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“Bane, what have you gotten yourself into now? Another portal malfunction or was this some bizarre new experiment?” Ragnor asks, sounding far too entertained by Magnus’ current situation than Magnus feels is necessary.
Magnus doesn’t bother looking up from where he’s sitting hunched over on a swing in the first park he’d managed to stumble upon.
“What do you want now?” Magnus intends to demand but it just comes out as an exhausted plea. He knows that the fact that he is on the verge of tears is evident to both of them and not just because Ragnor is nothing more than a figment of his imagination and therefore knows everything Magnus does.
“No sage advice this time, my darling Cabbage?” he spits only slightly more fiercely when Ragnor remains silent.
It seems fitting that Ragnor would appear now. His subconscious always did have spectacular timing, and it would be just like him to decide that here and now, when he is at the very end of his rope, is the best time to manifest his dead best friend.
Because having his magic so thoroughly destroyed to the point where he may as well be mundane couldn’t possibly be the grand finale in the long line of things the universe has thrown his way after the last three shit shows that dared to consider themselves decades. No, he just had to be kidnapped by Iris Rouse of all people barely days after the initial chaos of dealing with Lilith and Jonathon had finally started to die down.
And she would be one of the few Warlocks that felt the world would be better with Lilith and her insane son roaming freely. Although, it probably didn’t help that he’d been a not insignificant part of her little Warlock breeding scheme being dismantled and her being arrested by the Clave.
How she’d managed this though, that rankled Magnus the most. Because he just could not figure it out, how Iris Rouse and her companions of power hungry Warlocks who clearly hadn’t understood what they were attempting to doom the world to had managed to gather the brains or power to toss him into another world. Or at least that was Magnus’ best guess at what they’d done.
He is exhausted, essentially magicless, very pissed off and starving .And either Iris has managed to send him into another world or she’d driven him truly insane and this is all something his addled mind has conjured.
Insanity, unfortunately, did not account for the very unsettling portal he’d had his body squished through before he’d found himself here, wherever exactly here was.
The only thing Magnus knows for certain is that here is certainly not the New York he’s lived in for the last 90 years.
The absence of his magic may be a gaping wound in his chest that refused to heal but this is one thing he doesn’t actually need his magic to know. The fact that he can feel how devoid of magic this place is something he feels on a level deeper than even his magic lay.
He wants a week-long nap, a very stiff drink and a hug from Alexander, and certainly not in that order. The nap and the drink could even be negotiated, the hug from Alexander absolutely not.
“Oh, Magnus, my old friend, what has happened to you?”
Magnus looks up. Not because of Ragnor’s unsettlingly soft words, but because Ragnor’s hand is on his face and that should be impossible. He may be insane, but even he isn’t that crazy.
Magnus laughs.
What else can he do. He knows, he knows he has somehow ended up in another world and yet when confronted with his dead best friend his first thought hadn’t been that this is just this world’s version of Ragnor. No, he jumps straight to it being his own imagination.
Sliding off the rubber seat, Magnus drops to his knees and lets his body fall forward into Ragnor, wrapping his arms around the other man and holding on tight.
Ragnor sighs and thankfully just hugs him back. It isn’t Alexander and it isn’t his Ragnor, the one Magnus had held as he’d taken his last breath, but for now it’s almost good enough.
“You are not my Magnus, are you,” Ragnor says evenly, breaking the silence.
Magnus shakes his head without lifting it away from where he has it pressed into Ragnor’s shoulder.
“No, I don’t believe I am, Cabbage.”
If the wrong feeling portal, the magicless taste to this place and Ragnor hadn’t been enough to convince Magnus that this isn’t all his mind then sitting in front of himself certainly is. Because not even insanity would be enough for Magnus to imagine himself wearing that particular get up.
Okay, the cardigan perhaps he could be convinced to wear. But only if it was one of Alexander’s that he’d borrowed. And only around the loft.
But never that shirt or those pants. And his hair was so… so corporate.
At least this other him has decent taste in liquor Magnus discovers while the other two men in the room bickered about him.
