Malec | Rated general | no warnings | Alec Lightwood-centric, 5 + 1 things, Canon Compliant, Singing, Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Insecure Alec Lightwood, Alec Lightwood Loves Magnus Bane, Alec Lightwood Had A Bad Childhood, Alec Lightwood Needs A Hug, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending
Summary:Shadowhunters don’t sing.
aka five times Alec remembered that he wasn’t supposed to sing, and five times he knew he could (because this 5+1 idea is totally unbalanced and the characters deserve better).
A/N: so… honestly idk what this is. It’s vaguely inspired by me driving my family slightly insane by humming constantly, and I basically exaggerated and extrapolated that onto Alec. I really don’t know.
(also ik a bunch of this is unrealistic or whatever, don’t @ me)
Robert sighed. Alexander was singing something to himself — again — and while it had been cute at first, he couldn’t exactly work while his one-year-old son was babbling so loudly. It wouldn’t be so bad if it’d been quieter, but Alec was apparently determined to drive him insane, and he was vocalising loudly enough that Robert couldn’t tune him out.
It wasn’t particularly untuneful, but it was annoying, and it was constant. Robert’s headache throbbed.
He shouldn’t be so ungrateful. It was thanks to Alec, after all, that he and Maryse had gotten off relatively scott-free from their involvement in the Circle; thanks to Alec that they were now in charge of the third-largest Institute in the world, even if that charge came with exile from Idris. The problem was that the Downworld in New York was rebellious — the Whitelaws had been absurdly easy on them. Though Robert felt a twinge of guilt at the reminder of the family who’d been casualties of their fight against the werewolves, he knew that the Whitelaws had been bad for discipline in the Shadow World. Their deaths were really a good thing—
A louder babble from Alec cut off Robert’s train of thought.
He sighed again, wishing that Maryse were here. She’d take Alec away, or help him deal with these reports, or quiet Alec down with a few well-placed sharp words — that always seemed to make him stop singing, sometimes for entire hours at a time. Unfortunately, she was on patrol right now, and Robert was stuck watching over the increasingly irritating child.
Back to the reports. Robert signed off on one of them, but he had to stop halfway down the next report and start again — he’d been unable to focus on the meaning of the words, thanks to Alec’s singing.
The second time it happened, he snapped. “Alexander! Be quiet this instant. Shadowhunters don’t sing.” He infused authority into his tone, like he would when addressing a roomful of Shadowhunters.
Alec’s sounds abruptly cut off, and Robert felt his shoulders relax as his headache eased.
He made it five minutes before Alec was babbling again.
one
It was only a fragment of a tune, a snatch of something that somebody had been humming when they came back into the Institute from patrol.
Alec was seven, now, and he was old enough to hang around Ops and watch the Shadowhunters coming in. Well, technically he wasn’t old enough yet — the Ops floor was banned to anyone under nine — but he was old enough to sneak in and hide behind a pillar, watching the grown-up Shadowhunters.
His sister Izzy wasn’t old enough yet either, but she was always following him around, and so he helped her hide with him behind the pillar. After all, if she got caught, he’d almost certainly get caught as well. Plus, he was going to be the best big brother, and helping his little sister was a good start.
So, Alec had been in Ops when the patrol had come in. A woman, younger than Mom but still old enough to be a full Shadowhunter, had been humming the tune as she walked past the pillar, and Alec had listened with wide eyes.
He’d only heard a little bit of the song, which was probably a mundane one, but the little bit of sound got stuck in his head. He found himself unconsciously attempting to reconstruct what the whole song might’ve been like, and though he knew he was probably way off, he couldn’t help trying.
Right now, Alec was supposed to be practising his runes, alone in the library. He was only using a pencil, because he was too young for a real stele, but he knew that he needed to master the shapes of the runes before he became a full-fledged Shadowhunter. And he was going to be the best Shadowhunter ever (except maybe Izzy, who was already as good as him with a staff and was getting better all the time with her whip), which meant that he needed to get really good at his runes.
So he wasn’t slacking off in practice. Hodge had told him to do five hundred repetitions of the Deflect rune, and he’d already gotten to four hundred. He was just humming the song at the same time.
A footstep in the corridor, and Alec suddenly remembered with a shock like ice water on his head that he wasn’t supposed to make noise. He was always forgetting, always giving in to the music that seemed to run like a stream across his mind; he was sure that he was getting the tune wrong, but he couldn’t help it. Sometimes he wouldn’t even notice that he was humming — until, that is, Mom heard him.
He could hear her voice echo sharply across his mind — Alexander!Sometimes that was all she needed to say; sometimes she’d go on. Stop humming, it’s distracting. Or:Real Shadowhunters are quiet. Or:We don’t make unnecessary noises, not even in training. Or:How will anyone respect you if you can’t keep your mouth shut? And most often repeated of all: Shadowhunters don’t sing.
(Maybe, if his singing had actually been good, things would’ve been different. Maybe it wouldn’t be such an irritant. But that wasn’t the case, and there was no point wishing he’d been gifted with a better voice, not when all of Mom’s reasons were good ones.)
Alec felt a surge of guilt — he’d forgotten about her warning, again. He’d only thought about himself, about his own runes training, and he hadn’t thought about how annoying it would be for anyone around him. He needed to do better.
He’d do an extra hundred runes to make up for it.
two
Jace could play the piano.
Alec stood hesitantly in the doorway, watching the golden-haired boy pick out a tune on the instrument that’d stood there, silent and unused, for as long as Alec could remember. The boy was apparently going to be his new brother — that was what Mom had explained, at least — and so Alec wanted to make friends with him. The problem was that Jace didn’t seem to like talking much, and didn’t seem to want to make friends in general.
So Alec was trying to wear him down by just hanging around quietly. Eventually, Jace would have to give in and make friends; Alec knew that he was stubborn, and Jace wouldn’t be able to hold out as long as he could. That was why Alec had followed Jace to this room, where the piano was.
He didn’t want to interrupt the playing, though. Jace’s fingers were nimble, dancing easily over the keys, and Alec thought that it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. He wanted to float away on the music, wanted to hold it in his heart so that it would never leave.
But Jace suddenly looked up from the piano, fingers stilling as he registered Alec’s presence, and the music stopped. Alec wanted to ask him to keep playing, but Jace was already standing up, looking embarrassed, and Alec knew that if he pushed too hard, Jace would never ever want to be his friend. So he stayed quiet, and followed Jace out of the room. Eventually he’d gain Jace’s trust, and then maybe he could ask him to play again.
