Work Text:
When Magnus opens the door, he's greeted by the sight of several dozen of the most brightly coloured flowers he's ever seen. Behind them is Alec, looking rather flustered and out of breath, and a full twenty minutes early for their date.
"Strelitzia." Alec says, as if this explained things.
"Bless you." Magnus responds.
"Uh, the flowers. That's what the lady in the shop said they were called. Strelitzia. Or birds of paradise." He pauses, and presses them into Magnus' hands. "They're for you."
Magnus looks down at the flowers in his arms. Their name suited them; the flowers really did resemble a brightly coloured bird in flight. The petals were a pleasing colour, a deep saturated yellow at the center with orange tips, interspersed with cobalt blue stamens.
"Izzy said to get roses but these seemed - I thought..." Alec tugged at the sleeve of his shirt awkwardly. "They reminded me of you. Because you're- um..."
Ah. It appeared Alec was in that nervous state of his where couldn't seem to manage to finish a sentence. Magnus decided to help him out a little.
"Colourful? Flamboyant? Too beautiful to describe with mere words?"
"Unexpected. In a good way I mean. I went to the shop and I planned to get roses but then I saw them and I didn't know flowers could look like that. And it made me think of you. Because my life never goes the way I planned it with you, but I'm minding that less and less now."
He looks down at Magnus' shirt (a deep red, with a paisley pattern picked out in metallic green embroidery). "And yeah, you're pretty colourful too, I guess." he mumbles.
Magnus is lost for words. Alec assumes the worst.
"You don't like them." His face falls. "I should have listened to Izzy."
"Whilst generally listening to your sister is sound advice, on this rare occasion she was quite wrong." He smiles. "I love them Alec, thank you. "
He snaps his fingers and they vanish from his arms and appear in a vase on the end table. The rich colours suit the apartment well, contrasting in a pleasant way with the blue Schiele painting on the wall. It's refreshing to also see that Alec has calmed down somewhat. The deer in the headlights expression has been replaced with a smile, nervous, but there all the same.
"Ready to go?" Magnus asks, offering his arm.
Alec takes it, hesitantly at first, but then he sinks into it and leans his body up against Magnus'. Magnus beams, and the smile on his face doesn't waver the entire night.
----
The date goes well, better than well. It's only when the waitress pointedly blows out the candle on their table that they realise that they're the last couple left in the restaurant.
Magnus offers his coat to Alec on the walk home ("Warlocks don't feel the cold" he lies,) and Alec accepts. It's too small for him by far, but he drapes the velvet over his shoulders and murmurs a heartfelt thank you.
They kiss on the doorstep. The kiss is slow and sweet, with none of the desperation of the kiss at the wedding, and most importantly, brings with it the promise of more to come in the future. When they break apart, he sees that Alec had a bright, unguarded smile on his face. Magnus can't help but mirror it.
When he gets in, he catches sight of the birds of paradise and his smile dims a little. He can't place why.
--------
The thing is Magnus had never been a huge lover of flowers. Camille had adored them. She owned a flat in Paris that looked over the flower market on Place Louis Lépine, and loved nothing more than to fill it from floor to ceiling with roses and lilies. Magnus found them frivolous in their impermanence, and the heavy scent made him feel ill. He much preferred the view from his own flat, overlooking the beautiful windows of Sainte-Chapelle and the sweeping arches of Notre Dame. He didn't give much of a thought to the endless bouquets of roses Camille sent over, saving his appreciation for the emerald necklaces and diamond rings she stole from corpses of ladies she killed in Versailles.
Magnus liked jewels. All the beautiful colors of flowers but in a much more long lasting and valuable package. Flowers were pointless.
And yet, he finds the birds of paradise on his end table occupying his mind frequently, and at night he dreams of birds with orange plumage and bright blue eyes.
---
As Magnus had suspected, it turns out that Alec's half sentences and monosyllabic answers are down to nerves, and nothing to do with him being inarticulate. As they get to know each other better, Alec begins to talk more and more, about the Institute, about Izzy and Jace, about archery (apparently a lot more complex than pulling a string and letting it go).
The conversation is easy and fluid, but never dull. To Magnus, the little pieces of information Alec chooses to share are more interesting to him than any of the great works of literature.
---
Magnus comes home one evening to find the flowers have wilted slightly. It's a testament to how far gone he is that such a natural (and inevitable) phenomenon makes him feel sick to his stomach. He sends a spell to perk them up a little with a brief wave of his hand. It doesn't make him feel much better.
---
Magnus had never really noticed the height difference between the two of them until now. He wonders why Alec seems taller all of a sudden, and then realises it's because he's standing straighter, prouder, not hunched over as if he's trying to hide himself.
His heart swells, and he forgets about the flowers, for a little while.
---
For one date in late September, Alec takes Magnus to the Brooklyn botanical garden. He doesn't mention that flowers bore him because Alec seems so genuinely enthusiastic and so happy. It's an honest to God travesty that Alec's smile was so rarely glimpsed up until now. Almost like hiding a masterpiece of artwork in a dusty attic.
Alec likes the grape hyacinths best of all, says that cobalt blue is his favorite colour. Magnus looks at Alec's eyes, and comments that he's quite partial to blue too.
((Whilst Alec goes to get food, he asks a member of staff if they have birds of paradise here. She apologises, says that they're summer flowers and only bloom for a very short amount of time.
He feels the odd sensation in his stomach again.))
---
Alec says "I love you" for the first time and Magnus kisses him so hard they nearly fall in the Hudson.
---
It's late December and the gang is hanging out in Magnus' apartment (the Institute gets quite chilly in winter, apparently).
