Work Text:
Original tumblr prompt:
Do you think Magnus needs glasses?? Like he has amazing vision when using his real eyes but when he glamours them it makes his eyesight shite?? And he squints and shit when looking at stuff and Alec noticed and put it together and just makes him take the glamor off cuz his eyes are beautiful and not worth not seeing??
+++
When Magnus thought of hiding his cat eyes through a spell all those hundreds of years ago, his goal was to make them look as human as possible. And even though he’s had his fair share of trouble with that glamour (especially in the first few weeks after he thought of it), the warlock has grown to like his brown eyes. Of course, wearing the brown filter over his actual eyes is not the nicest feeling in the world, but if it keeps those weirded-out stares and scared reactions away, then that’s a sacrifice Magnus Bane is willing to make.
Unfortunately, with mundane eyes come mundane sight problems.
At first, Magnus would not notice it. Or ignore it, blaming it on a particularly long or exhausting day that his eyes may be tired. But over time, the problems with his vision get more and more prominent. They show in the little things during the day, like when he’s suddenly unable to read the tiny letters in his older spell books without squinting. Or when the texts Alec sends from the Institute appear slightly blurry unless he holds his phone at an arm’s length away from him.
But apart from that, it’s really not that bad, especially since the only thing he has to do to fix those issues is take down his glamour and use his cat eyes. Unfortunately, that is exactly the problem. Magnus does not want to – at least when he has company or clients in his apartment, which is like…most of the time.
So he ignores it, just squints at particularly small letters and makes the best of his limited eyesight. That goes more or less well, until one day, Magnus spends too long trying to decipher an old recipe because he. can’t. see it. and he leaves one of his potions on the stove for too long, resulting in the whole thing exploding and covering half of his living room in slimy, smelly blue gunk.
That’s when Magnus decides it’s enough. So he surrenders. With the help of his good friend Catarina, who luckily worked as an optometrist at some point in her long, immortal life, he gets the right prescription for his eyes when they are covered by his glamour. And then he spends an entire afternoon conjuring pair after pair of glasses into his apartment and trying them on.
He settles for a subtle, classy pair that goes well with most of his clothing. Although that is kind of useless, because nobody is going to see him wearing the glasses anyways. He has a reputation to maintain, after all.
So whenever he’s alone at the apartment, he puts them on when he has work to do, and keeps wearing them until Alec comes home from the Institute. And it goes surprisingly well – he can work as much as he wants to without his eyes being a problem and nobody sees him wearing this unfortunate new accessory.
Until one day, Alec comes home early and Magnus is so caught up in a complicated spell that he doesn’t hear him unlocking the door. It’s only when Alec puts a hand on his shoulder that he startles and looks up at his shadowhunter so he can give him a proper hello kiss. When he pulls away and sees the slightly bewildered look on Alec’s face he realizes his mistake – he forgot to take his glasses off.
“I didn’t know you wear glasses. Don’t you have magic for that?”, Alec says, still slightly confused.
As if the entire situation wasn’t already uncomfortable enough, Magnus starts to stutter. Which he hardly ever does, at least under normal circumstances when he didn’t just get caught by his boyfriend hiding the fact that his eyes are giving up on him. Screw him and his stupid ideas. “I…uh, yeah, I do, but I can’t see because of the glamour and – “
Magnus stops mid-sentence when Alec sighs and rolls his eyes. “Of course it’s because of the glamour. I should have guessed. Look, Magnus”, he adds, then sits down next to him and reaches out to cup Magnus’ face in both of his hands. “I know you feel insecure about your cat eyes, but you don’t have too. They are part of who you are. And they are just as beautiful as the rest of you.”
Alec’s expression then turns from serious to playful and he starts to smirk. “And even though that new look really suits you”, he adds, carefully pushing the frame up Magnus’ nose a bit, “your cat eyes suit you much better. Actually, I think they are way too beautiful too keep them hidden like that.”
“You do?”, Magnus responds, insecurity clear in his voice and eyes.
Alec just sends him a reassuring smile. “Of course. You don’t have to hide them, especially not from me. I love you, remember? That includes those stunning golden eyes of yours.”
Magnus felt himself blush at the compliment. His hand rises up to his glasses, fingers brushing over the thin frame. “I guess I could just discard the glamour every once in a while, then.”
“I guess you should discard the glamour, and not only once in a while, but always. At least when it’s only you and me”, Alec responds, reaching out and pulling the delicate frame off Magnus’ face. As soon as he’s folded the glasses together and put them onto the coffee table, he turns back to Magnus and kisses him gently. “You don’t have to feel insecure about yourself when you’re around me, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Magnus takes a deep breath and then closes his eyes, discarding the glamour in the process. When he looks back at Alec, he can’t help but smile at how smitten Alec looks, the golden glow of the cat eyes mirroring in his own. “Better?”, Magnus asks, even though the answer is obvious.
“Much better”, Alec agrees and then leans in to treat Magnus to another one of those soft, gentle kisses he seems to reserve just for moments like this.
After that day, Magnus never wears the glasses again when Alec is around. He just works with his cat eyes on display, which makes everything much easier – no blurry letters, no more unreadable text messages and no more smudged fingerprints right in front of his eyes. Instead, he gets something much better: that completely smitten look Alec gets every time he sees Magnus working with his glamour down. And even though Magnus will probably always feel a bit insecure about his warlock mark, it is worth it – if only for that look.