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Magnus’ heart was racing as the question loomed in the air between them. He watched the tense line of Alec’s shoulders, waiting for the shoe to drop. He had been here before, had experienced this conversation over and over again with different lovers. He had never quite succeeded in properly conveying his emotions before, in letting his partners know just how much he needed to hold onto his past, but he was determined now.
He needed Alec to understand. He needed him to get it.
“You were weird before, when I asked about moving in. Is he still...” Alec turned around, his eyebrows furrowed in frustrated confusion, and Magnus shook his head.
“The man’s been dead over a century,” he assured.
“Well why do you keep so much of his stuff?”
“Alexander,” Magnus began, a small, sad smile curling on his lips. “The contents in that box, they’re not George’s. I only have that single photograph.”
He thought back to the message, visualizing the looping handwriting in the air in front of him, and his chest ached.
If anything will keep
me safe, it’s this
picture, close to my
heart. All my love,
George
“Then what is all that?” Alec asked, tearing him away from his brief daze. He sounded so defensive, so unlike his usual self, and panic began to rise inside of Magnus.
He hated this.
He swallowed slowly, preparing himself for what was inevitably to come, and continued. “Each of those belonged to someone I loved and outlived, a different committed relationship for each one.”
He could see Alec’s mind derailing, heading in the exact direction he didn’t want to go in, and he could nearly cry at the sight. He wasn’t ready to start thinking about this. For over a century he hadn’t had to worry about that pain, and now it was hitting him right in the gut when he least expected it.
“Why do you keep it?”
“I may be magical, but my memory’s far from it. I keep those mementos to remember them by.” He could hear the desperate edge creeping into his voice, the unspoken hope that Alec would understand, but he couldn’t stop. “Look, Alec, you know my history. I’ve always been honest with you about that.”
“Well,” Alec spoke quietly at first, avoiding Magnus’ gaze, but his voice raised as he went on, his hand waving in a manner that seemed almost accusatory, “now that I’ve seen some of that history with my own eyes, I can’t help but think- if I’m lucky- maybe one of my arrowheads ends up in that box.”
“Look,” Magnus breathed out, shaking his head again. He couldn’t do this yet. He couldn’t. “I don’t even want to think about you being gone.”
“Well one day I will be, and you’ll just...move on.” Alec’s voice was filled with anger, and something inside Magnus snapped, because he was wrong. He was so, so wrong. It never stopped stinging, losing the people he loved, no matter how much time passed.
He never just moved on. That was the whole point. He kept those mementos because he couldn’t ever completely move on. He couldn’t let go of all of those memories and all of that love. They had made him who he was.
“I’m immortal! It’s not as if I have a choice. I can’t change what I am and neither can you.” He fought back the tears that threatened to flood his eyes and sighed, dropping his gaze. Silence lingered between them for a few seconds, suffocating him at a rapid pace, and certainly not for the first time in his life, he wished that he could turn back the clock and go back to where they had been before their conversation that morning.
He was tired of fighting, and having to justify his past. He was tired of constantly losing people and being torn to shreds. He was tired of the nagging feeling in his chest telling him to apologize even when he knew he shouldn’t have to.
“Look, can we just stay in the here and now, hm? I wanna cherish this moment, with the one I love.” He gripped Alec’s lapels tightly, his pulse through the roof as he awaited his answer.
Alec offered him a half-hearted smile and lifted his hand to Magnus’ neck, his warm fingers pressing to his skin gently as he leaned in for a brief kiss.
“You’re right,” Alec conceded, “and I love you, too.”
It only took a second of looking in his eyes for Magnus to know that this conversation wouldn’t be over any time soon, but he would take what he could get for now. Because what he also knew, was that he was going to fight to make Alec understand.
Relationships took effort, after all.