Hello! Okay, don't even ask about how or where did this come from. It just is. Like love (what am I saying?).
Anyways, so, the other day I had a total atack when I read Born to Endless Night. I absolutly loved the story. It was so cute and so fluffy and... On the other side, I kinda was expecting something else (that does not mean I didn't like it, far from that), maybe the fact that they were all throwing a fuss over the baby, but the baby in itself had little protagonism. Like the most he did was drink his bottle.
I dunno. Anyways, my mind kind of started wandering and then I had this idea of the three of them just... I dunno, it just appeared.
Who Could Ever?
The meal had lapsed pretty normally for the small family, if only a little silent. It wasn't until Alec called his attention on it that Magnus noticed, but the truth was that their son, Max, had been acting strange throughout the whole dinner, not eating at all and talking even less.
It was Alec who decided to take the first step and ask what was wrong. Of course Max then proceeded to shudder slightly and assure it was nothing; not that either Magnus or Alec believed him. After a couple of insistent questions, Max finally decided upon telling his parents the truth.
"I... The other day I was... I was just wondering how..." he started, turning his gaze to the plate placed in front of him just so he didn't have to look into his parents' eyes. "How did I get here?" he finally asked freezing his shuddering fingers on top of his legs.
To his son's simple question, Magnus almost choked.
"You mean, like...? Like how did we...?" the older warlock asked, gesturing with his hands for lack of a better way to express himself.
"Yes" Max nodded. "How did I end up with you".
Magnus and Alec looked at each other over the table, almost as if expecting to see what to do printed on the other's face–they did not find anything other than a mirror to their own expression, eyes widened in surprise, chests heavy with concern.
It was just natural that Max found himself wondering what his real origin was. Omitting the fact that he was a warlock, given how he called two males 'parents' it was just plain –and sometimes even painfully– obvious that he was not Magnus' or Alec's biological descendant, but that had never constituted an issue for the family.
Maxwell Lightwood had been loved. He'd been raised to love, and with each ounce of love that the people around him could give.
«Who could ever love him?» had read the note with which he'd been left, and once in a while Magnus couldn't help but mentally answer that anonymous writer. And the answer was simple, almost too much.
The only ones ever able to love that child had been the Lightwoods, a family so proud that they hardly ever cared for someone who didn't run by their last name, and himself. The only ones ever able to love that child had resulted to be everyone who met him.
However, they were aware that Max was not asking that because he felt insecure. All he'd ever met was the warmth of Magnus' loft after all, and he'd been forsaken too young for him to even remember the one who had left him abandoned and helpless in the first place, and both Magnus and Alec knew that. Magnus and Alec had always been there, for anything that he needed, the loving presences that Max had lacked off when he had first arrived to the Academy.
Max had just popped out the question because of mere curiosity. It was just natural for the boy to want to know who he was, where had he come from.
Actually, the fact that Max had dared to ask his parents only proved the point further–he was so certain of the love those two felt for him that he was sure such a query would not put in question the stability of his family. And he was, after all, right. That question was not more important that the month they were in or the time. The world wouldn't stop revolving just because of that and, more importantly, the answer would not change the amazing boy that Max had grown up to be thanks to Magnus and Alec.
In fact, Magnus and Alec had actually talked a couple of times about what they would do whenever the occasion came to answer that question or if it ever came, and the resolution they'd come to have was simple–they did not have anything to hide, and there was no reason as to why Max couldn't know how he had ended up being the Lightwood's son.
However, now that the question had really been asked, the words refused to appear.
"Well..." Magnus started, pleading with his eyes to be revealed even when he knew Alec wasn't sure of what to say either. "Your uncle Simon found a warlock baby on the Academy's doorstep and he called me" he said, the word 'abandoned' hanging in the air even as Magnus hadn't said it.
"And your father called me" Alec finally replied, just to close his mouth shut and continue to bite his lower lip after he had finished.
"We couldn't send a warlock baby to the Clave" Magnus added.
"It was just too dangerous" Alec nodded. "So Magnus resoluted that we... that we took care of the baby until we found out what to do".
They stayed silent for a moment, dwelling on how Max seemed to shrink in his chair, his small hands turning into fists.
"We... We didn't..." Alec started then, trailing off.
"The original plan wasn't to keep you" Magnus completed in a low voice, feeling like the worse person on the planet as he saw Max flinch ever so slightly.
