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Too many moons to fill an almanac:
the half, the quarters, and the slices between
black new and silvercoin full –
pearl tossed and netted in webs of cloud,
thread of light with the dull disc in its loop,
gold shaving afloat on the horizon of harvest –
How many times did you call me from the house,
or from my desk to the window, just to see?
Should I string them all on a necklace for you?
Impossible, though you gave them all to me.
Still some of their light reflects from memory.
Here it is, distant gleam on the page of a book.
-The Moons, by Grevel Lindop
Alec can’t breathe.
The cracked vinyl hospital bench creaks beneath him as he rocks forward to hunch over the borrowed cellphone in his hands, the fluorescent lights glaring up off the sterile, bleach-white floor to burn his sleep-tired eyes.
He’s too late.
The emergency message from the Red Cross took three days to reach him, and Alec is far, far too late.
His official orders had placed Alec at Ali Al Salem Air Base, not the remote forward operating base that his company was actually working from. By the time the corporal who’d first received the message had not only located Alec, but also managed to get a convoy authorized to hand-carry the note to his radio-silent outstation, Maxwell Monteverde had been in the care of the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families for five days.
The moment Underhill had ducked into the dusty tent serving as Alec’s command post with an unfamiliar chaplain at his side, Alec had known the news would be terrible.
Jace had followed Alec into the Marines, choosing aviation instead of infantry, and his sister was stationed in Haiti with Doctors Without Borders. They all lived with the knowledge that each rare call between the three of them could be their last. When the chaplain handed Alec the envelope from the Red Cross, Alec had dreaded learning which of his siblings he would be forced to mourn.
Lydia and John’s names had been entirely unexpected.
Nearly three decades prior, the first day of Mrs. Smith’s preschool class, Lydia had decided that Alec was going to be her best friend. They’d learned to read together, learned to drive together, grown into adults together. Alec had first admitted aloud that he didn’t like girls to Lydia, treasuring her resulting hug, and Lydia had flopped dramatically into Alec’s arms the day she met John and pronounced that while Alec was obviously her platonic life partner, she’d finally found her romantic life partner too.
It had been Alec’s deepest honor to walk Lydia down the aisle, only surpassed when she and John had asked him to be their son’s godfather. Alec loved Max like his own and wasn’t ashamed to admit that he had shed a few tears when a sweaty, beaming Lydia had placed the barely half-an-hour old infant into Alec’s arms.
But Lydia and John were supposed to be safe. Lydia and John weren’t in Iraq or Somalia or Haiti - they were in Boston where they’d gone into business together after college, opening a small law firm focused on environmental justice. The only thing Alec was supposed to worry about with them was paper-cuts.
But drunk drivers know no such thing as “supposed to.”
Alec remembers only flashes from the immediate aftermath of opening that terrible envelope. He remembers giving orders turning over command to his second, remembers a seven-hour, white-knuckled MRAP ride over an uncleared route to the nearest airfield, remembers arriving to find a minor miracle in the form of a waiting Air Force helicopter pilot owing Jace half a dozen favors. The pilot is in the air, Alec secure in a jump-seat, within three minutes of Alec’s sergeant pulling their MRAP to a stop six inches from the tarmac.
Jace must have called in every single one of those favors and more because they land ninety minutes later at the nearest friendly civilian airport. Alec doesn’t even enter the terminal before being ushered up a set of air stairs onto a Soviet-era jet with peeling carpet and stale, tobacco-scented air.
It’s not until the flight crew announces their descent into Boston Logan that Alec remembers his passport is still in a safe deposit box at Marine Corps Base Quantico. He hadn’t left the US flying commercial and he’s carrying nothing that wasn’t in his pockets twenty-two hours ago when he’d sat down to sign off on the next week’s patrol schedule.
Alec loses four hours arguing with US Customs and Border Protection before they accept his military ID and the crumpled Red Cross message clenched in his hands. He has no cash, no phone, no credit cards, and a USO volunteer waves off Alec’s protests before calling him a taxi and handing the driver payment from his own wallet.
The Boston traffic crawls through the city and the icy numbness that carried Alec from the chaplain’s pitying gaze to the gray slush of I-95 in January slowly gives way to a mute horror that wraps around Alec’s chest, constricting tighter with each breath.
