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When Cassia went back to the bedroom that night after tending to her duties around the Institute, she was surprised that Alec was already in bed. He sat propped up against the headboard, a giant stack of papers spread all around him. He didn't even look up as Cass entered, and she momentarily thought about turning and leaving to give him privacy. She stepped toward the door and he shook his head.
"Don't. Come here," he said, motioning to the papers in front of him. She walked over and stood beside the bed, looking at him questioningly.
"They're a new set of guidelines on how we're supposed to run things now that my parents aren't in charge anymore," he explained to her, looking up as she rolled her eyes. She'd never been one for rules or 'guidelines' as he called them.
"Don't tell me you want me to read all of that," she said, walking across the room to change behind the privacy screen.
"No, but there are some things in here that you're not going to like," he said, and she peeked her head around the side of the screen to give him a look.
"It says that they want the heads of the Institute out of field work because they're too valuable to be in the field," he said, and she could see the shadow of his fingers doing air quotes around the word 'valuable'. She finished changing, stepping around to look at him again.
"Well, oh-fucking-well because there's no way I'm staying out of the field," she said, and he nodded like he'd expected her to say exactly that. Field work was Cassia's absolute favorite thing. Nothing made her feel more at home and comfortable than wielding a seraph blade and killing demons. Alec directed his attention back down to the document, perusing it for a moment and then looking back up at her.
"It's also in here that married couples are to have sex at least three times a week," he said, and she looked at him like her head might explode, her cheeks automatically turning a bright shade of red.
"What?! How can they even... WHAT?" she yelled, her voice comically high-pitched.
"Cass... Cassia. I was kidding," Alec said, having to disrupt the rant she'd started. She went quiet at once, looking at him like he was an alien.
"What?" she asked quietly, her brows furrowed. "You're telling me that serious-to-the-bone Alec Lightwood just cracked a joke? I think... I think the Earth is splitting apart," she said, miming like the room was shaking. She threw herself across his feet at the bottom of the bed, pretending to pass out.
"You're an idiot," he said, gathering all of the papers around him and shoving them into a folder and tossing it on the floor before she did what he knew for sure she was about to do next. Sure enough, a moment later she started thrashing around on the bed, unaware of the fact that he'd already moved the papers out of the way. "Stop it, you pain in the ass," Alec said, trying and failing to keep the laughter out of his voice.
Cassia flopped around until she was parallel with Alec, surprised when she felt his strong arms worm their way around her waist to hold her still. He held her for a long moment and she wished she could see his face. He'd grabbed her while she was facing away from him, probably on purpose. As his arms loosened, she flipped around to face him and grabbed one of his hands, studying him as she traced the lines of his palm with her pointer finger. He studied her right back, his wide hazel eyes looking her over like she was a book he was reading.
"What?" he asked her, all traces of his laughter from a moment before gone from his face and replaced with stern seriousness, like he was expecting her to say something that he was going to need to brace himself for.
"I'm sorry about Jace earlier... We just... had -and still have- a lot of unfinished business, you know?" she asked him, focusing on the circles she was tracing on his palm to distract herself from looking into his eyes. Alec's entire demeanor softened like he'd been expecting her to say something much worse. She glanced up at his eyes, seeing that they were much less serious.
"I know. Like I said earlier, I know you guys have -had, whatever- a lot between you. I'm not saying you shouldn't work that out, because you should. I'm just saying that here where there are always a million eyes watching your every move might not be the best place to do it," he explained, and she nodded.
"I know, and I know you probably have stuff to work out with Magnus," she said, watching as his eyes darkened just slightly at the sound of his ex's name. He was quiet for a long moment before nodding slightly.
"Yeah... I don't know. Our breakup was pretty messy," he said, and she nodded.
"Well, I'm here if you want to talk about it or anything," she said, and he looked at her like he'd never seen her before or something.
"Are we being nice to each other?" he asked, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips.
"I think we are. We're also holding hands," she said, glancing down at his hand wrapped around hers between them. She'd noticed when he'd done it while they'd been talking, but she'd wanted to see when he'd notice.
"Huh," he said, looking at her and allowing the smile to take over his face.
"You're pretty cute when you smile, you idiot," she told him, pulling their hands apart and putting a hand on either side of his face to lean in and kiss his forehead. As she pulled away, he caught her lips for just a brief second. It was so brief that she almost thought it hadn't happened, but when she pulled away completely, he was smiling at her like he'd just stolen her soul.
"You know you're sleeping on the sofa, right?" he asked her, motioning to the antique sofa that Izzy had gotten for them. She scoffed, rolling her eyes at him.
"Like hell I am. I don't think it'll kill you to share the bed with me," she said, and he shrugged.
"Fine, but you should know that I kick in my sleep," he told her, reaching into the drawer of his nightstand to pull out a book.
"Yeah, well, I kick harder," she told him, slipping underneath the silk sheets.
•••••
a/n: i absolutely love them, oops. also, i've decided that alec is going to be bi for this story because i didn't want to take magnus and everything else away from him completely because that's just shitty, but i also wanted to have the potential for him to fall in love with cass, if that's what ends up happening (i'm genuinely not 100% sure yet). sorry if anyone's annoyed about that; i know it's going to stop a lot of people from continuing with this story potentially, and that's okay and i absolutely understand why. tbh i just got this idea stuck in my head and i wasn't going to write it at first but then i couldn't stop thinking about it so it happened kind of on a whim.
