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Magnus wakes up slowly to the sensation of warm fingers drifting across the back of his hand and arm. It’s a glorious feeling and he basks in it for a moment, the stillness, the quiet, surrounded by warmth, before he opens his eyes. “You’re still here,” he notes with a smile.
“I wasn’t going to leave you. Not again.” Alec doesn’t look away from the path his fingers are tracing. “I wanted to know what it was like to wake up with you.”
Magnus looks him over as his stomach turns happily and with a bit of nerves he hasn’t felt in decades. Alec still has dark circles under his eyes and he looks awake, the last vestiges of sleep blinked away hours ago. He also looks resolved. “And was it everything you hoped for?” Magnus tries to keep his tone light when deep inside he fears the answer.
Alec looks over at him. “What are you afraid of?” he asks instead of answering.
A blink. A grin. “Ill-fitting jeans and mediocre sex with the wrong people,” he jokes. The expression Alec levels at him is crystal clear. Magnus swallows and answers truthfully, “Death.”
“You’re immortal.”
Magnus rolls his eyes.
“Afraid of people you care for dying,” Alec amends. It’s obvious, really, now that he knows Magnus. It hangs between them until Magnus speaks again.
“And you, Alexander?"
Alec looks back down at their hands. “Having to choose.” Magnus doesn’t prompt him further. He simply waits.
“My family, my duty, my life as I know it. My life as a Shadowhunter.” Alec looks over at him and squeezes his hand. “Or this.”
His eyes are wide in their honesty, pleading “Don’t make me choose.”
---
“Alexander, get in here!” His father’s harsh voice pulls him out of his memory of the morning. The pit in his stomach that’s been growing since he left Magnus an hour ago drops lower and his starts to feel nauseous.
Anxiety at a maximum, Alec steps into his office to see his father frowning at him from his seat across the desk. “I didn’t know you were coming,” Alec comments lightly. Something verging on agitation twitches inside him at the sight of his father at his desk. Uninvited yet commanding the room like he belongs there. Like his father forgot he placed Alec in charge of the Institute months ago.
“Shut the door.” His father stands and points to a chair near the fireplace. “Take a seat.”
Alec goes quietly, willingly, thinking, It’s better to do as he says. The agitation grows at his father’s commanding presence looming over him even from the other side of the desk. “What’s this about?”
“When I left you in charge it was with the expectation that you would continue the family tradition and uphold the Shadowhunter ways.” His father’s voice sounds strained, like he’s holding back every emotion he really feels. Alec shifts. “I did not leave you here to disgrace the Lightwood name.”
Alec feels it like a blow. His breath leaves him and he can’t help but stare up at his father. His father can only be talking about Magnus. He can feel himself curling in, shying away from his father’s anger.
“I had to hear you were carrying on with that Downworlder—“ he spits the word out like a curse “—from Max. What kind of example are you setting for him?”
Yes, father, because heaven forbid we actually form lasting relationships with Downworlders. Heaven forbid we treat them as equals instead of lesser beings. Alec bites his tongue against everything he wants to say.
“It’s bad enough that you’re with a Downworlder but I will not have a gay Shadowhunter for a son!” His father’s temper finally breaks and he shouts the words at Alec.
Alec’s stunned. For a moment, he can’t react. He just sits there dumbfounded by his father’s words, hatred, and blatant bigotry. But then thoughts of Magnus drift into his mind. Those beautiful yellow eyes that only show up when Magnus lets his guard down, those soft hands splayed out on Alec’s chest, winding into his hair, pulling at the back of his neck to get him closer, and that stunning smile that knocks Alec off his feet every time, blinds him with the emotion contained in it.
“The great thing about fears is that we can push past them. Given enough warmth and care and love, anything is possible.” Magnus slides his leg to the other side of Alec and shifts so he’s straddling his waist. He looks down at Alec, a soft expression on his face. “I’m glad you stayed.” The words are filled with so much more that he’s not saying: “I won’t make you choose,” “I’m afraid to loose you,” “I love you.” He leans down, cups Alec’s cheek, and presses a soft kiss to his lips.
Alec drops Magnus’s hand and uses both of his to pull Magnus closer. His lips part, dragging Magnus’s into warmer and wetter kisses. Their teeth knock, eliciting a soft laugh from Alec and a smile that Magnus returns.
The sunlight breaks through a part in the curtain and catches Magnus’s face. Alec brushes his fingers across Magnus’s cheek and blinks slowly up at him in awe. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers and the words carry so many things he’s afraid of voicing: “I love you,” “I want to have this with you, forever,” “If I have to choose…I’ll choose you.”
