Fic: When you move (I'm moved)
Title: When you move (I'm moved)
Pairing: Magnus/Alec
Rating: R
Word count: ...short? 4,000-ish?
Disclaimer: I haven't read the books LOL
Summary: Post-S03E22: There are conversations to be had, love to be felt, wisdom to be gained. They're married and it's only the beginning.
On love, on physicality, on marriage, on the journey to the ends of their lives.
Or: the honeymoon.
Notes: It's over, and I have feelings.
Read on AO3.
*
The only person they tell where they’re going is Catarina.
Actually, Catarina is the only person they tell they’re going, period.
The white beach outside their private hut in the Maldives stretches wide, and Alec watches as Magnus stretches in the sun, skin still wet from his early morning swim. The sun is barely rising, painting Magnus in hues of orange and pinks, skin turning golden right before his very eyes.
Newly awoken, Alec still hasn’t moved from the bed, feels boneless and sated, aching for Magnus to be closer.
Although, the view of him is enough for now.
The sheets are smooth and it feels decadent to just laze the morning away. Whenever he moves his hand, the ring on his finger catches slightly.
Married.
Married.
Alec can feel his mouth stretching into a smile, unbidden but not unwelcome. The last twenty four hours feel like a dream. Watching Magnus walk up to him with his mother on his arm, feeling so full of affection and love, feeling invincible when catching Magnus’ eye. Admittedly - it had been the entire night, because Magnus hadn’t looked away from him, his gaze a brand falling across his skin.
Magnus coming up towards the hut, skin gleaming, wet hair slicked back, a smile on his face and Alec feels so - so full. Magnus’ naked face is so dear to him. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen this kind of happiness in him.
“Aren’t you a vision?” Magnus murmurs, eyes soft as he sits down next to Alec, his warm hand settling on his back.
Alec just wants to be closer. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Magnus’ mouth quirks as he leans down, and Alec’s breath hitches when Magnus presses his mouth to the nape of his neck. Alec twists, turns over and reaches for the back of Magnus’ head, buries his fingers in the wet hair and pulls him down, kisses him because he can’t be expected not to. Magnus’ breath is a harsh exhale against his mouth, Magnus’ fingers tight on his face.
“God, I love you,” Magnus pants. “You’re the best thing in this wretched life.”
This is new to Magnus, too, this Alec remembers at moments like these and smugly, selfishly, he hoards these experiences he gets to have with Magnus. He’s jealously possessive and greedy: he gets to have some of Magnus’ firsts. First marriage, first honeymoon.
“I wish you’d never glamour,” Alec says into his tanned skin, hands tight on Magnus’ hips. “You’re so beautiful.”
Magnus groans; kisses him harder.
Later, Magnus is dozing on his stomach, and Alec should probably let him rest, but how can he, when he has Magnus in bed, willing and pliant and so, so beautiful? He lets his fingers drift up along the dip of Magnus’ spine, watches as gooseflesh rises and trails after the touch.
“Alexander, take pity on an old man,” Magnus says, but his voice is smiling. The one eye that isn’t hidden in the pillows isn’t hidden by glamour either. Alec presses close to kiss the tender skin at the corner of his eye.
“You’re not old,” is what he says, which is both true and untrue, but Magnus is only smiling, no offense taken in all the ways it could’ve been. He feels - he’s not sure what this feeling is, not exactly. He imagines this kind of want is unique to him and Magnus. Magnus may have had centuries to experience lust and want, but Alec is the only one he’s ever married. “Just thinking that my husband is the most handsome man in the world.”
“Flattery will get you absolutely everywhere with me,” Magnus chuckles but still doesn’t move. “Play your cards right and you can sex up the most handsome man in the world as soon as I can move my limbs again.”
It’s still a novel feeling to be allowed to reach out and touch and take, knowing his touch is always, always welcome.
“Can you believe I married my very own definition of tall, dark and handsome?”
Alec blinks and then smiles. “I think I got the better end of that deal, since I married a prince and all.”
Magnus’ one visible eye narrows slightly. “Well, my husband went to Edom to bring me back in order to marry me.”
“My husband sacrificed himself so Alicante would be safe.”
“I sacrificed myself so you’d be safe,” Magnus corrects him gently. “The rest of Alicante got lucky.” He manages to move his arm enough that he can catch Alec’s. He tangles their fingers, squeezes and looks like he can’t believe it.
“Your husband would really rather you didn’t sacrifice yourself at all, the greater good be damned.”
Magnus blinks slowly, tugs at their tangled hands until Alec rests snugly against his side. It’s not like he has to try very hard when Alec is in a constant moving motion towards him. “My husband will have to realize I’ll do it again if it means he’ll be safe. Don’t ever expect me to stand idly by if you’re in danger.”
And that’s the thing, because in Magnus’ position, he’d do the exact same thing. Everything he knows about love, Magnus taught him. Magnus would, in the name of his love for Alec, set fire to every single atom in the universe. He’d move the earth and the sky. It’s terrifying - Magnus is one of the most powerful beings in the world and he’s decided that he’s Alec’s.
It’s a kind of devotion Alec will work on returning for the rest of his life.
When he wakes on the fourth day in their secluded paradise it’s barely dawn, and Magnus is silhouetted in the doorway.
“Magnus?”