And now here he sits, on a cracked vinyl seat in an out of the way hall outside the hospital morgue, hands wrapped so tight around the cell phone borrowed from a sympathetic pathologist that the protective case protests with a rasp of plastic stressed too far. Desert sand is still embedded in the folds of his uniform, falling on the floor when he unclenches his grip to shake out his hand.
Alec can’t breathe.
Neither John nor Lydia had regained consciousness after the accident, so no one had even known they’d had a son until a nurse had seen a call from Idris Elementary flashing across the screen of Lydia’s phone on the bedside table when Max hadn’t been picked up at the end of the day.
An officer had been sent to collect him and a child life specialist had guided the six-year-old in saying goodbye as it was clear no recovery was possible. By the time Lydia and John’s wills were located after their passing, Max had been in foster care for two days.
It’s been nearly a week now.
All Alec wants to do is wrap his godson in his arms and shield him from the world, wants to see John’s smile and Lydia’s eyes looking back at him, but the band around his chest clenches tighter instead.
A pinched-face representative of the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families had taken one look at his battered, travel-worn uniform and informed Alec that, unless he had a wife waiting at home, his occupation clearly disqualified him from taking custody.
She’s wrong, she has to be, but Alec has no idea how to fight her - the only legal aid he’s ever needed has been provided by the Marine Corps, but they can’t help with this and every argument and explanation he’d tried had fallen on callously deaf ears.
He stares down at the phone in his lap, and Magnus’s number stares back up at him.
Accusingly.
It’s been four years since Alec has spoken to Magnus, and the horrible, awful night that Alec had broken apart their relationship has featured without fail in his nightmares ever since.
Magnus and Alec had met by literally running into each other at the Boston Children’s Museum, neither one of them yet used to handling the strollers their godchildren were in. Madzie and Max had been thrilled to play with each other while Magnus and Alec each bought the other an apology coffee when neither would cede to the collision being anyone’s fault but their own.
Alec was head over heels before his coffee reached room temperature.
But Alec was military and Magnus was male, and, as it turned out, a global supermodel transitioning into the creative force behind his eponymous fashion brand. He’d been lauded in Vogue and the popular media alike for his genderless take on fashion, and Alec was one of the vanishingly few individuals on the globe who didn’t recognize Magnus on sight.
Alec could never decide if choosing to date Magnus in secret, in flagrant violation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before it was repealed, was the most courageous or the most cowardly thing he’d ever done.
Magnus was love incarnate and deserved so much more than a broken soldier who couldn’t risk even holding his partner’s hand outside the secrecy of Magnus’ loft. He deserved someone as sparkling and effervescent as him, someone who could kiss his cheek as they watched the sunset from Boston Common, someone who could profess his love openly for the world to hear so everyone could know how cherished and valued Magnus truly is.
Magnus deserved better than Alec.
Max deserves better than Alec too, deserves John and Lydia and the unimaginable love they’d held for their son, but Alec is all he has now and Max is more important than anything, including Alec’s heart.
He presses the call button.
Magnus’ number is unlisted and so very, very few people have the information to reach his private line that Alec knows Magnus answers every call, even if he doesn’t know the number.
At least he did four years ago.
“Magnus speaking, who calls upon the Head Model?”
Alec’s breath catches in his throat at the familiar, joking greeting and his heart aches at how long it’s been since he’s heard Magnus’ home-voice instead of the polished, professional tone he uses for interviews and press conferences.
Whatever noise he makes must not be audible through the phone because Alec can almost see Magnus’ perplexed frown at the lack of response.
“Hello?” Magnus asks a second time, faint background noise dying out in time with the muffled sound of a door closing.
Alec swallows past the glass in his throat to croak out the simplest plea his heart knows, “Magnus.”
There’s a sharp inhale on the other end, then total, complete silence.
Alec clenches his burning eyes shut and hurries to force out, “Please don’t hang up.”
Magnus’ voice holds nothing of his earlier warmth when he speaks next. “It’s been four years, Alec. Four years since you broke up with me without explanation the night before you left on a year-long deployment where I didn’t even know if you were alive. Four years since I had to put a fucking Google alert on your name in case the Marine Corps announced your death since not even your siblings knew I might care to be notified. So tell me, why exactly shouldn’t I hang up on you right now?”
