Work Text:
Magnus is working on his second coat of nail polish -- a dark maroon shade named ‘Miss Behave’ which he may or may not have bought solely for the name -- when his phone chirps. Alec’s name blooms on the screen. Careful not to smear the new paint coat, he plucks up his phone and accepts the call.
“Hello, Alexander, I wasn’t expecting to hear from--”
“Magnus.”
Magnus stiffens. It isn’t Alec. It’s Isabelle, and even though she’s only said his name, he can hear her desperation.
“What’s wrong?” Magnus says, dread filling him up.
“Alec’s hurt,” she says. “Pretty bad. We’re taking him back to the Institute. Can you meet us there?” Isabelle’s tough, a warrior trained in the Shadowhunter tradition, but her voice wavers.
“Consider me already there.”
He ends the call and his arm drops like a weight. He stands right there in that same spot for a few seconds, maybe half a minute. Even though magic sparks along his nervous system, Magnus forces himself to think like this is any other house call, him being summoned to help some other, unknown shadowhunter in a job he’s being paid for: gather potion supplies, one or two potentially helpful spell books, take one last measured breath, and only then portal himself to the outskirts of the Institute.
Clary’s waiting to escort him. There’s a scratch on her cheek and she favors her left leg as she leads him in and towards the infirmary.
“What happened?” Magnus asks.
“We were ambushed,” she says. “By Circle members. The first we’ve seen since…” she shudders off. Since Valentine disappeared with Jace and the Mortal Cup. “The Iratze rune isn’t working.” They reach the infirmary before Magnus can interrogate her more.
Alec’s laid out on the first bed inside the door, Isabelle at his side, laying a wet cloth on his forehead and two other shadowhunters -- perhaps dedicated healers -- hovering over Alec. In Magnus’ way.
“Move,” Magnus barks, short and clipped, and they make way for him. Nephilim aren’t in custom of following downworlders’ orders, even downworlders as distinguished as Magnus Bane. Either he had been so intimidating that they moved regardless of their ingrained superiority, or Magnus had unconsciously magicked them out of the way. He isn’t bothered to figure out which.
“He’s fever-ish,” Isabelle says. Magnus has never seen her look less than impeccable before, but her hair’s falling out of what probably started out as a sleek ponytail.
Magnus cups Alec’s cheek with his palm and feels the elevated heat radiating from his sweat-damp skin.
Alec’s eyes blink open. They’re glazed with pain and confusion, but they focus on Magnus briefly. “Hurts,” Alec grits out, jaw tight, before squeezing his eyes shut against some new wave of pain.
Magnus leans over close, says softly, just for Alec’s ears. “I know, darling. I’ll make it better. I promise.”
Magnus then steps back, dropping his hand from Alec’s face, pushing away his moment of sentiment. It’s time to work.
Magnus peels back the bandage on Alec’s side. The wound is a slice and warm to the touch, like infection. Much more troubling are the dark lines, like ink, snaking their way under Alec's skin, already reaching too close to his heart. Some sort of poison?
He looks up at Isabelle, who was watching him, biting her bottom lip.
“What caused the injury?”
“It was just a seraph blade,” Isabelle says. A seraph blade against a Nephilim should be just the same as any blade against any flesh.
“They must’ve put something on the blade,” Magnus says. Or Valentine had created some dark mutation of a seraph blade. It wouldn’t surprise Magnus. If Valentine hoped to fight the established Clave as well as downworlders, he would need a weapon that worked against fellow Shadowhunters.
Which meant it could be anything slowly killing Alec. Something vile, but anything.
Magnus presses his hand over the wound hard. Alec grunts in pain, but Magnus doesn’t relent. He focuses his magic on trying to draw the poison back out, but it’s an imprecise process. The wound begins to bleed again, some of the ink-like poison mixed in.
Magnus draws back his hand, now stained with Alec’s blood.
He glances at the two healers, standing by. “We need to flush out the wound,” he says. “I assume you know how to do that?”
They go to work.
Clary says, “What can I do?” He tells her to unpack his bag on the nearby table. She nods once.
