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He’s never had a stuttering problem before.
Alec wouldn’t consider himself exceptionally eloquent, but he can at least rely on his brain being able to string a few words together and have them come out as a cogent, coherent sentence.
So why is it that the mere presence or thought of Magnus Bane can render him incapable of uttering a single sensible word?
He explained himself badly when he told Magnus he’d proposed to Lydia. And he’d made an even worse mess of it when he tried to convey just where his mind was after that soul-shattering, life-changing kiss at the wedding-that-thank-the-Angel-never-happened.
And now here he is, staring at his phone for the fiftieth time in almost three weeks, waffling on whether or not to press the Talk button.
These weeks have been the longest of his life. In part, that’s because he knows every day Jace is missing is another day Valentine gets to spend pouring his poison into Jace’s already confused brain, doing who-knows-what to him, convincing Jace he’s something he’s not.
But also, the weeks have been long because he still hasn’t arranged that date with Magnus.
Magnus hasn’t pressed him. At first, that seemed to be because Magnus was giving him as much space as he needed to try to hunt down Valentine and get Jace back. He made it clear that he was available to render whatever aid they needed, free of charge, and then he disappeared to his loft.
They’ve texted, and oh, Alec has been just full of words when it comes to trying to explain to Magnus how afraid he is for Jace, and how exhausting day after day of fruitless searching has become. Especially now that he’s once again in nominal charge of the Institute. His parents are back in Idris—and wasn’t that a cold farewell, at least on his mother’s part?—explaining how they managed to lose one of the most promising shadowhunters of a generation to Valentine.
All in all, It just hasn’t exactly seemed like the right time for sweet nothings, and he thinks Magnus understands that. At least, he hopes that’s the explanation for the very pointed toning down of Magnus’s typically extravagant flirtations.
But inertia has set in. Or maybe it’s anxiety. Whatever, something’s making him hold off on calling and offering to cash that rain check for Magnus. And then it becomes A Thing. An “I haven’t done what you were expecting me to do and I know I don’t have any good excuse for it so now I’m even more reluctant to try to explain it” thing.
The texts are becoming less frequent, though. Stilted. And he has no idea how Magnus manages to put so many words into a gaping chasm of silence.
The ball is in your court, Alexander.
I can’t chase after you any more. Especially not under the current circumstances.
If this is going to happen, you need to be the one to come to me this time .
It’s sort of like the wedding all over again. Magnus coming only so far, and then waiting, waiting for Alec to make up his mind, find his resolve, and close the distance.
Only this time, the distance can be measured in miles instead of feet.
A rap on his open door startles him into almost dropping his phone. He immediately looks up, with a ready glare for Clary or Izzy or whoever has the cosmically bad timing to bother him right now, just when he’s trying to find his sac and push the damn button.
Instead, it’s Lydia, and he just can’t glare at her. Instead he musters a halfhearted smile and shoves his phone in his pocket.
“Bad time?” she asks, giving him a quizzical look.
“No.” Alec shakes his head quickly, his eyes darting to the side of her face. There’s nothing to see now. Rune and warlock healing took care of her broken jaw almost as soon as he’d found her on the floor of the office, but her face had still been horrendously bruised. The last vestiges have since faded, but it still makes Alec’s fists clench to think how hard Hodge must have hit her to put her down for the count like that.
Lydia’s not exactly a delicate flower, any more than Izzy is. He’s sparred with her enough—and wound up on his ass on the training room floor—to know that very, very well. It’s not like she needs Alec’s protective instincts.
But she has them anyway, if for no other reason than sheer gratitude.
Besides, they’re now jointly in charge of the Institute.
The irony doesn’t escape him that this is the exact situation they would have found themselves in had they actually gone through with the wedding. It’s actually a really good deal for both of them; all of the partnership, none of the closeted-homosexual deceit, angst, and conflict.
Total win-win.
Lydia is overseeing the day-to-day demon-hunting operations while Alec is spearheading the search for Jace. She’d argued early on that he should let her do that job, because Alec’s better suited to the diplomatic functions of running the Institute and because he’s just too damn emotionally involved in Jace’s case. But she quickly saw just how futile it would be to expect him to sit on the sidelines while she was out looking for his parabatai.
So now they’re both receiving a crash course in areas where they have a natural and understandable deficiency. Alec is trying to curb his impulse to bust heads for leads, and Lydia is learning to gracefully smooth things over when Alec comes dangerously close to failing on his end.
“What’s up?” he prompts when she continues to stand there, studying him like a specimen under Izzy’s microscope.
She frowns briefly, then takes one step into the room, no more. “Alec, if you were in the middle of something... important ...I can come back. There’s nothing in the reports from last night’s patrols that can’t wait.”
He can’t quite meet her eyes, because how the hell is he supposed to explain that he can’t bring himself to even call the guy he literally left her at the altar for? “I wasn’t.”