“My love,” Magnus says as he turns, and his eyes glitter in the sparse light. Magnus, who hasn’t bothered using any glamour spells for the entirety of their stay here. You see right through me even wearing it, he’d said when Alec had asked. Sometimes Alec begins to grasp at the enormity of the exception Magnus has made for him. “It’ll be a beautiful day.”
Yes, Alec’s entire body whispers when Magnus comes back to bed and sinks into him. They’re so familiar with each other’s bodies, to their angles and sharp edges, sanded down until they fit perfectly into nooks and crannies. The journey up the ridges of Magnus’ ribs, his broad shoulders and olive skin. Magnus and his comfortable weight on him, his gasps and sighs and pleasure-bitten mouth.
Magnus taught him everything about love, taught him everything about what kinds of love bodies can make.
This is also love:
When Magnus says, conversationally over breakfast, “Isn’t it strange how I don’t feel anything at all when I think of how I sent my father into oblivion? I suppose in a way I should be grateful to him.”
Alec, who is very sure of how he feels towards Asmodeus and none it is even remotely close to grateful, blinks and is very unsure about which direction this conversation is going. They’re married, but Alec is still learning to navigate the territories of Magnus that are littered with mines.
Magnus shrugs and spears the rest of his waffle. “Without him, I’d have no idea who you are.”
It’s like a punch in the gut. Magnus had said he’d tried to forget him; Alec doesn’t need to keep hearing it. He tries to not clench his fingers around his fork.
“He came to me just as I was about to destroy my memories of you. Said the pain of knowing I’d lost you would make me stronger. Boy, did that backfire on him.”
If ever given the chance, Alec would like to acquaint his fist with Asmodeus’ face. He doesn’t think he’s ever been held as tightly as he’d been when Magnus had gripped him in Edom; certain he’d never see Alec again but proven wrong.
Alec, for his part, had been very certain that he’d see Magnus again and bring him back home, because there hadn’t’ been any other option than that. Knowing that in spite of everything that had happened between them, Magnus had still put a ring on him and wanted to marry him had been motivation in abundance.
Maybe Magnus was on to something when he’d said Alec would move the very ground he stands on to make things right.
Magnus being in this world is everything right in this existence.
“I’m also grateful,” Alec manages and is glad his voice is steady and not filled with resentment. “Grateful that he’s gone.” Not here to torment Magnus any longer. Asmodeus’ weird obsession with his son had been disconcerting. The lengths he’d go to ensure Magnus would come to him had been horrifying. Then again, Alec’s own determination to keep Magnus safe and happy was something to be feared.
Maybe he and Asmodeus had something in common, after all.
“It’s over, my darling,” Magnus says and his eyes lose the glint of impassiveness, as if wielding the uncomfortable truth would make it less painful. The losses Magnus has endured in this world makes protectiveness bloom tightly in Alec’s ribcage. “Nothing short of the Apocalypse will wrench you from me.”
Magnus’ quiet wonder when Alec had brought him back to the apartment - Magnus had likely thought he’d never get to see it again, never mind setting foot again here. If Alec had said he hadn’t wanted to reconnect with Magnus in all the ways he could, he’d be lying, but more than that, he just wanted Magnus’ heart beat close to his own.
“The Apocalypse can try,” Alec promises, because he’s tried living without Magnus and it’s just not an option. They’ll keep choosing each other - the weight of a ring on his finger says so. “It won’t work.”
He’s so strong, this warlock that has staked ownership on his heart, so capable and has weathered so much he shouldn’t have had to shoulder on his own, but Alec loves that he has chosen to be with Alec and lets himself be protected by Alec. Alec not-so-secretly likes that he can engulf Magnus completely.
“Alexander,” Magnus breathes, wonder and awe and something so heartbreaking in his voice, “You’re the most wonderful thing I’ll ever lose.”
“Not -” Alec tries, “Not now. Not on our honeymoon. Don’t say that.”
Magnus blinks quickly as if trying not to cry and his touch when it comes to his hand is desperate. “Everything I am is yours,” he says and it sounds like a promise more meant and more severe than Alec has ever heard, and he just has to disregard his place by the table. He’s up and crouching next to Magnus before he’s even made the conscious decision of moving, the way his instincts take over, and he’s clutching at Magnus’ beloved face.
They’ve spent days doing nothing but loving each other and it won’t stop here.
Their kisses are scorching, they set fire to Alec’s skin everywhere they’re planted and by the Angel, no one and nothing has ever felt this kind of want, this desperate need to crawl in under Magnus’ skin and nestle there, burrow into him and carve out a place just for him to stay in.
Magnus would let him.
*
“Do you think anyone misses us back at the Institute?”
“Catarina can contact us if they do.”
“And Jace wouldn’t be able to hide it from me. Do you think he’d even try?”
“Not really. And I told Catarina only to contact me if the world was crashing down or the Institute was burning.”
“Well… we can do without the Institute, can’t we?”
“Alexander, this is just one of the many reasons I love you dearly.”
*
This is love:
Magnus, looking distantly out over the sea of Java, somewhere on the coast of Indonesia, clutches Alec’s hand tightly, painfully, and Alec presses it desperately to his mouth.
*
They go for a lot of long walks on the beach, hand in hand.