He looks at Isabelle. It would be cruel to tear her from her brother’s side, but he knows no one likes to feel useless in these fraught situations. “Monitor his condition,” he tells her. “Tell me if anything changes.”
His hand’s still painted with Alec’s blood.
Clary hauls a crucible out of his bag and onto the table with a thump, two dozen bottles already clustered on the tabletop. If she’s noticed or troubled by his bag having more than it could fit by the laws of physics, she doesn’t comment.
Magnus tilts his hand over the crucible, letting Alec’s blood, but more importantly, traces of the poison drip into the bottom. Now came the work of reverse engineering the antidote for an unknown poison completely from scratch, and without the luxury of time.
…
Magnus is halfway, maybe, onto something, sweat beading on his forehead, when Isabelle’s voice grows louder and shriller as she says, “Alec? Alec. Magnus!”
Magnus rushes over to the bedside. Alec has fallen unconscious. Magnus gropes for Alec’s wrist; his pulse is still there. The poison has webbed farther across Alec’s torso.
Magnus grips Alec’s hand in his own. Alec had once shared his strength with Magnus; the gift is now long overdue in return. Eyes squeezed shut, Magnus forces magic-dosed strength from himself to Alec.
“It’s working,” he overhears Isabelle say in awe. Indeed, the farthest reaching tendrils of poison had retreated about an inch.
Too soon, Magnus has to let go. He wants to give all his strength to Alec, but he has to think logically. Magnus needs to save his strength for himself, if he’s to complete antidote, the best way to save Alec.
“That’ll be enough to help him stay strong while I finish,” Magnus says, to Isabelle, and as a reminder to himself. It’s half wishful thinking.
When he return to his work, he doesn’t face Alec instead turning his back on him. Seeing Alec pale and silent on the bed would only serve as a distraction.
Magnus’ hands are trembling.
…
Some time later… Magnus tries not to count the minutes. Every minute the poison is in Alec’s body is a minute too long… So, some time later, Magnus’ concoction in the crucible turns a shimmering blue. It’s a good sign, but it doesn’t mean Magnus got it exactly right, or that it will strong enough. But testing it is the only way to go now.
Magnus ladles the potion into a glass he summons with a swish of his hand.
“Sit him up,” Magnus commands. Isabelle and Clary haul Alec up, hold him steady in a sitting position as Magnus coaxes Alec into slowly drinking the glassful. After they lay Alec back down, Magnus pours some more antidote over the site of the wound.
“What now?” Isabelle asks.
Magnus stares down out Alec, unconscious against the bed, and says, “We wait.”
…
They sit, three chairs clustered around Alec’s bed. At some point Magnus can’t distinguish Isabelle had sent the healers away. He appreciates the privacy.
Isabelle breaks the silence. “He… I saw him get hurt, during the fight, but he just kept fighting. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until…” She sharply inhales a breath, perhaps against tears. Clary reaches the gap between them and grips Isabelle’s hand.
“He was protecting us,” Clary says. “I know him well enough now to know that he would never give up the fight while his friends are in danger.”
Magnus says nothing.
During the hours they wait, all of them fall into half-sleeps where they sit in vigil.
“Look,” Clary says, stirring Magnus.
He’d been staring down hands, at his dark red nail polish, perfect on his right hand, smeared on his left. He lifts his chin from his chest.
The tendrils of poison, though not gone, are greatly diminished -- shortened and faded. Alec doesn’t look so deathly pale and his breathing sounds more steady and strong.
“You did it!” Isabelle tackle-hugs Magnus, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He pats her back as he gives her a quick squeeze. Then he orders Isabelle and Clary off to bed, promising to keep a watchful eye over Alec for the rest of the night.
…
Only two nights ago, Magnus and Alec had been on their fourth date. That afternoon into evening, before the sunset, they had taken a walk around Prospect Park. For someone who had lived in New York his entire life -- save any time in Idris --, Alec sure had never taken advantage of it’s many attractions.
It had been a painfully simple date from Magnus’ perspective. He wanted to lavish Alec with gifts and experiences and wonder, but he was wise enough to know it was probably best not to overwhelm him in his first relationship. And Alec seemed to enjoy it. Their weren’t many ways to misinterpret a walk in the park. Plus, Alec looked good bathed in all that sunlight.
