Work Text:
"Let’s play a game" Magnus announced, coming up behind a reading Alec and wrapping his arms around the shadowhunter's shoulders.
"This book is good," Alec said, leaning back into Magnus's embrace and sighing dramatically. "And I'm a bit tired tonight. Want to go to bed instead?"
"You’ve been at that book for hours. Let’s play a game!” Alec set the book down with a groan and Magnus grinned. He moved away from Alec and into the kitchenette, returning only moments later with a large bottle of vintage wine. "Very old, very good," he said, indicating the wine. Two glasses appeared on the table and the cork disappeared from the wine bottle, and then Magnus was pouring full servings into the crystal. "A simple game, since you're tired. We'll take turns stating things that we believe about the other person, and the other has to answer if it's true or false. If the statement was wrong, the stater has to drink. Whoever ends up with an empty glass first loses. If you win, we'll go to bed, and if I win, you have to let me call you pet names for a week... And we'll still go to bed," he finished with a wink. Smiling, he held out a glass to Alec, who had slid from the couch to the floor.
"Fine," Alec said, game face already on, and took the glass.
Magnus sat facing Alec, cross-legged and close enough that their knees were almost touching.
"You've been banned from Peru," Alec offered up, starting off cautiously.
"Right as rain, Alec dear. And your favorite color is black," Magnus stated casually, certain of success.
"Drink," Alec said, stone-faced, but cracking into a small smile at Magnus's disbelief.
"You love black!"
"True. It's simple and classic, and I wear it a lot, but it's not my favorite," Alec clarified, his cheeks reddening just a bit.
"What is your favorite color, then?" Magnus asked, puzzled.
"Green… and gold. Well, together," Alec said, looking toward the carpet. "That sort of thing..."
Magnus gawked for a minute, staring into Alec's clear blue eyes with his own green-gold ones. Those eyes contained worlds, Magnus thought, and had been Magnus's favorite color since he saw them. A small giggle escaped him at the parallel, and he drowned it in a gulp of wine.
"You've been engaged at some point," Alec stated calmly, another seemingly obvious one.
"Drink."
Alec's eyebrows furrowed. "Never?"
"That assumption hinges on my having several long-running relationships. As you know, most of my past relationships were open and short-lived. No need to worry, though. You've quite reformed me." Magnus winked half-heartedly and Alec laughed quietly, his face turned towards the carpet. "I nearly asked Camille once. I got a ring, made preparations... We'd been together for a while, and we had passed any acceptable time intervals for courtship or dating, and I thought we ought to at least make our connection official under mundane laws. That was the night she ran away, across Europe to hide out from Mortmain with her human lover. She considered the boy beneath me-- beneath her-- and felt like that made the betrayal inconsequential, as if mundane lives were completely expendable. And, well, to her, I suppose they were. I threw the ring away before I went to stay with Woolsey, into the water over Blackfriars Bridge. I knew already that it was over, but I held on to it until she came back, to ensure that my mind wouldn't change the moment I saw him. With the mundane girl I loved, we never married either, but I couldn't say why. It never felt right."
Alec took a slow sip, wondering if it would ever feel right to Magnus for them to get married. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't imagine living out his life with anyone else. But could he stay with Magnus like this forever, always dating and never married? There had to come a time when titles stopped mattering and love was all the commitment you needed. His brow furrowed briefly as he pondered when that time was.
His daydream was cut short by Magnus stating, "You were in love with Jace, at one point in time." He said it gently, like a reassuring pat on the back that meant, I understand.
Alec took a deep breath, his hair falling into his face as he studied the carpet. "Drink," he said a moment later.
"Alec-" Magnus began, but was cut short.
"No... No. I was never in love with Jace. He was the only guy my age I really knew, and I knew I thought of him like friends, even parabatai, shouldn't, but I didn't love him. I know what love feels like now, and that wasn't it."
Magnus took a drink, watching Alec carefully over the glass's rim as he reworded his question in his head. "Did you still think that way about him when we started dating?"
Alec glanced up, his blue eyes cautious as he nodded. Magnus's composure faltered briefly, and then Alec spoke again, all reassurance and reflection. "I knew I liked you, but I didn't know you very well. So while I liked you, and I liked kissing you, I didn’t love you. Not right away. But nobody loves anyone right away, do they? I mean, it has to grow on you. And it has, more than I ever expected.” Alec shrugged, smiling nervously.
"When did things change?" Magnus asked, reaching over toward his boyfriend and drawing lazy patterns on Alec's knee with his fingertip.
"About ten minutes into our first date," Alec said. "I knew I liked you as more than a friend before the date, but it only took ten minutes for me to be… smitten? I didn't completely abandon my infatuation with Jace right then, but it wasn't long in the making. Anyway, Jace obviously isn’t someone you need to worry about competing with. You don’t need to worry about competing with anyone. You are truly charming," he said, leaning forward to kiss Magnus chastely, a kiss that tasted like vintage merlot.
"Your turn," Magnus declared. "Your glass is much too full."
