Malec Week Day #003 (3/7)

banewoodcatnip:

I’m just barely in time, at least in my time zone. I’d apologize, but maybe it’s apology enought to point out that my day has been hell and i hadn’t actually planned on writing anything today. But this made me feel better instantly. So I’m sending all of you who had bad days out there a little bit of warmth. I’m sure the morning will bring better things.

I admit my AU… is little AU except for some changes that wouldn’t be apparent immediately. (I apologize for this. It might have to do with the fact that I really checked for tomorrow’s topic?)… Does this count? I hope it counts. I’m a wreck today. This is all I can do.

—

… And so ended the rule of a legendary king, the words are pitch-black ink on beautifully cream-coloured, handmade paper, but legends say he will return when the world needs him most. Magnus’s fingers spread on the first page of the old and well-kept edition of the book that is perched on his knees, dark red binding on a black skinny jeans that glitters with silvery fibres. The warlock’s eyes drifted back over the pages, only resting momentary on the colourful initiums.

The words aren’t catching in his mind anyway, Magnus’s thoughts still with one of his recent parties and the acquaintance of that shadowhunter with the perfect blue eyes. Black and blue. He enjoyed the combination, had for a while now. The warlock might even go as far as to claim it as his favourite these days, though it had not always been like that. But he was old, and if you counted as many years as the warlock did you were allowed the occasional change in taste. (Besides, the sun caught just in the same fascinating way on dark black as it did on ashy blonde.)

Alexander Lightwood. Always with the “A”’s. Magnus figured it might be fate’s way of laughing at him even after all these years. It was this whole repetitive cycle, he was never going to escape it. (Wasn’t losing him once enough?)

Seeing the shadowhunter, meeting him and meeting him again, was like greeting lady fortune at the door. Magnus wished he could greet her like an old friend, but the truth was she smiled at him cruelly and reminded the warlock that, even with all this power, he was unable to save him. (There had to be a way. He just hadn’t thought of it yet. He would, he would eventually.)

The warlock had almost failed to save Alec Lightwood the other night. The boy with the ivory skin and the raven hair had lain lifeless on the bed, the blood drained from his lips and the colour gone from his cheeks. Magnus had, oddly and strangely, been reminded of a thousand images of fragile, death-like beauty and in sympathy for Ophelia (-and didn’t he look like her? All dark and pale and beautiful? But he couldn’t be dead, not again, no no no-) the warlock couldn’t breathe for a second.

The magic in him soared and almost burned the warlock’s fingertips. He could tell that it tried to reach the soul tied so closely to himself, the other side of the same coin. Magnus worked mindlessly to save the nephilim, detached himself from his own mind and played the role he’d taken for so many decades now.

Magnus Bane. High Warlock of Brooklyn. Because that’s who he was now. A warlock that liked pretty blue eyes and honest hearts; Alec Lightwood was both and he’d fallen so hard for him already. But there was no system to this at all. At least, Magnus told himself that firmly (lied through his teeth) while blue sparks illuminated the space around him and Alec. Thank every god there was, he managed to save the nephilim because he could have hardly been held accountable for his actions otherwise.

Magic came and went in this world. Even Magnus himself wasn’t sure anymore whether the history they all wrote was accurate in all its bits – he knew that some were lies – they always held account of magic. Of course, their words to describe it changed every other century. They’d called them witches, sorcerers and demons. It was downworldlers these days, warlocks.

Humankind always held magic in their midst. They didn’t always treat it very kindly, changing the truth behind it into legends and stories that faded from their minds soon after. It didn’t matter, there was little honesty in their stories anyway. Magnus knew that the very book on his lap told more lies that truths, the words twisted and bended into some fathom story that didn’t resemble the king – his king – at all. Well, maybe except for some bits.

The king was indeed brave, indeed endlessly kind and his eyes had been- a knock on the door startles him. Magnus’s eyes, gold and green, flash more golden for a moment and the book is gone from his hands while, in one fluid movement he’s at the door. As if thoughts could draw people, and maybe in this case they could, there is one Alexander Lightwood on his doorstep.

Magnus figures that he is probably losing the tight control he prides himself of, when he kisses Alec at the end of the hour, takes him with him when he leans against the door and cares little that this is the first kiss for this boy in this life. His lips are attached to Alec’s throat and his magic becomes suddenly brittle against his skin everywhere, he’s shocked at himself, how easy he slips. It’s not him, at least not fully. He doesn’t remember, so it’s not him-

But when they part and the boy looks at him so prettily, grabs him for another kiss over the threshold before leaving with a spring in his step, Magnus – no, that’s not true- Merlin thinks: Oh, you prat. Why is it that you get me every time, Arthur?

(And a whole while later, Alec steps into his space in that dammed realm Edom, a gleaming sword in his hand at which Magnus thinks Excalibur, greeting the metal, and his eyes widen comically. All the breath rushes out of his lungs and for a second the warlock fears something bad has happend, but a smile draws the nephilim’s lips apart.

“Merlin”, he breathes and Merlin swears that for a moment he can feel the way the universe expands around them and a supernova in a neighbouring galaxy and the core of the earth glowing. But all of that matters little with his whole world suddendly becoming perfectly and wholly right.)