“I’ll never properly tan,” Alec is saying, because they’ve been here for almost two weeks now, and he’s quite sure only Magnus’ magic has kept him from turning a spectacular shade of burnt.
“I happen to quite like your skin the way it is,” Magnus says with a playful frown. Alec scoffs, because Magnus’ skin takes the sun beautifully, turning him into shades of bronze. His skin tastes like salt and sea these days, the journey up his back is one his mouth has traversed often. “And I don’t mind shielding you, you know that.”
Alec very carefully doesn’t say anything right away. It could be nothing, but often Magnus says things on several levels. “You don’t always have to.”
Magnus’ hold on his hand tightens. “I don’t have to, that’s the point. But it’s my right.”
There are quite frequently times where Magnus baffles him utterly.
“You don’t understand,” Magnus murmurs and leans against him while they walk. Alec relinquishes his hold on Magnus’ hand to slide his arm over his shoulders instead, to tuck him in close to his body. “It’s my right to care for you. To love you.”
The warm sand beneath his feet give slightly underneath his tread. The water line comes and goes and they can’t seem to walk in s straight line for more than a few steps in a row, until their feet meet the ocean.
“You don’t need to understand, not yet,” Magnus murmurs and slots himself right into Alec’s side. He grabs at Alec’s arm slung snugly over his shoulders, tangles their fingers and presses them to his mouth. “You don’t, but you will. One day.”
He kisses the side of Magnus head as he wonders how many truths Magnus will keep offering him like precious gifts.
*
On their tenth day, Magnus asks him if he’d given any thought to how long he’d like to hide away and ignore the rest of the world, of when he’d like to go back to the Institute and to the rest of their lives, but Alec still feels entirely too scraped raw. Not ready to share Magnus yet. For every hour they’ve been apart, he needs months to make up for it.
“Not yet,” he says and Magnus doesn’t question him, just kisses him and announces that breakfast is ready.
*
Magnus doesn’t use a lot of magic these days. Not for anything grand or showy. Just for cleaning up and keeping Alec’s skin from burning. Alec had thought he’d have to make up for the time he didn’t have magic running in his veins.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do so little magic before,” Alec says and worries for split second that Magnus will take offense, because the way Magnus had faced a life without magic still splintered him.
Evidently, Magnus is thinking along the same lines, because he tenses slightly before deliberately relaxing. “There’s something to be said for choosing,” he says and tries to look unaffected.
Truth is, Alec knows him now, knows what signs to look for. Magnus’ hair is rough with salt water, down and wavy, and he looks younger and so much less intimidating. It’s like the moment Magnus saw him in Edom, he’d just decided to stop hiding from Alec, like the rest of his impressive walls had crumbled.
In this very moment, Magnus leans into the palm Alec holds to his cheek, blinks slowly, eyes naked to him and something about him breaks Alec’s heart. Alec has given him reasons and reasons to be wary, and he sits here with his heart and offers it to Alec.
Alec could cry. He’d thought he’d never know grief as acute and desperate as the one he’d felt watching Magnus march straight-backed and bold-faced to Edom, but right here, right now, he wishes Magnus hadn’t ever had reason to look as if he’d accept being broken if only Alec did the breaking.
No more, never again.
“And there’s no reason to, right now,” Magnus continues and shrugs; it’s honest enough, Magnus isn’t just putting on a brave face for him. “You’re keeping me safe, aren’t you?”
It’s a time for truths, apparently, this honeymoon. To be so close and intimate without being naked.
“Always,” he promises.
“Besides,” Magnus says and this smile is all true, “I’m just enjoying knowing I have it back.”
Because Alec likes this freedom of just saying what he thinks, he says, “You’re easier for me to read without the whole - ” and he gestures at his eyes.
“Oh Alexander,” Magnus says and his smile turns wry. “There are so many ways you could hurt me that my eyes are the least of my concern.” He says it with the same honesty Alec just offered him and it’s honest to god terrifying to have this kind of power over such a powerful being - but it doesn’t feel all-consuming, because he’s the same. They’re mirrors of a power balance.
It’d be so easy for Magnus to shatter him, but Magnus married him. Chose him and will keep choosing him.
Magnus talks about taking care of Alec as his right - not just something he wants to, but something he has the right to, and Alec thinks that maybe Magnus does understand the way Shadowhunters fall in love. There’ll never be anyone else for Alec, no one to fill the gaping wound he’d have if he didn’t have Magnus - nothing and no one to fill the void. He’d be walking wounded for the rest of his life.
And so will Magnus when Alec inevitably dies.
But Magnus chose this. Alec can feel however he want about Magnus facing loneliness, but it’s Magnus’ choice. Alec will keep choosing Magnus.
*
Rather naïvely, he’d thought that two weeks of uninterrupted time with Magnus on a secluded beach would dim his want and desperation for Magnus, but he looks across the table at him and he just wants with an intensity that burns.
Magnus is beautiful, always. He’s also the sexiest man Alec has ever seen and will ever see.
He wants more than just Magnus’ body. He wants his time and his thoughts and his brain and his kindness. “All you are,” he says one night like a confession and Magnus should be frightened, by all means, because Alec is scared of the magnitude of his sheer want, but Magnus moves closer even though a lesser man would buckle under the weight.
“All I am,” Magnus promises. “This feeble thing I am, it’s all yours.”