Making himself comfortable in an armchair with a drink in hand, Magnus lets himself relax just for a moment. One of the many cats leaps up into his lap and shamelessly curls up on him when Magnus sinks his free hand into its feather soft fur, the feeling bittersweet. It had been Iris’ fault he’d had to give up the strays he’d let into his home when they’d proved to be a security risk, just one more thing that woman had stolen from him, and now she’d taken everything else.
Even if they could figure out what she’d done to send him here, Magnus doesn’t think it likely they’ll be able to figure out a way to safely recreate the process in reverse to send him home.
But nevertheless, Ragnor and this other version of him throw themselves in finding a way to get Magnus home. Magnus helps too, all but drowns himself in research and ignoring the fact that the other two are definitely spending at least half the time also trying to figure out how to fix Magnus’ magic.
And Magnus just–
He can’t, okay.
He’s not the first Warlock who’s magic has been damaged. Whether by chance or repression or, unfortunately, the more common occurrence where it’s been deliberately done to another, Magnus has seen it too many times but this feels different. He’s not just drained and he’s not just disconnected. It’s deeper than that and worse than anything Magnus has seen or heard of happening before.
So he can’t let himself even think about the time and effort this other Ragnor and this other Magnus are putting into fixing his magic as well as getting him home. Because getting him home without anything else going wrong would be an absolute miracle. Fixing his magic would be another and he’s pretty sure that getting home is already one too many miracles to hope for.
So he doesn’t let himself think about it because if he thinks about it he’ll start hoping it will work and he can’t hope. He’s had hope before and he’s been burned because of it. Hope is the Vampire Venom of emotions with the way it gets its claws into you hard and fast and then doesn’t let go and one way or another you either end up dead or wishing for death.
And Magnus, well, all he has left is the broken machinery of what was once his magic. And even the slightest shred of potential for it to be fixed might just be the thing that finally kills him.
With Izzy at his side Alec sprints towards where Magnus is facing off against Rouse.
After weeks of searching they’d finally managed to find him. Or rather, one of the Warlocks working with Iris had finally cracked and told them where Rouse and the rest were keeping Magnus. And what they’d done to him.
Alec only barely refrains from calling out Magnus’ name lest he distract his boyfriend and give Iris the upper hand. But it doesn’t matter in the end because before he and Izzy can even reach the pair Rouse has already sent a blast of magic at Magnus, shoving him through the portal behind him.
“Magnus!”
He barely notices Izzy restraining Rouse with her whip as he runs right past them, only coming to a stop when he’s standing in the same spot Magnus had been only seconds ago. Halfway to having a heart attack because they don’t know everything about what’s been done to Magnus and now he’s gone all over again.
Alec’s not anywhere near stupid enough to think Magnus is even close to helpless without his magic, but there’s a large part of him that will always worry about Magnus no matter what. And right now Magnus doesn’t have his magic to defend himself with. He’s been just as much a part of the war against Valentine and Johnathon and then Lilith as she tried to resurrect Johnathon as any of them have and he’s suffered so much more than any of the rest of them for it.
Who knows what Rouse and the rest managed to do to Magnus after Lilith already managed to take away his magic in a way that has left Magnus so defeated and clueless as to how to fix it even weeks later.
“Where did you send him?” Izzy demands behind him. “Where?”
Whatever Rouse says, if she even does answer Izzy, Alec doesn’t hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. The blinding whitenoise that takes over everything as he crouches down and picks something small and heartbreakingly familiar up from off the ground.
Heart still pounding Alec flies back in his chair as he wakes up. Disorientated, he glances around, his heart only slowing as he recognises the familiar shelves of Magnus’ apothecary where he’d evidently fallen asleep mid research binge. Again.
Scrubbing at his face in a bid to wake himself up, Alec’s right hand slides down his face to grasp at the omamori charm he’s taken to wearing around his own neck until he can return it to its rightful wearer.
An hour later, composed and showered, Alec strides into his Institute, falling right into whatever his people need him to do as they continue to clean up their city from the past year of absolute chaos.
It isn’t until hours later, as he’s making his way to the training room for his weekly session with Fray that he hears voices from behind an only partially shut door. And for the second time in entirely not long enough, Alec overhears one of his siblings having a conversation he is most definitely not meant to hear.
