pineslog | [closed] all in the golden afternoon

Entry tags:

[closed] all in the golden afternoon

Who: Magnus Bane (

appetitive), Alec Lightwood (

babyhunter)
Where: Go Ask Alice teahouse
When: April 2nd, afternoon
What: Clary had been looking for someone named Magnus Bane and happened to come across his protective husband. Setting up a meeting for the three of them in a public place just makes sense, right?
Warnings: None!
[Closed]

Though he's not entirely sure why, Magnus is suspicious of the girl asking them to meet—him to meet, technically, but he's thankful to Alec for coming along. His hand is being firmly held by his husband's, and even though he doesn't have any of his weapons with him, Alec is an intimidating force in black leather. It makes Magnus bite back a smile to see him here, sitting in a tufted armchair and surrounded by floral wallpaper, drinking from a delicate china teacup. The teahouse had struck Magnus as an ideal place to meet, not only because it was a relaxing setting but also because Alec enjoyed tea so much. And really, with other caffeinated options such as coffee, it would be difficult for anyone not to find a cup of something to enjoy.

Sipping from his cup, rings clinking against the porcelain, Magnus glanced around as they waited for the third and final member of their party to arrive. "Maybe I should put in a job application here," he said, glancing over at Alec, cat eyes glinting golden in the sunlight streaming in from the windows. He was partially trying to calm his own nerves, especially because he had no idea of what caused them. Clary Fray was, from the description Alec gave him, completely ordinary and non-threatening. Yet something niggled at him from the back of his mind, and without any recollection of his past, it felt safer to be cautious until they could find out what it is she might want from them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Clary was wearing a pair of jeans and a baby blue top with a Chinese character written on the front of it. To combat the cold she had a baggy jacket on though it wasn't zipped up, creating the perfect balance between the cold outside and the warmth the jacket provided.

The tea shop was warmer than she thought it'd be and as she stepped inside she was hit with the strong mingled fragrance of many different kinds of tea. Clary tried to remember if she'd ever been here before but she couldn't grasp at anything concrete. Her green eyes scanned the small shop pausing when she spotted Alec and Magnus at a table. They were clearly enamored with each other and as she walked closer she couldn't help but notice how cute it was.

Her thoughts drifted and twisted down frivolous paths before she pulled her focus to the two at the table.

"Hi." Clary tried not to sound awkward but she wasn't sure what she was doing. There was a vague idea, teasing the back of her mind and Magnus Bane was at the center of it. She took a seat quickly, pushing her bright hair behind her ear. "Thanks for agreeing to meet with me." She didn't know exactly what she was expecting but she felt a strange sort of familiarity settle between them. It was the sort of familiar that hummed and brushed against her skin, as if she could feel it stirring in the air.

He knew that he was probably being overprotective. His husband was an adult. He didn't need Alec in the background, making sure that he was safe. It could have seemed more than just overprotective, but Magnus had seemed grateful that he didn't even consider letting his husband go alone. That meant that Alec didn't have to explain the strange almost-panic that he felt at the idea of someone looking for Magnus or the insidious thought that someone might hurt Magnus and he'd lose him forever. There was no rational reason for that fear, but he couldn't shake it no matter how rational he tried to be.

Brushing his thumb along Magnus' hand, he smiled at his husband. "You'd be perfect as the Cheshire Cat." Actually, that wasn't a bad idea. It'd give Magnus a reason to be 'quirky' and people would assume his eyes were part of some kind of publicity stunt. Taking a sip of his tea, he set the fragile cup down carefully. It was good, but not the type they usually drank. He almost tried to reach for that piece of the past but he knew it would elude him if he forced his memories. Things seemed to come back if he let them gain clarity at their own pace.

Looking up when someone moved closer to the table, Alec chided himself for not being more careful. He shouldn't have gotten so distracted by Magnus and having tea like they had in... Momentarily disorientated, he shook his head, surprised when he focused and realized that the 'Clary' they were waiting for was the girl from the coffee shop. "You're the girl with the mark like mine." Not the most polite greeting, but it was true.

