A Four Line Stanza

by Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron

Summary:

Alec was losing time. Literally. Between one blink and the next he didn't know where, or when, he was.

Chapter 1

There was a fly,
It flew around my eye,
As we were beneath the tree,
My father, death, and I-

“Is everything alright?” broke through the words staining the page in front of him. Alec turned, catching his mom’s worried face before she straightened into a small smile. “Alec?”

“I’m fine.” Right? He felt fine.

He saw her sway in the doorway, and knew she was stopping herself from coming in. From checking on him properly. But dad had made her promise, Alec had heard them last night. He’d made her promise that they had to start treating Alec like the adult he was, and if he said he was fine, then maybe he was and she had to leave it at that. That didn’t mean Alec didn’t catch how hard her nails dug into her pant leg. Or the tightness around her face as she told him, “That’s good.” and, “I think your father’s fetching something from the city for supper tonight. Should be nice.”

“Yum,” Alec forced out. He wasn’t one for Alicante’s food. Their take outs were weird, always an odd blend of foods that shouldn’t be put together but somehow were. Alec blamed the shadowhunters who ran it. Who always went on their travel year but refused to stay put any longer. Those were the ones who usually ran places like that. Who thought because they’d tasted it once it would pair nicely with something else they’d tasted at another Institute.

He wondered if there were any snacks left in the pantry. He’d have to check once mom left him alone. Which she didn’t look to be doing anytime soon as she still lingered in Alec’s doorway.

“Was that… everything?” he hated to ask. But it was like he couldn’t speak to her anymore. Dad was easier. Dad yelled. Dad made his thoughts known, horrible some of them might be. He didn’t stand there looking at Alec like he might break. Like he already had and the pieces were so disjointed there was no hope of putting him back together again.

Mom took a breath at the prompting, straightening up once more and forcing that false smile back on. “Yes,” she shook her head, “Yes that was, erm, dinner’s in an hour so,” she tapped his doorway a few times before leaving, and loathe as Alec was to admit it, the silence that filled her spot was more welcoming than her presence there. Silence didn’t question him. Which- hey, that wasn’t a bad line.

He jotted it down, spending the hour it took for dad to walk through the door trying to find something that rhymed with ‘him’. Something that wasn’t stupid like, “first of all, Jim is a name. Second of all, how am I supposed to fit Jim in a poem about silence?” God he was really going crazy here if he was taking a stupid poem this seriously. Alec of last year would have wept if he could see him now.

Max seemed to think the same as he rolled his eyes, muttering, “You’re so weird-”

Which immediately had both their parents snapping something of the likes of, “Max!” “We do not use that word in this house!” Like Alec didn’t already know he was weird. Like he hadn’t known he was weird since he was ten years old and the thought of marrying a girl was still as abhorrent as it had been when he’d been five.

Max curled that little bit further over his meal, Alec wishing more than anything he wasn’t the cause of it. But, well, what could he do? He’d tried defending Max once. Weeks ago sure, but it hadn’t gone down well. Meaning Alec just had to hope that Max knew Alec didn’t care. That was what siblings did. They called each other weird and names and got annoyed with each other. It was just how things were. It was how things should be.

Not this.

Alec could only force down so much of dinner before he had to excuse himself, and thankfully did it just after Max had left. It was all too easy tracking him down, his brother hadn’t made it far in the house on those tiny things he called legs. Yanking Max back until they could fall into step Alec promised that, “You know I don’t mind if you call me names.”

It said a lot that Max peeked up at him behind his glasses before murmuring, “I know.”

Alec stopped them, looking around the corridor before saying again, “You can call me what you like. I call you whatever too. Just, maybe we don’t do it in front of mom and dad for a while okay? They’re both being really weird, nevermind me, and I know it’s not fair that you’re the only one being called out for it.”

“It’s really not fair,” Max agreed, glancing hesitantly at Alec once more before murmuring, “dipshit,” at him.

“Hey!” Alec knocked him, “Keep it clean dickface.” He nudged Max forward again, the two of them making their way up the stairs to the bedrooms. “Also I stand by what I said, Jim is a shit rhyme for him.”

Max sniggered, asking, “Why are you even writing poetry? It’s like, lame.”

“It’s not lame.” Not when other people wrote it. “And when you’re not allowed to do anything but sit in your room and stare at a wall maybe you’ll grow an appreciation for it as well.” Quite frankly Alec would rather be spending his time doing a whole host of things. All of them outside. But outside privileges came after he got his door reattached, and that wasn’t happening any time soon.

“Why poetry though? Why not like, a story or something?”

“I…” The thing was he had written stories. There were a few notebooks full of spidery handwriting that didn’t end in commas. But writing tales didn’t help the way poetry did. He got invested when he wrote tales. He… immersed himself. He lost himself in them, and every time it was harder and harder to claw his way out. So, “I like poetry.”

Max shook his head, muttering, “Weirdo,” over to him, before taking off before Alec could knock him over for it.

He gave chase anyway, Max laughing as he shut himself in his room. Alec swore revenge as all brothers had to do before retreating to his own room, where his book and ink waited at his desk, just like it had before, and would continue to wait for him in days to come.

 

Silence didn’t judge him,
Or sit glaring grim,
It merely was and always would be,
An outcasts favourite hymn,

He set his pen down, glancing up only to feel his eyes stinging as light forced its way through his window. He hissed, rubbing them until he could see straight again, eyes searching until he could find his watch. He needed his watch, finding it on his bedside table. He heard his chair clatter as he dived for his watch, noon greeting him, and noon again.

“ALEC?” screeched up to him, mom rushing in after a moment. Her speed rune was activated, her eyes were fixed up, darting around, fear pinching every corner of her face before she finally glanced down and found him. The fight drained out of her in an instant, her blade dropping to the floor as she hurried over to him. “Alec what’s wrong? We heard a crash.” she cupped his face, turning it this way and that in case something had cut him open on his way to his bedside table. “Alec?”

“I-” noon. It was noon. “I tripped on my chair.” It couldn’t have been days. Mom would be less worried. Could she tell however, sitting there, could she tell there was something wrong with him? Or was she seeing what she had been for weeks now?

Whatever it was, she chose to accept the lie, brushing his hair back before helping him up. “You need to be more careful.” Or they’d take his chair away from him as well. He knew. He’d only just gotten his chair privileges back.

“I will be.”

She brushed his hair back one more time before calling for dad, Alec following her out the room to see dad finally relax the grip he had on Max’s door. Max tumbled out not long after, both their faces pale as mom told them, “He fell over his chair,” a broken laugh escaping her throat.

Dad didn’t look as amused. “Be more careful,” he told Alec, the warmth mom had missing in his tone.

“I will be,” Alec promised again.

Dad nodded, his hands unclenching at his sides before he walked off, mom not long after him. The only one who didn’t leave was Max, his face still pale as he fiddled with his shirt. Alec leaned against the wall, letting Max take his time as he worked up the courage to ask, “Can I play in your room today? I won’t leave a mess.” like that would bother Alec.

“Of course you can.” He waited, too, for Max to fetch what he wanted, and just to prove that he didn’t mind Max being there, he made a mess himself. “I’m not Jace,” Alec laughed, “I don’t mind if you spill things.” which garnered a smile out of Max. Both of them knew how anal Jace could be sometimes. Actually, all the time. 

Since it wasn’t anything sharp, merely paint and a few sheets of paper, when mom and dad checked in they didn’t shoo Max out like they might have done another day. Instead they acted almost normal, dad scolding Alec for his younger brother having more artistic talent than him.

“It’s not that bad,” Alec laughed, holding up his picture of Coco next to Max’s.

“Your brother is eleven,” dad shook his head, “It’s shameful he’s better than you.” Alec could see Max preening from the corner of his eye.

“Wh- He’s had more practice than me.”

Dad shook his head again, “Shameful,” he called, walking off to find mom so she too could judge who was the better artist. She even pinned Max’s painting on the fridge, telling Alec outright he was going to have to look at this every day until he could do better. Max was on cloud nine come supper, he was even talking about telling Jace and Izzy about his accomplishment. Alec was just happy he could make Max happy. Even if that happiness, for himself at least, was short lived.

His watch lay on his bed where he’d left it before supper. Time had ticked on, nine staring where noon had once been, meaning it had been Alec that was the problem. The watch worked, it was him that didn’t.

 

Time ticked on, yet I sat still,
No heat I felt, no wind, no chill-

“Can I read one?”

Alec felt Max’s head knock into his own as he jumped, Max hissing away as Alec clutched the bump that hopefully wouldn’t grow. “Don’t sneak up on me.” His vision cleared enough for him to check his watch. Eleven. Two hours. That wasn’t so bad. In fact, considering he could remember the seconds it took to think of something that rhymed with still he wouldn’t even count those two hours. He set his watch down, covering his notebook before turning to see Max set his glasses back on right. “And no, you can’t read one.”

“Why?” Max demanded. “Are they that girly?”

“You know girls write some of the best poetry on the planet right?” He had a few of their books in his room actually. He’d stolen them from the mundane library when he’d been younger and just… forgot to return them. “Also, your sister is a girl, so be careful what your definition of girly is.” since if Izzy was into weapons and demon hunting, didn’t that make it girly?

Max hadn’t thought about it like that, and like Jace, all those years ago when Alec had posed this same question, Max dropped a little of that misogyny Alec knew he got from some of those shadowhunter kids he hung around with. “Fine, they’re not girly. Can I read one?”

“No.” Alec didn’t have to think about it. If he wouldn’t show mom, there was no way he was showing Max.

“Why not?” Max demanded.

“Because.” He had to think of something better than that and fast.

Especially since Max’s anger had quickly dropped to suspicion, his eyes darting to the window before asking, “Are they about a girl?” like Alec’s window showed anything other than the long stretch of forest that lay outside of Lightwood manor.

“No.”

“Then why?” Back to anger.

“Because.”

“I’ll tell mom,” Max threatened.

“Tell her then.” Mom would be on his side. Alec knew for a fact she would be. For a price. She’d ask to look at them, and unlike with Max Alec probably wouldn’t be able to fend off mom. She… okay, maybe getting mom involved was a bad idea. “Fine,” he caught Max before he could stop over to the door. “Fine, fine, you can read one.” He had to have something about flowers or something in his notebook. “One.” Max bounced back over, “then you’re gone. Got it?”

“Fine,” Max agreed.

Alec carefully dug his notebook out, keeping the pages out of Max’s eyeline as he rooted through the pages for something that wasn’t so… depressing. It took fourteen pages for Alec to really see just how much he’d been writing, and how many of those that he’d wrote were about things he’d tried to escape from when he’d turned to poetry.

He eventually found one about a bee. Hidden at the front of his notebook, he gladly showed that one to Max, and, okay, it wasn’t the best, but did Max really have to twist his face like that? It was still something Alec had written. Some nice criticism would be appreciated before Max lay into it.

“Okay,” He snatched his notebook just as Max’s fingers started turning the pages. “You read it, you saw how lame it was, now please leave.”

“Wh- I didn’t say it was lame,” Max argued.

Alec shot him a look. “Leave.”

“Oh come on,” Max whined.

“Out,” and Alec really hated that he didn’t have a door since it meant there was no certain way to keep Max out. Nothing but hope and the threat of being sat on which Alec implemented as soon as he saw the gears ticking in Max’s head to sneak in when Alec was asleep. “I swear I will. I don’t care if you’re only eleven. Ask Izzy. I still sit on her if she crosses me.” Yes, maybe it had been a couple of years ago now. But that was simply because Izzy hadn’t done anything to warrant being sat on.

Max scowled, stomping his way back to his room. Alec waited in his doorway, watching as Max’s door opened once, then twice, both checking to see if Alec was there, before staying closed the third.

He changed as soon as he retreated into his own. He couldn’t remember when the last time he’d slept had been. So many times, these days, he was sure he did, but the memory of changing, of being under his sheets, alluded him. Not tonight however. Tonight he did what he usually did. What he remembered was usual for him. He suffered through looking through his wardrobe at clothes that hadn’t been worn in months. He changed into things his dad had picked out, with pockets that were nonexistent, and went downstairs to bid his parents goodnight, his mom lingering more than his dad when they followed him back up to bed.

Then he lay there, staring at his ceiling. Sleep had never felt as scary as it was these days. Voluntary unconsciousness. Time moving without him once more and Alec unsure when he would wake again.

It turned out not long into the future, for which he would be thankful for. Right then, with sleep sticking to his eyes, he kind of hated Max for jumping on him, even if his brother did have good reason.

Lifting the covers, Alec checked the time, then the window, the night sky of Alicante filtering in just like it had two hours ago. Max stuck himself firmly to Alec’s side, the pair of them laying back and listening as mom and dad fought below. “Is it about me?” Alec murmured. It usually was these days. Alec would have felt guilty for making them hate each other if he didn’t already know they’d been at each other's throats for years. This had been going on long before Alec and his problems.

Still, he didn’t exactly help matters, and he knew it. Which was why he was surprised when Max said, “No.”

“No?”

“I heard Jace’s name,” Max said, and if Jace’s name was mentioned then it really wasn’t about Alec.

“Like, something happened to Jace?” Alec asked, doing his best to feel through the faint bond still twinging at his side to see if Jace was alright.

Nothing felt off, and even faint as it was these days Alec could usually tell if Jace was hurt. “More like mom and dad are angry at Jace.”

Which was just unheard of. “Angry at Jace?” Mom and dad were never angry at Jace. Izzy maybe. Alec definitely. But Jace? Very rarely had that happened, and usually, like before, it was because he’d gotten himself hurt and they were more worried than angry.

But Max was adamant, “They’re angry at him. And Izzy. Apparently they’ve been messing around at the Institute.”

Which didn’t surprise Alec. What did was that they’d been caught, and apparently that it was causing a fight. Alec hummed, nudging Max slightly, “At least it’s not us.”

A small laugh came from his side, Max burrowing his head deeper, “Yeah.”

The fighting went on and on. Whatever had happened in New York was really getting them going. So much so Alec actually felt guilty that, “I’m sorry I don’t have a door.” A soundless rune wouldn’t work without one. “Or a stele,” since he was sure it was possible to soundless other objects and tape them to their ears. He had a vague memory of him and Jace doing that when they were younger.

“That’s okay,” Max muttered, Alec feeling tiny hands clutching his shirt, “I’m just happy you’re here.”

Alec hummed, and after a short while, tried to find sleep once more.

The fighting didn’t stop.

In fact it seemed to grow worse.