He has the rest of his life to convince Magnus of all the ways he’s enough and entirely wanted. He looks back at Magnus’ golden eyes and sees the same sentiment staring back at him.
*
They’re not always in agreement. Magnus says it’s a good thing.
They’re opinionated people, both of them, and they fundamentally agree on the bigger picture but not always on the means.
To Magnus, Magnus is an acceptable expendable piece in the grand scheme of things.
Alec respectfully and vocally disagrees. There is no life worth living if Magnus isn’t in it.
He can feel a low thrum of loss under his skin; Jace manages to hide the aching, gaping loss of Clary from him most of the time, but sometimes it almost tilts Alec sideways, still so fresh. Angel above, it’s not that Alec isn’t sympathetic to Jace’s loss, but Alec also knows this kind of loss intimately, and he point blank refuses to feel bad for the happiness he has now. He can reach out and Magnus is there, right within his reach, but it hasn’t always been this way, so he’ll cherish it. He can’t bring himself to feel even a little bit of regret for it.
Magnus loves him fiercely, desperately, terrifyingly. And it’s Alec’s. He’ll hold on to it with his greedy, unworthy, clumsy hands.
They sit on the sand, the tide moving to their feet and they don’t care. Magnus opens up in small increments and sometimes in chunks.
And it’s not all frantic love.
There’s more than one water fight; splashing and running in the water, Magnus cheating with subtle magic, tripping him up and trapping him, lying on the wet sand and getting soaked and not caring the slightest because Magnus’ grin tastes sweet and the weight of him feels safe and is a song in his heart.
There’s laughter. So much laughter. He has never laughed so much until he met Magnus.
Magnus is silly, sometimes, and he lets his brain run rampant with fantasy and Alec is learning to let go and laugh with it.
They laugh about sex, which is something Alec had never considered was a possibility before there ever was a Magnus to love him and teach him and cherish him.
“Sex is silly,” Magnus had said one of the very first times they’d had sex. “It’s silly and stupid and strange, and bodies do weird things, so don’t be afraid of a little laughter.”
It was true. It’s still true. Alec, whose body is a finely tuned weapon, has all of his life been nothing more than that, and he’s not ashamed of his body. It’s there, a necessity, a vessel, but Magnus loves it. Magnus loves looking at him, loves touching him, his touch that frequently takes a worshipping air, makes Alec gasp for breath, makes him want to hide and makes him want to preen at the same time.
He hopes he’ll never understand all the ways Magnus can surprise him and want him and teach him about his own body.
On the beach, sand getting into his swimming trunks, harsh against his spine and the soft skin of the backs of his knees, sand in Magnus’ hair but his kisses are cool with water, his touch gentle and wandering.
“You’re a mess,” he says to Magnus when they finally move back to the cabin sometime later. Magnus’ hair is disheveled, his mouth swollen and his eyes so bright.
“I look well-loved, I’d say,” Magnus returns, smile truer than ever. “Don’t I?”
“You look like you belong with me,” Alec says, feeling it ring true. He’s laid his claim on Magnus, put a ring on him, kissed him with the angels as their witnesses. He feels proud.
“I do,” Magnus says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It doesn’t matter how many people has loved Magnus in the past, what matters is that Alec will love him better.
“You do, my love, you do,” Magnus says and Alec hadn’t even realized he’d spoken the words out loud, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s true and it’s nothing he would keep from Magnus. And it’s because he’s learnt his lesson about keeping things from Magnus that he says, “I’ll go to the ends of the earth for you.”
Magnus softens. It’s the best way to describe it - Magnus holds himself in a very deliberate way that makes his entire existence appear effortless, but Alec has seen him at his most comfortable, and the way all of him just gentles makes affection clog his throat. Magnus is generous and kind and possibly the very best the Downworld will ever have to offer, but this version of him is all Alec’s.
Magnus’ entire face crinkles with his soft smile. “I opened my home to Shadowhunters, I went to war for them, I opened my heart to hurt again, I went to Edom to keep you safe. I think it’s clear that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Where you go, I’ll follow. Where you falter, I’ll lead. It’s always you.”
As far as love declarations go, this one is right near the top. Alec kisses him because if he tries to speak, he’s certain his voice will break under the weight of Magnus’ devotion.
And on their sixteenth day, Magnus looks at him in the sunset, fingers tangled in his hair, their legs interwoven. He says, “Do you want to go back with me and build our home?” No expectation in his voice, just a question, so if Alec said no, still not ready, he’d stay and be a land for Alec to explore in quiet and peace. He doesn’t feel ready, not really, but he’s had Magnus’ undivided attention for long enough to feel stable, at the very least.
He doesn’t feel so raw anymore, like his every vulnerability is on display. It’s like Magnus has cracked him right open, looked at all his jagged edges and soothed them.
They feel right.
“We could,” he says and reels him in. Magnus’ skin is littered with bitemarks; Alec has never claimed to be subtle. Any way he can stake his claim is good with him, and besides, it’s not like Magnus doesn’t return the favor in kind. He never knew himself to be this possessive until he met Magnus. And Magnus is possessive in his own right, too. Alec loves being claimed, to be part of a pair, of a unit. To belong with someone.
He loves having Magnus to himself.
He’s going to love showing Magnus off, with everyone knowing just who he goes home to, goes home with, will go to war for, who he loves.
