A/N—This one is written for the part of me that always wanted Clary/Simon instead of Clace. Here ya go, girl. You deserve it :)

: : : Chapter Four—Clary!Alec & Simon!Magnus : : :

When Alec catches up with him and takes hold of his wrist, Magnus's skin is still chill from the pond water and exposure to the autumn air. If Alec weren't so furious with him, he would probably be berating him for being vain enough to forgo a jacket in the middle of a cold snap. Anger is still rushing through him like flames though, searing away his concern.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Alec snaps when Magnus resists his hold, trying to break his grip. Once, he would have been able to do it easily. The fact that Alec is so much stronger than his friend now, so much faster and more agile, still strikes him as odd sometimes.

"Nothing," Magnus spits, continuing to pull away from Alec futilely. "Now let me go. I have to get home or my parents will kill me. That, and you're stretching the fabric of my shirt."

"If you'd stop being such a brat your shirt would be fine," Alec snaps. With his new strength, it's easy to jerk Magnus around to face him. It is significantly less easy to ignore the look Magnus fixes on him, as though by using his physical changes against him is a deep personal betrayal. Alec manages with Herculean effort. "Don't lie about rushing off because you're afraid to miss your curfew. You've been skipping your curfew on principle since middle school just to get a rise out of your dad."

"Maybe I'm just sick of fighting with him all the time," Magnus says. "Walking home to someone screaming in my face every night gets pretty stale after a while, even for me."

Even though he's facing him, Magnus has his head turned away, his gaze averted. His arms are crossed in front of his chest like tight steel bands, his grip turning his knuckles bone white. Alec doesn't think he's ever seen him looking more distant.

"Please, just tell me what's wrong, Magnus," Alec asks him, grasping the fabric in his hand more tightly. Later, when things blow over –their fights always blow over—Magnus will have his head for it.

"What isn't wrong?" Magnus asks him. He's still refusing to look Alec in the eye, his green gaze flickering back between various points in the park behind them. "This whole situation is FUBAR. You're risking your life for elitist assholes—"

"Would you stop with this 'elitist' stuff? Maybe things between you would be better if you weren't so belligerent with them," Alec points out heatedly. "All you ever seem to do is verbally attack them whenever you're around."

Magnus laughs, sharp and stilted. The sound is more frigid than the wind chill slicing through their clothes and skin.

"I should have figured you'd defend them," Magnus says in the bitter voice he usually reserves for days when he's resting his head in Alec's lap, cursing his father with his every breath because stopping would probably just make him cry.

Alec lets out a cry of pure frustration. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean that if you aren't willing to call them out when they're treating me like something subhuman to your face, I shouldn't have expected you to change your tune when it's just the two of us." Magnus shakes his head and runs his free hand through his hair. He looks exhausted and more than a little ill. "Whatever. I'm not going to let him or any of his little cronies walk all over me. I may not be anything special, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let them treat me like crap. Not even for you."

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" Alec apologizes, trying to catch Magnus's wandering gaze. His efforts are studiously ignored. "I hadn't realized they were bothering you so much. That sort of thing usually rolls right off your back, so I figured—"

"What did you figure, Alec?" Magnus whips his head back around to pin him with a glare so full of heat and fire, Alec thinks he can feel his skin burning off. Maybe Magnus refusing to look at him wasn't so bad. "That because I'm used to ignoring people insulting my appearance or my sexuality, that I wouldn't be bothered by people insulting me about something else? Or that I wouldn't mind my best friend letting them insult me right in front of him and not saying a thing against it?"

"I've defended you," Alec protests. Nothing immediately comes to mind, but he must have. Magnus is his best friend, someone who's been with him through everything from his first day of elementary school to coming out to his mother. Defending him has always been like breathing: easy and instinctual.

"Oh yeah, some half-hearted, token disagreement right before you go back to forgetting I'm even around," Magnus says. "I feel so fucking loved. It's so kind of you to take some of your time out of worshiping the ground Jace walks on to defend me. I know that time is precious to you."

"Is this really about Jace?" Alec jerks at Magnus's sleeve so hard he hears some of the seams pop. Come morning he's sure he'll regret it, but right now he's too angry to care. How dare Magnus bring his feelings for Jace into this when he knows how hopeless he feels about them? "You know, I never thought you were actually as petty as you pretend to be sometimes, Magnus, but right now I'm not so sure. You're my friend, but I don't owe you all of my time. There's nothing wrong with me hanging out with Jace."

"You aren't just 'hanging out' with him, and I don't expect all of your time!" Magnus shoves at his shoulder, but at this point Alec refuses to let him go on principle. "Ever since you ran into that Jace asshole, it's like nothing's the same anymore. You're so busy mooning over him you forget I exist! You didn't even notice me leaving until someone pointed it out to you, I heard it."

Alec rolls his eyes, even as some small part of him lurches nauseously at the accusation. "You're being melodramatic. Nothing between us has changed, and I'm not forgetting about you. You're still my best friend."

"Yes it has, Alec!" Magnus is shouting now, loudly enough that people are turning around to look at them. Reluctant to let go but too embarrassed to keep a grip on it, Alec releases the sleeve of Magnus's shirt. "We barely talk anymore. You're skipping school and slacking off, and every time I try to bring it up you side-step everything and talk about Jace-this and Shadowhunting-that. I understand wanting to find a cure for your mom, but you don't have to abandon everything about your old life to do it. Am I—I mean, is it really so much less valuable to you?"

