Chapter Text
All of the downs and the uppers
Keep making love to each other
And I'm trying, trying, I'm trying, but I
Can't keep my hands to myself
My hands to myself
This was becoming downright ridiculous. Pathetic even.
It was practically the hundredth time that day and it wasn’t even noon. He was better than this – stronger than this. A Shadowhunter. He went out and fought hell spawn on a daily basis, he should not be this easily disarmed. And yet. Here he was, supposedly one of the best and brightest on this side of the portal, effectively reduced to a floundering puddle of indignation by nothing more than a pretty smile and a pair of kholed eyes.
This was pitiful.
Twenty years of grueling, blood-curdling experience on the streets of New York amounted to nothing against the cavalier grin of Magnus Bane. And what a fitting name, too. A sick irony. As the glittered warlock, currently strutting around the Institute in his dazzling hues of blue and purple like a painted peacock, truly was the bane of Alec’s existence.
The poor boy tried to focus on the conversation buzzing around him, but failed miserably, as he had been for some time now.
Somewhere in the distance he could hear his brother and sister recounting the success of the mission. Hear their comrades ask questions and provide input. Even Clary pipped up from time to time. Alec knew this was vital information being passed about, quite possibly the difference between life and death next time he and his team went out on the field, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Too caught up by the man across the room, who – though he played it off better – was equally uninterested in the topic at hand.
It was a special kind of torture to be so close to the object of one’s desire and yet so (infuriatingly) far. One Alec was being subjected to more and more frequently. It was becoming a weekly ritual as of late for all of the noteworthy faces of New York’s Shadow World to get together and bicker in the name of cooperation. Usually it was just one big headache Alec would rather avoid, expect for the rare occasions that the High Warlock of Brooklyn had a gap in his busy schedule and adorned the warmongering horde with his presence. Those days, Alec didn’t mind as much. Today was once such day, which had been thankfully free of pointless arguments and ear-shattering shouting, leaving Alec plenty of time to stare at his handsome warlock.
Said man was busy speaking, on and off as the conversation went, briefing the Institute’s most elite on relevant threats and dangers of the Downworld, but Alec wasn’t listening. As handsome and captivating as Alec knew Magnus’ mouth to be, his gaze was fixated much further south. It wasn’t exactly noticeable, but it was definitely there. With the way his hips artfully swung, twirled, and dipped, it was almost impossible to spot. But the movements were just a tad too stiff, forced even. They were hiding something. A small tent, one which Alec smirked at every time those hips angled themselves just right and he caught a peek. Not that Magnus’ strange, baggy pants afforded much clarity as to what was happening downstairs, but Alec knew what he was looking for. He was responsible for it.
Just as Magnus was responsible for the thrumming itch that was forming on Alec’s collarbone, jeweling a brighter ruby red with each passing second. Heat prickled behind it like an ember burning into his skin. Trying to pass through flesh and bone to reach the smoldering wildfire roaring in his core, racing in his veins. Those flames were fanned by the lithe shape of Magnus’ hips, the snatch of skin that flashed with every dramatic sway.
Buried in the crooks of his elbows, Alec’s fingertips prickled and palms sweat.
Oh how he longed to return his hands to those sinful hips. To feel the way Magnus’ lean muscles flexed and roiled beneath layers of silk and cotton. To pull them against his own and follow them into oblivion. They’d been so wonderfully flush against him not twenty minutes ago, Alec needing the pulsating pleasure more than the air in his lungs. He felt his own pants tighten at the memory. Searing kisses being burned into his throat; dexterous fingers weaving through both hair and clothing; lascivious moans fallen from swollen lips. It’d been a brief eternity that Alec enjoyed Magnus’ supple skin and harsh hips, before they were rudely interrupted by his grinning parabatai and younger sister.
Alec hadn’t thought it possible to turn so violently red (at least, not without Magnus’ help).
“Alright,” a booming voice finally announced, regaining a modicum of Alec’s attention as the room fell silent in response, “I’ve heard enough for one day.” There were a few more meaningless platitudes and pleasantries, maybe even another question or two until eventually, finally, “Dismissed.”
It was like a rubber band had snapped. He felt himself propelled forward, surging through the dispersing horde of black-clad, grumpy faced Shadowhunters with fierce determination. Alec didn’t break from Magnus’ glimmering gaze as he blew past both peer and subordinate, carelessly shoving aside any who were unfortunate enough not to see him coming. This only served to fuel Magnus’ smirk, which in turn fueled Alec’s lunging strides.
