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one
Pretty boy, Magnus said, and it took Alec a moment to realise that Magnus was addressing him.
Jace had assumed he was the one Magnus was talking to, too, and stepped forward full of bravado, but Magnus had chuckled as though it was ridiculous that anyone could call Jace pretty boy — and then pointed to Alec.
Everyone — everyone — looked first to Jace. Izzy, who saw Alec as an older brother rather than as a friend; Max, who thought Jace was the coolest person ever; Maryse, who had a soft spot for her adoptive son that her eldest couldn’t match; the other Shadowhunters, who admired Jace’s skill with a blade without a thought for Alec’s strategies; anyone, everyone, who saw the two of them for the first time and noticed how attractive, how strong, how perfect Jace was.
Everyone, that is, except Magnus.
Magnus, who ignored Jace’s bright golden beauty in favour of Alec’s silver shadows; Magnus, who said pretty boy like an endearment, like Alec was deserving of compliments as much as Jace.
The conversation slipped onwards with worries about Clary’s memories and demon rituals and a lot of things that Alec probably should be paying attention to, but Alec’s mind was still circling around those words. By all rights, he should dislike it — Shadowhunters weren’t pretty, and Alec was twenty-one, not a boy — but somehow, when it was Magnus Bane saying those words, he liked it.
Even when he was back at the Institute and getting chewed out for yet another unsanctioned mission, even when his Jace/Clary/Izzy frustrations were mounting, even when the world was shaking to pieces and he had nowhere left to put his feet — even then, those words seemed carried around his heart in warm eddies, making everything seem less insurmountable.
two
Darling, Magnus said, and against all odds, Alec liked it.
He’d always thought pet names were kinda lame, a weird couple-y thing that didn’t really make much sense. Why would somebody call their partner, an adult, something like babe? It felt… demeaning.
Other pet names — ones from food or animals, for instance — were just embarrassing. Cutie pie? Pup? Cupcake? Panda? It was ridiculous and, in Alec’s opinion, entirely unnecessary.
But some pet names made Alec scoff not because they were ridiculous, but because he needed to hide his secret jealousy. He wanted somebody to call him love, dearest, sweetheart — those felt soft, with true emotion behind them, rather than just something couples did to be cute and couple-y. He wanted to be somebody who could be loved like that, who could love like that, who wasn’t trapped by duty and family and homophobia into a quiet loveless life.
And now, darling. Magnus called a lot of people by nicknames — Clary, for instance, was Biscuit — and he used my dear pretty frequently as well, but Alec had only ever heard him call Alec darling, and every time he did it, Alec couldn’t help blushing.
(Magnus, of course, noticed. They hadn’t been dating long, but Magnus absolutely delighted in making Alec blush, though he stopped if Alec became truly uncomfortable; darling made Alec smile under the blush, and Magnus therefore used it as often as possible. Alec really, really liked it.)
(Loved it would be more accurate, but their relationship was still too new for that.)
three
Alexander, Magnus said, and Alec shivered at the sound of his voice.
When Maryse or Robert called him Alexander, he had to suppress a flinch; it was always to censure him, to criticise his choices, to tell him he was doing badly. But Magnus never said it like that; when he was angry with Alec, he’d just say Alec, short and sharp but never as dismissive, as belittling, as when his parents called him Alexander.
When Magnus said Alexander, his lips seemed to curve around the sounds gently, caressingly. It made Alec feel like he was somebody special, somebody to be praised, somebody to be loved.
Magnus rarely called anyone by their usual names — Izzy was Isabelle, Clary was Biscuit, Jace and Simon were whatever similar-ish name Magnus thought of at the time, Ragnor was my dear cabbage — and Alec knew it was mostly just a quirk of Magnus’; somehow, though, with his name, it felt like… more. Like Magnus was telling him that he was enough, complete, whole, worthy of the extra two syllables that everyone else cut out for convenience’s sake.
Alec was who he was — short, sharp, to the point. His parents made his full name into a criticism of everything he couldn’t fit into the perfect Shadowhunter mould, but Magnus took those extra, unnecessary bits — the songs he hummed, the books he read, the love he felt — and made them into something worthwhile. You are good as you are, Alec heard. You are worthy of something more than fighting. You deserve to exist beyond the constraints of what others want of you.
The real magic, though, was this: Alec believed him.
four
Sayang, Magnus said, and Alec was honoured beyond words to hear it.
Magnus had told him about his past — his birth in Indonesia, his mother, his step-father, their respective fates — and Alec had listened with a wholehearted love that had made Magnus’ eyes widen with surprise. That past was something that Magnus didn’t often share — the Clave, for instance, knew nothing of it — but he’d shared it with Alec, a trust that Alec was proud to hold. The pet name, sayang, had appeared only after that, a symbol of the past that Magnus feared to show and Alec had embraced.
