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Magnus is, um ... quite magical. He's very, very good at magic.
Alec catches himself staring at Magnus' hands when they're together.
He tells himself its Not A Thing. Magnus uses his hands often - gesturing dramatically while he talks, the delicate way he offers a glass. When he's doing magic.
His hands are like any other part of him – loud and impossible to ignore. He decorates his hands with polish and rings and glitter, anything to draw attention to them. It’s not really Alec’s fault that he can’t take his eyes off them.
He does starts to notice things. Like the way he fidgets; as if the energy in his fingers is too big to be contained, like an itch that never goes away. All that power trying to force it's way out of him.
Alec has felt those fingers gripped tight to his own, has felt that power flowing through him.
And Magnus wields that power like a dance. The elegant curve of his fingers can be lethal. His movements are fluid and graceful, a distraction of the danger that lurks underneath that careful control. It’s a skill that cannot be learned, something ingrained deep in Magnus’ very being. That magic is more than a weapon to be used – it’s an extension of him. As much a part of who he is as the blood in his veins.
Alec learns that no Warlock’s magic is the same. There’s a distinct personality, Magnus tells him one afternoon, in the way the magic is used. It’s not like the Shadowhunters, whose skills and training are interchangeable. If Alec dies, there are ten others there to replace him, just as capable.
There is, and never will be, anyone else like Magnus Bane.
It stirs something deep in Alec when he watches Magnus work. Something restless in him. It’s close to what he felt when he watched Jace, that mixture of jealousy and longing in the pit of his stomach, but it’s different with Magnus. Unnamable.
So he watches, silently, unable and unwilling to look away from the haze of blue that sparks from Magnus’ fingertips, and tries to ignore the similar burn in his own veins.
The rest of them have noticed, of course. The way Alec will freeze and zero in on the pulse of energy. The way he stumbles and stutters around his words in the aftermath. Alec Lightwood doesn’t blush – but he comes close when he catches Clary’s knowing smirk, or Jace’s furrowed confusion.
It’s still Not A Thing.
Magnus soaks up the attention like a flower turning towards the sun. He’ll show off for anyone: summoning a favorite snack with a snap, presenting trinkets from thin air to Izzy’s delight, disappearing pages or books right from Jace’s hands.
The magic is a constant around Magnus, even when he shouldn’t be using it. The others seem to adjust to it as easily as they adjusted to the rest of their world getting flipped upside down overnight.
And it’s not that Alec has a problem with it. It’s just. A distraction.
Like everything else in Alec’s life, he’s coming to find that he doesn’t have as good a handle on the situation as he thought.
“Does it make you uncomfortable?” Magnus asks, his eyes never wavering from the book he’s attempting to draw energy out of. Its timeworn, yellowing pages are too faded to read much of the ancient language inside, but Magnus is trying to get a read of where it came from. It’s foul smelling from years of dust and mildew, but it’s not the smell that has Alec wary. He doesn’t trust anything shrouded in so many secrets.
“We should’ve left it where we found it.” Alec mutters.
“Not the book.” Magnus waves the fingers of his free hand at Alec when he looks up. “Magic.” He says it with his usual dramatic flare, but something falters, and it falls flat between them.
Alec blinks.
His brain doesn’t catch up quick enough, and Magnus is continuing on without waiting for him.
“It’s fine.” His eyes are back on the book, his mouth twisted oddly, only half his concentration on the task at hand. “I’ve known plenty of Shadowhunters who couldn’t quite make peace with it-”
“No.” Alec’s mouth finally unsticks itself. “It’s not – Magnus, I don’t – um.”
Magnus is looking at him now, all pretense of working on the book forgotten. It’s somehow both easier and harder to speak with those eyes on him.
“I like it.” He finally manages to get out. It’s awkward and inadequate to what he really wants to say, I’ve never seen anything like you or It’s incredible what you can do or I can’t explain how I feel about you, but I think you understand better than I do.
But Magnus’ surprise lights up his face anyway. It’s a good look on him. Alec wants to be the cause of that look more often. “You just always look so serious when you watch me.”
Alec Lightwood does not blush. “Yeah.” He coughs, shuffling his feet backwards.
Watching Magnus Bane’s genuine smile is another kind of magic itself. It lasts for only a moment, where Alec can feel his own answering grin tugging at his mouth, and then Magnus is shutting himself back behind that wall once more. His smile turns coy, and he tilts his head as his gaze turns scrutinizing. “Interesting.”
Alec looks away.
The others come crashing in through the door, another disaster at their heels, and Alec goes back to pretending he doesn’t spend all his free time watching Magnus Bane.
If he catches Magnus looking his way more and more after he’s performed a bit of magic, that curious, expectant look on his face as he catches Alec’s eye, like he waiting for a reaction from him, it doesn’t mean anything. And if Alec can’t help the way he smiles when he knows that Magnus is showing off for his benefit alone, no one else has to know.
Because it’s definitely still Not A Thing.