That night, though, Alec couldn’t help sneaking back down to look at the piano again. Just to look; he knew he couldn’t touch, knew that he’d only make horrible sounds that would erase the beautiful music that Jace had been making. He was tempted to try to pick out the tune anyway, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t hum Jace’s song, either, because he was getting so much better at staying quiet even when the music was playing in his head — if he was always careful, he could stop himself from slipping up, and he was getting better at the sustained concentration that he needed. (Shadowhunters don’t sing, he’d tell himself, the words a constant refrain and reminder.) He wanted to be a good Shadowhunter, and that was much more important than the temptation of the music.
(He held on to the hope of hearing Jace play again, though he didn’t say anything for fear of scaring him away. Eventually he learned that Jace had a complicated relationship with the piano, thanks to his father — Alec had never wanted to punch anyone as much as he wanted to punch Michael Wayland — and so he never did ask Jace to play. Whenever Jace sat down at the piano, though, he always listened, and he watched the dance of his fingers over the keys until he had the movements memorised.)
three
Max was crying.
Alec heard him from his own room, down the hall. He hadn’t heard Mom or Dad stirring yet, which meant that if he hurried he might be able to get them a few hours of sleep. Baby Max was adorable, and he liked holding Alec’s finger; he pulled on Izzy’s hair sometimes, but he always let go when she cried out. But Mom and Dad had trouble sleeping because Max wasn’t very good at sleeping through the night, so Alec wanted to help them. He was only eleven, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help.
He crept quietly out of bed, using his brand-new runes to muffle his footsteps, and went into Max’s room. Fortunately, Max quieted a little when Alec picked him up, though Alec was sure that he’d wake up Mom and Dad soon enough.
Alec rocked him, shushing him gently, and he quieted a little more. It wasn’t enough, though; Alec wanted him to go back to sleep, not just quiet down. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but Alec was tempted to hum a few bars of a song — he knew it would put Max right back to sleep, and Mom and Dad really needed the break.
Shadowhunters don’t sing.
He needed to help his parents.
Alec’s family would always — always — take priority.
Softly, so softly that he wasn’t sure that Max could actually hear him, Alec began to hum, still rocking him from side to side. He didn’t know the words of the song, only the tune, drifting across the street from some mundane bar or other; in fact, he wasn’t entirely certain if he’d really heard the tune before or if he’d made it up himself. He kept his voice quiet, not daring to sing louder, but Max calmed down at once.
He fell asleep in Alec’s arms, an adorable little bundle, and Alec laid him gently back down on the bed. He stopped humming, though the song was still running through his mind as it always seemed to be.
Alec knew that he shouldn’t feel sad that Max was asleep — that was his goal, after all, to help his parents get some rest — and yet he couldn’t help mourning the fact that he had no excuse to sing anymore.
four
“Bequiet, Alexander. I thought you knew better.” Maryse’s voice cracked like a whip across Alec’s thoughts.
It was the day after Alec’s first patrol as a fully-fledged Shadowhunter, and he’d heard the tune spilling out from a mundane restaurant. He hadn’t even noticed that he was humming it — that was even worse, though, because it meant he had a bad awareness of his surroundings.
He knew why he’d made such a mistake. First patrols were important, a landmark moment in Shadowhunters’ lives, and when he’d gotten back, Maryse had congratulated him on it. She’d been proud of how well he’d done — he hadn’t killed a demon, but he’d shot one and distracted it long enough for one of the older Shadowhunters to kill it, and the patrol leader had told Maryse that he’d done a good job. Alec had liked the patrol leader’s praise, but Maryse’s smile and congratulations had been worth so much more. The joy of that had loosened his inhibitions, made him forget — just for a moment — that he wasn’t supposed to sing, in the sunshine light of his mother’s pride.
That was all gone now, though. Shadowhunters don’t sing. She was glaring at him again, that familiar disappointment in her eyes, her lips pursed in disapproval. Alec was silent, his humming vanished along with the happiness that’d glowed in his heart, but she looked irritated now. “Don’t you have something you should be doing?”
Alec did not, in fact, have anything to do — he’d already finished the history and politics homework Hodge had assigned him, and he’d gotten the day off training as a reward for completing his first patrol. That was why he was in Maryse’s office — he was going to be the Head of the Institute someday, and the best way to learn how to do that was to watch his mother at work. She usually allowed it, but he’d clearly lost that opportunity with his humming. He got up and saluted at the door; Maryse didn’t bother to acknowledge it, and Alec left for the training rooms. He could always ignore the tunes in his head when he was training; it was like he was humming with his body rather than his mind. And maybe, if he trained hard enough, he could get Maryse to look at him proudly again.
(Maybe.)
five
Magnus had a record player.
It looked vintage, but in pristine condition — Magnus had probably bought it new and kept it working with magic. The collection of records in a cupboard next to it varied widely in genre and age, and Alec wanted nothing more than to go digging through the pile and listen to any and all of them.
A few things were stopping him from doing so, though. Firstly, it was after all Magnus’s collection, and Alec didn’t want to touch it without his permission — and asking permission was awkward enough that he’d rather not. And then, he was always more relaxed in the loft than he was anywhere else, and he knew he’d end up humming along if not outright singing aloud. That would be disastrous — his mother’s voice was always burned into his mind: Shadowhunters don’t sing. (And another reason, if that wasn’t enough — he knew his singing was bad, that he was always out of tune even when he thought it sounded right, and he didn’t want to subject Magnus to that.)
Magnus, however, had no such inhibitions.
“Dance with me, Alexander,” he said with a smile, and Alec was helpless to do anything but let Magnus pull him to his feet as a flick of the finger set a record playing. It was Whitney Houston, Alec knew; his awareness of mundane pop culture was limited at best, but he’d gathered up and hoarded away all the scraps of music that he’d heard in fragments from mundane buildings. He liked her music, the warm sway of it, and it was easy enough to sink into the beat.
“You’re getting better at this,” Magnus told him, lifting his arm to spin Alec out in a twirl.
Alec shrugged, spinning back into Magnus’s arms. He’d never really danced before meeting Magnus — unlike his siblings, clubs weren’t his scene, and he’d ducked out of the (nominally, but not practically, mandatory) classes in ballroom dancing in favour of more politics electives. Magnus loved dancing, though, and Alec loved listening to music, so he’d begun to learn. “I’m nothing to you.”
Magnus grinned at him. “I’ve had centuries to perfect the art.”
They fell into a comfortable silence after that, Houston’s crooning voice accompanied only by the soft taps of their feet on the floor. Magnus was humming along softly; his voice wasn’t perfectly in tune, but it was beautiful and it was Magnus.Alec felt relaxed, at peace; the lyrics of the song were climbing up his throat, ready to be sung—
But no, he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t forget even for a moment that he was a Shadowhunter, and Shadowhunters don’t sing.
