Chapter Text
There were some times when Alec wondered why on earth it was he’d ever agreed to be the Head of the New York Institute.
Oh, it was a job he loved, he wasn’t denying that. Alec loved being in a position to look out for his people and make sure that they were all okay. It allowed him to protect, which was all he ever wanted to do.
But, at the same time, it was a job that could drive him to distraction on a good day. On a day like today? Well, between an injured patrol team, an attack of Valentine’s Circle members against a group of wolves, the loss of three more shadowhunters and four more downworlders, and the return of Maryse Lightwood right in the middle of all of it – suffice to say, it wasn’t a good day.
Which, honestly, meant that Alec was more than happy for any sort of distraction. Hell, he’d even take his siblings and Clary causing some sort of trouble at the moment if it meant he got out of here for a little while.
While it wasn’t his siblings who ended up distracting him – nor his boyfriend, who was by far and above Alec’s move favorite distraction altogether – it was someone he was definitely happy to hear from. A woman who had become a surprisingly good friend in the past few months; even if their friendship hadn’t started in the most traditional of ways.
Alec wondered how many people could claim to be best friends with the woman they’d left at the altar.
The smile that lit up Alec’s face at the sight of her number on his caller ID was the easiest it’d been all day. He pressed the answer button on his screen and let himself slump back in his chair, the paperwork on his desk briefly forgotten. “Hey, Lydia.”
“Hey, Alec,” Lydia’s voice was warm in that way that Alec was adjusting to, the one that only ever came out when she was in private and comfortable with the person she was talking to. He took it as a compliment that she felt safe using it with him.
With his free hand, Alec twirled the pen he held. “How are things in Rio?” Last he knew, that was the Institute she’d been sent to.
A soft sigh came down the phone line. One that sounded tired enough to have Alec’s smile falling away. “I finished up there. Actually, I came back to Alicante a few days ago.”
Alec’s worry grew a little more. He stopped twirling his pen and turned his full focus to the phone as every sense he had pinged something was wrong at him. “What happened?”
One of the reasons Alec had once thought he and Lydia would be so well suited to one another was their tendency to communicate in the same way. They were both pretty blunt for people who held political positions. Lydia’s was more due to not having been raised to be a politician an just a predilection for blunt honesty like Alec. From what he understood from their conversations, she’d left the political side of things up to her husband at the time.
Lydia had been raised a common military brat with the run of an Institute, taught to speak her mind, whereas Alec’s just seemed to be, well… a ‘personality quirk’ was the politest way he’d heard his siblings describe the way he spoke.
What that meant for Alec and Lydia and their friendship was that the two were able to talk to one another without any of the usual bullshit that Alec was so used to dealing with around other people. Lydia didn’t lie to him to soften a blow, nor beat around the bush or pretend like there was nothing wrong when there really was.
“I waited until I was sure before I called you,” she started out, a bit hesitant and yet pushing forward, giving him the honesty she knew he wanted. “I thought maybe it was just rumors at first. Or people talking after our wedding. But I’ve had it confirmed from people who spoke directly to your parents. Alec…word is spreading around Alicante that they’re trying to find you a wife. It’s being said that your kiss with Magnus was a rebellion, and you’re searching for a proper wife now to be brought back into the fold.”
For one single second it felt like the world froze. Alec went still, his eyes wide and his breath caught in his chest.
Of all the things he’d expected her to tell him, that hadn’t been it.
Alec wanted to argue it. To insist that she had to be wrong, that his parents wouldn’t do that. Not after the statement he’d made kissing Magnus at his wedding. Not after he’d made it so very clear that he was done hiding, done playing a part for them or anyone else.
Only – he couldn’t. Not when Lydia’s words rang with truth. She wouldn’t lie to him about this. Alec had no reason to doubt her. Not her word, and not his parents’ actions.
Alec stared at the wall opposite him and let her words sink in.
It should’ve hurt. Distantly, beyond the wall of numbness that seemed to be building around him, he knew that he should’ve been in pain. The kind of soul deep pain that he was far too familiar with when it came to his family. To his parents.
Yet, as he stared at the wall, as he listened to the soft “I’m sorry, Alec” that came over the phone line – Lydia’s voice layered with grief and sorrow for the person who had surprisingly become her best friend despite recent events – there was no pain in Alec. Just that numbness edged in a certainty that this had been a long time coming. Just another cut piled on top a myriad of others that he’d born for so long.