"But we... we thought that... that it was..."
"We realized it was stupid to try to look for a home to place you when we already had one–".
"With us" Alec said, the right corner of his lips lifting in a tender smile, even as his eyes shone with worry.
Max nodded slowly, breathing sharply. Until then, he had followed his parents' words with serious, attentive eyes, but when both Magnus and Alec fell silent, he dropped his gaze to his lap, shrinking a little more in the chair.
Silence fell over them, dense and unnatural. All Magnus could do was stare right into Alec's worried blue eyes for three whole minutes that felt like an eternity. During that time, Max didn't do anything other than flinch slightly from time to time, his eyes still fixed on his legs.
"Max" Alec said softly after a while, standing up to then kneel down next to Max's chair and meet eyes with him, or at least tried to, as Max decided upon avoiding his father's gaze. "You know we love you".
"How you came here does not change anything" Magnus corrobored.
However, to his parents' words, Max didn't answer anything either, which only resulted in worrying Magnus and Alec even more.
"Don't let something like this define you and don't think too much about it" Alec tried again after a couple of seconds, letting his blue eyes wander through his son's features worriedly.
To Alec's side, Magnus couldn't help but feel the same sinking feeling in his chest. He knew that whenever Alec felt nervous, he started to blurt out words as fast as he could, and he really couldn't blame the Nephilim as he, too, had caught his lower lip between his teeth in an attempt to fake calmness.
Two minutes ago, both Magnus and Alec had been certain that nothing they could possibly say would shake the security Max had in them and in the love they had professed him, but right then, shrunken, black eyes evading blue eyes, all that Magnus could feel was his own chest tighten in concern and regret.
"Sometimes… well, sometimes it occurs that…" Magnus started to say,
"I'm glad it happened" Max said in a low voice, interrupting his parents' racing thoughts.
"What?" Magnus and Alec both asked at the same time, turning to their son, who had lowered his gaze again and now played nervously with the fabric of his shirt.
"I'm glad it happened" he repeated slowly, finally raising his black eyes to meet Magnus'. "Just so you could find me".
Surprise fell on both Magnus and Alec, immediately changing the expression in their features. For instance, their eyes softened and their mouths became open with an outtake of breath they hadn't noticed they'd been holding back.
"C'mere" was all Alec could say as he wrapped his arms around the boy's shoulders, blinking tears back; not that Magnus could blame him.
For the last ten years, Alec had thought of the person that had given birth to that boy and then left him in the doorstep of the Academy, ultimately bringing him to Magnus' and his own life, and he'd done so with hate, with despise, always feeling his entrails turn at the thought of a parent leaving a helpless baby to die alone with no second thought. Especially that baby.
He'd always, always felt his body stiffen in a numb rage when he imagined anyone trying to hurt an innocent child, to have that child be the one he called his son was simply too much.
And that note, that horrible note left behind with the baby. He most certainly could feel his hands turn into fists each and every time he remembered what that note had said.
«Who could ever love it?»
What he could not –did not want to– understand was how stupid you had to be to do such a thing. How stupid whoever had left that baby ten years aback was, abandoning such a jewel.
But right then it occurred to him for the first time in ten years that he had all the right to be resentful towards his son's biological parents, but that he also had the obligation to be thankful towards them, and to pity them. Oh, and how much must he pity the ones that had been stupid enough to forsake a child so amazing.
It also crossed his mind, for the first time ever since they'd taken in that helpless baby, ten years aback, that maybe, and just maybe, he had gotten that note all wrong.
Magnus and he had both assumed that the words in that yellowish paper had been written hatefully, just before the mortal father of the baby abandoned him, but, Alec noted for the first time that, maybe and just maybe, those weren't hateful words, but helpless ones.
For instance, it was better –both for the baby and for his real parents– to realize and assume that no matter how hard they tried, they would never love that baby. And it was for the best to leave that baby in the care of someone else than to condemn him to negligence and abuse.
Abuse was a magical word, Alec pinpointed.
Even as the boy he now called his son had been left abandoned and helpless, he'd been well-fed and cheerful at the time. He hadn't presented any bruises or signs of being hurt. Far from that, he'd acted cheerfully, he'd called for food and he hadn't been terrified to cry his lungs out.