At one point, as they had sat one of the rock embankments and just people watched for a stretch, a couple comprised of two men -- held hands swinging between them -- passed by. Alec’s gaze had lingered on them longer than any of the other strangers they had seen. Magnus didn’t say anything, didn’t think their was anything he could add to this evidence, to help Alec realize he wasn’t so alone in this world.
He was pleasantly surprised when he felt Alec’s knuckles bump against his own, then have Alec slide their palms together, interlacing their fingers, in public and broad daylight.
After their walk, they had retreated back to Magnus’ loft. When Magnus suggested they locate themselves on the bed as it was more roomy than the couch, Alec didn’t go into panic-mode; it was such progress.
Alec’s t-shirt had rucked up an inch or so as he stretched out diagonally across the mattress. So when Magnus settled his hands on Alec’s waist as he climbed down next to Alec to kiss him, the heals of his hands contacted Alec’s skin their just away the waistband of his jeans.
Magnus had skimmed his thumbs under the edge of Alec’s shirt hem and watched Alec’s face for reaction, the question voiceless. Alec gave a little nod. Magnus slide his hands farther under Alec’s shirt over his abs.
“You’re so strong,” Magnus had said. “And beautiful.”
Alec blushed up his neck.
“You’re the beautiful one,” Alec mutter-said in response.
Magnus nipped a small bite on Alec’s jaw. “How fortuitous for us,” he said. “We’re the most gorgeous couple in history.”
Alec had laughed, chided him “Magnus” in a tone that suggested that Magnus was teasing too far.
“What?” Magnus had challenged. “Are we telling me we’re not…?”
Alec curled his fingers into Magnus’ hair as he pulled him down for a kiss.
It had been a glorious evening.
...
Magnus jerks straight in the chair. He had almost fallen asleep.
He stands and leans over Alec’s bed. He lays a hand over Alec’s forehead; his temperature has normalized.
“Get better,” Magnus says. “I’m not done with you yet.”
…
Isabelle slinks back into the infirmary sometime in the early hours of the morning.
“I thought I told you to sleep,” Magnus says as she pulls up a chair next to his and sits.
“I tried,” she says. She looks a little better, like she showered. She’s in a new outfit, her hair and makeup done, ready for a new day.
“You know, Alec never told me he was gay,” she says, not looking at Magnus and maybe not saying this for him either. “I just knew. I guess that’s sisterly intuition.” She leans forward, props her elbows on her thighs, sighs. “I used to make these little teasing comments to him, like ‘you might feel better if you weren’t so repressed.’ I wanted to let him know that I knew, that it didn’t matter, that he could talk to me… Maybe it wasn’t the best way. He never did talk to me about it. Not really.”
Everything Magnus has witnessed of the Lightwood siblings suggested a close, affectionate bond.
“I’m sure he appreciates you being there for him,” Magnus says. He blinks his eyes slow and hard, trying to push away the tiredness edging in on him. He doesn’t have the energy to be more charming than that.
Isabelle turns to look at Magnus. “He’s happier,” she says in an almost whisper. “With you. From someone who’s known him a long time, my whole life, I’ve never seen him so… Despite everything else that’s going on, with Jace, with Valentine. He’s lighter. If that makes sense.”
Magnus dips his chin in a slow nod. The room grows brighter as the rising sun streams through the windows. These two outgoing people sit in shared silence. Until they hear raised voices approaching in the hallway.
Maryse’s voice, sharp and angry, is the first Magnus could distinguish: “-- I should’ve been informed immediately.”
The door bangs open. Both Magnus and Isabelle stand as Maryse storms in, followed by much more hesitant pair of healers and Robert.
Maryse came to stop at the end of Alec’s bed, her expression stoney and unreadable.
“Mom --” Isabelle starts. Maryse holds up a hand, cutting her off.
“His condition?” Maryse says, eyes darting briefly over to one of the healers.
“Stable,” the healer says. “His body’s fighting off the poison. He should awake within the day.”
Her gaze slides over to Magnus. “I see you’re here,” she says, not trying to hide her revulsion.