Alec closed his eyes for a moment as he let out the breath he’d been holding. For weeks now, months, ever since the wedding-that-wasn’t, Alec had felt like he’d been walking around his Institute waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’d done his best to keep on going, to run his Institute in the middle of a war, to keep his people safe, to protect them, and to maybe carve out a little time for himself to spend time with a gorgeous warlock who was somehow attracted to him of all people for reasons Alec didn’t understand.
Yet he’d known. He’d known something else was coming.
The signs had been there in the little comments his father dropped. In the hints of coolness beyond Maryse’s usual layer of ice. Alec had seen it coming, had known something would finally happy to push the already strained relationship between them.
The words Lydia had said to him had been dealt with as much softness as she could muster, and yet they landed with all the force of a hammer in the forge. A forge that had shaped Alec, molded him into the person he was now, forcing him to become what they wanted until he’d dared take a breath, a move, of his own, stretching himself thinner and thinner with each moment after.
This final blow shattered him. Broke him into pieces he was going to have to find some way to gather together and put back into some semblance of a whole. Only, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to do it the way they wanted. He wasn’t going to ever be able to fit that mold again. Whatever he made of himself after this, it was going to be something new and entirely his own.
That should’ve terrified him. Instead, Alec felt himself calm.
“Alec?”
Lydia’s hesitant voice echoed like the crack of a whip in the silence that had fallen between them.
Drawing in a careful breath, Alec clung to the numbness. He clung to the false calm that he knew would shatter eventually. Later. There’s time to break later. Right then, there were things he needed to do.
“Thank you for calling, Lydia,” Alec said. He was surprised by just how steady his voice was. There wasn’t a hint of the tremble that he’d been so sure would be there. His voice was as strong and as steady as if he were standing up addressing his people.
“What are you going to do, Alec?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? What was he going to do? How was he going to react? This wasn’t something that could be ignored. Not after everything. Not when Alec knew that ignoring it would only encourage them further.
Not when his mother, who had arrived so suddenly and so unexpectedly, was currently down the hall in his Ops Center trying to act like she still ran the place and pretending like she was somehow here to make things better. Playing her part to get into his good graces for reasons that were now so painfully clear.
That manipulation hurt almost more than the rest of it. The hope she’d given him that had now been ripped away.
It was that more than anything else that cooled Alec’s voice. “What I have to,” he finally answered.
Lydia yet again proved herself as a good friend when she didn’t question Alec on it. She didn’t demand to know what he meant, or start trying to talk him down, or even talk him up. She just let out a sigh and then told him “Call me if you need me. I’m just a quick portal away.”
“I will,” Alec reassured her. “And… thanks, Lydia.”
“I can’t have someone stealing my almost-husband away from me, can I?”
The teasing words brought a faint smile to Alec’s face. One that was quickly wiped away moments later when he hung up the phone.
A long beat of silence passed as Alec just sat there in his chair and stared at the wall across from him.
There was a voice deep down inside of him, one that had been bred and cultivated over years of what Magnus had been delicately trying to hint might be more abuse than parenting, that insisted he was overreacting to this. Not that this wasn’t a bad thing. Of course it was! But it wasn’t like Maryse or Robert could actually force Alec to marry someone. Nor did he really think any woman was going to want to tie herself to him. He’d walked away from Lydia at the altar to kiss Magnus in front of everyone. There was no doubt in Alec’s mind that every shadowhunter out there knew what he’d done. No matter what Maryse or Robert tried to insist, no one was going to believe it was just some rebellion.
So, it wasn’t like this was actually going to come to anything. There was no reason to get so upset over it.
And yet…
The other part of Alec, the part that had gradually been getting louder and louder, pointed out that the fact they even thought to try was bad enough. They knew what he felt, knew he was with Magnus, and yet they were still making attempts to find a wife for him. Knowing that it wasn’t what he wanted. Knowing that he would be forever unhappy in a marriage to a woman.
Then again, when had his happiness ever really factored into any of their plans?
Grief washed over Alec like a tidal wave. He closed his eyes against it and took a moment to just… feel it. To acknowledge this last bit of proof at how little he as a person mattered to two people who should’ve put his happiness above anything.
