Chapter Text
Alec blinks. Swallows. Then winces from the pain. He’s lying in a bed, and he’s alone. All he can scratch out against the burning in his lungs and throat is a one-word plea.
“Magnus.”
“Shhh, my nephilim,” Magnus says as the bed dips down next to Alec. A cool cloth wipes across his forehead. Magnus appears over him, and just like everything else in his vision, Magnus is cast in a haze of red.
There are tear tracks down Magnus’ cheeks. His gaze is wary.
“You–” Alec tries to say, but can barely get that one word past his lips.
“Don’t try to speak yet,” Magnus chides gently. “You burst some of the blood vessels in your eyes. But I’m too weak to fix that completely right now. I’m doing what I can, but it’s going to take time. Let me take care of your voice first.”
Blue sparks sputter off Magnus’ fingers—mere remnants of Magnus’ full power—as he traces a line down Alec’s throat, and the sting inside Alec’s neck eases.
Alec looks around him. They’re in their loft. In their bedroom. His chest constricts. He’s too weak to survive if this isn’t real. “You’re really here?”
Magnus audibly breathes a sigh of relief. His shoulders sag.
“I am.” Magnus places a soft kiss on Alec’s forehead. “And so are you.”
Violent, disturbing images pour through his head, and Alec can’t separate the truth from delusion. Still doesn’t understand what happened.
He furrows his brow. “Valentine— Does he still have Jace?”
“We defeated Valentine long ago. Jace is at the Institute. Everyone is. I made them leave because—” Magnus hesitates, his cat eyes contracting for only a second. His features gentle. “We’ve all been waiting for you to wake up.”
Alec doesn’t know how he got here, but he’s aware enough now to recognize he’s been injured somehow. And that Magnus doesn’t simply wait for anything. “How long have you been working on me?”
Magnus, untethered to the concept of time, seems to be considering that. “I believe it’s been almost a month.”
Alec sucks in a panicked breath. Tries to sit up and a jagged bolt of pain spears through his head.
“Move slowly, Alexander.” Magnus soothes him down again into the pillows. “You need to take your time.”
Tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. “What happened to me?”
Magnus runs his hand through Alec’s hair. Leans in and brushes his fingertips over Alec’s cheek. “You were attacked by a Kuri demon on your way home. If Jace hadn’t felt you go down…. You were nearly killed.”
Magnus has the tone he reserves for clients when he’s skirting the truth.
Alec’s heartbeat speeds. “How close to nearly?”
“I think you’re more aware of that answer than I am.”
“I didn’t know I was close to death at all.” Alec inhales. Shivers at the thought of just how vulnerable he was, and had no understanding of that. “You came to me. Said we were running out of time….”
Magnus shakes his head. “We didn’t, though.”
Alec takes all of Magnus in. Doesn’t dare look away, even though everything in his vision is a patchwork of red. He’s terrified Magnus is going to disappear again.
This world is real, he tries to convince himself.
But Alec is plagued with memories of pain and death. That his parabatai was tortured. That he killed Valentine in cold blood. That the date on Magnus’ headstone was a Thursday….
He grasps for the remembrances slowly filtering back into his consciousness. Sifts through the horrific images flashing through his mind to find the steadiness of one reality. Of the world he belongs in.
Magnus is alive.
Magnus is here.
This is the world he belongs in.
It was he who was attacked–not Magnus. Always him on the verge of death. He lived that Thursday, and the years of loneliness afterwards, only in his mind.
“It was a Wednesday,” Alec grits out.
Magnus stitches his eyebrows together. “I don’t understand.”
“I was attacked on a Wednesday.”
A weary smile crosses Magnus’ lips. “My love, you can think about filling out incident reports much, much later.”
The teasing lilt of Magnus’ voice is humor in the midst of chaos. An insolent dismissal of danger that Alec only hears when fighting back-to-back with Magnus. The familiarity of that sound, and the knowledge that he had Magnus at his back–fighting for him always, even when he wasn’t aware he was at risk–steadfastly anchors Alec to this world.
He experimentally cranes his neck from side to side, rolls his shoulder, lifts his arms, and begins to flex his fingers…. Finding the tanzanite ring on the same finger he wore it in his demented visions.