“Maybe, but then… maybe you wouldn’t have had that time together,” Simon says in response to something Alec had only heard the last couple words of.
A couple feet from the door, Alec freezes, already knowing this isn’t something he should be hearing but also not wanting to move in case they hear and find him there and know someone has heard this obviously private and personal conversation.
“You know, after seeing what Jace went through when he thought Clary had lost all her memories of us and our world forever… watching Alec falling apart over Magnus… I’m not sure I want love in my life. Not if it hurts like that.”
Alec feels sick that Izzy feels that way… but at the same time he can’t entirely blame her.
Some days he doesn’t know how he and Jace have managed to survive having their hearts shattered and he never wants Izzy or Max to feel that way. Sucking in a breath, Alec carefully creeps back the way he’d come and takes a different route to the training room he and Clary always use.
And before they start their weekly ritual of beating the shit out of each other in the name of training he makes sure to wrap her in a full body hug, lifting her off the ground as he thanks the angels even though he isn’t sure they deserve even a shred of his gratitude.
Because Alec knows Clary stumbling back into the Institute had nothing to do with the angels and everything to do with her own sheer stubborn mindedness to do whatever the hell she wants and damn the consequences. And as much as he hates that part of her sometimes, Alec loves her for returning. And not just because it had fixed a part of Jace he had feared was broken forever when the angels had taken her away from them.
Because he loves her too. Independent of what she is to Jace and Izzy.
Telling Ragnor and Magnus how exactly he’d ended up in their world had obviously been the first thing he’d done in order for them to be able to find him a way home. But everything else he has told them had come after, over food breaks and breaks they took for the sake of taking a break while potions simmered and magical simulations ran.
The intellectual in him, the part that loves to dive headfirst into a problem and not surface until he’s found a solution marvels at the advancements in magic that this world has that his own doesn’t.
But in a way it’s not surprising to hear that the Warlocks of this world have been able to dedicate so much time to the research and development of their craft when they haven’t had to deal with all the shit Magnus’ world has had to for the last few decades… the last century.
And that’s… that’s something else entirely that Magnus has to wrap his head around. The fact that the Shadowhunters of this world had used the wish to eradicate all demons and stop them coming onto this plane of existence some one hundred years ago is; Magnus doesn’t even know where to start with that information.
With their Angel given mission accomplished the Nephilim race had essentially disbanded and started living as mundanes until enough generations passed and their history became nothing more than one more old wives tale passed down through the families that remained.
It’s had a knock on effect, Ragnor tells him. All but a few loners of the Fey retreated to their own worlds and shortly after the rest of the Downworld learned that they couldn’t get into any of the Fey realms, that they had closed themselves off from the rest of the world entirely and to this day if anyone has heard from them they weren’t saying.
With only the Warlocks, Vampires and Werewolves left, peace had come about quickly as they all retreated a little more into mundane life.
The peace sounds nice but Magnus can’t help but think of all the consequences of that one single decision to use the wish. With no demons there would be no new Warlocks. And with the Nephilim discarding their warrior ways for a mundane life, what would happen if whatever the angels had done to stop the demons was only temporary?
And perhaps the most damning thing; with the point of divergence so long ago did any of the Shadowhunters Magnus knows and loves in his world even exist in this one? Their entire society is so tightly woven that it would take an incredible number of coincidences for certain people to meet and reproduce without the connections that came from being Shadowhunters.
Does Alexander even exist in this world?
Magnus can’t think of a worse place to be stuck if this world doesn’t have an Alexander Lightwood.
He could maybe handle being stuck in a world where another Magnus Bane gets to love Alec while he remains without; but for Alec to not even exist, the mere thought of it breaks something in Magnus he didn’t realise was still intact.
A week after Alec and Izzy reach Magnus too late to save him, Alec makes the mistake of accidentally letting Clary find out he’s researching summoning spells.
Well, actually he doesn’t let her find out so much as it is she just turns up at the loft one morning, refuses to leave and then goes snooping around and finds his pages of scribbled notes and Magnus’ tomes scattered over the large work table and puts it all together before he can drag her out of the apothecary.
It ends, somewhat predictably, with Alec getting ambushed into an intervention in his own office the next time he’s at the Institute.