He dipped Magnus to distract him from whatever expression was painted on Alec’s face, and let the old mantra replace the song running through his mind. It messed up his rhythm, but that was okay — that was fine, that was worth it.
This — Magnus in his arms, the music outside of him but not allowed to sing in his head — was enough.
interlude — Magnus
It had taken Magnus an unforgivably long time to notice it, but when he did, it became undeniable.
Alec never sang. Magnus himself was often humming a snatch of tune or other, when doing something that didn’t attract his full attention; he’d learned from his experiences with the charango that he really couldn’t play any instrument, but he loved humming along to a song as he danced to it.
Alec, on the other hand — never. Not in the shower, not when Magnus had music playing in the loft, not when they were dancing; not even the few times when Magnus had caught him listening to music with an intense, unnameable expression on his face. If it hadn’t been for that expression, perhaps Magnus could have passed it off as a simple dislike for music; but Alec clearly loved music, and his silence stood out all the more for it.
So, he brought it up. “Alexander?”
“Hm?” Alec looked up at him from the reports scattered over Magnus’s living room table.
Magnus sat down beside him, turning so that his legs lay across Alec’s lap and tangling his fingers with Alec’s. “Why don’t you sing?”
It sounded like a mantra, like Alec had heard those words so many times that he’d learned to believe them despite himself. Magnus would need to tread carefully. “Why not?”
“It’s a distraction, to myself and to others,” Alec replied, the words still apparently automatic. “It’s loud, it could give me away. It’s unnecessary. It’s inefficient. I’d lose the respect of my subordinates.”
Disregarding the other faults in that statement — he didn’t need to argue with Alec over whether his subordinates would care — Magnus pointed out the main one. “None of that applies here, darling.”
Alec shrugged, still tense and uncomfortable. Magnus wanted to let the topic drop, allow Alec to relax again, but this was another example of the Clave’s indoctrination that he wanted to stop. Alec should feel he could sing if he wanted to.
“I don’t think I could stop if I started,” Alec said softly, like a confession. “I don’t — I have to remind myself not to hum something all the time, and if I let my guard down, I don’t know if I could bring it back up.”
Magnus tightened his fingers on Alec’s hands. “You should always have somewhere you can relax, darling.”
“I’ve never had somewhere I can relax,” Alec replied, “except for here.”
Heart breaking and healing again at Alec’s words, Magnus leaned forward to pull him into a gentle kiss. “Then you should be able to relax about this, too, when you’re here.” Alec didn’t say anything, and Magnus didn’t wait for him to. “I know you’re not going to change everything right away, love, but — just remember that you’re allowed to sing here. You don’t need to be a Shadowhunter all the time; in the loft, you can just be yourself, and I will never judge you for that.”
“Say that again when you’re driven insane by my constant humming,” Alec huffed, but there was a small smile on his face and Magnus let himself hope.
+ one
“Your voice is beautiful.”
Alec spun around, only his Shadowhunter reflexes saving him from falling over and face-planting onto the kitchen floor. “Oh. Uh. Magnus. I… didn’t know you were here?”
Magnus chuckled, walking up to him and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “That was intentional. You were singing beautifully — I didn’t want to interrupt.”
The blush on Alec’s cheeks was embarrassingly bright. He’d been cooking dinner for Magnus with the radio on; it’d been playing a song and he hadn’t even realised that he’d been humming along. That was testimony to the relaxing effect that the loft had on him — he hadn’t hummed along to anything since he was fifteen years old. The conversation with Magnus had definitely helped; Alec still didn’t want to hum consciously, but clearly he’d subconsciously let down a bit more of his guard in response.
Then, he caught on to what Magnus was saying, and the blush deepened. “I’m not good at singing, Magnus.”
“You absolutely are,” Magnus replied immediately. “Not that I’d care if that wasn’t the case, but you really do have a lovely voice — especially for somebody with no training and less practice.”
“You’re biased,” Alec retorted, and changed the subject before Magnus could say anything more. “Now, are you going to help me finish making dinner, or are you planning on just standing there unhelpfully?”
Magnus laughed and joined him at the counter, and if Alec began to let himself hum softly to the radio sometimes, that was nobody’s business but his own.
+ two
The piano was just sitting there, in the middle of a park in Italy, and Alec couldn’t quite resist.
Magnus had gone to get them gelato from a place across the way; he’d left Alec sitting on a bench in the sunlight, only a little ways from the piano. It was a public one, meant to be used by anyone who came across it; the wood looked slightly worn by time, the keys off-white, but when Alec touched a finger to one, the note sounded true.
He knew that Magnus would be back soon enough, but the only people around were mundanes — even though Alec was unglamoured, they wouldn’t think anything of it if he played something. And Magnus had told him, hadn’t he, that he wanted him to sing? Would playing the piano be the same thing?
It was in public, not in Magnus’s loft, and the loft was still the only place where Alec was comfortable enough to hum. But it wasn’t at the Institute, either, and the keys looked so tempting—
Almost before he knew what he was doing, Alec sat down on the bench, which creaked under his weight but settled. He reached out for the keyboard, still hesitant, and pressed a few notes; the sound was surprisingly rich, and he let his fingers find out the notes that made up a song he’d heard recently on the radio. He couldn’t figure out the harmony, but the melody itself was simple enough. Soon, though, he found his mind and fingers drifting off into something else — loosely inspired by the song, but not quite the same, little variations that Alec liked the sound of building up until it was nearly unrecognisable. He didn’t know the words of the original song, and he doubted they’d go with his altered version, but he found himself humming along to the tune as he played.
He didn’t notice when Magnus returned, gelato in hand, but when the music finally trailed off and left a smile on his face, he knew Magnus had been listening for a while. “Hi.”
Magnus strolled forward and offered him the lemon sorbet that he knew Alec loved, his own mango flavour half-eaten already. “That was beautiful.”
Alec, promptly and predictably, blushed. “It’s nothing. Just a tune I made up.”
“You came up with that?” Magnus looked even more impressed now, and Alec wasn’t sure how to tell him that it really wasn’t much.
He shrugged and started on the lemon sorbet, which Magnus had clearly kept from melting for him. “Thank you.”
Magnus hummed, sitting down beside him on the bench and leaning in for a sticky kiss that tasted of mango and lemon. “I have a few pianos in storage somewhere — I should set one up in the loft.”
“You don’t need to—” Alec began, but Magnus cut him off.
“I want to. I liked listening to you, and it makes you happy.”
Alec shrugged, but he couldn’t hide the smile that pulled up the corners of his lips.
+ three
Soft sobs woke Alec up.
Max. Almost before conscious thought had returned to his sleep-addled mind, Alec was standing up and pulling on one of Magnus’s t-shirts over his boxers to stumble into Max’s room — if he was quick enough, hopefully he wouldn’t need to wake Magnus, who’d been dealing with a particularly difficult potion for a client and really needed to rest.