What Alec wanted didn’t matter to them. It never had, and if this was anything to go by, it never would. They weren’t going to stop. They were going to keep trying to use him to somehow wipe away the sins that they had committed. As if it were somehow his responsibility to pay the price for their crimes.
He was a Lightwood. The eldest. He’d been raised to believe that it all fell on him. Protecting his family, protecting his people, atoning for sins he hadn’t committed, bringing honor to a name far more smeared in dirt and blood than he had ever realized.
Alec could go out there and tell Maryse no. Tell her that her plans had been discovered and he wasn’t going to go along with it. Make it public enough and he might even get away with it. But, no. Even that, Maryse would find a way to weasel out of. Manipulation was her game and she was a master at it. If Alec wanted to make a statement, if he wanted all this to stop, there was only one thing he could do. One thing he’d planned for even as he’d also tried to plan any way around it.
He’d hoped the recent quiet meant that things had calmed down. That maybe he wouldn’t have to do this.
Apparently, he was wrong.
A calm certainty settled in Alec’s chest. He knew what he had to do. Just as he knew it was going to change everything. But he couldn’t – wouldn’t – continue on like this. Not when his family was making it so very clear where they stood.
He’d given them every single chance in the world and they’d blown it. Over and over and over again. This was the last straw.
Alec pushed himself up from his chair. He reached out, grabbing his stele off his desk, and for a moment he stared down at it, thinking one last time about what he was about to do. About what it would mean for him, his siblings, his Institute. No one was going to take it well, he knew, but… he couldn’t keep going on like this. Not when his parents had just proved how little Alec’s actions and words mattered to them. How little he mattered to them.
No matter what he said or what he did, it wasn’t going to be enough. It hadn’t been before, and he’d known that. Had lived with the weight of it on his shoulders day in and day out.
Now it was finally time to be enough for himself. To hold himself to his own standards. Make his own way.
If he wanted to be able to do that, this was going to be his only option.
Turning on his heel, Alec marched from the room, determination carrying him forward. Toward a future that was about to get a whole lot more uncertain.
Alec had thought that walking down the aisle to Magnus was the most nerve-wracking thing he’d ever do. It was the first time he’d reached out and taken something for himself simply because he’d wanted it. Alec had taken that step away from the life he’d been pushed into and moved toward the one he wanted.
Taking that step had felt massive, and difficult, and scary in ways that had kept him chained down for so long. But he’d done it. There’d been a sense of peace afterward, even, like he’d finally made the right choice. Finally went onto his own path.
Now, Alec realized that it had only been the first step on his journey. A large one, yes, but a single step nonetheless.
Today he was about to make another large one. One that would take him even further off the path his parents had set him on and into entirely new territory.
The thought was as terrifying as it was liberating.
Alec used both those feelings to help fuel him. They carried him from his office down to the Ops Center with a calm that he didn’t truly feel yet had years of practice projecting.
Somehow, despite all that, Alec still felt all eyes on him when he walked into the room. Most of the shadowhunters looked up out of habit and instinct. They were trained to clock any person that came in a room, any potential threat. He expected them to look, to notice, and would’ve chided those who didn’t.
What he hadn’t expected was for those eyes to stay locked on him. For the room to slowly but surely go quiet as Alec walked into the center of it all.
One person didn’t stare, not at first. Maryse Lightwood was too busy going over some sort of report with a shadowhunter who had looked to Alec.
It gave Alec a small sense of satisfaction when Kai Dusktree took one look at him and immediately snapped to attention, ignoring Maryse completely. Very few people ignored Maryse and got away with it. Yet Alec’s people did exactly that. Kai paid zero attention to whatever Maryse snapped at him, his focus fully on Alec.
Alec stopped in the very center of the room. Just a few feet away from where his mother stood with her back to him.
He folded his hands calmly behind his back and waited.
It didn’t take her long. Alec had known it wouldn’t. A power play in public like this required careful maneuvering, and she could only afford to ignore him for so long without breaking the message of I love my son, I’m trying to fix things that she’d so far been projecting between her usual bouts of swooping in and fixing everything she felt her children were doing wrong. Still, Maryse turned slowly, in her own time, trying to hold on to a sense of power. As if she were granting him her presence instead of giving in to him. Alec allowed her that illusion of control for the moment. All eyes watching knew better.