“I’m ready,” he says and Magnus kisses him.
*
Pairing: Magnus/Alec
Rating: R
Word count: ...short? 4,000-ish?
Disclaimer: I haven't read the books LOL
Summary: Post-S03E22: There are conversations to be had, love to be felt, wisdom to be gained. They're married and it's only the beginning.
On love, on physicality, on marriage, on the journey to the ends of their lives.
Or: the honeymoon.
Notes: It's over, and I have feelings.
Read on AO3.
*
The only person they tell where they’re going is Catarina.
Actually, Catarina is the only person they tell they’re going, period.
The white beach outside their private hut in the Maldives stretches wide, and Alec watches as Magnus stretches in the sun, skin still wet from his early morning swim. The sun is barely rising, painting Magnus in hues of orange and pinks, skin turning golden right before his very eyes.
Newly awoken, Alec still hasn’t moved from the bed, feels boneless and sated, aching for Magnus to be closer.
Although, the view of him is enough for now.
The sheets are smooth and it feels decadent to just laze the morning away. Whenever he moves his hand, the ring on his finger catches slightly.
Married.
Married.
Alec can feel his mouth stretching into a smile, unbidden but not unwelcome. The last twenty four hours feel like a dream. Watching Magnus walk up to him with his mother on his arm, feeling so full of affection and love, feeling invincible when catching Magnus’ eye. Admittedly - it had been the entire night, because Magnus hadn’t looked away from him, his gaze a brand falling across his skin.
Magnus coming up towards the hut, skin gleaming, wet hair slicked back, a smile on his face and Alec feels so - so full. Magnus’ naked face is so dear to him. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen this kind of happiness in him.
“Aren’t you a vision?” Magnus murmurs, eyes soft as he sits down next to Alec, his warm hand settling on his back.
Alec just wants to be closer. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Magnus’ mouth quirks as he leans down, and Alec’s breath hitches when Magnus presses his mouth to the nape of his neck. Alec twists, turns over and reaches for the back of Magnus’ head, buries his fingers in the wet hair and pulls him down, kisses him because he can’t be expected not to. Magnus’ breath is a harsh exhale against his mouth, Magnus’ fingers tight on his face.
“God, I love you,” Magnus pants. “You’re the best thing in this wretched life.”
This is new to Magnus, too, this Alec remembers at moments like these and smugly, selfishly, he hoards these experiences he gets to have with Magnus. He’s jealously possessive and greedy: he gets to have some of Magnus’ firsts. First marriage, first honeymoon.
“I wish you’d never glamour,” Alec says into his tanned skin, hands tight on Magnus’ hips. “You’re so beautiful.”
Magnus groans; kisses him harder.
Later, Magnus is dozing on his stomach, and Alec should probably let him rest, but how can he, when he has Magnus in bed, willing and pliant and so, so beautiful? He lets his fingers drift up along the dip of Magnus’ spine, watches as gooseflesh rises and trails after the touch.
“Alexander, take pity on an old man,” Magnus says, but his voice is smiling. The one eye that isn’t hidden in the pillows isn’t hidden by glamour either. Alec presses close to kiss the tender skin at the corner of his eye.
“You’re not old,” is what he says, which is both true and untrue, but Magnus is only smiling, no offense taken in all the ways it could’ve been. He feels - he’s not sure what this feeling is, not exactly. He imagines this kind of want is unique to him and Magnus. Magnus may have had centuries to experience lust and want, but Alec is the only one he’s ever married. “Just thinking that my husband is the most handsome man in the world.”
“Flattery will get you absolutely everywhere with me,” Magnus chuckles but still doesn’t move. “Play your cards right and you can sex up the most handsome man in the world as soon as I can move my limbs again.”
It’s still a novel feeling to be allowed to reach out and touch and take, knowing his touch is always, always welcome.
“Can you believe I married my very own definition of tall, dark and handsome?”
Alec blinks and then smiles. “I think I got the better end of that deal, since I married a prince and all.”
Magnus’ one visible eye narrows slightly. “Well, my husband went to Edom to bring me back in order to marry me.”
“My husband sacrificed himself so Alicante would be safe.”
“I sacrificed myself so you’d be safe,” Magnus corrects him gently. “The rest of Alicante got lucky.” He manages to move his arm enough that he can catch Alec’s. He tangles their fingers, squeezes and looks like he can’t believe it.
“Your husband would really rather you didn’t sacrifice yourself at all, the greater good be damned.”
Magnus blinks slowly, tugs at their tangled hands until Alec rests snugly against his side. It’s not like he has to try very hard when Alec is in a constant moving motion towards him. “My husband will have to realize I’ll do it again if it means he’ll be safe. Don’t ever expect me to stand idly by if you’re in danger.”
And that’s the thing, because in Magnus’ position, he’d do the exact same thing. Everything he knows about love, Magnus taught him. Magnus would, in the name of his love for Alec, set fire to every single atom in the universe. He’d move the earth and the sky. It’s terrifying - Magnus is one of the most powerful beings in the world and he’s decided that he’s Alec’s.
It’s a kind of devotion Alec will work on returning for the rest of his life.
When he wakes on the fourth day in their secluded paradise it’s barely dawn, and Magnus is silhouetted in the doorway.
“Magnus?”