More than once Alec found himself throwing his pen down as the noise downstairs ruined his concentration. Not that he was completely mad about it. The noise seemed to help him. It snapped him awake whenever he felt time slipping away from him. That didn’t mean he enjoyed listening to his mom and dad constantly fight however. Or that it was starting to get to Max either.

More often than not Max begged Alec to come play in his room, and when Alec said he couldn’t, Max ended up in Alec’s, the pair of them wincing whenever one voice would raise above the other. “Please, please?” Max begged one afternoon. Mom and dad were really at it again. So much so Alec actually considered giving in and letting Max show him his new manga collection he’d been dying to show Alec for weeks now.

But, “You know I can’t. Mom and dad said no closed doors.” Not unless one of them were in the room with him, and Max wasn’t one of them. He seriously hated his parents for that right then. He understood why the rule was in place, but that didn’t mean Alec couldn’t hate it.

Especially when Max was forced to spend another afternoon either alone, or in a room with Alec where he could hear every vile thing their parents thought about each other.

It got to a point Alec actually considered involving himself. Except, when he went to go down and do just that, the fighting just stopped. Three whole days of silence they were blessed with. Mainly because dad was out of the house for most of it. But when he was back, him and mom appeared to be all fought out. That, or, as Alec would come to know, they were merely preparing to leave.

As soon as mom announced it over the dinner table Alec understood why some of the fights would have happened. Dad didn’t want to be in charge of Alec. Alec didn’t blame him either, he hadn’t exactly made things easy on dad. But mom needed to check on the New York Institute, and dad was too much of a pushover when it came to the other two. At least with mom there Izzy would put her head back in gear.

“How long are you going for?” Alec asked.

Mom and dad shared a look, “Not long,” dad answered, or, more accurately, seemed to beg mom.

“A few days,” Mom specified. “I am still head-” a cough from dad, “joint head, of the Institute. It’s probably for the best I show my face. Maybe grab some paperwork your brother will have neglected.” He knew it wasn’t a jibe at him, but Alec couldn’t help thinking that it was. If he wasn’t here, he’d be there filling out paperwork. Mom would trust him to do it as well. She used to trust him with a lot of things. “While I’m gone, I want you boys on your best behaviour,” and Alec was a little grateful Max was included in that glare as well. “No take out the whole time. No neglecting our studies Max, and Alec-”

“I know.” No doing anything that would cause mom to come home early. “In fact, I have plans.”

“Plans,” mom repeated, eyes darting to dad.

He held his hands up, “I didn’t know about this.”

“It’s nothing big,” Alec huffed. “I just thought I might go with dad to see the Blackthorns tomorrow. If that’s okay?”

Another look was shared between them, dad asking, “Can it not be put off?”

“I mean, it can, but, I was kind of hoping it wouldn’t be.” he needed out. He seriously needed out. “You guys are gonna have to let me out eventually you know.”

“It’s not about that,” Mom tried to say since it was exactly that. “Do you really think you’re ready to be out Alec?”

“I’m literally walking twenty minutes there and twenty minutes back. It’s not like it’s an all day thing. I just want to drop something off.” Maybe see people that weren’t related to him. Helen had been inviting him around for weeks, it would be nice not to have to rebuff her again because his parents said he couldn’t go.

Dad was the one who eventually caved, figuring, “There are a lot of people at the Carstairs house. Andrew says they’re inviting the Penhallows too.”

“Robert-”

“Maryse,” Dad soothed, “We’ll only be there a few minutes. Right Alec?”

“Promise.” A few minutes of freedom was better than nothing. A few minutes was all mom agreed to as well.

But he was going. He was being let out, and Alec was so happy about it that he didn’t even notice when the hours slipped by. Not until he found himself blinded by sunlight, the house nowhere to be seen and dad with his arms outstretched watching Alec like he was about to keel over.

“Alec?” Dad checked.

“Where’s…” The house was gone. The sun was up. He’d changed and from the feel of his face shaved, somehow. Mom wasn’t here. But Max was. Dad was, and looking at him like he’d finally registered something was wrong.

“That’s it, we’re going back.”

Had dad not even known? Alec had never asked, never wondered before, what happened when time fell away from him. But if dad hadn’t known-

His arm was grabbed, dad yelling for Max and, “Dad no! Dad come on,” he was out. He was- this wasn’t fair.

“We’re going home,” Dad said, and said it again “NOW Alec!” before Alec could even try and argue. His grip was just that shy of painful, and with Max looking more panicked by the second, Alec didn’t try and fight dad dragging them home.

He did make his displeasure known, especially when he wasn’t even allowed downstairs, dad yelling at him until he was firmly encased back in his room, at his desk, in his chair where it felt like he’d waste his life away.

“You can’t keep me here forever!” Alec snapped when dad walked past after seeing to Max. Almost instantly Alec regretted it. Even more so when dad backtracked, and although he didn’t say anything, the look he gave Alec said he’d do what he had to if it came down to it.

He didn’t even care that time slipped away again. Sometimes he wished years would go by. That he’d wake up and his hands would be withered, or he’d simply not wake up at all. It would save him this. It would stop him from feeling, again and again, like he was waking up in the middle of a sentence. No context. No time to get his bearings. Just suddenly he was there, staring at his wall as he, sat beside his bed, listened to his dad quietly call his name.

“You with me?” Dad asked, his hand gently squeezing Alec’s own.

“Yeah.”

Dad had calmed down. Alec wondered what that was like. To have time to process emotions. For his heart to not suddenly want to leap out of his chest when he remembered where he’d been before he woke up. “It’s eight,” dad told him, the window saying as much as well, the sun sinking below the fields.

Alec took his hand back, stuffing it under his legs as he tried to force himself to calm down.

“Is it getting worse?” Dad asked.

“I’ve basically lost a whole day,” Alec laughed, a horrible thing. But it wasn’t like Alec hadn’t lost a day before so, “I don’t know.”

There was so much unsaid between them. Things Alec could hear as dad sat there, silently looking at him. Dad wouldn’t say them however. Not without mom there to play bad guy. Dad could be strict, but he’d never wanted to be hated. He’d gladly leave that to mom, but mom was gone, meaning dad had to settle for, “What were you going to see the Blackthorns for?”

Alec shrugged. It wasn’t like it mattered now. He’d not be allowed out for another five weeks after today. “Just wanted to meet Helen. Aline says she’s nice, and our age so,” he shrugged again. “I er, wanted to give her this as well,” he pulled the stupid poem he’d shown Max says ago from his pocket where it still sat, handing it over to dad. “It’s stupid, I know. But one of her brothers ran past my window a few weeks ago. I thought she might like it.” He’d been holding a little bumblebee under his arms as he checked the treeline. Hence the bumblebee poem.

Dad pursed his lips, something Alec wasn’t sure he liked glinting in his eye as he observed, “I could always give this to them you know. When your mom comes back that is.”

“Dad,” he reached for it back, dad keeping it out of reach.

“No, no, come on. This is a good thing. Girls love poetry you know, and you’re right, we can’t keep you here forever. At some point, you’re gonna get better, and when you do,” Oh dear God no, “it’s always nice to know there’s someone waiting for you.”

“Dad,” he shook his head.

“The Blackthorns,” dad nodded to himself. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself. She’s quite lovely Helen as well.”

“Dad no.”

“I’ll make sure she gets it,” dad promised, ruffling Alec’s hair and leaving before he could even think of lunging for his poem back.

Dear God what had he done.

Max, of course, found the whole thing hilarious. “Dad thinks you have a crush on Helen Blackthorn?” He sniggered.

Alec huffed out a “Yup,” into his pillow.

“But you’ve never even met her,” Max laughed.

Which didn’t matter to dad? When had never meeting someone ever mattered when it came to love? Hell there were countless stories Alec could name off the top of his head of people falling in love without ever meeting. There were even mundane kinds who fell in love with a woman through their portraits alone. The Blackthorns and Lightwoods had a history together as well. Dad would be more than pleased with the idea of Alec interbreeding again, even if Helen was, as everyone called her, a halfbreed. “What am I gonna do?”

Max snorted because, of course he did, he didn’t have to worry about marriage and girls for a good five, six years yet. Not like Alec. Or Izzy. Hell, according to mom Izzy was considered an old maid in Idris. Alec still had a good few years before he was ‘expected’ to settle down. But if dad really got going with this idea, worse, if Andrew thought it was a good idea as well, things were about to go from torture to hell on earth in Alec’s life.

“You know you don’t have to marry her,” Max reminded him after a while. “Like, you don’t. Especially if she doesn’t like you.”

Which was a point. A good point as well. “Dad’s not gonna see it that way.”

“So?” The bed bounced as Max shuffled his way up to Alec’s pillow. “Alec, think about it, with the way you are do you honestly think dad’s gonna marry you off anytime soon?”

Another good point. But, “Max she’s got seelie blood.” Not just distant seelie blood either. Her mother was a seelie.

“So?”

“So,” Alec repeated, sitting up, “Look, I know you’re eleven and some things are still new to you but Idris is very… picky when it comes to marriageable material.”

Max, thankfully, was still blissfully unaware of what Alec was trying to tell him, which made Alec hope for the future since they definitely needed more kids who didn’t care if their friends had downworlder blood.

Unfortunately, Alec’s age group was still a little old fashioned meaning, “Helen’s seelie blood means she probably doesn’t have a lot of people asking her out. If I show interest, her father’s more likely to sign her over to us before even getting to know us. It doesn’t matter if I like her or if she likes me, if I’m willing, or if dad thinks I’m willing, then she’s as good as married to me.” poor girl.

Max’s face twisted, “that’s weird.”

“I know.” He fell back to his pillow, lamenting the rest of the afternoon away.

 

From my window, I saw a bee,
Who dipped and dived across a tree,
No flowers in sight,
Just children’s delight,
As they hid -run!- from that bumblebee

“I love it,” Helen said. She was prettier than Alec thought she’d be. Her hair was light, her features pointed in that classic seelie way. But there was still something fundamentally Blackthorn about her. Something her brother held as well, and who Alec was doing his best not to glance at as listened to Helen read his poem out loud for Mark.

“It’s sweet,” Mark agreed.

Helen pulled a face, “I hate you,” she told Alec, not unkindly. Just that she, like him, knew why dad had invited her around today. Her and her siblings.

“I know.” It would be easier to actually dislike him if he was a jerk. He’d actually considered trying to be one, and had even attempted it. But Helen thought the dry joke he’d made was actually funny. “I’m sorry.”

She rolled her eyes, tucking the poem into her pocket. “It’s fine. Although you could have just come to one of Aline’s meetups instead of,” she gestured around her.

“It’s not like I didn’t want to.” The poem itself had been an excuse to just get out the house. Now it had spiralled to this. This being Alec and Helen being chaperoned by her brother as the rest of their families mingled out back. Mom would have a fit when she found out dad had planned this without her. He slouched a little further in his chair, the gap in the blinds letting him see Max running around with a few teenagers and a little girl around his age. “Is that the Carstairs girl?”

Mark leaned over him to see through the blinds himself, Alec having to forcefully stop himself from breathing in that constant smell of roses Mark and Helen gave off. He kind of hated that it was working for Mark and not for Helen. If it were, maybe being here wouldn’t be so bad. As it was, Alec felt like he was being tortured the few seconds Mark leaned over him, “Yeah,” he hummed, “That’s Emma. Her and Julian are like, inseparable.”

“Emma wants to be his parabatai,” Helen chimed in. “Which means she basically lives with us at this point.”

He watched the way she gravitated around the second oldest Blackthorn boy. “They’re seventeen right?” Mark was twenty, Helen twenty three, like him. Or, that was their supposed age. He’d asked dad last night how old Helen even was, hoping for something a little younger so he could beg he wanted someone with more… maturity. But no, Helen was his age, and Mark almost the same age as Izzy. Again, supposedly. Who knew with seelies. Even half seelies. “One more year.” Then it was either bond or live separately.

“Hey yeah, you have a parabatai don’t you,” Mark remembered.

Alec nodded. “Jace.” Idiotic, throws himself in head first Jace. “He’s back in New York.”

Mark shot a look to his sister, Helen slouching in her own seat, “You realise we have another reason to come over now right? Emma’s gonna be begging us as soon as she realises she has like a holy grail of parabatai knowledge across the street from us.”

“I’m so sorry,” Alec said again.

“I think it’s funny,” Mark waggled his eyebrows Alec’s way.

Helen kicked his shin, “I don’t. No offence Alec.”

“None taken,” he promised, “Trust me, you’re not my type either. I just wanted to make a nice first impression with Aline’s friend.”

“Well you certainly did that,” Mark muttered, earning himself another kick. He shuffled that little bit closer to Alec, the sweet smell of flowers wafting into his nose again. “Look, if you really want to get out of this then, in my opinion, pretend to date for a few days, then say it didn’t work out. Dad can’t force you into this.”

“But…” Helen made a few faces her brother’s way, Alec getting the feeling he was missing something here.

Sure enough, “I’m sure Aline will understand you… leaving her alone for a few days. She might even find it funny.” Helen made another face at him. One Mark ignored as he told Alec, “Seriously, it won’t be hard to find something you don’t like about her. She’s the worst.”

He felt his lips quirk without his permission, Helen pouting at both of them. But nevertheless she agreed, and both dad and Andrew Blackthorn had good news to celebrate that night as they all waved each other goodbye.

“I hear wedding bells,” Dad called up the stairs.

“Unless they’re chiming from a mental institution I don’t think it’s happening dad,” he reminded him.

Dad didn’t reply, Alec thought he was trying to hold onto this last vestige of normality while he could. Who knew how long Alec had to be normal after all.

Since time didn’t disappear on him, seriously, it was like whenever he wanted it to it didn’t, he woke up that next day to dad hounding him about Helen. Everything from ordering flowers, organising another chaperoned date, even hovering over Alec’s shoulder when he hid in his room in the hopes he would write her another poem. “One just for her. I think the bee was a good opener, but we should think of something more romantic to really reel her in.”

Okay, first of all, “We?” Alec didn’t know dad was helping him write poems these days.

“Well,” urgh, dad puffed his chest up a little, “I did write my fair share of love letters back in the day.”

“Oh dear God.” He prayed he’d never see them in person. Please, if there was an angel up there, let dad keep his romantic thoughts to himself.

Which he didn’t, and Alec was a full on atheist come that afternoon as he tried to deafen himself from the letters dad had dug out of his old keepsakes box. Max was no help either. He loved the idea of Alec spending more time with Helen now he’d met her family. After all, if Alec and Helen spent more time together, than meant Max could play with Helen’s siblings. Ty and Livy had seemed to take a liking to him. Well, Livy had, Ty seemed to spend more time fiddling with the bumblebee on his backpack than anything else when he’d been over.