“If it wasn’t for Magnus, Alec would be dead,” Isabelle says, quickly and fiercely, before Magnus can put together his own snide remark.
The latter half of Isabelle’s statement makes something catch in his throat. Alec could’ve died last night. He was so close.
“But now that Alec is stable, the Warlock can leave.”
Magnus isn’t going anywhere until he sees Alec awake and well and whole.
“Actually,” Magnus says, staring her straight in the eye as she glared back at him. “Considering that I’m the one who concocted the antidote, I think it’s best that I stay and monitor Alexander’s condition.”
“I assure you,” Maryse says, “That’s not necessary.”
They are stuck in a good, old-fashioned stare down, a battle of wills. Magnus has faced down a lot of shadowhunters who’ve hated him in his long stretch of life so far, and Maryse Lightwood, as vile as he found her, is hardly the scariest.
Plus, he’s a High Warlock. He doesn’t intimidate easily.
“Would you actually put your bigotry before the well being of your son?” Magnus challenges her.
And it’s like the air got sucked out of the room, the raise of tension.
“I am thinking about his well-being,” Maryse says through gritted teeth. Of course, in her addled way, Magnus’ role in Alec’s life is as big of threat as the poison.
“Now, I insist you leave the Institute at once.”
Magnus didn’t follow the internal politics of the New York Institute, but he’s fairly certain Maryse didn’t have that authority at the moment, and even if she did, Magnus wouldn’t budge. He’s more powerful than any being in this room, and stubborn and rather invested in Alec’s wellbeing.
Magnus sits back down, settling into his chair in a show of comfort. He lifts his chin. “Frankly, Maryse, I’d like to see you make me.”
Magnus is right in assuming Maryse has no current authority, for she just stands there fuming and flustered, and not making threats to bring down the Clave on him or ordering some foot soldiers to remove him from the premises.
“Fine,” Maryse says, spits like venom. “But only because of these extenuating circumstances.” Her glare drops as she looks at her son, lying unconscious and too still, side bandaged. “Just because you’re… doing whatever you’re doing with my son --”
“Dating?”
“Doesn’t mean you get free run of the Institute. I don’t trust you, or your intentions.”
“My intentions?” Magnus asks, amused. Never had he been questioned by a parent of one of his lovers about his intentions. “You mean my intentions to fill Alexander with all the self worth and affection that you’ve been denying him?”
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Isabelle slap a hand over her mouth, her eyes gleaming.
Maryse looks like she’d just swallowed something completely sour, -- Magnus’ aim -- her eyes bulging.
Maryse turns on the spot and stomps out of the room, calling for Isabelle as she retreated. Isabelle mouths ‘That was amazing’ to Magnus before she follows her mother’s summons. Magnus feels a bit bad that Isabelle will have to deal with Maryse after he riled her up.
...
Sometime around noon, Clary shows up in a loose sweater and carrying a tray of sandwiches. Magnus is hungry, but in a distant sort of way. Like hunger, sleep, and all the other little necessary functions of living were secondary, or tertiary, or absolutely last place when he’s still waiting for Alec to wake up.
“How’re you?” Clary asks.
“As one might expect when you’ve spent all night in a hardback chair,” Magnus says. There were open beds all around him, and he could’ve conjured up something more comfortable, but he hadn’t wanted to risk falling asleep. If something he had went wrong with Alec in the midst of the night… he couldn't think about it.
“Heard I missed the big drama this morning.”
“That spat? Twas nothing.” Maryse had only gotten what was coming to her. Really, it had only been a fly-level annoyance compared to the big picture.
Clary crosses her arms. “Do I have to be the one to order you to eat and sleep and take care of yourself?”
“You can try,” Magnus says, giving her a one-sided grin, “But it won’t work.” He eyes the tray she’d placed on Isabelle’s abandoned chair. It did look appealing now that he consider the hunger-scratch in his stomach and how he really should be keeping his strength about him.
“He’ll be fine,” Clary says after a little weight of silence. “See,” she grins. “We have one of the best warlock’s in the world looking after him.”
“One of best?” Magnus replies, mock-offended.
...
