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“Hey, Magnus.”
Alec’s voice came out shaky and hoarse, and he knew that Magnus would be able to tell he’d been crying. “I know you probably don’t want to hear from me, and you can ignore this if you want. I just, I had to say goodbye.” Alec’s throat closed up, and he breathed in deeply through his nose. He could do this. He could do this. He had to do this.
“You’ve been everything to me,” Alec said, and he dug his nails into his palm as he talked, trying to ground himself just enough to get through this voicemail. “The time we spent together, the moments I got to share with you, it’s all made me happier than I can ever remember being. You changed me, Magnus, and I’ll always be grateful for everything you gave me. Thank you.” Alec paused to take a breath, but the rest of his speech got stuck in his throat, and he had to breathe through the tears for a minute before he could continue.
“But what goes up must come down,” Alec chuckled bitterly, “and when I go down, I really go down. I fucked up. I’m sorry.” He lost the battle against his tears, and they began to cascade down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Magnus. I-I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry before, before it’s too late.” He had to press the phone to his shoulder for a minute to sob, the despair too heavy and overpowering to fight.
“I know I don’t deserve someone like you,” Alec said, his voice thick. “I hope you find someone better one day. I hope you find everything, Magnus. You deserve all of it.” He inhaled shakily. “Goodbye. I love you.”
With that, Alec ended the call, tossing his phone to the other side of the roof and rising to his feet. He wiped his tears with the back of his hand, taking a deep breath. This was it. His moment of truth. For the first time in his life, he could make the choice, and Alec already knew what he was going to choose.
~ ~ ~
To say Magnus was surprised to get a voicemail notification in the middle of his Spiral Labyrinth meeting was an understatement. Catarina was with him, and there was no one else who would call at a time like this. A sick sense of dread settled in Magnus’s stomach, and he excused himself from the meeting, raising his phone to his ear.
The sound of Alexander’s voice, strained and breaking in certain patches, made Magnus’s jaw clench. No matter what, Soul-Sword be damned, Magnus knew he still loved Alec. He had to wonder if Alec knew that, too.
“I just, I had to say goodbye…”
Oh, Lilith, what was his Shadowhunter doing? Panicked red magic snapped frantically over Magnus’s palms.
“...wanted you to know that I’m sorry before, before it’s too late.”
Tears began to slide down Magnus’s cheeks, and he was opening a portal to the Institute without much conscious thought, and he was still listening to that damned voicemail as he walked through the portal and onto the Institute’s front steps.
“Alec!” he shouted, bursting through the doors without pretense. “Alexander!” The voicemail was still playing in his ear, and Alec’s words were broken by sobs now, and Magnus wondered if it was possible for someone to collapse from despair alone.
“Sir - ” One of Alexander’s Shadowhunters tried to approach him, but Magnus waved them off with his free hand, still searching for Alec.
“I hope you find someone better someday.”
Magnus froze, stopping in his tracks. He knew that voice. That was the voice that haunted his worst nightmares. That was the voice of his love giving up. In Magnus’s dreams, it was always Alexander giving up on him, but now Magnus realised that Alec was giving up on himself.
He wasn’t sure what pulled him to the roof - Alec was, logically, more likely to kill himself in battle than so overtly - but Magnus found himself climbing the stairs two at a time, shouting Alexander’s name.
By the time he made it to the roof, Alec was already on the ledge, staring down at a busy street 500 feet below him.
“Alexander,” Magnus began cautiously, but Alec cut him off before he could say anything further.
“Have you come to tell me good riddance?”
Hurt lanced through Magnus’s chest, but he took a deep breath, trying to ignore it. Alexander wasn’t in his right mind. He hadn’t meant anything by it.
“Of course not,” Magnus said. “I came to tell you that I love you, too.”
The silence that stretched on after Magnus’s statement seemed like the longest he’d ever had to endure, and his heart pounded painfully against his ribcage. If he didn’t get Alec down, save him, do something, Magnus wasn’t sure he could live with himself. His magic spun out of control, creating a whirlwind behind him, readying itself to catch, retrieve, save.
