Chapter Text
“No more bets, ladies and gentlemen, no more bets.”
The croupier dashed the tiny white ball around the inside rim of the slowly turning roulette wheel as the bodies crowding the table all seemed to take one single, common inhale of breath, holding it in anticipation as one. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of chips were balanced in their respective piles along the board, the white and blue of Alec Lightwood’s twenty bucks amongst them. Thirty pairs of eyes watched the ball slow and skitter over the gulleys - 14, 2, 0 and coming to a rest amid groans of dismay and cheers of delight on... the notch that bore his age.
“Black, twenty-eight!”
Dammit!
He cursed under his breath, it had been a toss up between that and twelve, his actual birth date and he watched as his chip was scooped up by the croupier’s rake into the mess of other losing bets. Beside him, the groom-to-be Jace had also lost, but one or two of their group were gleefully counting the little stack of new chips pushed in their direction.
“Going again?” Jace pushed some errant strands of blonde hair out of his eyes and grinned sloppily at Alec. He was pretty drunk, but somehow still alert enough to keep gambling. A Las Vegas bachelor party was not something to be missed by sleeping off copious amounts of alcohol in one’s room and Jace had set out determined to make the whole group enjoy every second of their weekend.
“Yeah, a few more rounds. I’m hoping my luck picks up soon.”
Alec took a sip from his own drink – some kind of house cocktail, a blend of cheap vodka, fruit punch and bitters. He grimaced as the alcohol burnt down his throat. He hadn’t been a drinker since college, this was one of the exceedingly rare occasions when he had more than a couple of beers and perhaps a vodka or two.
“You want to get lucky?” Jace grinned, pushing a fifty dollar chip over to the number twenty-three, his fiancée Clary’s birthdate. His voice sing-song yet slightly slurred from far too much alcohol. “You know what I said Alec...”
Oh, Alec knew alright. Jace’s sniggered threat to buy him a hooker for the night as a thank-you treat for organising the weekend. Alec rolled his eyes and selected another twenty dollar chip of his own, this time just trusting his gut rather than picking a birthdate or other significant number. He dropped it on the number eight along with another punter’s much larger stake.
“With the roulette Jace, not with some poor kid probably just trying to pay his way through school with blow-jobs and spanking.”
Jace cackled out a messy laugh, nudging up against Alec’s arm as the croupier closed the round to new bets, “Is that what you would like, huh?”
Alec glared at him and crossed his arms firmly over his chest. He wasn’t entertaining this conversation and certainly wasn’t about to start discussing his uneventful sex life with his brother. Not that there was that much to discuss; he’d thrown himself into his work as soon as he’d graduated and had barely found time to unpack his cramped Sunnyside apartment let alone have a relationship.
He ignored Jace and continued to watch the white blur of the ball as it whipped around and around, gradually slowing and dropping down towards the numbered gullies.
“Red, thirty-four!” the croupier called, pulling in the losing chips and depositing the winnings in front of their happy new owners a group of which, Alec still was not one of.
"What I would like, is to win a few dollars at roulette and have this night not be a complete wash out!” Alec sighed, feeling the last twenty-dollar chip in his pocket that he had promised himself would be the limit of his roulette betting.
“Well, I’m done,” Jace slung one arm around Alec’s shoulders and patted him on the chest. “Going to head over to the slots for a while. I’m sure that luck of yours will change soon enough.”
He grinned woozily at Alec, a smile that he knew all too well - he was either really pleased with himself or just really drunk. He assumed it was the latter.
“Fine. That luck gets one last round to come good - last twenty bucks,” they bumped their fists together. “Then I’ll catch you up.”
Alec ran his eyes over the table once more, trying to pick a birth date, an anniversary, an age – something, anything, that called out to him that it was lucky. But as the seconds ticked by before the round was closed, it was the number eight again that drew his eye. Like the last round, there was already a stack of chips occupying the square. He counted them as he placed his one meagre twenty next to them: purple striped five-hundred-dollar chips, ten of them.
Five thousand dollars!
He glanced around the table to try to guess who the high roller was that was seemingly happy to bet just over his two-weeks salary in one go but everyone crowded around the table seemed just as concerned where the ball was going to land as the next person, whether they had thousands or just a few dollars at stake.