And that ends with Alec escaping from his own office after all but threatening Jace, Izzy, Clary, Simon, his mom and Catarina that nothing they say or do will stop him from doing absolutely everything to find Magnus from wherever Rouse sent Magnus.
Because wherever Magnus is, it’s not in this world or any plane of existence even remotely connected.
Which means Magus is either dead or in some other world and Alec refuses to believe it’s the former.
And fine, maybe considering going to Asmodeus for help isn’t the greatest idea Alec has ever had but somehow Alec’s the only one to see the irony in this particular group of people reaming him out for merely considering it as an option when they’ve not only considered but actually gone ahead with far stupider and reckless plans.
The thing is Alec can’t even explain why Asmodeus isn’t quite as much of a disaster of an idea without getting into the complexities of the Greater Demon’s relationship with Magnus, because that’s something Magnus told him in confidence and while Alec will stop at nothing to find Magnus and bring him home, he’s not going to air out Magnus’ secrets in the process.
Catarina, he thinks, understands why Alec is considering Asmodeus as an option because after he leaves them behind in his office with the stern warning of, I’m going to find a way and I’m going to get him back, she runs after him and forces him to give her 96 hours to figure something out and if by then she does have anything she’ll help him contact Asmodeus herself. Alec works her down to 48 hours and gets the feeling that’s what she’d been aiming for in the first place.
Magnus is not a complete idiot.
He may occasionally put on airs and –not dumb himself down, exactly– but act in the way people would expect someone who dresses like he does would. But he knows what he’s good at and doesn’t pretend not to be.
And that’s why it doesn’t take long, once he gets over the fact that he’s somehow landed in another universe, for him to notice that something isn’t quite right with this other version of himself.
There’s the obvious where he chooses to dress like that.
But Magnus isn’t the type to dictate how others should live their lives –he leaves that to the xenophobic assholes–, but to each their own he supposes.
The thing he notices is that he isn’t the only one having issues with his magic.
Up until when Lilith had destroyed his magic to the core, Magnus had used it like breathing. This other Magnus uses magic like it’s a novelty; like Magnus had used it after getting his body back from Valentine but without any of the desperation.
This other Magnus is almost bashful as he explains how he’d let his magic, until very recently, go dormant.
Hearing that, how he’d deliberately stopped using magic, had just packed up and hidden away that part of himself, sent whitehot anger coursing through Magnus, enough that he’d had to step away, escaping up to the rooftop.
It isn’t until he’s watched the sun set in the distance that he realises what had come after. The events that had taken place and how this other Magnus had started to use his magic again.
And that’s when Magnus realises that it’s not just any other universe he’s been tossed into, but that this is the universe Clary and Jace had gone to all those months ago.
Which is not only one hell of coincidence but perhaps even comes close to being that miracle Magnus isn’t hoping for.
It doesn’t take 48 hours. It takes 53 and the only reason Alec hasn’t already gone ahead and made a deal of some kind with Asmodeus is because he’s stuck at the Institute dealing with yet another disaster. It’s not even anything major. Just another minor and petty dispute but because of how big the metaphorical blast zone had gotten it meant Alec, as the Head of the Institute, had needed to deal with it –with the two idiots who started it all– immediately and personally.
He leaves Izzy and Andrew in charge of his Institute, not telling anyone about the paperwork he’s left behind that makes their temporary positions permanent on the off chance this all goes to hell.
And an hour later Alec finds himself opening the door of the loft to Jace and Clary who don’t let him say a word before they’re pushing past him and cramming themselves into an armchair, Clary half on top of Jace and both look perfectly happy with it.
Once Catarina lays out her plan, the one that is infinitely better than summoning Asmodeus and relying on his twisted kind of caring for Magnus, Jace doesn’t wait before volunteering himself along for the ride.
And Alec can’t help the wave of pure affection and love for Jace that washes over him when Jace immediately and without hesitation offers to come with him.
But, “No,” Alec says, firm and just as equally determined as his parabatai.
