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Magnus flinches, grateful for the first time in hours that the lights are off. How he’d let himself be talked into this; he still doesn’t know.
He has never hidden his dislike of horror movies of any kind from his friends but nevertheless, here he is; two and a half movies in a Halloween horror marathon. Magnus has been forced into watching one gory, jump scare filled ‘a group of friends go to a cabin, get drunk, summon something and slowly get killed one by one’ and one very trashy exorcist style ‘we pissed of the aliens and now they want to kill us all so we need to kill them all first’ sci-fi fail. They were the better part of a way through an even worse sci-fi catastrophe that involved some extremely unethical science and, in Magnus’ opinion, was an all-round terrible concept that should never been made into a script in the first place.
All it really meant was that Magnus had spent more time staring at the ceiling and then the wall than at the tv itself as he attempted to not pay the movies any attention.
Taking his chance when Jem mentions he’s getting hungry, Magnus volunteers to order dinner, leaving the room before anyone else can offer.
Having stalled as much as possible while ordering everyone’s usual from Taki’s, Magnus sets his phone back down on the counter and stares mutinously at the door standing between him and enough fodder to fuel his nightmares for the next three decades. As it stands, Magnus already knows he won’t be getting a decent night’s sleep for who knows how long.
Curse his overactive imagination. Sure it’s great for his job, but damn if he doesn’t hate it when even the slightest provocation can prompt his mind into spawning all kinds of horror scenarios for months.
He really does not want to go back in there.
“Oh, now that was just unnecessary.” Ragnor’s delighted voice breaks above the rest of Magnus’ friends’ voices as they vocally react to whatever has just happened.
Deciding to take his chances with his friends’ wrath once they figure out he’s ditched out on them, Magnus swipes up his phone again, slipping it into his pocket before pulling on a jacket; adding his keys and wallet before shutting the door to his loft as silently as possible as he leaves.
It isn’t until he’s made it halfway down the block that Magnus realises he’d just been effectively kicked out of his own home. He loves his friends, he truly does, they’re the family he never had, but goddamn does he hate them sometimes.
Continuing on aimlessly, Magnus finds himself almost entirely distracted by the sights and sounds of Halloween. Unfortunately, this means that as the sun continues to drop lower in the sky, more and more lights get turned on casting shadows with the decorations that line the streets. Hands shoved in his pockets, Magnus tries to ignore the invasive thoughts of monsters lurking behind every corner or following behind him, just waiting for the opportunity to rip his face off.
It all comes to a head when a door slams somewhere and the street lights flicker at the exact same time someone bumps into him from behind.
Heart racing, Magnus spins around and lashes out wildly, not realising he’s actually managed to land a blow until the not-actually-a-monster but just a regular human man swears; dropping the case he’s been carrying in favour of curling over with his hands brought up to his face.
“Oh, SHIT!”
“Muderfugger,” the guy curses at the same time as Magnus yelps in surprise.
“I am so sorry,” Magnus apologises, hands hovering over the guy. “I thought you were… well, it doesn’t really matter. But I have no excuse except for some shitty friends who I can’t ever say no to and an over active imagination that I can’t turn off… I didn’t break your nose, did I?” he demands when the man straightens back up and Magnus catches sight of a smear of bright red between his mouth and nose.
“I don’t think so,” the man says, wincing as he gingerly prods at his face.
“Then what…”
Magnus squints and realises that what he’d originally thought was blood is in fact just bright red lipstick. It’s a good colour on him, Magnus decides absently as he runs his eyes over the man again, now that he’s not completely distracted by monsters that don’t actually exist.
How Magnus missed the Snow White dress, he’ll never figure out; but underneath the man’s leather jacket is a very dodgy and ill-fitting, but still undeniably, Snow White dress. Around Magnus’ height, what should be a floor length dress ends mid-calf to show the man’s scuffed black combat boots that he’s wearing instead of the more traditional brightly coloured, satin slippers.
