Renovation, moving into my new home, working and heat make me transform into a stressed, cursing monster… I needed distraction so I finished a Lightwood Bane Family sketch I started a while ago …because they’re great distraction and I think Alec and Magnus are great at handling stress situations because they are amazing! ☺
Alec: have you ever seen something so amazing that it changed your life forever?
Magnus: I saw you
Alec: that’s so sweet of you, but knowing I’m feeling embarrassed, because I was going to show you a picture Clary drew of Jace with a duck on his head
just wanted to say thank you shadowhunters and especially harry shum jr for giving me one of my favorite characters of all time. magnus bane is so beautiful and powerful and loving and i will love and stan this bi legend forever.
Hey guys! I’m opening my inbox because I’m currently out of head canon ideas but still want to post something! Sooooo I’m leaving it to you guys! I want you to message me or leave something in my inbox like a top five Malec scenes or pet names or something along those lines, and then I’ll respond and we can act like it’s a headcanon while I desperately come up with some more haha so please flood my inboxxxxx I love posting for you all but sometimes I run out of ideas
Hello girls gays and theys enjoy a Malec and chairman meow headcanon :)
Magnus loves to grab the cat and just kiss his head and his face and The Chairman will always get tired of it and then will scratch him. Magnus will drop him and dramatically sigh, saying “Now I’ll go find someone who doesn’t scratch my face when I’m kissing him!”
And of course he’ll go find Alec who’s finishing up paperwork on his laptop who’s trying to hold in laughs.
“Did the chairman get you again?” Alec will ask, and Magnus will grumble out yes.
“You poor thing. Let me see.” Magnus will turn his head and Alec get a tissue and wipe away the small amount of blood and then he’ll kiss him gently.
“See, shadowhunters don’t scratch.” Alec will murmur against his lips.
BYE THIS IS SO SWEET WHY DOES MY HEAD WORK LIKE THAT
hiiiii guys I’m backkkkk I honestly didn’t have any ideas for Malec headcanons for awhile but I’ve got one today:
As everyone knows Alec tolerates Clary and Simon (and we know he secretly loves them) but they can be annoying and so whenever alec starts to glare or snap if Magnus is there he’ll say “Alexander, be nice.” Or “Darling don’t make that face you’re too pretty for that.” And Alec will immediately try and hide the smile that Magnus’ presence alone gives him, but now that he’s talking well Alec can’t resist grinning like a love sick puppy. And then Clary or Simon will smile or tease and Alec will go to say something else but then Magnus will slide his hand down Alec’s arm, lacing their fingers together and leaning close to his ear hushing him.
And then I think it goes without saying Alec forgets what his last name is at that point, so clary and Simon walk away free a lot if Magnus is in the room :)
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.