It’s not fair. It’s not fair that Magnus has to deal with Alec and his mess and his carelessness, but all Alec can do is answer him as plainly as he can. “Lydia and John are dead.”
Alec tangles his hand in his hair, pulling slightly to give himself a bright spark of pain to focus on as he hears a sudden rustle of cloth, Magnus sitting down abruptly on something fabric, likely his bed. Magnus had met John and Lydia both, knew they were to Alec what Ragnor and Cat are to Magnus.
Lydia and John were the only people who had known about them. Alec refused to ask Jace to lie about their relationship, a deception his brother could face court-martial for if it was ever discovered, and he couldn’t tell Izzy if Jace didn’t know.
Alec can’t bear to hear what Magnus might say to him in comfort, because Magnus is too kind to keep berating Alec like he knows he deserves in light of that news, so he doesn’t pause before continuing. “I need your help,” and doesn’t Alec hate himself for making this Magnus’ problem.
“I- Lydia and John left Max’s custody to me in case something happened, but nothing was supposed to happen, not to them, they’re lawyers, and it turns out I’m the one that should have put on a Google alert because they died on Monday and it’s Sunday and I just found out last night- wait, yesterday night, I don’t even know anymore-”
“Alexander!” Magnus cuts in when Alec has to pause to take a breath and Alec’s cheeks burn in shame.
He’s a major in the United States Marine Corps. He’s held entire briefings while under continuous enemy fire without flinching, but with Magnus he has no filters. He’s never had to be anything but himself with Magnus and, even now, Magnus makes Alec feel safe, makes him feel as though he’s in the one place he can let go and not have to worry.
But that’s not Magnus’ job anymore. Alec swallows, cutting off what, four years ago, would have been a soft reminder to “breathe, darling,” before he can hear what time has turned it into.
“I apologize,” Alec collects himself.
“Alec-”
“I apologize,” Alec repeats, barreling forward. “I need your help and I can’t apologize enough for imposing on you like this, but they’re refusing me Max’s custody based on my military service. I would never have bothered you after… after what I did, for anything less.”
This time Magnus doesn’t try to interrupt and Alec is absurdly grateful as he gathers his words.
“Between the delay in reading their wills and how long it took the Red Cross message to find me, Max has been in foster care for nearly a week. The case worker is using that as evidence that my military career means I’m unfit to serve as primary guardian unless I have, and I’m quoting her, ‘a wife waiting for me at home,’ no matter that taking sole custody of Max means that that part of my life is over.”
Alec reels a bit with how easily he turns aside twelve years of service without blinking, but he knows it’s necessary even as he says it.
“I need a lawyer. I need to get Max out of foster care immediately, but I wasn’t planning on being back in the United States and all of my finances are locked in bonds, and I wouldn’t even know who to call if I did have the money accessible for a lawyer today anyways. But you and Ragnor started that foster charity and I remember you needed to contract with several family law attorneys in the area,” Alec cuts himself off as he feels himself start to ramble again. He swallows. “I’ll pay you back of course, every penny, and if you’d like interest, I should be able to access all my accounts by the end of the week and of course I’ll pay that as well-”
“Alexander,” Magnus interrupts, but this time Alec falls silent and lets him. Magnus’ tone is one that brooks nothing but obedience. “Where are you?”
Alec blinks back to external awareness, staring up at the unforgiving sea-green marquee in front of him.
“The morgue. Massachusetts General Hospital.”
The background on Magnus’ end of the line changes; it sounds like Alec has been put on speaker and Magnus is rapidly typing on another application. It’s barely half a minute of silence before Magnus makes a soft, triumphant noise.
“Alec, I am going to be at the entrance of the morgue in exactly twenty-five minutes with the most vicious family law attorney I’ve ever had the dubious pleasure to work with. You are going to find the nearest bathroom, splash some water on your face and make yourself look the most presentable that you can in short order, and then you are going to go ensure that whatever pernicious, ignorant case worker is attempting to deny you custody doesn’t leave until your reinforcements arrive. Is that clear?”