“Magnus?” the man asks.
Magnus rears back, “Do I know you?” he questions back slowly.
“Not really,” the man shrugs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I think you know my siblings; Izzy… and Jace?”
Magnus tilts his head as he takes a better look, and yeah…. ignoring the dress and the ruined lipstick, he does actually look a lot like a six foot plus, male version of Isabelle Lightwood. And Magnus has met both Jace and Max meaning that this is, “Alexander?”
“Alec,” he corrects, smiling and then wincing once more.
Guilt floods Magnus again.
To say that Alec is just Isabelle’s sister is an understatement; he and Alec have spent years as ships in the night. Entirely too many people knowing the both of them, yet they’ve never actually met each other until now.
Amongst a thousand other single degrees of the metaphorical Kevin Bacon that lie between them, Jace is some kind of distant cousin to Magnus’ close friend Will. Magnus has worked with Isabelle for about four years now. Jace has also dated both Clary and Simon, the pair of which Magnus has known since childhood. With their respective jobs in as a pararescue airman in the Air Force and as an Army doctor, Alec and Catarina met each other in Med school and still keep in touch as pen pals; occasionally even meeting each other in person when they end up stationed in the same vicinity as each other. Even Ragnor and Raphael have met Alec at some point. It’s actually ridiculous that they are only now meeting in person for the first time.
“I really am sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Alec offers with a smile as he bends to pick up his case; “I’ve had worse sparring with Jace.”
“Can… Can I do anything?” Magnus asks, flustered to find himself face to face with Alec after so long of only hearing about him in stories. He makes a mental note to eviscerate every single last one of their mutual friends for never mentioning how heart-stoppingly gorgeous Alec is. How dare they hold out on him in this way. “Buy you a drink?”
“Really?” Alec looks so stunned by the offer that Magnus almost feels offended.
But before either can say anything Alec’s phone makes its presence know; Alec scowls as he fishes it out of his pocket.
“No, I’m not ditching you, Lewis,” he grumbles into the phone after listening a moment. “I got held up. By nothing.” Alec hangs up unceremoniously and his scowl disappears all but instantaneously as he focuses on Magnus again.
“I’d love to, you have no idea how much but I promised Lewis and Jace will never shut up about it if I don’t show…” Alec looks so saddened and annoyed that Magnus does the only thing possible.
“Then may I join you in wherever it is you’re going?”
Alec blinks at him, all wide blue eyes and adorable bewilderment. “You don’t have your own plans?” he asks ever so considerately.
Magnus refrains from rolling his eyes. “Darling, my only plans for the night were to ignore the horror movies my so-called friends were inflicting on me and pray to all the higher powers I’ve never believed in that I manage to get a nightmare free sleep sometime in the next decade.”
Sympathy ripples over Alec’s face. “You too,” he says commiseratingly. “Cat was always trying to make me watch horror movies.”
It’s an odd sort of relief to learn he’s not the only one who’s had their friends’ love of all things horror forced onto him.
“The worst was when she tried to get me to watch this one bizarre kids show set in Austral…”
“Jeopardy!” Magnus cuts in. “I hate that show! It terrified me but I still let her pull me down for each episode because I needed to know what in the hells was going.”
“And the way it ended.” Alec’s groan of frustration is everything Magnus feels about the drama.
Alec’s phone rings again but this time he doesn’t answer it.
Clearly torn, Alec’s eyes shut in frustration.
“I have a… thing…” Alec says.
“A thing,” Magnus repeats, amused at how inexplicably adorable this six-foot, soldier of a man can be.
Alec sighs. “A gig. Lewis’ band diched out last minute so Izzy blackmailed me into helping him out.”
That certainly tracks from the stories Magnus has heard about him; a strong-willed man unless his siblings are involved, in which case he turns into an absolute softie.
“Drinks after, then?”
Alec blinks. And then his smile grows as he offers Magnus his free arm. “Drinks after.”