Hey! Anyone else seeing Cassandra Clare on her mini-tour of the UK? I AM! Tomorrow!
Jace stared at Alec for a moment after Magnus had glittered away like a twinkly human snow globe, shirt-seeking. His tawny eyes caught and held the light, but Alec wasn't affected like he would've been a few months ago. Then Jace spoke.
"Your boyfriend is unbelievable."
"Isn't he?" Alec mused without thinking, the statement quickly followed by a redwine blush that leapt onto his face and stuck there like Spiderman to a tower block. Izzy cooed as he scrambled after Magnus, mumbling something about getting dressed properly, and Jace realised for the first time that all he'd been wearing under that ridiculous silky garment was PJ bottoms.
"Nice robe, dork!" he called, earning a glare from Isabelle and Alec's middle finger stuck around the bedroom door.
A few minutes later, Magnus strode back into the kitchen, fully dressed, made up, and shedding more glitter than an acid-tripping faerie.
"So, anyway, why are you here?" he asked, springing neatly to sit up on the counter, which instantly turned an attractive shade of violet. He winced a little as the jeans tightened their death grip on his thighs, taking revenge for his sudden movement. Damn, they were snug.
"Maryse sent us." Jace explained, using the point of a seraphic dagger to dig the dirt from under his fingernails. "We're all going on a hunt, Alec included."
Magnus pouted.
"But I wanted to show him off today! I feel exuberant- haven't you seen my damn jeans? It's no fun showing off without Alec- well, maybe a little- but I want to prance around with my man candy! Why are you ruining my life?"
Isabelle began to tell him that they had indeed seen his jeans, but there was nothing they could do about their demon-killing schedule when Alec emerged from the bedroom.
"I am not man candy. I don't even understand that term- no, don't tell me, I don't want to know. Anyway, did you say we were hunting today?" He looked to Jace, who seemed disappointed at the missed opportunity to offer a no doubt exceedingly witty explanation of 'man candy'.
"Yup. Down in Queens. Apparently some idiotic mundanes were messing about with magic and-"
"EGAD! Magic!" Magnus shrieked, leaping up and jabbing a bejewelled finger into the air. "I remember! Wayland, I have a bone to pick with you."
Jace's face danced rapidly from shock, to concern, to guilt, and finally settled on reflexive expressionlessness.
"Is that so?" he asked, arching a cinnamon-coloured eyebrow.
"Yes." Izzy and Alec scooted to sit on the worktop, amusedly watching the exchange. "I told you not to touch the magic magic 8 ball!"
Jace froze.
"How did you-?"
"It told me! Very distressed it was too, you should be ashamed of yourself asking questions like that!"
"I figured it was just a-"
"I told you it was really magic, didn't I, you stupid child?"
"Hey, I am only one year younger than your boyfriend, you know!"
Alec looked aggrieved, then hastily covered it by turning to brew some coffee.
"Alexander is by no means a child. Firstly," Magnus held up a thin, elegant finger, sparks trailing over it like tiny ribbons of tinsel. "because he is eighteen, which makes him a legal adult, and secondly," Another finger joined the first, this one partially obscured by a long gold ring in the shape of a coiling serpent. "because he doesn't act like one."
Jace snorted, while Magnus leaned back and crossed his slender arms. A slight smattering of dark hair textured them down to the wrists, a feature that Jace secretly envied. He had practically no hair on his wrists, and it was all blonde. Back-of-the-wrist hair was, in his eyes, the sign of a proper man. Not that Magnus, the glitzy half-demon could be classed as a 'proper man'; he was more like the humanoid offspring of a Christmas tree and a lightning storm.
"Then I guess you've never tried to take away his quilt?" both sides smirked at Alec's blush.
"And I guess you've never- actually, that's not something you have done, or need to know about. Another day, perhaps. But Alexander is most definitely a man."
Ruffling his hair, Magnus dropped Alec an open-mouthed wink. "I don't imagine you got much out of the magic magic 8 ball anyway."
Alec frowned, toying with his own fraying sleeve. "Why? I thought it could only tell the truth, and had the answer to every question it's possible to think of?"
Magnus grinned, and Jace went back to scraping at his nails, a small smirk playing about his golden features.
"Oh, it can. But it's terribly sarcastic, you see. Now!" he clapped his hands, showering the startled shadowhunters in glitter and turquoise sparks. "Don't you have some demons to slay?"
"Yes." said Jace sarcastically "Do feel free to tag along, won't you."
"Actually," Magnus said, with a worryingly mischievous smile "I think I'll take you up on that."
Later that day, shortly after sundown.
Everyone- except Clary and Simon who had just joined the group- was exhausted from the day's hunt, sweat beading on brows and gluing damp, frizzing hair to foreheads. Magnus had never realised how much hard work being a shadowhunter was, although he had no complaints about seeing Alec sweaty and leather-clad, working his straining muscles to their max- stop it, he thought, don't get too carried away, you need to save your excitement for Eurovision tomorrow.
