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Alec curled himself into the corner of the sofa, head resting on the arm, facing the TV screen, knees pulled up. He pointedly ignored Magnus, who kept glancing over at him, as though expecting Alec to say something to him.
What was there left to say? They'd argued. Alec wanted to get the fuck out. But they lived together, and he wasn't going to go crawling back to the Institute a month after he'd moved into Magnus' loft and give his parents the satisfaction of seeing him upset because of something his boyfriend had said.
No. He was going to stay right here. But that didn't mean he was going to talk to Magnus, or forgive him. Because honestly, if he looked at him, Alec wasn't sure whether he'd punch him or cry. He certainly wouldn't do anything rational.
Magnus shifted next to him, the tension between them palpable and awkward. Alec knew he was probably being childish, refusing to talk to Magnus about this, but he was just too damn angry. If he tried to talk rationally, he knew they'd end up arguing again.
Alec had known the mission was a terrible, terrible idea the moment they'd decided on it. Jace hadn't been back much longer than Alec had been living in this stupid, colourful loft, and he was already getting back to his usual insane missions.
Maybe that wasn't fair. This mission hadn't really been such a bad idea. They'd needed information from a Seelie about a killing in Central Park, and Jace had decided that their go-to method of seduction would be the best way to extract it.
At Pandemonium. At Magnus' club.
So Isabelle had dressed up, in even more flattering clothes than usual, drawing her runes in places that accented her body, walking in with her eyelashes fluttering and her best strut on as she locked eyes with their target.
Magnus had appeared before she'd had time to get far, beaming, kissing her on the cheek in greeting. Alec had smiled from his spot at the bar, a few metres off, beside Jace. He was glad that his sister and his boyfriend got on so well.
Isabelle had turned over her shoulder and waltzed back over to them, Magnus in tow. Magnus had glanced at Jace before he placed a kiss on Alec's lips, light and chaste.
"Is there a problem?" Jace asked, regarding Magnus and Isabelle with suspicious eyes.
"Your target is highly unlikely to respond much to this sort of trickery," Magnus told him, waving a hand to summon a drink. For himself, not for them. He knew they never drunk while working.
Jace's eyebrows had shot up. "Really. This has rarely failed us before. What makes him different?"
"He's about as straight as a circle, my dear Nephilim," Magnus had said, running his fingertip along the rim of the glass. "So, beautiful as Isabelle looks, it will do about as much for him as an orchid. Possibly less."
Isabelle had snickered at that. Jace's eyebrows hitched up higher.
"How exactly do you know that?" Jace asked.
Magnus looked at him like he was exceptionally stupid. "How exactly do you think I know a Seelie is gay, Nephilim? Use your imagination."
Alec glanced back over at the Seelie, who seemed to be entirely oblivious to their exchange. Magnus' meaning hit him. That... Him? Really? It wasn't really that Alec was jealous - although, obviously, the idea of Magnus sleeping with someone else was never going to be pleasant - it was just that... Angel, he looked like one of those overly arrogant people with no decorum that Magnus tended to despise, at least on some level. Like Jace.
"I was drunk, in my defence," Magnus said, clearly noticing Alec's look and interpreting it correctly. "There was...not a repeat."
"I don't need to know," Alec said, mildly, but firmly. "I want to know even less."
"Back to the job. He's gay," Jace stated. He turned to Alec. "Looks like this is your job."
Alec gaped at him. "Are you serious? Why can't you do it?"
"I'm not into guys."
"I'm not into my boyfriend's exes!"
Magnus' lips twitched. He was amused, Alec realised. And he wanted to mess up his stupidly perfect hair for it, because it was annoying in an adorable sort of way.
"It's just acting," Jace argued, crossing his arms.
"If it's just acting, you can do it. You're better at it anyway."
"Gentlemen." Magnus cleared his throat, and set his glass down. "How about I lend you ten minutes of my time? For a very small fee. I assure you, it won't take me long to extract your information."
"No magic," Jace said. "Or this will get messy."
Magnus rolled his eyes, pulling off his scarf and looping it around Alec's neck. "You underestimate my talents. Keep this for me, darling." He pressed a kiss to Alec's cheek, and then disappeared off into the crowd.
Alec kept a close eye on the proceedings. And, for a few minutes, he stood, arms folded, Magnus' silky red scarf held gently in his hand, eyebrows raising every time the Seelie leered at Magnus and looked down his shirt while they danced. At least he hadn't made a grab for him yet.
Without any warning, the Seelie bent forwards and kissed Magnus, cutting him off while he was speaking. Alec's jaw clenched. Magnus pushed him firmly backwards, shook his head, and said something to him. Something...with a flirty little wink. The Seelie grinned at him, and grabbed his ass.
Alec saw red.
He threw the scarf down on the countertop as Magnus laughed, shaking the Seelie's hand away gently.
"Alec." Jace's hand on his forearm stopped him. "Don't. Let it go."
Alec whirled round to face him. "He just kissed my boyfriend. And then groped him. Are you saying you wouldn't go and rip his face off if that were Clary?"
