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It's a...beast.
Not that Magnus is opposed to beasts, exactly - he's met some very lovely hellhounds - but this one is just sloppy.
"It's drooling on me," he says, his hands in the air to protect his rings from the damp and the inevitable tarnish that has to come along after. His trousers, sadly, are left to their own, sadly lacking, defenses. He thinks he should have cast some sort of protective spell on them, except he wasn't really expecting Alec to turn up at the loft with...this.
"It means he likes you," Alec says, from somewhere beyond the blur of brown and white fur and big brown eyes and drool. There's already another string of it threatening to get loose from the beast's mouth. Magnus imagines that string landing with the others on his fine silk trousers and he suppresses a shudder.
"Well that's very nice," he says, and he does mean that. He likes being liked, more than he'll ever admit. "But maybe he could, I don't know, like me from somewhere that isn't going to cost me a fortune in dry cleaning?"
Really, he can almost feel Alec's eye roll and his unspoken don't you have magic to take care of things like that and he'd be prepared to deal with both of those things except…
It's his trousers. His nice ones, and he'd wanted to look nice today because it was a bad one. A very bad one, where he felt just so slightly off but couldn't think of what to do to fix it, and the trousers, his best if he's truly honest, were sort of...well, they were his last ditch attempt at trying to make himself feel okay. An attempt that didn't involve his drinks cart because he'd promised himself he was going to stop, that he'd cut down on his drinking, and he had, but he'd also had to get creative in the meantime.
Hence the fine silk trousers on a terribly random Thursday. A terribly random, rainy Thursday that'd have his hair frizzy if he hadn't cared enough to tend to it - and he only barely had had the energy for that - and he'd put on his finest clothes, trousers and waistcoat and all, and then…
And then he'd just sort of...sat there in his living room, completely at a loss as to what to do next. He didn't have any clients booked and useless Shadowhunters weren't blowing up his phone for help for once in his long life. He isn't sure now just how long he'd been sitting there, studiously ignoring the drinks cart in his peripheral vision, when his door had opened and that had come bounding in with Alec right behind. He'd gone straight for Magnus's lap, placing a giant paw on each thigh and sticking his snout perilously close to Magnus's face. Magnus still thinks it's a minor mercy that the beast had just started panting at him instead of - he suppresses another shudder - licking his cheek.
"C'mon," he hears Alec say, his voice soft, and Magnus isn't sure whether he's talking to him or to the beast. Not until the beast shifts a little from what can only be Alec tugging at his collar. "Let's give Magnus some space, all right?"
The beast refuses to be moved. No matter how much Alec tugs at him, he won't budge. Magnus supposes he ought to feel lucky that he hasn't decided to dig his claws in. Although that might salvage his drool-ruined trousers. Couldn't hurt them anyway. Not now.
"Perhaps a crane might help?" Magnus suggests, adding when Alec gives him a blank look over the top of the beast's head, "or whatever you use to move minor planets."
"Better hurry," he says, after a moment, "I think my legs are beginning to fall asleep."
Alec huffs out a breath and then moves around so he's beside Magnus's chair. He drops down to his knees, folding his arms on the armrest.
"I'm sorry," he says, lifting a hand to tug at his hair. "I just thought…"
He stops, and he's quiet for so long that Magnus has to ask, "What did you think?"
He makes sure to keep his voice gentle. Alec looks fairly miserable, and even as miserable as he himself is, he doesn't want to go making things worse. Besides, he feels better now that Alec's here with him, beast or no beast.
"I just thought…" Alec says again, studying the beast. He lets out a sigh, reaching over to scratch at the beast's ear. The beast leans into the touch, far into it, like it's the best touch in the world - Magnus knows for sure that it is the best touch in the world - and like it's been the longest time since he felt anything that good.
"He was out in the rain," he hears Alec say. "And he belongs to someone or he wouldn't be so friendly and I just…" Alec swallows. "I couldn't just leave him there, alone."
"And I thought," he says, looking at Magnus, "I thought he could stay here...with us, until his person comes along or we find them."
"I thought it'd be good for you," he says, and at that Magnus turns his head to look at him. There's a sheepish sort of smile on his face. It warms Magnus's heart, even if he's lost for words.
"I know you're not...happy," Alec says, and if Magnus was lost for words before, he's well and truly lost now. How does Alec know? and What must he think? "And that's, well, it's not all right, but I always thought that...taking care of things or someone or something, that.."
"It helps," he says, finally, looking right into Magnus's eyes. "It helps you forget how bad it all feels."