Adopting Max was unquestionably the best decision Alec had ever made (tied, perhaps, with a rather public kiss with Magnus that had changed his standing with the Clave, and therefore his life, irrevocably), but it was vaguely nightmarish dealing with an eight-month-old baby warlock whose horns were growing in and making him even more unlikely to sleep through the night than usual. Magnus had come up with a balm to help soothe the pain, but it couldn’t do everything and the discomfort would still wake Max up. A bit of soothing would send him back to sleep, but it was a pain to be woken up at all hours of the night.
Stumbling into the room, Alec picked his blue son up and hushed him gently, rocking from side to side as he did so. The movement was abruptly reminiscent of another time, another child, another Max — Alec’s brother, not his son, but the soothing motions were the same.
Like that other time, Alec began to hum softly, but this time, he wasn’t quiet because he felt that he shouldn’t let his voice be heard, only so that the sound was calming. The tune that rose to his lips barely qualified as such, a soothing string of notes that wasn’t really any particular song; it slowly coalesced into the tune Alec had played on that Italian piano, something that he’d made up himself from snatches of other music. Softer, this time, and with a crooning note to soothe Max to sleep.
Almost immediately, Max quieted; he hadn’t slept well for the last several nights due to his horns, so it didn’t take much. He’d probably be up again in a few more hours with increased pain, but for now, he drifted off — a precious little bundle in Alec’s arms, all blue skin and bumps that would become horns and the softest blankets Magnus had managed to magic up.
Alec glanced up at a sound in the doorway, and smiled ruefully at the sight of Magnus, sleep-ruffled and exhausted-looking and beautiful, who he’d apparently failed not to wake up. Magnus, however, didn’t seem to mind; he was looking at the two of them with such impossible fondness in his eyes that Alec couldn’t help wondering how on earth he’d ever gotten so lucky.
Max was sleeping again, and Alec set him gently down before stepping lightly over to Magnus, the song still on his lips and a glow of joy in his heart.
+ four
Magnus was injured, and Alec could do nothing.
It wasn’t his fault, Magnus insisted, but that was difficult to believe when Magnus had only been there because of Alec — it’d been a just regular patrol, and Magnus had come to keep him company; none of them had expected the group of Raveners that poured out of an alley and managed to bite Magnus before Alec, Jace, and Izzy had despatched them. Magnus had summoned a portal home with his flagging strength and directed Alec in making the antidote to the Ravener venom, but even with the antidote applied, it would take a while for the injury to heal.
And Alec could do nothing.
He puttered around the loft, trying to make Magnus comfortable — another pillow; a blanket; a cup of tea — until Magnus, huffing, insisted that he come over and cuddle with him. “I’ll be much more comfortable with you here.”
Alec agreed, careful not to jostle Magnus as he shifted him to lie with his head in Alec’s lap where Alec could run his fingers through his hair. Magnus relaxed into the touch. At least I can do this, Alec thought. He wished he could do more.
He thought at first that Magnus had fallen asleep like that, but apparently not. “Sing to me,” he asked quietly.
There was no way that Alec could do anything but agree. Softly — so softly that he wasn’t quite sure if Magnus could hear him — Alec began to hum. It didn’t matter what the lyrics were; the tune was soft and soothing, and Magnus relaxed even further. Even when he seemed to be asleep, Alec didn’t stop singing, or running his fingers through Magnus’s hair; every time he hesitated, unsure if he should go on or if that would be unwelcome, Magnus began to stir again.
So Alec sang, letting the music wash away the pain, the guilt, the fear, the worry. He woke up with his fingers still in Magnus’s hair and the tune on his lips.
+ five
When Alec’s posse of demented Shadowhunters (and one vampire) stormed into the loft, he’d been expecting disaster desperately requiring his and Magnus’s help, not an invitation to a triple date at the Hunter’s Moon for something Clary called “karaoke night”. Jace and Izzy both shrugged at him when he sent them enquiring glances as to the nature of a karaoke night, but Magnus seemed excited to go, so Alec went with them.
He soon discovered what karaoke night at the Hunter’s Moon was about: singing. Groups went up onto a makeshift stage, requested music, and then sang along to it — often out of tune, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Clary had apparently planned it so that their group arrived when there weren’t too many other people vying for a chance on the stage, and while the crowd was still larger than Alec might have liked, it wasn’t so tightly packed that he began to feel claustrophobic. And Magnus’s hand covering his helped.
“Clary and I are going first,” Simon declared immediately, and dragged her up to the stage. Their song was something sweet and silly, from a Disney movie and apparently a favourite when they’d been younger; Simon’s voice was good — he was, after all, a musician — and Clary’s was more than passable thanks to her exuberance.
Izzy was pushed up next, and though still a little bemused by the pastime, she sang energetically along with Clary to a song by Taylor Swift — a familiar tune, though Alec didn’t know the lyrics well. Something about a mad woman? In any case, Izzy was grinning and laughing and Alec had never been so glad that she’d never had to hear their mother’s sharp Shadowhunters don’t sing.
Clary soloed a song called Girl on Fire, which Alec found fitting; a group of werewolves were up next, and then Clary and Jace, and Izzy and Jace, and Simon alone. Magnus, laughing, sang I Put A Spell On You, and Alec watched him, entranced; an increasingly drunk Jace sang a duet with Simon, and then Clary and Izzy teamed up to drag everyone onto the stage so they could sing We Go Together from Grease.
Alec sang — not loudly enough that anybody in the audience could hear him over the chorus that was Jace, Izzy, Clary, Simon, and Magnus, but he sang. This was different from the loft, or from a secluded piano in Italy; this was New York, where any Downworlders in the audience could hear him, recognise him, react badly to him—
But he knew, logically speaking, that nobody was going to judge him for singing. Maryse’s words were burned into his brain, but no Downworlder would lose respect for him because he participated in karaoke night at the Hunter’s Moon. That didn’t mean he was comfortable singing in front of a group of people this large, but it meant that the sensible side of his brain was capable of recognizing that his discomfort was illogical. And, thanks to Magnus and the relaxed atmosphere of the Hunter’s Moon (not to mention a few mildly alcoholic drinks), he was able to overcome his inhibitions.
They returned to their seats laughing, while a pair of mundanes went up on the stage. A few more songs passed, and then a more-than-tipsy Clary insisted that Alec go up again — and refused to go with him, which meant that Simon and Izzy did as well, and Jace was passed out on the table thanks to a drinking contest with Izzy at which she’d definitely cheated, so it was only Alec and Magnus who went up to the stage. Alec knew that if he’d insisted, Clary would likely have let it drop, but, strange to say, he wanted to. And Magnus was looking at him with hope in his eyes, which Alec couldn’t bear to disappoint.
