Key | How did I get lost, what's the final cost? Could you please help me find the key? |

Once upon a time Alec was given a silver key, dangling from a silver chain to wear around his neck and hide under his shirt. It was a simple gesture of "I like you, you like me".

He flushed at the moment. They'd been tangled together on the sofa, legs entwined and shifting, hearts beating faster than they should have. He remembered the feeling of Magnus' mouth, conforming and shaping to the outline of his.

He saw Magnus leaning over him, whispering into his ear and wrapping something cold and metal into his hand. "It's my only spare. Don't lose it." He said, and continued down to his throat to pepper kisses there.

The next morning purple-red bruises appeared on his neck.

The first time he used the key nobody was home. The chairman was cuddled in a bush outside the apartment, and Magnus was with a client in Queens. He was supposed to be back by then…but he wasn't. Alec wasn't sure what to do so he sat on the edge of the kitchen table, awkward and stiff, not wanting to touch anything or break something or make a mess. Magnus, once home, had chastened him. "What's mine here is yours."

And he came and went as he pleased after that.

"What's this key for?" Jace asked. Alec was stepping from the shower, only a towel around his waist, hair dripping. He shot backwards into the steam, shock like a lightning flash in his heart. His hand reached for the towel, holding it in place. The angel boy was sitting on the edge of his bed, twirling the sliver of silver between his fingers. "I tried every lock in the Institute. I even tried it on that box Isabelle keeps under her bed. I didn't open it, obviously, but—"

"What are you doing in here?" Alec said, rushed and nervous. He was almost naked and...Jace wasn't.

Jace shrugged and frowned. "Clary's upset with me. I think I made her upset."

"You make everyone upset."

His frown deepened. "Are you going to stop insulting me or should I leave?"

Alec rubbed the back of his neck, remembering the bruises there.

The next time he planned to use the key he forgot it at the Institute. He had to ring the bell and Magnus had to buzz him up. The kitchen was a hurricane of smells; spices and syrups scented the room, and his head spun. Cajun.

Magnus had cooked him dinner, which was much more than he could have done because he had the same genes Isabelle did when it came to cooking.

After they'd eaten Magnus insisted that they go up to the roof, watch the city lights brighten against the fading of twilight.

Magnus forgot his key, this time, and they couldn't get back inside.

He stuck the key into the lock, but it didn't work.

Magnus gave him a new key after the battle with Valentine, after he was out and they were okay, settled in a healthy, open relationship. It was on a key chain this time, of a tiny arrow. Magnus told them that the tiny arrow could turn into another key at his, and only his, will. It unlocked the bedroom door to Magnus' townhouse in Alicante.

He put it to good use.

"I told you not to come back!" Magnus screamed across the room. His hands were gripping the counter top tightly, knuckles white and face red. Streams of dried eyeliner caked his face. "Stop using that goddamn key or I swear to god I'll change the locks again!"

Alec was motionless at the door, watching him, nervous and scared and frightened of Magnus' words.

"I…I wanted to talk to you. I mean…I don't…I'm sorry…"

Alec locked the key into a drawer in his room, smiling. He wouldn't need the key for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, if all went well. He was going to Europe with the man of his dreams, the person he loved more than anybody in the world.

They would go to Paris, and Florence, and London, and maybe even Jakarta. They would love each other under a different side of the moon.

The hotel room key was a flat, plastic disk, and Alec had no idea how to use it. Magnus showed him continuously but he kept getting locked out. He sat outside the room in Venice for a half hour before Magnus realized he hadn't returned from getting more towels from the service desk downstairs.

In Vienna he hadn't needed a key. They stayed in the city for only a week and in that time the only chance they took to leave the bed was to leave, to portal back home, to New York.

They missed the opera.

The next time Alec unlocks the apartment he is as stiff as he was the first time he had. He passes the bedroom door, closed, where Magnus is sleeping. The only thing that can run through his mind is that other people had had a key to this apartment before, and that other people had slept in that bed where so many times Alec had.

Alec sits on the edge of his bed, twirling the sliver of silver between his fingers just like Jace did months ago. Jace is gone now. There is only one place he can find comfort, and it's not in Magnus' apartment.

And then everything changed.

He found the key useless. There was never a moment he needed to be at Magnus' apartment unless to retrieve information about Sebastian, or Lilith, or Camille's whereabouts.

And then he started to lie.

Alec has a new key now, two of them, dangling from the tiny arrow. It unlocks the door to a storage way in the closed subway tunnel that runs under Manhattan. Magnus hasn't seen it yet. He doesn't want him to see it. Camille does though, apparently.

And then Magnus started to lose him.

Once upon a time Magnus gave him a key.

Alec smiles softly, sadly, and places the key, with the tiny little arrow, onto the kitchen table. His hand tightens on the bag in his hand.

And he lets the key go, and he leaves. His heart his locked now.

AN: I'm trying to get by a patch of writer's block, so...just...ignore this little blimp of...words...

Shar,