He's right, is the thing. Helping others does help to forget the boredom, the bottomless emptiness, the pain inside. Sometimes it's why Magnus does anything at all for anyone. The payments he asks for his services, they're usually just a bonus, a way to keep him in the lifestyle to which he's become accustomed. He'd like to think of himself as altruistic, and in a sense he is, but he knows, deep deep down, that really he's just old and bored and he likes luxury and ease.
"And dogs," Alec continues, "they're great judges of character, and I thought, if you didn't believe me, then you might believe him."
"Believe?" Magnus asks, "believe what?"
"How wonderful you are," Alec says, simply, like it's the easiest, truest thing in the world to say, and Magnus can feel his mouth drop open. Alec's smile slides into something softer, and somehow warmer, and he reaches out a hand, crooking his finger under Magnus's chin and closing his mouth.
"Don't look at me like that," he says, almost teasingly. "It's true. The dog and I said so."
Magnus can't help but scoff and roll his eyes.
"Well if you and the dog said," he says, and Alec laughs a little, leaning in like he's going to kiss him but stopping at the last second. Stopping like he thinks Magnus might not want it and Magnus does want so he closes the distance between them, crashing their lips together. Alec's lips are cold and a bit wet and they feel so good against his own, good enough and familiar enough to settle him. He lets himself sink into Alec's kiss, eager now that Alec knows it's all right, and he can feel some of the tension he'd apparently been carrying in his shoulders and his back fading away.
"Did you really bring home a dog just to make me feel better?" he asks, once they finally pull apart.
"Not just to make you feel better," Alec says. He hasn't gone very far away, so close that Magnus wouldn't have to move much at all to rest his forehead against Alec's. "He really was out by himself in the rain."
"So only mostly to make you feel better," Alec adds, after a moment. "Like I said," he gestures at the beast, "they're great judges of character."
"Rub it in why don't you?" Magnus asks, and he isn't expecting Alec's eyes to light up like they do.
"I could," he says, "I have a little time before I have to be back. I could rub all kinds of things in, if you wanted."
Magnus can't help but laugh. It feels good, warm inside his chest.
"My dear Alexander," he says, reaching out to cup Alec's cheek. He swipes his thumb across Alec's cheekbone. "Thank you."
"Thank you for making my day better," he says, and that little bit of vulnerability is worth it for the smile he sees start to spread across Alec's face.
"Love you," Alec says, and Magnus doesn't always let himself be so effusive lately, but today he thinks, he will.
"Love you too," he says, trying to fight down the tremor that's trying to get into his voice. "So much."
"And I think I will," he says, plowing on through it, "take you up on that offer to...rub things in. Just as soon as we can figure out how to get this" he gestures at the beast "off of me."
"He does like you," Alec says. He glances at the beast. The beast hasn't moved, still happily panting away in Magnus's direction, and Magnus can't be sure he has any feeling left in his legs. "Think I should be jealous?"
"Well I'd much rather have you on me than him so…" Magnus says, and Alec must take the hint and quickly, because next thing Magnus knows Alec's on his feet and attempting to move a very large...dog that very much doesn't want to be moved. Magnus watches him struggle for just a couple of seconds or so - Alec's words about dogs being good judges of character bouncing around in his head - before he takes pity on both him and his own legs and his ruined trousers.
"Go on," he says to the beast, gently. He summons up a dish full of food for him, and some water, and the beast is off him instantly, whirling around on ungainly legs and big paws and charging right for the dishes. It's oddly adorable.
"Apparently it doesn't take a crane to move him after all," he says to Alec, once the beast is well and truly out of sight. Alec just shakes his head and rises to his full height.
"Still want me to rub it in?" he says, holding his hand out for Magnus to clasp. Magnus takes it, and in a rush, he's on his feet too. It, and his new proximity to Alec, makes him pleasantly dizzy.
"Yes," he says, putting his free hand on Alec's hip and turning him so he's better facing the bedroom. "I really do."
Alec grins at him.
"Well then," he says, tightening his grip on Magnus's hand. "Let's go see what I can do."
"Oh yes, let's," Magnus says, and the more Alec tugs at his hand, drawing him along, the giddier he feels. By the time they both tip over into the bed, Alec underneath him and so warm, he's laughing so hard that the back of his head starts to hurt. And Alec, like he knows somehow, works his hands into Magnus's hair, massaging as he's pulling him down into a kiss. Their lips meet, and it's the best Magnus's felt all day.