Remembering the conversation he’d accidentally overheard not too long ago. Jace’s voice soft in a way it so rarely is as he’d tried to convince Clary to take a break instead of throwing herself right back into Shadowhunting. Now that I have you back, Jace had said, sounding like he was in tears as he begged Clary. All I want to do is stop, just for a minute.
All the love Alec feels for Magnus, he’d felt it then, only it was bleeding through the cracks in the wall of their bond that neither of them were managing to hold up between them very well, and it was all directed at Clary.
So, yes, Alec gets it, that need to leap head first after his parabatai into whatever hairbrained plan he’s cooking up now but he also knows how, in his heart and mind, Magnus is now a priority equal to Jace. And he knows that Clary is now equal to himself in Jace’s eyes.
But, no. Jace isn’t coming with him because he hasn’t gotten Magnus back yet but Alec still remembers the last time he’d lost Magnus and how unwilling he’d been to let him go afterwards and there’s no doubt in his mind that Jace is tearing himself in two with this offer to go with him to another universe to find Magnus and bring him home.
Catarina, in the end, is the one to convince Jace to stay behind and let Alec go alone. Her argument that Jace, as Alec’s parabatai, is the strongest anchor Alec could have to their own world. That Jace could be the defining factor in them making it home safely.
Clary is equally as stubborn about coming along, claiming her previous jaunt to another universe as reason enough for Alec to let her come but she also caves easier than Jace. And then immediately offers to share her memories in a way that says she isn’t taking no for an answer.
It’s… weird. Unnerving.
Seeing all the people and places he knows so radically different while still retaining that same core. It leaves an odd taste in his mouth, one he ignores in favor of focusing on the feeling, the twisting dizziness of how Clary feels every time she loses herself to the mundane version of herself who’s body she’s borrowing.
He gets distracted, though, by the other version of himself that he sees popping up in Clary’s memories of the other world. He can’t help but wonder if that’s the kind of person he’d have been if he had grown up mundane or even with just a little leeway to be himself and not the person his parents had been uncompromising in making him into.
Or were neither of them products of their upbringings and even if he'd been born a mundane he'd still be uptight and rigid and so painfully himself.
Catarina, and Jace, have been busy while Alec and Clary sit hand in hand on floor, backs against the sofa, as they re-live Clary’s memories until the mnemosyne rune binding their hands and minds burns out.
Alec’s part of Catarina’s plan, in the end, is to kneel in the middle of the circle drawn in chalk on the stone flooring, the omamori charm in his hand with the cord wrapped around his palm, while Catarina casts the magic that should hopefully take him to wherever their Magnus is.
And then, when Catarina motions, Alec holds the charm over the flame between them, hesitating only a moment before letting it drop. There’s nothing Alec wouldn’t do to bring Magnus home but his heart still cracks as the frayed and love-worn charm turns to ash in the impossibly hot flames before even a single thread can hit the stone floor.
Alec only barely stops himself from falling to his knees, managing to catch himself on something as he hunches over, dry retching.
Whatever ritual it was that Catarina had found or created or thrown together had felt a thousand times worse than any portal Alec had ever been through. He’d never handled portal travel well but any kind of weakness had not been tolerated, not for Maryse and Robert’s son. So when Alec was six they’d made him travel back and forth through a portal until he could make the journey without reacting. Over the years he’d gotten used to using portals but none of that could have ever prepared him for this.
Pulling himself the rest of the way up Alec finds himself in a nice enough if unnecessarily bright office. It couldn’t be more different to his office at the Institute with its floor to ceiling windows, white furniture and brightly coloured decorations.
Noting the single door, Alec waits, straining his ears until he’s sure no one else is close by.
It’s not until he’s certain that he’s alone that Alec finally analyses the version of himself that belongs in this universe, the one who’s body he’s borrowing.
The blinding difference is that this Alec Lightwood is definitely not a Shadowhunter. And not just because of his lack of runes, but because Alec can’t believe he could be a Shadowhunter in any world and not carry at least one weapon and a stele at all times except at home, safe behind Magnus’ wards.
This Alec also appears to wear colours. Which, whatever. At least he’s in jeans he can move in and the button down isn’t too restricting if he does end up in a physical altercation. It’s a small silver lining that he won’t have to waste time finding suitable clothes to change into.