Rage brings Alec to his feet as, finally, he regains control of his senses. “Finding Magnus was the best thing to ever happen to me.” The words come out calmly even though his hands are shaking with a barely concealed desire to hit his father. “I’m sorry you do not agree, but he has been critically essential to this Institute and without his help we would be in a very different place.”
“That says more about you than it does him. You and your failure as the Head of the Institute.”
“Is that how you truly feel?”
“You have one opportunity to fix this, Alexander. You can retain your position and agree to marry whichever woman your mother and I arrange. Or you can leave and be with the Downworlder.”
Alec’s voice drops low and menacing. “I hope you remember this moment, father, and regret it.” He won’t dignify his father’s ultimatum with a response. His feelings toward the matter are clear.
His father pauses, just for a moment, but it’s enough to reveal his weakness. Perhaps, deep inside, he doesn’t want to burn this bridge between them. But the moment passes and his resolve returns. “Get out of my office. Alexander Lightwood, you are officially stripped of your title and banished from this Institute. If you return you will be stripped of your runes and all Shadowhunter abilities. Now get out of my sight.”
Alec turns on his heel and exits the room. He detours to his bedroom to grab a change of clothes, a picture of Isabelle, Jace, and him, and his bow and arrow. He doesn’t run into anyone as he leaves.
---
He takes a deep breath while he stares at Magnus’s front door. He’s been up a tree in Central Park for the past two hours, concealed, people watching and thinking about everything that’s happened the past 24 hours. And everything led him to Magnus’s front door.
He raises his hand and knocks.
Magnus opens the door with a wide smile. “Alexander! What a pleasant surprise!” He ushers Alec forward. “Come in, come in.”
Alec sets his things down next to the front door and then walks up to stand an arms-length away from Magnus. “Hi,” he says lowly as his hand snakes around Magnus’s waist.
“Hello,” Magnus responds just as lowly, his hands resting against Alec’s chest. He tilts his head back and waits for Alec to lean down and kiss him. He smiles into the embrace. “I thought you would be at the Institute working.”
Alec goes still and looks down at Magnus’s hands. “I have to talk to you about something.”
Magnus’s heart starts to race and he can taste fear on the back of his tongue. “Ok?”
“Can we sit down?” Alec takes Magnus’s hand and leads him over to the couch. He sits so their knees are touching and grasps Magnus’s hand with both of his. He pauses to collect his thoughts but it must be for too long because Magnus fidgets.
“Is everything ok? Alexander, you’re scaring me.”
Alec looks up at him then. “I love you.”
Magnus lets out the breath he’s been holding and looks at Alec with wonder and shock. “You love me?”
Alec nods. “I love you. I think I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, I just didn’t know what love looked like.” His eyes dart down to their hands again. “This morning…I wasn’t fully honest with you.”
“Oh?” Magnus says it softly because he can sense there’s more Alec wants to say…maybe needs to say, before he’s ready to hear Magnus’s response.
“You asked me what my greatest fear was and I told you it was having to choose.” He pauses. “But the truth is I already knew the answer. If I had to choose…it was going to be you. I was afraid to tell you how I feel about you.” He bites his lip. “When I was at the Institute this morning my father was there. He was so hateful and horrible. And he asked me to choose.”
Magnus looks over at the door, where Alec’s few possessions rest. “You chose me?” he guesses.
Alec smiles sheepishly. “I love you.”
“But you also love being a Shadowhunter. And you love your family,” Magnus tries to reason.
“I do. But sometimes love isn’t enough.” Alec looks pointedly into his eyes. “Sometimes one type of love isn’t enough.” He smiles again. “So I was partly banished and I partly quit, but either way I’m here. I know I don’t have much, but I have my love for you and my desire to see where this thing between us goes. What do you think? Will you have me?”
Magnus doesn’t even pause. He simply throws his arms around Alec’s neck and topples them over onto the couch. Between quick kisses pressed to every available inch of Alec’s face Magnus replies, “I love you, too.”
Alec laughs and wraps his arms around Magnus’s waist, pulls him closer, smiles into their kisses until they turn soft and slow. “I want you to stay. I want to wake up to you every morning,” Magnus whispers against his lips.
“I can’t wait to see your sleepy face in the sunlight,” Alec replies.
“Remind me to make you a key…tomorrow.” Magnus leans down and kisses him again, slowly, thoroughly, pressing all of his love and joy into their embrace. It’s a while before either of them even contemplates moving to their bedroom.