Magnus couldn't contain the laughter that bubbled up with the image of him dressed in purple and pink stripes, ears and tail topping off the ensemble; for some reason, he got the feeling that it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility for him. "We're all mad here," he said with a comical grin before looking up at the girl approaching them. Seeing her made something lurch in his stomach, and he gently placed his cup in its saucer before it fell from his hand. She didn't inspire the same rush of memories as Alec had, but she gave him a sense of familiarity, like deja vu from a half-remembered dream set in a place he'd never been before.

"Clary," he said in greeting, squeezing Alec's hand tighter and then relaxing his fingers. He parted his lips to say more but his focus turned completely on Alec. "Your tattoos?" he asked, smoothing his thumb over the one on the back of Alec's hand. A word danced around in his head, rune echoing through his memories, but he didn't speak it and instead filed it away for later.

"Where are our manners? Have a seat," he offered as she took it, and he slid an empty teacup towards her to indicate she was welcome to share the pot in the center of the table. "Not a problem, biscuit. We're trying to piece things together as well."

Clary carefully took a seat. She always felt like she was going to break things in a tea shop. The smell of Magnus and Alec's tea reached her and she felt herself relax. It was a familiar smell, maybe the smell of her mothers favorite tea? She shook her head and forced her attention on the pair sitting across from her. She had been the one to ask them to meet after all.

"Yeah. I have..." She held up her arm showing the fading circle tattoos on her skin. It was continuing to fade and was lighter compared to the day before. Clary didn't have the same permanent marks that Alec had but it was something odd that they shared. "...this tattoo. I don't think I would have gotten it on my own. I drew something similar in my sketch pad the other day." She didn't know where the symbol came from or what it meant.

"Thank you." Biscuit, the nickname teases the back of her thoughts. "Right. I don't actually remember why but I was looking for you. Ah, I think I was going to ask for your help." That was all she'd been able to get from the feeling twisting uncomfortably in her chest.

"Wouldn't scone be more appropriate than biscuit?" As he spoke, he had a flash of the dark haired girl rolling her eyes at him and the blond boy looking fond. The usual reaction to his odd humor? How did he know it was odd if he couldn't remember anything about the people he knew were his family?

Life was going to be weird until his memory started coming back. He just had to accept that.

Unwinding his hand from Magnus' grasp, Alec reached for one of the cups, pouring tea and asking if Clary wanted sugar as if this was something normal for all of them. Maybe it was. That didn't and didn't seem quite right as he thought he remembered serving tea for all of them but there was also something about red phone boxes lingering in the back of his mind.

"I have a similar one, but it's somewhere I can't show in public." Offering Clary the cup and saucer, he relaxed slightly at her suggested reason. "Maybe since we both have similar symbols, we should start there. See what things match up between the three of us?"

Glancing over at Alec, he chuckled and patted his thigh beneath the table. "It would, but biscuit just flowed so nicely in the moment. I don't know why, but that's to be expected when experiencing amnesia," he said with a thoughtful frown that he turned on Clary. He had hoped that meeting her would spark some recognition, but his mind was still blank for the moment. "Maybe we know each other, if she remembers my name."

He leaned over the table to look more closely at the mark on Clary's arm, taking note of how it was lighter than a common tattoo, similar to some of the marks that Alec bore. The strangest part, amongst the existing weirdness that they both bore symbols of unknown source or meaning, was that the ones on Alec were in various states of fading; some were dark and fresh while others looked more like scars than tattoos. "I'd like to see your sketch book, if you have it. It might offer some insight into these marks if you've drawn any that Alec has."

Sitting back, he took up his teacup again and gave it a thoughtful sip. "A good strategy, darling. I would suggest turning out our pockets, but mine are lacking in anything unusual," he said with a pout that indicated exactly how boring that was to him.

There were a few things that Clary naturally carried with her. One of them was her backpack which rested comfortably between her shoulders blades. She couldn't say why but it was a reassuring weight. A finger ran over the strip but she didn't take it off to dive inside, not yet, she had a sketchbook with her but it wasn't the one that she often showed anyone. Knowing that someone might look through it felt... wrong.

She worried at her lower lip with her tea, turning her attention to Alec as he poured her tea. "Oh. Thank you." She took her tea straight, enjoying the heat as well as it's natural complex aroma. She took a small sip before placing down the tea cup.