All he has to do now is find Magnus and avoid anyone this Alec knows and could figure out that he’s not their Alec any more. All without assimilating with this world’s Alec and potentially losing himself forever.
Sounds easy enough.
For all that he’d been hellbent on getting himself to whichever world Magnus had ended up in, Alec hadn’t really put much thought into what he’d do once he got there.
He’s definitely not a Shadowhunter in this universe and there’s a chance he’s not even Nephilim. And that means no magic, which means no tracking even if he could get his hands on a stele.
He can’t get into the phone he finds on a coffee table and the lockscreen is a picture of himself, Izzy, Jace and Max.
Venturing outside comes with the relief that he’s in Manhattan, not far from where the Institute is.
Working off base instincts Alec takes a chance and goes to where he knows Magnus’ loft to be when it’s in Brooklyn. He knows he’s in a world that is completely different to their own but he knows from Clary’s memories that in that other world she and Jace had gone to all those months ago that Magnus had a loft in that building too. Which makes it two worlds in which Magnus lived in the same place. He prays for a miracle that would make it three worlds.
Without the advantage of runes and not knowing if this version of him is biologically mundane and not Nephilim Alec refrains from flat out running the entire way. Had he been in his own body he would have done it without a second though, even if he didn’t have his runes. But this body makes his skin crawl, like his mind and the body both knew they didn’t belong with each other.
He isn’t even going to think about how he is roaming around completely unarmed for the first time since he’d started his training and how exposed it makes him feel.
Standing on the pavement outside the building that in their world Magnus lives in, Alec is torn between sobbing in relief and vibrating out of his borrowed skin as he feels a nebulously familiar set of wards checking him out.
Instead he curses at the horribly mundane keypad that he doesn’t know the code to and turns on his heel. Ducking around to the back of the building, Alec is pleasantly surprised to find that things continue to remain consistent between this world and his own. It’s a journey he’s made countless times, but it feels like it takes forever for him to scale the side of the building until he’s finally pulling himself up and onto the balcony of the penthouse.
He’s only there a couple seconds before the glass door slides open and Magnus stands there.
Alec’s heart leaps in his chest, relief surging in his veins momentarily before Alec really focuses beyond the fact that he’s found Magnus. Because…
Because this is not his Magnus.
It’s not the clothes or the hair that’s flat and lifeless or the utter lack of make-up. What puts Alec on edge is the way Magnus is looking at him; with a fond sort of shyness, the kind that his own Magnus had looked at him with in the very early days of their relationship as they’d been getting to know each other. It had quickly been replaced by a more open and confident affection which had in turn been replaced with love.
Plastering a smile on his face, the kind he wears when dealing with the Clave but without the falseness behind it, Alec unconsciously straightens his shoulders.
“Magnus Bane?” he asked, “I’m Alec… Alexander Lightwood,” he introduces himself, fully aware how unlikely it would be to expect that this world’s Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane know each other. “I apo…”
A shimmering in the corner of his eye, towards where the door to his Magnus’ apothecary is, catches Alec’s attention and a second later the blank wall is rippling and then Mangus is standing there.
And just like Alec had known the man he had been first greeted by wasn’t his Magnus he just knows that this is his Magnus. There is absolutely no doubting it.
The sound of blood rushing in his ears means that Magnus doesn’t hear whatever it is Alec says to the other version of himself.
The moment Ragnor, who of course had been the first of them to realise that someone was climbing up onto the balcony, he had grabbed at Magnus’ arm and dragged him in the opposite direction from said balcony until they were almost standing in the apothecary, a quick flourish of magic hiding them from view while still allowing them to see what was going on on the other side.
Magnus had sagged in Ragnor’s hold the moment he’d seen who exactly it was, though really, who would scale up the side of the building other than his Alexander who did it on a near weekly basis when he didn’t want to trek ichor, blood, grime or, most commonly, a mix of all three through the building’s common areas.
What really –truly– confirms it is the way Alec takes one look at the Magnus in front of him and immediately frowns; the one that says Alec is highly unimpressed and he isn’t afraid to make it known.
