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The first time Alec walked in on it, he didn’t really have time to ruminate.
“What are you doing?”
The question came out more like an accusation than idle curiosity, and Alec cleared his throat.
Typical, Alec. He folded his arms over his chest and did his best not to roll his eyes.
Instead, he focused his gaze on the couch, where just a minute ago he’d walked in after an excruciatingly long- but temporally short- day, to find his boyfriend splayed across the cushions, his back to the door. Which wasn’t unusual, although he hadn’t expected Magnus to be home yet.
What was unusual was the huddled figure lying halfway up Magnus’s chest, dark hair lying stark against Magnus’s pale silk shirt, and stuck up in tangled tufts where Magnus was running a hand through it softly, almost distractedly.
Alec had rocked back on a pause when he’d walked in on the scene, oblivious yet as to what he’d been looking at. He’d been saved from being heard by Magnus’s disturbingly quiet front entry- he had no need for locks, after all, unless you counted Clary and Jace barging in every other second- more than any deliberate attempt at quietness, since he hadn’t thought that Magnus would be home yet.
But Magnus’s face had instantly drawn his attention like a beacon (as it always did). Or what Alec had been able to see of his face, anyways, with his head tilted back across the low arm rest, exposing the long line of his throat and the profile of his nose and brow.
Beautiful.
Just as Alec had opened his mouth to say hello- low and soft, in case Magnus was asleep- his eyes had wandered down to where Magnus’s thick right arm was wrapped around a vampire. A vampire who had looked equally if not more relaxed, cushioned on his side on Magnus’s torso, both of their chests rising and falling in tandem.
Raphael, the Leader of the New York Clan.
Thus, his question now.
Alec didn’t know what he’d been expecting, really, but as soon as the first syllable broke the silence, Raphael moved, jerking with the kind of painful speed borne only out of pure reactivity. But Magnus was faster. He reacted as a hypervigilant parent, moving fluidly and instinctively to press a gentle hand on Raphael’s chest, halting the movement before he could sit up.
“Shh, my boy,” he chastised.
Raphael conceded, muscles freezing him in place; still, he looked significantly less comfortable than he had been a minute ago.
Alec couldn’t really find it in himself to feel bad.
“Magnus?” Alec prompted, stepping in closer toward the couch, angling so that he was parallel to where Magnus and Raphael were sitting.
Cuddling, not sitting, his brain supplied unhelpfully. Cuddling.
For a second, before he remembered, he contemplated walking across the room and opening the blinds, already disliking the claustrophobic way that the dimness itched under his skin. The Institute was always well-lit; it had to be. And while he appreciated the softer lighting in Magnus’s place, Alec couldn’t deny that he missed the natural sunlight.
But there was the issue of the vampire on his couch.
“Alec, you’re home,” Magnus said. There was something forced in the brightness of his tone. Alec felt his hackles rising.
“Uh, yeah,” he answered, rubbing agitatedly at the back of his neck. He was doing his best to avoid looking over, feeling acutely like he’d interrupted something that he wasn’t supposed to see. “Got out early today. Was gonna come home and make dinner.”
“Magnus.” Raphael’s voice had an undercurrent of warning, but Magnus just tsked at him under his breath, not making any move to remove his hand from where it was still lodged in Raphael’s hair.
“That’s very sweet of you, Alexander.”
Alec nodded awkwardly. The curtains weren’t very interesting to look at, and he was running out of places to pretend to examine.
“Magnus.” Raphael’s voice was more insistent, and Alec’s eyes moved of their own traitorous accord toward the source.
The New York Clan Leader looked just about as mortified as Alec felt, cheeks tinged pink and neck held stiffly, still horizontal but no longer relaxed into Magnus the way he’d been so naturally before.
Although Alec was sure that Raphael could easily break Magnus’s grip, and wondered why he didn’t.
“Maybe I should, uh, go,” Alec stuttered out.
He knew he sounded tense, a little bit angry even. He also knew that he had no right to be.
It wasn’t that he was jealous, exactly, not in any romantic or sexual capacity. For all of the resentment Alec had toward the vampire, he knew that Magnus’s relationship with him was strictly familial, paternal, and that for Magnus, considering anything with Raphael would be equivalent to Alec thinking of his sister that way– that is to say, disgusting. So it wasn’t jealousy, exactly, but…
“That might be a good idea, Angel,” Magnus noted. “Dinner sounds lovely, however. Maybe you could pick something up instead of cooking?”
Alec swallowed. “Sure.”
Now that he was looking, though, he couldn’t quite bring himself to tear his gaze away just yet. Not only because Magnus was a vision like this- soft and tousled, body like liquid when he was relaxed- but also because of the tension he could sense in the room.
Magnus was relaxed, yes, but Alec had been learning to read his boyfriend’s body language over the past couple of months. There was something melancholic about the curve of Magnus’s spine. Something stressed in the way he held his jaw.
And Raphael-
Well, Alec didn’t know him that well, but it wouldn’t take any sort of skill to tell that Raphael looked like a wreck. His eyes were swollen ever so slightly, making him look younger than even his external age typically suggested. And he still hadn’t moved off of Magnus, despite his clear wariness at having Alec see him this way.
“Is everything okay?” Alec asked, feeling stupid as soon as the question was out.
Raphael stiffened, and Magnus smiled gently. “Everything’s fine sweetheart. Dinner?”
And Alec knew enough to know that he was being dismissed. He nodded again and turned, heading back toward the door without breaking stride—he hadn’t even taken off his shoes or jacket, after all.
He closed the door of the loft with an audible click. Slouched, just for a second, on the other side, before shaking his head and moving in the direction of the elevator.
But he’d overheard, just in that beat of a moment, the sound of two soft sighs, exhaling in harmony.