The chatter dulled to a low murmur as the croupier spun the wheel, releasing the ball careering around in the opposite direction. Five, ten, fifteen revolutions at full speed before it began to slow and then another ten at least before it dropped down towards the waiting numbers.
Double zero
Twenty-five
Twenty-nine
“Black, eight!”
Someone clapped him on the back as a stack of chips were pushed in his direction – seven hundred and twenty dollars worth to be exact, an excellent result for him but nothing compared to the other punter’s winnings.
“Finally!” he said to himself, splitting the pile and stashing one half in his pocket as ‘banked’ winnings. The other half was still in play.
His seven hundred was nothing compared to the stack of chips pushed over to the other winner on number eight. Dark blue five-thousand-dollar chips, three stacks making one hundred and eighty grand in one swoop. Alec followed their trajectory across the table to see who the lucky winner was, curious to see the reaction of someone winning that much money.
The winner was a very well dressed young man around his age, maybe a year or two older with neat dark hair and a surly, slightly annoyed kind of smile. His annoyance seemed to stem from the man at his side and the over enthusiastic hug he was receiving. That was when Alec Gideon Lightwood forgot how to breathe – the man giving the hug was absolutely stunning. Tall, muscular frame wrapped deliciously in a crisp dark red shirt, old fashioned suspenders at his biceps holding the sleeves in place. Hair swept up dramatically into a mohawk of sorts, with golden highlights that matched the subtle shimmer dusted on his cheekbones. The man with the thousands of dollars' worth of chips was trying to ignore the congratulatory hug and now kiss that was being planted on his temple.
Alec knew he was staring, he assumed his mouth was slightly open, and to both his horror and embarrassment he realised that the beautiful man across the roulette table had noticed him.
And then, he winked and mouthed the word 'hello'.
He was wearing dark eyeliner and curious gold contact lenses. He looked ethereal, other worldly, hot as hell. There was no world in which he should be so much as existing in the same space as Alec Lightwood let alone paying him attention. He froze, unable to mouth ‘hello’ back, or smile or do anything other than just stare as the beautiful man pressed his body close to the high roller and ran one finger down his chest, all the time maintaining the most intense eye contact Alec had ever known. His imagination picked up exactly where it was intended to – what it would feel like to be held close to that firm, muscular chest, those arms around him, those fingers with their painted nails unbuttoning his shirt...
Alec pocketed his chips and made a dash for the safety of the slot machines, Jace and the other guys. Somewhere where he didn’t have to watch the most beautiful man he had ever seen getting more closely acquainted with his companion and feel the level of desire and absolute burning jealousy that he was starting to succumb to.
It was close to one in the morning when he finally managed to bundle a singing, slurring and overly affectionate Jace into bed and took himself down to one of the quieter bars in the hotel to unwind from the noise and energy of the night. The house cocktails had left him nicely buzzed but the desire to keep drinking to excess had never really been his thing so he nursed the single whiskey blend in his glass, turning it around in his hand as he watched the large, square ice cube slowly melt.
He felt the scrape of the chair next to him and became aware of someone sitting down but he didn’t look up. No drunken conversations at one AM with random people in random bars in Las Vegas were ever going to be an intellectual stimulus and something that he would regret not engaging in. He kept his eyes firmly on his drink, even when the newcomer spoke.
“What’s a good looking guy like you doing drinking alone?”
It wasn’t what he expected. These kind of conversations were usually more sports or women orientated, two topics that he was woefully unacquainted with. He still didn’t look up though, getting hit on wasn’t in his plan for the evening either and Alec Lightwood liked to stick to his plan.
He shrugged, “Just taking a moment. Vegas can be a little...”
“Much?” the voice answered. A drink was set down in front of him and Alec glanced up briefly to note the angular martini glass being held between slim fingers with painted nails. He slid a business card across to the bartender, “Santiago can pick up the tab on this one, my dear. He’s had a really good night thanks to me.”
There was something in the subtle softness of the man’s voice that suggested more than just a fun night out on The Strip but Alec let it float past him. Being bored to tears hearing about someone’s conquests when he himself was in such a severe sexual drought was another reason to not talk to strangers in bars in the small hours. The glass was picked up, then momentarily returned as the man took a mouthful of his drink.