Clary inhald deeply before pulling her backpack into her lap. She dug through her bag before pulling out her sketchbook. The witchlight she'd been give at the station had been looped around one of the spiral prongs making Clary stop and untangle it before finding the page in her book that seemed the most appropriate. There were a few symbols there, some of them looking more complicated than they should.

One mark on the page stood out more to Clary than the others. She'd drawn it on the top left of the page and it brought a word to mind as she looked at it: remember.

"I couldn't find any other marks on me and this one is fading." Which was weird for a tattoo. "But these are similar." She passed over her sketchbook, careful not to bump the tea while also feeling a bit nervous about the other strange creatures on the page. She was an excellent artist.

"I don't have much other than my wallet and my cell phone. There's pictures on it, but I haven't had time to go through all of them." He'd taken dozens, possibly hundreds, of photos. It'd looked like some of them had been transferred from other people's phones since the angles and the person taking them had shifted from what was normal for Alec. "The most recent ones were of us in the city."

As he arranged the tea things so they wouldn't be in Clary's way, his attention was caught by the rock in the wire spiral. "I have one of those." His voice dropped so that no one at the other tables could hear them over the hushed sounds of other conversations and the clink of cups against saucers. "Does it glow when you hold it?" It was an outlandish question but Alec it was another detail that might help them understand why Clary had been looking for Magnus.

Taking the book since he was the one with the marks, he held it so that Magnus could look with him. The one on his neck was there. Pointing to the design, he easily remembered it after the coffee shop encounter. "Deflect." He pointed to another that was almost diamond shape. "I have that one." Turning his hand to show Clary that the design on the back matched the drawing, he struggled for the correct word. He felt like he was dragging a great weight from some immeasurable depth, until the name filled his mind. The syllables seemed clumsy when he said them, but Alec knew it was correct. "Voyance."

The other design he didn't recognize. Pointing at it, he gave her an apologetic shrug. "I don't have that one."

Magnus looked a little startled, a hand going to the phone in one of his jacket pockets. "Why didn't I think of looking at the pictures?" he said, almost as if he were suspicious given that it was a brilliant but simple idea that had yet to occur to him. Smiling at Alec, expression fond and proud, he lifted their joined hands so he could kiss the back of Alec's unmarked one. "Remind me to do that later, my dear. We can piece them together back at home."

Turning his focus to Clary once more, he glanced first at the book and then the stone that had drawn Alec's attention. The former was covered in sketches, both of the symbols which all three of them were curious about as well as several hideous monsters. These sparked a memory within him, enough that he softly muttered a single word: demons. The images filled him with dread along with a strange sense of personal discomfort. Shaking it off, he watched the exchange about the glowing stone, intrigued if only because he wondered if it was again connected to the tattoos or might related to himself as well. "Sounds rather magical, doesn't it? As for these," he said, splaying his fingers above the drawings that Clary had shown them, "Have you drawn anything since waking up?"

Skimming his eyes over the symbols that Alec pointed out, Magnus hummed and shook his head. "You have this one, though," he said as he tapped a long finger over a mark that looked like a mixture of the lowercase 't' and 'b' letters. "I can't remember what it means, or any of the others. But they do make you look very—" sexy was going to be his next word, but something held him back. Chalking it up to having a guest at their table, he just smiled and continued, "Devil-may-care."

Clary took the witchlight and quickly stashed it back into her backpack. "Yeah, it does." She'd found out that it didn't glow for everyone when Sam had tired to hold it. At the time she'd thought it was magic but magic didn't exist. It made her feel a little uncomfortable, like proof that something else was wrong with her, something that she couldn't remember.

She nodded her head at Magnu's question and leaned towards to point to the reaver demon that was scribbled on the page. "I drew that one last night. I don't know where it came from but I had to get it out of my head." Things were always brought into perspective when Clary tried to imagine drawing them. Since the imagine had been so fuzzy in her head she had to put it down in order to be rid of it. Now it haunted the white pages of her sketchbook, instead of the vast blankness of her memories.

"Do you know what they are? I just assumed they were some kind of... I don't know. Like the monster from a story." She waved a hand as if the gesture somehow helped her point.