Clary leaves shortly after, not intruding too long. Magnus finds himself appreciating the girl. She knew how to be helpful, to be supportive, without being intrusive on someone else’s distress.
Only when he’s alone does he eat a little. Then he stands to stretch out the kinks of his back and arms, paces the length of the infirmary once, and comes back again -- magnet-pulled -- to Alec’s bedside.
“It’d be rather grand of you,” he says, staring down at Alec, “If you could wake yourself sometime soon.” He takes a new seat, perched on the edge of Alec’s bed.
He tugs the sheet over Alec a little higher, finger-combs his bangs out of his eyes, fussing in little ways that are not very much like him.
“You better not do something like this again, Alec.” He skims the back of his fingers down Alec’s cheek. “And I’m scolding you while you’re still unconscious so you can’t argue back.”
But of course this is likely to happen again. A war’s pending and Alec is honor-bound. Magnus stands by what he said to Alec on their first date. There’s no glory is war, only death.
Near-death is, at the very least, favorable to actual death.
The infirmary door opens and closes softly. Magnus doesn’t look up until a throat clears nearby: Robert Lightwood standing on the other side of Alec’s bed.
“How are you?” Robert asks, stilted.
Magnus rolls his eyes. “Are you here to play good cop opposite Maryse?”
Robert slides his hands into his pockets. “I’m just here to check on Alec.”
Magnus ignores him, having no want to draw out any attempts at small talk. If Robert wants to say something or ask something, let him do it.
“How much we will owe you…?” Robert says.
Magnus furrows his brow, not understanding at first, and then being hit with understanding like a bludgeon. Robert is asking after Magnus’ fee for saving Alec.
Magnus scoffs, offended. He finds Alec’s hand and holds it, even though Alec can’t hold his back.
“That question is so stupid, it doesn’t deserve one of my pithy remarks,” Magnus says. Maybe it would’ve turned into as big of a verbal smackdown as the one he deliver to Maryse earlier, but he’s distracted when Alec’s fingers twitch in his hand.
Alec’s breathing changed, like someone waking from a sleep. His eyelids flutter, then open, slowly and groggy, but the first thing they focus on is Magnus’ face.
“Mag...nus?” Alec says, voice scratchy and sluggish.
Magnus beams down at him. “Hello, darling.”
Alec grins lazily, unfettered, just waking and lacking all that self-consciousness that usually burdens him.
“What --?” Alec tries.
“From what I understand, you got hurt while being ridiculously heroic.” Probably not the time to share with Alec that he’d been on death's brink and it had been Magnus’ responsibility to claw him back from it.
Alec’s brow furrows. “Just a little,” he slurs.
“Even a little is too much, Alexander,” Magnus says, eyebrows raised, too elated to put on a properly scolding tone. He squeezes Alec’s hand tight, lifting it, pressing a kiss to the back, forgetting they weren’t alone in the room.
Robert shifts, uncomfortably, or that’s Magnus’ interpretation. Alec notices, turns his head on the pillow.
“Dad,” he says, dry and surprised.
Robert clasps Alec’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re alright, son…” He lets go, steps back. “I’ll let your sister know you’re awake. She’s been worried sick.”
After Robert leaves, Magnus helps Alec sit up in bed -- his side aches -- and gets him a glass of water.
“If my parents are here, it must’ve been serious,” Alec says.
“The blade that cut you was poisoned.”
Alec places a hand over his bandaged side.
“You were fever-ish throughout most of the night.”
“The last thing I remember is the fight,” Alec admits. “I remember getting cut. I remember I kept fighting and…” He shrugs.
Magnus huffs, frustrated and enamored with this heroic fool who speaks of his own life so casually.
Although Alec says he knows his injury was serious, it’s clear he doesn’t get it. How worried they all were. How dangerous the situation was. How Magnus had to force himself away from feeling in order to work on an antidote, for if he had let himself touch despair for even a second, let himself dwell on what horror it would be if Alec had died just as they were beginning, just as Magnus had dared to un-fortify his heart, he would have been overwhelmed by it, and rendered useless.
