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“Yeah, I’m already on my way,” Jace promised as soon as he picked up the phone.Magnus pocketed his own and sat down on the edge of the couch. He took a moment to tuck the blanket just right and to summon another mug of warm broth. “He’ll be here soon, love,” he promised, and earned a pouty nod for his troubles.He had learned very early on that Alexander did not like others seeing him at his weakest. Injured or, on the rare occasion, ill, he tended to hide away until he could stride back in as though nothing had ever happened. Injured was almost better as scabs and scars were trophies of a sort. Ill? That he utterly despised. There was a push against the wards and he opened the door for Jace with barely a thought. The other man strode in, took one look at the couch, and rolled his eyes. He tossed his jacket over the nearest chair and pushed up his sleeves with a huffed, “Really? You are such an asshole. If you had let him help last night, or even two days ago when you were first exposed...”Magnus took a moment to think about that. Alexander had looked a little rundown the previous evening, but had assured him he had only been tired from the day’s events. He had no idea what the prior reference was, and so he admitted as much. If there were tells that he had missed that could have avoided this whole mess, he was going to feel dreadful.“Max visited. Half his class had the flu and he looked like shit. Alec here had to be the doting brother and, well, you know what happens next,” Jace explained. He hauled his surrogate brother up easily enough that Magnus would have questioned if he had activated his strength rune already, and promptly dragged him to the spare bedroom. He flopped him down, adjusted the pillows and the covers, and then kicked off his own boots to join him.The first time this had happened, Magnus couldn’t help the wave of jealousy that had washed over him. It was followed closely by helplessness. He couldn’t fix the man he cared about, hadn’t even been trusted enough to be let in enough to know something had been wrong, and then in swanned the blond brat and non-magically fixed everything.He had come to understand it, eventually. Big strong Alexander Lightwood may be able to hide his so-called weakness from the rest of the world, but he couldn’t from his parabatai. And Jace used this fact ruthlessly. More than once he had heard such things as, “I know you have a headache because I have a headache, take a damn break,” or “Izzy’s cooking is deadly, we all know this, why were you dumb enough to eat it?” His personal favorite was the time he heard, “Are you seriously going to try to hide a stab wound?”Some things he could heal with his magic, others took time as the Nephilim blood rejected everything else, and still others required both. Currently, he knew he could dull the ache in his love’s chest and head, but that the virus would need to be battled by his own body lest he lose any resistance to such things. So he made tea and broth and enhanced them both with healing herbs, added a mundane humidifier, and made sure the guest room was prepared.He poked his head into the room to find Jace already propped up against the headboard, one arm around the octopus of a parabatai cuddled into his side. His free hand held his phone, which he scrolled through until he noticed Magnus there. “He eat anything yet?”“Half a mug of broth and three-quarters of a cup of tea,” he dutifully tattled.Jace huffed a sigh and wrestled a disgruntled Alec into an almost upright position. He took the mug from Magnus and ordered, “Drink it. Now.”Magnus smiled as Alexander did just that, actually finishing the whole thing this time. He may have had that pout on his face that Magnus secretly found adorable the entire time, but he finished the mug and defiantly sunk back down to curl up again as soon as it was retrieved.The smile turned into a tiny frown when he saw Jace go right back to his phone. “Books or tablet this time?” he asked.Jace looked up, surprised as though he had forgotten those were options. “I’ve, uh, been reading this series that’s pretty good,” he admitted, holding out his prize if If Magnus could make out the tiny text from where he was. A snap of his fingers and a tablet appeared, font much better suited for the dim lights of the room.He accepted the thanks, but felt the need to point out, “You know that you’re just going to catch it too, right?”“Usually do,” Jace smirked easily enough.Magnus nodded and left them to it. It would be a quiet few days full of broth and tissues, so he might as well try to get some work done. At the very least, when in two days’ time and the positions were reversed so it was Jace sullenly cuddled up to his parabatai daring the world to say a thing, Alexander would get the extra rest he would need to fully recover as he stayed by his side. It was a balance of sorts, he supposed. One he knew enough not to disrupt.