Had he lived under abuse, he would have been scared, he would have been terrified of the new faces and the changes around him. But he hadn't been. Instead, Max had been delighted with the people he met, an innocent, happy toddler fascinated with whoever took him in the arms.
What that faceless person had left in the Academy's doorstep was not a weak, abused baby, but a healthy, happy child who only revealed to be unwanted because of the note attached to him and the fact that he had been abandoned.
Whoever had left that baby there knew what he was doing. They'd abandoned a baby exactly in where that baby would find help and someone who would take care of him.
Maybe, Alec thought as a bitter-sweet feeling placed itself in the Nephilim's chest, the note wasn't meant to uncover hate and despise, but helplessness.
Maybe it was not a statement, but a hurtful confession.
Whoever had given birth to that baby and had taken care of him for the first months of his life –very well care of him, it had to be said– found him or herself unable to give that baby the love he deserved. And it was that realization, the one that said that they would never love that baby what had pushed them to desperate measures, like abandoning that very same baby in the front door of a place where, they thought, he would get the help and the love that his progenitors were unable to give.
Maybe it was a plea or a dare. Who would be able to love that child if, after all, his owns parents had turned their backs on him?
Very possibly, Alec would never really known what those words were supposed to communicate, but the fact that there were so many 'maybe's' meant that, at least, there was a tiny possibility that the baby left behind in the Academy ten years in the past had been unloved, but not for lack of trying.
There was something beautiful and brave in giving up when you knew that you wouldn't succeed because you simply were unable to do it, and even when forsaking a child was one of the worst things you could possibly do, it was better than not letting go and forcing that same child into an existence of abuse and negligence.
«Who could ever love it?», had read the letter. And the answer was simply–the ones who'd been able to see how much that helpless child had to offer and how bright his black eyes sparkled.
"You're the best thing that ever happened to me" Alec whispered into Max's ear, holding him to his chest.
"Hey! I thought I was the best thing that had happened to you!" Magnus joked as he, too, walked over to his family.
"Oh, and you are!" Alec replied, rolling his eyes. "Right after our son!"
Max tried –and failed– to swallow his laugh, which resulted in choked giggles against Alec's chest that Magnus was prideful enough to ignore as he approached them and circled them both with his strong arms, kissing Alec's left cheek in the process.
As he heard his son laugh, cheerfully, happily, Alec couldn't help but feel his heart melt, a relieved sigh allowing him to free his chest from the worry that he'd been trapped in only seconds before.
Max was happy. His son was happy. No matter the way he'd ended up abandoned in the Academy's doorstep, no matter how careless or cruel his real parents had been, the truth was that he hadn't spent more than a couple of hours forsaken, and as long as Alec and Magnus lived, to find himself alone had to be Maxwell Lightwood's last worry.
"Thank you" Max whispered into Alec's chest after a couple of seconds.
The Shadowhunter couldn't help but smile tenderly at his boy.
"No, thank you" he replied softly. And thank the one who left you in the right doorstep, he mentally added, for the first time in ten years not feeling his chest tighten with rage at the thought of the one who had left that baby behind.
Because, whereas the question asked had been «Who could ever love it?», the right one to ask should have been «Who could ever leave him?» and right then, ten years later, even as the questions still remained unanswered, the truth was that it didn't matter. It had never mattered.
A question or an answer, on the other side, didn't change the meaning of family and it especially didn't change the meaning of love.
Love was love, and the past didn't change that. And a family, biological or not, continued to be a group of people that loved each other more than they could put into words.
Love was love and meanwhile love existed, nothing else mattered, and the only pendant question then became to be «Who could ever deny that?».
So... how did that go? Did you like it? Yes, no, why?
On the other side, and completely out of the matter, even though I know that it is now canon that Magnus and Alec adopt a child, I was already planning in a series of one-shots of different babies that could be adopted by the couple. The idea has yet to be written, but like a little fairy girl or a werewolf or something, especially Downwolders. In fact, the first story of this... theme was already published with the name of 'A Warlock's Past', and it was published like a year ago, but I'm planning on continuing that one until he meets the Lightwoods. I dunno, but I'd be really glad if you could go and chack it out!
Anyways, thanks for reading! What do you think about the story? Or about Max? Better yet, what do you think about the baby being named Max? (I can't finish to like it. I mean, of course it's nice and cute and whatever but... why can't he have his own name and just take the Lightwood's last name?)
Read you soon!