Military play-acting was never a thing between Magnus and Alec, but as nearly thirty-two hours of backbreaking anxiety shudder out of Alec’s bones at Magnus’ clear assumption of command, Alec isn’t too sure the crisp “sir, yes, sir” that nearly slips out of his mouth would be an act.
He holds it back though, instead simply allowing the full measure of his relief to be audible as he breathes out his response. “Thank you, Magnus.”
____________________________
In fact, it only takes Magnus and the sharply-suited woman next to him twenty-two minutes to arrive.
Alec has watched every interview and every press conference, read every magazine article, listened to every podcast, and pored over every photo campaign Magnus has even been tangentially involved with in the last few years, but his first sight of Magnus in person after all this time still punches the breath out of him in awe.
Magnus is resplendent in tight leather and flowing silk, gold chains dripping down his chest and danger gleaming in his eyes. He observes the way in which Alec is close to physically blocking the exit to the morgue, pleading with the scowling case worker to wait just a moment longer, and somehow swans both gracefully and threateningly to Alec’s side without ever taking his gaze from the uncaring woman attempting to leave.
Alec nearly swallows his tongue when Magnus unceremoniously takes his hand and tangles their fingers together in a tight clasp.
Thankfully, he doesn’t have to speak as Ms. Carson turns her focus away from Alec to frown at the newest interruption. She barely sets eyes upon Magnus however before her face turns pale.
“Mr. Bane!”
To this day, the instant recognition and reverence with which Magnus is treated wherever he goes in public catches Alec off guard. Normally, Magnus waves the attention off with a charming smile and a disarming remark or two.
Not today, however.
Today, Magnus merely smirks and inclines his head in acknowledgement that he is indeed who she thinks, before turning his sole focus to Alec. His gaze lingers, sweeping up and down Alec’s frame from his still-sandy combat boots to his sun-burned face.
“I thought I told you to freshen up, darling?”
Magnus’ voice is light and teasing, entirely unsuited to the situation, but Alec trusts that Magnus knows what he’s doing and answers in kind, a little more sarcasm than tease.
“Well, since I woke up about two days ago in a tent in Iraq and haven’t slept since, this is about as good as it’s going to get, Magnus.”
“Acceptable, I suppose then, marine,” Magnus returns with a soft smile.
In an attack too perfectly timed to be uncoordinated, the blonde woman Magnus had entered with strides forward to interrupt Ms. Carson’s shocked gaping with a cooly unconcerned introduction.
“Antoinette Levin, J.D., Ph.D., of Levin & Fell. Family law attorney.” Dr. Levin doesn’t offer her hand. “And you are?”
The case worker blinks. “Janet Carson. From the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families.”
Dr. Levin nods. “I see. And you’re the case worker illegally denying a highly decorated Marine Corps officer custody of his godson in direct defiance of the wishes of said minor child’s deceased parents because Major Lightwood is, and let me check my notes here,” Dr. Levin makes no such move as to check any notes, “a war hero, but doesn’t have a ‘wife waiting at home for him’? Is that a correct summation of the facts?”
The case worker’s jaw drops. She sputters for a minute, but rallies. “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying, Ms.-”
“-Dr.” The blond woman corrects dispassionately.
“-Dr. Levin, but Mr.-”
“-Major.”
“-Major Lightwood is in a dangerous profession and, as demonstrated by how long it took to reach him after the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Monteverde, is clearly incapable of taking sole custody of a minor child barring evidence of a wife with whom physical custody can be shared. Not to mention the fact that Mr.-”
“-Major.”
“-Major Lightwood doesn’t even have a permanent address on file!”
“I was deployed! I can-”
Magnus uses the hand that isn’t attached to Alec’s to interrupt the burgeoning argument, staring down the combative case worker.
“A ‘wife’ waiting at home? How very heteronormative of you, Ms. Carson. Surely the Massachusetts Department of Family & Children would be satisfied with a husband waiting at home for him instead?”
And with that stunning announcement, Magnus leans into Alec’s side and slowly slides his arm around Alec’s camouflage-clad waist, looping his fingers into the opposite pocket of Alec’s BDUs.
