Chapter Text
Neither of them could sleep.
The curtains of their bedroom were wide open, the full glare of the New York City skyline beaming into their room, the light as bright as an angel falling from the sky.
Both lay on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, unable to look at one another. Alec had pins and needles in his foot, and Magnus was repressing the deep-seated desire to turn onto his side and try and rest. But sleep seemed inconsequential when they were falling apart.
Alec would sleep when he was dead. Magnus would have to wait a little longer, but he would do the same one day.
They had run out of words to say to one another nearly a week ago.
It seemed so bizarre to Magnus, to watch the neon rays from one of a million billboards bounce off of the silver of Alec's ring, and think that all of this could somehow come to an end.
He was a Warlock, not a magician - he couldn't read Alec's mind. They were lovers, but he couldn't read his body. Alec, who had been so transparent and honest with him, was now opaque; the boy he had loved had become as hollow as the vacuum of space. Magnus felt blind. He wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, lay his palm against the harsh jut of his cheekbones, and yet he couldn't. He didn't feel like he should. It was like lying in bed next to a corpse – Alec was completely still; the only reassurance of his life was the almost deafening beat of his heart. Magnus couldn't even permit himself to look at him. There was destruction and devastation in even the briefest glimpse of Alexander Lightwood's face. Magnus had always been proud of his self-preservation, but it seemed he was still a novice when it came to falling in love. And yet how could he have prevented this hurt? He had lived through four hundred years to look into Alec's eyes and realise yes, it's you, I've been waiting for you. Naively, he had thought soul-mates were forever.
Alec exhaled and Magnus' eyes stung fiercely. When had it gotten this far?
Was this too far to come back from?
Magnus had always been a lover, not a fighter. And yet in the past, faced with the prospect of losing Alec, he knew he would be willing to enter a battle with Death himself to keep him. But when their words had failed them, all of Magnus' energy and spirit had washed away like a chalk painting in the rain. He felt no fire, no passion, no rage – only a lethargy, a tiredness, a heaviness that seemed to clutch at his ankles and hold him to the ground.
This was probably what it was to die.
Magnus had always known, from almost the moment they had met, that he would not be able to live without Alec. It was just happening earlier than he had assumed it would.
He deserved it, he thought. He had been an addict, and his supply had run out. He cursed himself for becoming so dependent on another person, but then angrily dared his past self not to fall totally, completely, irreversibly in love with Alec Lightwood. It was impossible. The Bible wrote that Lucifer leapt out of the Promised Land to escape God's reign, but really, Magnus thought he probably Fell for the love of a being so divine that even the opalescent Heavens themselves could not compare.
Like Lucifer though, Magnus had missed his mark, and accidentally slipped into Hell instead.
He wondered how much time they had left. The irony of it all was unbearable.
The worst thing about it though, was that Magnus was going to let him go. He would never regret loving Alec, and maybe one day the pain would be worth the golden years they had shared together. But tonight all he wanted to do was drive a knife through his chest and just be done with it.
Oh, you could definitely live too long, he had no doubt of that.
Mere inches away, Alec mused on how he had let this happen. It was never meant to become so...hostile, so void of any emotion. But he felt distrust eating away at him. Magnus knew that he knew something had happened – they weren't stupid - but neither of them could bring themselves to talk about it first, and that lack of communication, that unwillingness to share, was broaching the space between them and stretching it at an alarming rate. Magnus was so warm next to him, and Alec's hands were so cold, and he couldn't bear to leave him. But what other option did they have now? Maybe this was one step too far, one mountain they couldn't climb together.
By the Angel, he felt like shouting out loud and tearing the Heavens open, ripping the Angels out, and damning them to the same mortal life he had been cursed with.
He would wait for Magnus to sleep, and then he would go, Alec told himself finally. But as the sky turned candyfloss pink outside, and the Warlock's eyes remained wide open and staring above, Alec's resolve weakened. He didn't want to give up, but he felt so empty. So lost.
The time was 5AM, and that's all he was sure of in the world.
He heard the bedsheets ruffle, and the sudden intensity of Magnus' gaze was like sunburn on his face. Alec was paralytic. He wasn't functioning anymore.
“If you have to go,” Magnus whispered, every syllable wobbling on his lip, “I understand.”
A hand dug into Alec's chest, snatched out his heart, and turned it to dust.
“But just tell me why,” he murmured, turning away and rolling onto his back once more.
There was no why, really. The situation had just steam rolled until it had become something else entirely – a cluster of doubt and indecision and angst and self-loathing. Alec hated that he had allowed something so tiny to become so big.
Was this finally time to ask? Just like Jace had told him? Was this the only way, the last-ditch attempt? Surely, he had to try.