So they went up to the stage. Alec did his best to ignore the people looking at him; it was far fewer than there’d been earlier, but it still left him slightly uncomfortable. The opening notes of Bohemian Rhapsody began to sound — a song Alec knew well and liked, and one of Magnus’s favourites, though Magnus always complained that the high notes were near-impossible to hit.
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” Alec sang softly, Magnus’s voice slightly louder, but he felt his muscles relax as the music played. “Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.”
The song unrolled easily, and Alec let his voice grow a little louder, facilitated partly by the alcohol in his system but more by the grin on Magnus’s face. His husband looked at him like he’d hung the stars in the sky, and Alec didn’t know what he’d done to deserve him, because it was Magnus, if anyone, who’d hung the stars in the sky. The music poured around him like a river, and for once, he felt at peace.
He felt his lips split into a grin that echoed Magnus’s, and Magnus tripped over his words in response, nearly blushing. Alec knew Magnus wasn’t singing anymore, that his voice was all alone, but he still went on: “Oh mamma mia mamma mia mamma mia let me go, Beelzebub has a devil set aside for me, for me, for me.”
The high notes rang out clearly, but Alec didn’t let his insecurities rise to the surface and stop him from going on. Magnus was still silent, blinking at Alec with something dazed and almost awed in his eyes, but Alec couldn’t bring himself to care; this last section was higher than anything else in the song, but the notes seemed to spill out of their own accord.
Magnus joined in on the last line, and the room erupted in surprisingly loud cheers. All the embarrassment held at bay by the song came rushing back, and Alec blushed brightly as he tugged Magnus back to their table.
“You’ve been holding out on us, hermano,” Izzy said, grinning. “I didn’t know you could sing like that!”
Alec shrugged and sat down, fingers wrapped around Magnus’s. “It’s nothing.”
“It is not,” Simon said immediately, gaping at Alec. “You’re great at this! Seriously, man, do Shadowhunters have secret voice training lessons or something?”
Without bothering to respond beyond a raised eyebrow which, in Alec’s opinion, adequately conveyed the utter ridiculousness of that idea, Alec turned back to Magnus, who was still grinning delightedly at him. Unfortunately, Magnus seemed to side with the others. “As much as I hate to say this, Samuel’s right. You’ve got a beautiful voice, darling.”
The blush that had been fading from Alec’s cheeks returned with a vengeance, and he huffed, burying his face in Magnus’s shoulder. He was honestly glad he’d come, despite the embarrassment and the teasing. His smile didn’t fade for the rest of the evening.
postlude — Maryse
Maryse listened to the tune Alec hummed as he made coffee.
She didn’t recognise it — not particularly surprising, since she scarcely knew any mundane music and Shadowhunters didn’t really have music — but it was pretty, and she wondered at how she’d never noticed how beautiful Alec’s voice was.
He’d sung a lot as a child — his babbling had incensed Robert — and she’d always been quick to silence him. Practicality over emotions. She’d thought she was being a good mother, teaching her children the lessons that they would, eventually, need to learn; she’d only realised in the last year or so how badly she’d hurt Alec with those lessons (hurt all her children, really, but especially Alec). This, the singing, was just another example of that.
She was glad that Alec was singing again. It was mostly thanks to Magnus, she was sure, one of the many things that she was grateful to him for — and oh, the irony in the fact that a warlock had brought happiness and life to the son of an ex-Circle member. But ironies aside, Magnus had made Alec smile again, made him sing, made him laugh, given him a far better life than he would have had otherwise, and Maryse would never be able to thank him enough for that.
Alec turned away from the coffee machine and started slightly as he caught sight of her — a sign of how relaxed he was in the loft, that he hadn’t noticed her approaching footsteps. The song stuttered in his throat, paused, and he fell automatically into a silent parade rest as though braced for her reaction.
The change was like a knife through her heart, and she knew — she knew — that it was all her fault that he’d reacted that way, that he’d been taught to hide himself behind masks and silence. Raziel above, what had she done to her children?
“Don’t stop,” she said, the words spilling uncharacteristically quietly from her lips. “You shouldn’t — you don’t need to—”
“Shadowhunters don’t sing.” Alec’s voice was equally quiet, but he sounded far colder than she had. Masks fully in place. And then he faltered, as though finding the meaning of her words, his eyes glancing past the hand she’d stretched out toward him. “It’s — never mind, Mom. It’s fine.” A smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“No,” Maryse said suddenly, emotion bursting to life in her chest. “It’s not fine. I’ve hurt you, Alec, I’ve hurt you so much — I always thought I was protecting you, or preparing you; I don’t know how I could’ve been so wrong—”
Alec was looking at her with widened eyes. “Mom—”
She shook her head and barged on. “I wasn’t protecting you, Alec. I’ve been a terrible mother to you, to all four of you, but I want to change that. Singing isn’t something you shouldn’t do, Alec — it’s not bad, it’s not wrong—”
“I know that,” Alec said gently, reaching forward to take hold of one of her hands. “I know it’s not wrong. It’s just… bad habits. I’m getting better. Magnus is helping.”
“I’m glad,” Maryse replied quietly, the desperation pooling away. “But your first instinct, when you saw me, was to stop. I’m so sorry for doing this to you.”
“Mom—” Alec paused, the denial on his lips dying away. Instead of pointless protests, he wrapped her in a hug.
The soft tune that he hummed into her hair felt like an absolution.
Malec | Rated general | tw transphobia | Meta, ish, Trans Male Character, Trans Magnus Bane, AFAB, Transphobia, Character Study, Non-Linear Narrative, Magnus Bane-centric, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort | Bingo Square: AFAB
Summary:The best thing that Asmodeus ever did for him, Magnus sometimes thought, was letting him choose his own name.
Or: Magnus is trans, has friends, and (finally) feels accepted.
The best thing that Asmodeus ever did for him, Magnus sometimes thought, was letting him choose his own name.
Of course, Asmodeus had done plenty of worse things and his respect of Magnus’ gender didn’t exactly make up for that — but it was thanks to that time in Edom that Magnus had learned that no matter what physical traits he’d been born with, he could choose for himself who he was, who he wanted to be.
Growing up, it hadn’t mattered much; daughter or son, Magnus helped his mother around the house as a child, and they didn’t exactly have the money for fancy, useless dresses. He wore efficient pants and didn’t mind that they were pink — he’d never much cared for the connotations of colour. He’d felt a vague discomfort with the name they’d given him, but he was able to ignore that well enough. But then, a few months before his warlock mark and magic showed themselves and tore his life to pieces, his step-father had begun to stop him from accompanying him into the fields; that was all right for a child, but an older girl should know better.
