Just Bite Me Already

Chapter 12

Magnus stood in the doorway of his potion room, watching Alec work, Alec's long fingers shaping arrow shafts from the yew wood that he had conjured. He knew by the set of Alec's shoulders that he was worried.

"You know you can't really do that anymore, don't you?" Alec asked, his eyes flicking up to the three tipped arrow that he was replicating. Deciding that it was as close as he was going to get, he grabbed a sheet of sandpaper.

"Do what?" Magnus asked, stepping into the room, making his way over to the back to back workbenches that were now in there to take a seat on his own side of the benches.

"Watch me from doorways. I can hear you coming," Alec said, smiling when he looked up at Magnus, sitting across from him

"You're telling me that I can't watch my husband create a masterpiece?" Magnus asked, picking up an iron arrowhead, spinning it between his fingers.

"You can't sneak up on me," Alec replied, sanding down the shafts, smoothing any nicks out of the wood. "These aren't as good as Izzy's but they are the best I can do," he said, looking down at the three shafts. They would have been better if they were made of aluminum or even steel but a blacksmith he wasn't.

Magnus raised an eyebrow in question when Alec looked up.

"The original arrows are made from aluminum. These will shatter more easily but are easier to work with. I just wish I could strengthen them somehow," Alec said, picking up a hacksaw to create a nock at the end of each shaft.

"Maybe I can come up with something," Magnus said, sweeping the pile of arrowheads into his hand and dumping them into a tabletop cauldron. "Might as well make them as effective as possible," he said when Alec frowned.

"He'll be okay," Magnus said when Alec went back to splitting his arrow shafts. Spinning the ingredient rack on his bench, he started pulling jars out of it, his nose crinkling with distaste as his fingers hovered over a jar of arsenic. It wasn't his favorite ingredient but it worked just as well against demons as it did against humans, so why not?

"This is Simon we're talking about," Alec sighed, putting his tools down to watch Magnus start throwing ingredients into his pot, his eyebrow rising when he saw that Magnus was wearing thick gloves. Magnus never wore gloves, unless he was working with something really dangerous.

"Have a little faith, he's capable of more than you think," Magnus said, rolling his eyes at his husband. "I've spent more time with him than you. Sure, he talks a lot but he is loyal and smart. And he is resourceful enough to find a way past Lilith. That's worth listening to his nervous rambling," he said.

"You never had to listen to the story about how he and Clary were engaged to each other as kids," Alec muttered, setting the shafts into a clamp. Grabbing a handful of dark blue, pre-split shield feathers and a tube of strong glue, he set to work fletching the arrows.

"Believe me, I've heard the story. More than once," Magnus chuckled, his eyes flicking up to watch Alec's tongue flit over his bottom lip, thinking that Alec looked far too cute when he was concentrating.

Shaking himself off, Magnus took up a glass stirrer and set to mixing his concoction. Snapping his fingers, he heated the mixture up gently, carefully measuring the amount of heat he applied to the volatile mixture.

"What if he gets hurt? Or caught?" Alec asked, setting a feather into a helix clamp and applying glue to it to press the feather to one of the shafts. It had been a long time since he had worked with wooden arrows, these were a mixture of traditional techniques and new.

"Careful, Alexander, you're in danger of sounding like you care," Magnus said, unable to help the smirk that tugged at his lips when Alec rolled his eyes.