Ducking his head in case he started to blush, he realized he was grinning almost foolishly to Magnus' reaction to his logic. He was strangely pleased that someone had approved of his logic. Like it wasn't normal for others to listen to him. Maybe that was part of the reason they'd moved. "We were busy settling in. I think the only reason why I thought to look was that I must like taking pictures."

The idea of glowing stones didn't faze him, but he also hadn't freaked out when Magnus had used magic. Alec didn't know why the stone worked the way it did, or why it had been different when Magnus held it, but he wasn't going to mention that to someone he barely knew. For some reason he felt that the stone's reaction to Magnus was something that was meant to be a secret. "I think it just glows. Handy but not really helpful for figuring out why you need to find Magnus."

Shifting his focus to the monsters, he felt something tug at his memories. Black for hunting through the night. The phrase occasionally went through his head when was teasing his husband about their color choices. "Reaver." Saying the word felt like something tied to the childhood rhyme. Something he'd memorized long ago but more than that. There was too much weight behind the word for it to be just a name for the thing.

For some reason Alec didn't understand, anger flashed through him at the word 'monster' being connected to the symbols, his marks. If the symbols drawn on his skin were like the thing that Clary had drawn, then what would people think of Magnus' eyes. "We're not monsters," he snapped before he could consider holding back the retort. "We can't help how we were born."

Pausing, he looked at Magnus, knowing that he'd said that before to his husband, anger turning to confusion. "What..." What are we? but he couldn't say that thought aloud in public. That was something that was supposed to be hidden even if they couldn't hide the signs of their differences. Shaking his head at the strange emotions that seemed to be tied to the images in front of him and the man beside him, he told himself to calm down. Anger, especially misplaced anger, wasn't going to help any of them. "What symbols do you have?"

In regards to the witchlight, Magnus took a cue from Alec and said nothing about what had happened when he'd held it. There was already so much that was different about him: his cat eyes, his magic, not to mention his ethnicity and sexuality were both in a small minority compared to everyone around them. With so many reasons for people to see him as something different, something peculiar, he didn't feel comfortable with adding to the list in case it proved dangerous. Magnus knew that he liked being unique, it was obvious from his fashion choices, but not at the cost of his or Alec's safety.

Sharp words broke him from his thoughts, shattering concerns about potential problems and drawing him back to squeeze his hands around Alec's where it rested on his thigh. "Calm, my love," he said softly, stroking his thumb over the large ring on Alec's left hand, "She meant the demons, not you." Not us is implied in the words, though he doesn't speak them. Even if they are all somehow connected, it's a little easier to see the similarities between Alec and Clary thanks to the marks they shared. Even some of Alec's possessions which were being held at the police station were covered in them, and yet nothing about Magnus nor his scant possessions bore one of the strange symbols.

"We're all trying to figure it out together," he added, relaxing his hands and only just realizing they'd been covered in warm blue flames. Sighing, he slumped down in his chair and shook his hands to force the magic to dissipate. "Damn..."

Clary jumped at Alec's outburst. She didn't feel surprise per-say but she was startled. She hadn't been talking about him or Magnus or anyone else. Just those creatures, the way they twisted and moved in her head. She had a dream about them the night before and it was for that reason she drew them this morning. It was a method of getting them out of her head. As if her thoughts could be freed from such a strange and unusual bug like monster.

She never understood why monster had to be bug like. She liked the ones that looked like people or people shaped beats; like zombies. At least she liked them in movies, it was ridiculous to think that such things existed.

Clary had looked down where their hands met, her brows furrowing. She continued to not look surprised but had no idea why nothing was surprising her. "Are you okay Magnus? I really didn't mean for this to be stressful. I just..." She signed feeling her frustration and annoyance twist uncomfortably in her gut. "I want to know. It all feels so familiar."

Even Alec getting mad at her was familiar. Like bursts of anger that he failed to control, Alec was always the emotional one but Clary had no idea why she thought that. They'd only just met.

"Not me, us. Someone thought there was something wrong with us because of what we are," he corrected softly as Magnus soothed away the residual wariness that was causing Alec's self-control to slip. Not just his, he realized when he felt the tingle of flames around his hands. Magnus' magic felt so normal to him, he hadn't even noticed that his hands had been wrapped in flame until his husband swore. Thankfully, Clary was the only one who would have seen the evidence that Magnus wasn't a Mundane.