“Did you know that Ty has read all of the Sherlock Holmes books?” Max rattled on in his ear, “Livy said that he really likes detectives, and one of my mangas is based off the Sherlock Holmes stories so…”

Alec had never been happier to hear mom come through the door than the morning after. His one constant in this sea of insanity, she took one look at him and tutted at his unkempt appearance. Nevermind that he’d literally just woke up. “I hope you behaved yourselves.”

“Oh I did,” he told her. “Dad on the other hand, he’s trying to set me up with Helen Blackthorn.”

Mom reared around at that, “Why on earth would he do that?”

Alec shrugged. Maybe if he got her on his side things would quietly go away. “He even had them around yesterday mom, I just- I can’t-” maybe he was laying it on a little thick, but mom was hugging him, and later, as he watched her drag her suitcase upstairs, he heard what he wanted to hear.

Dad was an idiot.

Alec wasn’t going to have any romantic prospects until he was better and that was the end of it.

“I mean honestly Robert, what if he-” her breath caught, Alec keeping as still as he could with his ear pressed up against their door, “we can’t do that to that poor girl.”

“But they’re perfect for each other,” dad argued.

“Then we’ll set them up when he’s better,” mom snapped. “It hasn’t even been three months yet, and as long as he’s still having his episodes I am not putting any more stress on him.”

“What are they saying?” spooked Alec nearly to the ceiling.

“Do not sneak up on me,” Alec ground out, dragging Max away from their parents door in case they heard them. “And nothing. Just that dad’s an idiot.”

“Well duh.”

“And I’m not semi engaged anymore,” Alec cheered, which had Max upset until around five when mom being back meant he didn’t have to suffer through Idris take out anymore.

Everything was back to normal.

Except it wasn’t.

Even with mom putting her foot down, whenever she went off to do her business in Idris, dad would be upstairs pestering Alec to write to Helen. Alec couldn’t say anything about it either since he wasn’t supposed to know mom had told dad to leave it. Which meant Alec was back in hell. Hell made worse by the fact that Andrew had no clue that Alec was ‘ill’, and nor would he, meaning he had no problem sending letters Helen supposedly ‘wrote’ to Alec.

He really missed text messaging. He missed phone calls as well. But the only working phone in the house was downstairs and Alec wasn’t allowed to use it without telling mom and dad first. Meaning Alec honestly didn’t know if this was Helen saying he looked ‘very handsome last they met’, but had a good idea that it wasn’t. Especially when they were peppering in things Helen didn’t even know about Alec. Such as that he liked archery. But Andrew would. Andrew definitely would because Alec knew he talked to dad, and dad would gladly tell Andrew all he needed to know if he thought it would start a constant communication between Alec and Helen.

 

Am I awake?

He was outside.

 

Am I awake?

The house was nowhere to be found.

 

My hands, they ache,

There were cuts on his fingers. On his feet where shoes should be. He couldn’t see his house.

 

From brambles I held while I walked asleep,

Thorns dug into his back, they had wrapped themselves around his arms, and more came again as he backed himself into a bush.

 

Or is this the dream I cannot break?

There were trees around him, but no gap he looked through showed his house.

 

Am I awake?

Where was he? How did he even get here? Mom and dad had the house locked up tight. Alec was barely able to go from one room to another without being questioned for it, so how? How was he here?

His hands shook as tore off the thorns digging into his shirt. He had to think about this. He couldn’t have made it far from his house. Mom wouldn’t have let him.

They had to be looking for him too. Someone would have heard him get out. He just had to find somewhere familiar.

His heart was pounding in his chest. It was making it hard to concentrate. Which was laughable. He could hunt demons but couldn’t find his way out of a forest? What sort of shadowhunter was he?

He just had to think.

Think he did too. After walking one direction all night and getting nowhere, Alec figured sitting still would do him better. By the time he heard his name called for him the sun was steady in the sky.

Dad found him first. There was a look on his face Alec was starting to see all the more these days. That hard look of terror as he ran over, skidding to his knees, his hand hovering as he looked Alec over. “Did you bring shoes?” Alec asked.

“Maryse!” was yelled instead, mom running through the trees until she too was by his side.

Mom had shoes. She also had stern words for him, telling him over and over that he wasn’t supposed to leave the house. That was a rule. They’d agreed on it and- “Mom don’t cry,” he hated seeing her cry. He hated making her cry, yet there she was. “Mom, I'm fine. This isn’t like last time I promise.”

That just made her cry harder, and between that and dad’s grip on his arm, the walk home wasn’t pleasant.

He knew he’d bruise when dad finally let go. He’d bruise again as Max ran into him, his hands clutching around Alec’s midriff as he asked, “Where’ve you been?”

He wished he had an answer for Max but, “I don’t know. I just… woke up.” Max’s hands tightened on him, loosening only so Alec could sit on his bed before he was back to clutching Alec.

Mom and dad left them to it, and Alec wasn’t surprised that night when he heard the fighting start up. Or, near midnight, when dad came into his room, a flashlight in one hand and a book in another. All night dad spent at Alec’s desk, watching him and Max sleep. Then, when morning came, he shooed Max away for breakfast before making sure Alec was actually awake.

That was the new routine. Every night, one or the other would stay in Alec’s room. No more privacy. It was like three months ago all over again. At least this time he appreciated it. Alec of three months ago had hated seeing his parents at his desk, but Alec of now? He was happy that he had someone there to make sure he wouldn’t wake up alone in a forest again. Even if he did have to listen to an hour of arguing before it happened.

A couple of days after his trip to the forest Alec was surprised to hear someone else’s feet clunk up the stairs to his room. Helen was who he saw first, and already he could feel a headache coming on. Dad would definitely be pleased. Behind her however, wasn’t Mark. Instead Aline made a beeline around Helen, wrapping Alec in a hug as soon as she got close. “I heard you stole my friend,” Aline said when she pulled back, and the way she said ‘friend’... something wasn’t right here.

“I didn’t mean to,” He scoffed. “And besides, Helen’s a big girl, I’m sure she can have more than one.” He smiled a hello over to her.

She smiled back, handing over an envelope with a familiar looking seal to him. “Dad’s taken to trying his hand at poetry too,” she told him, which meant that had been Andrew Blackthorn spouting platitudes about his virile appearance. “Just so you don’t give me a bad reputation when you inevitably read it.”

“You write poetry?” He shouldn’t be surprised, seelies had a knack for it. They practically spoke it in their everyday language in the seelie realm.

Yet Helen snorted, “I’m okay.” meaning, she didn’t write at all. But when she did, “I’m a sight better than dad. Mark’s the real poet laureate in our family though.”

“He is?” He probably shouldn’t sound so eager about finding out.

Helen gave him a look for it as well, but didn’t comment other than, “We may take the odd trip to Seelie without dad knowing. Don’t tell.”

“I won’t,” He promised, setting Andrew’s letter to the side.

They stayed for a few hours, Aline filling Alec in on everything he’d missed being trapped in Lightwood manor. Apparently the Institutes were going crazy. Valentine, actual Valentine, the crazy guy who started the Uprising, was back. Back as in not dead and probably never was. “Which is why dad has us staying in Alicante,” Helen told him. Which was probably for the best. If there was one thing Valentine hated more than downworlders it was halfbreeds. Helen and Mark would be first on his list to target. Especially since the Blackthorns helped round up the members of his Circle the first time around.

Apart from that drama, Idris was the same. People were getting together, people were breaking up. Some were widowed. Some were on the prowl again. A lot of them their age had kids already, which was just frightening. Alec loved kids. He wanted kids. But not at twenty three. Especially since he was still figuring out how to have children without the actual act of making them.

“Anyway, the whole reason we’re here to begin with is because mom’s calling your parents in for questioning again,” Aline finished with.

“Again?”

He wasn’t surprised to hear about his parents being in the Circle. It actually made a lot of sense. He just wished all of this was happening at a different time, also that he wasn’t here. He would give anything to be back in New York. Someone needed to be there to make sure Izzy and Jace didn’t do anything stupid when they found out about this as well. It was why he’d told his parents to tell them when he found out, not keep it hidden until they had no other choice.

“Are they in trouble?” his parents, since he knew Izzy and Jace were almost constantly.

“No.” Aline thought about it for a moment before shaking her head, “No,” again, “I don’t think so. I think mom just wants to make sure your parents don’t know anything that could help them track down Valentine.” which made sense considering how close mom and Valentine were. “We also…” she looked over at Helen before continuing, “heard you had a stint in the woods. Are you okay?”

Max must have told someone. Alec knew he’d been out to see some of his friends yesterday. Which meant the whole of Idris knew there was something going on now. “I’m fine.” He was. Mom healed him up and since they were keeping him nearly chained to his bed at night he hadn’t been wandering again so he was fine. He was.

He was.

Aline didn’t press. Instead she told Helen to tell him all about her siblings' latest antics. From the looks of things Aline had been spending a lot of time around the Blackthorn family. Proven so when she said, “I liked your poem. The one about Ty. Don’t suppose you have one about me lying around do you?”

“No.” He wasn’t a poet on demand after all. In fact, he wasn’t a poet at all. It was just something he did to get thoughts out of his head. When they were out of his head, written down, he found they didn’t sound as serious. They didn’t linger. They just shut themselves away when he closed his notebook for the day. “And even if I had, you’re not reading it.”

“Spoilsport.”

She griped at him for another half hour before the call came up that she had to go. Her and Helen both hugged him goodbye, and as soon as they left Alec remembered how nice it felt to be a person again. To have friends who talked nonsense with him. Who made him laugh, and he didn’t have to be careful around because they were family and some things family shouldn’t know. Even if dad did have ulterior motives for letting them in, he was happy he did. For the first time in months, nearly a year, he felt normal again.

He wished the feeling would last.

Things seemed to happen all at once. One second his parents both were being questioned and the next Alec was blinking to them being back. The lapses were getting more frequent. More dangerous too. Dad found him standing on the roof when Alec blinked back into existence. Standing by Lake Lyn, and, the one that had them in their biggest argument yet, with Alec blinking awake under the old oak tree out back.

 

I had a rope, a plan, a tree,
And those at home who wouldn’t miss me,

“Mom’s pissed,” Max told him, for once without his usual giddy glee.

“I know.” Dad was pissed too. But mom had always had the worst temper between the two. She blew up where dad looked for other ways to get back at her. Ways that usually involved him going away for a night or two. Alec wished he didn’t know who dad went to see when he did that. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” Max had barely left his side after the tree incident. Even now, he only left Alec to fetch them both something from the pantry downstairs.

In a very grown up turn of events Max told him, “Sorry isn’t going to help you this time Alec.”

He sighed, head folding onto his arms. “I know.”

The question was what they would do with him. For now, he tried to stay awake. He played with Max, he forced himself to learn the rules for games he’d never had the chance to play himself as a child. He did everything he could to keep himself thinking and still he blinked and woke to a hand in his own and the house around him gone.

“Dad?” since it was dad.

“It’s okay,” dad soothed, glancing back once only for his head to snap around the second. “You’re awake. Good,”

“Dad?” Had he spoken before? Dad hadn’t seemed surprised to hear him. Alec felt his hands shake as dad dragged him further into the trees.

“If your mother had it her way, she’d keep you in that house until you died Alec. But I,” he seemed to be talking more to himself than Alec. He probably had been for however long they’d been out here. “I think we can get you help.”

“But mom-”

“She doesn’t-” dad took a shaky breath, “Your mother means well, but Alec, son honestly do you want to keep living like this? You told us we were killing you and we didn’t listen.”

“I’m in a cage!” he remembered, “I swapped one for another but it’s still a cage. And at least before I didn’t know I was trapped. If you keep doing this you’ll kill me. You’re killing me already you just don’t see it!”

He’d maybe been going through some stuff back then. Nevertheless, dad was remembering it now, telling Alec, “I’m getting you help, and- and even if it doesn’t make you better, maybe that’s what you need.”

Alec was starting to get the sense dad was in the mindset of fix Alec or die trying. He couldn’t say he was wholly against the principle but… well, he’d promised mom.

Dad had too tight a hold on him to think about turning back however. He was prepared for a fight as well, his blades strapped to his hips and a witchlight guiding them through the trees.

Speaking of, “Where are we?” He had shoes on his feet, no coat, meaning they weren’t going far. But the trees in Alicante stretched for miles. There were things in here that even the people on the council didn’t know about.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” Dad tugged him forward, “It’s just, when you say don’t worry about it, it makes me worry more.”

Dad’s hand tightened on Alec’s own and nothing more. No conversation. No pep talk. Just the two of them walking. Walking so long Alec half wished to lose time just so he wouldn’t be conscious of walking to wherever it was they were going.

But no. There he was, experiencing every single step and second of their trip.

Great.

By morning they’d stumbled across a house. A lone thing nestled among a clearing. Alec didn’t recognise it, yet it was still on Alicante soil. There was smoke billowing from the chimney, and a twitch in the curtains that told them they’d been seen. Yet no one came to greet them, just waited as they walked across the green.

“Dad, whose house is this?”

No answer. Great.

It wasn't like Alec would like to know so he could, say, not look like an idiot when they were greeted. Which he did. As soon as they were within arms reach the door to the cottage swung open and there stood the last person Alec thought he’d see in Idris. Well, he might rephrase that since they’d never actually met, but Alec had seen his photo floating around the Institutes a couple of times.

Ragnor Fell. Former High Warlock of London. He was over seven hundred years old and had the magic to prove it. Which just begged the question of why they were here. How Ragnor was here, in a home, in Alicante. But, most importantly, “dad you promised mom-”

“Alec!” he was hushed up, dad finally letting go of Alec’s hand to untie the seraph blades around his hips. “I take it you got my fire message?”

“I did,” Ragnor nodded, eyes flickering over to Alec. “I’m not promising I can help you.”

There was a pause, dad’s “I know,” coming out quiet, but still there.

Ragnor looked over to Alec, “No weapons in my house shadowhunter. Your father’s kindly disarming himself-”

“He doesn’t have anything,” dad promised. “We…” Alec felt embarrassment course through him as dad finished the shameful, “we don’t let him have any.”

He forced himself to keep calm. He’d agreed with his parents when they’d laid down that rule. Still, it was one thing to know it in private. A whole other to hear dad tell a stranger. Like Alec really was… well, he guessed he was broken.