“Has something happened?” Maryse asked him, every inch the commander in that moment, demanding a report from her subordinate.
Alec drew in a deep breath and watched her. He’d wondered what was going on when she’d showed up. Had felt himself year a little, deep down in those quiet places inside him, at the hints she’d given that said she might’ve come to try and fix things between them.
A stupid hope. Alec looked at her now and knew just how naïve that thought had been. Maryse wasn’t here to try and fix things with him. She was here to try and fix him.
“I just got a phone call from Lydia.” Alec’s voice was calm and steady, yet it projected around the room. A skill he had learned at his mother’s knee and perfected in his tenure as leader here. He didn’t have to shout to be heard.
Maryse lifted one dark eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware you two still spoke.” Underneath that Alec could hear the real words, the I didn’t think she would talk to you after what you did to her.
“We talk frequently. She wanted to let me know she’d just returned to Alicante from her trip to Rio. Apparently she heard a few interesting things once she got home.”
If Alec had even suspected that Lydia might be wrong, those suspicions were banished as he watched his mother lock herself down so that no emotion could show through. That screamed her guilt as clear as a verbal confession. The only reason for her to lock herself down like that was to hide, and the only reason she might have to hide…
Alec swallowed against the lump that had built in his throat. “So it’s true.” He heard how flat his voice had gone. How the emotion had drained out of it in a mimicry of the look Maryse was wearing. It was the only way he knew he could get through this without his voice cracking. “I knew it had to be – she wouldn’t lie. But I’d hoped.”
“This is something we can talk about behind closed doors, Alec,” Maryse tried to say, drawing herself up taller as she did. So clearly ready to sweep him away so that their dirty laundry wasn’t aired out in front of the whole of the Institute.
Too bad for her Alec had no intention of letting that happen.
“No.”
The whole room fell quiet. Just the sounds of a few sensors beeping, maybe a click or two of a mouse, but otherwise… silence.
A faint twitch broke through Maryse’s control. It tugged briefly at her lips. Then she smoothed them back out, and her glare darkened. “Alec…”
“No,” he repeated firmly. “We’re not going to take this behind closed doors so you can yell at me and insist all over again that you’re doing what’s right for me. I’ve spent too long hiding everything behind closed doors. I’m not doing it anymore. I’m done cowering in front of you. I’m done letting you control my life through pain and threats.”
Countless words sat in Alec’s chest just waiting to be said. Aching for it. Yet he held them back. Because… what was the point? What could he say that would have any effect whatsoever? They wouldn’t change her mind. Maryse wasn’t going to listen to him now. Why would she, when she never had before?
Alec stood there in front of the whole of the Institute – the whole of his Institute. An Institute full of people he had worked with, trained with, fought beside, punished, praised, commanded. People who had been mostly handpicked by him, with a few bad apples he’d yet to find a way to discreetly transfer out without attracting the ire or attention of the Clave, who behaved so much better if they thought they still had some of their people, some of their spies, in his midst. He’d had plans for finding a way to weed them out of here safely. A plan for all of them, really.
That was likely to be lost now. All his plans, gone, damaged by a kiss, and about to be broken completely with one fell swoop of his stele.
Yet, that didn’t stop him. Alec stood in front of them, and even though a part of him was aching at the idea of having to leave this family he’d made, he knew what he had to do. What was necessary to protect the remnants of the family he’d been born with.
Alec and Maryse met eyes across the silent floor of the operations room. Whatever she saw in his gaze now clearly had her reassessing her strategy. She took one step toward him, and her eyes narrowed a little.
“Alec.” Her voice was low and steady, with that undercurrent of warning that had once been enough to curb just about anything Alec might do.
No more.
This was a moment that had been building for so long. Something Alec had planned for, yet hoped he’d never have to do.
All eyes in the room were watching as Alec slowly sank down to one knee. The gesture could’ve looked subservient – it should have. Yet there was no doubt in the minds of anyone that he wasn’t here to kneel before her. Alec’s conviction gave his posture a strength that, though he didn’t know it, made him look like a King.
With steady hands he reached down for the cuff of his pants, and he quickly and easily rolled them up just high enough to reveal his right ankle and the black symbol that lay starkly there. The symbol of the House of Lightwood. A rune, granted to them by the angel to denote their new family, their true family, from the minute the angel had accepted them into service. It was said that any ties to the mundane had been left behind when Raziel first drew those early groups into his service. That, in accepting their pledge, he’d offered them a sign of a new life.