Magnus reaches out and touches the blue stone. “You were wearing my wedding ring when we found you.”
Alec sucks in a breath and stills.
This ring wasn’t a gift picked out in the spur of the moment. It was weeks of Magnus contemplating the perfect choice–because it was the one piece of jewelry he’d rarely take off.
Alec remembers now. He picked it up from being repaired after the mission that night, and was headed home to give it back to Magnus.
Magnus frowns. “When I tried to take it off…you got worse.”
“I thought it was the only connection I had left to you anymore.” Alec touches his thumb to the ring. Turns it until it catches the light, prisms dancing across Magnus’ tired features. “Everyone was telling me you were dead. But I wouldn’t accept it.”
Magnus grimaces. “I know that feeling all too well.”
Alec understands what Magnus is telling him. “They thought I wasn’t going to live.”
“They saw you suffering, and hurt with you. It was…difficult.”
Izzy. Jace. Max. His parents. Their sons. His stomach twists at the thought of any of them in pain because of him. Alec searches Magnus’ face. “And you?”
Magnus swipes a sudden tear from the corner of his eye. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”
“You’re alive–” Alec begins, but his voice cracks. He can’t tamp down the echoes of sorrow sliding through him. “Everything I saw was so real.”
Magnus inhales a ragged breath. “That’s because the Kuri demon poison is meant to keep the body alive, but trap the mind in a state of despair and terror–so the victim can be slowly fed upon. Isabelle killed the demon, but we were too late to stop the spread of the poison.”
Alec winces. Understands now why Magnus was telling him to remain strong. He swears he can still feel the burn of that poison, that blackened blood, being drawn from his veins.
“The mind goes before the body does, and with how long it was taking—” Magnus’ face contorts. This time, he lets his tears fall. “Where did you think you were, Alexander?”
He doesn’t have to struggle to remember. He wishes he did.
He brushes away Magnus’ tears, and Magnus settles his cheek into Alec’s palm, then sets his hand on Alec’s chest. The warmth of Magnus’ skin against his is calming. A tether.
This connection–this care and devotion–was exactly what Alec couldn’t live without.
He can’t give voice yet to what he experienced. “I never want to go back there again.”
Magnus sighs and curls up next to him, wrapping his arm around Alec. Fingers lightly skimming Alec’s side as if he’s seeking reassurance that Alec is breathing, that his heart is still beating.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had lost you,” Magnus murmurs.
Alec struggles to contain the grief welling up inside him.
This world is real, he reminds himself. Magnus is alive.
Those supposed five years of hell were a demon poison-induced hallucination. A nightmare he nearly didn’t wake up from. But he can’t separate himself from the vestiges of guilt-ridden heartbreak, heavy in his chest.
He knows exactly what he would do if he thought he’d lost Magnus. Remembers the dark recesses of his own being that he was willing to coax to the surface if it meant bringing Magnus back to him.
He knows Magnus would go to the same lengths for him.
“Everyone is at the Institute because you had to use a demonic spell on me, didn’t you?”
Magnus tenses. Lifts his head so he can look Alec in the eye. “It was the only chance of saving you. I had to separate your…memories from your body to extract the rest of the poison.”
But Alec understands now that the sensation of being surrounded by Magnus’ magic—cradled, protected—yet having no physical form was much more than that. “You held my soul in your hands.”
Magnus doesn’t answer that with words. He brushes a feather light touch over Alec’s eyelids, the pressure easing, and when Alec opens his eyes again the room is awash in full color.
The burnished bronze and rich teak of their four-poster bed.
Silver-gray blanket and yellow sheets.
The blue of the tanzanite ring as Alec slides it off his finger and on Magnus’—where it was always meant to be.
A reminder not to take for granted even a second of the time they have left.
He’ll never be able to forget what it felt like to lose Magnus, but maybe it’s better that he won’t.
Alec wraps his arms around Magnus, the reassuring beat of his husband’s heart strong. Vibrant. Alive.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Magnus whispers.
“No, Magnus….”
Alec places a kiss on Magnus’ head, the black strands of hair tickling at his cheek. The scent of Magnus’ magic thick in the air. Traffic rushing in a quiet hush outside their loft. And the soothing comfort of Magnus’ arms around him.
“…you brought me home.”