“I saw you at the roulette earlier. I’ve been a little busy with other business else I’d have found you sooner. I really couldn’t let the evening end without saying hello.”
At that, Alec couldn’t help but look up into the mirror behind the bar indirectly at the person sitting next to him. It was the man from the roulette table. The despicably hot one. Now he knew what a ‘really good night’ meant.
“Roulette?” he asked, expecting a ‘no’. He was pretty sure he was right, but just wanted to confirm his suspicions about who this man was and why he was talking to him were accurate.
“No, I’ve been assessing bedroom ceilings. It’s not glamorous, but I like to make sure my clients all have a good experience.”
I knew it! He exclaimed to himself, shocked that his brother had gone through with his threatened plan. He’s a hooker. JACE!!? However much has this guy cost?
Alec downed the rest of his whiskey in one mouthful. Of all the hundreds, maybe thousands of sex workers in the city Jace had picked the one who was completely, exactly, one hundred percent his type. He even smelled good, his cologne a mix of something soft and musky that was tantalising to the senses.
“Ceilings. Right. Of course.”
Oh Jace...
Alec Lightwood did indeed like to stay on plan, but that didn’t mean the plan was unchangeable. His self imposed ‘no hook-ups’ clause for the weekend hadn’t factored in meeting someone who aesthetically ticked every check mark of every list he’d ever made in his head or on paper, ever.
“How about another drink?” The man nodded to the bartender to replace Alec’s empty tumbler with a full version which he was really rather glad of. This was going to take more courage and way less inhibition and overthinking than he could muster after just a couple of drinks, he would need further liquid reinforcements.
The man slid the full glass towards him and their fingers touched briefly as Alec took the drink. The touch was followed by a smile that was steeped in all manner of suggestion and possibility and promises of things Alec didn’t dare dwell on. He glanced at his lips, then his eyes – soft pink versus dark eyeliner and those damned gold contacts. He could already feel his heartbeat starting to ramp up in his chest with the gravity of what he was quickly contemplating doing.
This man was a hooker who was here for Alec and only Alec for probably an hour or so.
He started to quickly run through the alternatives in his mind. On one hand he could say good night and return to his room, get a good night's sleep before the flight home the next day and have a few hundred dollars extra in his pocket. But breathing in the scent of the man's cologne, feeling the heat from their arms grazing together, the Alec Lightwood who was travelling back to New York the next day; back to work the day after seemed so very far away, so very disparate to the Alec Lightwood being hit upon by an unexpected ten-out-of-ten guy in a casino bar in Vegas, so perhaps it wasn’t so bad if he let his hair down for an hour? The man undid another button on his shirt, letting it gape open far enough for Alec to see the very top of very defined abdominal muscles.
“Just one more,” he rasped, his throat tightening with the realisation at what he was agreeing to do. “I’m not really a big drinker...”
This was it, a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something desperately out of character but damn, he could never hope to get with someone that hot conventionally.
“Just this one,” his new acquaintance confirmed, placing his hand on Alec’s knee sending a brief jolt of electricity through his body as he squeezed gently. “We wouldn’t want to do anything reckless now, would we?”
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Alec was awake for a good long moment before he prised one eye open. The long drapes were doing an excellent job at blocking out the light but there was just the slightest chink of bright desert sunlight slicing through the gloom, enough for him to make out the shape of furniture and the doorway. It was also enough light for him to realise that, although the dark blue stripe on the edge of the pillowcase was the same as the last time he remembered going to bed, this wasn’t his room.
He edged himself to the side of the bed and stared down at the floor, the smallest of movements threatening to have him rush to the bathroom and throw up whatever he’d eaten the night before. Had he eaten? Had he already thrown up? He didn’t remember a damn thing.
His clothes were strewn across the room, notably his underwear was hanging on the arm of a chair. A quick double check under the duvet confirmed that yes, he was naked. He rubbed lazily at his eyes, willing them to open a little more and work a little better. As he pushed his fingers up into his hair, the second surprise of the day was that it was clean and washed, not a trace of the product he’d used the night before to tame his wavy locks.
When did I take a shower?
