleep on Friday. Jace and Isabelle had dragged him from the park after the last dozen babies flew away. They were much too exhausted and injured to chase them down. Alec had a particularly severe slash on his right calf and could barely walk. The caffeine buzz had long since died off, and he was entering a sort of sleep-deprived daze. He laid in agony on a cot in the infirmary of the Institute and apparently – although he didn't remember this – had requested that an IV be filled with Red Bull and injected into his arm. Once he was healed enough to walk, he shuffled into the kitchen and downed exactly two and a half pots of coffee while his family watched in morbid fascination.

Around eleven o'clock at night, just when he was considering going to bed, Alec realized he hadn't seen Magnus all week and was suddenly very aware of that fact when he received a provocative text message that Magnus helpfully sent to inform him he had returned from Milan. Alec's libido was the only thing that kept his body moving as he stumbled to his boyfriend's apartment and was immediately yanked inside by a pair of manicured hands.

Three cans of Monster, two endurance runes, and twelve hours of wildly depraved sex later, Magnus watched Alec pour himself a bowl of Captain Crunch in his kitchen.

He was very, very concerned.

The Shadowhunter wore only his boxers – which almost never happened – as he stared down at an empty green bowl on the counter. Slowly he grabbed a box of sugary cereal from the cupboard and poured it into the bowl, blinked, and grabbed the fresh pot of coffee, pouring it on the cereal until it threatened to overflow.

Magnus raised an eyebrow. "You aren't really going to eat that, are you?"

He got an impressive zombie grunt in response as Alec dimly looked for the spoons. He pulled a ladle from the drawer and dipped it into the bowl, which capsized and made a puddle of coffee on the counter. Magnus hopped off the counter and grabbed the ladle from Alec's hands. "Alright, that's enough. The bags around your eyes could hold my groceries, and you've got dark circles that would put a raccoon to shame! I've seen cadavers with more awareness than you. Not to mention the fact that you look like you played Twister with a porcupine."

"…Ughnarg?" said Alec.

"When was the last time you got any sleep?" Magnus sighed, taking that to mean 'Your point?' in zombie-speak.

"Hmn…Sunday, m'be? Can't 'member."

Magnus balked. "You're telling me you haven't slept in an entire week?"

"Wha's today?"

"It's Saturday."

"Yeah, guess I h-h-haven't," a gigantic yawn contorted the last word. Magnus shook his head and took Alec by the hand, leading him back into the bedroom. "Where're we going?" Alec mumbled, almost tripping over a discarded shoe.

"You are going to sleep," Magnus said.

"But…m'cereal…"

"Leave it. It'll probably poison you." Magnus sat Alec down on the bed and pointed at a pillow. "Lay down, Alexander. Now. I'm not kidding. Do you know that if you don't sleep for a certain amount of time, you could die? Do you understand what this kind of schedule will do to your health? It's no wonder the Nephilim have such short lifespans – you all literally work yourselves to death!"

Just as he finished, Alec's phone buzzed. He fumbled for it and flipped it open. " 'Lo?"

"Alec, we just located the last of the Cotton Candy babies – " Isabelle began, but Alec lost the rest of the sentence as Magnus pried the cell phone from his grip.

"Isabelle, this is Magnus. Alec won't be on Shadowhunter duty for the rest of today, and maybe tomorrow, do you understand?"

"Magnus, I know you haven't seen Alec all week, but we don't have time for him to fool around with you all day! This is really important – "

"Do you know what he just tried to do? He made a bowl of Captain Crunch with coffee."

"So?"

"Instead of milk."

"…Ew."

"Yeah. Alexander informs me that he hasn't gotten any sleep since last Sunday, so I am taking it upon myself to do everyone a favor and keep him here until he's rested up. Otherwise he's going to burn himself out. Don't call again, because we aren't going to pick up."

"What?! That can't be right – "

"When was the last time you saw him sleeping?"

Isabelle was silent. Then she sighed. "Okay. We'll handle this ourselves."

"Damn right, you will."

"Magnus? Thanks for looking out for him. I guess Jace and I are so used to him protecting us that we forget sometimes he's still human."

"You're welcome," Magnus said. "But that sappy line isn't getting you out of trouble. I'm still pissed at both of you for letting it get this bad."

"Damn. It was worth a shot."

Magnus hung up on her and pocketed the phone. Alec was staring out into the middle distance. He blinked back into reality when he realized that Magnus was done talking. "Where'm I going?" he asked, standing up. Magnus shook his head and pushed him back on to the bed.

"You aren't going anywhere," he said. "Isabelle and Jace are going to take care of it themselves."

"But – "

"No buts. You're only going to hinder them in your condition. After you take a nap, you can go help them. I'm keeping your phone until then to make sure you aren't interrupted."

Alec scowled but complied, which only further proved how tired he was. Within three seconds he was fast asleep, snoring with relish. Magnus took the cell phone and tossed it into his closet, then curled up beside him. The guilt, of course, wasn't entirely Isabelle's; Magnus should have realized how tired Alec was last night.

The warlock sighed and smiled, gently sweeping a few strands of black hair from Alec's face. It was easy to forget how selfless Alec could become for people he loved. As the older sibling, he'd always had someone to take care of – Isabelle, Max, Jace, and now probably Clary, Maia, and Simon to some degree. He even took it upon himself to put Magnus first; Magnus, who had survived eight-hundred plus years on his own.

When he was asleep, when he was slack and relaxed, Alec's youth showed. He was only eighteen, but it was easy to forget that with all the responsibility he shouldered. Too much for anyone, particularly someone so young.

"When you're a Shadowhunter, you grow up fast," Alec had told him once. "You don't have long to live anyway – maybe fifty, sixty years if you're lucky. A Shadowhunter is practically considered a full-fledged adult by the time they're fifteen, even though they're not technically recognized as one until they turn eighteen. But by then, you've seen enough to make you an adult by any standard."

Everything but that last line was stale and rehearsed.

Magnus thought it was kind of sad. But after that, he understood why Alec burned himself at both ends for his siblings. He wanted to preserve their youth for as long as possible because he knew what it was like to have his childhood cut short. So that's why he bristled when Isabelle talked about dating boys, or why he cleaned up the reckless messes Jace made.

"It's time someone takes care of you, love," Magnus murmured. He cuddled up to Alec and closed his eyes, where he remained for the next twenty-four hours while Alec slept, uninterrupted, in his arms.