Work Text:
New York is
Not a place.
It's a feeling.
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It's been said, over and over again that New York wasn't a real place.
Alec had always shrugged it off, calling those folks, country bumpkins and uncultured until;
"Care to take a shot at Manhattanhenge?" Magnus asked him while serving tea. "I happened to have seen it a couple years ago and while it was splendid, I... "
"I... what?" Alec turned to him and asked, his eyes dazzling like balls of colours.
"It was really splendid," Magnus replied, his forehead crumpled in search for words. "But at the same time, something felt missing."
"Oh?" Alec mused. "Not sunset enough?" he asked with a bit of tease and disassociation— he'd just done reading an email that came in from a client and for whatever reason, it took a bit of his happiness. "Was the orange hue too pale? or could it have been the too many people trying to see the miracle? It's that, isn't it? Too many annoying people, I bet."
Magnus smiled at Alec's annoyance in quiet understanding then said, "Perhaps... but I still can't say for sure, so I would like to go again and find out."
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*:･ Alec, who was always so tied up with work that he'd missed most finer things in life hummed an, "OK, we should," a bit too embarrassed to bare his whole self to this man whom he would very much love to be the final love of his.
When they arrived at an undisclosed spot in the corner far enough away from the crowd but near enough to paint themselves in warm orange, Alec's eyes flared, blinking feathery as the sun sat warm and full in them and lightened up his whole face.
But while Alec looked straight ahead, absorbed in the wonder of the setting sun, Magnus's head was set at right angle watching his new sunset that was tall with thick eyebrows and kissable lips and right then it hit him— this was it, this was what was missing— and the realisation had him smiling so wide the orange light started to dim in comparison so much so, that Alec finally turned to face him— then once more his eyes flared, and all the colours in them became dyed with glitters of orange— his mouth curving, his lips moving up as he asked Magnus, "Did you eat the sun and all its most beautiful sunsets?"
Magnus chuckled at this, "And what if I did?"
Alec too smiled then laughed with his face buried in Magnus's neck hugging him. "Magnus Bane," he moaned, hugging him tighter and rocking them both in an adult lullaby. "Magnus Bane, Magnus Bane oh Magnus Bane — I think I love you."
And it only took three months, two weeks and a day.
Magnus felt himself melting. "How much?"
"A whole lot".
"What's a whole lot?"
Alec inhaled deeply then exhaled wide-eyed like there was nothing in the universe that could measure up... then he said. "Not even the magnificent Manhattanhenge got my heart beating as fast as when you kissed me." He then leant in and kissed Alec smack on the lips and if a painter were to have seen them then it would've seemed like they were playing hide and seek with the hue from the sun setting betwixt skyscrapers and splashing soft colours across their entire existence. "To love is to lose love," Magnus said, biting his lips before kissing Alec's knuckles, "so right now, I'm breaking a promise to myself and I'm fearing what I most fear."
"Which is?"
Just then Magnus wrapped Alec even tighter in his arms and rocked him side to side in an intimate dance all the while and as they twirled, the sun— yellow and orange and round in his eyes and in an embrace in which Magnus was then to know warmth, Alec wrapped him up super tight and wow— Magnus just closed his eyes, hugged Alec tight and tighter and smothered him in the comfort in the thickness of his voice even as the thorny words left his mouth. "I won't tell you," Magnus answered in a whisper as though to the faeries of the night who are lingering just outside his heart— afraid to enter... afraid that not even magic could... for there was an unsettling tightness in his voice.
"Not yet," he then told Alec— and at the same time, melancholy swirled in his big whole brown eyes and he winced at the pain Alec felt at his distrust and unreadiness— pain so very tangible even as Magnus pleaded, "Please, don't love me yet."
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( ˶˘ ³˘(⋆❛ ہ ❛⋆)!♡
new york is not a real place so, why are you?
magnus bane x alec lightwood