What does it mean? Alec had asked him, curious.
It means… darling, or dearest, Magnus had replied. Like what I call you in English. But this one’s in Indonesian.
Alec had smiled, because he knew exactly what that meant — it meant that Magnus trusted him with the weight of his past, with the shame that came with it. His mother’s suicide note had been in Indonesian; his step-father had called him a demon in Indonesian. But Indonesian was his first language, too, the only language he’d learned at a parent’s knee, the language he spoke when he was too tired or worn down to focus; it meant something, that Magnus used an Indonesian word for Alec, and that would never stop taking Alec’s breath away.
It was a visceral reminder — not that Alec needed one — that he had Magnus’ heart in his hands, and the look in Magnus’ eyes said that he trusted Alec not to break it.
Alec held it close to his chest and vowed to protect it, protect Magnus, with all that he was or could ever be.
Magnus deserved it, far more than anyone else Alec had ever met.
five
Husband, Magnus said, and Alec couldn’t help his smile.
Magnus was beautiful, as he always was, wearing a wedding suit selected with care and gold makeup that brought out his unglamoured eyes and, above it all, a mantle of happiness that made him glow. It’s like I’m walking on air, he said, and Alec felt the same.
They were married, in front of all their family and friends, vows spoken hands clasped runes burning on Alec’s skin. For so long, he’d dreaded a marriage — inevitably to a woman, inevitably loveless, inevitably painful; entirely inevitable, actually. But then Magnus had burst in with light and colour and life, and given Alec the courage to kiss him in front of the Clave for all to see.
And now they were married.
It was all that Alec had ever dreamed of and never dared long for while awake — a man who loved him, who he loved, with an impossible desperate love that he’d never felt before, who’d married him in gold and blue. Magnus, more than that, who smiled brighter than the sun, who held so much warmth and kindness in him despite all the world had done to quench it, who — inconceivably, beautifully — loved Alec.
Husband, he returned, and that smile brightened, and everything in the world fell away — inconsequential in comparison with the man in Alec’s arms.
plus one
“I love you,” Alec said into the soft bubble of silence they’d built in the midst of the Hunter’s Moon. It was an incontrovertible truth, one that went beyond words, but that wouldn’t stop Alec from saying it as best he could as often as he could.
“And I you,” Magnus returned. They both said it frequently enough that it should’ve been normal, nothing particularly special, but somehow every time Alec heard those words he felt an unerring flood of fondness, so much he could barely breathe around it.
They were on a date — a rare night off for both of them, which they were shamelessly taking advantage of to spend more time together — in the Hunter’s Moon, which was a bit loud since it was Friday night, but their surroundings weren’t really registering in Alec’s mind. It was partially because Magnus was distracting, all golden skin and dark hair and makeup and beauty, but it was more than that: with Magnus, Alec felt safe, like nothing could hurt him as long as he was at his side.
It had been disconcerting at first, that incomparable trust. Alec was used to clocking immediately if anyone was in the same room as him; even Izzy and Jace, as much as he loved them, reminded him that he wasn’t alone. He was a Shadowhunter; he paid attention to what was going on around him.
Magnus, though… Sometimes, he wouldn’t realise Magnus was there until Magnus touched him, or said something; Alec wouldn’t consciously be aware of his presence, subconsciously classifying him as not a threat. That meant it was startling when he caught sight of him; he usually saw anyone coming before they were anywhere near, but he might only realise Magnus was there when he laid a hand on Alec’s shoulder. By now, he’d relaxed about it, and relaxed enough for that numbing of Shadowhunter instincts to happen wherever he went.
He’d always been the perfect Shadowhunter, or at least he’d tried to be. His bow had been his first, and only, “irregularity” — most Shadowhunters preferred the close-up blood- and ichor-strewn atmosphere of the battlefield, and Alec did too, but it was more important that he could protect his family. He’d worked harder than ever to be the perfect Shadowhunter to make up for it.
But again, Magnus was the exception. With Magnus, he wasn’t Alec Lightwood, Head of the New York Institute, parabatai to the best Shadowhunter of the generation, demon-killer extraordinaire — he was just Alec, just Alexander, and that was enough.
The waiter approached to clear their plates away, pulling Alec from his thoughts, and he paid the bill with the credit card from his and Magnus’ joint account.
Then he stood up and offered a hand to help Magnus up, old-fashioned, and Magnus grinned, delighted. “Come on,” Alec said, almost overwhelmed by the sheer affection welling up in his heart. “Let’s go home, my love.”