Chapter Text
As he rises through the layers of unconsciousness like dark water, his own name is the first thing he hears, spoken in a soft, unfamiliar voice that seems to resonate through his bones, strangely compelling.
“Alexander. Come back to me, Alexander. Come back, open your eyes. Wake up, just for a little bit. Good. You can sleep in a moment, but just for now—”
He blinks, opens his eyes.
“--wake up,” finishes the man leaning over him. A warlock. That much is obvious from his eyes, which are a shifting, luminous, inhuman shade of gold. Beautiful, Alec thinks, before he can stop himself. The man leaning over him is beautiful, with his dark hair and his sharp cheekbones and the soft bow of his mouth, which curves into a smile that seems entirely too warm to belong to a total stranger when Alec finally manages to focus on him. “There you are.”
His hand rests on Alec’s cheek for a moment. He can feel the fizz of magic against his skin, which means that the warlock must be healing him, but something about the gesture seems… uncalculated. Familiar, in a way that unbalances Alec. He licks his lips with a tongue so dry it feels like sandpaper, and his voice is a hoarse rasp when he speaks. “What--what happened? Who are you?”
A spasm of something unreadable crosses the warlock’s face, and he lets his hand drop, sits back a little. “Of course. My apologies. You were attacked, and you’ve been unconscious for a few days. I’ve been helping the healers attempt to unravel the aftereffects. My name is Magnus Bane.”
“You’re a warlock,” Alec whispers. The name brings a faint twinge of recognition, but it’s not something he can dig out of his foggy mind right now. The corners of his brain seem full of static. He must have been in really serious trouble if they brought a strange warlock into the Institute to work on him, but as far as he can tell, there’s not even a guard in the room. He and the warlock are completely alone under the cool fluorescent lights.
The smile that crosses the Magnus Bane’s face is a faint shadow of that first one. “I am.”
“You have, your—” Alec lifts one hand, which feels way too heavy, and gestures a little, vaguely. He’s never actually seen a warlock mark this close up. Not attached to a living person, anyway. There aren’t many warlocks who’ll let their glamours drop around shadowhunters. “Eyes.”
“My eyes,” the warlock repeats. For an instant, he looks entirely blank, almost baffled, and then he winces slightly and squeezes his eyes shut for several seconds. When he opens them again, the irises are dark brown, entirely ordinary. Human. “There. Better?”
“I--I didn’t mean, just, they were—” Pretty, he doesn’t say. God. His filter is completely fucking shot, and there’s a too-handsome warlock leaning over him, close enough to reach out and touch, and even glamoured his eyes are way too intent, and Alec is… really not coherent enough to deal with this right now. He clenches his teeth together before he can let anything else slip, then says, “Jace? Izzy--Isabelle, my sister--are they okay?”
Jace is okay, at least. He can feel the echo of his heartbeat through the bond when he focuses, half a beat slower than his own. Sleeping. He feels steady and calm in a way that he--hasn’t, actually, in a while, which probably means that Izzy is okay too.
“They’re fine,” Magnus Bane confirms. “Sleeping, for now. It’s been a very long few days. Would you like me to wake them? I know they’ll want to know that you’re—” he pauses, almost infinitesimally. “Awake.”
“No, ‘sfine.” Alec yawns. “Let ‘em sleep.”
“You can go back to sleep too, if you want.” He smiles a little. “You really should, actually. The healing took a lot out of you. I just needed you awake for a moment to assess the, ah, after-effects.”
“What—” What happened, he starts to say, but he doesn’t quite manage to get it out. There’s an itch at the back of his throat, rasping and dry, and it catches when he breathes in, a sudden hacking cough. He tries to muffle it with the back of his hand, too late. At the back of his mind, somewhere under the fog of exhaustion, he’s embarrassed to be flat on his back, helpless and useless and weak in front of this man, who even under the wan unflattering infirmary lights looks polished and powerful. And gorgeous. Strikingly so.