Izzy is raiding Magnus' wardrobe, wearing some of Magnus' tunics as mini dresses. She looks fantastic in them, of course. Clary is laughing at her exaggerated posing, and Jace is lost in Clary's smile.
Magnus and Alec are part way through a chess game. Alec had never played before, but being the great tactician that he was, he'd picked it up rather quickly. He'd even managed to beat Magnus a few times, a remarkable feat, seeing as Magnus had several centuries of practice, and was also prone to cheating.
He takes advantage of a moment of inattention from Alec to teleport his queen into a more advantageous position.
"Are those the same flowers I bought you on our first date?" Alec asks all of a sudden.
"What? No." Magnus lies. "I replaced them with some new ones. They just fit the decor so well." If Alec is aware that birds of paradise are summer flowers, he chooses not to comment.
---
The flowers have began to look a little sad again. The tips of the petals were losing their colour. Unsurprising really, as they've been here nearly eight months now. Magnus sends a wisp of magic their way.
It has no effect.
Magnus tries again to no avail. He picks a new spell, a more powerful one, but only causes a flower to shed a petal.
It was quite likely the worst time possible for Magnus to receive a frantic call from Izzy saying that Alec had been injured.
---
The injury isn't as bad as it looks, but it looks pretty bad; Alec's hair is matted with blood and one eye is swollen shut. Magnus hears snatches of what happened from Clary, Izzy and Jace, something involving a taxi cab, some drunk Mundanes and a shapeshifting demon.
It doesn't matter to him. The small voice in his head reminding him that Alec Lightwood is going to die some day has become a screaming cacophony. He can't pretend that he doesn't know why the flowers have upset him so much any more.
He heals Alec the best he can, and when he's content that Alec is in no immediate danger he walks out of the Institute. He would like to say he did it without looking back, but the constant, agonizing worry wins over. He feels a little like Orpheus.
The irony of his choice of character doesn't escape him. He wonders if Orpheus would have felt better if he'd never even tried, and try as he might, he can't rid that thought from his head.
---
Magnus takes himself to Paris. He does his best to lose himself in the crowded bars and cafés that he used to frequent so long ago.
His French is more than a little rusty but it doesn't matter as he doesn't do much talking. He drinks, dances, shops, but Paris seems to have nothing to offer him. He sees nothing of interest in Cartier. The windows of Sainte-Chapelle are boarded up for restoration. He has seen all the art in the Louvre and Museé d'Orsay a thousand times before.
He gives up all pretense and sticks to just drinking, and gives Le Marché aux Fleurs a wide berth.
---
The flowers are dead when he returns. The vibrant orange has dulled to almost grey and when Magnus touches a leaf it cracks and crumbles. His attempts to revitalise them with magic fall flat - magic is all well and good for healing but when it comes to bringing back the dead it comes up short.
Magnus sinks to the floor, exhausted.
Maybe it was Paris. He'd always considered it a little overrated. He considers trying Vienna; going to see the Klimt paintings in the Belvedere and drinking schnapps and eating sachertorte until he feels ill.
For whatever reason, Vienna isn't as appealing as it has been in the past, but there's alcohol there, and well, at least it's not New York.
---
"You disappeared for two weeks Magnus, with no warning!" Magnus can hear the tremor in Alec's voice even down the phone line. Alec is clearly trying to sound angry, but only succeeds in coming off upset and agitated. Magnus would have preferred anger. "You could have died and I wouldn't have even known!"
"I could have died? How can you say that after the stunt with that demon the other week?"
There's a sharp intake of air the other side of the line. "I - I don't -Magnus -" Alec stutters. The easy conversation between the two of them has been replaced by Alec's staccato half sentences again and it breaks Magnus' heart, to see the intimacy they'd built between them smashed to pieces over a moment of hysteria.
"Look, I panicked and I'm sorry." His own voice wavers. "Alexander, please-"
Alec hangs up.
The flowers go in the trash.
---
Vienna doesn't help. Neither does Rome, nor Venice, nor Talin, nor Prague. He's not sure why he even bothered trying.
Magnus sits on a wall of the Charles Bridge and tries to take stock of his thoughts. He is in agony, which is unsurprising. He didn't think this would be easy. But what he never thought was that he'd ever feel worse than he did when Isabelle called him last month, and clearly he was wrong.
He was wrong about everything, it seems. Because apparently, there is a worse pain than knowing Alec won't live forever, and it's knowing that he's wasting the precious time he has with Alec. And that's something no city in the world can distract him from.
Magnus makes his decision. He stops off at Le Marché des Fleurs on his way home.
---
"Strelitzia." Alec says tonelessly, looking at the flowers overflowing from Magnus' arms.
"Yes. "
"Why?"
"Because before I met you I never liked flowers because I didn't see the point in caring for something that would die anyway. So it made sense for me to try and stop caring about you. To save myself the pain later on. But-" He looks down at the flowers, memories flooding back of the first date, of Alec's stuttered explanation. "But things never go the way I planned with you. And I'm not that person any more and in fact I'm not sure how I ever lived that way. And I'm realizing that loving you knowing that it won't be forever is going to be one of the hardest things I ever end up doing, but it doesn't even compare to the feeling of running away from the best thing that ever happened to me.
So I'd like to try again. If you'll have me, of course."
Alec's expression is unreadable. Magnus has always thought time moves quickly for him, a side effect of immortality, but the pause that follows feels like an eternity.
"No more running away to Paris?" Alec says.
"Not unless you're running away with me."
((The flowers get crushed in the kiss that follows, causing bright orange stains to blossom across his shirt. Magnus doesn't mind.))