French Disasters

1. Speaking in Tongues.

Max plucked a strand of hair out of his boyfriend's ginger head, who was sprawled on the couch, lightly snoring. Wrapped in one of Max's grey sweatpants, which were slightly short of him, and blue hoodies.

"Max?" Fill stirred in place, pulling his blanket up to his neck as he sleepily blinked at Max.

"Go back to sleep, Babe." Max placed a light kiss on Fill's forehead, who closed his eyes again.

"What are you even doing?" Rafael muttered from the other couch, his phone in his hand. He was texting someone. Rafe himself was wearing grey sweatpants and one of his black hoodies, which were so worn out that they gave their dad's 10 year old hoodies a tough competition.

Weekends were the only days of the week when the Lightwood-Bane family were all together. Ever since Max and Rafe had turned 15, (which was about 4 years ago for Max and 6 years ago for Rafe) they had started working at the NY Institute with their Aunt Izzy. Which meant they barely ever got the time to come to Alicante on weekdays. So spending time with family was mandatory on weekends.

Today however, Magnus was out to restock his apothecary while Alec got dressed in the bedroom for his meeting in an hour. And Fill had also decided to come home with Max for the afternoon, he was always welcomed in the Lightwood Bane household.

"What are you doing?" Max said accusingly and Rafael raised a brow.

"None of your business, " Rafe shot back.

"Exactly." Max replied and strode towards his apothecary. He had the last ingredient he needed to complete the potion, so he stood before the cauldron and let the hair from his boyfriend's head, the hair of someone with french blood, fall into the green mixture. It made a sizzling sound as the hair disappeared into the liquid.

He stirred the potion, making it turn into a darker shade of green, just like the potions book said it would and he knew it was ready. Max would be lying if he said he wasn't proud, he couldn't wait to see the look on his boyfriend's face when he suddenly knew how to speak fluent French.

Fill was always showing off his French, so now Max could actually say something back to him, not just stand there, gaping in confusion, annoyance and a little aroused.

Not that Max didn't know languages, he knew a bit of Indonesian, but unlike him, Fill had his language rune, so it was never as fun.

And Max could've learned French, but it was too much work and his papa working on the potion that would allow his dad to speak Spanish had given him the idea to make his own 'french' potion.

The Institute in Madrid was one of the few institutes who still didn't have a downworlder cabinet, the past head was too stuck up to ever insinuate one (but Madrid had good relations with its downworlders so it wasn't really that big of an issue).

The new head however, wanted to follow in the footsteps of the New York Institute, creating an official alliance with the Downworlders, having monthly meetings with them - an official downworlder cabinet as Alec had encouraged and issued as the inquisitor.

Which is why Alec had to be there - the new head of the Madrid Institute had asked for him personally to come and oversee the meeting and talk about his own experience back in New York all those 23 years ago.

Alec had agreed, obviously, but the communication was a problem.

Alec knew a bit of Spanish, but he wasn't fluent in it, and the language rune didn't last long. So Magnus had offered to make a potion for Alec, which would help him understand and speak spanish for an hour or so.

Magnus was fluent in the language, of course, but he couldn't really accompany Alec to every meeting and besides, he had his own clients who needed attending to.