Malec One Shots

61. Madzie

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Song ~ Hozier - Work Song
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Alec had never held back. He always did his job with a type of precision that managed to scare those around him. When he did his job as if he was a machine, going through the motions with a blank head and a cocked bowstring.

If that was so, then why was he hesitating?

She was small, her head came up to Alec's kneecaps, and she had curly brown hair that hung limp around her round face. She saw Alec knelt over a demon, black blood flush against his pale skin, and he dropped his knife.

Alec winced at the shock of the demon overpowering him, taking his seraph knife with a hissing intake of demonic breath and stabbing him with it. It was ironic, really.

When the girl came to stand over Alec's body, she didn't say anything. Not a word. She didn't cry, she didn't look confused. She just stood there as the demon turned on her too, ripping her tiny body to pieces and leaving her mangled corpse to fall on Alec. And he just closed his eyes. He couldn't breathe. The feeling of a child slowly twitching over his breastbone was enough to render him immobile. His throat filled with bile, and he felt the stab wound on his side go numb before flaring up like a bonfire.

He didn't know how long he was laying there, the demon watching him convulse with ragged breaths, but he had no mind to open his eyes when he heard the sound of his parabatai shouting his name. He couldn't move. If he moved then it would all be too real. Too heavy. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

So he let Jace pick him up. He let Jace carry him out of the nest and portal back, and he let Jace put him down on the main floor in the Institute.

It was all too much.

Alec switched off even when Magnus arrived and dropped to his knees, smoothing Alec's blood-soaked hair off his forehead. When he opened his eyes to the witchlight-laden ceiling, he winced and closed them again as they adjusted. Magnus just ran the tips of his fingers over Alec's body, stopping short at the stab wound and throwing his phone to Isabelle.

"Call Catarina, get her here now, babysit Madzie with Jace while she's working." He ordered, too busy cradling Alec who still didn't have his eyes open. "What happened out there?" He asked, one hand pressed against Alec's side full of pulsing blue and the other making sure Alec's head wasn't tipped back. "I was clearing the final room when I felt Alec be stabbed, I ran to find him covered in guts with another moloch demon just, staring at him." Jace winced, his own hand discreetly covering his parabatai rune. "When Catarina arrives I want everyone out of my sight, that includes you two. Me and Cat will sort Alec out and then I'll clean him up and ask what happened, okay?" Magnus nodded, getting a disgruntled agreement from both Isabelle and Jace as they ushered the slowly growing crowd of shadowhunters away and to god knows where.

Magnus let out a warm sigh of relief when Catarina came sweeping into the Institute with Madzie skipping behind her. Isabelle whisked her into her arms before pulling her and Jace to wherever. Magnus didn't care where they went.

"We have to move him." Catarina said, already mentally assessing the damage. Neither knew if a lot of the blood was Alec's or something else's. "Training room. It has the conference table up from last night's cabinet. That'll do." Magnus nodded, shifting Alec from his lap with the practiced ease of someone who'd snuck away like this before to make breakfast. But Alec clung to him. Bloodied fingernails grasped at his shirt and Magnus didn't have the heart to let him go. "Judging on the side wound you'd be alright to lift him if you kept his torso straight and at the same level as you carried him." Catarina nodded, watching Magnus raise to his knees and then to his feet with Alec clenched tightly in his arms. Carrying him through the mostly empty hallways of the institute, Magnus heard the small gasps escaping Alec's lips and dispersing into the air around them. After placing him down on the table Magnus brushed his fringe away again and pressed a kiss to his forehead that crumpled as Alec furrowed his brows.