“My love,” Magnus says as he turns, and his eyes glitter in the sparse light. Magnus, who hasn’t bothered using any glamour spells for the entirety of their stay here. You see right through me even wearing it, he’d said when Alec had asked. Sometimes Alec begins to grasp at the enormity of the exception Magnus has made for him. “It’ll be a beautiful day.”
Yes, Alec’s entire body whispers when Magnus comes back to bed and sinks into him. They’re so familiar with each other’s bodies, to their angles and sharp edges, sanded down until they fit perfectly into nooks and crannies. The journey up the ridges of Magnus’ ribs, his broad shoulders and olive skin. Magnus and his comfortable weight on him, his gasps and sighs and pleasure-bitten mouth.
Magnus taught him everything about love, taught him everything about what kinds of love bodies can make.
This is also love:
When Magnus says, conversationally over breakfast, “Isn’t it strange how I don’t feel anything at all when I think of how I sent my father into oblivion? I suppose in a way I should be grateful to him.”
Alec, who is very sure of how he feels towards Asmodeus and none it is even remotely close to grateful, blinks and is very unsure about which direction this conversation is going. They’re married, but Alec is still learning to navigate the territories of Magnus that are littered with mines.
Magnus shrugs and spears the rest of his waffle. “Without him, I’d have no idea who you are.”
It’s like a punch in the gut. Magnus had said he’d tried to forget him; Alec doesn’t need to keep hearing it. He tries to not clench his fingers around his fork.
“He came to me just as I was about to destroy my memories of you. Said the pain of knowing I’d lost you would make me stronger. Boy, did that backfire on him.”
If ever given the chance, Alec would like to acquaint his fist with Asmodeus’ face. He doesn’t think he’s ever been held as tightly as he’d been when Magnus had gripped him in Edom; certain he’d never see Alec again but proven wrong.
Alec, for his part, had been very certain that he’d see Magnus again and bring him back home, because there hadn’t’ been any other option than that. Knowing that in spite of everything that had happened between them, Magnus had still put a ring on him and wanted to marry him had been motivation in abundance.
Maybe Magnus was on to something when he’d said Alec would move the very ground he stands on to make things right.
Magnus being in this world is everything right in this existence.
“I’m also grateful,” Alec manages and is glad his voice is steady and not filled with resentment. “Grateful that he’s gone.” Not here to torment Magnus any longer. Asmodeus’ weird obsession with his son had been disconcerting. The lengths he’d go to ensure Magnus would come to him had been horrifying. Then again, Alec’s own determination to keep Magnus safe and happy was something to be feared.
Maybe he and Asmodeus had something in common, after all.
“It’s over, my darling,” Magnus says and his eyes lose the glint of impassiveness, as if wielding the uncomfortable truth would make it less painful. The losses Magnus has endured in this world makes protectiveness bloom tightly in Alec’s ribcage. “Nothing short of the Apocalypse will wrench you from me.”
Magnus’ quiet wonder when Alec had brought him back to the apartment - Magnus had likely thought he’d never get to see it again, never mind setting foot again here. If Alec had said he hadn’t wanted to reconnect with Magnus in all the ways he could, he’d be lying, but more than that, he just wanted Magnus’ heart beat close to his own.
“The Apocalypse can try,” Alec promises, because he’s tried living without Magnus and it’s just not an option. They’ll keep choosing each other - the weight of a ring on his finger says so. “It won’t work.”
He’s so strong, this warlock that has staked ownership on his heart, so capable and has weathered so much he shouldn’t have had to shoulder on his own, but Alec loves that he has chosen to be with Alec and lets himself be protected by Alec. Alec not-so-secretly likes that he can engulf Magnus completely.
“Alexander,” Magnus breathes, wonder and awe and something so heartbreaking in his voice, “You’re the most wonderful thing I’ll ever lose.”
“Not -” Alec tries, “Not now. Not on our honeymoon. Don’t say that.”
Magnus blinks quickly as if trying not to cry and his touch when it comes to his hand is desperate. “Everything I am is yours,” he says and it sounds like a promise more meant and more severe than Alec has ever heard, and he just has to disregard his place by the table. He’s up and crouching next to Magnus before he’s even made the conscious decision of moving, the way his instincts take over, and he’s clutching at Magnus’ beloved face.
They’ve spent days doing nothing but loving each other and it won’t stop here.
Their kisses are scorching, they set fire to Alec’s skin everywhere they’re planted and by the Angel, no one and nothing has ever felt this kind of want, this desperate need to crawl in under Magnus’ skin and nestle there, burrow into him and carve out a place just for him to stay in.
Magnus would let him.
*
“Do you think anyone misses us back at the Institute?”
“Catarina can contact us if they do.”
“And Jace wouldn’t be able to hide it from me. Do you think he’d even try?”
“Not really. And I told Catarina only to contact me if the world was crashing down or the Institute was burning.”
“Well… we can do without the Institute, can’t we?”
“Alexander, this is just one of the many reasons I love you dearly.”
*
This is love:
Magnus, looking distantly out over the sea of Java, somewhere on the coast of Indonesia, clutches Alec’s hand tightly, painfully, and Alec presses it desperately to his mouth.
*
They go for a lot of long walks on the beach, hand in hand.
“I’ll never properly tan,” Alec is saying, because they’ve been here for almost two weeks now, and he’s quite sure only Magnus’ magic has kept him from turning a spectacular shade of burnt.