A swirl of green enveloped him, Alec staying still. After a moment Ragnor hummed, giving dad a look as he murmured, “You actually were telling the truth.” He walked inside, calling after him, “Shoes off,” Alec and dad following suit. The table had been set for breakfast, Ragnor pouring himself a cup of tea and looking expectantly at the two of them as they stood there. With a muttered, “shadowhunters,” the two chairs opposite him slid out, Ragnor finally asking, “What is it that you want from me, Lightwood?”

Dad sat forward in his seat, “It’s…” then realised like Alec did that they’d never really spoken about what it is that’s wrong with him.

Ragnor, on his part, didn’t get too impatient as he waited for dad to find his words. Mainly he buttered his scone, nudging a plate over to Alec with a quiet, “There’s enough for three,” when his staring probably gave away how hungry he was.

“Thank you,” Alec said, even if he felt a little guilty for taking some of Ragnor’s food.

When dad was still at a loss for words Ragnor suggested, “How about we talk in private? I’m sure your son will be fine on his own.” and the look dad must have shot one of them was enough for Ragnor to amend his suggestion to “The other room then? We’ll be in perfect view of the kitchen.”

Alec saw dad nod, the two of them retreating behind a wall of magic that blocked any sound reaching Alec.

Alec, for his part, ate as little as he could. It wasn’t that Ragnor’s food was bad. More like Alec didn’t like the idea of intruding on his morning more than he already was, despite Ragnor insisting there was enough for three.

It wasn’t like it mattered anyway. No sooner had Alec buttered his third scone did he see something glimmer out of Ragnor’s curtains. Forcing down his food Alec called, “Hey!” trying to keep his eyes on the three figures in the distance, “Are you expecting anyone else?”

The sound barrier must only have went one way since Ragnor quickly scurried over to the window. He didn’t sound too annoyed as he scoffed, but ended up telling dad and Alec to hide upstairs if they knew what was good for him. “I have a reputation for crying out loud,” Ragnor muttered, leaving them in one book covered room.

Alec sat himself down, picking at his scone as dad leaned that little bit out the doorway to catch what was going on downstairs.

“Did you tell him?” Alec asked.

“I got through some of it,” dad nodded. So no definite answer on whether Ragnor could help or not yet.

The door clattered downstairs, a girl's voice ringing not long after. “Why did you bring me here?” Alec asked.

More voices followed after a moment, one a little more sarcastic than the other. “You know why,” dad said.

“Mom said-”

“Your mother doesn’t know everything,” dad huffed. Then, softer, “If a warlock did this to you, a warlock might be able to fix it Alec. Your mother and I… maybe we were too prejudiced to try it before.”

“And now?” since, as far as Alec could tell, both of them hadn’t really changed their attitude to downworlders all that much.

“Now?” dad shrugged, “it’s either we take a risk, or you…” he let out a sigh, “it won’t come to that.”

Alec picked a little more at his scone.

He heard Ragnor clattering up the stairs again, poking his head out to see the man’s horns peek above the top step. Something else too, and a shift in the air that- “DAD!”

Dad saw it too, and thankfully dad didn’t trust downworlders since he had a knife, if nothing else, on his person as soon as the demon materialised itself. It wasn’t a pretty fight. At some point Alec had to start tossing books to keep it distracted enough for dad to get in close. Really, they were lucky whoever downstairs had heard the commotion. Just as the demon lashed out, Alec feeling something break along his arm, a seraph was tossed into dad’s hand and the demon became nothing more than ichor once more.

“Are you okay?” Dad asked immediately, seraph clattering to the ground. “Alec, are you okay?”

Alec barely heard him, eyes too busy fixing themselves on, “Jace?”

Since that was Jace. Alec could feel his parabatai rune flaring as it recognised its other half. “Alec?” Jace still checked, hurrying up the last few stairs until they both could see the other properly. He felt a grin split across his face, Jace’s mirroring it as he started forward.

Only for both of them to be pushed back, dad glaring Jace in place as he asked again, “Are you alright Alec?”

“Oh for, yes, I’m fine,” he checked his arm, “Well, I’m scratched, but it’s nothing a stele can’t fix.”

Dad yanked his arm close, inspecting the scratch himself as Ragnor pulled himself upright. “I’ll do that,” he waved dad off. “It’s the least I can do. Now all of you, downstairs. Preferably in the conservatory. I don’t like how easily that thing got in here.”

No. Neither did anyone else, Jace outright asking how it was even possible since they were in Idris.

“Well,” Ragnor pulled a face, “Technically we are. My home might be a bit of a grey area. Hence why the Academy gave it to me.” It turned out half of Ragnor’s house was in Idris, the other half outside of it. It meant Ragnor could do what he liked, magic, demon summoning, all sorts, without having to worry about the demon towers vaporizing anything. Which wasn’t good when things like this happened.

He got told off, at least, from the other warlock in the room. It turned out Jace hadn’t come to Idris alone. Some girl Clary and their friend Magnus had decided to tag along with him. Or maybe it was the other way around since no sooner had Magnus started on why Ragnor was an idiot for not updating his wards she interrupted them to remind them that, “You said you’d help me wake my mom.”

Which, wow. Dad was desperate and even he was waiting for a good time in the conversation to get them back on track. Also, Alec couldn’t help pointing out that, “We were here first so…”

“Alec,” dad hissed, but even Alec could see the smirk Jace was trying to hide, and the one the warlock, Magnus? Wasn’t even attempting to cover up.

“What? We were. And you’re the one who dragged me out of bed to be here so excuse me for wanting to get home before it gets dark.” He didn’t want another walk in the forest at night, he just didn’t.

Dad didn’t want that either since he hesitantly asked Ragnor, “Should we come back?” Which, no, they were here first. Make the girl come back tomorrow.

“Dad!”

Dad held a hand up, grinding out, “I’m sure whatever dragged Magnus Bane all the way here is important.” then, quieter, “We can wait another day.”

Which, “Can we?”

Dad hesitated before nodding. Ragnor, on the other hand, said, “The boy has a point. They were here before you. Besides, I’m sure Magnus can find what he’s looking for on his lonesome. He is a High Warlock after all.”

Magnus shot Ragnor a look Alec had seen far too many times on his own siblings faces when they were told to do something they didn’t want to. “It’s going to take all day.”

“Then you’d best get started,” Ragnor patted him on the knee, then, to dad, “Robert, I think we’d better continue our conversation upstairs. And with your knife left with your son. Don’t think I didn’t catch that.”

Dad grumbled, but the prospect of being seen today and not tomorrow had him handing over his blade as he followed Ragnor back upstairs.

As soon as they were out of earshot Jace was up out of his chair and hugging Alec. As much as he hated how his heart beat that little bit faster at it, Alec hugged back just as hard. “I missed you,” Jace murmured.

“Me too.”

Jace dragged dad’s chair closer to Alec’s, “You wouldn’t believe how crazy things have gotten back home.”

“I mean, I think I would have if you wrote.” If any of them wrote, and it wasn’t like Alec hadn’t sent any letters to them. Letters they got from the way Jace paled.

“We’ve been really busy,” Jace muttered, and, as if to prove it, he reintroduced Clary to Alec, and just the way Jace said her name had alarm bells ringing in Alec’s head. That, and, “So what are you and dad doing here?”

Clary butt in before Alec could, muttering, “Must be important if it couldn’t wait.”

“We were here first,” Alec reminded her.

“And my mom-”

“Clary,” Jace murmured. “It’s okay. Alec’s just winding you up.” Alec wasn’t, and he didn’t seem to be the only one not believing Jace if the rolled eyes Alec saw Magnus make were any indication. “Besides,” Jace tacked on, “Magnus is helping us. He knows what we’re looking for. We’ll find it.”

“We’d better,” she shot Alec a look. It was quick. Barely there really, but Alec had grown up with three siblings, he caught every look people gave him. It was sort of like his super power at this point. She stood, Jace following quickly, almost like they were attached at the hip as she declared, “Well we’re not gonna find it sitting around here. Magnus?”

Magnus hummed, fingers dancing over Ragnor’s abandoned breakfast, “You two get started on that bookshelf over there. I’ll catch up when I’ve got something inside me,” and Alec could have been imagining things but he was sure he got a wink as Magnus said that.

“Magnus,” Clary’s voice pitched.

Jace stepped in before it could erupt again, “Don’t take too long.” he smiled at Alec like it wasn’t the two of them being completely idiotic before doing as Magnus said and starting on the bookcase in Ragnor’s living room.

“Lovely girl,” Alec scoffed.

He saw Magnus’s mouth tip up, “I’m sure she’d say the same about you.”

They locked eyes, Alec nudging the plate of scones over. “They’re really good.”

“They always are.” He took one, Alec catching a glimpse of red on his nails before his attention wandered to Magnus’s face again. “So, you’re Alexander then.”

“You’ve heard about me?” It was rare he came up in conversation with Jace. For some reason Jace liked people to think he was a one man operation, and, well, he had been this past year hadn’t he?

Sure enough, “Your sister speaks highly of you. I daresay I was a little put off from ever meeting you. The way she describes you it doesn’t seem real.”

“Very funny.”

He could feel Magnus’s eyes rake up him, “I’m being completely serious.” Then, as if to soften the compliment, “She really loves you. I know she misses you.”

“You speak often?” the last he’d seen of Izzy had been just before he’d been dragged to Alicante. Her and Jace both had been by his bedside one minute, and the next he’d been in his room in the manor, mom and dad telling him he’d missed supper.

“She’s probably the most tolerable shadowhunter I’ve met so far of your generation,” Magnus nodded.

“Yeah,” that sounded like Izzy, “She’s great.”

Magnus picked at his scone. But unlike Alec there was a certain… motive to it that kept Alec averting his eyes. Then that girl had to ruin it by calling Magnus over to help them again. “Duty calls and her name is Clary,” Magnus sighed, sliding the scones back over to Alec. “Eat as many as you like. I’ll fill them back up before Ragnor comes back down.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Nonsense,” Magnus waved him off. “From the sounds of it, your father and you have a long walk ahead. Urgh, how I’d hate to live here. New York is painful enough, and I have portals to take me where I need to go.”

Alec felt himself smiling as he buttered up another scone.

“Another thing,” Magnus said, strolling back to the table, “Your sister. I know… it’s not my place but, sometimes people have a hard time saying things on paper. That doesn’t mean you should give up. She probably loves everything you give her.” He twirled his hand, a round of blue sparks leaving behind a slip of paper, “As for me, I have no such problem. So,” he slid the paper down, an address staring up at Alec, “If you’re ever bored and want an unbiased opinion… you have my address.”

“I’m sure I could have looked up your address from the database.” If he ever saw one again.

Magnus waved him off, “Boring. Besides, this is personal, meaning you get my address personally written to you.”

Alec huffed out a laugh. “Alright,” he pocketed the address, watching as Magnus grinned back at him before flouncing off to where Jace and Clary were impatiently waiting for him.

Despite that conversation being over, that wasn’t the last time he interacted with Magnus that morning. Jace was adamant if he wasn’t doing anything then he had time to help, and Clary was more than on board with that idea. But Alec had his own things to do. Like sit there and worry about just what was going to happen to him.

Besides, better he drift off in a chair where people would just assume he was daydreaming than in the middle of looking for some book or another. Jace didn’t know after all. Mom and dad hadn’t really known. Not at first.

He didn’t drift and so was present when Ragnor, his face grave, came down to finally collect Alec. They retreated to Ragnor’s study, where dad hesitated beside the door as Ragnor asked, “I need to ask you some questions Alec. Invasive questions. Do you want your father present?” and maybe Alec was a coward because he said no and out dad went.

He was made to sit, Ragnor just looking at him at first. Alec tried to stay as still as he could through it all.

Then the questions started. When did Alec first realise he was missing time? “Probably a month after I came back?” Where had Alec been? Did he remember? To that, Alec could only remember his last day. They told him, later, what had happened. But Alec only remembered waking up in a bed that wasn’t his own, in a house he didn’t recognise. There had been someone in the kitchen. “They were nice to me.” and Alec, well, “I’d woke up with a pain in my legs. I thought I’d been injured and, it’s not uncommon for someone to find a warlock if we can’t get to the Silent Brothers in time.” so he thought nothing of the pain in his leg. Not until he needed the bathroom.

He got up, being a shadowhunter meant nudity wasn’t a privilege but a necessity. If someone had to strip to get rid of demon venom then they stripped. So Alec didn’t have any qualms about lowering his pants for Ragnor to see the writing across his thighs.

It was ugly, horrible work. Words that, no matter the iratze’s that were applied, wouldn’t go away. It was too late for that. They’d already been closing by the time Alec got a stele back in his hand.

Get out was most notable. The most clear and the most repeated across his skin. Run was next. Bad warlock was somewhere amongst the mess, that, at least, fading enough that it was hard to make out if someone didn’t know where to look.

“There were chains under the bed, and since I don’t remember anything, mom thinks they used a memory spell on me.” He yanked his pants back up, sitting down once again. “Mom thinks they used a memory spell a lot on me.” Hence the problem. Memory was a fickle thing. Mess around with it too much and even the Silent Brothers were wary about touching him.

“The warlock who cast it?”

“Dead.” He’d stared at her body for long enough to know that. “I- I know she might have-”

“Alec,” Ragnor interrupted him, his voice gentle when he said, “Trust me, in this situation, you had every right to do what you had to.”

He swallowed before admitting, “They wanted revenge. On mom and dad. From what they did in the Circle.” So they’d taken him while he’d been on a hunt, and Alec didn’t even remember how.

Ragnor hummed. Alec knew there was no love lost between any downworlder and his parents. Ragnor didn’t press on that. Instead he asked, “What's it like, when you slip? Your father describes it almost as sleepwalking. Do you remember anything at all from it.”

He was shaking his head before Ragnor even finished. “I just- it’s like I blink and I’m somewhere else. Or time’s gone and- and I don’t know what’s happening or when it’s gonna happen again and-” He took a shaky breath. “I just want it to stop. That’s all I want, and I know dad told you about what happened- I know he did. But that was the only thing I could think of. I don’t want to live like this.” He still thought about it sometimes. The rope that still hung from the tree out back. Dad hadn’t been able to get it completely down. He hadn’t been thinking of getting it completely down. Just Alec. “If you can help me- dad’s right, I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I just want it to stop.”

Ragnor rubbed the skin beneath his horns, a frown etched across his face. It took a moment for him to breathe, and another for him to decide, “I’m going to have to make some calls. I’m not promising I can help you, but I want to try, is that clear?”

