The Malec Chronicles

Tired

Magnus is tired.

Of everything.

He's tired of constantly helping this group of young shadowhunters with their every emergency.  He's tired of that look in Isabelle's eyes when she sees him and Alec together, half happy and half sad, like she knows better than any of them how this is going to turn out.  He's tired of Jace, who is surprisingly good company and cleans when Magnus doesn't want him to and seems to have replaced Magnus as Chairman Meow's new favorite.  He's tired of stupid Valentine, who seems to pop up at the most inopportune times, even when Magnus had hopes that they had killed him off years ago.  He's tired of Clary, who he grew to love as he had loved no other child, and has now come back into his life and destroyed any semblance of a normal life he thought he would get to enjoy.

But most of all, he's tired of Alec.

Alec, the boy who had had his first real kiss in the door way of Magnus' apartment.  Alec, who wore sweaters that really were a crime against fashion and never brushed his hair but had the bluest eyes that Magnus had ever seen.  Alec, who, when you bothered to get to know him had a wonderful sense of humor and a wealth of knowledge, and didn't seem thrown by Magnus' magic, though he was a bit horrified when Magnus suggested that he do Alec's make up as an apology for splattering them both in demon goop.

Alec, who didn't care that he was a warlock.  Alec, who knew about what Magnus had done, that he had been born of the vilest of actions and then lived on to create more pain, to drive his mother to madness, to reach out with every ounce of power he had and burned his father (can he call him that?  He's never figured it out, not even after all these years)  to ashes and still looked at him without an ounce of blame in his eyes.  Alec, who doesn't look twice at magic and doesn't seem to have any particular like or dislike for downworlders, even though they all seem to hate him.  Alec, who stumbles along in his first relationship with a sort of blind faith, faith that he places entirely in Magnus hands.

But there's also Alec, who's in love with his parabatai in a way that isn't really even love, just a safety net for his feelings.  Alec, who's never going to say that he loves Magnus, who will never want to hear that Magnus might be in love with him.  Alec, who won't shy away from magic that could destroy an entire city but sometimes flinches away when Magnus tries to hold his hand. Alec, who's crumbling under the weight of trying to hold it together while his world is falling apart, bowing under the weight of both expectations and the coming war, which he's been drawn right into the middle of.  Alec, who will not let Magnus try to protect or comfort him, even now as they stand in a graveyard and are about to watch a newly born vampire dig its way out of its own grave and possibly try to kill them all.

Magnus lets his hand fall back to his side, and tries not to notice the look of pity that had sprung up on Clary's face.  Clary, who just had to watch her best friend die and is about to watch him be reborn, and is at the moment trying to figure out a way to rip out her own DNA so she can love Jace like she wants to, and still somehow has the ability to recognize that Magnus and Alec's relationship is currently hitting some bumps in an otherwise smooth road.  Still, there's more to tonight than him dealing with his problems, so he hands the bag of blood to Jace and steps back beside Alec.

Alec lets the back of his hand brush against Magnus' in an apology, and Magnus lets out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.  It wasn't Alec's fault that he had been made like this.  He's got all the broken shards of himself turned outward and ready to wound, and even though Magnus was only trying to smooth out of the edges, he was still being cut.

This isn't fair, He feels himself screaming, lost in the way that the moonlight was glinting in his hair.  I didn't want to feel this anymore, not this much, not this fast, I've seen too much and lived too long to be broken the way you're about to break me.

Alec looks over, cheeks red with the cold, eyes alight with the gathering adrenaline that was always so close to the surface.  He was gripping a dagger, and moves to position himself between Magnus and Simon's new grave, because he would put himself in danger to protect Magnus' without a second of hesitation if he thought it was worth it.

"This isn't going to be pretty,"  Alec said.  The ground was shifting beneath their feet, and in front of them, Clary broke free from Raphael's grasp and moved to dig her fingers in the hard dirt.  Magnus couldn't help but think they should have left the boy as a rat and been done with it.  It might have been kinder.

"No,"  Magnus answered, knowing Alec was talking about Simon's rebirth but thinking of the two of them instead.  "It so rarely is."