Archive of Our Own ^beta

Magnus really should have noticed sooner. 

~

The first hint was easily enough attributed to Shadowhunter training and Alec’s general lack of care for the basic upkeep required to keep a body functioning. 

It was a quiet evening — wintertime, a few months after their marriage, snow falling outside, the two of them curled up on the couch watching the cheesy Christmas movies that Alec had never experienced. Magnus snapped his fingers to summon mugs of hot chocolate into their hands from the café down the road whose faerie owners were well used to vanishing products replaced by bills in the cash register. 

“Careful, it’s hot,” Magnus warned, but too late — Alec had taken a large sip without blowing on the surface. 

He didn’t wince, though, at the temperature that had to have burned his tongue. “It’s not that hot.”

Cautiously, Magnus took a small sip of his own drink, which scalded his throat on the way down. “It’s definitely too hot, Alexander.” 

“Maybe yours is hotter than mine,” Alec suggested, smirking and setting down his mug. 

Magnus opened his mouth to point out that the two mugs had been identical, but Alec kissed him before he could speak. 

“Yeah, I think yours must’ve been a different temperature,” Alec said wisely, pulling back. 

“Shut up,” Magnus told him, and kissed him again. 

By the time they’d stopped kissing, both hot chocolates were cold, and Magnus had forgotten all about it. 

~

The second time could also be passed off as Magnus’ lack of outdoor skills — he had no reason to acquire them, after all, since he could do the same thing more easily with his magic. 

But Alec had made him promise not to use magic for the weekend camping trip they were on — a rare holiday for both of them — and so he was struggling to build a fire on his own. He knew the theory, he’d even lit a fire without magic once or twice when he was magically exhausted, but he couldn’t get the matches to light. Perhaps they were old, but they kept snapping off in his fingers rather than lighting on fire. 

Eventually, he gave up and called Alec over from setting up the tent. “Alexander, darling, love of my life—”

“Nope, no using magic to light the fire,” Alec said with a fond huff. “It’s cheating.”

Magnus sighed and assumed an exaggeratedly despondent attitude. “But what’s the point of being an all-powerful warlock if I can’t use it to fulfil the basic functions of life?”

Alec shook his head at him. “Still no. We don’t need magic to light a fire.” 

“You do it, then,” Magnus said, sitting up and passing him the package. “I think they’re too old.”

Silently, Alec took it, pulled out a match, and flicked it against the side of the package. It flared to life. 

Raising a pointed eyebrow at Magnus, he lit the fire with it and then tossed the match in. 

Magnus gaped at him. “How did you do that? I’ve been trying for half an hour—”

“You just don’t know how to use matches,” Alec replied with a laugh, and Magnus thought no more of it. 

~

There were other things Magnus should’ve noticed. 

The way that Alec tended to run hot and dislike the cold, although he thrived in summer weather no matter how humid it was and no matter how many layers of black patrol gear he was wearing. The way he never burnt his fingers when cooking, even though every other accident imaginable seemed to happen to him. The ease with which he lit the fire in Magnus’ fireplace or in his office. 

Max’s pyromaniac tendencies — apparently he’d accidentally (or “accidentally”) drawn the fire rune not once or twice but seven times. The way that he, too, ran hotter than usual. 

The flames on the Lightwood crest. 

But Magnus only realised that something was up when it became immediately, incredibly obvious. 

~

Alec was doing reports in the living room, his chair and table pulled up close to the fire for warmth as he corrected reports and signed off on all the various forms of paperwork for which the Head of an Institute was responsible. 

Magnus was sitting a few chairs over, working on a translation for a client, his book open on his lap. He looked up at the sound of a yelp from Alec — the Chairman had leapt from a shelf over Alec’s head directly onto the pile of papers, which wasn’t nearly as steady as Chairman had presumably supposed. 

The pile slipped, and Chairman slid sideways off the desk and into the fire. 

Alec dropped to his knees to pull him out, but his leg was stuck under a log, and as Magnus watched, frozen, Alec picked up the still-burning red-hot log and lifted Chairman clear of the flames. 

Magnus was at his side in a moment, dousing the smoking embers on Chairman’s fur — it was lucky he hadn’t caught fire immediately, with how hot the fire was — and healing the burns on the leg that’d been trapped. He took one of Alec’s hands, magic gathering to get rid of Alec’s burns—

—except there were no burns. Alec’s hands were as unmarked as they had been before. 

Had Magnus imagined it? Alec had grabbed a log from the centre of the fire. His fingers should at least be red and inflamed, but they looked completely normal. 

“I probably should’ve told you about this before,” Alec said, looking down at his unblemished hands. “It’s… a Shadowhunter thing.”

“I saw Jace burn his hand on a pan only last week,” Magnus pointed out. 

“It’s really more of a Lightwood thing, then,” Alec corrected. “It’s — here, let me gather up my stuff and then I can explain properly—”

Magnus flicked his fingers to sort the scattered pages into the piles they’d been in before Chairman’s leap, then magicked up some of the Chairman's favourite cat food and milk — the poor cat deserved a treat after nearly burning to a crisp, and while he was fully healed, he still looked slightly shell-shocked. 

Alec sat down on the couch, pulling his legs up sideways, and Magnus mirrored him so that they were facing each other with their legs entwined. Alec’s calf was warm against Magnus’ leg — warmer than usual?