Why did he label people as 'Mundane'? Alec wasn't even sure what it meant but he knew the three of them weren't Mundanes but he wasn't sure what they were.

Looking at Clary and Magnus, his expression was apologetic and confused. Even with the partial explanation he'd given, he didn't understand the reason for the outburst. It felt right but he knew that Clary didn't intent to hurt either one of them. He was still suspicious, but Alec wasn't sure if that was directed at Clary, her situation, or the memory loss that seemed to be so common in town. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to act like that. Or to cause you to slip, Magnus." Wrapping a hand carefully around his teacup, he let his mind drift, trying to find a reason for his defensiveness. "Someone thought we were monsters," he said slowly, testing the explanation. "They were going to hurt us for what we are. That might be why we're here." That didn't seem quite right but it also felt partially true.

Taking Magnus' hand again to give comfort and to show his husband that his magic didn't frighten him, he let their joined hands rest on his thigh beneath the table so no one would notice if there were any more displays of power. "It does feel familiar and Magnus is right. What you drew are demons. I don't know why we know that, but I know it's right."

Smoothing a hand up the inside of Alec's forearm, Magnus hoped to comfort him without too much intimacy. He could vaguely remember the loathsome feeling of being discriminated against, and yet he wasn't entirely sure if it was for the same reason that Alec seemed to believe. It puzzled him more deeply than Alec's outburst or his show of magic in front of Clary, let alone anyone else in the shop whose eyes had been drawn by the raising of voices. "You are not a monster," he said to Alec, fingers tightening against his arm as his cat eyes darted around the room. He spoke with conviction, and yet there was a clear emphasis on the pronoun—you rather than we. Lashes fluttering as he blinked rapidly, a spell which seemed to come as naturally as breathing settled down over his eyes and disguised them as a common brown without Magnus being aware of the change.

"I'm fine, biscuit," he said, back to a cheerful tone as he lifted both hands and wiggled his fingers in the air. He settled them back on the table so he could raise his cup and once again sip his tea. "No harm done. I wish we knew enough to help you remember, but luckily the memories return over time." Already he and Alec had recalled several details of their lives here, even if the specifics of living in New York were hazy.

Glancing down at his hand as Alec took it, he smiled when it didn't surprise him. Alec had never shown fear of his magic, and in fact it had seemed to draw him closer to Magnus when they were reunited after being discharged from the hospital. "I've been thinking," he said slowly as if the thought were still formulating in his mind as he absentmindedly drew shapes into the palm of Alec's hand. "Alec has mentioned hunting more than once, and plenty of his possessions seem to be some kind of," he paused, turning his hand in the air as he searched for the word, "Gear, all of which have those runes on them. Perhaps there is a connection between that and your demons." He gestured towards the sketchbook while scooting his chair slightly closer to Alec's. "If I'm a warlock, it wouldn't be difficult to imagine the two of you being demon hunters."

Clary took a sip of her tea, using the time to organize her thoughts. The scenes were hazy at best, shadows of a memory fluttering about in her head. She remembered Magnus's name, read on a sign as if it was meant to mark something. She wanted to understand it, the meaning behind that gold lettering but she couldn't recall and thinking about it only gave her a headache.

She gave the pair time, trying her best to ignore their small touches. It was cute but she felt as if she was intruding on something that was theirs. When she felt like she could trust her own voice she placed down her tea cup, listening to it ring softly against the saucer.

"I don't know." She sounded so unsure. "I don't think anyone had thought about me like I was a monster and I don't really look like a Demon Hunter." Clary tried to remember fighting anything but all that came to mind were the self defense classes that Emma taught at the school. She'd gone to a few of those and managed to not fall flat on her face.

"I don't have weapons." At least she didn't yet. "I'm not sure I'd know how to use any either." Another detail clicked in her head. "How does being a warlock fit into all this? They aren't demons." Magnus looked nothing like the grotesque figures she saw in her dream. He was cute, articulant and pleasant. Clary didn't know why but she trusted him. Even if the memory of his name in her head was a little unsettling.

