Chapter Text
You are cordially invited to the union of Alexander Gideon Lightwood and Lydia Charlotte Branwell, the invitation reads in glossy calligraphic cursive on ivory cardstock. Such a cliché. Honestly, he would have considered this some kind of grave insult if the bottom didn’t have a handwritten addendum that reads: Please don’t let my brother do this to himself -Izzy.
Against his own better judgment, he likes Izzy. He likes her sense of fashion and that she apparently is dating a seelie knight and that she so clearly and desperately loves her brother even though he (Magnus thinks) has a crush on a male Downworlder. She’s nice. She’s great. So of course he feels obligated to help her and that is entirely 100% the only reason he would consider doing this, and definitely not because he’s mostly in love with her brother.
Why are these Lightwoods so different from the Lightwoods of centuries past? There were some he’d managed to tolerate and a small handful he’d actually liked, but Lightwoods were for the most part a bunch of schemers with poles shoved up their asses. What the hell had gone right with Maryse and Robert’s children? Bright, brash, wonderful Izzy, with her electrum whip and ruby-red smile. And Alec, Alexander the responsible one, Alexander the archer with the beautiful eyes and his thrice-damned sense of duty and honor that makes him ten times sexier (because apparently Magnus has that kink now) and also completely off-limits.
He could stay home. He could curl up with a pint of ice cream and the last season of Project Runway and keep pretending Ragnor is alive and mourn only what he and Alec could have had. Or, he could put on a nice suit, do his hair properly, and try. One more time.
Magnus isn’t old or young, but he can feel the centuries weighing down on him. It would be so easy to sit here and calcify.
“No,” he tells himself. “You are going to do this.” Not for Izzy, not for Alec. For him.
He puts on his best suit, adds fuck-you pink to his hair, and goes over to the Institute.
Lydia is holding Alec’s hand in hers, stele poised over it to draw the marriage rune. It strikes Magnus just how Nephilim the whole thing is- Lydia and Alec both beautiful in that stereotypical European way, dressed all in white with runes peeking out the edges of their clothes, the stern Silent Brother standing between them. He’s out of place here, a Downworlder in dark colors coming to dirty up their ceremony. Lydia doesn’t look as surprised as he expected, but he can’t worry about that now because his eyes are locked on Alec’s.
He feels like he’s carved his heart out of his chest and he’s holding it out in front of him. He shouldn’t care this much about Alec, this soon, but the fact is that he does and that means Alec has power over him, power Magnus never thought any Nephilim would have. His heart is Alec’s to take or destroy, and so he waits.
“What’s that warlock doing here?” he hears faintly, because even being part of a failed revolution/civil war couldn’t teach Maryse Lightwood anything resembling tact.
The other Lightwood children whisper to each other on the altar but he’s looking at Alec. It’s a challenge and Alec knows it, but the Shadowhunter stays firmly in place.
Maryse walks over to him and demands in a hushed whisper, “Magnus, leave this wedding now.”
“Maryse, this is between me and your son,” he says, sparing her the barest glance as he holds up a hand to stop her. Looking back at Alec, he says, “I’ll leave if he asks me to.” And he would, because he would never force himself on someone really unwilling, but he wants Alec Lightwood to be happy and this would damn him to a life of playing pretend.
He walks away from the Lightwood matriarch, because fuck her, but he doesn’t approach Alec, doesn’t walk up the aisle. I’m here, he thinks. I came here, to this place where I am unwelcome, all the way from my home, for you and for your happiness. The ball is in your court now, Alexander.
He just watches Alec, waiting. Alec’s blond parabatai says something to him and then he’s talking to his bride-to-be who Magnus does actually like (you know, for a Clave representative) when he’s not consumed with jealousy. They’re shaking their heads and he hopes for one moment and despairs the next, because he can’t fucking hear them and he doesn’t know if they’re shaking their heads at him or this farce of a ceremony. Lydia puts her hand on Alec’s face and Magnus lets himself imagine turning it into something terrible- he never would, but he is standing here in this room full of hateful strangers even though he doesn’t want to, and the waiting is killing him.
Take my heart or break it, Alec, but please stop making me wait.
And then Alec looks at him.
There’s a swoop in his stomach as Alec looks at him, and then looks around the room, because it’s about to happen- something is about to happen.