Jace pursed his lips. "This is a mission. You know there are no feelings in anything Magnus is doing."
Alec had relented. And Magnus had returned to them with the information, cheery as ever. He'd kissed Alec and said goodbye to him. Alec had barely responded.
He remained in a sullen mood all day. Which was how they'd started arguing, when Alec had been home for half an hour and still barely spoken two sentences to Magnus.
"It was for your mission!" Magnus said, when Alec, somewhat aggressively, told him what was wrong. "I didn't reciprocate!"
"But you flirted with him. Even after he kissed you and groped you, you freaking flirted with him!"
"Yes, Alexander! I get you your information! Just like Isabelle does."
"Isabelle doesn't have a boyfriend! And she doesn't let them kiss her!"
"Let them?" Magnus laughed incredulously. "What has got into you today? Why is something this silly bothering you so much?"
"So I'm being irrational. Great." He rolled his eyes, turning away from Magnus.
"This was nothing, Alec! How do you think I felt when you grabbed Jace like he was your long-lost lover and hugged him like there was nothing else in the world while I sat behind you having just saved all your lives? Again?"
"He's my parabatai!"
"Whom you were in love with! I never loved this guy. I don't even remember his name!"
"I never kissed Jace!"
And so now, Alec was stubbornly sitting on the other side of the sofa, miles of distance between them, doing his upmost best not to look at Magnus. He was just so angry. The jibe about Jace, throwing his feelings in his face, had been unfair, and it hurt. So much. As had the casual dismissal of his feelings. Even if Alec's upset was irrational.
He just...he just wanted to never have argued with Magnus at all. He wanted to have gone over and flirted with the guy himself. He wanted to not have the kind of confidence issues he did. Because with Camille, when Camille had kissed Magnus, he'd known that Magnus didn't harbour any lingering feelings for her. And that had been it. One non-consensual kiss.
This had been... Just too much for Alec to handle. He wasn't sure why it had bothered him so much. But it had. And it had built up into that nasty argument, and he just wanted to cuddle with Magnus and forget about it.
But he couldn't. For some reason, he just couldn't. And it was torture.
Magnus looked at him again. Alec pulled his legs up closer to his chest, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. Magnus sighed softly next to him.
"Alexander?"
Alec choked down the vicious words he wanted to hurl at his boyfriend, because they weren't fair. "What?"
"It's late. Are you coming to bed?"
Alec hadn't even noticed that the TV show had ended, and Magnus had turned off the TV. Huh. Showed how much attention he'd been paying to anything except his miserable thoughts.
"No."
He saw Magnus hesitate out of the corner of his eye. "It's gone midnight."
"I know. I'll sleep here."
Magnus' eyes widened. "You– Alex— Alec," Magnus said, sounding a little weak.
"Leave me alone, Magnus. Just...leave me alone."
Magnus gritted his teeth. "Fine."
He snapped his fingers, the lights turning off so the room was lit only by moonlight and streetlights from outside, and stood up, walking through into their bedroom. Alec heard the door slam, and he knew he was alone.
He exhaled, and grabbed a cushion from the other end of the sofa to rest his head on. There was a blanket thrown across the back of an armchair, which Alec grabbed, before settling down, trying to fit his tall frame comfortably on the tiny couch.
It was going to be a long, horrible night without Magnus' soft breaths and warm body beside him.
***
Magnus had no idea how things had spiralled out of control so fast. He knew - he knew - he shouldn't have said those things to Alec. He regretted it. So much. But since Alec had shut down their argument ("I don't care, Magnus," he'd said viciously. "Let's just watch your stupid TV show. Forget it.") he'd shown absolutely no willingness to talk about it, or listen to Magnus' apologies.
Because regardless of whether or not Magnus thought that whole affair in Pandemonium had been a big deal, it had clearly upset Alec, and if Magnus just listened to him, this whole thing could have been avoided. Not to mention his sneering comment about Jace. It hadn't even been true. Or, at least, the implication hadn't been true. He hadn't felt even the least bit jealous when Alec had held Jace when they got him back.
Magnus felt unimaginably despondent as he climbed into bed, alone, the room absolutely silent. It had been so long since he'd slept in this bed on his own. So long since it had felt so cold.
Well. Okay. It hadn't really been that long. Alec had only moved in a month ago, and while he'd stayed overnight fairly regularly before that, he hadn't stayed every night. But at least Magnus usually climbed into bed having seen a goodnight text from Alec, or having just hung up from talking to him, or just sending him a text for him to see in the morning, or when he got back from demon hunting.
It hadn't been this cold and lonely for months.
And it was his own stupid fault.
He sighed, rolling over, and reached for one of Alec's sweaters, which he knew was laying somewhere on the floor, because it had been discarded there this morning in an uncharacteristic show of messiness, when Alec had been called out to the Institute in a hurry.
He found it, material soft and worn, and hugged it to his chest as he curled up under the duvet. He pulled the sheets up to his chin, and tried to ignore the agonising pang in his heart and fall asleep.
