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livia-dovehallow · 11 months

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happy birthday to gabriel lightwood!

I rise from the ashes of writer's block and health problems to gift you all a little something I whipped up late last night for our boy's 163rd birthday <3 You can find this piece on AO3, too.

Cecily extended her arms and held the box up to him, eyeing him expectantly over the edges. “It’s customary to accept a birthday gift on your birthday, you know.”

Gabriel gaped. “Why did you get me—“

“If you finish that question, I will drop you to the floor so fast, Gabriel Lightwood.”

It was a promise more than it was a threat, and Gabriel dropped his shoulders in defeat, reaching to accept the box she was holding out to him. His chest felt fuzzy in a way that only happened around Cecily and nobody else. “Thank you.”

“You haven’t opened it yet.”

“Oh, you wish me to open it right now?”

Cecily scrunched her face in a faux anger—though, to her credit, it did look concerningly close to her actual anger—and huffed. “You are insufferable.”

With a grin, Gabriel opened the box. He titled his head at the contents, of which a familiar item lay. “Is this my pocket watch?”

“It is.”

“You are returning my own pocket watch to me as a birthday gift?”

Cecily burst into laughter, doubling over, leaving Gabriel standing in stupefied amusement. Whatever she’d planned, she obviously thought herself highly as a comedian. At least a full minute passed before she rose again and composed herself. She reached in and pointed at an unfamiliar item attached to the chain of said pocket watch. “I am returning it to you with something new.”

Gabriel followed her finger and looked at the small, coin-like item hanging off the chain near the clasp of the watch. Upon closer inspection, it was a coin, but not one he’d ever seen before. This one looked as if it had been sanded down and re-engraved. He took the piece between his fingers and lifted it for a better look. Only when it was closer did he realize that the engraving was of letters—arranged in her name.

“It’s a token,” Cecily explained. “Literally, yes, but it’s a sort of gift that mundanes give to loved ones. Old coins, out of circulation, sanded down and punched with new images and letters.”

Gabriel brushed his thumb over the engraving of her name, surrounding in a dotted pattern that followed the edges of the coin. Below her name was the image of a bird in flight. A heron. He looked back up at Cecily and smiled. “This is a love token?”

Cecily’s eyes grew comically large in surprise Gabriel rarely got out of her. “You know it?” she exclaimed in disbelief.

“I know it,” said Gabriel smugly, before he could no longer hold in the laugh in his throat at her shock. “I do live in London. Some mundane things are familiar to me.”

Her eyes narrowed, as if she were inspecting him. Gabriel highly suspected she was. “Sophie told you,” she declared after a moment.

Rats. Gabriel shook his head and lifted the watch out of the box in its entirety. “I will never tell you,” he teased, unwilling to surrender. But Gabriel admired the small attachment anyway, the fuzzy feeling in his chest growing the longer he looked at it. His understanding of the custom was scarce at best, but he did know one thing. “I thought I was meant to give you one of these.”

Cecily’s cheeks flushed a light pink, which made his heart flip. She really was unbelievably beautiful. “I despise gender roles,” she said simply.

It made him laugh again but he believed her. He’d never get quite used to how it felt to know someone so intimately, and have them know just as much about you. He didn’t even think he knew Gideon as well as he knew Cecily despite growing up with the man his entire life.

He slipped the gift of his own adorned pocket watch into his vest and lay the now-empty box on the table beside them. “Thank you,” he told her. “I do like this addition to my own pocket watch.”

“You don’t think that is all I have for you on your birthday, is it?” Cecily gasped. Her hands rose to her hips in an indignant stance. “I take birthdays seriously. You may not have high expectations, sir, but now you have me.”

It was an innocent statement, but something about hearing her say “you have me” struck enough emotion out of Gabriel to compel him to step forward and lower himself to give her a sweet kiss. She smiled into it, her own curving lips moving in time with his.

“What was that for?” she questioned when they’d reluctantly separated.

“I thought you might get annoyed with me if I just kept saying thank you.”

Her smile and eyes brightened into the precise glow that he always wanted her to have. A smile of genuine happiness. “I commend you on your solution,” she sang, and then took his arm. “It’s ingenious problem solving, though I do hope you do not use that solution with others.”

“It’s most certainly reserved for you,” Gabriel assured.

Cecily tugged on his arm and began to walk, directing him to wherever it was she led him. Her energy was excited, radiating enough off of her to make him feel genuinely happy on his birthday for the first time in years, even if all he did that day was follow her around.

[21 years later]

Gabriel woke up the same way he’d woken up for nearly 20 years—with Cecily’s pretty face beside him like a dream he was still in. Only this time, Cecily was wide awake and beaming at him rather than snoring (or acoustic sleeping, as she put it). “Happy birthday,” she said before leaning in for a smiling kiss.