He was there in only a short handful of seconds, but it felt like a miserable lifetime since Alec had Magnus melting into him. So distraught over this, Alec didn’t even bother to pause and stammer awkwardly as he reentered Magnus’ presence again. He asserted himself boldly – threateningly – as if he were a predator who’d finally cornered his prey.
“Why hello there,” the handsome warlock purred as Alec once again crowded his space, stretching up to bring himself as close to Alec’s mouth as was socially acceptable. Which was still much too far for Alec’s liking. But at least at this distance, Alec could watch as hungry eyes took in his grimy attire with barely concealed excitement; the stench of a day’s worth of hunting and a mountain’s worth of slaying still rising from his bloodied clothes. “You’re absolutely filthy, my dear,” Magnus teased, earning one of Alec’s lopsided smirks, the kind only caused by a blossom of starlight in his chest.
Normally, that endearing little smile would be Magnus’ only reward for such a comment. Alec was painfully aware of this fact, his inhibitions lodging in his throat to block any confidence that might hopelessly well up. However, Alec was much further gone than he typically was when Magnus employed his eloquent little jests, which helped rid him of his usual restraints.
“Funny, you didn’t seem to mind earlier,” Alec quipped lowly, uncharacteristically brazenly (though he did glance cautiously around the room as discreetly as he could manage. Which was a truly disgraceful display for a solider of his caliber.)
Magnus didn’t miss a beat though, pleasantly displaced, his glamoured eyes flashing with newfound delight. “Well,” he began with an elegant lilt, carefully gauging Alec’s response as he took the man by the belt loops and tugged him just a fraction closer, breaths mingling, “can you really blame me? I was a bit distracted.”
The tiny compliment did wonders for Alec’s stern features, softening his face with an unguarded smile and pleasant hum of approval. Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last long, Alec’s gaze catching on Magnus’ smug smirk and the blazing flames of desire consequently eating away at what little patience he had left.
“Can’t imagine why,” he tried, attempting to further stimulate the conversation he was only partly paying attention to, but it was a struggle for him to voice it, arousal causing his throat to swell and choke his words.
Magnus must have noticed somehow; he read Alec with the same ease as he did one of his many tomes. Graciously, he ended the verbal foreplay, leaning in close to ask with cautious bravado, “So, before another familial menace descends, what do you say we take this back to my place? Pick up where we left off?” Though it was a genuine request, Magnus meant it mostly as a formality; he knew his answer. Alec’s flushed cheeks and unsteady breaths left no room for doubt. However, when there was no immediate response, Magnus added with slight apprehension, “After you freshen up and finish whatever business you have left, of course.”
But still there was only silence between them – not necessarily uncomfortable, but unsettling none the less. Their faces so close, Magnus could only catch a glimpse of Alec’s eyes, searching them for a reply, but all he found were lust blown pupils. Dark and hooded, locked on his mouth.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he chuckled softly, pulling back so that Alec’s gaze meet his own, looking lost and frantic, “not when I can’t do anything about it.”
But Alec’s angelic endurance was exhausted, his stout resistance to Magnus’ little charms and taunts thoroughly expended. Removing his hands from whatever useless space they’d been before, Alec took Magnus’ wrists and leaned down to his ear, breathing labored and distraught as he huffed, “No apartment. I can’t wait that long.”
It was a simple statement and a silent plea all in one, falling from Alec’s lips in such earnest – such sincerity – it left him winded. But the air he struggled to draw in with shaky gasps couldn’t sate him. He was smoldering, burning away from the inside out. The wildfire had spread uncontrollably. It was no longer a fire he could extinguish, only feed, and oh did it hunger. Alec knew what he needed, who he needed.
“Good,” Magnus admitted wearily, trying valiantly to resist his own fires, “me either.”
Alec pulled himself from his haze just enough to register their surroundings, the oblivious crowd still chattering mindless around them. “I think there’s a supply closet at the end of this hallway,” Alec offered breathlessly, looking up to glance over Magnus’ shoulder at the distant door. It seemed an awfully long ways away, but Alec couldn’t fathom the trip back to Magnus’ apartment – portal or no.
“Alexander,” Magnus admonished unconvincingly, trying for teasing but falling somewhere closer to desperate, “might I remind you that I am The High Warlock of Brooklyn. Bordering four centuries old. I will not deign to hiding in a closet like some hormonal teenager. You must have taken one too many blows to the head this evening, darling.”
“You really think we can make it to a bedroom?” Alec balked, glancing incredulously towards the multiple flights of stairs, winding halls, and disgusted glares that separated them and the nearest bed.
“Oh heavens no,” Magnus relented with a flippant giggle, “that’s on the entirely other side of the building. Forget what I said. The closet will do.”