Alec nodded.

“Good,” Ragnor sighed. “Okay. Your father gave me your address. I’ll send a letter a few days before we need you.” He scribbled something down, handing it to Alec, “Give that to Magnus on your way out. He’ll see Cat before I do, she’ll need to be here to make sure you stay stable.”

Alec took the note eagerly, thanking Ragnor as much as he could as they went to tell dad the news.

“It’s not a guarantee,” Ragnor said again.

“It’s better than nothing,” Alec promised, thanking Ragnor again, and doing what he promised in handing the note off as they left Ragnor’s home.

 

When hope comes knocking, bad things follow,
Perhaps it is a hard pill to swallow,
That hope is for those with nothing else to lose,
And when it’s gone, what are we but hollow.

It seemed only right that he’d lose time now he had a solution potentially on the horizon. Not that Alec was optimistic enough to believe everything would go smoothly. But the days between leaving and Ragnor’s summons, Alec would have liked to spend with his family properly. Or at least to update the letters he’d written all those months ago. Yet between one blink and the next time swallowed him whole. One second it was Sunday, the next it was Tuesday. An hour was lost to two, two to seven, and before Alec knew it he was staring at cursive writing he’d glimpsed only fleetingly as he’d handed it over to Magnus.

They were to meet at Ragnor’s on Sunday, noon and dad could come, which Alec was grateful for.

As for mom, dad was adamant they not tell her. “If something happens,” dad said, “I’d prefer your mother think it an accident. It would be easier on her.” Easier than giving her this hope and watching Alec be destroyed by it. “Besides, after hearing Jace was at Ragnor Fell’s,” which mom had learnt when the letter came for Alec. Dad skillfully evaded mom’s questioning by throwing Jace under the bus, “she’s going to be visiting your siblings again. She’s taking Max with her.” Meaning it really would be just the two of them.

Alec hesitated a moment before asking, “Do you think it would be weird if I asked her to give them a letter?”

Dad’s head snapped up. “What sort of letter?” Alec’s silence spoke for itself since dad insisted, “You’re going to be fine Alec.”

“But if I’m not-”

“If you’re not,” Dad hesitated before continuing, “Then I’ll give them it. But you’re going to be fine, so there’s no use in worrying them. They have enough to think about without this on top of it. And you know your mom will be right back to Idris if she finds out you wrote those kinds of letters to your siblings.” He gripped Alec’s shoulder, “You’re going to be fine.”

Alec wished he could be that certain. As it was, he lost time again, and when he woke he found himself walking the fields. A house loomed ahead. Not his own, but one he recognised from brief trips here as a child. It was a house he’d wanted to visit weeks ago, and one now he knocked and waited on their porch until Helen Blackthorn asked what the hell he wanted at three in the morning.

“I’ve not been very well,” he told her when she finally dragged him in. Sitting on her bed with silencing runes across the walls and door he finally said it out loud.

She curled a little more into her dressing gown, “Since when?”

“Before we met. But that’s not why I’m here.” Well, he didn’t really come here purposefully at all. But he couldn't tell her that. So he settled for, “I really wanted to be your friend. I know my dad said some things, but that’s all I wanted. Aline made you sound so great and I only actually have my siblings back home.” It was half the reason he wanted to meet her. Aline said Helen was very like him. Her friends were her siblings, just like Alec’s were. He thought she’d get him and, “It doesn’t hurt you’re my age.” It was such a silly thing but it meant a lot to him. No one was his age. They were either older and looked down on him, or younger and put the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He felt a shoulder softly knock into his, “Aline made you sound great too.”

“Yeah?”

“Well,” she pulled a face, “She said you were weird. But, I mean, I kind of like weird so,” she shrugged. She knocked his shoulder again, “Are you going to be okay?” and there it was.

“I don’t know. I hope so.” he really did. If he didn’t however, “Can I tell you something? And just, if I come back here and I’m fine, please don’t go around telling other people or-”

“Alec,” she stopped him. “Come on, I know you don’t trust me, but trust Aline’s good sense. If you wanna tell me something, I promise, I’ll keep it to myself.”

It wasn’t like it mattered. Not in the wider scheme of his life but, “I’m gay.”

“I figured,” was not what he thought Helen would say.

“What do you mean you figured?”

She snorted out a laugh, “I’m sorry, but only someone who’s not into girls could be that happy I wasn’t interested in you back. Besides,” she sang, “I saw the way you looked at Mark.”

He felt his blood freeze, “I didn’t look anything at Mark.”

She laughed, “You so did. It’s fine, Mark thinks it’s sweet. If he didn’t have a boyfriend in the seelie realm I’m sure he’d have been begging you for some more poems.”

Wait- “Mark’s…”

“Bi,” she filled in. “Like me. We’re half seelie,” she reminded him and, right, he knew they were bisexual. It was one of the things they warned him and the other shadowhunters about when they were still in school. “You seriously forgot?” she sobered up. “I’m so sorry. Oh no wonder you were so scared.”

“I mean,” okay, maybe he was scared. But he wasn’t anymore. He couldn’t believe this. “Do you think Aline could tell?” that he was a little… affected by Mark.

“No,” Helen said, “But Aline’s quite oblivious to a lot of things. I actually think she might be… you know,” she waggled her eyebrows, “But it’s hard to tell. She keeps giving off weird signals.”

“Aline?” He hadn’t thought about her like that. Like him. Although, he supposed it was true he hadn’t seen her with any boyfriends over the years. “I could probably help you feel her out. If you like?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” And it was so nice talking about this with someone else who understood. Someone who agreed that Magnus Bane was one hundred percent flirting by giving Alec his home address with the invitation to write him.

“It’s basically the Victorian translation for ‘call me’.”

Which Alec thought it had been, but hadn’t been sure until he had someone else verify it for him.

Around dawn Mark broke through the seals to tell them mom had tracked him down. “You might want to think of a good story, she doesn’t look happy.” She really wasn’t either. Especially because she was leaving for New York that night.

In the end, a little white lie of, “I was just looking for Helen,” persuaded her not to postpone her trip. Even if she, along with dad, now thought he had a thing for Helen.

It was torture after that. Most notably because dad kept telling him, “As soon as this is over, you and Andrew’s daughter can go on proper dates.” or something of the like. All of which made him want to bash his head against a wall.

He was actually glad he lost time after that. Until he wasn’t, blinking awake surrounded by strangers.

Their faces seemed to blend into one as he searched for a window, a clock, anything to tell him what time it was. In the end it was dad, pushing through the throng to get to Alec’s side. “You’re alright. It’s alright. We’re at Ragnor’s. Remember? We have an appointment.”

But it was Saturday. It was Saturday morning. “We aren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.” and Alec knew that. Somewhere in his gut he knew that. But he hated it all the same that his life was slipping away from him. “It’s tomorrow Alec.”

Someone cleared their throat, a murmured “Here,” and dad was holding a small alarm clock. He handed it over to Alec, the ticks and numbers doing what dad couldn’t. He could see time here. See it moving as it should. “Let him keep it,” that same voice said, Alec finally looking up to those around him again.

With his heart beating slower in his chest he could make out the faces around him. Ragnor, to dad’s left. A blue woman to Alec’s right. A short, mousey woman next to her  A man with white hair and purple eyes next to her, and next to him- great- Magnus Bane. It looked like Alec’s invitation to write would be revoked. Maybe not right now, but Alec knew the mind was a fickle thing, who knew what he’d do once they’d started tampering with it.

“I think introductions are in order,” Ragnor said, sitting on one of the chairs he’d pulled over to Alec’s- where was he? “It’s only right you should know who’s looking after you.” He was on some sort of table, Alec half hoping it wasn’t the kitchen table. But his feet didn’t meet the air, and the one in the kitchen had been short and round, so maybe not. Ragnor indicated to the blue skinned woman, “This is Catarina. She’s a nuse. A qualified one too before you ask. She’s going to make sure we don’t kill you.” There was a heavy silence.

“Perhaps leave the jokes for after,” Cat suggested.

Ragnor hummed in agreement. “You’ve met Magnus. This is Tessa,” She gave Alec a tight smile, “and Malcom. Malcolm and Magnus will be doing the brunt of the tampering.”

“We’re hoping it might be a simple mental block,” Malcom told him. “It can happen sometimes. A build up can lead to the mind simply halting thought processing while it tries to fix itself.”

“If not,” Magnus chimed in, “we have plenty of other ideas on how to tackle nearly anything you can throw at us.” Alec felt a hand grasp gently at his own, “You’re in good hands Alexander.”

“I think it’s best we started,” Ragnor said, Alec feeling dad tense up beside him. As if remembering he was there, “Robert, if you could stay near Alexander’s feet. We don’t want him vomiting on you.”

Dad kissed him on the head, “I’m right here,” he promised, Alec watching him move to the chair near his feet.

The others took up the space he’d vacated, Cat grabbing onto his wrist, her fingers expertly finding his pulse. “We’re going to need you to relax.”

He tried. He really did.

“Just listen to the clock,” dad said, and Alec tried that. He counted each second as it ticked by him. Breathed to it until he saw Cat nod.

Tessa stepped forward, “I’m going to need to take a hair. Is that okay Alec?”

He nodded, and didn’t remember much after that.

I remember a room, a desk, a bed,
Upon them all I had bled-
Blood, tears, words, rhymes
A constant stream of bleeding red.

I begged for help, but no one came,
Just one damned soul I’ll never name,
She came with chains, with spells and I…
Forget and forget and forget again.

“There you are,” murmured above him, a face swimming into view.

“Coco?” Why was Coco talking? Alec felt it was very important that Coco shouldn’t be able to ask him questions like that.

“Coco?” Coco asked behind him.

“Our cat.” Dad. That was dad.

“Ah,” Coco smiled down at him, “I’m afraid my glamour isn’t working right now, and since Cat has you drugged up I’ll forgive being likened to your, I’m sure, adorably, kitty. But before that, do you remember your name?”

“Alec,” Alec forced out around a mouth that felt far too slack.

“That’s very good,” Coco praised, “If you can, you’re welcome to go back to sleep. Your father is here. He’s not leaving you. You’re safe darling.”

“Is that good?” Alec heard dad ask.

“It’s not bad,” Coco replied. “We’ll have to wait until the drugs completely wear off before we can be certain he’s fine…”

He slept, and in his dream there were words that bounced and danced, some of them ordering themselves in a way that Alec just had to write down. But every time he fetched a pen the letters didn’t stick to the paper. Then there was a car. He was pretty sure he was on a date with the letter Z by the time he woke up again, his eyes taking a second to recognize his room. His actual room too. His desk, his bed, his doorway with the door missing, and dad sitting in a chair, his head slumped onto his hand.

“Dad?”

Dad jerked, his eyes blinking a mile a minute before focusing on, “Alec.” He was by Alec’s bedside in a second, “How are you feeling?”

“I…” He actually thought about it. He didn’t feel great, but, “I don’t know, I don’t hurt.” There felt like there was something missing from his head however. Like a gap he couldn’t explain. “What happened? Did it work?”

Dad’s face pinched, “I don’t really know. No one does. Apparently we have to wait and see if you get worse or not. Fell could probably explain it better than I can.” He shook his head, “Regardless, we have an appointment with Bane next week. He’s going to be taking over your recovery.”

“Bane?” Why was Magnus taking over his recovery? “What about Ragnor?”

Dad didn’t look all too happy when he announced, “There’s been some developments in the Valentine situation. The Clave is ordering your mother and I back into exile while they figure out what to do with us.”

Exile, “We’re going to New York?”

Dad nodded, “Your mother phoned last night. Apparently Jace has never been happier to hand the Institute back to us.” Alec bet. Responsibility wasn’t Jace’s strong suit.

“And what about me?” were they just going to keep everything a secret still? Alec could understand it while they were in Idris. With only one phone and more important things to talk about it was no wonder they didn’t have time to tell Jace and Izzy about Alec’s little affliction. But in New York they would notice. They’d see if he started drifting again. They’d notice the lack of door on Alec’s room.

Dad knew that too, but all he said was, “We’ll figure it out,” before remembering he’d been given a sheet of exercises for Alec to do when he woke up. Mostly consisting of a lot of follow the pen.

With major brain surgery keeping Alec sleepy it was dad who did most of the packing. Maybe if he hadn’t been so tired he would have been a little more protective over his things. There were some places even Max wasn’t allowed to look after all. But between one nap and the next dad had a hefty bag full of Alec’s things to take to New York with him, so, really, any complaints he could have thought up were null at that point in time.

“I know we have books in New York but are there any you want to take from here?” Dad asked, doing one last sweep of Alec’s wardrobe.

He blinked lazily from his bed, trying to remember if he had copies of his favourites in New York. “Don’t think so.” Oh, “Actually, there’s a journal,” he pointed over to his bookshelf. It wasn’t his, just some former Lightwood’s past collection of entries and poems they’d written when it was all the rage. Dad packed it with the others before moving to Alec’s desk where- “I’ll pack that myself.”

Dad narrowed his eyes over at him, but his fingers left the desk, the bag he was holding sliding next to Alec’s bed as he sat on the mattress. “Anything else?”

Alec shook his head.

“Okay, then I think Fell is portalling us in a few hours. That’s enough time to shower, or nap, which do you want?” from the way dad was pulling a face as he tugged on a few strands of Alec’s hair, he could probably do with a shower.

But, “You think Iz’ll make fun of me if I stink my room out?”

“I’ll tell her you’re just marking your territory up again.” They shared a grin, dad promising, “I’ll wake you before he gets here.”

Which was only a little lie since he woke Alec when Ragnor was already there, his hand glowing slightly near Alec’s head. It was just a checkup. More to make sure he was still healthy in himself than his brain so he wouldn’t die through a portal.

The checkup didn’t last long. All too soon Alec found himself standing upright and way too far away from the ground, the room swimming in ways it probably shouldn’t as dad did his best to hold him, and their bags, up. “Your mother’s going to kill me,” Dad muttered as they walked the awful few steps to the portal.

Mom did almost kill him too. They came out around the back of the Institute, and since Alec was sure no one knew when they were arriving that meant they didn’t have a welcome party. Meaning, the walk from there, to inside, was absolute torture. Torture that must have shown on his face, or he just wasn’t looking his usual fresh self at all, since mom took one look and promptly started screaming at dad. “I leave you for four days- four days! And you do this to him?”

