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The mission went so wrong, so quickly, none of them had time to process what was happening until it was all over. The intel was bad and instead of just a demon or two the patrol Alec sent out on what should’ve been a routine mission found itself outnumbered by a clan of rogue vampires. They were down three men before they knew what hit them. By the time Alec arrived with back-up the patrol of 7 was a patrol of 3, and they lost half a dozen more after that.
It’s one of his first back after his and Magnus’ honeymoon - which Magnus had to practically beg him to take in the aftermath of everything with Jonathan and Asmodeus and a very long string of ‘what can go wrong, will’ messes to clean up. Things looked like they were finally settling down. He was happy. They were happy. So of course it couldn’t last forever.
“I’m just going to finish the report then notify the families. You can go,” Alec dismisses Jace who hesitates.
“It isn’t your fault, Alec. We all thought the Intel was solid.”
“Yeah, I know.” Alec nods, but they both know he doesn’t agree.
“At least let me help. You don’t have to do this alone, Alec,” Jace insists, lingering by the door.
“No, it’s-” Alec sighs. “ They were my responsibility. I’ll handle it.” Alec looks back down resolutely at the paperwork on his desk and ignore the unsure look on his parabatai’s face until he hears the click of the door closing.
A: Hey, this is going to take all night to wrap up, so I’m just going to crash here when I’m done. See you tomorrow, love you
He sends the text off to Magnus so that he doesn’t wait up for him, not wanting his husband to worry.
Alec finishes the filing. He makes all the calls, one after another, nine in a row. Each one breaks him a little further. Each one weighs a little heavier, hurts a little more. He feels guilty for not doing this in person but there are too many, it’d take all night and half the day tomorrow that way.
When he’s done he doesn’t go home - he goes to the training room, taking off his ring and placing it carefully to the side, but forgoing gloves or bandages as he starts on the bag. Slowly at first, hard and controlled, until the hits grow sloppy and desperate. They’re soon accompanied by sobs that sting his throat and tears which blur his vision of the splitting skin and bruising. He’s already exhausted from the fight and the fact that he’s been up for nearly 20 straight hours now, but exhausted is good. Exhausted is what he needs. Alec hits and kicks until he doesn’t think he’ll even have the energy to make it back up to his room and debates collapsing right there on the mat until he hears a voice at the door.
“Alec?” It’s Jace. Of course it is.
“Hey,” Alec huffs, reaching out to lean against the wall. He wipes the moisture from his face, not sure if it’s tears or sweat… probably both, before carefully shoving his hands into his pockets so Jace can’t see the extent of the damage. “What are you doing up?”
“I could ask you the same question.” His parabatai’s voice is suspicious. Alec knows Jace isn’t stupid, but Alec also knows that Jace isn’t about to come at him while he’s like this, either.
Alec glances at the clock on the wall and sees that it’s 4:00 in the morning. How late did stay up making the calls? How long had he been in this room?
“I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep,” he lies, quick to cover for either. Jace relaxes under the false belief that Alec at least got some rest, and some of the tension in Alec’s shoulders eases as well. As long as Jace doesn’t push this, as long as he doesn’t have to snap and get defensive, it’s fine for now. “But I’m actually pretty worn out now, so I’m going to shower and see if I can sneak another hour or two before morning patrol.”
Jace nods, watching as Alec wipes the bag down with a black towel he carries specifically so it won’t show the blood stains. Alec frowns lightly as he uses it - he didn’t plan on doing this, it just happened. Or at least, that’s what he tells himself, ignoring the fact that he subconsciously grabbed the black towel he hadn’t used in months, the one reserved for this very scenario.
Just a convenient coincidence, he tells himself, because he’s better now. This isn’t him any more, though the throbbing pain in his hands says otherwise, especially as he slides the ring back on over a swollen finger. He does nothing about it through the rest of the day’s training and missions, and only reluctantly allows Magnus to heal the worst of it when he goes over that night, the lie that the injury is fresh from patrol sliding past his lips with terrifying ease.
--- --- ---
“Jace, you’ll head the team canvassing the north end of the city. I’ve got the south. Everyone grab your weapons and get ready to roll out in ten.”
The group of Shadowhunters in front of him disperses, breaking off into their teams to strategize and pick the best weapons for this particular strain of demon infestation. It’s nothing more than a bitter warlock summoning nests of lesser demons to make their lives miserable, chaos for chaos’ sake, but it’s spread far enough that it takes half the institute to split up and cover the ground needed before things get out of hand.
Alec already has his bow and arrows in hand, and so he lingers in the Ops Center waiting until it’s time to go. He watches as everyone leaves except one person - Underhill stays behind, not going to the weapons room with everyone else straight away.
“Something wrong?” Alec asks. They’re on good terms - friends, Alec would go so far as to label them, though he hasn’t had enough of them to say for certain. But he doesn’t like the anxious look on Underhill’s face just then.