The Lightwood rune was one of the few runes still left from the old families. Though new families had been born since then, brought into the fold and their family name recorded in the Book of the Nephil, the naming-runes were a sign of an old, pure family. A sign of their ties to one another, to their family, and to the angel.
What had once been a mark of their promise to Him had been twisted into a show of power. It was a mark all new generations born to that line were gifted with after their rune ceremony. A mark Maryse had taken the day she’d pledged her love and her life to her husband.
Alec looked down at it, and he felt his heart give one last throb. One last moment of pain before calm wrapped around him.
When he lifted his stele, his mother’s voice rang through the room again, and Alec thought that this time he heard a faint quaver underneath it. “Don’t do this, Alec. Whatever problems you have, we can discuss. If you do this…”
“I’ll be one of the Nameless,” Alec finished for her. He looked up and met her eye once more. His conviction stood out clear in every inch of him. “I’m not a new shadowhunter, to take on a name of choice, and I’ll be striking my old one from my body. I’ll become nameless, powerless.”
Like a newly born shadowhunter fresh from the cup, tied to no one. Or one of the cast out, deemed unworthy of their name and punished in the worst way possible for a people who put such stock in names and lineage. Dishonor often followed those who were nameless. For clearly, what honor did they have without a name? The fact that he was doing this to himself, that he was doing it this way before witnesses, was the only thing that might prove to be his saving grace.
It was a risk. Some, he knew, would never believe that he’d made this choice. They’d look at his life, they’d look at his relationship, and they would whisper to one another about the boy who’d fallen for a male warlock and lost his name because of it.
But…
“Better one of the Nameless than to spend my life trying to make up for the crimes you committed,” Alec said, his voice soft yet firm. “Better to be nameless than to tie my life to a people who aren’t worthy of my fidelity, or my respect.”
Alec didn’t give her any time to argue with him. To say something, try and bribe, threaten, or order him back.
In one move he swiped the stele over his rune, and in doing so, erased lifetimes of history from his body.
The rune burned for a moment as all runes did. Then, Alec watched in silence as the rune briefly flared, then darkened, and then as it began to fade.
As he stared down at the slowly fading lines, a part of Alec couldn’t help but think that he should feel some sort of pain. That it should hurt to leave behind the family he had been raised in, that he had breathed and bled for, that he had given up so much to be a part of. Yet, to his surprise, what he felt most was relief.
Ever since he’d been old enough to walk Alec had carried the weight of generations on his shoulders. He’d shouldered the responsibility of being the oldest son, the Lightwood heir, the one who was going to – who had to – bring honor to the Lightwood name. Even before he’d known the true depths of their dishonor the weight had still been a heavy one. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Now, as Alec knelt there on the floor of his Institute, all of that bled away with the loss of that single rune, and he was relieved.
When Alec looked back up at the woman who had been his mother, the woman who had borne him and raised him, he let her see that relief. Let her see just how much she had truly lost here.
Judging by the grief in her eyes, his message got through.
For a brief moment Alec saw his mother underneath his general. “What have you done?”
“I did what was right.” Alec packed those words with every ounce of his conviction. That very same conviction kept his spine straight as he rose back up to his feet. He stood with his spine straight and not a hint of regret showing on him anywhere. “I refuse to take another step forward with the horror of your lineage standing over me. It’s my hope to make a better and brighter future for our people – something a Lightwood wouldn’t ever be able to do.”
“You are a fool. I can’t save you from this.”
One corner of Alec’s mouth curled up. “When have you ever saved me from anything? You fought to save the family name, not me.”
Those words were true, and they both knew it.
“I hope you’re happy with your choice,” Maryse snapped. She’d recovered, at least a little, and was drawing herself once more inside that hard shell that she’d built so many years ago. It hardened her features and sharpened her gaze into the dangerous look that Alec associated with his mother. One that had replaced any bit of kindness he’d ever remembered from her. “You’ve given up everything, thrown it all away, over a warlock who won’t even remember your name a month from now.”