I don’t want to be a girl, Magnus had complained, but his stepfather had only shaken his head at the childish foolishness and boxed his ears until he obeyed.
It hadn’t escalated into a real problem before his magic showed up and his mother hung herself and his step-father tried to drown him and Magnus killed him with the very magic that’d ended his old life — but it had been a problem, something Magnus was aware of in the back of his mind, an uncomfortable feeling when he thought about his future.
Asmodeus, though, cared little for such human ideas. In his care, Magnus had chosen his own name, a boy’s name that didn’t make him want to tear his skin to pieces, and Asmodeus had shrugged and called him son and let him bind his growing chest; perhaps that was why Magnus had stayed with him so long — he remembered well how cruel mundanes could be to those they saw as different. Unnatural.
Still, he eventually realised how cruel his father was, how evil, and he returned to the realm where he’d been born with Asmodeus confined to Edom and little else but the clothes on his back. From then on, subtle glamours made him look enough like a man that nobody glanced twice at the masculine name, though they stared happily enough at the makeup and jewellery and colourful clothing — and at his darker skin, at the bisexuality that he didn’t quite flaunt but refused to hide, either.
Sometimes, he’d use magic to pretend there was nothing wrong, nothing different about him that made him less of a man; he’d keep the glamour up assiduously, hoping that if he held it well enough he might be able to forget what he looked like underneath, but he’d sometimes let it slip and he hated that. When he looked in the mirror with the glamour up, he felt a surge of joy, of euphoria, but all too soon the glamour would drop or he’d feel the weight in his chest and that temporary relief would be gone.
He’d wrap his chest in bandages so that even if the glamour fell, he’d be able to hide it; he moved confidently, hiding insecurities and discomfort behind the mask he learned always to wear — but whenever he was found out, whenever a partner or a friend saw what he looked like underneath the all-too-temporary spells and binders, they’d leave, sometimes turning a whole town against him, sometimes not, but always leaving.
Until a warlock with green skin and curving horns, who helped him out of innumerable crises and eventually did see what he really looked like, and when Magnus was expecting a look of disgust or shock or hatred to come over his face, only smiled sadly and stayed. Ragnor even helped him with it — devising more spells to reduce the dysphoria that sometimes made him want to tear off his skin, helping him design a binder that he could wear for longer without pain. Ragnor was almost like the father that Magnus had always wished he could have.
(Ragnor was also a stubborn, sarcastic, old-fashioned, grumpy bastard, but Magnus loved him anyway. And no matter how much Ragnor huffed and feigned irritation and sighed heavily at Magnus’ crazier schemes and persistent nicknames, Magnus knew he loved him back.)
And then there was Cat, who Magnus rescued from being burned at the stake — the first person who Magnus told of his own free will that he’d been born a girl and not a boy, the second person who didn’t leave. She was a doctor, a nurse, with a natural aptitude for healing magic that’d only improved as she spent her time healing people.
(It was thanks to Cat that Magnus learned about the mundane developments that could help him; it was Cat who did Magnus’ top surgery, who set him up with hormone treatments, and suddenly he didn’t need to glamour himself anymore to look like a man. Magnus nearly cried when he looked at himself in the mirror for the first time, small scars on his chest the only sign of the surgery. He hugged her tightly and she hugged him back and if he did cry this time, she was kind enough not to comment on it. But all that came later, after the turn of the century — after Camille.)
Camille was, technically speaking, the third person to stay after learning what he looked like underneath the glamour, but Magnus was no longer grateful to her for that. She’d stopped him from stepping off a bridge, too, and it had taken Magnus far too long to learn that he didn’t owe it to her to stay because of that.
She’d told him that nobody would ever love him like she did, because only she would be willing to deal with him — deal with the days when he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed until she slapped him across the face, deal with the way he was always too much, deal with the difference between the gender he preferred and the parts he’d been born with. Who else would be willing to forgive him those faults? To love him despite them? Ragnor and Cat, yes, but Camille did her utmost to cut him off from them — and anyway, that was platonic, not romantic, not sexual, and Magnus’ biological sex was never shoved in their faces.
She insisted that Magnus keep his glamour up all the time, always — both the one over his eyes and the one that made him look more masculine. With her, Magnus would leave his binder on nearly all the time, more than was healthy or safe but it kept her near him so he ignored it. He summoned her anything she wanted, offered all that he had, cut off all the bits of himself that she didn’t like — but he still wasn’t enough. She cheated on him with anyone and everyone she wanted, told him that if he didn’t like it he could leave but he’d never find anyone like her again.
Eventually, he did leave her — dragged himself away, bloody and bleeding under his masks and knowing that it wasn’t worth it to stay with her any longer. Had never been worth it, really, but Magnus had always been foolish in love.
Cat and Ragnor took him back. He’d half-expected them to shut the door in his face, when he showed up at Ragnor’s door, but they welcomed him in easily. As though he’d never abandoned them for a cold-hearted woman who’d done her best to destroy him and, perhaps, succeeded.
After that, he started the process of shutting down his heart to anyone but Cat and Ragnor. It didn’t work completely, of course — Camille always laughed at him for being soft-hearted, and it was true — but he began to calcify then, stopped opening himself up to romantic relationships. Camille had demonstrated well how devastating that kind of love could be. Magnus didn’t want to risk a second Camille; he’d barely survived her the first time, sometimes he felt he hadn’t survived her, and he wouldn’t be able to do it all again. Better, safer, to shut that part of himself away.
Raphael came into his life, more sarcastic than Ragnor but with a softer heart than his cool exterior suggested; the decades rolled by and for the first time Magnus learned about people like him, people who were born one gender but who knew themselves to be another; he learned, too, about the hatred that they faced. The Downworld was perhaps better about it than mundanes — thanks to the Shadowhunters, they knew what it was to be unjustly oppressed — but Magnus had been burned too many times to let anyone else into his heart, into the bubble of people who knew and loved him.
Valentine rose. Magnus had thought he’d known oppression, for his skin colour and his sexuality and his gender and the makeup he wore and, yes, his demonic parentage — but Valentine was worse than Magnus had seen before. He remembered how the Shadowhunters had broken the plates he’d eaten on, at the signing of the first Accords, but Valentine wanted to eliminate Downworlders entirely.
Thankfully, the Circle fell, though Magnus knew well that the Clave wasn’t much better. It was during those in-between years that Cat suggested mundane surgery, top surgery; Magnus had hesitated at first for fear of the failures of mundane medicine, but he agreed, and it was so liberating to not have to wear a binder any longer, to let his glamour drop and not look like a woman underneath it.
Then: Alexander.