Don’t, he thinks firmly at that stupid part of himself, the one he’s never been entirely successful at stomping out, and braces his palms on the mattress to lever himself upright, eyes watering. His elbows feel like loose hinges, head spinning when he moves it, and for a moment he thinks that he might actually tip over before strong hands catch his shoulder, bracing.
“Here,” Magnus Bane says, “let me just—”
There’s a puff of blue magic that blows coolly across his skin, and a glass of water appears on the bedside table. The warlock steadies Alec easily as he curls in on himself coughing, reaches across to tuck the pillow behind his shoulders before pressing the water glass into his hands. Helps him hold it steady as he drinks, too, which is humiliating but probably necessary, given how weak Alec feels right now. He’s shaking so hard that the glass rattles slightly against his teeth.
“Thanks,” he mumbles when his coughs finally subside. He can’t quite meet the man’s eyes.
“Of course,” the warlock says. His voice is soft; his fingers warm where they’re still curled around Alec’s. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Magnus Bane lifts the glass out of Alec’s hands and sets it back down on the table, sitting back, and Alec curls his fingers, feeling oddly bereft. “You really ought to get some more sleep, though.” He lifts a hand, magic sparking from his fingertips, glittering in the dim light and catching on the multitude of rings adorning his hands. “I can help, if you’d like.”
“What, just magic me to sleep?” Alec says, skeptical.
“I’ve done it before. You always—” he breaks off. His mouth quirks into a smile that Alec can’t read. “That is, I can if you’d like. It’s up to you.”
He actually considers it for a moment. But as unexpectedly kind as the warlock has been so far--as good as he looks--Alec isn’t quite at the point of letting strange Downworlders mess with his mind, even just to make him sleep. He’s pretty much tilting off the edge of consciousness already anyway. He shakes his head, shifting down until the pillow is tucked under his cheek again. It’s a little awkward, and he’s almost certain he sees the warlock reach out abortively to help him, fingers splaying in the air for a moment before subsiding in a graceful sort of twist as he sits back in his chair.
“‘S’fine,” Alec murmurs, and yawns again. He still feels strange and unsettled, but his eyelids feel like they have weights attached to them, and really all of this can probably wait until morning. “Just. Stay?”
He doesn’t know why he asks. He’s not a child, to need someone to watch over him while he sleeps safe in the infirmary; he’s never had anyone sit up with him other than Jace or Izzy, and that only occasionally. Magnus Bane is a stranger, a warlock, someone who, for all his solicitous, baffling kindness, is only here because he’s being paid to be here. Alec has neither reason nor right to ask that of him, and yet the words slip out of his mouth unbidden.
The warlock’s expression twists slightly, strangely, and then he says, “Of course I’ll stay. Close your eyes, Alexander. Go to sleep.”
No one calls me that, Alec thinks, but it feels like a soft and distant thing as his eyes slip closed. Layers of darkness pile over him again, and as he slides off the edge of consciousness he could swear he hears the warlock speaking softly in a language he doesn’t recognise; could almost swear that he feels the warm curl of fingers around his hand.
*
The next time he wakes up, the warlock is gone, and Jace is sprawled in a chair with his legs kicked out, his head tilted back against the wall, snoring softly. Beside him is a vaguely familiar redheaded girl, sitting with one leg tucked up under her and peering down at her phone. She lifts her head when Alec moves, face brightening. “You’re awake! Hey, Jace!” She jabs him in the side, none too gently, and he jerks upright with a snort. “Alec’s awake. Wake up.”
“Ow, Jesus,” Jace mutters, shoving his hair out of his eyes. His face softens when he looks at Alec, though, a sudden relieved warmth suffusing the bond. “Hey. Good to see you back in the land of the living.”
“Good to be here,” Alec rasps. “What—” he breaks off coughing before he can finish the sentence. Jace is up in an instant, pressing the half-full glass of water on the nightstand into his hands. It’s lukewarm and slightly stale on his tongue. Jace helps him steady it for a moment before Alec shoves him off, and that awakens a twinge of memory, something dreamlike and fuzzy in the back of his head. “There was… was there a warlock here last night, or did I imagine that?”