He found himself swapping custody, and somehow through the haze of it all he was in bed. He’d worry in the morning just what dad had told mom about their exploits during her absence. But right then, he had a date with the letter z and he wasn’t about to miss it.

 

Voices- Voices in my head,
Around my bed,
But are they there?
Or is that someone else’s vacant stare?

He woke to noise. It was something Alec used to not even realise growing up, as he did, in a bustling Institute. But almost a year in Idris and the idea of waking to people walking to and from his room had him bolting up, checking everywhere for something wrong.

His door was open. Not gone, but open. Mom and dad’s compromise for a farce of normality.

He recognised a few faces that passed by his door. None of them lingered. Mom must have talked to them. Or they just didn’t care. The latter was more likely even if, once the pretense of a barrier of privacy was gone, people actually bade him good morning. Or evening. He forgot day was night to people like him. Idris really had spoilt him.

After using the communal showers, lest mom start installing camera’s in Alec’s private bathroom, he quickly found out that even that slither of privilege was quickly to be taken off him. Starting with mom cornering him as soon as he came out the showers to tell him outright he couldn’t just wander away from his own room like that. “Your father and I have been talking. We need new rules,” and Alec would have been annoyed. But he understood. He’d done this to himself after all, and mom already looked so harried from four days away from Idris. The least he could do was make her life that little bit easier while they all adjusted to being back to New York.

“Like what?” He let her drag him to the kitchen where at least a decent breakfast was waiting for him. He couldn’t see Izzy or Jace anywhere, only one of Max’s manga’s sitting on a bench to show they were even here at all.

The rules were pretty much the same, just a little tweaked. Alec wasn’t allowed to be alone. His siblings had been told, since mom found out, she had to have found out, about their visit to Ragnor. So his siblings had been told that Alec had been unwell. That Ragnor had tried to cure him, but Alec needed to be under observation to make sure he was actually on the right track to recovery. So they were taking it in shifts, something Alec also thought mom had decided because it meant at least one of her wayward troublemakers would be at the Institute at all times and not, like their namesake suggested, getting into trouble.

One would stay, the other would go out. Which meant Alec got some freedom. So long as he had someone older than Max on him at all times mom didn’t see why he couldn’t sit in the ops room, or watch people train. His door was to be left open, like he already knew, and, as for bathrooms, he now had what mom referred to as a ‘bathroom buddy’. Alec honestly felt like drawing the line here. But mom’s muttered, “Who knows what you could do while we’re not looking,” reminded Alec that, again, he’d done this to himself. Also, yeah, maybe he had thought about what he could do to himself in the time it took to have a bathroom break. There were so many sharp things in a bathroom too.

A bathroom buddy might not be all bad. Humiliating maybe but, “Does that mean I can shave?”

Mom’s lips pinched themselves tightly together even as she forced out, “I don’t see why not.” So long as he had supervision he could shave anything he wanted.

He was only allowed to use the communal showers because of his new ‘bathroom buddy’, and on that note, just because he had more freedom here did not mean they were being lax about what he was and wasn’t allowed access too. Alec was going to be searched each and every night before he went to his room.

“And if I find so much as a toothpick on you before your probation is over so help me Alec.”

So he figured she wasn’t being completely unreasonable.

He was the only one however. Apparently the others had been briefed about their new duties of Alec’s caretaker the evening he arrived. Meaning they had a full day to complain to mom and try and weasel lenience from dad. They didn’t look too happy that they hadn’t wore dad down when Alec found them. Alec didn’t blame them either, dad was usually so easy to break. But things had changed since they were all together again.

Nevertheless, they were happy to see him. He got a gentle hug from Jace before nearly being bowled over by Izzy. “I missed you so much,” She squeezed him tight.

“I missed you too.” He waved to Max over Izzy’s head.

She pulled back, her flat shoes making her look smaller than Alec remembered. Or maybe he’d had one last ditch growth spurt while he’d been gone. Unheard of, but, he supposed it could happen. Whatever the case, she had a long way to travel to yank his neck down. “I can’t believe Jace saw you before me,” she huffed, her hands feeling along the back of his head for, he realised, some kind of head wound.

He brushed her off, “I didn’t get hurt. I was ill,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, with your head,” she said, “did you hit it or something? I know you don’t like going to the infirmary for concussions but this is what happens when you don’t take care of yourself.”

“It wasn’t a concussion.” He stood as tall as he could to help fend off her hands, eventually appealing to Jace who finally got her off him.

Even he had something to say however, asking, “Is that why you were at Ragnor’s with dad?”

“Dad told you he helped me,” he reminded them.

“Well yeah,” Jace agreed, eyes narrowed, so at least mom and dad had actually told this story and not just said it to Alec. “But that was literally a few days ago. You were at Ragnor’s weeks ago.”

“It was last week.” Right? It had been last week.

“Ignore him,” Izzy nudged Jace away, “Things have been crazy here. It feels like it’s been going on for months.”

Speaking of crazy, “Where is that redhead?” Hopefully back at whatever Institute she’d came from.

Unfortunately, from the way Izzy was smiling that wasn’t the case. Worse, “You met Clary?” Izzy liked her. Was Alec seriously the only one getting a bad vibe from her?

“I told you we saw him at Ragnor’s,” Jace said, a hint of something still on his face.

“That’s right,” Izzy grinned, telling Alec, “she called you grumpy as I recall it.”

“Okay,” hang on, “I was literally ill, for one. For another, we were there first. Dad literally had me walking all night to see Ragnor Fell and we get there and this prissy little redhead jumps the queue.”

“We didn’t know you were ill,” Jace scoffed.

“No but you should have known something was up.” And yeah, maybe he was still a little sore that Jace didn’t tell her to wait. “Since when has dad ever voluntarily asked a warlock for help? People don’t look for magical cures unless they’re desperate Jace.” Not people like dad anyway.

“You were really that bad?” Izzy asked.

“Well…” He was, but to admit it would be to admit that they hadn’t told Jace and Izzy about it. “Nothing that wasn’t curable.” Hopefully. “It just, it was pressing you know. Besides, it’s common curtesy to wait until its your turn.” Alec got a strong sense that Clary was an only child. Mainly because even Jace, who’d come to them at ten, knew to wait his turn when it came to basically anything. Especially important things like negotiating with a warlock. They were fickle at the best of times. Overwhelming Ragnor like that couldn’t have given them any good press.

“God you sound so much like mom,” Izzy snorted, her face still pinched as she subtly dragged a chair over to him. “Here,” maybe not so subtly, “Wait there while I get your welcome back present.” She flounced off before Alec could say he didn’t need one.

Max quickly took up her spot, his hand finding Alec’s, the harsh squeeze the only indicator that he, unlike the others, had been told what Alec had really gone to Ragnor’s for.

“Clary is still here,” Jace told him, rocking on the back of his heels. “Her mom took her apartment hunting. Apparently they’re er,” he hesitated over, “not sticking around.”

“…okay?” That was good. More than good. One less annoyance for Alec while he waited to be reinstated as a fully fledged shadowhunter.

“I er…” Jace mulled over again before deciding, “You know what, it’s not important.” He clapped Alec’s shoulder, “It’s good to have you back.”

“Yeah.”

With Jace around, and being weird, Max didn’t have an opportunity to ask Alec about what had actually happened. Something Max did not appreciate if the grumpy looks he kept sending Jace were anything to go by.

But “Hey,” Alec remembered, “I can finally see your magna collection now. Mom says so long as I have a chaperone over the age of eighteen, I can basically do what I like.” Including go into his little brother’s room.

“You couldn’t before?” Jace asked before Max could start his excited tirade.

“No I could.” Kind of. “But, I mean, he has more here. It wasn’t really much of a collection in Idris. Not like here.” Was he rambling? He felt like he was rambling. Jace was narrowing his eyes again.

Max, on the other hand, “Can we go now?” Alec turned him around until he was facing Jace, Max asking again, “can we go now?”

Jace shook his head, “Sure. I guess.” And after making sure Alec wasn’t going to keel over, the three of them spent the afternoon, or, morning for shadowhunters, looking through books that Alec, for the life of him, couldn’t think of where to start translating.

Izzy caught them before lunch, presenting Alec with a cake that should not have seen the light of day. “Gee, thanks.” And while he didn’t get food poisoning, he definitely wasn’t enjoying the weird mush of flavours destroying his tastebuds.

“I also got you this,” Izzy said, presenting Alec with a wrapped up box.

“Ooh,” he should have said she shouldn’t have. But his birthday this year had consisted of him wallowing in his room, so Alec was going to enjoy anything with a bow on top right now. Izzy knew him well too, Alec opening his present to find a new hip quiver, something, now Alec could go into the training room again, he was definitely going to use.

“And that’s not all. Jace managed to find a new bow for you.”

“It’s not gonna be here for another few weeks though,” Jace said.

“That’s fine.” Also suspicious. They didn’t know he was ill until yesterday, which meant they had already gotten these presents in. Meaning, “Alright, what’s going on?”

“Wh-“ okay, something was definitely going on. Izzy never looked like a goldfish for just nothing. “We are,” She sent a look to Jace.

Who finished with, “Very happy you’re back.”

“Right.” He got that. “Except last time I left for a month or two, I didn’t get presents.” Or a cake he was going to burn in the back garden later so no one else had to suffer through tasting that monstrosity.

“You’ve been gone for a year,” Jace pointed out.

“Yeah and before that you were, like, kidnapped,” Izzy ground out. “We’ve just really, really missed you.”

He looked over to Jace, who agreed, “Really, really.”

It was Max who eventually foiled their plans to butter him up, telling him outright, “They’re just happy you can be Head again so they can go back to partying.”

“Max!” both of them snapped.

“What? You are. I heard them talking last night.”

Alec patted Max’s head. He did good. “So that’s it? No letters, no phone calls, but as soon as I’m fighting fit again you want to make sure I clean up your mess?”

“We didn’t say that,” Jace said, eyes fixed firmly on Max, warning him to keep his mouth shut. “and come on Alec, letter writing is painful.”

That didn’t excuse the phone calls. Or lack thereof. “Other people offered to write to me.” In fact he’d seen a letter arrive at the Institute with a very familiar looking seal. Andrew Blackthorn’s love letter would have to wait another few hours however since, “it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not immediately going to be Head again. In fact, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be the Head of the Institute.”

“Don’t say that,” Jace waved off, “Of course you’re going to be Head again-“

“Well what if I don’t want to be?” A lie. He did. He really did. But how could he trust himself to lead an Institute if he couldn’t keep his own mind? “You should have been using my time away to sort yourselves out. Mom’s right, we have a responsibility. All of us, not just me. You can’t keep making messes and expecting me to clean them up. Your actions have consequences, and maybe it’s my fault for keeping them from you but I can’t do that anymore and you should have found a way to deal with them by now.” He couldn’t believe he was saying this but, “If you thought buying me last minute presents after a year of nothing is going to make up for everything, then you’re wrong. I’ll stay with dad if I have to.” God knows dad would be finding him anyway. “So, don’t talk to me until you have something sincere to say to me.”

He may be flouncing one of mom’s rules, but since Max was by his side and he wasn’t technically alone for the walk from Max’s room to where mom and dad were sorting out the rota for the night, he figured he could get out of being yelled at for a while.

Which he did. If only because mom was so distracted being back at work she didn’t notice the lack of supervision surrounding Alec. Dad did however, giving Alec a look before telling him to make himself comfortable.

It was a long weird night after that. Mainly because Alec rarely spent his nights these days surrounded by so much energy. Usually he was by his desk, his lamp on and a pen in hand, or telling Max it was going to be okay as their parents fought downstairs. Not this chaos.

One bright side was that the letter from the Blackthorns turned out not to be from Andrew. Helen had written to him. Apparently dad had told them, at some point, that they were leaving for New York. It was nice to be shown that someone had made the effort to keep in touch, even if it had been a few days since they’d seen each other.

It was a hefty letter, Alec getting a very approving look from dad as seven pages fell out. Only two were from Helen it turned out. Most of it asking Alec if he could tell her anything Aline might have said about a past partner through the years. The other five pages were from her siblings. Half a page from Mark, the other from Julian. One from Livy with a note to not read it since it was for Max’s eyes only, and three, from no Blackthorn at all. Alec caught Helen’s squiggly ‘sorry, she found out about your parabatai’ before staring down Emma Carstair’s many, many questions about him and Jace.

It took him a good portion of the night to answer even half of the letters. More than once he wished Jace wasn’t such an ass. Jace was the one who’d done most of the research into the parabatai rune when they’d been growing up. He’d know more about the technicalities of it than Alec, and maybe one day, when Jace wasn’t being an ass, he’d Emma loose on him. For now, he rubbed his eyes and tried to do his best to answer just why there had to be trials before a parabatai bonding.

 

Cats eyes glowing bright,
Green gold… “Something night?” Alec hated his brain sometimes. “Light? Max!” He heard the pitter patter of his brother’s footsteps, “What rhymes with bright?”

“Are you still on that?” Max complained, coming closer to loom over Alec’s shoulder.

“It’s bugging me.” Was it even green gold? That first line sounded right, but the second he just couldn’t get.

“How about green gold through the night?” Underhill suggested, Alec’s babysitter for the day. Poor guy. Literally all Alec had wanted to do was get this poem out of his head, and to be fair to Underhill, he hadn’t complained. But Alec knew it was boring to sit there with nothing to do in case a fully grown shadowhunter ‘fell down’. He knew, he’d had to do it himself when Jace and Izzy got themselves hurt.

Alec tapped the pen against his lips, “Maybe.”

“You’re so weird,” Max sighed, wandering back off to his stash of books.

“You’re literally reading books you can’t understand. If either of us is weird, it’s you,” he called, knowing without looking Max had just gave him some dirty sign he had to have picked up from Jace.

Underhill chuckled beside him. “You have thirty minutes by the way.”

Alec waved him off. He’d be ready. “I just need ten.”

“That’s what you said an hour ago.”

Alec waved him off again.

Those thirty minutes were definitely shorter than Alec remembered since he could have sworn he’d blinked and they’d passed. Thankfully, this time it wasn’t like the others. Just a simple case of him getting lost in thought. That didn’t stop dad from worrying as Alec asked if it was really five thirty already.

“Thank you Underhill,” dad dismissed.

Underhill nodded, promising beneath his breath, “I’ll think up more rhymes while you’re gone.” Before leaving Alec to it.

Dad caught Max’s eye, “You coming or are you staying with mom?”

“Staying,” Max answered without even looking up from his book.

Dad left him to it, instead hurrying Alec to his coat and shoes before carting them half way across New York.