A Shadowhunter with dark hair and pale skin and obviously no idea how striking his looks were — a Shadowhunter willing to share his strength with a warlock, who obviously cared for his siblings, who smiled like the rising sun. Magnus had never been so enamoured, and the walls he’d built to carefully shuddered — cracked — and fell, fell in love with Alec, too soon and too much but Alec didn’t seem to mind.
Magnus was terrified that Alec would go, shattering his heart along with the walls that protected it and isolated it all at once, but somehow — impossibly — Alec didn’t. Not when they fought, over Magnus’ immortality or greater experience or anything else; not even when Magnus explained, hesitant and uncertain and insecure, that he’d been born a girl — that physically, even with the surgery and the hormones, he wasn’t— he didn’t—
Alec just shushed him, gently, and promised that he wasn’t going to leave.
Redraw of my previous Malec pride piece. I cringe everytime I see the old version… No, you don’t want to see it XD
Magnus and Alec were my favorites since the first time I read TMI (like, 7 years ago) and one of my otps since then.️ I am a bisexual, so Magnus was the first character to tell me “I’m like this and I like it, fuck everything else”. So I have a special place for him in my heart.
Hope you like it
Ps. I liiiiive for Magnus dark skin, please stop drawing him white !!!!
magnus and alec being physically unable to stop call each other “husband” every 5 minutes. everyone is so tired of them
more lightwood-bane shenanigans! just them being!!!a weird ass but also dorkiest family ever!!
max lightwood-bane doing mischief stuff. max lightwood-bane troublemaker rights
more rafael lightwood-bane content
theinevitable immortality talk
magnus sharing more about his past
warlock trio warlock trio warlock trio
alec-words-dont-come-easy-to-me lightwood-bane bursting out some romantic shit in a matter of fact way
bamf!husbands
magnus seeing his loved ones being in danger and just, fucking lost it, calling up all his power, dangerous red sparks bursting at his fingers, just, eviscerate everything standing in his way (again 2 books and still no feral!magnus let feral!magnus happen you know you want feral!magnus too)
consul alexander gideon lightwood-bane sitting on a throne and handling political business. if anyone needs a throne it’s alec. conjure up one for him
also now that i think about it we haven’t had any content about magnus and alec honeymoon. fix that, please :)
have i mentioned more magnus lightwood-bane and alec lightwood-bane being husbands
I mean, what if TBVOTD happens during Malec’s honeymoon? Every time those two try to travel and relax, something or someone comes to fuck with their trip
“You are cheating,” Jace said, glaring at Alec although he was swaying slightly in place, which rather ruined the effect. “Both of you. I don’t know how you’re doing it, but it’s cheating.”
Alec raised a nonchalant eyebrow at him. “Perhaps Magnus and I are simply better at charades than you are.”
We kinda are cheating, though, Magnus observed in his head. I don’t think magical mental communication is permitted.
The rules don’t say it’s notallowed, Alec returned, hiding a smirk behind his glass. And you gotta admit it’s hilarious to watch them struggle to understand how we’re doing it.
The thread of amusement in the bond was answer enough, and Alec turned back to Jace, who was demanding another round.
“No cheating this time,” Jace told them, pointing at the two of them. “I’m warning you. I’ll tell Alec the word, and I’m activating a hearing rune this time to make sure you’re not whispering to each other.”
“Feel free,” Magnus said indifferently. “You won’t catch us cheating.”
Jace scowled and dragged Alec into the area which Clary had drawn specialised Soundless runes all over, so that he wouldn’t be overheard telling Alec what he had to act out. Not that it mattered; Magnus had a hotline into Alec’s head through the bond humming between them, and no ward they’d encountered yet had been able to separate them.
“We should make Alec act out something Magnus won’t know about,” Clary suggested, following them over. “Like… a Shadowhunter-only thing.”
“It’s not fair if Magnus doesn’t know what it is,” Alec protested.
“I don’t care, you two are already being unfair,” Jace replied, and dove into brainstorming with Clary.
(Magnus chuckled in the back of Alec’s mind, and Alec made sure to keep his face blank and calm while he laughed internally. Pranking Jace was so much fun.)
Three more rounds of charades later — all of which Magnus and Alec had won; Jace was growing increasingly frustrated and drunk, which wasn’t helping his acting skills — Clary finally called a halt. “I think we all know Magnus and Alec are better at this than we are.”
“Cheaters,” Jace mumbled, but acquiesced.
Should we tell them? Alec asked Magnus mentally. Or keep them guessing?
Jace’ll be furious, Magnus commented, though he wouldn’t be particularly upset about that.
Jace is drunk and already furious, Alec replied.
Magnus grinned. Then let’s tell them.
“Myparabatai is a traitor,” Jace was mumbling. “I swear you’re cheating.”
“Calm down, Jace, I’m sure they’re not,” Clary said with a consoling pat to the back of his hand. “We would’ve noticed if they were communicating.”
“Not necessarily,” Alec broke in, smirking when both Jace and Clary’s heads whipped around to stare at him.
“So you were cheating,” Jace said, eyes wide. “How?”
Alec and Magnus raised their forearms in sync, gesturing to their matching permanent Alliance runes. “It used to be just emotions and abilities, but lately, we’ve been getting thoughts as well,” Alec explained.
“Cheaters,” Jace grumbled, turning away from them with a huff. “We’re going to play another round, and this time you’re going to be on opposite teams.”
Magnus
The next morning dawned with shafts of light that Jace claimed were specially designed to hurt his hungover eyes. (Magnus offered Clary a hangover cure but refused one to Jace until he admitted that Magnus had won their last game of charades fair and square. Admittedly, it was false — Alec had mentally told him the answer, purely to piss Jace off — but Magnus was a fan of irritating Jace, so he didn’t feel particularly guilty.)
Simon dropped in shortly after — he’d struck up a friendship with Clary, Jace, and Izzy, as well as Alec — wearing a shirt with a twenty-sided die in the colours of the pan flag. “Hi guys.”
Jace groaned — his hangover still hadn’t abated fully — but Clary waved cheerfully enough. Alec was making pancakes, which left it to Magnus to swan over and greet him. “Sheldon. Pulling out the Pride merch?”
“It’s June,” Simon replied. “I’m going to the parade in New York with Izzy. Can you believe she didn’t know what pride month was?”
What’s pride month? Alec asked Magnus mentally, causing him to bemoan — yet again — Shadowhunters’ lack of exposure to mundane culture. Last June, he supposed it simply hadn’t come up — they’d been dealing with Lilith and Jonathan at the time — but that was no excuse for Shadowhunter ignorance to continue. “It’s an absolute travesty, my dear,” he told Simon, “but mundane queer culture isn’t exactly in the Shadowhunter curriculum.”