“May I be honest with you for a minute, Sir?”
Alec rolls his eyes. “If you’re calling me ‘Sir’ this can’t be good. You can always be honest with me, you know that.”
“Right. In that case - I think you should sit this one out.” Underhill says, coming right out with it. His eyes flicker across Alec’s face, no doubt taking in the dark circles underneath his eyes, before dropping to where his hands rest at his sides with the slightest tremble from the amount of coffee he drank that morning to compensate for the lack of sleep he got the night before.
“And why would I do that?” Alec asks, growing immediately defensive, a flash of his eyes daring Underhill to say he’s unfit for duty.
“Because you didn’t come in from last night’s patrol until 3 am, and then you woke up at 5:30 to go out with the morning patrol at 6. And you tagged along with Nightshade’s group to handle that single rogue werewolf after lunch-”
“What are you, keeping tabs on me?”
“I’m Head of Security, Alec. I’d be a shit one if I didn’t keep tabs on who comes and goes, and that includes you. Tell me the last mission you dispatched without going along?” The challenge in Underhill’s tone isn’t unwarranted after Alec’s initial defensiveness but it still rubs Alec the wrong way.
“Just because I’m the Head of the Institute doesn’t mean I have to live behind a desk,” Alec deflects, willing Underhill to drop the topic. He begins to fidget with the ring on his finger, twisting it back and forth between his fingers without realizing.
“Just because you’re the Head of the Institute doesn’t mean you have to be there to personally protect every Shadowhunter you send out. We all know the risks. What happened last week--”
“This isn’t about that.” Alec cuts him off, believing the words that leave his lips about as much as Underhill appears to.
“It is. You’re torturing yourself over this, Alec. You need to rest.” Underhill looks like he’s about to say much more than just that, except the first of Alec’s squad comes back from the weapons room before he can.
“Ready, Sir?” The Shadowhunter questions, and Alec nods.
“What I need ,” Alec says to Underhill, ending this conversation in no uncertain terms. “Is to go lead my team. If you’ll excuse me.”
He doesn’t look back, grabbing his stele to activate his stamina and endurance runes right off the bat - well aware that this isn’t the first time that day he’s used them, and positive it wouldn’t be the last.
--- --- ---
The following weeks draw on in a similar fashion. Alec spends longer hours at the Institute. He appears to be fine on the surface but that’s just because of the care he puts into keeping up appearances - gloves cover the bruising on his hands, long sleeves hide the marks from where his bow snaps back to sting his arm during practice and field work. He tells himself it’s because he’s too busy to stop and heal himself, that he’ll get to it later, except he never does.
That’s the same excuse he makes for eating, too. Always on the go, he tells Magnus in the morning as he skips breakfast to catch the morning patrol that he’ll eat at the Institute. Once he’s at the Institute he swears he’ll grab something on his way home from patrol. At some point of the day he’ll grab something to get through the day - a banana, a muffin, a mostly stale pretzel from a cart along the street - but if asked he’d be hard pressed to recall the last full meal he sat down to.
Or the last time he sat down at all.
He chalks it up to being busy and forgetting, nothing more. It isn’t a big deal.
He’s wrapping up a report to head back to Magnus’ for the night when Izzy stops him at the door to his office. “Want to grab dinner? I’m famished after a day of scouring the sewers.”
“Sorry, I’m heading over to Magnus’. I’ll eat there.”
Izzy sighs. “Fine. Guess I’ll brave the cafeteria on my own.”
Alec laughs, shooing her away so he can finish getting ready. It’s about an hour later when he finally makes it to Magnus’, greeting his husband with a long, lingering kiss before collapsing onto the sofa.
“Please say you’re up for a night of cuddling and terrible reality television?” Alec half-suggests, half begs.
“Whatever you want, darling,” Magnus agrees easily, though a small frown catches on his face. “Are you hungry? I can cook some dinner first.”
“Not really,” he shrugs, settling into the sofa.
“Did you eat at the Institute?” Magnus prys, an eyebrow arched. Alec knows he should admit that he hadn’t, he’s pretty sure he grabbed a hotdog from a stand near the park that afternoon… or was that yesterday?... and a voice in the back of his head reminds him how much he loves Magnus’ cooking. But he’s tired. And he doesn’t have much of an appetite lately. He’s too exhausted to be hungry just then, and all he wants is to have Magnus wrap his arms around him for the evening. Is that so much to ask?
“Yeah,” he says, figuring it’s easier than explaining all of that. “I already ate.”
“Alright, then.” Magnus says, changing direction and heading back over to the sofa to join him where they both fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the second episode of a show they put on mostly for background noise.
And when he wakes up before the sunrise the following morning Alec slips out before breakfast without a second thought.