Magnus Bane lived in an old converted loft that moved every so often around Brooklyn. Right now, it was situated above an abandoned warehouse, where the elevator crackled like it literally had bones jammed between it as they rode it up to Magnus’s floor. “Now remember,” dad dusted both of them off, “You have to answer him honestly. He can’t help you if you lie to him Alec.”

“I know.” He did. He’d gotten the same spiel from mom as well.

The elevator ground to a halt, the floor it opened out onto much nicer than the one they’d left. It even had wallpaper.

Magnus was waiting in his doorway for them, a drink in both hands and while he nodded over at dad he spared a smile for Alec, ushering them both to, “Come in. And Alexander, make yourself at home.”

He found himself a chair, forcing himself not to look too closely at what was around him. It was just a figure of speech after all.

After grabbing a third drink, Magnus got down to business. His hand flickered blue, Alec feeling a steady pulse inside his head before he was made to do exercises that were basically second nature to him now. Follow the pen. What did he have for breakfast? Are there any blips in his day he can’t recall?

Then, “Robert, I’m sure you won’t mind if I have Alexander alone to myself for a few minutes,” the door opened, basically ordering dad out.

Dad’s eyes flickered between them, “What for?”

“Personal questions,” Magnus answered, and even dad knew when to step back, the door closing once he was firmly in the hallway.

“Personal questions?” Alec asked.

Magnus nodded. “More to do with things you might not want your father to know.” He took the chair closest to Alec, and despite the formal setting Alec couldn’t help his eyes wandering to that slither of skin Magnus had on display as he sat. Leaning over the armchair Magnus asked, “Did your father explain what was wrong with you?”

Alec shook his head. “He wanted Ragnor to, but, I was kind of out of it and we had to go to New York that night.”

Magnus nodded. “I’ll tell you now. It’s only right.” It turned out what Alec suspected, what mom suspected, had happened, had. The warlock had wiped his mind. More than once. To keep him docile. To play with him. Whatever it was, she’d wiped his mind. “I’ve… dabbled in the area myself. I’ve had clients who ask for it. But I always tell them it comes with a price. Those who have it done repeatedly, I insist on years between sessions because the mind simply can’t handle so many gaps without a chance to repair itself. Maybe not repair,” he mulled over, “Sort of like a scar. It’s there but it’ll never be the same.”

The warlock had basically broken Alec’s head, and done a shoddy job of it. Alec was lucky he wasn’t a walking vegetable. More so because the memories weren’t gone, merely buried.

“They were still there, but whoever it was made it so you couldn’t access them. The more your brain tried to repair itself, the more it tried to dig those memories back to the surface and,” his hand waved about, “You just stopped, is the kindest way I can describe it.” Alec remembered Magnus had seen it himself. “Now, in order for the scar to become a scar, the only way we could do it was to remove the memories entirely.” That way Alec wouldn’t be searching and finding glimmers of what he was missing because it simply didn’t exist. “I’m not promising there won’t be long term effects. There will be. Your chances for a lot of memory altering diseases are higher than they ever were. But hopefully, for now, the gap can scab and scar and heal. Does that make sense to you?”

It did and for some reason Alec felt, relief? “Is it bad I didn’t want to remember it?” He felt like he should. Like it was important he had to. But, to never know? It was a bit of a weight off his shoulders.

“I don’t think so,” Magnus agreed. “Whatever they did,” he shook his head, “They didn’t do it for you, they did it for themselves. If you can save yourself the trauma of reliving it why not?”

Exactly.

Alec relaxed in his chair, forcing himself to stay calm for, “These personal questions?”

“Ah.” Magnus set his drink down, “Don’t look so worried,” he told Alec, waving his hand until a leather bound book appeared. “For you,” he handed over, Alec opening it up to see nothing but blank pages. “A little bit of homework. Dull, I know, but it’s important for us to know so we can check in on you.” He took the book back, his fingers stroking slightly over Alec’s leaving tingles in their wake. “Every day, at the same time if you can, we’d, well Ragnor since, no offence, but I’m not putting myself through this torture. Anyway, we’d like it if you could record your day. Try and remember specific times and specific things you did at those times. And,” he warned, “more importantly, if you don’t remember.”

That “Sounds reasonable.” He’d been doing something like that anyway. Well, a couple of months ago he had been. Those stories he’d wrote, they’d sort of been like this.

As if thinking along those lines himself Magnus said, “You can have fun with it if you like. Put in some photos. Make it into a journal. Even,” Magnus didn’t even look like he was hiding what he knew when he suggested, “a poem.”

“Oh dear God,” Alec covered his face. Magnus had been in his room. Maybe. Right? He remembered, vaguely, waking up and someone being there. “Did you read one?” he forced out.

Magnus sniggered, “No. But it’s nice to know there are others.”

If he hadn’t read one then… “No,” he couldn’t have. “Please tell me I didn’t.”

Magnus was nearly bouncing in his seat as he said, “I liked it. It was a little… but,” he was practically beaming at this point. “yeah, I liked it. It’s been a while, if I’m honest, that I’ve had someone write a poem about me. They weren’t high as a kite either. But the sentiment is still the same.”

“Nooooo.”

Magnus laughed again, and why wouldn’t he? Some random shadowhunter had recited a poem at him. Alec hoped to God it was something good. Maybe Shakespeare. Or Dickenson.

But he just had this sickening feeling in his gut. One he just had to know if it was right as he asked, “What er, what was it?”

“The poem?” Magnus checked like his hand wasn’t already flickering blue, a sheet of paper landing in it meaning, oh god, Magnus had wrote it down. “Let’s see,” Magnus straightened himself up, clearing his throat before starting, “Cats eyes burning  bright-“

“Nooooo.” He’d literally just been writing that. It had been stuck in his head for days and this was why. This was why it had reared itself. His brain knew they were going to see Magnus again.

“Let me finish,” Magnus laughed, waiting until Alec was covering his face quietly again before starting over, “Cats eyes burning bright/ Sorrow stricken, full of plight/ How I wish, to mend the furrow betwixt your brow-“ Urgh, he’d used betwixt. What was wrong with him. “Something, something, something meow.”

Alec poked an eye open. “Did I not finish it?” He’d probably been mumbling the whole thing.

“Oh no you did,” Magnus said, “That was the poem, something, something, something meow.”

“Fucks sake,” he hid his face again, listening to Magnus laugh at him.

“Hey, no,” Magnus sobered up, “I loved it, really. Even if it wasn’t for me. You kept calling me Coco. I think you thought I was your cat.”

“That,” huh, no, actually, “that makes things worse I think.”

Magnus bit back a laugh. “Really, I’m flattered. I like it. And it’s nice to know young people these days are still appreciative of the lyrical arts.” Then, as if he was just waiting for Alec to feel that teensy bit better, “Besides, you were high, I know it wouldn’t have been your best work. Your father even told me you’ve written far better than this.”

“Oh my Gooood!” his dad was there? His dad heard that? He was never going to live this down. It was a miracle dad hadn’t brought it up already. Just, “Please, I’m begging you, please don’t tell anyone else about it. Especially not Izzy.” She’d be more insufferable than Max.

This, at least, Magnus promised him. “For my last, or, first, invasive question then, actually, scratch that, I have another one after this, but, are you shitting alright?”

How was this happening to him? “What?”

“It’s a serious question,” and for all his smiles Magnus did sound like he meant it. “Magic sometimes messes with the system a bit. Cat told me to make sure everything’s working properly when you came over. If not,” he pointed behind him, “I have-“

“I’m fine,” he was. “Everything’s… normal so, yeah. It’s great.”

“That’s good,” he hopped up, “I’ll let your father back in.

Oh. “I thought you had another question.”

Magnus spun on his heel, “Less of a question, more of an invitation. For myself. I’d love to read some of your work sometimes.”

“You really wouldn’t.” Alec hated reading back on them, and he was the one who wrote them in the first place.

But Magnus was sincere when he said, “I really would. I’ve actually met a few shadowhunter poets in my time. Their work is always so…” he mulled over it for a second, “depressing. But then, some of the best poems often are. So,” he held his hands out, “whenever you want a willing audience, I’m sure your sister will give you my number.”

Dad strolled in before Alec could even begin to wrap his head around that. After a few promises that everything was looking okay, and telling dad that Alec had homework that he had to do, they were off back home, and once they were back home, mom, Max and today’s babysitter were all ready and waiting for him.

Worse, Underhill had kept his word. As soon as Alec sat down he handed over a list of words that rhymed with ‘bright’. Alec honestly had never ripped a poem out as fast in his life.

 

Wither thou goes,
A fancy line of prose,
For one soul cut in twain,
Who could only hope to meet again.

“You’re not babysitting me,” Alec said, not even looking up from filling in his daily log. He’d found out the book was enchanted. As soon as midnight struck, the pages wiped themselves clean, and only once, when it first happened, did a fire message come through telling him to keep up the good work.

“Come on Alec,” Jace sighed, doing his best to sit around Alec’s propped feet. “You can’t stay mad at us forever.”

“I’m not mad.” He wasn’t. Just upset at them, which was completely different from mad.

Jace levelled him a look before, as he usually did when he was in the wrong, turning the conversation on Alec. “Well what about you? You didn’t tell us you were ill.”

“One, it shouldn’t have mattered if I was or wasn’t.” He’d literally been kidnapped for months and, what, they just continued to get on with their lives? That was fair enough, if that was the case. But they can’t just turn it on him and blame him for them not communicating with him when he’d made the effort. Also, “Second, you should have known I was ill. I always know when you’re not feeling your best Jace.” Hell he was the one who usually turned up at Jace’s door with a hot water bottle and aspirin before Jace even knew he was coming down with something.

“That’s different,” Jace brushed off.

“How?”

“W- it just is,” Jace snapped, “And, look, we’ve been really busy here.”

“So you keep saying.”

“I keep saying because it’s true. We’ve been trying to track down freaking Valentine. I’m sorry if your feelings got hurt but the entire shadow world was under threat while you were lounging around Idris.”

“Lounging around?” Well, he had been doing some lounging, but, “I wasn’t just ‘lounging around’ Jace! Mom and dad took my fucking door off because I couldn’t be trusted to be by myself. I’ve been missing time and recovering from something I don’t even remember happening. I’m sorry things have been shit for you here, but they haven’t been great for me either and I still made the time to talk to you!” He breathed out shakily, falling back into his chair.

Jace, lips pursed, let him catch his breath before asking, “You feel better?”

“A little,” Alec admitted. “I shouldn’t have told you that.” Mom and dad were gonna be pissed.

“No, you should have,” Jace corrected. “Me and Iz, we’ve known for a while mom and dad haven’t been telling us what’s going on with you.” He smiled at Alec’s confused face, “You keep thinking we’re idiots, but we do have at least one braincell between us. We knew when mom and dad didn’t just ship you back here after a month that things were off. I just wish you guys trusted us.”

He pulled his legs back in, Jace sitting down properly. “It’s not that we didn’t trust you. I did. But, they didn’t really know at first either. They just had a feeling.” Dad kept telling him off for being more spacey. Alec would lose time in the middle of training out back. He’d be shooting an arrow one minute, and the next be standing there getting yelled at because he almost shot his own brother. “It’s hard to describe a feeling.”

“But it got worse,” Jace knew.

Alec nodded. “I’m awake, but it’s like, I blink and the world has moved around me.”

“You missed time,” Jace repeated back to him.

Alec nodded again. “Could you feel it?” They didn’t always feel everything that happened to each other.

Jace made a face which just proved it. “I… it’s hard, it’s like, I felt like you weren’t there. But, you did that sometimes before as well. Like when you were asleep, or daydreaming during Hodge’s lessons.” They shared a smile, Alec wondering where Hodge was. He hadn’t seen the man since coming back. “Then…” Jace clicked his tongue, “Then a couple months ago. I mean-“

“Right.”

“I know the feeling of something wrapped around my neck Alec.” He looked pissed for all of three seconds before saying, “You must have really felt awful.”

“Still do,” Alec admitted. “Magnus says it’s not a guarantee. What they did?” Since Jace knew he’d gone to Ragnor for something. “So, that’s why there’s all this fuss. Although the door thing is more because of the,” he made a squick sound, pulling his collar up, the motion itself not garnering the laugh he thought it would. If anything it put Jace back in his bad mood. “Whatever. I just, if I’m angry I’ll get over it.”

Jace hummed, his foot kicking Alec’s chair. After a while Jace admitted, “I didn’t know what to put. When you wrote, you wouldn’t tell us anything and I just felt like you were lying to us. But I didn’t want to accuse you of anything because I know you trust us so, I don’t know, I just left it. And then it got to a point where you stopped writing. And then…” the rope, the tree, “and then after I had so much to say I just didn’t know how to put it in one letter. It’s stupid,” he kicked Alec’s chair again, “And I’m sorry. And I don’t want you to be mad at me. I don’t like when we fight.”

“Me neither,” Alec admitted quietly.

“So,” Another kick, “can we be friends again?” and that was the thing with Jace. Ever since Alec had known him Jace had thought friendship was something conditional. That, if they were fighting, they were mortal enemies and Alec hated his very guts. Even now, Alec knew he had a hard time remembering people still cared even if they were mad at each other.

It was probably why they were made for each other. Jace was always looking for love and Alec always had some to give. So, “Of course.” Of course they were friends.

Jace asked more after that. He wanted to know what to look out for. Izzy too, since, obviously, she needed to be told. “And, what? You’re under suicide watch on top of that? You really think you’re gonna do it again?”

“I didn’t think I’d ever try and do it the first time,” Alec admitted. It had just been a thought in the middle of the night. One that had grown and grown until he was standing there looking at the tree out back, a rope in hand and figuring out the best knot to hold his weight. “If this thing- if it’s not going away, I can’t promise I’m not gonna do it again.” He’d promised mom, but he’d have said anything to get her to leave him alone those first few days after it happened. “Magnus is going to help though. I have a journal. Ragnor’s going to be reading it, seeing if there’s anything worrying they need to look out for.”

“And we’ll help,” Jace promised.

“Will you have time amidst your busy schedule?” Alec only half teased.

“We’ll make time,” Jace promised. “You’re more important.”

Alec wanted to believe him. He really did. But Jace could be flighty when he wanted to be. Loyal, sure, but if things took precedent in his mind, Alec would be just another distant memory once again.

He didn’t tell Jace that, just asked to be caught up on what he’d missed.