“The grey hairs Magnus,” Alec said, his voice the crackle of a log in a roaring fire, “the grey hairs that don't belong to me, or you, or the Chairman.”
“They could be the Chairman's,” Magnus replied quickly, protesting, and Alec's heart sank. The empty humour, the acknowledgement of his part in this fiasco – Magnus had finally given himself up. This was his confession, at last.
“Only if he was part-Yeti,” Alec replied, trying to imbue his voice with bitterness, but only sounding miserable.
There was no silence in New York City. Outside, a million cars already skimmed along the tarmac roads, beeping and braking and accelerating, flipping off the thousands already walking to work, muttering and yelling into their mobiles, those walking their dogs, and eating early breakfast, those jogging in Central Park, and all the lonely people without homes to go to. In a city that was so full of life, why did Alec feel so dead inside?
“You're wrong,” Magnus declared, still staring at the ceiling. Alec turned onto his shoulder and stared.
“They don't belong to you, and they don't belong to the Chairman,” he began, and suddenly, without warning, he turned to look Alec directly in the eyes, his own wet with tears, and gave the largest, most elated smile Alec had ever seen on him. Suddenly, Magnus' warm hands were on Alec's face, caressing every inch of skin he could reach, and he was crying with what Alec could only describe as pure delight.
“They're mine.”
Alec's heart stopped beating...
One, two, three, four...
And then finally started again.
“You're not...” he started, unbelieving of what was happening, “You didn't give up...?”
Magnus shook his head, his eyes closed, and Alec breathed a sigh of relief. He might have wanted it when he was young, but he could never ask of it now. He didn't want Magnus to essentially commit suicide for him. They were never meant to die for one another.
“What did you do?” Alec asked, Magnus' smile infectious, though he had no idea what was happening. All he knew was that Magnus was holding him, and speaking to him, and smiling like he always did when they spent their most intimate moments together. There was not a sight more beautiful in Heaven, let alone on earth.
“Darling, I'm a Warlock, and I did what Warlocks do. I cast a spell,” Magnus said, every word punctuated by a laugh that he could not control. He couldn't believe that this had been the cause of their estrangement – it had been intended to keep them together. It was ridiculous that either of them had let it get this far.
Magnus reached for Alec's hand and stroked the band over his ring finger.
“I was going to tell you when we married; I started it a long time ago, knowing that one day we would. It was supposed to be a wedding present, from me to you. Though we've never done what we were supposed to, have we Alexander?” Magnus explained, and hearing his name in Magnus' mouth was like being drenched in a warm ocean and soaked in oils and cologne. He moved closer to Magnus, curling up inside of his arms, liberated in his ability to finally return there.
“Tell me,” he commanded softly, “I don't think waiting would be the best idea right now.”
Magnus smiled down at him, and almost hesitantly kissed his lips for the first time in a week. Alec was instantly home – he couldn't believe he had contemplated leaving. Where would he go, apart from here? There was not a place on the planet where he would feel so safe, so cherished, and so, so loved.
“It's part enchantment, part Glamour; I took some inspiration from your abilities, your runes” Magnus began, and Alec had never been so desperate to hear someone speak in all of his life, “I could have done it without the spell itself, but it would have been exhausting to maintain, and there's no telling that I would be able to temper the magic itself, or be able to control its pace. I had to have Catarina around, and we may have summoned a few...demons- Don't look at me like that,” Magnus said, interrupting himself, and motioning towards the disapproval on Alec's face at the words summoned demons, “It was all for you. Can't you see? It was all worth it, because it was for you.”
He looked at Alec as if he were seeing him for the first time, as if he were bewildered by how much he loved him.
“I tied my life force to yours, my dear,” Magnus expounded, “I linked myself to you, from then until the moment that one of us dies.”
“Did you...marry me? Without asking?” Alec asked, almost scandalised, but mostly tantalised by being so close to the truth.
Magnus chuckled, his breath warm on Alec's face. “I married you, in a spiritual way. My apologies.”
“What does that mean though?” Alec asked, still confused by what this connection meant for Magnus.
“It means that as you age...I age. As you start to get wrinkles, I start to get wrinkles. As you start to slow down, I start to slow down.”
He beamed.
“As you start to go grey, I start to go grey.”
Alec stared, open-mouthed.
“Although I hoped that you might at least have had the decency to do so first Alexander,” Magnus admonished, pouting slightly, and glaring a little at the strand of hair dangling in his eyes.
Though absolutely shell-shocked, Alec's mouth asked, “How would it be decent of me when I didn't even know? Magnus...”