"Thanks for finally acknowledging the whole reason I'm doing this," Alec says, distantly aware that his voice is steadily rising in volume as well. Anger is crashing through him like a wave, breaking against the inside of his skull, the deafening boom of it reverberating through his head. "My mom is in some magic-induced coma and we have no clue how to wake her up. I'm doing everything for her, and if it means helping out a dying race of people at the same time, so be it. And you know, so what if I'm getting more into Shadowhunting? It's not like high school was ever great for me. I fit into this…this demon hunting. I can do it, and do it well. I've never felt so comfortable in my own skin before. What's wrong with dropping something that's never been any good for me?"

The two of them are less than a foot apart, but Magnus looks at him as though they are standing on opposite sides of a ravine and Alec just set the only bridge spanning the distance aflame.

"What about me?"

The fabric of his sodden jeans clings to him uncomfortably as he shifts, chaffing his skin until it burns. "What are you talking about?"

"You said that nothing about your old life has ever been good for you, but what about me?" Magnus asks. His voice is rough, and he's back to avoiding Alec's gaze, staring at his shoes. "I know sometimes people find me annoying and abrasive, but I've always been there for you."

"Oh Magnus, no, I didn't mean…" Alec trails off, the words dying in his throat. He doesn't know what he meant, but he knows he never meant to make Magnus looks like he does now. Magnus should never look so defeated and rudderless. Alec was always the one without a goal in life, caught up in the undertow of Magnus's tsunami of pure confidence and purpose.

"It's okay," Magnus says. He's still got his arms crossed, but the gesture no longer looks tense and angry to Alec's eyes. It looks a lot more like he's trying to hold himself together. "I should be happy you're happy. I'm just being selfish."

"You're not…"

"I am," Magnus denies. He's backing away, retreating for the first time Alec has ever seen in all the years he's known him. Magnus never backs down. "It just sucks, loving you so much and knowing you've never looked at me the way you look at Jace. I've been taking it out on you and I'm sorry. I'll see you later, okay?"

Magnus whirls around and dashes off before Alec can stop him. To be honest, Alec is so weighted down with shock he's not sure he could have stopped Magnus if he tried.

Had he heard Magnus correctly? Did he really just say he loves him? Him, Alec? His awkward friend who everyone at school thinks Magnus keeps around out of pity or a sense of obligation? Magnus, the guy who sleeps around but never dates, even though he could have anyone he wanted with no effort at all?

Magnus, who has been his best friend since longer than he has clearly defined memories?

Alec considers chasing after him, but decides to give his friend space and let Magnus cool down on his own. Besides, even if he did rush after him, what would he say? Alec has no clue how to respond to a confession like that, or how to feel about it.

Yes, Magnus has always been there for him. It would be a lie to claim Alec hasn't entertained thoughts of them together, but eventually he figured it's natural to sometimes feel like that for someone who's so close to you. It can be hard, defining the line between friend and love interest when you've always been intimate. It's not something that developed recently- it happened gradually, like moving from toy exchanges to secret sharing. They started sleeping in the same bed during sleepovers when Magnus forgot his sleeping bag in second grade and never bothered to stop. They came out to each other before their parents. Magnus knows exactly what flavor of ice cream to bring over when Alec is upset versus when he's angry, and he knows not to bring it anywhere near Alec when he's celebrating because Magnus knows that as far as he is concerned, ice cream is a food for crying or raging.

Romance, Alec had decided in his freshman year of high school as he watched Magnus make his way behind the bleachers hand in hand with a handsome blond senior, would only ruin things between them.

Alec liked things between them. He still likes things between them now. He would do anything to preserve the them between them.

In the end, Alec goes back to the Institute and studiously avoids any thoughts at all, about Magnus and all the changes in his life and even the fact that when Jace smiles at him upon his return, Alec's heart doesn't flutter in response like it used to.

When Alec answers the door to The Institute a few hours later, he is met by the sight of Magnus dangling lifelessly from Raphael's arms. Distantly, he thinks that the way Magnus –easily over six feet tall— dwarfs the vampire would be comical if not for the gashes on his wrists and neck, or the pallor to his usually glowing skin. He touches the torn flesh with shaking fingers, feeling the way the blood flakes off at his touch. Blood too dry to feel sticky or wet. Magnus's blood.

This blood came from Magnus. This blood came from Magnus's body and it's not coming out anymore because he has nothing left to bleed. Magnus is dead and how can you apologize for being an insensitive jerk if Magnus is dead?

"You…You killed him. You fucking—"

Raphael shakes his head. "He's not dead, Shadowhunter. Not yet—"

At that, Alec tears Magnus from Raphael's arms with a single, wordless cry, pouring out of his throat from some deep wound inside his chest. He resists Jace's and Clary's tugging, wrapping Magnus's limp body in his arms and focusing on the last of Magnus's shuddering breaths. He is determined to watch Magnus take every single one, to live them with him to the last, count them down one by one, measure the distance between them like a child measures the seconds between a roll of thunder and a strike of lightning.

"I'm so sorry," he says between each one. "I love you," he adds, when the time spanned between each rise and fall of Magnus's chest has become long enough to fit it in.

They've always shared everything with each other, homework and beds and celebrity crushes. Why would that change now?

"I'm so sorry. I love you."

A/N—Okay, so I promised actual romance in this section, and I intend to stick by that promise. It just comes in Part Two, since I want to keep these at around ~2000-2500 words an installment.