“Mm,” Gabriel hummed. He sat up from his pillows, Cecily following, and attempted to blink himself more awake. “I age ten years every day in this house. What’s the use of a birthday anymore?”

Cecily remained unphased. Instead, she rolled out of bed and threw open the curtains with flair. “It’s your first birthday with Alex,” she reminded him. Gabriel attempted to act like he wasn’t aware that she hadn’t closed her robes. “And he’s six months old today, too. It is a very special day. At least it is to me.”

Gabriel softened, and smiled adoringly at his wife. She crossed her arms looking at him from across the room, but there was no true anger in her expression. She rather looked a bit sad. Cecily had never gotten used to how fast their children had grown, even Alex, who had come so recently into their family and yet here he was, six months old already. No fault to her—Gabriel grew sad if he thought about it too long, too.

He threw the sheets off himself and dragged himself out of the bed to cross the room to her. There had to be a magnet within Cecily, for he always found himself wanting to be close to her all the time. She leaned into his touch when he held her face in his heads. Gabriel leaned down and kissed her head, humming as he did so. “I love you.”

Cecily wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed herself against him. “I love you, too,” she mumbled into his shoulder at the precise moment a cry pierced the otherwise silent air of their home. Gabriel laughed. “I’m being summoned.”

“I can get him,” Gabriel offered right away when Cecily pulled away from their perfectly comfortable embrace.

“Not on your birthday,” she scolded him. With practiced ease, she tied her robe and flew into her slippers. Halfway out of their bedroom door, Cecily peeked back at him over her shoulder with a stern gaze. “Don’t you dare think about anyone else on your day, Gabriel.”

She disappeared, off down the hall to the nursery, tending to their baby boy, the both of them knowing perfectly well that Gabriel Lightwood was incapable of thinking about anyone other than his family.

He reached over to his vest, laid neatly over the wardrobe, prepared in advance for him, and pulled his pocket watch. It was early—Anna and Christopher would not wake for another couple of hours. Gabriel smiled to himself and watched out the window at the rising sun, an old token brushed by the pad of this thumb along the chain.

#happy birthday gabriel lightwood #gabriel lightwood #cecily herondale #alex lightwood #anna lightwood #christopher lightwood #cecily lightwood #gabrily #gabriel and cecily #the infernal devices #the last hours #tid #tlh

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imherongraystairstrash · 1 year

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Its gonna be a hella angst fic but if you want I think a good ff post chit would be Alex first rune

I'm officially obsessed with writing Alex Lightwood! I hope you enjoy reading him as much as I enjoyed figuring him out as a character!

Ao3 link

First Runes

Cecily stood outside for a moment and smiled at the lavender bushes that grew in the backyard. Bees were buzzing around them. They landed occasionally on the flowers, stopping for a moment before drifting off again. The lavender bushes were relatively new; they hadn’t been there in 1903. Cecily bent down and snipped off a couple of branches, smiling serenely as she did so. She tended to the bushes herself, making sure they were watered enough and that there were no weeds growing in close proximity. Even now, she made sure to only snip away at the branches that were growing astray, so that the bushes remained impeccably tidy.

Despite what one may assume, Cecily was secretly fond of the ones that broke away from the rest. Once she’d sheared off what she deemed to be enough, she went back inside, holding the lavender close to her chest and sniffing its sweet scent as she walked.

Once inside, she scattered them throughout in different vases of water as she made her way through the house she’d been calling home for over a decade.

After placing the last of the lavender she’d collected into a vase, she realized she was outside Alexander’s room. Maybe it was her mother’s instinct that inevitably led her here, even though she had intended to come by later.

The door stood ajar, though Cecily still knocked on it before entering, as a way of announcing her presence, a habit she picked up over the years—Cecily had a naturally light step, which meant she had the tendency to—unintentionally— frighten those around her when she slipped silently into a room.

“Well, don’t you look handsome.” Cecily said as she walked into the room. She came to stand beside her son Alexander, who had been sitting by the window reading. Upon hearing his mother come into the room, he looked up. Even at only twelve years, Alex had the face of a boy who could grow up to be a heartbreaker, with his ocean blue eyes and hair as dark as the feathers on a crow's wing. He was already wearing the ceremonial red that was associated with the first rune ceremony.

“Now,” Cecily said, sitting beside him, straightening the collar of his shirt. “I don’t want you to be nervous.”

Alex rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “I’m not nervous. I survived half of the first one.”

Cecily gave him a pointed stare. “Don’t joke about that Alex, nothing about that event was in any way funny.”