Alec knew that they were being one of those couples that in the past he'd found obnoxious while secretly envying their happiness. They should rein in the PDA, especially when they were trying to figure out the connection binding the three of them, but the freedom to be himself with Magnus was something that he hadn't had before. He wasn't going to hide his feelings when they needed each other and no one in town cared if two men held hands in public.

"We're not monsters," he corrected, voice trailing off when something happened to Magnus' eyes. For a moment, he thought something happened related to the accident, but it felt perfectly normal to see Magnus' eyes shift from gold to brown. Glamour. Something as normal a breathing for Magnus.

"What would a demon hunter look like?" There was only curiosity in his tone. The idea that Clary hunted monsters like the ones in her sketches seemed unlikely but they did have similar possessions and marks.

"My weapons are at the police station. I'm supposed to get them back soon. I want my bow back." The rest were important but he felt like something important was missing without the bow, quiver, and arrows being nearby. Maybe the idea of being a demon hunter wasn't that outlandish if he missed his weapons so much.

Looking at Magnus, he considered the word warlock and the strange one that had lingered in the back of his mind. Returning his attention to Clary, there were two conflicting descriptions: Mundane and Shadowhunter. Which one was she and why were some people Mundanes? "I'm a Shadowhunter. I don't know what it means but I keep thinking of it in relation to the marks and the bow. And I keep remembering a nursery rhyme about hunting."

Magnus looked over at Alec, meeting his eyes, and felt some of his discomfort melting away at the confidence in his words. He could tell that something changed, though, as if he were distracted, and frowned. If it didn't warrant a comment, Magnus would ask him about it when they were home alone once again. For now, he consoled himself by threading his fingers between Alec's once again beneath the table.

"Dressing in black leather seems like a decent start," Magnus said with a teasing tone that was directed at Alec. "But looks aren't everything, so who could really say?" Clary may have been a very petite young woman, but there was a fierceness in her green eyes. "As Alec said, weapons or other times that could cause people harm are confiscated, which could explain your lack of any."

He sighed softly, wishing he remembered more about something that felt like such an important detail about himself. "I don't exactly remember," he said apologetically, deft fingers tracing the rim of his teacup. "Just that I can do magic. My existence, along with these demons, could suggest the possibility that other fantasies may actually be realities.

Blinking rapidly, as if suddenly hit with a thought, Magnus' eyes unfocused from where Clary sat across from him. "Shadowhunter," he echoed pensively, eyebrows pulling together in the shadow of a frown. The word left a bad taste on his tongue, yet Alec had used it to describe himself. "Children of Raziel," he added as the daze passed and he recalled more details. Looking over at Alec in awe, his face relaxed into a smile. "You're nephilim."

Clary had remembered seeing what might have counted as a weapon with her things but she’d declared that there had been some sort of mistake. With that, leaving in that black dress, she thought that maybe those at the police station had reconsidered and kept the items with them. She didn’t expect to see them again however she decided to keep these details to herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the two sitting across from her but that she didn’t really want to be talked into being a demon hunter. Her life wasn’t great but it was hers and she liked it.

At Magnus’s question she began to think harder about what a shadow hunter might really look like. "Maybe like the sort of thing that comes out of a D&D game." She paused, unsure where that came from. An image of a friend rose to mind but it was fuzzy and out of place in her thoughts. She shook her head and quickly retracted the statement. "Never mind."

"Isn’t magic something that people can usually do in stories?" Clary knew there was more to it than that. She’d seen Magnus’s display but some nagging part of her insisted that it wasn’t true. At the same time she heard a smug voice echo a familiar sentence in her head. It was followed up by another comment, one that made her clench her teeth tightly together ‘Don't be ridiculous. No one believes in mummies.’

"It isn’t ridiculous." She proclaimed forcefully before looking at the two across from her. She hadn’t meant to say as much aloud and she felt her cheeks warm. "Sorry." She spoke in a surprised tone, looking down at her tea. "I’m not sure where that came from."

Clary looked between the pair and exhaled. "Wait. Raziel. Nephilim. Children of God?" She didn’t know what it meant, not really but she read and Nephilim was a common enough word when you spent a great deal of time immersing yourself in fantasy.

