Family Life

Mundane Celebrations

Hello, beautiful people! I'm not yet dead! I'm sorry for the very, very late update! I swear that I've had this chapter written down for ages, but as you know I'm really old-fashioned and my drafts are always by hand, so I hadn't had time of transcribing, which caused trouble, whoch is a nightmare.

The reason I've been so absent from any social media is that, point number one, I had my prom, point number two, exames were coming, and point number three, once those two were over I was too sleep-deprived to actually get through any of my works efficiently. Right now I have 50 pages pendant for transcribing and everything is madness, but at least vacations are here, so at least I have that comfort. I promise I will be a lot more active from now on.

So, with no further ado (my two-month dissapearence has been enough, I suppose), I'll leave you to read!

Mundane Celebrations

To say that mundanes had bizarre traditions was an understandment for shadowhunters. To say that some shadowhunters once in a while happened to participate in those celebrations was... a surprise, to say the least.

This was only one of the reasons as to why the New York Institute was terribly unique. It also explained why they were throwing a reunion ―yes, party sounded too vulgar― with the motif of Halloween. Yes, the Lightwood family was about to celebrate a pagan tradition.

Truth to be told, this was just another one of the Lightwood's attempt to share some time and bring their family together. Ever since Magnus and Alec had taken Max into their life a tacit consent had been signed by the whole family, and they were now about to take any opportunity of gathering. Really, the reason was of no importance, they could have been celebrating the beginning of December and it wouldn't have mattered.

Although, honestly, those reunions ended up being weirder than when planned more often than not.

This one in particular seemed to be about to break a record, as they had decided to follow the mundane example and wear disguises.

None of them really stopped to think how bad things could go until Alec actually appeared in the Institute, wearing a perfectly white tunic, an aureus something in his head and fake wings, holding Max's hand, who was looking just as ridiculous, wearing tiny white pants and a crooked hat the same color to emulate those blue dwarfs Robert was sure he'd seen somewhere on TV.

Sparing his son a skeptic glance, Robert decided to be the first one to ask out the obvious.

"Alexander, are you kidding?" he questioned, in response to everyone's confused fazes. On his side, the boy could only grimace.

"Don't even ask" he answered with resignation. "It's about to get worse".

Unfortunately, Robert had no time to ask what would get worse, because right after his son, Magnus Bane entered the building, wearing a red tunic very similar to Alec's and a plastic hairband that represented two black devil-like horns.

After an amused silence, Jace took it upon herself to break the ice with a loud laughter.

"Dude, I can't believe you're doing that!" he let out, covering his face with his hands as he continued to laugh. "Seriously, Alec?"

"For you information, blondie, we―" Magnus started to explain, but only to be interrupted by Alec.

"I lost a bet" the shadowhunter cleared, finally giving himself the time to look around the room and check out the other's costumes. "Apparently I was not the only one" he pointed out, noticing Jace's own clothes.

Smiling with mischief, Magnus took Max's hand from Alec's and, nodding at Robert in recognition and then directed to the kitchen to greet Maryse, whom he assumed was there, as he didn't see her in the living room.

Alec firstly took note of Clary's costume, a black-and-gray suit that she accompanied with a pin that represented a funny bird and a quiver, which arrows the Lightwood could only describe as useless―the only reason he recognized her was because Simon and Clary had been throwing a fuss over the movie of who that Evergreen girl was.

Right beside her, Jace was dressed as the girl's boyfriend.

"You won this one, dude, I'll leave you alone" the blond boy nodded in surrender, for Clary's delight.

Deciding he didn't look all that ridiculous, Alec took a seat next to Simon, whose costume the shadowhunter didn't recognize, but plainly assumed it had something to do with Star Wars, as Isabelle was wearing Princess Leia's dress―which he thankfully picked up due to Simon's excitement when the new movie came out. Only then did he actually dwell on how he had no idea of what Robert was pretending to be.

"Dad, so... what are you, if you don't mind me asking?" Alec finally inquired, simply out of curiosity.

"Isn't it obvious?" Robert replied, pointing to his suit in disbelief; Alec only raised an eyebrow. "I'm a butler!" he informed, almost whined in a gesture that was really unlike what one expected from an experimented warrior. Only then did his son take notice of the black apron his father wore around his waist and of the white cloth he was holding.

"Anyways" the blue-eyed Lightwood smiled, deciding not to hurt his father's feelings. "Where's mom?"

"Kitchen, maybe" Jace replied when it became obvious that Robert had no idea. "Or the dining room".

"She's a witch" Robert added.

"Dad" Alec said sternly, the mood turning darker for a moment.

"No, I'm serious" the older replied innocently as he pointed to the entrance of the room, where Maryse had appeared holding a delighted Max while she talked enthusiastically with Magnus. True to be said, she was wearing a black old-fashioned dress and a crooked hat. There was also a broomstick next the door.

"I'm telling you, you could have asked us to borrow the Chairman, perhaps I could paint him black" the warlock was saying with a mischievous smile.

"Maybe next year" Maryse replied, holding back laughter. "It's nice to see you, honey" she greeted, turning to Alec as she took a seat between Clary and Simon, interrupting their conversation.

And that was how the first Lightwood Halloween meeting began.

Later that night, as they were half way through a movie that was supposed to scare them did they realize that it was useless for that mundane crap to try to bring terror to well-experimented soldiers.

Sincerely, this was boring, they discovered, which, somehow, ended up being a good reason to start laughing. Perhaps mundane celebrations really weren't for everyone.

On the other side, it was also true that maybe the next time they tried to celebrate something mundane-based they should try with something that didn't include fake monsters when they genuinely fought demons.

Who knew, perhaps the only real point of all these mundane parties and celebrations was to have fun and, judging by the made-up features and home-made costumes of his family, Alec Lightwood could tell that, apart from making a fool of themselves, they actually were having fun.

Okay, a few more notes that I didn't want to leave up there: you know that I don't like doing specials, mostly because I always stumble with my own works and time never helps me, so I never manage to get my things done on time. Also, I don't really care about them, so if I feel like publishing something about Halloween in July (this was supposed to be out on May anyways, so...) I plainly do it.

Also, it was hard to think their costumes through! This idea first appeared because I wanted something that included Robert and Maryse with a bit of humor, and a friend of mine mentioned Magnus' and Alec's disguise. And, of course, there's the headcanon of Max and a smurf costume, but that was all I had, and the other's desguises were a pain to think. I hope at least I managed to make them not so ridiculous.

I really, really hope this was worth the long wait, and I promise I wil ltry to be more active, although I will start updating once eveery three weeks instead every two, so I don't fail you.

Thank you so much for reading until now and... read you soon!