Alex only shrugged, the way one who didn’t remember such an experience would. Cecily would have been grateful Alex had forgotten about that day, if only she knew it were true. It was years before his recurring nightmares that roused Gabriel and Cecily out of bed ceased. Alex may have stopped crying out in his sleep, but that didn’t exactly mean the nightmares went away; only that Alex may have learned to restrain himself, which didn’t comfort Cecily in the slightest.

“Don’t fret, Mam. I’m not nervous.” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Are you?”

Cecily looked into his eyes, a mirror of her own. “Of course I’m nervous. A mother always worries about these things.”

Alex patted his mother’s hand with a small grin. “I’ll be alright.”

Cecily only put her arm around him in a half-embrace, squeezing him affectionately. Though Alex was at the age where children usually tend to pull away from any sort of motherly affection, he let Cecily hold him, putting his head on her thin shoulder, which Cecy appreciated.

As she rubbed circles into his shoulder, she caught sight of what he was reading.

“Is that the Codex?” she asked. “I despised studying that when I first came to train as a shadowhunter.”

“I’m reading the weapons section.” Alex said. Sure enough, his copy of the Codex—which had once belonged to Gabriel, had a crack in the spine that opened up to the archery section. Cecily knew this crack was newly made, as she was quite familiar with Gabriel’s copy of the Codex from her more youthful years.

Alex was incredibly gifted with the bow, being something of a prodigy with the particular weapon, as he outranked quite an impressive number of grown members of the Enclave in archery, in spite of his young age. But it wasn’t all innate talent however; Alexander may have inherited both the Lightwood gift for archery and Herondale precision for long range weaponry, but he also honed his gift to perfection, training daily for hours to reach perfection.

Cecily often thought that he was too much like his father: always aspiring to fit the ideal they built for themselves. Cecily never knew how she felt about it; it was an admirable trait, but at the same time, a destructive one.

“The brothers are here,” Gabriel said, leaning against the doorway.

Alex practically flung himself off of the window seat, rushing past Gabriel, who shook his head fondly.

Cecily got up wearily and dusted off her dress, meeting Gabriel by the doorframe.

The brothers had been unsure of Alexander’s situation. It so rarely happens that someone inscribes a rune on a child, only to be stopped and then for that child to actually survive. They’d thought it better to delay the ceremony a couple of years so that Alexander’s body was stronger. Alex, of course, had not been too pleased by this arrangement, wanting only to be a normal shadowhunter.

“Your cousin Thomas had his rune ceremony at twelve as well,” Gabriel reminded him. “And he’s a perfectly normal shadowhunter.”

Alex didn’t reply, only sulked in true pre-adolescent fashion.

But finally, Alex had turned twelve, and had not stopped nagging his parents about getting his first rune since the second it was his birthday. Literally. He had woken up his parents at precisely 12:00 am on his twelfth birthday and asked them if he could get his first rune on that very day. Cecily had firmly denied him.

“I wish he would forget about the rune.” Cecily said one night, a couple of days after Alex had come of age.

“You cannot deny him what his blood sings for,” Gabriel said gently. “Alexander has all of the makings of an incredible warrior; we’d be confining him to a life he could never enjoy. Besides,” Gabriel added, nudging her shoulder with his own. “you were the same; once you got a taste for battle, you couldn’t stifle that part of you.”

Cecily sighed. “I know. I just sometimes wish he obsessed over something less…dangerous. Anna and Christopher never had that intense thirst for battle. Alex came out too much like us.”

“And if he were any different, he wouldn’t be our Alex.”

Cecily nodded, her lips curling up in a smile. “You’re right, of course. Tell me, when did you become so wise, Gabriel Lightwood?”

Gabriel drew her into his arms. “I suppose it comes with age.”

Cecily grinned up at him and kissed him tenderly. “I suppose it does.”

Now, they were gathered in a small room; Alex sitting on a chair, Gabriel and Cecily standing close by, both trying to look the part of calm and composed parents. There were three Silent brothers present. Brother Cimon, Brother Enoch and Brother Zachariah. Usually, there were only two, but this was a special case and they wanted to be prepared, despite the fact that, unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done to save a child from a rune that rejected them. The real reason they were there was for the parents, though of course, they didn’t mention this to either Gabriel nor Cecily.

After Alex accepted the vows, Brother Cimon held out his thin, long fingered hand for the boy to place his hand in. Alexander did what he was supposed to, his parents tensing behind him. As Brother Cimon took out the stele, Gabriel put one of his hands on his son’s shoulder and held the other one out to Cecily, who clung to it the second it was offered to her. And as Brother Cimon poised the stele over the back of Alex’s hand, the entire room seemed to hold its breath.

Brother Cimon lowered the stele and began sketching the clairvoyance rune. When Alex suddenly went rigid under his hand, Gabriel could only think one thing: not again.

…

For a millisecond, it didn’t hurt at all. For a millisecond, Alexander Lightwood let himself believe he was a normal shadowhunter.