“I didn’t do it for him.” The words were simple, and yet they rang with truth. The kind of truth that no one who heard them could ignore. “Meeting Magnus, being with him, that helped the decision along. But I didn’t make it because of him. I made it because of me. Because I realized that nothing I said, nothing I did, was ever going to be enough. Not for you, not for the Clave, and not for any of the other old families who look at me like I’m a disgrace because I happen to love a male warlock.”
It felt so good to say those words out loud. To release them from the aching place they’d been hiding inside for so long, clamoring to break free since his wedding. Since Alec had taken that first step away from everything he’d been raised to be and toward everything he’d ever wanted for himself.
Alec looked at Maryse, and though it hurt, he smiled. “I realized I was never going to be happy so long as I was tied down to you and everyone else like you who think blood matters so much more than who a person is.”
“You think this will make you happy?” Maryse demanded sharply. “Giving up your life, your name, your Institute?”
That last part had Alec battling back a flinch. He knew it was a risk – knew what he could very well lose.
Maryse saw it and she smirked, unable to resist digging that knife in a little deeper in a place she’d so clearly sensed weakness. “Do you really think anyone is going to follow one of the nameless as their leader? The Nameless are ridiculed. Shunned.”
He knew that. He’d known that ever since the idea first came to him. Which was part of why he’d chosen such a public setting for this moment. “They’re shunned because they’re cast out. I chose to leave. Something which every person in here will bear witness to. I didn’t abandon my people, and I don’t plan on it. Being Nameless doesn’t take away from any of that.”
“We’ll see what the Clave has to say about that.”
Alec dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Yes we will. But for now, I have things to take care of, and the rest of you have jobs to do.” He let his gaze sweep over the room around him. This was a test – one that his people passed spectacularly.
Though there were a few stares, and some curious looks, it warmed Alec’s heart to see the way that every single person snapped-to at his words. They all returned to their work without any sign of hesitation, and just a brief salute of fingers to forehead, palms flat. It was a display of respect and loyalty that was almost enough to steal Alec’s breath away. It gave him hope. Hope that maybe he hadn’t lost everything today.
He had to swallow a few times before he could get the lump of emotion out of his throat. When he finally did, he turned his focus to one of his nearby shadowhunters, Anthony Bellgrove. “Anthony.”
Anthony was one of the newer transfers. Born and raised in the New Guinea Institute, he’d transferred here just a week after Alec’s failed wedding. He was quiet, kind, and had proven himself to be loyal.
When Alec called out to him, Anthony immediately passed over the paper he was looking at to the man beside him and turned sharply toward Alec. “Sir.”
“I’m heading out for the night. Any reports that come in I want funneled through to my phone. If something happens with the patrol unit, make sure I’m notified immediately. I also need someone to arrange for a portal for Colonel Lightwood back to Alicante.” Alec turned to look at her as he said the last part, making absolutely sure as he did that his voice was firm. “I believe it’s time for her to return home.”
“Of course, sir,” Anthony reassured him immediately.
Without waiting for Maryse to react, Alec turned on his heel and made his way toward the front door, deliberately ignoring everything and everyone. Not that anyone tried to stop him. Though they all kept working, Alec knew they watched him as he left.
The minute Alec was out the front doors of the Institute it was so tempting to break down. To give up the iron control that had helped to get him through all that. He could feel what was waiting for him – feel the pain that was hiding underneath the relief and the resolve that held him. But he couldn’t let it through. Not yet. Not here.
There was only one place Alec could even begin to think of going in that moment, and he didn’t let himself hesitate to head there.
To keep himself going, Alec pulled out his phone and quickly started to draft a message as he began to walk, succinctly summing up the evening’s events and sending it to Benji, his secretary, to take care of. Benji had been with him for a while now, helping Alec out these past few years as he’d tried to cope with everything that came his way ever since that first agonizing year when Maryse and Robert had dumped the Institute in young Alec’s lap and left him on his own.
Benji had been one of the few to see just how much Alec was struggling and offer to help instead of just sitting back and waiting for him to fail. He’d helped Alec out discreetly, often under the guise of sparring sessions and quiet visits in the library. As Alec later learned, the man had been trained to be a leader as well, though he’d never wanted the position. He’d run away at the first opportunity, transferred to another Institute, and never looked back.
When the Institute had become Alec’s, appointing Benji as his secretary had been the smart choice – the only choice. There was no way he could run the place without the other man’s help. Benji’s experience meant he had the kind of knowledge others didn’t. He was also one of the most loyal people Alec had ever known.