“I happen to quite like your skin the way it is,” Magnus says with a playful frown. Alec scoffs, because Magnus’ skin takes the sun beautifully, turning him into shades of bronze. His skin tastes like salt and sea these days, the journey up his back is one his mouth has traversed often. “And I don’t mind shielding you, you know that.”
Alec very carefully doesn’t say anything right away. It could be nothing, but often Magnus says things on several levels. “You don’t always have to.”
Magnus’ hold on his hand tightens. “I don’t have to, that’s the point. But it’s my right.”
There are quite frequently times where Magnus baffles him utterly.
“You don’t understand,” Magnus murmurs and leans against him while they walk. Alec relinquishes his hold on Magnus’ hand to slide his arm over his shoulders instead, to tuck him in close to his body. “It’s my right to care for you. To love you.”
The warm sand beneath his feet give slightly underneath his tread. The water line comes and goes and they can’t seem to walk in s straight line for more than a few steps in a row, until their feet meet the ocean.
“You don’t need to understand, not yet,” Magnus murmurs and slots himself right into Alec’s side. He grabs at Alec’s arm slung snugly over his shoulders, tangles their fingers and presses them to his mouth. “You don’t, but you will. One day.”
He kisses the side of Magnus head as he wonders how many truths Magnus will keep offering him like precious gifts.
*
On their tenth day, Magnus asks him if he’d given any thought to how long he’d like to hide away and ignore the rest of the world, of when he’d like to go back to the Institute and to the rest of their lives, but Alec still feels entirely too scraped raw. Not ready to share Magnus yet. For every hour they’ve been apart, he needs months to make up for it.
“Not yet,” he says and Magnus doesn’t question him, just kisses him and announces that breakfast is ready.
*
Magnus doesn’t use a lot of magic these days. Not for anything grand or showy. Just for cleaning up and keeping Alec’s skin from burning. Alec had thought he’d have to make up for the time he didn’t have magic running in his veins.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do so little magic before,” Alec says and worries for split second that Magnus will take offense, because the way Magnus had faced a life without magic still splintered him.
Evidently, Magnus is thinking along the same lines, because he tenses slightly before deliberately relaxing. “There’s something to be said for choosing,” he says and tries to look unaffected.
Truth is, Alec knows him now, knows what signs to look for. Magnus’ hair is rough with salt water, down and wavy, and he looks younger and so much less intimidating. It’s like the moment Magnus saw him in Edom, he’d just decided to stop hiding from Alec, like the rest of his impressive walls had crumbled.
In this very moment, Magnus leans into the palm Alec holds to his cheek, blinks slowly, eyes naked to him and something about him breaks Alec’s heart. Alec has given him reasons and reasons to be wary, and he sits here with his heart and offers it to Alec.
Alec could cry. He’d thought he’d never know grief as acute and desperate as the one he’d felt watching Magnus march straight-backed and bold-faced to Edom, but right here, right now, he wishes Magnus hadn’t ever had reason to look as if he’d accept being broken if only Alec did the breaking.
No more, never again.
“And there’s no reason to, right now,” Magnus continues and shrugs; it’s honest enough, Magnus isn’t just putting on a brave face for him. “You’re keeping me safe, aren’t you?”
It’s a time for truths, apparently, this honeymoon. To be so close and intimate without being naked.
“Always,” he promises.
“Besides,” Magnus says and this smile is all true, “I’m just enjoying knowing I have it back.”
Because Alec likes this freedom of just saying what he thinks, he says, “You’re easier for me to read without the whole - ” and he gestures at his eyes.
“Oh Alexander,” Magnus says and his smile turns wry. “There are so many ways you could hurt me that my eyes are the least of my concern.” He says it with the same honesty Alec just offered him and it’s honest to god terrifying to have this kind of power over such a powerful being - but it doesn’t feel all-consuming, because he’s the same. They’re mirrors of a power balance.
It’d be so easy for Magnus to shatter him, but Magnus married him. Chose him and will keep choosing him.
Magnus talks about taking care of Alec as his right - not just something he wants to, but something he has the right to, and Alec thinks that maybe Magnus does understand the way Shadowhunters fall in love. There’ll never be anyone else for Alec, no one to fill the gaping wound he’d have if he didn’t have Magnus - nothing and no one to fill the void. He’d be walking wounded for the rest of his life.
And so will Magnus when Alec inevitably dies.
But Magnus chose this. Alec can feel however he want about Magnus facing loneliness, but it’s Magnus’ choice. Alec will keep choosing Magnus.
*
Rather naïvely, he’d thought that two weeks of uninterrupted time with Magnus on a secluded beach would dim his want and desperation for Magnus, but he looks across the table at him and he just wants with an intensity that burns.
Magnus is beautiful, always. He’s also the sexiest man Alec has ever seen and will ever see.
He wants more than just Magnus’ body. He wants his time and his thoughts and his brain and his kindness. “All you are,” he says one night like a confession and Magnus should be frightened, by all means, because Alec is scared of the magnitude of his sheer want, but Magnus moves closer even though a lesser man would buckle under the weight.
“All I am,” Magnus promises. “This feeble thing I am, it’s all yours.”
He has the rest of his life to convince Magnus of all the ways he’s enough and entirely wanted. He looks back at Magnus’ golden eyes and sees the same sentiment staring back at him.