Shaking Ragnor off him, and then dragging the man with him when he doesn’t let go of his arm, Magnus steps forward, through the magic keeping them hidden from a potential someone who wouldn’t understand why there happen to be two Magnuses there.
“Alexander, what are you doing here?” Magnus hears himself demand, dizzy from relief and fear that Alexander is here.
A dozen expressions fly across Alec’s face and Magnus only barely recognises the one that says he is mentally cursing someone or something before he smirks in a way that is uncannily reminiscent of Jace as he says, “Me? I happen to be universe hopping the correct way.”
And Magnus knows that Alec is deliberately misunderstanding him and he loves him so much for it. Because Alec shouldn’t be here. He should be safe in the universe they belong in, not recklessly throwing himself head first into another universe to find Magnus when he has an Institute to run and a city to put back into order.
And then there is the fluttering of his fingers at his side, the way they only do when Alec is desperate to reach out and touch Magnus; to tangle their fingers together, to reel him into a kiss with his hand curled around the back of his neck, to draw Magnus into a hug with their bodies pressed tightly together from head to toe as they sway slightly.
Magnus shatters the rest of the way.
Even with the aid of a portal and runes, Magnus doesn’t think Alec could have crossed the room faster until they are colliding and Magnus is finally –finally– getting that hug from Alexander he’s so desperately been needing.
Magnus can tell to the exact second they lose his Alec to the Alec that belongs in this universe.
His shoulders straighten with a natural confidence instead of the learned kind his Alec has. And his smile –his entire face– shifts and loses the guarded impassiveness his Alec so rarely lets go of.
“Magnus,” he says, voice like honey and sin, and far too similar to when Magnus is flirting outrageously even as it somehow manages to keep a genuine quality to it. “I’m loving the new look. Very Black Parade but somehow you pull it off.”
He’s coy in a way his Alec never could be as he reaches out to fiddle with the lapel of Magnus’ jacket and it makes Magnus’ crawl because he knows this is just this world’s Alec coming forth but the sheer difference in personality feels entirely too much like Alec has been possessed.
Heart seizing in his chest Magnus falters. His instinct, always, is to rely on his magic and even weeks after Lilith has destroyed that option for him he still hasn’t managed to break the habit.
But he doesn’t have that now. He can’t… he can’t do anything.
He’s done it before, once. Wrapped his magic around Alec and sunk it into his skin to calm him from a panic and bring him back; he figures it’s not that different from bringing his Alec back from being assimilated into this world’s Alec.
“Magnus?” Alec asks, his hand is still on Magnus who is desperately wishing that Ragnor and Magnus would hurry up and get back from the other room where they are arguing about something they don’t want Magnus hearing. But then, Magnus has no idea if this world’s Magnus has told his Alec about magic yet and if he hasn’t then Magnus doesn’t want to force him into having that conversation because there happen to be two of them in the room.
Which means Magnus is on his own to figure out a way of bringing his Alec back. Without magic.
It takes far too long for Magnus to figure out the right thing to say to bring his Alec back but once he does, Magnus doesn’t waste a second before he’s leaning in to whisper into Alec’s ear, his own eyes squeezed shut from fear.
Alec tenses, shuddering. And then he’s slumping bonelessly into him; his face turning into Magnus’ neck as his hands curl into his waist, hanging on with a desperation Magnus isn’t unfamiliar with.
When they finally pull apart Magnus’ heart seizes all over again from the look in Alec’s eyes. It’s pure fear, not the kind they both live in, a semi-permanent low-simmering kind you can’t not have when you live in a world like theirs, where death is a constant hazard of life. No, this is the kind of fear Magnus had seen in his eyes on the rooftop the night of Max’s rune party; Alec terrified of losing himself.
Magnus presses his lips to Alec’s in a firm, grounding kiss, lightheaded with relief.
Magnus, in the end, is very little help in getting them back home.
When Ragnor and Magnus get back the former takes another look at Alec’s memories of the ritual Catarina had used to send him here and then Ragnor lets himself be dragged away by his Magnus into yet another argument while Magnus and Alec watch on in confusion.
Ragnor loses the argument if the way Magnus is then dragged away by Magnus, leaving Ragnor to pick apart Alec’s brain some more about the ritual while Magnus gives him…
Everything.