The case worker just stares, speechless.
Alec swallows down a wounded whine. Marriage to Magnus is everything he has ever wanted and hearing Magnus refer to himself as Alec’s husband, now, when everything is wrong and he knows it isn’t real? The sniper round Alec had taken through his calf two years ago had hurt significantly less.
Magnus just continues blithely. “You understand of course why Alexander and I prefer to keep our relationship private, especially between my fame and the discretion required for Alec’s position?”
Alec doesn’t think Dr. Levin is expecting Magnus’ pronouncement either, but she proceeds smoothly nevertheless.
“That same discretion is also why Major Lightwood doesn’t have his permanent residential address, Mr. Bane’s apartment here in Boston, located in his military records. With all of your points addressed, Ms. Carson, I assume there are no further obstacles to providing us with Maxwell Monteverde’s location so that Major Lightwood may immediately take custody of his grieving godson?”
Ms. Carson just sputters, moving her gaze back and forth between Alec and Magnus in amazed disbelief.
Dr. Levin steps neatly in front of her, drawing the case workers attention back to the situation at hand, and leaving Magnus to gently draw Alec with him out of the morgue proper and back into the same tucked away hallway where Alec had called Magnus not even thirty minutes prior.
“Magnus, I- I don’t understand.” Alec is exhausted and grieving and heartsore for so many reasons - for Lydia and for John, though that grief is buried for now in the need to get to their son, for Magnus and the way Alec had ended things, but nothing has changed and yet Magnus is here and staring at him, guard down, and so, so beautiful.
A gentle hand is brought to Alec’s face and it takes everything in him not to turn and nuzzle into it the way he would have without thought four years ago.
“Darling,” Magnus murmurs, “I’m sorry for springing that on you, and I’m sorry if I made things worse, but Antoinette said that though the issues DCF were raising couldn’t stop you from taking custody, they could cause delays that would keep Max in foster care for months under the worst case scenario. This was the only way I could think of that would get you custody without question today. What with how recent DADT was dropped for the military,” and here Alec can’t hold back, closing his eyes and turning into Magnus’ palm in twisted comfort and penance alike.
Magnus just lets his thumb brush back and forth over Alec’s cheek. “With how recent DADT was dropped for the military, no one will question why we don’t have the legal documentation backdated and it’ll be simple to get it all taken care of after we have Max with us.”
Alec shakes his head frantically, “No, no- I don’t understand- why are you, why would you be willing- ? I hurt you when I left, I know I did because I was weak and a coward and you deserved, deserve, so much better than anything I can give you and I thought you would find someone so much better than me and here I am again, just taking-”
Magnus is silent for a long moment. “Alexander, look at me?” He eventually requests and Alec is helpless but to do as he asks.
“This is too much, too soon, I know it is, but when have you and I ever been anything but too much, too soon in the best possible ways?” Magnus meets Alec’s gaze. “Lydia showed up at my office last year. Six months after DADT was repealed. Told me you got drunk in her arms for the first and only time in all the years she’d known you the night before she came to see me.”
Alec remembers that night. His tongue is leaden as just keeps on staring into the beautiful eyes that haunt his dreams.
“Lydia told me she wouldn’t break your trust enough to tell me what exactly you said to her, nor would she ask me to forgive you for the way you ended things. But, she told me that you loved me with all your heart, that the words you said to me the night before you deployed were the biggest regret you had in your life, and that you would want me to know that.”
Alec can't breathe.
“Sayang, was Lydia right?”
Alec can't even blink, just nods slowly, afraid to even break eye contact.
“Yes.” And Alec needs Magnus to know more than he needs air, so he opens his mouth and speaks the simple words that form the cornerstone of his soul. “I love you. I will always love you, Magnus, and I don’t need you to return it, I just- I just want you to know how much you’re loved and how sorry I am for what I said. I love you.”
Magnus breathes in, leaning his forehead against Alec’s and sharing his air. “We need to talk,” he murmurs quietly. “We need to talk about so much, darling, and I know taking care of Max these next few weeks and months is going to come before any of the time we need to talk about what led to that night and how and in what way we can move forward, but, for now, know this. I love you, sayang. I will always love you.”