--- --- ---
A quick glance at the calendar shows him it’s been three weeks since the Mission Gone Wrong. He makes his third set of weekly check-in calls to the family. He doesn’t have to but he wants to, making sure they’re doing alright and asking if there’s anything they need. Anything at all he can do for them in the aftermath. He knows he can’t give them what they want , but he can do the next best thing. He owes it to them.
Each family says the same thing - that they’re fine. That these things happen. That it isn’t his fault.
Except that it is. Their loved ones died following his orders, on his watch. He should’ve been there. It wasn’t their oversight that sent everything sideways, it shouldn’t have been them to pay the price for his mistake, it should’ve been--
“Alec?”
He looks up to see Magnus opening the door to his office, sliding in quickly before shutting it behind him. The look of concern on Magnus’ immediately softened features is the first sign that something is wrong. It’s only when Magnus approaches him slowly, bringing a hand up to wipe away something from his cheek, that Alec realizes he was crying.
“What are you doing here?” Alec asks, clearing his throat and forcing his lips to turn up at the corners.
“Checking in on my husband who was due home for dinner two hours ago,” Magnus states, but he doesn't sound mad about it, instead taking Alec’s hand to lead him away from the desk and over to the sofa for them to both sit down on. “Talk to me.”
Alec sighs. “It’s nothing. I’m fine, really.” His hands rest on his lap, thumb nail picking idly at an already split patch of skin on the side of his left hand, and both of their eyes fall on it at once. Alec snaps his hands back to his sides.
“Alec, please. Talk to me. ” When Alec remains resolutely silent Magnus speaks again instead. “Then how about if I talk? Because I’m worried about you.”
“You don’t have to be. I told you, I’m fine-” Alec starts again, but this time Magnus cuts him off.
“I think you really believe that, which is what worries me the most. You haven’t let yourself rest long enough see what the rest of us have.”
“The rest of you?” Alec asks, frowning.
“Maryse noticed you were losing a lot of weight lately, which is when Isabelle and I pieced together that you haven’t been eating anywhere . Or sleeping much. Or resting at all between missions. I should’ve realized when you kept coming home hurt--”
“No, this isn’t… you shouldn’t have noticed anything. I didn’t notice what I was doing, how the hell could you have?” Alec knows that isn’t entirely true, but he caught himself in moments, in bits and pieces of the whole. To hear it all thrown together like that is jarring, even for him.
Magnus doesn’t sound upset, and it’s the only thing that encourages Alec to lift his gaze up from where it rests stubbornly on his lap. “I noticed it before, when I didn’t have my magic… just little things here and there, and I thought maybe it was just a one-time thing so I let it go. But ever since that mission you’ve been getting worse, and… I don’t know how to help you besides forcing you to acknowledge it. I know you don’t want to but I can’t just let you go on like this.”
Alec nods. “I’m sorry I worried you, Magnus, I-”
“Don’t apologize. That isn’t--” Magnus sighs in frustration. “I don’t know how to help without making you defensive. And I don’t want to push you away.”
“I don’t want to push you away, either” Alec agrees, realizing that’s exactly what he’s done. And not just to Magnus, but Jace and Izzy and the others as well. “I guess I haven’t been myself since that mission.” He knows he doesn’t have to say which mission he’s referring to.
“Or perhaps you’ve been entirely yourself since that night. Alec, you care so deeply for everyone around you. And you take your leadership position to heart - maybe more than someone who is bound to lose good men and women should. But you can’t just distract yourself and hope it goes away - and you can’t punish yourself the way that you do. Hurting yourself isn’t helping them.”
Alec knows that, on some deeper, rational level. But it doesn’t take away that it makes him feel better, at least in the moment, to hide behind the pain and self-inflicted punishment.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Magnus asks again, but with everything out in the open and nothing left to dance around the question seems to hold that much more weight to it. Alec can’t lie and say he’s fine again this time.
“No,” Alec admits instead. “But I can try to anyway.”
It’s a small step, but an important one. He doesn’t talk about everything that night, not even close, but it’s enough that there are fresh tears stinging his eyes when he finishes and Magnus portals them both home for the night, not allowing Alec anywhere near the bedroom until after he eats a full meal. He gets a text from Jace ( You weren’t in your office when I came to look for you. Good. If you’re late tomorrow that’s even better. Get some rest, man.) and, when he winces sliding into bed, reluctantly asks Magnus if he wouldn’t mind healing a few cuts from a demon’s claw he didn’t iratze away in time. Magnus agrees with unchecked enthusiasm.
They’re all little things but they feel so monumental. And maybe, Alec starts to realize, it doesn’t always have to be all-or-nothing. He doesn’t have to flip a switch from ‘not okay’ to ‘totally okay’, and that’s, well, okay . As long as he’s trying.
As long as he’s letting people catch him when he starts to slip.
Because he isn’t alone in this, not by a longshot; so long as he has Magnus to catch him Alec knows he never has to be afraid of falling.