Feeling like he’s about to fizz out of his body, so full of magic again in a way he hadn’t let himself believe would ever happen, Magnus trails out after the other version of himself, a large part of him still not believing this isn’t all just some bizarre fever dream.
He’s the one slumping into Alec this time as the others talk over him, all his energy taken up by containing the unrelenting force inside him and not crying.
With Alec’s arms around him Magnus feels the most alright he’s been since perhaps even before that night at Pandemonium before his life got turned upside down.
Alec stares at this weirdly mundane version of the man he loves and wonders if he’ll ever be able to thank him enough for what he’s done.
His heart had stopped in his chest when his Magnus had first come back into the apothecary where Ragnor had been interrogating him about Catarina’s ritual that they would be modifying in order for it to take him and Magnus back home. But then Magnus had walked directly into his arms and Alec had felt the familiar warmth, the intoxicating headiness, of Magnus’ magic buzzing under Magnus’ skin enough for Alec to feel it.
When he finally manages to drag his eyes up from his Magnus he immediately looks to the Magnus that belongs in this universe who just smiles softly back at him with a minute nod.
He looks settled, like a weight has been removed from his shoulders. Alec is familiar enough with both the feeling and Magnus to notice the change immediately.
Even if it is a Magnus he met less than a day ago. But then Alec’s not sure that fact even matters. Because it’s Magnus and Alec would know and love any Magnus in any universe. So it’s hardly a surprise when his heart aches with the knowledge that Magnus, any Magnus, knows the feeling. And then he shatters, just a little, when he hears what this Magnus has given to his.
Because he hasn’t just healed Magnus, he’s given Magnus his own magic. All of it, every last shred and more in a way that means he’ll never get it back and a part of Alec winces at how his earlier thought about how this universe’s Magnus looked more mundane than his has just become that much truer.
But even as Alec aches for this world’s Magnus, because he saw how it destroyed his own Magnus to lose his magic, Alec can also see how this Magnus looks lighter for the loss.
It suits him, Alec realises as Magnus explains what just happened while he and Ragnor were talking. Because it’s never been his magic that has made Magnus seem so… well, magical. Otherworldly. Because he’d never lost that quality even through the deepest of spirals he’d fallen into after Lilith had destroyed that part of him. And this Magnus, even when Alec had seen him using his magic he’d had a mundane feel to him.
What has been passed between the two Magnuses also makes part of his conversation with Ragnor make a whole lot more sense. The memory Ragnor had given him in return after they’d gone over Alec’s memory of Catarina explaining and carrying out the ritual to bring Alec here nearly a dozen times.
“He’ll never ask you for this,” Ragnor had said and even through the confusion of why Ragnor had been showing him a soul binding ritual Alec had understood that Magnus would never ask this of anyone, no matter how much he wanted it. No matter how much he might want it with Alec.
It hadn’t been an option ten minutes ago.
It is one now.
It’s what Alec holds onto as Ragnor disappears with Magnus to set up the ritual that will take them home leaving Alec with this newly mundane Magnus.
“Thank you,” Alec repeats yet again. “Thank you, but are you sure?” as if this is something that could be reversed.
And this other Magnus, in his soft looking cardigan that his own Magnus probably wouldn’t be caught dead, just smiles again at Alec and shrugs. “I stopped using my magic decades ago. Even when your delightful Clary reminded me of how much I loved it, it never really came back. There was a gap I could never quite cross, it was mine, always, but not like how it once was. And besides, my Alexander here is completely –wonderfully– mundane and I’d like to live a mundane life with him the same way I know your Magnus wants an immortal’s life with you.”
“I want it too,” is the only thing Alec can think of to say in return as he engulfs Magnus in a hug.
They’re holding tight to each other as they fall to the floor. Both running on instinct as Alec twists so that he’s between Magnus and the stone floor on the institute while Magnus is flinging out a burst of magic to soften their landing.
And somewhere above them Jace’s swearing turns from startled into delighted. Hauling them both up to their feet as Izzy and Clary and who knows who else runs in; Jace still threatening and promising to never let Alec –to let them– go anywhere ever again because he’s supposed to be the reckless one, damnit.