Jace sat up, poised to argue in support of the Shadowhunter curriculum, then winced as his headache apparently increased. Magnus dulled the pain a little, if only so it’d stop bothering Alec through the parabataibond.
“Mundane culture isn’t necessary for Shadowhunting,” Jace pointed out.
“And Shadowhunters are elitist enough not to bother with anything that isn’t strictly necessary,” Alec put in. “What’s pride month?”
“It’s a celebration of diverse genders and sexualities,” Magnus told him, and launched into an in-depth explanation featuring the origin, the different forms of pride parade around the world, and the general culture surrounding it. “I’ve gone every year since 1970.”
There was an introspective bent to Alec’s feelings through the bond which suggested he was considering an idea, but Clary was the one to speak up. “We should go to New York for it, too, then.”
“Actually,” Alec said, consideringly, “what if we didn’t need to go to New York for it?”
He met Magnus’ eyes, and Magnus understood what he was suggesting. “You want to organise an Alicante Pride Parade.”
Alec grinned. “Well, why not?”
Alec
Organising a Pride Parade in a city that regularly exiled queer people two years earlier was a hassle.
Not enough of a hassle to discourage Alec. If anything, it encouraged him even more — the resistance of his opponents made it from a fun idea into a serious political move, and Alec was always delighted to piss off the remainder of the old guard that’d made it through the Resistance takeover only to be denied at every turn by the new world Alec was building.
He brought it up at the next Downworld Council meeting, and received overwhelming support along with several offers of aid, which he gladly accepted. The parade would be set up with warlock magic, decorated with faerie-grown flowers in the colours of the pride flag, and take place from evening into the night in deference to the vampires’ preferences; it was a celebration both of queer rights and of Downworlder ones, and Alec was delighted when it finally began to come together.
The parade happened on the last Sunday of June, the 26th, and the day was filled with last-minute reorganisations. A patch of flowers had withered for an unknown reason, and Alec needed to regrow them into the purple, grey, white, and black of the ace flag; a float was broken; somebody wanted the parade to go down a different street. At last, however, it was all straightened out to everyone’s satisfaction with a minimum of blackmail and almost no blood spilled at all.
Magnus insisted that Alec come home an hour before the parade was set to start so that they could get ready — or rather, so that he could get Alec ready, because when Alec arrived, he was already dressed to the nines in bright pink, purple, and blue, with more skin showing than Alec had seen on him before in public. What little shirt he was wearing read:
DATING HIM →
STILL BI
His makeup was also in the colours of the bi flag — eyeshadow in stripes of pink, purple, and blue, on both eyes, that stood out when he blinked; a flag painted on his lips; a flag on either cheek; small gemstones stuck around the corners of his eyes; glitter dusting his nose and cheekbones, highlighting them in that same pink/purple/blue.
He looked, in Alec’s estimation, positively ethereal — he was always beautiful, of course, but there was something to be said for the confident pride he wore like a second skin, decked out like this.
Alec, however, doubted he’d be as comfortable in so little clothing. Magnus clearly sensed his trepidation, because he grinned and reassured Alec that he’d be dressed a bit more sedately.
The pants covered Alec’s legs — unlike Magnus’ — but they were tight enough that Alec caught Magnus looking rather below his face whenever he turned around; they were plain black, thankfully, and not too tight for Alec to move comfortably, for which he was grateful. The boots weren’t far off his usual, although perhaps a bit less sturdy and with a few more metal bits on them; the shirt covered a good deal more of his chest than Magnus’ did, at least, and it was black aside from letters in the green-and-blue gay flag that spelled out
← DATING HIM
NO VERY HOMO
The arrows on their respective shirts, Alec noted, pointed in opposite directions, so that when standing next to each other, they’d be pointing to each other. He made a mental note to stay to Magnus’ right so that the shirts worked properly.
The most adventurous part of his outfit was unquestionably his makeup. Magnus had drawn a rainbow flag on one cheek and the gay flag on the other, a pop of colour Alec liked. He hadn’t been covered with glitter (though a good deal had already drifted onto him from Magnus), but Alec’s eyes were traced with black that made them stand out, his face felt odd with foundation, and when he looked in the mirror, he saw an… augmented version of himself — the curves of his face sharpened, cheekbones brighter, eyes standing out more. It was pretty. He’d expected to tolerate it for Magnus’ sake, but strangely, he liked it for himself as well.
Toilette complete, Alec hurried out to oversee the finishing touches on the parade.
Magnus
The parade was everything Magnus could’ve hoped for and more.
He’d showed Alec videos of mundane Prides and explained as much as he could, but he’d half expected the parade to end up relatively boring in the Shadowhunters’ typical shades of black, with a few Downworlders who knew the mundane customs standing out sharply in more colourful wear. But apparently everyone had gotten the memo and Alec was conservative in his mostly-black clothing: many Shadowhunters were wearing flags of various types, often showing nearly as much skin as mundanes might, and the Downworlder half of the crowd was even brighter.
He tugged Alec down into a kiss, and the crowd cheered around them. Alec’s slightly obsessive preparations had turned out perfectly — everything was well-timed and every street was hung with decorations; perhaps more importantly, the atmosphere of jubilant half-defiance was perfect, and Magnus found himself grinning uncontrollably.
Briefly separated from Alec due to organisational difficulties that absolutely required Alec’s approval, Magnus bought himself and Alec several pins adorned with their flags before casting out a mental net to locate his husband. There was a faint shiver of relief in the bond when they found each other again, and probing more closely, Magnus noticed a faint discomfort with the size of the crowd; it wasn’t so bad that Alec wanted to leave, but when Magnus guided him into a quieter area, the slight tension in Alec’s shoulders dissipated. He accepted the pins with a smile that shone brighter than the glitter on his cheeks.
Izzy appeared shortly after in one of the most revealing dresses Magnus had ever seen her in — which was saying something — in blatant stripes of purple, pink, and blue. Simon was wearing the D&D shirt in pan colours that’d started it all off, and while Jace’s shirt only read ALLY, Clary was wearing the colours of the omni flag.
“This is really cool, man,” Simon told Alec, grinning. “Never thought Shadowhunters would have so much pride.”
Alec shrugged, uncomfortable as always with praise, but Magnus pushed a thread of his own admiration through the bond to reinforce Simon’s words. Alec arched an eyebrow at him, and Magnus grinned, unrepentant.
“They’re doing their Alliance-bond-telepathy schtick,” Jace announced, rather complainingly — Magnus supposed he was still salty about his loss at charades, and the bond shot through with laughter.
“Jealous?” Alec asked him.
Jace promptly scowled, and Alec chuckled out loud this time.
Surrounded by brilliant colours and laughter, Magnus had never felt more at home.