A small, choked sound came from the ledge and it took Magnus a few seconds to realise that it was Alec. He was crying.
Magnus took a cautious step forward, reaching his hand out to Alec. His heart felt shattered, he felt shattered, but he knew that Alec needed him right now. He could have simply magicked Alec down from the ledge, but he knew that wouldn’t have helped. If he did that, and let Alexander continue thinking whatever had put him there in the first place, this would happen again and again and one day Magnus wouldn’t be there to save the day.
It took an embarrassingly long time for Magnus to realise that Alec was trying to form words around his sobs, and he took another cautious step towards his b - ex. Ex-boyfriend. “Alexander,” he murmured. “It’s alright. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not!” Alec shouted, his head snapping up to meet Magnus’s gaze. “It’s not, Magnus, I - ” He broke off, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. “Stop. Just stop.”
“Stop what?” Magnus replied, tears still cascading down his cheeks. “Stop caring about you? Stop loving you? I’m sorry, Alec, but I can’t! I can’t do that! I love you, and I will tell you that I love you a hundred thousand times over if it means you’ll get down from there.” Magnus choked on a sob, the despair in his chest threatening to explode into a million tiny, broken pieces. He reached forward, extending his hand towards Alexander. “Please, Alec, please come down from there. Take my hand. It’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll make it okay, I swear to you I will.”
Alec shook his head, inhaling shakily. “I can’t, Magnus.”
“Why not?” Magnus asked, his hand still outstretched. “Please, Alexander, just take my hand.”
“I can’t,” Alec moaned. “I-I can’t take this anymore, Magnus. I’m done.”
“No, no, don’t say that,” Magnus begged. “Please don’t say that. You’re not done. You can’t be done. You still have so much left to do.”
“Like what?” Alec snorted derisively. “Run the Institute? Change the world? Magnus, my people deserve someone better than me. They deserve a real leader. I’m never going to change the world or the Clave. I’m only Head because my brother is the Inquisitor’s grandson.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Magnus protested. “You’ve done more good for the Downworld than previous leaders have in centuries, Alexander.”
“Yeah, and it’s still not enough!” Alec snapped, digging his nails into his palms. “It’s never enough, Magnus! I’m never enough! Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that I am never going to be able to give you what you want? I’ll never be enough, not for you, not for anyone. How can I be?” He let out a sad, bitter chuckle. “I’m not even enough for me.”
Magnus choked on a sob, his chest threatening to split open with every breath he took. He sent up a prayer to Alexander’s Angel that his words would be the right ones and that he, somehow, would be able to stop Alec, save him from his own mind and make him see that there was no one else in the world he needed more.
“Alexander,” Magnus began, his voice surprisingly strong despite his tears, “You are enough for me.” Alec shook his head again, tears falling rapidly from his eyelashes and onto the pavement below. “It’s true,” Magnus insisted, inching closer to him. “You have always been enough for me, Alec.” His tears fell faster as he murmured, “You don’t have to be perfect. Not for me. I love you, Alexander, not the image you uphold or the tasks you can perform. I would never ask you to be more than that, and I don’t need you to be. I just need you here. With me. You’re more than enough just the way you are, Alexander. I can’t even begin to understand how you feel, but please let me try. Let me be here for you right now. Let me hold you, Alec, please.”
With that, Alec collapsed, folding in on himself like a children’s toy that had been broken and abused and was simply past its limit. Magnus reached forward just in time and caught him, settling them both safely on the roof, as far away from the ledge as Magnus could manage.
Alec reached for him, and he was still crying - no, sobbing - in a way that Magnus hadn’t seen anyone cry in ages. It broke Magnus’s heart to hear, but he still opened his arms and embraced Alec as tightly as he could, letting his tears soak Magnus’s shirt and the sound of his cries carve wounds in Magnus’s chest for as long as he needed. Magnus’s own tears fell like raindrops onto Alexander’s hair, and he could feel something inside of him breaking, just like Alec was breaking. They were breaking together. And Magnus knew enough about breaking to know that the only thing that came after it was the beginning.
Their beginning.