Magnus cups Alec’s face and kisses him, trying to memorize the taste of Alec’s mouth, the soft of his lips as well as the smooth of his skin and angle of his jaw under his hand. Now that he feared losing him so, he could never kiss Alec long enough to find satisfying.
Of course he’d lose Alec eventually. The thing about being immortal is that you learn in a way that most mortals remain in denial to… everything is temporary. One day Alec would leave Magnus in one way or the other, but that had been a vague future. Something that’s only a bare consideration when they’re still starting out on this journey. Too soon, Alec had shocked him with possible lose last night.
Magnus tilts his forehead against Alec’s when he’s forced to gather air.
“You could’ve died last night,” Magnus whispers. “Promise me you’ll be more careful. My heart can only take so much.”
Alec cringes. “Magnus --”
Magnus presses his fingertips to Alec’s lips, trying to silence him. “Don’t mind me. I’m just… emotionally compromised.”
“Magnus…” Alec says again as Magnus lets his fingers drop away. “I’m going to die sometime.”
“We don’t have to have this conversation now.”
“I don’t know when would be a better time.”
Magnus gives him a look, but Alec just stares right back. Turns out there is someone the High Warlock of Brooklyn will lose to in a battle of wills, and that person is Alec Lightwood.
“I would like to say something first, then,” Magnus says, when he breaks. “Because I know you’re a person who puts everyone before himself… No matter what happens with us, I want you to live a long, full life. To have it cut short now would be a tragedy, regardless of our relationship status.”
“Magnus,” Alec says again, imploring. “But we are in a relationship.”
“We are.”
“And I’m going to die eventually. And you won’t.”
“I can die,” Magnus says. “I’m not invulnerable. I can be killed. It just hasn’t happened yet.”
“That’s not funny,” Alec says.
Magnus squeezes his wrist. “I don’t know how else to say it, Alexander. Tomorrow or five decades from now, when you die, I’ll be devastated. But as previously stated, you’re a person who puts everyone else first, so I’m afraid if I admit this, in some misguided attempt to protect me, you’ll break off the connection between the two of us.”
Alec clenches his jaw; Magnus can interpret that twitch.
“You were thinking about it,” Magnus says, hollowly.
“It’s not… that simple,” Alec replies. “It’s… you’re willing to bet definite devastation on me.”
“That’s what love is,” Magnus says. “Or so I think.” True love, that beautiful, elusive goal, still remains mysterious. “People you would destroy yourself for.”
“That’s…”
“Not particularly cheerful? No. But it sounds right, doesn’t it? After all, you’re the one who almost died last night protecting his sister. Is that not love?”
“That’s different,” Alec says.
“Is it though? Because you can’t guard your heart against pain and have it open to love at the same time.” Magnus cups Alec’s face again. “I’d let my heart be destroyed by you, Alec Lightwood.”
Alec nods a little bit, shuddery. “Is it worth it?” he asks.
“I think so,” Magnus says, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite everyone’s he’s lost, despite everyone’s who's broken his heart, despite Camille and cruelty and war.
Don’t think immortals are immune to existential crisis just because death isn’t looming. Rather, they have time to have many such crises. Love, true and pure and untainted, that’s what Magnus had decided once what life was for. Everything else -- nice clothes, expensive wine, London flats, pounding club music, all other sorts of accumulated riches -- those were just fun. Some things to fill in the gaps. Love, that was meaning.
At over 400 years old, Magnus had had his share of lovers. He’d fallen into throes of puppy love and lust. He had hoped for someone to share in that deeper love pulsing inside his chest -- ready to be shared -- and to have it reverberated back.
And here is Alec. Only a handful of proper dates in, and already worried about the pain he’d cause Magnus by his future, abstract death.
Here is Magnus... so, so in love.
In love. Magnus bites his own tongue. It’s too soon to say it to Alec. And it’s a shame that the world has created constructions of ‘too soon’ when it came to beautiful things like love. But also Magnus didn’t want to scare Alec away in this fragile moment. Yet he is so sure, no protest or hesitance in mind. He is in love with this brave man, this selfless individual.
So he says something else, something filled with the stuttering beat of his heart I love you, I love you, I love you.
“My darling Alexander, you’re definitely worth it.”