Famous: A Malec AU Fanfiction

Chapter 12

"I don't care how popular you may be getting," Gabriel Lightwood shouted angrily, and he didn't seem to care that all eyes were on him. Will simply looked smug, and even though Magnus was fairly sure that Gabriel was a year older than Will, the younger boy could look him straight in the eyes. Gabriel gestured to the pile of shattered plates littering the floor like puzzle pieces, glinting against the lights of the restaurant. Magnus heard Alec whisper something, and he had to strain to catch the words drifting in the air. They were like tiny, fragile butterflies he had to hold carefully in his hand, or they might break and wither away into nothing.

"The Lightwood family buys most of the things in the restaurant themselves," Alec sucked in a breath, "All of them are always angrier than usual when something's broken, seeing that they have to take money out of the collected bills to replace it. Gabriel hates it when things break more than anyone else, he always feels as if it's his fault."

"This is my restaurant, and you can't just come in and break everything you think isn't pretty enough, Herondale!" Gabriel's voice blasted away whatever else Alec might've wanted to say, echoing in the loud room and bouncing off the walls over and over.

"Everything is not pretty enough," William challenged, and he seemed to be aware that all eyes were on the two of them. If anything, he pulled himself up straighter, and Magnus couldn't help but be a bit delighted by the spreading wildfire stars in his bottle blue eyes, intense and flaming. William reminded Magnus in a lot of ways of Jace actually, they had the same sort of flair to them, and burned bright like a comet streaking to the earth to destroy it in a catastrophically beautiful way. They both had an edge to themselves that drew people into them, but somehow forced them away at the same time, it was so intoxicating.

"Everything is not pretty enough," Will replied boldly, "For I am the most ravishing thing in this world."

Gabriel moved as if he was about to punch William, his heavy arm swinging, but in a quick flash that Magnus couldn't quite catch, Gideon was there, holding his brother back. Gideon was whispering something urgently in his brother's ear, no doubt trying to calm his sibling, but it obviously wasn't working. Gabriel thrashed out angrily at Will, who just took a calm and playful step away out of hitting range. He fought against him, Gabriel was shouting and shoving away hard at his brother, and Gideon himself seemed immensely irritated by Will's presence in their restaurant. This open irritation, of course, just made Will seem happier, and more gleeful. To William Herondale, the young rising actor, it was obvious that irritation was interesting, and interesting usually came with exciting action, no matter how bad it might've been. Magnus knew that was very dangerous, and he thought he should've known better than to be around those sorts of people.

Part of him was screaming at him to leave with Alec right away, before things got really bad. That part told him to quietly slip away, pulling the boy along before things got really serious. The other, larger and more dominating part of himself, though, sadly kept his body firmly rooted to its place in the chair he was sitting in. Magnus had always been one for exciting things to happen in his life, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. He found that he really, really, wanted to see what would happen next. And Magnus realized how much he really, really, hated that part about himself.

Gabriel stopped fighting, but now it he also wore an expression almost just as smug as William's on his face, as if he had suddenly remembered something important, something that Will didn't know of. For a moment, Gabriel was in bliss, with something that he could high above the other boy's head as his mental triumphant trophy. Magnus looked on at the scene, and thought he saw that Will noticed the change on the boy's angled expression as well, his eyes flickering like a light switch, although he was trying not to let it show.