Jace looks at him for a beat longer than normal. “You mean Magnus?”
“Magnus, yeah. Magnus Bane,” Alec says. Apparently he was real after all. But the look on Jace’s face is bothering him, and he’s pretty sure he’s not imagining the sudden unease thrumming through the bond. It makes his stomach twist, anxious. “I was pretty out of it. Thought I might have dreamed him up.”
He wants to bite the words back as soon as he says them. They’re a little too close to the things he never admits to anyone, not even Jace, who already pretty much knows anyway.
“Yeah, no,” Jace says slowly. “He was here last night. For the past couple of nights, actually. He, uh. I made him go home and get some rest, he’s been… Alec, how much do you remember?”
“I don’t…” Alec shakes his head. His mind feels clearer now, but no less bewildered. If anything, he’s more confused than he was last night, with a beautiful stranger leaning over him and talking to him with a gentle intimacy that seems… strange, in retrospect. That felt more than halfway like a dream. This is just an ordinary morning, in the infirmary after another patrol gone south, with Jace hovering by his bed and doing a bad job of hiding the worry that’s now thrumming through their bond like a swarm of angry bees.
And there’s another stranger here, sitting behind Jace and staring at him with a similarly worried expression.
No, wait. Not a stranger. He shakes his head, and the name suddenly surfaces in his mind, bringing a prickle of annoyance with it. Fray. Clary Fray. Jace’s mundane girlfriend, who is apparently not content to just show up and upend Alec’s entire world; now she’s following Jace into his infirmary room and staring at him while he’s flat on his back and helpless. Alec jabs a finger in her direction and doesn’t bother to hide the ire in his voice. “What’s she doing in here?”
Jace actually glances back toward Fray like he’s expecting someone else to be there. “What?”
The never-very-distant edges of Alec’s patience are fast approaching. His head is pounding and his stomach is unsettled, and every interaction he’s had since he woke up has been baffling, and the frustration of that is grinding into the bones of his jaw. “Look, just because you have a—”
“I’ll go,” Fray interrupts, standing up. She’s staring at him with wide eyes; her face is so pale and anxious that he almost feels bad for snapping.
“Clary,” Jace starts, looking unhappy.
“It’s fine. I’ll wait outside, okay? I’ll call Izzy and Magnus, you can...” She trails off, makes a vague sort of gesture. “You know. Explain. Since I guess Magnus didn’t.”
“Okay,” Jace says finally.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Alec,” she adds, glancing at him, quick and stuttered, almost frightened. “We were all really worried.”
Before he can even think of a way to respond to that, she’s slipping out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her and leaving him and Jace alone in the empty, brightly-lit infirmary.
“Shit,” Jace sighs after a long moment, sinking back into his chair. Unease twists in Alec’s gut, and he can’t even tell how much of it is his. That warm relief of a moment ago is long gone; Jace is a bundle of cold anxiety beneath his mask of practiced calm, and even that is cracking.
Alec pulls himself upright, relieved when he can manage it without help. He still feels too weak, but he doesn’t feel like his bones are about to disintegrate inside him, which is a start. He braces his palms against the rumpled sheets and fixes Jace with a stare until he lifts his head. “Jace. What happened?”
Jace rubs a hand over his jaw, which is rough with stubble. He looks exhausted, actually. “How much did Magnus tell you?”
“Not much. He said…” Alec lifts one shoulder. “I was pretty out of it. He said I’d been attacked. That was pretty much it.”
“Shit,” Jace says again. He rocks forward in his seat, and then says, quickly like he’s lancing a wound, “Yeah, you were. You almost died, Alec. We weren’t sure Magnus would be able to pull you out of it, and you, uh. He said you might lose some time, and I guess you did. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Alec opens his mouth, then realizes that he’s not actually sure how to answer that. His mind feels fuzzy and vague. He can remember flickers of movement, darkness and something sparking, but he doesn’t remember gearing up for the patrol. He doesn’t remember what he last had for breakfast. He doesn’t know what day it is, or how long he’s been here, or anything. Jace will be able to feel the sudden trickle of unease, but it’s long-standing habit that keeps his voice steady and careful. “I’m not sure. We were on a patrol?”