Composing the email to Benji didn’t take long. Soon enough it was done and sent off, and Alec was left alone with his thoughts. Something which he wasn’t ready for.
Alec quickened his steps until he was running. He didn’t let himself stop, didn’t let himself think, just ran for the one place he knew he’d be able to find some peace and comfort. Somewhere no one would be able to bother him at least for a little while.
He barely paid any attention to what was around him. Not until he was inside Magnus’ building, standing outside his door with barely any memory of his run there. His feet had taken him along a path he’d come to know so well. One that his heart knew would lead him to safety and comfort and the kind of love that gave him the strength to do anything.
This had been the only place Alec could think of to go right now. Magnus the only person he wanted to see.
Alec’s control was barely holding together. When the door in front of him opened on its own, without him even needing to knock, and Magnus stood there smiling at him, Alec swore he heard it as the weight of it all finally became too much and the hard shell he’d wrapped himself in cracked and broke.
“Alexander! You should know by now you needn’t wait to come in.” There was warmth in Magnus’ tone and written all over his face – he was always so happy to see Alec, like there was nothing else that could’ve made his day better. Yet that warmth quickly gave way to worry. “Darling?”
For a second Alec wasn’t entirely sure he was going to be able to find his voice. When he did, he winced a little at the hoarse quality to it. “Hey. Can I… can I come in?”
Magnus’ brows drew down and made a worried crease right in the middle. Not since the early days had Alec been so nervous sounding to come here, to come right in to what was quickly becoming a second home for him. “Of course.”
As if he could tell that Alec didn’t have the strength or the willpower to make that move on his own, Magnus reached out for him. The hand that wrapped around Alec’s bicep was somehow gentle and firm all at the same time. It tugged him forward, and Alec followed easily with steps that began to falter just the slightest bit.
He didn’t pay any attention to the way the door shut magically behind him. All that mattered in Alec’s world was the hand that tugged him inside. They barely made it a dozen steps beyond the door when Alec stumbled, and Magnus was right there to catch him.
Alec didn’t fight the change in position. As soon as their bodies connected Alec felt himself just melt. He sank in against Magnus’ chest and felt it as his boyfriend shifted to better support him. Magnus took his weight easily and braced Alec up even as they sank down to the ground. Strong arms curled around Alec, one around his waist dragging him in close and the other up over his back, holding him firmly against Magnus’ body while they slid to their knees.
The minute Magnus’ arms closed around him, Alec slumped down even more, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He buried his face in against Magnus’ neck. Somehow he found himself gripping the back of Magnus’ shirt.
“Oh, Alexander.” The words were a soft puff of air against Alec’s hair. The arms around him tightened even more, and Magnus turned his face in and nuzzled gently against him. “My sweet little dove. I’ve got you.”
He didn’t ask what was wrong the way anyone else would have. Instead, he just held Alec close and let the younger man fall apart in his arms. He held Alec through every tremble, every gasping breath, every second where the foundations Alec had built himself up on seemed to erode away.
Alec had held it together so well during his confrontation with Maryse. He had stood tall and he’d stayed strong, and it had felt good. So why did it feel so terrible now? Now that he was here, and safe, and away from it all, why did it hurt so much?
Cradled in the safest space in the world, Alec still didn’t make a sound as he broke apart. As always, he grieved quietly, the noise locked tight behind his teeth. But the rest of him? The rest he trusted over to Magnus.
He had no idea how long they knelt there for. But not once did Magnus try and move him along. He didn’t hush Alec, didn’t question him, didn’t try and make him move. He just stayed right there and let Alec take what he needed.
It was Alec who eventually broke the silence. His voice was whisper quiet, breathed out against the warm skin of Magnus’ neck like some shameful little secret. “Can I stay here, just for a little while?”
Magnus’ answer was an immediate, “Absolutely.” The hand on Alec’s back moved up to stroke through his hair, moving lightly as if to tuck some behind his ear even though none of it was long enough. “You can stay as long as you need. You are always welcome here with me, sayang.” A soft kiss was pressed to Alec’s temple. “I’m pretty sure our nice, warm bed is calling your name.”