One half hour, many stories, and nearly two full glasses of wine later, Alec and Magnus were both slightly tipsy ("I promise I will not make myself magically sober until we're done," Magnus had promised, fully knowing that drunk magic was as likely to result in a dozen miniature horses in his house as it was to produce two sober men). At this point, the basics had been covered, and they were spilling out more and more ridiculous assumptions.
"Mmmm, you like to sleep with your head on my chest so I don't get up late at night to work," Magnus suggested, half into the carpet. Both he and Alec had found their way from sitting up to laying across the floor, rolled onto their sides. Their feet were tangled, but their faces were far enough apart that they could read each other's expressions. Between them were to nearly empty glasses of wine.
"Wrong," Alec said triumphantly. "It's because I like to listen to your heartbeat. It goes a little quicker than mine."
Magnus smiled at the thought and took a drink.
"You are secretly a dog person."
"What a ridiculous thought," Magnus replied. "Drink up. And maybe a second time for the sake of Chairman Meow." At the mention of his name, the Chairman's ears flicked up from across the room where he was napping on the windowsill.
Alec took a conceding gulp of wine, staring down at the shallow pool of liquid left in his glass.
Magnus opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again, which captured Alec's interest. He watched as Magnus's gleeful, giddy, and tipsy expression turned somber.
"I have a serious question. You don't necessarily have to answer it, Alexander."
"Okay," Alec said, his eyes following Magnus's carefully.
"You used to harm yourself," Magnus stated, almost too softly to hear. "Didn't you?"
"I'm a shadowhunter. We get hurt all the time..."
"You know what I mean," Magnus said, shaking his head softly.
His eyes dropping, blinking back the embarrassed tears he knew were coming, Alec took a deep breath. Words escaped him. He released the pressure on his lungs, exhaling and inhaling slowly. This was something Alec had never mentioned to Magnus-- had not even known Magnus had noticed.
"Not for a while," Alec said. "Not since we started dating."
"It's why you used to wear long sleeves in the summer, isn't it?" Magnus asked. Alec nodded.
"I-" Alec began, but instead of speaking, he began to cry. He cursed himself for crying, for looking so weak even while he tried to explain that he was strong, and so broken as he tried to convince Magnus he was fine. He sat up, trying to angle himself away from Magnus.
But Magnus was almost as quick. He sat up in a deft movement, and was behind Alec before the shadowhunter could stand, wrapping his arms around Alec's torso. Alec turned then, burying his face in the warlock's chest. "You don't need to explain," Magnus said, but Alec shook his head against Magnus's chest.
Sitting back just a little, Alec said, "It started a little before I met you, before Jace met Clary. I was training alone, trying to get more on Jace's level, trying to feel a little less like dead weight, and I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn't realize my throwing dagger had nicked my skin. It was a very superficial cut and healed quickly, and the thin white fracture of a scar blended seamlessly with the others that decorated my arms, that wound around my whole body. I replicated the wound a little higher on my arm, and it felt almost powerful to cut something and see it bleed. I didn't feel the pain. This was before I had killed my first demon, even. It was an easy release of tension. I stopped a while ago, but when I was doing it, I got into the habit of wearing long sleeves to cover the wounds. That way I could make them a little bigger, a little deeper, so they'd heal slower. It sounds crazy, I know. Anyway, the last night I injured myself was the night before your party. I haven't since, and I never will again."
"Alexander...." Magnus murmured, seemingly at a loss for words. He drew Alec toward him again, rubbing circles on his back. "You are the most important thing to me now, the most important thing to me ever. You know that, don't you?"
Alec nodded, mouth hanging slightly open, eyes locked onto Magnus's. "I love you, Magnus."
"I love you so much, Alec." Magnus kissed Alec's forehead and then leaned back, grabbing Alec's arm and looking closely. Under the light of the den, if you knew what to look for, it was obvious that some scars, between the dark Marks and camouflaged among scars from demon ichor and fighting, were more straight- determinedly cut with a small knife- and were more shallow than the others. Magnus brushed his lips against each one he saw, and then did the same for the other arm. “Promise me you will never hurt yourself, ever again.”
“I promise, I’m well past it.”
“When we weren’t… together, for those couple of months… you didn’t… do this, did you?” Magnus asked, exhaling deeply when Alec shook his head. “And remember, you can tell me anything.” He resumed kissing Alec, on his cheeks, nose, neck, jawline...
"Let's go to bed," he suggested when he finished his ministrations.
"Who wins?" Alec asked as Magnus pulled him to his feet.
"Of coursethat would be your concern," Magnus replied, shaking his head in disbelief. "How about a compromise? We go to bed, and I get to call you any three pet names of my choosing for the duration of the week."
"One pet name," Alec replied with narrowed eyes.
"Two," Magnus said, settling the matter with a grin. "Sweetpea?"
"Not that one," Alec groaned.
"Fine. I'll think about it and surprise you in the morning," Magnus answered, tugging on Alec's hand to drag him toward the bedroom.