"Black for hunting through the night," he recited absentmindedly, hoping that saying the phrase aloud might help one of them remember what the runes meant or why Clary was drawing demons in her sketchbook. Staring at the page in front of him, he willed some memory to surface but everything was frustratingly blank except the few things he instinctively knew. Glancing up, he gave Clary a confused look. "What's D&D?"

Reaching for one of the cookies, Alec began breaking it into bits, not realizing he'd offered pieces to both of them until suddenly knew that he'd done the same thing for his siblings. Had there not been enough food when they grew up or was it just automatic to share with those around him? "All the stories are true."

The words felt as right as the nurary rhyme had. It was part of his childhood. It was one reason why Magnus' magic hadn't frightened him. Magic was commonplace to him just like the marks on his skin.

About to take a bite from his piece of the cookie, he scowled as he tried to figure out what Clary meant. Before he could ask, she apologized and he glanced over at Magnus. "If other fantasies are true, that would explain some of my scars." There were too many of them to pretend that they were from a normal life. The ones across his chest looked like he'd been clawed up by something large and terrifying.

"Not Children of God. Children of the Angel." The words were said slowly as he tested them, realizing that they felt right. Looking over at Magnus, he wasn't quite sure if he liked the look his husband was giving him. Being part angel seemed normal but for some reason seeing that awe made him realize he'd never live up to the image that 'Nephilim' implied. "Being a Shadowhunter doesn't change who I am." Or who he loved, but he'd wait to tell Magnus that later.

Feeling both confused and unsettled about the entire demon-hunting conversation, Magnus allowed himself to be distracted by the piece of cookie that Alec offered to him. It was a small gesture, yet it made him break into a smile that took the place of the pensive frown he'd previously been wearing. "Thank you, dear," he said softly to show his gratitude without interrupting the flow of conversation.

"If magic only exists in stories," he said, lifting a hand and stirring the spoon in his cup merely by twirling a finger through the air a few inches above it, "Then clearly, at least some of the stories are true. The ones involving magic, for starters." He made to say more, but Clary's outburst startled him into silence. His concentration gone, the spoon handle bent itself in half and sank below the surface of his tea. Slouching down in his chair, he pushed the cup aside.

Seeing the shadow of doubt in Alec's eyes, Magnus reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder. "There's still a lot to process, and even more that no one at this table knows. We may remember sooner or later, but for now, perhaps we shouldn't strain ourselves to answer every question in one night."

Clary felt relief wash over her at Magnas's words. They didn't need to know everything right now, they had time. Time didn't feel like it was on he side but she wanted to believe him. Her eyes dropped down to her tea while thoughts clattered and scampered in her mind. She didn't think she was a child of an angel but as much as she wanted to scream and yell about it she knew she couldn't. It wasn't Alec's fault and it wasn't Magnas's fault either.

"You're right. Beating our heads against the table trying to remember won't help any of us." She exhaled a slow breath and then pushed a bit of he hair over her shoulder. "Thanks for meeting with me, anyway." Clary felt like the conversation had run it's course. Now she wanted to go home, go to where she thought was home and draw, do something to spill her thoughts from her head.

"Oh." She looked down at the tea. "How much was this?" She hadn't even thought about it but she should probably pay for her cup before making her exit.

His expression turned worried as he watched Magnus. For whatever reason, the turn the conversation had taken was having a negative effect on his husband. Maybe I'm not good enough. As soon as he thought it, he pushed the idea way. Magnus chose him. He must have wanted Alec even with the strange backgrounds they both had. Doubting their relationship when they didn't even remember it was asking for trouble.

And this wasn't about him. This was something else that was causing Magnus to be uncomfortable. Alec gave him a reassuring smile while carefully ignoring what happened to the spoon. Magnus' magic was unpredictable at times, but he hadn't seen something like that happen before. Whatever it was about magic and Angels that was unnerving him needed to be discussed in private.

"You're welcome. We'll figure this out eventually" The words were polite, but Alec wasn't sure if he really wanted to be polite. The happy bubble that had surrounded them had been broken and doubt was making it difficult to rebuild. "Don't worry about the tea. It's our treat."

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[closed] all in the golden afternoon

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