But then, there came the agony. Alex had a high tolerance for pain; once he’d broken his hand and only told Cecily three days after it had happened, because it had grown so tense that he couldn’t shoot an arrow from his bow. By then, it had resembled a bird's claw, his fingers bent inwards. His palm was blue and incredibly swollen. Cecily had scolded him, asking him what possessed him to think it was smart to not tell them about his broken hand. Alex had responded by telling her that the brothers would have to cast his hand, and he wouldn't be able to train properly with it. Cecily pressed her lips together, and Alex was sure she was going to strangle him. She didn’t, but her eyes burned with fury.

“You won’t be able to shoot your damned bow if your hand heals like a bird claw, Alexander Gideon Lightwood. I cannot understand why you put so much pressure on yourself to train that you can’t see through an injury that could last until your dying day because it didn’t heal properly. Have you any idea what it’s like for your hand to scream in pain every time you strike with any combat weapon?”

Alex pressed his lips together. “I could handle it.”

Cecily sighed, muttering something that sounded an awful lot like “you’re just like your father.” before summoning the Silent Brothers.

So yes, Alex could endure pain better than most, all thanks to his willpower. But not even willpower could distract Alex from the excruciating pain on his hand. Suddenly, he was thrust back in time. Instead of Brother Cimon's face, it was his aunt Tatiana’s, looking down at him in malice, a manic grin on her face as he withered in pain, begging her to stop.

This time, however, Alex clamped his mouth shut, biting into his bottom lip until he drew blood. His senses dimmed; he knew his mother was rushing towards him. That Brother Cimon withdrew the stele, having completed the rune. He could taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth. But all of that was passive to the pain. It felt like his skin was burning from the inside; white hot fire traveling through his bloodstream, scorching his organs. At some point, he had tilted his head upwards, looking at the ceiling. He felt someone press kisses to his forehead, while his father fired question after question at the brothers. Is he going to be alright? What’s happening to him? Will he survive?

The last thing he heard was his mother whispering that she loved him very very much, before he slipped under.

…

Alex opened his eyes groggily. He was dimly aware of his parents, huddled in a corner with Anna and Ari speaking in quiet murmurs. He turned his head so that he was looking straight up at the roof. He blinked a couple of times, looking at nothing and thinking of nothing.

Then he remembered. He lifted his right hand and gazed at the clairvoyance rune, stark against his pale skin. It looked nice, Alex thought to himself. Like his left hand had always been missing something, and now it finally looked right.

“Alex?” Ari said.

The rest all turned at the exact same time. Alex lifted a hand in salute, not quite sure what else to do.

Cecily rushed over to him, kneeling down by his bedside. She put a hand to his forehead, feeling his temperature.

“How do you feel?” She asked.

“Fine,” Alex said, though it came out as a whisper. His voice was sore, as if he’d been screaming. He hoped for his parents' sake he hadn’t.

Cecily pressed her forehead to his own. “Oh, thank the angel you’re alive.”

She pulled away, her blue eyes searched his, darting back and forth as if to find some sign of distress. Alex put his hand over hers, to reassure her that he truly was alright, before glancing up and seeing his father standing behind Cecily, having come up silently without Alex noticing. He had crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. He looked so tired, Alex thought. Like he was being drained.

Gabriel smiled at him, though. As he leaned forward, resting a hand on Cecily’s shoulder, he said to Alex, “Alexandros, defender of men. You are now officially a shadowhunter.”

Alex grinned though Cecily scowled at him. “He was already a shadowhunter,” she said, before turning back to Alex.

Gabriel only winked at Alexander behind Cecily’s back. Alex had always felt that his father understood him; his ambitions, his dreams. His father always said what he needed to hear, and that was something Alex had always cherished.

“Anna,” Alex said, looking behind his parents, “You came to visit. And you brought your better half.” He said with a grin at Ari, who beamed back at him.

Anna rolled her eyes fondly. “Alex, you really are something, aren’t you? Also, your voice sounds like it’s been through a battlefield. I think you should consider a spoonful of honey.”

Alex shrugged, “As long as it’s not Mam’s ginger tea.”

“What’s wrong with my ginger tea?” Cecily demanded.

“You put too much ginger!” Alex said, “it’s like swallowing fire.”

Cecily looked around for support, but received none: Anna and Gabriel looked away, trying to avoid meeting her gaze.

“It’s more effective that way.” She said defensively.

“More effective in murdering the consumer,” Alex said before adding hastily, “I love you, Mam, but your ginger tea is brutal.”

Cecily only shook her head. “Nevermind. I suppose I appreciate knowing it is too strong."

Anna shook her head and mouthed to Alex only because you’re the youngest, to which Alex replied with a smug shrug of his shoulders.

...

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