“You know how Clary and Jocelyn could put objects into paintings?” Alec began, looking at him. “And Herondales can see ghosts?”

“Yes,” Magnus said. 

“Both traits are related to bloodlines,” Alec explained. “Several of the oldest bloodlines have them, although not all; no two gifts are the same. They say it’s a gift from the angel, given to the first Shadowhunters to Ascend. The Lightwood gift is fire.”

“I had no idea,” Magnus said. “I thought the Herondales were a one-off and Clary and Jocelyn’s abilities were from their extra angel blood.”

Alec nodded. “Well, not every member of the bloodline gets the gift — most don’t, nowadays, actually — so it’s not an obvious pattern. And it’s a closely guarded secret. Probably the Clave doesn’t want word to get out that Shadowhunters can have a kind of magic, too, beyond our runes.”

“Sounds like the Clave,” Magnus agreed. “So you can — control fire?”

“More or less.” Alec paused. “I’m resistant to heat, to a certain extent — I don’t know how far the protection extends, and I don’t particularly want to find out. Max has the gift, too; he’s good with fires in general, and he keeps accidentally lighting them. I’m less good at those parts, but I can do it to a certain extent, if subtly — I kept the worst of the flames off of the Chairman, for instance. It’s not strong enough to be useful in a fight, though.”

“I can’t believe I never noticed,” Magnus said, eyes wide and interested. “Izzy doesn’t have it?”

“No, which she’s a bit salty about,” Alec replied. “She’s the best in everything else, though, so it’s not really a problem.”

Magnus huffed. “You’re hotter and better at politics and archery.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “You’re biased.”

“I think I have a right to be,” Magnus returned, and kissed him. 

~

Magnus opened his eyes in a glass box. 

His head was aching, and he tried to put his hands to his temples, but they were chained to a chair with magic-suppressing cuffs. Magnus looked around, taking in the space (perhaps three metres long, two wide, and two high, the walls and ceiling of glass, the bottom resting on the ground) and the other occupant (Alec, head lolling but blinking awake as Magnus watched, also tied to a chair, blood on his temple). 

Memory came back in a rush — a walk in the evening, a scream, both of them following the sound, somebody standing behind them knocking Magnus out at a blow. They’d been kidnapped. 

He took in a deep breath, but his lungs felt compressed. Outside of the glass stood a Shadowhunter, looking at them with her arms crossed over her chest. 

“Good. You’re awake,” she said, voice only slightly muffled by the glass. 

“Who are you?” Alec asked from beside Magnus. “Why did you kidnap us?”

“My name is irrelevant.” She turned slightly, and Magnus and Alec saw the Circle rune on her neck at the same moment. “I’m here to stop you from messing up the natural order of things,” she said. 

Magnus leaned back nonchalantly, ignoring the difficulty of breathing and the discomfort of the magic-suppressing cuffs on his wrists. “You going to keep us locked in this box for a few weeks, or kill us immediately?” 

“Immediately,” she replied with a smile. “The air in there is mixed with propane. Perhaps you’ve noticed how difficult it is becoming to breathe.”

“So you’re going to suffocate us to death?” Alec was hiding his panic well, but Magnus could see it in the set of his shoulders. 

“Not quite.” She smiled again. “You’re going to burn. Propane ignites with heat. You’ll go up like candle flames.”

With that, she pulled out a stele and drew a fire rune on the glass. 

Nothing happened. Magnus glanced over at Alec and saw his hands curled into fists, his attention fixed with intensity on the spot where she’d drawn. He must’ve been using his gift to keep the air from igniting. 

She sighed. “So you have the Lightwood gift. No matter; I’ll overwhelm it soon enough.” She drew another fire rune, and another, and another, and despite all Alec’s efforts, the air was heating up. 

The world exploded in fire— 

—and then the fire was gone. 

Magnus’ lungs were screaming, his skin felt seared away, the chair was nothing but ash — but he was alive. 

He looked for Alec. 

His husband was on his feet, his bonds melted around his feet, his hands raised in the air. 

The glass cage was gone, destroyed by the explosion of propane, and fire had encased the space where the Circle member had stood, a great ball of fire that Alec was holding in place with his outstretched hands. The Circle member was nothing but ash. 

“Alexander,” Magnus said, rasping through his burnt throat, and Alec closed his hands into fists. 

The fire went out, and Alec’s knees buckled. 

Magnus caught him with an arm around the waist, easing the two of them to the ground even as his burnt skin sent bolts of agony through him at the contact. Alec was gasping, pale, his skin hot to the touch, and no wonder — he’d controlled the fire to an extent Magnus had never seen before. 

“Magnus,” Alec managed. “You’re burned—”

“Nothing a little magic can’t fix,” Magnus replied, already speaking easier through his healing throat. “Are you okay?”

“Just… really tired.” Alec managed a small smile. “Feels like rune exhaustion, except worse.”

Magnus did a quick magical scan to ensure there was nothing wrong beyond Alec pushing his gift to its limit. “No more runes or using your gift for at least a week, but you’ll be alright.”

Alec huffed. “I’ll probably resent that by tomorrow, but that sounds fine by me right now.”

That, if nothing else, was a sign of how tired he was. Magnus summoned a portal to bring them directly to their bed in the loft without Alec needing to move. “You should get some rest.”

“Stay,” Alec breathed, eyes already closing. 

“Always,” Magnus replied, and Alec smiled as he fell asleep.