Alec takes a few steps closer. His face is impassive, carved from marble. Please.
He swallows and sets his jaw, and Magnus’s heart breaks a little more, because for one horrible second, Magnus is sure that Alec is going to send him away. That Alec is going to actually choose Lydia, and Magnus is going to go home and get more drunk than he’s been since the twenties, and this was all a mistake. But apparently those plans will have to wait for another day because Alec is striding down the hall with the glory of angels and the determination of warriors, eyes on nothing but Magnus, and it is the single hottest thing Magnus has ever fucking seen, and Alec blows right past his mother with a low, “Enough,” and nope, now the single hottest thing Magnus has ever fucking seen is Alexander Lightwood grabbing him by the lapels and pulling him in for an unpracticed, unrepentant, endearing kiss.
His brain shorts out.
Alec is kissing him- Alexander is kissing him, Alexander Lightwood is kissing him and it is glorious. Alec is not the best kisser Magnus has ever had, but he makes up for it with the enthusiasm and utter certainty, in front of his parents and the Clave and everyone. He is so close that everything Magnus can sense is Alec, Alec’s forehead against his and Alec’s nose against his cheekbone, Alec’s body warm and solid next to his, Alec’s hands still clutching his lapels like they’re a lifeline.
It’s all Magnus can do to kiss back, to promise Alec as best as he can that he is here, that even if everything changes Magnus is here, and that he cares.
Alec pulls away, and Magnus tries to chase him because hello, Alec kisses, but then stops himself, suddenly unsure. He’s a centuries-old warlock and this twenty-year-old Shadowhunter can make him this wrong-footed, this afraid of pushing him away with some idiotic move. Alec is so young, so new to all of this, and the very last thing Magnus wants to do is scare him off or hurt him. He just wants- he wants Alec to be happy, and he wants to be around Alec as long as Alec will have him. He looks at Alec, and Alec looks at him, and he sees Alec come closer again so he has time to start smiling before his mouth is concerned with other, more pressing matters.
Alec pulls away, properly this time, and Magnus keeps his eyes shut for just a moment to revel. He has just been kissed by Alexander Lightwood. Hell yes. And in front of his parents and the Clave and everyone. He’d thought Alec would reject him, and hoped to be allowed to date him in secret, but this… “You never cease to amaze me, Alec,” Magnus says breathlessly.
“Yeah,” Alec says, his eyes flickering between Magnus’s. “What did I just do?” A note of panic enters his voice and Magnus’s dislike of the Nephilim comes roaring back, because Alec is wonderful and anyone making him feel like anything less is irredeemably evil.
Like he can read Magnus’s thoughts, Alec looks over at his parents. Maryse is furious in a way Magnus hasn’t ever seen from her, not even from her Circle days. Robert is stern and disappointed. Magnus braces himself for the tirade, the word “warlock” being spat like a curse, layers and layers of hatred and prejudice to be sent at him and Alec, who is wonderful and has done absolutely nothing wrong.
But Maryse just leaves, and Magnus’s heart breaks, because Alec loves his family so much, so painfully, and she is just leaving him. Her eldest son. Just walking away from him.
Yeah, fuck Maryse Lightwood.
Izzy watches her mother go before trotting over to Alec, smiling and proud. Good. That’s what this moment deserves, what Alec deserves. He knew he liked Isabelle Lightwood. “Alec, I am so proud of you,” she says, and he hears Alec exhale just a little beside him, and sees him smile.
The mundane-turned-vampire, Samuel or something, trots over to Izzy’s side and starts talking. At first, Magnus makes a good-faith effort to listen to him. But the boy didn’t make any sense, and he just kept talking, and so Magnus decides to just watch him judgmentally. Honestly. Couldn’t he figure out he didn’t have a captive audience? Magnus had more important things to think about. Like replaying those kisses over and over again in his mind.
But Steven or whoever keeps talking and Magnus needs to focus on judging the shit out of him. He spares a quick glance for Alec, only to see Alec is doing the exact same thing.
Good. Judging other people, together, is a good omen for a relationship.
Finally Stewart shuts up and Alec asks, “Who invited the vampire?”
“Seriously?” Sheldon asks, and Magnus laughs a little, and spends a happy moment at Alec’s side making fun of the vampire- and in that moment, everything was perfectly fine.