Magnus winked, without thinking, at an anaemic-looking vampire whose eyes had previously been fixed hungrily on his crotch- That had been happening even more than usual, due to the wonder jeans. Wonderful, but…as much as it hurt to admit, they had begun to cause a strange numb feeling in his feet- then he realised what he had done. Alec's eyes blazed, and he hooked his fingers possessively into Magnus' belt, pulling him roughly against the jealous shadowhunter.
"Hey Vamp, get your own!" Izzy, Jace, Clary, Simon and Magnus simultaneously froze in shock. They stared at Alec. He shrugged as the vampire scuttled away, looking disappointed. "What?"
"Are you kidding?" Jace asked, his eyebrows having shot so high they were practically entangled in his golden hair. "You are Alec. That behaviour was…well, Magnus."
Magnus snaked his arms gleefully around Alec's waist.
"I guess we're rubbing off on each other in more ways than one," he trilled, Alec's face colouring immediately. "Oh, now you blush!"
"He was checking out my boyfriend," Alec murmured in Jace's direction, conveniently ignoring said boyfriend's suggestive comment.
The real reason he was so protective wasn't just the vampire's eager expression. He was used to people eyeing up Magnus, mentally undressing him, and although he didn't like it he could deal, as the High Warlock, for some reason, only wanted him. Once again, the reason for his strange behaviour was Camille.
She had been lurking, watching, following, since sundown, barely noticeable in the dusty shadows, like a spider. Alec shuddered. What a horrible thought. Wiping all spidery images from his mind, he carried on walking with the others. Camille stirred in the darkness between a pizza place and an Indian takeaway, green eyes taunting him as they turned a corner. Only he, and Jace, had noticed her.
The group had decided to retreat to Magnus' apartment for what most of them called 'dinner' and what Magnus called 'a pre-Eurovision soiree", considering that he was insanely excited, and they wanted to relax somewhere that wouldn't get interrupted by Maryse yelling about mud on her rugs.
The fly in the ointment, however, was that the warlock wanted to 'recharge', so someone had to cook. Izzy had offered, but the suggestion hadn't gone down well.
"N-no!" Alec stammered, before receiving a death glare from his sister, which Jace quickly intercepted.
"Last time you cooked, Izzy, you clogged up the toaster with bits of broccoli."
"The recipe said lightly toast-"
"That doesn't mean in the toaster. Jesus woman, if these were medieval times you'd have been burnt for witchcraft."
"They didn't have toasters in the middle ages, Jace."
"That is entirely besides the point."
And so, the discussions began as to who should cook.
Magnus, it turned out, could cook, but Alec cut in and said no.
"Okay, so recipe instructions are generally ignored, cooking times are generally improvised, and experimental cooking is generally encouraged. But they always turn out amazing." Magnus protested.
"Didn't your chilli cause a mundane to have a heart attack?"
Magnus sighed, looking down at the pink-and-black pointed-tip brogues he'd had made bespoke in the 1970's.
"Well, I warned him. If you find a cardamom, don't bite into it. They add more than flavour. But he didn't listen, therefore it was not my fault. And anway, Alec can't cook."
Izzy had been on the verge of suggesting this, and looked interested.
"Why can't he?"
"Well, he can follow a recipe, but he gets mess everywhere. And he always forgets the cooking times, even when he writes them down."
"It's true." Alec looked mournful. "But Jace could cook."
Jace looked up from where he had been checking out Clary. "My skills are much sought after, even in the kitchen." Clary looked doubtful, and spoke up for the first time in ages, considering she'd been quietly chatting to Simon about Lord of the Rings.
"Don't listen to him! He's a perfectionist! Everything has to be meticulously measured, timed, and oh my god, it's annoying." Jace looked betrayed. "Love him though."
"She can't even do eggs." He muttered. Clary ignored him.
"Simon can cook."
"What? Ratboy?" Magnus voiced everyone's communal surprise.
"Yeah," Simon grinned awkwardly "My mother insisted I learn. I make mean almond macaroons for Passover."
"Ratboy it is."
As they entered the supermarket for ingredients, Camille followed, mostly unseen, but out of the corner of his eye, Alec caught the flash of her blonde hair as she darted behind a stack of boxes, the glimmer of fangs under the harsh lighting. And a hissed whisper, so quiet he wasn't even sure if he was imagining things.
"Having fun, Alexander? For how much longer?"
I hope you liked this chapter, I'm not sure about it. There is more coming very shortly. And if you think it's weird of Jace to notice Camille and not do anything to help his parabatai…well, you'll see. Thanks for reading, and review if you want to know what Jace asked the magic magic 8 ball!
Love, China.