The use of the word our normally would’ve sent a curl of warmth through Alec. A strange sense of belonging that he’d never known anywhere else. Not like this. Yet at the moment he felt too shattered for that. Too raw. The vulnerable places where he held his fears of never fitting in, never belonging, never being enough, had been torn open by what had just happened and what he’d done, and Alec couldn’t feel the usual hope he did that maybe he’d finally found somewhere that he fit perfectly.
In the end, Alec didn’t have to say anything. Magnus seemed to somehow just know, the same way he seemed to know everything else about Alec, all those little things that no one else in his life had ever noticed.
“Come on,” Magnus murmured. He pressed a kiss against Alec’s hair. “Let’s get you laid down, hm? I give much better cuddles when my partner doesn’t have to strain their neck to bend down to me.”
The arms around Alec shifted a little, and he fought back the whimper that wanted to come tumbling free. Cuddling in bed sounded, well, it sounded amazing, but breaking away from Magnus’ hold to get there sounded like the worst kind of torture.
The arm that had been around Alec’s shoulders briefly let go, only to come back again underneath Alec’s arm, nudging it up so that Alec had no choice but to wrap that arm around Magnus’ neck. He didn’t stop to think about why. Not until Magnus drew back a little, and then shifted so he was kneeling on only one knee. Then he slid his other arm behind Alec’s legs and picked him up.
“Magnus!” Alec tightened his hold, instinctively trying to curl his body in, as if making himself smaller might somehow make this easier.
Magnus kissed his forehead and smiled at him. He rose up from one knee to standing as if it were nothing – a display of strength Alec would think about and enjoy later. “Hush. I’ve got you.”
The other man showed no signs of strain whatsoever as he took Alec through the loft and back into what was quickly becoming their bedroom. He made for the massive bed that dominated the room, and he moved to kneel on it before very carefully laying Alec down like the most precious of bundles.
He let go only for long enough to snap his fingers and change both their clothes into comfortable sweats and shirts. Alec startled a little at the change, shivering just a bit at the gesture he still wasn’t quite used to, but Magnus was there in the next second and everything got a little bit easier with the steady, firm pressure of those arms curling around him.
The two of them ended up tangled together in the middle of the bed with Alec tucked in up against Magnus’ chest in a way they usually only did when Alec was in need of comfort. Like this, Alec was better able to push in close and hide until everything he felt, everything he smelled, everything he saw, was Magnus.
One of Magnus’ hands stroked up and down Alec’s back. He lifted his leg, curling it over Alec’s hip so that he was further pinned down in a way that should’ve felt restrictive, and yet was exactly what he needed.
Alec closed his eyes and pressed his forehead in against Magnus’ collarbone until sparks danced behind his eyelids. He felt safe, and comfortable, and a bit embarrassed. The soft “I’m sorry” that slipped out felt like not enough, and yet he wasn’t sure what else he could give.
Not that it made any difference. Magnus shushed him almost instantly. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for, Alexander. Whatever’s going on, I’m so glad you came home.”
Of course Alec had come here. From the instant he’d known what he would have to do, Alec had wanted to come here. He felt safe here. And he’d promised Magnus not to push him away.
He didn’t realize he’d said those words out loud until Magnus made a soft, wounded noise, and his grip on Alec tightened. “You are. You’re safe here, pet. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
There, held safely in the comfort of his boyfriend’s arms, protected behind his wards, Alec stopped trying to fight the grief that was inside him. He stopped holding it back, stopped trying to be strong. Maybe later that relief he’d felt before would come back. Maybe he’d even be happy about his decision. Though it hadn’t been an easy one, he knew it was the right one.
But there, in that moment, with someone Alec trusted far more than anyone else, someone he loved and who impossibly loved him too, broken parts and all, Alec let himself grieve. Not just for what he’d lost, for that part of himself that he’d cut away, but for everything else that went along with it. He let himself grieve for what it would mean for his future and the future of his Institute.
He wasn’t a Lightwood anymore. Those expectations would no longer sit on his shoulders. Everything Alec said, everything he did, would be judged on his own merit. But the honor? The respect and the protection that came from being one of the old families? That would be gone now. Not even him dating Magnus would be as bad as being one of the Nameless in the eyes of so many shadowhunters who would never believe Alec had done this on his own. Who would always believe that he had been cast out, shamed for who he was and who he loved.
Alec knew it was the right choice, the only choice he could’ve made. And he would stand by it.
Just… not yet.