*
They’re not always in agreement. Magnus says it’s a good thing.
They’re opinionated people, both of them, and they fundamentally agree on the bigger picture but not always on the means.
To Magnus, Magnus is an acceptable expendable piece in the grand scheme of things.
Alec respectfully and vocally disagrees. There is no life worth living if Magnus isn’t in it.
He can feel a low thrum of loss under his skin; Jace manages to hide the aching, gaping loss of Clary from him most of the time, but sometimes it almost tilts Alec sideways, still so fresh. Angel above, it’s not that Alec isn’t sympathetic to Jace’s loss, but Alec also knows this kind of loss intimately, and he point blank refuses to feel bad for the happiness he has now. He can reach out and Magnus is there, right within his reach, but it hasn’t always been this way, so he’ll cherish it. He can’t bring himself to feel even a little bit of regret for it.
Magnus loves him fiercely, desperately, terrifyingly. And it’s Alec’s. He’ll hold on to it with his greedy, unworthy, clumsy hands.
They sit on the sand, the tide moving to their feet and they don’t care. Magnus opens up in small increments and sometimes in chunks.
And it’s not all frantic love.
There’s more than one water fight; splashing and running in the water, Magnus cheating with subtle magic, tripping him up and trapping him, lying on the wet sand and getting soaked and not caring the slightest because Magnus’ grin tastes sweet and the weight of him feels safe and is a song in his heart.
There’s laughter. So much laughter. He has never laughed so much until he met Magnus.
Magnus is silly, sometimes, and he lets his brain run rampant with fantasy and Alec is learning to let go and laugh with it.
They laugh about sex, which is something Alec had never considered was a possibility before there ever was a Magnus to love him and teach him and cherish him.
“Sex is silly,” Magnus had said one of the very first times they’d had sex. “It’s silly and stupid and strange, and bodies do weird things, so don’t be afraid of a little laughter.”
It was true. It’s still true. Alec, whose body is a finely tuned weapon, has all of his life been nothing more than that, and he’s not ashamed of his body. It’s there, a necessity, a vessel, but Magnus loves it. Magnus loves looking at him, loves touching him, his touch that frequently takes a worshipping air, makes Alec gasp for breath, makes him want to hide and makes him want to preen at the same time.
He hopes he’ll never understand all the ways Magnus can surprise him and want him and teach him about his own body.
On the beach, sand getting into his swimming trunks, harsh against his spine and the soft skin of the backs of his knees, sand in Magnus’ hair but his kisses are cool with water, his touch gentle and wandering.
“You’re a mess,” he says to Magnus when they finally move back to the cabin sometime later. Magnus’ hair is disheveled, his mouth swollen and his eyes so bright.
“I look well-loved, I’d say,” Magnus returns, smile truer than ever. “Don’t I?”
“You look like you belong with me,” Alec says, feeling it ring true. He’s laid his claim on Magnus, put a ring on him, kissed him with the angels as their witnesses. He feels proud.
“I do,” Magnus says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It doesn’t matter how many people has loved Magnus in the past, what matters is that Alec will love him better.
“You do, my love, you do,” Magnus says and Alec hadn’t even realized he’d spoken the words out loud, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s true and it’s nothing he would keep from Magnus. And it’s because he’s learnt his lesson about keeping things from Magnus that he says, “I’ll go to the ends of the earth for you.”
Magnus softens. It’s the best way to describe it - Magnus holds himself in a very deliberate way that makes his entire existence appear effortless, but Alec has seen him at his most comfortable, and the way all of him just gentles makes affection clog his throat. Magnus is generous and kind and possibly the very best the Downworld will ever have to offer, but this version of him is all Alec’s.
Magnus’ entire face crinkles with his soft smile. “I opened my home to Shadowhunters, I went to war for them, I opened my heart to hurt again, I went to Edom to keep you safe. I think it’s clear that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Where you go, I’ll follow. Where you falter, I’ll lead. It’s always you.”
As far as love declarations go, this one is right near the top. Alec kisses him because if he tries to speak, he’s certain his voice will break under the weight of Magnus’ devotion.
And on their sixteenth day, Magnus looks at him in the sunset, fingers tangled in his hair, their legs interwoven. He says, “Do you want to go back with me and build our home?” No expectation in his voice, just a question, so if Alec said no, still not ready, he’d stay and be a land for Alec to explore in quiet and peace. He doesn’t feel ready, not really, but he’s had Magnus’ undivided attention for long enough to feel stable, at the very least.
He doesn’t feel so raw anymore, like his every vulnerability is on display. It’s like Magnus has cracked him right open, looked at all his jagged edges and soothed them.
They feel right.
“We could,” he says and reels him in. Magnus’ skin is littered with bitemarks; Alec has never claimed to be subtle. Any way he can stake his claim is good with him, and besides, it’s not like Magnus doesn’t return the favor in kind. He never knew himself to be this possessive until he met Magnus. And Magnus is possessive in his own right, too. Alec loves being claimed, to be part of a pair, of a unit. To belong with someone.
He loves having Magnus to himself.
He’s going to love showing Magnus off, with everyone knowing just who he goes home to, goes home with, will go to war for, who he loves.
“I’m ready,” he says and Magnus kisses him.
*