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When Alec Lightwood thought about Magnus Bane, he thought about a few things first and foremost. One: kissing, two: kissing, three: kissing again, with a side of groping, four: laughter, and five: color. He also thought of glitter, but that fell somewhere between laughter and color, and was like Magnus' skin--just part of him.
With all the kissing, and how much Alec had grown to love it, it was still the many colors of Magnus Bane that held his imagination. Standing here now, looking into the warlock's charmed closet that turned "walk-in" into something more akin to "a large four-bedroom apartment on the upper east side," there was nothing within but color.
Even Magnus's black clothes were colorful--many of them had shining gold, silver, or jeweled buttons, subtle prints, or he would pair it with a kicky scarf or wear brightly colored makeup to break the monotony.
The closet was arranged carefully by color family, then by brightness, from what Alec could tell, and the whole thing followed the colors of a rainbow. Lilacs and blue-pinks, violets and purples, the many shades of blue--Magnus' favorite color, he knew--greens, then yellows and golds, oranges, peaches, and tangerines, and finally red in all its many permutations.
Alec wondered why, when Magnus couldn't be bothered to even pick up his apartment without magick, he would take so much time to arrange his clothing this way. The shelves that held his slacks were also arranged by color, then pattern, then material. Silks and velvets, cottons and blends. Jeans and dress pants, loose loungewear and even tights...which Alec didn't care to know the use of.
Then there were shoes. Honestly, he thought only women had this many shoes. He didn't even know so many shoes were made for men. Dress shoes, loafers, boots both low and high, fashion and cold-weather, even a few pairs of athletic shoes, although Alec couldn't think of a single athlete that would wear most of these. They seemed like they were primarily glitter, and one pair had platform heels.
Colorful didn't just mean the manifestation of physical colors, like those in the closet. He'd only begun to realize it since he'd gotten to know Magnus. Colorful meant personality, quirkiness, the unique things that made Magnus who he was. His graceful, dancer-cat walk, the way he used his hands like they were flowing through water when he did magic, the way those same hands did another kind of magic entirely on his skin. Sometimes gentle, sometimes rough, always fantastic, wondrous, more than Alec ever imagined a touch could be.
He saw stars when he and Magnus were together, whether just kissing or making love. He saw colors then, sparkles, explosions of rainbows and glitter behind his eyes, shooting stars, falling snow, every kind of fireworks in existence. The ones that shot straight into the sky and came back down, streams of gold and silver and red. The kind that blew up into mushroom caps, shimmering and lighting the world pink, and blue, and green.
Beautiful. He never knew there was so much beauty in the world, before the first time he touched Magnus' hand.
He tried to pick a single color that said 'Magnus' more than any other, but he was everything--all the colors. His skin, toasted cinnamon, his glamoured eyes melted chocolate, his natural ones glowing amber touched with green. His smile blinding white, brighter than the stars. His magic sometimes blue, sometimes purple, sometimes angry red, sometimes healing green.
Clary once told him that, white light was all the colors, technically, but that when you combined every color of pigment, you got a sort of murky not-color that was closer to black. Magnus was all the colors, and none of them. Alec couldn't imagine what the artists who had painted Magnus's collection of portraits of himself must have felt, trying to capture him with such a limited palette.
Of course, maybe they didn't love him, and didn't care if they did him justice or not, as long as they got paid. Or maybe, like Alec, they knew full well that a single moment suspended in oils or acrylics, or even photographs, for that matter, could never really illustrate all the wonder that was Magnus Bane. Not in color, not in black and white. One moment of Magnus was only the tiniest fraction of him, and never enough.
"Alexander, have you picked something yet? I agreed to let you choose for yourself, but if you're just going to stand there all night, I'll come in and do it for you!"
Right. Alec had been so lost in thoughts of Magnus, and what the colors of his wardrobe said about him, he'd forgotten that he had been sent on a mission to find something "appropriate" to wear to a club he didn't want to go to in the first place. He still didn't understand what was wrong with the black button up shirt and black jeans he was wearing, but... most of the time it was easier just to give in to Magnus than argue...and listen to him whine, and bitch and pout all night long about how "beautiful" Alec was, and what a waste his lack of style was, a "lost opportunity to show off all that spectacular skin, all those wonderful muscles, and those eyes..."
He blushed just thinking about it.
Alec spotted the jacket Magnus had been wearing the night they met, and automatically reached out to touch the silky silver material, the glittering blue snakeskin collar. Wouldn't Magnus laugh if Alec chose that? It wouldn't fit, of course. Though they were of a size, Magnus was much more densely built, Alec longer and leaner. The sleeves would probably come halfway up to his elbows.
Blue. It had to be blue. He was forbidden from anything "staid and stodgy," like black, brown, navy, or... really, anything he'd be comfortable in. But there were a few dozen kinds of blue here that Alec might not normally choose. He stayed in the neighborhood of bright royal--Magnus always said it made his eyes glow like witchlight. He quickly shed his black shirt and got ready to slip a shimmering azure tee over his head.
Before he could, warm hands that hummed with carefully-controlled energy brushed slowly down his back, from shoulders to waist. Alec shivered.
"If it's too much of a problem for you we could... not go out at all," Magnus ventured, fingertips lingering just below the back of Alec's waistline, teasing the dimples in his lower back, sending faint tickles of electricity into his nerves as he kissed the top of Alec's spine. "Then you wouldn't have to agonize over what to wear. We could wear nothing at all." He spun Alec before him and held up a hand, fingers ready to snap and make them naked.
Alec sighed and took the hand, stilling the snap before it began. "It's the grand opening of your new club. It's important to you."
Magnus stepped closer, came up on his toes so they were eye to eye. Alec suddenly couldn't catch his breath, the burning amber of his boyfriend's eyes like a treasure he wanted to possess for himself. "It's not as important as you. Nothing ever is."
The smile took him unawares. He held up the shirt. "I'm not going to disappoint you because of a tee shirt." Alec took a step back and pulled it on, the spread his arms to either side. "What do you think?"
Magnus stared at him for a measure of heartbeats, mouth open. He finally shook his head as if to break a trance. "Amazing. Just...I must have bought that shirt for you. It makes your eyes shine like--"
"Witchlight?" Alec cocked a wry eyebrow at him.
Magnus laughed, and leaned up to kiss him. "Apparently, I need a new writer." He offered his arm. "Shall we?"
Alec gladly tucked his hand in Magnus's elbow. "We shall."
So many colors, but the rose of love, the red of passion, had become his favorites.