***
Alec didn't know how long he'd been lying on the sofa, trying - and failing - to sleep, when he opened his eyes for what had to be the fiftieth time in the last two minutes to find an alarmingly large black monster staring back at him.
He stiffened, fingers tightening reflexively into fists, heart doing a little thud.
God, it was so, so stupid. It was a little fucking spider. He could literally stamp on it, or squish it with a glass, or just...ignore it. It wasn't like a spider (even if it was about two inches wide) was going to hurt him.
They were just creepy. He couldn't help it. Spiders creeped him out. They made his skin crawl, and he wanted them all to go away and leave him alone and never exist in his presence again. Because they were creepy little buggers that needed to go and eat some flies rather than sit around in his home staring at him.
The spider scuttled along the table. Alec flinched.
Damnit.
Reaching a hand out of his blanket cocoon, he grabbed the TV remote, holding it up as he slid his feet onto the floor and moved towards where the spider had stopped on the carpet, having run down the table leg.
Alec brought the end of the remote down. Gingerly, he lifted it up. And the spider...
Ran across the carpet, right past his fucking toes, what the hell, and under the sofa he'd just been laying on.
Oh, by the Angel.
Alec couldn't sleep on that sofa with a spider under it. He'd just sit there tense and eyes wide as he waited for the spider to make an appearance and creep the fuck out of him again. And he couldn't reach the spider.
Huffing, Alec dropped the remote back on the table, glared at where the spider had disappeared to, and stalked across towards the bedroom.
He opened the door quietly, because Magnus was probably asleep by now, dreaming of much nicer things than Alec's stupid ass. If Alec had just communicated, rather than started shouting, or told Magnus what had bothered him calmly, rather than acting like some moody teenager, they wouldn't have argued.
He wasn't going to take all the blame for this. But...it took the two of them for that to happen. It wasn't entirely Magnus' fault, either.
He stripped out of his clothes, peeled back the duvet, and climbed into bed as carefully and quietly as he could, trying to go jostle the mattress or disturb Magnus. The last thing he wanted was to wake Magnus up and give him another reason to be annoyed.
"Mmm." Magnus made a soft little groaning sound, and he rolled over. "Alexander? What are you doing?"
"Coming to bed," Alec said. But he stayed firmly on his side of the bed, no invading Magnus' personal space. Part of him was already well onto the way to forgiving Magnus, but part of him knew that they needed to talk about it, and that touching Magnus was probably a bad idea until he was told he could.
Magnus blinked at him in the dark. Alec could only just make out his features.
"I thought you were sleeping out there."
Alec sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. "The couch is too small. And also..." He hesitated. "There was a spider. It crawled under the sofa."
He felt Magnus staring at him. "A spider?"
"I hate spiders." Alec shuddered. "Creepy little things."
"Darling." Magnus sounded at once fond and amused. "You hunt demons for a living."
"Demons aren't tiny little things with eight legs that hide in dark places, waiting for you to let your guard down before they crawl all over you."
Magnus made a humming noise. "No, they're huge things with varying numbers of legs that hide in dark places, waiting for you to let your guard down before they eat you."
Alec huffed. "I don't like spiders. I can't help it."
Magnus snapped his fingers, a shower of blur sparks appearing in the air. "There. No more spiders."
Alec looked over at him, and he sighed, shoulders slumping. "I'm sorry, Magnus. I shouldn't have started shouting at you."
"Neither should I." Magnus smiled sadly. "I'm very sorry I didn't listen to you, Alexander. And I'm sorry for what I said. Especially about Jace. That wasn't even true. I know he's your parabatai. I'm not jealous of him."
"I know." Alec smiled back at him carefully. "I don't know why the thing in Pandemonium bothered me so much. I just... I don't know. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I forgive you. But you don't have to give me a reason for being upset. You're allowed to just be upset, and I should listen to you when you tell me you're unhappy. And I promise, I will try my best to listen to you in the future."
Magnus held out his hand. Alec took it, and squeezed.
"Thank you. I forgive you, too. And I- I'll try. To explain things without getting frustrated."
"That's the best we can do." Magnus shifted a little closer to him, and Alec lifted his arm to let Magnus snuggle into him.
He noticed the material Magnus was clutching in one hand, and frowned a little.
"Magnus?"
"Yes, darling?"
"Why are you holding my sweater?"
Magnus looked down at it, and then up at Alec. "Because you weren't here."
That's all the explanation he gave, and it made Alec's heart ache. He held Magnus tighter against him, Magnus hugging him back just as firmly.
"You're the only person I ever want to kiss," Magnus murmured. "You know that, don't you?"
Alec smiled. Because he did. He did know. And it was the strangest, most surreal thought, because he'd never in his wildest dreams imagined that he could have this. That he would be allowed this. And yet, here he was, cuddling with Magnus Bane, his boyfriend, in their bed, in their home, having made up after some stupid argument, and he couldn't have been more content.
"I do," he said. "I really do."