Chapter Text
“So. . .I was thinking we could dinner? Friday?” Alec winced as the sentence came out completely mangled. Magnus smiled at him, and didn’t laugh at Alec’s babbling. Even though they had been together for awhile, and Alec was naked in Magnus’s bed, he still stuttered and blushed around the Warlock. Alec figured anyone would, if they saw Magnus’s abs.
“That sounds lovely, darling.”
“Great! I was thinking—“
Magnus’s smile turned apologetic. “But I can’t. I have plans.”
“Oh.”
“Jace and Lydia and I are having a spa night.”
Alec blinked. “You can’t go out with me. . .your boyfriend. . .because you have plans with my brother and my-ex beard?”
Magnus shrugged. “Jace is trying to get to know Lydia, and he asked for my help. I think it’s sweet. He really cares about you and Izzy.”
Alec sighed. He wasn’t oblivious to Jace’s intentional attempts to get to know Magnus and Lydia better. Izzy already liked Clary and Magnus—she’d had a head start. And Alec regarded Lydia pretty highly, in a you’re the only woman in my life that I would consider a loveless marriage of power with way.
Which meant one thing. If he was going to go to the same lengths for his siblings as they had for him, he’d have to spend time with Clary. Voluntarily.
Alec took a deep breath. He’d need a perseverance rune. Or he’d just need to get really drunk first.
~
The next day, he found Clary in the training room, working on the punching bag. God, even her punches seemed tiny. How was he supposed to survive hours in her company? They’d briefly bonded when Jace and Magnus had been kidnapped, but that just meant Alec no longer hated her. He certainly didn’t like her by any stretch of the imagination.
For Jace and Izzy, he reminded himself.
(He was also hoping Magnus would notice his attempts at reaching out, and Alec would get laid. But that was besides the point.)
Clary stopped punching as he walked up. “Alec?” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” he said.
Clary stared at him expectedly. “Did you . . .need something?” she finally asked.
“Would you. . .” He swallowed. For Jace and Izzy. “Do you want to hang out Friday night?”
Clary blinked. “Huh?”
“You. Friday night. Me. Attempts at friendship.”
“Uh. . .” she trailed off. “No offense, but why?”
He sighed. “Jace has this weird club with Magnus and Lydia. Izzy is friends with you and Magnus. I’m friends with Lydia.”
“So you want to be friends with me because I’m dating your brother?”
Thank God, the girl wasn’t as dumb as she seemed. “Yes.”
“Huh,” Clary said, considering. “You and me learning to like each other would probably make Jace happy. If anything, maybe he’ll notice our attempts at reaching out and I can get laid.”
“Gross,” Alec said. “That’s my brother.” Also, who did supposedly good things just to get laid like that?
“Please,” Clary rolled her eyes. “Like you never thought about sex with him.” Alec went to argue, but Clary cut him off. “Okay. I’m in.”
Alec nodded. “Friday?”
“Friday.”
~
“So. . .what are we doing?” Clary asked. So far, their bonding session had been awkwardly standing in the lobby.
Alec shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you think the five minutes we’ve been staring at each other angrily counts for friendship?”
Clary sighed. “We could go see a movie?”
“Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do,” Alec admitted cautiously. He was loathe to admit it, but Clary’s weird Mundane upbringing might finally come in handy. “I’ve been too embarrassed to admit it to anyone. But I figure I have enough blackmail on you after the piano incident that you can’t tell anyone, and you’re weird enough not to judge me for it.”
“Hey!” Clary shouted, affronted. “And you said you’d never tell anyone about that,” she said, lowering her voice.
“And I won’t, if you help me.”
~
Clary squinted up at the non-descript building in front of them. “A pottery painting class? That’s what you wanted to do?”
Alec hunched his shoulders. “You have to have a partner; I couldn’t do it by myself. I will tell everyone about the piano incident if you laugh.”
Clary rolled her eyes. “Alec, have you not noticed I draw all the time? I love art. I think it’ll be fun.”
“. . .Really?”
She smiled at him. Alec was a dick most of the time, but times like this, Clary was reminded it wasn’t totally his fault. She was thankful once again she’d had a Mundane upbringing, and never had to go through the fucked up Shadowhunter rites of passage. “Really.”
They paid the fee to get in. The cashier grinned at them in a oh, what a cute couple way, and Alec made a gagging noise in his throat. Clary didn’t entirely disagree. “We should do this again sometime! With your boyfriend! And your brother that I’m dating!” She said it way too loudly, but the cashier’s face fell, and Alec stopped looking like he was going to throw up.
Clary hadn’t worked with pottery much, but the smell of paint and clay in the studio nevertheless made her feel at home. She hummed as she picked a vase for her mom and Luke. Alec glared, but he went back to carefully painting his mug. It wasn’t the prettiest mug ever, but Alec was clearly putting a lot of effort into it.
“So, I kind of understand why you wouldn’t take Jace or Izzy here; they’d both be bored out of their mind, and I get the whole ‘Shadowhunters-aren’t-good-with-leisure-activities,” thing,” Clary said. “But why not ask Magnus? I’m sure he would have loved to do this with you.”
Alec hunched over his mug, nodding towards it. It was striped blue, pink, and purple; Clary blinked as the significance of the colors dawned on her. “I’m making it for Magnus,” he muttered.
Despite herself, Clary smiled. “I’m sure he’ll love it.”
Alec looked up cautiously. “Yeah?” he said, voice tentative.
“Yeah.”
~
“So. . .This was something,” Alec said after they were done. He was clutching Magnus’s mug in a death grip.
“Let’s do it again sometime!” Clary said. “Like, five years from now.”
Alec nodded. “Sounds good.”