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"Alec keep your eyes open for me, okay? Just a couple more minutes I promise," Magnus was frantic to say the least. His nerves still felt singed from using the spell, from feeling the magical energy in his body accumulate, and disappear.
The feeling of immense loss had quickly been replaced by fear, and panic. Alec, on the ground, an arrow in his chest and blood starting to pool around him. The desperation in Jace's voice still feeling like a chokehold. He had pressed Alec's stele into his grasp and ran off to find Clary with Magnus' promise that he would help Alec. The stele felt cold and heavy to him, utterly useless unless he used Alec's hand under his own, and Alec had been losing the consciousness to grip anything. It was becoming a means that was not an option.
He had tried, desperately scared and uncareful, to grab Alec's right hand. The scream that Alec had let out, the way his body moved to curl in on itself, still haunting Magnus. Once he got a better look, Alec's hand was swelling, and limp. Broken.
So the stele wasn't an option.
"Magnus," Alec spoke, voice choked and quiet, "Love you Magnus."
"I love you too, now none of that, save your strength. Help is on the way," Magnus pushed Alec's hair back, ignoring the blood on his palm and the sweat on Alec's forehead. He had sent Catarina his location along with a 911 fire message, she would be here, he knew it.
"Always helping," Alec spoke again, ignoring Magnus' demand, "Helping stupid Nephilim." His sentences were clipped and his voice was slurring in a way that Magnus knew wasn't good.
He wanted to squeeze his arm, or his thigh. Something to keep him grounded, keep him awake, but he didn't know what else was broken, and his heart couldn't handle another scream and he doubted Alec's lungs could either. "Shhh," Magnus continued in his gentle petting of Alec's hair, "Don't talk sweetheart. Catarina is on her way. You'll be good as new soon. Just keep your eyes on me, alright?"
Alec's eyes slowly fell to Magnus, he looked weirdly calm in his pain, and Magnus felt his heart twisting. He refused to lose Alec, not now, and not like this. "-ur pretty," Alec told him, voice something almost silly and delirious.
Magnus let out a wet laugh at that, "Not as pretty as you darling."
"Magnus!" He heard his friends voice above Alec unsteady breaths, above the ringing in his ears.
"Cat," Magnus started once she was close enough. Her eyes went wide at the sight of Alec. "You have to help Cat, I don't know what to do, I can't help him. Please I just-"
"Magnus," She interrupted, "There will be plenty of time for explanation later, but right now we have to move quickly. Can you pick him up? I have to portal him to the infirmary immediately."
Magnus looked down at Alec, whose eyes were closing, and opening back up again stubbornly. He felt exhaustion course through his body, but mixed in with that an adrenaline of fear. With magic, he had picked up Alec easily in the past, he was strong without it, but Alec was strudy and solid.
He didn't look solid now. He looked like any movement could jostle the arrow, could tear something important. "Magnus, we don't have time can you lift him?" Catarina had already conjured the portal, she was already ready to go.
"Yes," Magnus said, "Yes I can."
"We have to portal outside of the institute, you'll have to hold him awhile," Catarina looks at his rumpled appearance and no doubt worries that he cannot hold.
Magnus had always been good at becoming solid in face of a panic. He wouldn't let himself fail now, he couldn't. "I'll be okay."
He moves now, pocketing Alec's stele and moving down to Alec's side. He takes his legs first, least likely to be damaged bad enough to cause any permanent trauma. Magnus is careful just in case. He takes Alec's knees under his arm, lifting them slightly off of the concrete. Then he goes under Alec's arm, so worried about the arrow, about hurting him even more.
It's closing the wound, it's not deep enough to hit his heart, if it punctured his lungs anything critical than he wouldn't be alert, wouldn't be alive. It's not deep enough, it's not deep enough, it's not.
Magnus knows logically its okay, that Alec is hurt but not dead. He carefully pulls Alec closer to him and slowly stands up. He's heavy, certainly, but the weight is even enough, and Magnus is worried enough, that he barely notices. "Like a bride," Alec laughs softly to himself, "Cross the threshold."
"I hardly think your family would approve of you getting married to a warlock you've known a couple of months," Magnus replies simply, stepping through the portal. The whirring in his ears is louder than he remembers, he feels the magic around him, but its more static pin pricks than a warm embrace.
They get to the institute, Catarina is leading and he's moving on autopilot, not letting anyone take Alec from him, refusing to give him up. "Doesn't matter," Alec says, his voice so small Magnus almost misses it, "Gonna marry you one day anyway."
Magnus smiles at this, feeling the warmth of it seep to his heart. But he doesn't dwell on the soft proclamation, they reach the infirmary and he's putting Alec down on one of the beds there. He hands over his stele to one of the medics around him, and pulls a chair next to Alec's bedside.
He stays still and silent, watching the concentrated look on Catarina's face, the fast and sure movement of her fingers. In 15 minutes she has the arrow out of his chest, and his wound most of the way healed and closed. She's focused on his hand now, and Magnus can hear the awful snapping and popping of bone. "Do you need my strength," Magnus offers, watching her wipe her brow.
She looks at him quickly and raises her brow. "No offense but you don't look like you have any to spare."
"I've got some adrenaline kicking around somewhere," Magnus tries for humor, sure it doesn't land, "Some fear or anger or something."
"It's okay," She says kindly, back to focuses on Alec's hand and wrist, "He's out of hot water. He'll just be bedridden for awhile, maybe a soft cast for his wrist. It's basically shattered. He's lucky he's got all that angel blood in him."
Magnus lets out a breath, squeezing Alec's uninjured hand in his own. "Thank you."
"What'd you do Magnus?" She asks now, stepping away from Alec and getting some bandage from a shelf.
"What I had to do," Magnus replies grimly. "What needed to be done."
Catarina shook her head but didn't say anything. He knew this conversation was going to happen eventually, he's just glad she doesn't start with him now. "He's stable. Everything is stitched and healed as good as magic is going to get him. He should stay here for a night then I'll portal him home tomorrow. He'll need to rest for at least a week, and I'll check up on him after that."
"Catarina," Magnus says, "I cannot thank you enough. I owe you my immortal life three times over."
"A nice bottle of scotch will suffice," Catarina shot back, smiling at him genuinely. "Now I better get home, my babysitter was supposed to be off hours ago. I just hope they got Madzie to bed."
"Keep me posted," Magnus tells her, watching as she packs up, hugging him tightly before she leaves.
He's alone with Alec now, Alec who is calm and sleeping, whole and alive. Alec who is going to be okay. He's certain his siblings will come barrelling through with more bad news any moment now, but he doesn't let himself care. Alec is okay. He's okay, he's okay. Magnus can breath again. He may have lost his magic, but he didn't lose Alec, and that was more than enough for the momemt being. "What's a stab wound to a Nephilim," Magnus whispered softly, rubbing his thumb back and forth across Alec's knuckles. "I love you Alec, I love you so much."
He was going to tell him that a thousand times tomorrow. Whenever he woke up he was going to smother Alec with his love. Because moments like this happened far too often between them, and Magnus refused to let his own fear of his feelings hold anything back. Because Alec was alive, he was okay, he would recover. And Magnus might not always be so lucky, he knows, but he was this time. And he'll take the loss and the recovery of the night and he still feels a crater inside of him, but he has Alec, at very least, he has Alec.