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Alec tiptoes into the quiet bedroom, the light from the bedside lamp painting golden-lined shadows on his husband's face. By the Angels, how he loves this man.
Alec dwells in the sight for a long moment, studies the curves and edges of Magnus' beautiful face, then takes the book that slipped off his husband's hands and puts it on the night table.
Magnus' chest rises and falls in a never-ending tide. It will always be this way. His husband is eternal, just like the love Alec carries for him.
Alec sits down on the edge of the bed and brushes his fingers over Magnus' arm, the tension that has lived in his shoulders the whole day slowly bleeding out of him with every second he touches his love's warm skin. Alec never knew what the word 'home' truly meant before he met Magnus.
Sometimes, he wonders if it's all worth it, the sacrifices they both make, the long hours. But he needs to do this. Not for himself. That's not what he is fighting for. No. He wants a better future for his husband and all the other downworlders, and for the kids they might raise one day. It's worth all the heartache and lack of sleep, never-ending Clave meetings and boring soirées amongst people who still slander him and his partner behind his back and often enough within hearing range. But this man is his world, and Alec wants to make the real one better because of it. Because of him.
His heart aches with knowledge and uncertainty, fragile in a way a shadowhunter should never allow it to be. But what is life worth if not this? Tender moments of unity and satisfied longing. At the end of his days – if he should choose to let life run its natural cause – he won't remember how many demons he slayed or what positions in the shadowhunter hierarchy he achieved. No. But he will remember this: that he got to see Magnus like not many people ever had the honour to, that he made the man he loves happy, the man who cracked his shell and showed him that he was worth more than what he could do for the family name and a morally corrupt institution. Magnus was a guiding light. Radiant and yet tender, he filled Alec's life with colours and warmth.
Magnus moves in his sleep, murmurs something unintelligible as he so often does. Alec smiles softly at the magic trickling out of his fingertips, calming down as soon as the tendrils touch his skin. Warm, inviting, gentle. Magnus' magic feels just like the warlock himself, and just like him, it always reaches out to Alec. If it is Magnus' subconscious or if his magic has a mind of its own, Alec doesn't know. All he knows is that, even after all this time, it doesn't cease to leave him in awe. Just like every story, every smile, every elegant movement, and every touch of the man who's snoring quietly into his pillow now.
Alec leans forward, presses a gentle kiss on Magnus' temple, and gets up carefully to get himself ready for bed. He takes a last, long look at the relaxed features of the man he loves. He switches off the bedside lamp before he sinks into the safest place in this plane, the only arms he ever wants to lie in. He rests his head right over Magnus' beating heart, the steady rhythm under his ear guiding him to sleep as the early morning sun slowly creeps through the curtains.