Izzy’s apology, when it came, wasn’t as volatile as Jace’s had been. But then, Izzy didn’t put Alec first and then forget about him. Not if it mattered. She was always reliable, and, loathe as he was to admit it, probably his best friend. Although Helen was quickly catching up to her. Especially if she kept annotating her father’s love letters like she did.

“And there were no cute boys in Alicante?” Izzy pressed.

Alec shot her a look. “Even if there were, why would I be looking?”

“For me dum dum,” she saved, and, quite flawlessly too.

“I thought you had Magnus.” Alec may or may not be digging. Colour him curious.

Also a little relieved when Izzy snorted, “I wouldn’t say I ‘had’ Magnus. I don’t think anyone ‘has’ him. We’re just friends. He gets me in a way normal boys don’t.”

“Like me?” Alec teased.

“No,” Izzy said, “You get me. Max on the other hand,” she rolled her eyes. “Was it prolonged exposure to you that made him a little shit or was he always like that?”

“I think he was always like that.”

Izzy shot him a look, “So you then.”

Which- offensive.

 

Am I awake?

The Institute was gone. His body was drenched, his feet submerged in water to his ankles. The street signs wouldn’t focus, the letters blurring into one and back and one again.

Am I awake?
My feet they ache ,
From steps I didn’t take.
Am I awake?

He was in bed, the covers to his chin and his door still ajar from where mom had left it open that first night. His body was drenched, but Alec could feel the sticky residue of sweat. A dream then.

He swung himself around, Jace was going to have to play his bathroom buddy again. Alec could vaguely feel him through the bond, he wasn’t far. Probably stress cleaning. Alec wondered if Jace was interested in doing his room too.

He got up, swaying slightly before walking the short distance to Jace’s room.

He knocked.

Then knocked again.

Then gave up and figured his bladder was more important than whatever Jace was cleaning and opened Jace’s door anyway.

Except Jace wasn’t there.

The bond said he was, but Alec couldn’t see him.

“Jace?” Mom was gonna kill him, but Jace was around here somewhere. “Jace, if mom asks you had eyes on me the whole time.” He wandered in, still unable to see Jace no matter which way he stood. “Are you using that stupid glamour rune again?” Yeah, sure, they were supposed to be able to see through it, but sometimes, when they weren’t wearing the right runes, it didn’t always happen straight away. “Jace?” His feet were still wet, and the need in Alec’s groin was growing beyond painful. “Seriously, if mom catches me alone I’m throwing you under the bus. I’m not joking.”

Yet Jace called his bluff. So, okay, they were going to be yelled at. Alec was find with that.

He turned to head to the door, his foot tripping over something that scraped along Jace’s floor. Alec saw the glint before his brain registered the bolt and chain leading from there to a manacle just under Jace’s bed.

He didn’t even think, his feet moving before he could, tangling themselves until he was flat on his back as he scuttled as far away from those chains as he could get.

His back hit the wall, his feet stinging and from them Alec could see glass and blood and-

Cat eyes burning bright.
Am I awake?
Down turned, they filled with plight,
Sorrow stricken, my hand they take,
And turn us both to blue, blinding light

“Alexander?”

“Alec?” Jace’s face swam into focus, “oh thank God.” There were hands on Alec’s face, more on his feet. Jace was nearer, his face turned away as he asked, “Will he be alright? Is this another-“

“No,” Alec knew that voice. “No this is just a side effect I think. A rather annoying one I know, but your brother is awake enough to answer whether he’s lost time or not.”

Jace turned back to him, “Alec?”

Lost time?

“Alec?” Magnus called, his hands the ones on Alec’s feet. Picking glass out from the looks of things. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Remember? He wasn’t in his bed. He wasn’t even in the Institute. There was something purring by his head, and the couch beneath him was softer than the ones in the library. “I was…” A familiar decanter caught his eye. They were at Magnus’s. He should have already guessed that. “I was in bed.”

“Run me through it,” Magnus prompted and Alec did.

He recalled his shower, the time of his supper. The snack he’d snuck in afterwards when he was sure most other shadowhunters were out. Dad catching him and sending him to bed after eating the rest of the cookies Alec had dug up and then this.

Magnus looked at Jace. “It checks out,” Jace muttered. “I’ll ask dad just to make sure but yeah, that sounds like Alec.”

“No losing time then,” Magnus said, false cheer high in his voice.

“So what?” Jace demanded.

“So he’s been sleepwalking. It happens to people. Especially people who’ve been under a lot of stress. This could also be a byproduct of Alexander’s former affliction. His body is used to wandering when he’s asleep so it does. Simple.”

“No, not simple,” Jace insisted. “He ripped his feet to pieces.”

“Magnus is right,” Alec chimed in, having to shout over Jace to be heard again. “I did this a few times in Alicante. I don’t know how I got out, but, it’s not abnormal. And at least it is just sleepwalking. Before, I’d be doing something and just wake up at night wandering the woods. This is fine.” He could handle this. This was normal. He may have to put some more measures in place, but so long as he could remember going to bed, he could live with sleepwalking.

Jace couldn’t. He was as far from happy as any one man could get. But he did step outside and phone mom and dad when Magnus asked him to.

“This is normal right?” Alec checked as soon as Jace was out of earshot.

Magnus glanced up, “Honestly?” he shrugged, “I’m just as lost as you are. But if you haven’t lost time, then I don’t see why this is anything to worry about.” He tugged something long out of Alec’s foot.

“Ow.” Ew, was that glass? “What was I doing?”

“When I found you, you were doing a rather good impression of spiderman. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so worried you’d hurt yourself. Especially without your runes. The glass,” he yanked another long piece out, “is my fault. I may have yanked you down onto a broken bottle.”

He didn’t know who spiderman was, but the broken bottle he could understand. “You must be charging us a fortune for all the trouble we’re giving you.” Between this, and who knew how many times Clary had been, and was currently, going over to his place, they must have a pretty hefty bill.

Sure enough, “Your brother is currently negotiating my fee for his last consultation with Biscuit. But don’t you worry about that.” Another long shard was emptied out of his foot, “For you, I’m gladly doing this out of the kindness of my own heart.”

“Really?” There was no way Magnus wasn’t charging them for this. It was literally four in the morning. Alec would charge people for waking him up at this time just to get a sleepwalker back to bed.

“Well, maybe not kindness,” Magnus agreed. “Guilt,” he threw in there.

“Guilt?”

“For what she did to you,” Magnus clarified. “None of us charged your father. Now,” he rubbed something stinging onto Alec’s foot, “if it were your father, we’d probably have charged him. Maybe even turned him away. But it wasn’t your fault what happened to you. It was a little your father’s fault, but, we all agreed,” he shook his head, “it should never have happened. So you’re not being charged.”

Magnus let go of him, reaching for his other foot. “Well now I feel bad,” Alec sighed, seeing where the cuts were already beginning to heal. “You realise you’re going to be seeing me for a while right? You should be charging something for your time.” If Jace were in the room he’d probably be telling him to shut up. But, it didn’t negate the fact that Magnus was literally being inconvenienced here, and would continue to be for who knew how long.

Magnus opened his mouth, before pursing it as he rethought what he was going to say. Then, “Alright, I’ve changed my mind. I want a poem.”

Wait- “A poem?” Nooo.

“A poem,” Magnus grinned. “I want one. Doesn’t have to be new. But I want to see another one of your works. Compare it to my other one.”

“I have a really nice bow back-“

“Nope,” Magnus decided, “A poem.”

Alec breathed out shakily as Magnus started yanking glass out. “You’re literally the worst,” Alec decided.

“I think you’re kind of into it,” Magnus muttered, a smirk teetering around the edges of his mouth.

Alec didn’t dignify that a response, Magnus full on smirking by the time Jace came back to tell them that, yup, mom was homicidal. Also on her way over, which had Magnus yanking the glass out far faster than he had been doing. Alec was practically battle ready by the time he heard mom’s boots outside Magnus’s door.

“I’m putting bars on your window. No, on your door. Constant watch too,” mom threatened the entire ride back.

Alec would have been horrified, but, again, this was his own fault. Also, he kind was wanted something to stop him roaming the streets as well, so when mom announced they’d been slacking in security and it was stopping now, he let her do her thing. Only complaining when, that next night, he had a bell attached to his foot like he was a damn cat.

The bell worked however. Izzy told him a few days later he’d been sleepwalking. Well, she said sleepwalking, it was more like his body was actively escaping the Institute in ways he hadn’t known it was capable of doing while he was asleep, but the principle was the same.

 

From my window, I saw a bee,

“I think you should read my poem to him,” Helen said. The phone line was patchy, Alec only able to catch half words here and there, but he heard her all the same.

“I’m not reading him any poem. He’s just going to read them himself. One himself,” Alec corrected. “Besides, Ty’s poem is for Ty, not for Magnus Bane.”

Helen hummed down the line, “So, what?” she teased, “Are you going to make a whole new one up for him? You realise if you do this is taking Victorian flirting to a whole new level. Like, before, you were only expressing your interest in getting to know him if you wrote a letter. A poem? Read out loud? Commissioned for him-“

“It wasn’t commissioned for hi-“

“This is practically a declaration of courtship. And before you ask, Mark would agree with me. We know this stuff, it’s like our second language.” And okay, maybe Alec believed her.

But that just made things all the worse because, “I can’t think of anything new to write.” Not that he wanted to. “And my other ones are… kinda depressing.” And yes, Magnus said he was into that, but, well, if Alec was going to give him a poem to read, maybe he should test the waters out, see if Magnus’s flirting is just flirting or if he’s genuine about it.

Not that anything could happen.

Maybe.

“What about the one you already wrote him? How bad is it? I mean, can’t you tweak it?”

Which would be a good point except, “It’s literally about a cat.”

There was a snort over the line, Alec letting Helen laugh it out before she was back telling him, “Okay, here’s what you do. You find a seelie-“

“Don’t like where this is going.” Especially because if he asked his sister he could have seven seelies turn up to the Institute tonight.

“-and you ask for help. They’re probably gonna screw you over, but inspiration strikes in the weirdest of ways. Maybe you need to be screwed over in order to get your creative juices flowing.”

“I hate that plan.” But it was definitely going into the option b column. Right after option a, wing it until he gets it right.

“You need this plan. Now,” there was a bit of commotion over the line, “I have about ten minutes before Julian breaks and Emma’s begging to talk to you, so,” he heard a pen click, “Aline?”

Alec dug Aline’s last letter out, “Right, here’s a list of everyone she’s kissed. You ready?”

She was, Alec naming off everyone from Joseph Whitegrass when they were five, to Jace when they were seventeen.

Inspiration didn’t strike. Even calling Izzy’s seelie friends didn’t help him. By the time Magnus showed up for his poem, or, more accurately, to listen to Clary demand another service from him, Alec really did have nothing. Meaning, “Here,” he handed his notebook over, ignoring the curious look Izzy was giving them, despite her pretending to be listening to her music.

“The whole book?” Magnus preened. “I thought I was just asking for one.”

“I…” he shrugged, “Just read as many as you like.”

Magnus eagerly did just that, pulling up a chair and flicking to the first in, quite a lot, of poems Alec had wrote this year.

It was torture just sitting there, watching it happen. Even more so when he could see Magnus mouthing some of the words to himself. All in all, Alec’s poems weren’t long, most of them only four lines. But the amount meant it took Magnus a good twenty minutes to get through them, and another to read back over them until he actively held his fingers in pages, Alec was guessing, he liked.

“Well?” Alec prompted.

“Definitely better than the cat one,” Magnus decided. “and, while you’re no Shakespeare, I do like them.”

“Really?” He could understand Helen liking the one he’d wrote Ty. It was stupid and literally about her brother, so it had to be thoughtful and in return kind of good. But Magnus? A who knew how old warlock who’d definitely heard, and read, better than what Alec could make up?

“They’re interesting,” Magnus said. “I like how they change.”

Change? “I’m pretty sure a good 80% are about death.”

“They’re structure smart ass,” Magnus grinned. “You commit to the style of rhyming couplets, but in your earlier works you don’t continue it in the third and fourth verse. You throw in an odd sentence before making the fourth rhyme with the second.”

“Couplets are usually associated with love,” Alec said, even if he didn’t realise he was doing it when he wrote them.

“And you don’t love death,” Magnus agreed. “Not really. I’ve read writers works where they basically jump in the sack with death. But this is very much… a tease. At least until you get to your more recent ones. All rhyming. What changed?”

He hadn’t noticed that. “I don’t know.” He held his hand out, Magnus hesitating only a moment before handing the notebook back. Alec flicked through until he found the first poem he’d wrote where every line rhymed. The date he hadn’t written down, but Alec could remember it clearly. “It was after you helped me.” After they’d, maybe not fixed, but helped his brain scar over.

“Ah,” Magnus nodded, “Then perhaps the change is that you’re not so eager to meet death as you once were.”

“Maybe,” Alec considered, “Or maybe my brain’s finally working properly enough for me to think of something other than one rhyme.”

“Maybe,” Magnus laughed, and when he’d finished he said, “I do like them,” and Alec actually believed him. “But I think, even if it is bad, I like mine the most. There’s something so charming about it.”

“Please burn it.”

“Absolutely not,” Magnus gasped. “In fact, I’m going to get it framed.”

“Please don’t.”

“In big letters.”

“No.”

“With an illustration of a cat underneath.”

“I’m begging you.”

Magnus considered that for a moment, then, “Alright, I won’t. But you have to write to me instead.”

“Write to you?”

“Well, I was under the impression when we first met you enjoyed the lost art of letter writing. I waited so long for one to appear.”

“You literally saw me not even a few days after that,” Alec reminded him. Yes, it had been under bad circumstances, but they’d seen each other.

Magnus didn’t care, repeating, “So long,” with that dramatic flair of his. Before laying it on him that, “Your sister also told me you don’t have a phone so texting seemed a bit out of our jurisdiction for the time being.” Alec glanced over, Izzy smiling back at him, not at all listening to her music. “Not that I mind,” Magnus said, “honestly, there’s something just so personal about a letter. So many things can be said, and reread, without the glare of a screen blinding me if I stare at it too long.”

“I…” did he really have to be having this conversation with his sister around, “guess.” Maybe writing letters wouldn’t be too bad. It would be a modicum of privacy.

Magnus looked happy too, even if he was swept away not long after by Jace telling him Clary had agreed to his demands.

As soon as he was out the room, Izzy slid over until she was practically lying on his shoulder, asking, “Were you two talking about poetry?”

“No.”

“Oh my god,” Iz crowed, “You wrote a poem? You write poems now?”

“No.”

“I have to read them.”