“Someone summoned a soul-eater. It killed a bunch of mundanes and went after a training patrol, and when we went in to trap it…” Jace shakes his head. “Alec, look. Do you know what the date is?”
“Yeah, it’s…” He stops. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how long he’s been in the infirmary, but more than that, he doesn’t know what the last date he remembers is. It was… spring? Warm air on his morning jog and the smell of cut grass and petrichor, a distant spooling echo of some mundane’s car radio playing a song--he shakes his head. The trickle of unease is becoming a flood. “Uh. May?”
Jace stares at him. “What year, Alec?”
The fact that Jace is asking that is worrying, but at least it’s something he can answer. “2016.”
Jace rubs a hand over his face. “Okay. That’s about what Magnus was thinking, I just hoped—you remembered Clary, right?”
“Are you going somewhere with this?” Alec manages. He can feel the burn of impatience on his tongue, anxiety coiling in his gut. Some of it is Jace’s, but not all of it. “You’re the one who brought her into the Institute. Against my strenuous objections. Of course I remember her; I wish I didn’t.”
“Jesus, I forgot what you were like about that,” Jace murmurs, shoving a hand through his hair. Then he takes a short breath and says, “Okay, look, it's just. It’s been three years.”
“What’s been three years?” Alec asks slowly. There’s something like horror unfurling inside him, threading delicately through his veins, and it’s worse when he sees Jace’s face. He does understand. He doesn’t want to, but he understands. “No.”
“It’s 2019. June fifteenth, if you want to be exact.”
“That’s not possible.”
“The soul-eater got her claws into you. You were--you were disintegrating, Alec. Magnus grabbed you and that interrupted it, but--Jesus. I almost watched you die. I could feel you dying.”
“I’m sorry,” Alec says uneasily, because he doesn’t remember it at all, but the look on Jace’s face is kind of awful and the feeling echoing through their bond is worse.
“Don’t be sorry, you idiot. Everyone else who came into contact with that thing is dead. You--we’ll get your memories back. Magnus is the best there is at what he does, and he’s pretty fucking motivated right now, believe me. I’m just glad you’re alive.”
“Okay,” Alec says, and rubs a hand over his face, trying to get his thoughts in some kind of order. Three years. He doesn’t even know where to start with that, and he’s suddenly desperately glad it’s Jace here with him. He’d be panicking if it was anyone else, but Jace has always been there to steady him, a counterweight that Alec can balance himself against. Whatever else has changed in the time he’s been missing, at least he still has that; at least he’s not waking up to this with a stranger. Again. “Okay. What do I need to know?”
“What do you want to know?” Jace asks carefully.
“If I knew what questions to ask, I’d ask them,” Alec says, and it’s brittle and sharp enough to cut, but Jace doesn’t even flinch. It's like somewhere along the last few years Alec has lost the ability to bruise him with a careless word, and he’s not sure whether or not that’s a relief.
It’s a shift, anyway, in the bedrock of the one thing he’s always been able to count on.
“Sorry. I am, seriously, I can’t imagine how confusing this must be for you. I just…” He breathes out a laugh. “I don’t know where to start. It’s a lot of time to cover.”
“How about you start with the patrol,” Alec says, tamping down as hard as he can on the impatience in his voice, although his ears tell him that he’s not particularly successful and Jace would be able to tell in any case. He’s not sure if it’s worry or proximity or something else, but their bond is more open than he can remember since they were kids, a smooth reciprocal flow of warmth and emotion. Alec almost reaches to close it off, habitual wariness reasserting itself, but he can’t quite bring himself to step away from that simple comfort. Things have been… difficult with Jace recently, especially since Clary Fray showed up. It’s nice to have them easy again, even if it is just because Jace is worried about him. “Tell me about the soul-eater. We can go from there.”