He hasn’t spoken to her about Magnus since she got out of the infirmary. Which is stupid because he knows she’s not holding a grudge over what happened, but it still feels like an off-limits area.
That sort of sucks, because if he could bring himself to speak about it at all, he could definitely use a rational and sympathetic ear. Izzy is just too invested in him having a good experience with the first actually attainable guy he’s had any interest in, and he and Clary aren’t those sorts of confidantes, however much they’ve bonded over their mutual distress regarding Jace.
But talking to Lydia about Magnus? That’s a whole barrel of awkwardness and embarrassment he doesn’t need right now.
He wishes Hodge hadn’t turned out to be a traitorous asshole for more than one reason. Once upon a time, he could have confided in Hodge. Yes, even about this. Maybe especially about this.
Alec can’t claim to have much of a gaydar—at least not one that’s undergone any sort of field-testing. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed Magnus’s interest if Magnus hadn’t bludgeoned him over the head with it. But he hasn’t forgotten the weighted way Hodge referred to Magnus’s tastes as “exquisite.”
He’s reasonably certain that wasn’t just about jewelry.
Lydia gives him a shrewd look, one of her eyes narrowing a little more than the other. “How’s Magnus doing?”
She tosses the question out almost like a challenge, though not an unkind or belligerent one. Similar to the way she would invite him to spar. And Alec has no doubt he could end up on his ass here, too, if he’s not careful. But if she’s going there, he owes it to her to follow.
Alec swallows and folds his arms over his chest. “Um...good. He’s...he’s good.”
For fuck’s sake, Alec, how many languages do you speak again? That internal voice sounds a lot like Jace. That’s the best you can manage?
Lydia nods slowly, then her nose scrunches a little. It’s frankly adorable and not for the first time Alec half-wishes he could have felt for her the things she deserves to have someone to feel for her.
“Really?” she asks, blinking. She looks so gently confused that he doesn’t feel the trap closing around him until it’s already sprung. “I ask because I’ve noticed he hasn’t been by the Institute except to check on the wards. And you haven’t left the Institute except for patrols or to chase a lead on Jace. Has Magnus been accompanying you? If so, neither Isabelle nor Clary has mentioned it.”
He stares at her a moment, his mouth hanging open. “Okay, that was a play straight out of Izzy’s book, wasn’t it?”
He can almost hear his sister coaching her. Disarm the unsuspecting male with a clueless mein until it’s too late for him to back out of the confrontation .
She smiles and the tension between them is gone in an instant. She leans against the wall and folds her arms across her chest, though on her it’s casual rather than defensive.“That’s was good, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, you carried it off pretty well there. The diplomacy lessons are working.” He can’t help but chuckle, propping a hip up on his desk. “Seriously, though, Magnus and I, we’ve been, you know. Texting. Back and forth.” Though not as much this week as we were the week before .
One of her eyebrows lifts and that’s much more the sort of direct stare he would expect from her. “Yes, and...?”
“And what? I’ve been busy.”
“Sure, of course. We’ve all been busy.” Her mouth twists. “Busily chasing our tails, which I’m sure is exactly the way Valentine wants it.”
“That’s what I’m saying. There hasn’t been time—”
She holds up a hand, forestalling him. “How much time do you think we have, Alec?”
“What do you mean?”
“Valentine has the Mortal Cup. If we don’t get it back soon, he’s going to come after us, after Idris , and he’s going to bring an army with him. We all know it.” Her gaze drills into him and he knows she’s right. These days, here, now, are the calm before the storm. “Even if that takes him a while, in the meantime he’s probably going to go after Downworlders again, especially the powerful ones. So I’m asking you, how much time are you willing to waste before we’re caught up in a war we might not come back from?”
Alec rubs the back of his neck, which has been aching with tension and a lack of comfortable sleep since the day of their aborted wedding. “I have to find Jace—”
“You know as well as I do we haven’t had a single credible lead on Jace since Valentine took him. You really think tonight’s going to be any different? Or tomorrow?” Her eyes drop and she seems to shrink in on herself a little. The arms crossing her chest now make her look like she’s hugging herself. “Alec—take it from someone who didn’t have nearly as many days as she should have with the person she intended to spend her life with. Seize your chances now, because there might not be a later.”
She pushes herself off the wall and turns, pausing when she’s halfway out the door, speaking over her shoulder. “Besides, if you dumped me at the altar for someone you had no intention of following through with, I’m going to have to kick your ass and I’d really rather not.”
Once again, the capacity for speech is beyond him, and by the time he recovers, she’s gone, leaving him to stew in the knowledge he doesn’t just owe it to Magnus and himself to see where this thing between them can go.
It’s the least he can do to thank her as well.
He digs his phone out of his pocket before has has a chance to second-guess himself.
“Magnus? Hi...Um, no, nothing’s wrong...No, no change in the search for Jace, either. I was just...um...I was wondering if you were free tonight…you know, for that, uh, that drink we keep talking about...”