May 6, Alec

[seveninches]

They're planning a June wedding, which is starting to become very real, and very soon. Isabelle isn't the one getting married but she's still starting to feel the stress of it, hoping that everything is done in time to pull the day off perfectly. She's helped out as much as she can but she doesn't want to be overbearing, and she knows Alec will get easily overwhelmed. Which is why she's decided that today is shopping day.

It's not in Alec's nature to ask for gifts from anyone, so Isabelle is assuming that he hasn't done anything about a gift registry yet. She knows technically Magnus could just conjure anything they might ever need, but that takes all the fun out of wedding presents. She's seen it in mundane movies and read about it, and she's decided that Magnus and Alec will have a gift registry, even if she has to force one on them. There are heaps of people in Darrow who are going to want to shower them with love and affection and presents, and Isabelle wants to make sure they don't end up with anything terrible or seven of the same toaster or something ridiculous.

She's dragged Alec to the mall under protest, and with a scan gun in her hand Isabelle feels in her element. She's already scanned a dozen things that she thinks would make excellent gifts, moving determinedly through the aisles.

"Magnus would love that," she calls out, pointing to a throw rug with a silver trim that sparkles against the light. It's opulent and probably expensive but Isabelle scans it with a flourish anyway, glancing over at Alec with red lips curved into a grin. "Just don't let the cats shed all over it."

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[seveninches]

She laughs at that, covering her mouth with a hand when another shopper turns to look at her. At the time, she'd been supportive, because it was the first time Alec had expressed any interest in anyone. Maybe it had been a little weird that the subject of his affections was Jace, and Isabelle is admittedly glad that he saw sense, but she never would have said anything like that to him back then.

"You don't need to tell me," she teases, giving him a nudge with her shoulder. Alec had always prided himself on being the older one, being the one in charge, and Isabelle hadn't wanted to take that away from him. She'd trusted him to make the right decisions and for the most part he did, but Jace was another matter entirely.

There's not a lot she thanks Clary for, in truth, but at least she was the kicker to setting Alec straight on that one, so to speak.

"Well, both Magnus and I are very glad you saw sense," she says, smiling fondly. Jace isn't her blood, but she still counts him as her brother, and watching her two brothers get married would have been a little much.

[deflectere]

"What, you wouldn't have wanted me to be with Jace?" Alec asked, not speaking seriously. Besides the fact that they were brothers, they were also parabatai which meant a relationship was forbidden. He would have suffered in silence because he was both gay and the man he wanted he couldn't have. He would have done that and never left on to anyone but Isabelle what it was doing to him.

"Don't worry, thinking about it now, I know we couldn't have worked either even if it hadn't been forbidden and our parents didn't hate that I was gay," he said wryly. "I think I would have ended up killing Jace. He needs someone like..."

He realized what he'd been about to say and grimaced, shaking his head and refusing to go further. He was not going to give Clary credit for anything.