“I was joking, my silly Nephilim, the love of my goddamned life,” he said, starting lightly and progressing to a possessive moan, “I know how concerned you were about the way you would age, about how different we would become. Izzy always used to talk to me about it too, and I trust her almost as much as I trust you, darling. So I thought I could solve the problem before it started to exist.”
“But will you not age to look four hundred?” Alec asked, startled by the idea that Magnus could have given up far more than he intended, “How will this not kill you?”
“Because I've bound my life to yours,” Magnus said simply, clutching Alec's hand in his own, unable to let go, “We'll do it all at the same pace. We'll do it together.”
He paused.
“Always together.”
“What happens when I die?” Alec murmured, resting his free hand on Magnus' hip and stroking circles with his thumb.
“I'll return to how I looked at the time I first cast the spell,” Magnus admitted, biting his lip, “But know this, Alexander Lightwood. It will never happen again – this is a once only kind of deal. You, and only you, are the man that I will grow old with.”
Alec kissed him hard and deep, clutching onto Magnus' hair, his eyes scrunched up tightly. He was burning on the inside, lighting up in flames, and he passed it onto Magnus like a wildfire. He kissed him like an addict, like a lover, like he was the man he was going to spend the rest of his life with. Magnus' skin was warm beneath his, and Alec explored the contours of his face with his lips, kissing his cheekbones and his jaw and his nose and his forehead, and down his neck, and across his collarbones. He could have kissed every inch of Magnus' body – Magnus' body that would be changing and evolving for the first time in four centuries. Because of him. Because Magnus loved him enough to do this.
By the Angel, Alec thought, he must have been picked especially by the gods. No man deserved this much. And yet he had been awarded it.
“I'm quite interested to see how we'll do this with dodgy hips in fifty years time,” Magnus remarked, a hand holding lightly onto the back of Alec's neck. He kissed the space between the Shadowhunter's eyebrows, and Alec sank into the mattress next to Magnus, exhausted by weeks of sleepless nights.
“I don't ever know how I'll repay you for doing this,” Alec whispered into his neck, “How I'll ever be able to tell you how much this means.”
Because it wasn't a little gesture. It wasn't flowers for an anniversary. It wasn't sex at the weekend. It wasn't waiting up all night for him to get home. It wasn't making dinner (or stealing it). It wasn't the small things that meant the whole world to Alec. This was possibly the biggest decision Magnus had ever made. And it had been done to make him happy.
“Just stay with me,” Magnus replied quickly, his words almost a beg, “Just promise me you'll stay with me.”
Alec kissed him slowly. “How could I ever leave you?” he sighed, “How would I ever live apart from you?”
New York City, it seemed, was listening, and for a few minutes fell silent to accommodate them. They spent the quiet time they had exchanging lazy kisses, soft embraces, gentle words that healed the wounds they had unintentionally inflicted upon one another.
“It doesn't hurt that I've always been curious about how I would look a little older. It'll be nice to not constantly be ID'd on those rare occasions that I pay for alcohol as well,” Magnus piped up, snuggling under the duvet with Alec as if they were building a fort. “Catarina's going to spend the next sixty years making fun of me though – she called me sentimental,” he added despairingly, and Alec laughed at that too. He would have to send her a gift of some kind, something to thank her for helping Magnus do this. Alec did not underestimate the sheer strength of magic, the complexity and might that must have gone into creating a spell so powerful – one that had not existed until Magnus chose to love him forever. How strong was their bond, that he had created something entirely new just for them?
“I can't wait to see Jace's reaction,” Alec joked, and Magnus blanched.
“I can forgive you Alexander, but if that beast of a brother of yours doesn't go grey before me, I'll have to do something unspeakable to him,” he threatened, his eyes glimmering gold before returning to their usual chartreuse green.
“He stuck up for you, you know,” Alec replied, “When I doubted you. I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for letting this whole thing wind me up so far that I almost tore us apart.”
“Good man, I always did like him, even if he could be an annoying little pri-” Magnus mused, biting his tongue at Alec's raised eyebrows. “But if you hadn't reacted that way, my dear, you wouldn't be the Alexander I know. You wouldn't be the Alexander that I'm going to finally grow up with. You wouldn't be the Alexander I'm going to marry. Trust has to be earned, and no matter my intentions, I lied to you. I won't do it again,” Magnus said remorsefully, and it was apology enough to mend Alec's bruised heart.
“I love you, so much, Magnus,” Alec said, and Magnus smiled serenely back at him.
“I love you too. I waited four hundred years to love you,” he replied, kissing Alec's lips, always grateful to whatever power may be that he had been granted this man, “And I always will.
Even when we're old and grey.”