Carefully, Alec rolled on to his back to focus on the light fitting, hoping it would help to stop the room spinning. On the other side of the dramatically large bed was a person-shaped mound and the mound was breathing. Remarkably, his eyes were suddenly quite awake and he stared wide-eyed at the back of the other person’s head desperately trying to remember who they were and why they were in bed together.
Alec, what have you done? Who is that?!
He slipped out of bed and darted over to snatch his underwear off the chair, quickly locating his pants and shirt as best he could with the room lurching around him. He stumbled in to them one foot at a time, hopping hopelessly to try to keep balance but it was pointless. He tripped and stumbled into a table, hitting his shin and loudly cursing as he stared in horror at the bed.
The person-shaped mound groaned and two arms appeared out from under the covers.
“Uuugghhhhh... why is the world so loud?”
The covers were pulled back and a head with messy black hair and half closed eyes squinted at him.
It was the man from the roulette table. The man who he’d sat and drank whisky with. The man who he’d...
The hooker.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed, I should have gone back to my room. Jace is going to kill me, however much extra is me spending the night going to cost?”
Alec pulled on his shirt and found his shoes, trying to not look at the man in the bed who had started to sit up. He had a mark on his neck – a hickey! Alec blushed furiously at the possibility that he might have made it.
“How much extra? Do you mean the room? It’s fine, it’s my hotel.”
“Your hotel?” Alec started to back away towards the door, aching for the handle to miraculously appear in his hand. He had no idea what the man meant, probably that he was such a regular that he had an account or something.
Finally the door. Finally he could escape from this highly unusual version of Alec Lightwood who had drunken one night stands with exceedingly handsome and downright sexy in a freshly-showered-no-makeup-no-contact-lenses kind of way hookers.
“Last night, I’m sure I had a great time... whatever we did. Th-thanks.”
With the door safely closed behind him, Alec took a moment and leant against the polished wood, gripping the handle tightly as the world continued to spin.
What have I done?
Magnus watched the door swing shut and flopped back into the bed. Whilst far too many of the details of the night before were a hazy blur, some even lost to the black hole of 'completely forgotten never to be remembered', he did remember one thing. How good it had felt when Alec (surname unknown) had kissed him and messily made out with him in the shower before passing out together on the bed. He fell back to sleep with a smile on his face; it had been a good night. Probably.
“Flight NK300 to Newark Liberty International is now ready for boarding at gate...”
Their boarding group was so far down the priority list, Alec pulled his cap a little lower over his eyes and relaxed back into his uncomfortable airport seat as best he could. It had been a long hungover day since checking out of their hotel room at lunchtime, a day of being grilled by Jace and the other guys as to where he had been and what or who he had been doing until after nine AM when he’d stumbled out of the elevator from the penthouse to his own room around the twentieth floor and woken Jace up by loudly parting company with the contents of his stomach in the bathroom.
Jace’s poker face when he’d said ‘you know who I was with’ had been far better than anything he’d managed at the actual card tables over the weekend. He’d seemed completely oblivious and Alec sure as hell wasn’t going to advertise it in front of all his friends that he’d spent the night with a sex worker.
That was a problem he hadn’t any clue how to approach - how to bring up the matter of him spending the whole night with Jace’s ‘treat’ and if it was going to cost him more money? How did you pay for that kinda service anyway? Did he swipe his Visa? Or cashapp the guy? Was he just a QR code on a website to Jace? More worryingly, what even was he to Alec? He’d tried to remember what happened after those first few drinks in the bar – it had been so easy, talking about everything and anything, they had just clicked and he hadn’t laughed so much in months.
He unlocked his phone again, opening the picture gallery. Of course, the photo was still there. Timed at 5.43am, him and the man both holding up an oversized cardboard Instagram frame, their faces turned to each other as if they were about to kiss. The collage of lettering on the bottom of the frame made Alec’s blood run cold for the hundredth time that day.
Magnus and Alec - Just Married
It had to be fake. Just a joke, right? Las Vegas was known for the hundreds of Little White Chapels offering oven-ready weddings for two hundred bucks or so. There was one right by their hotel even! Surely they’d just taken the picture as a joke?
He closed his phone, checking that Jace hadn’t seen the photo or noticed the distinct lack of colour in his cheeks.
Surely it wasn’t real. He hadn’t got blind drunk on a bachelor weekend in Las Vegas and married a hooker... had he?