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Magnus stares into the rushing water below him, his thoughts silent for the first time in what might be an eternity. The quiet in his mind is the only blessing he has in this moment, and he’s certain it’s no angel’s doing.
What angel would bless a creature with the blood of a demon, especially when they’ve ignored his suffering for so long already?
All they have to do is wait a bit longer and he’ll no longer be a blight on this world. One less monster in a world full of them.
He leans forward another inch. Not enough to topple into the river; just enough to get a better view. The rocks in the middle of the river are mostly submerged, the water high from the rain that’s been plaguing London for the last several weeks. Not that London is ever particularly dry.
Why has he been cursed with immortality, when everyone he loves is doomed to turn away from him? When it’s only a matter of time before—
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”
An unfamiliar voice rings out through the night, fury in every syllable.
He turns halfway to see a Shadowhunter storming towards him, eyes blazing and just as wild as his hair is. “You get down from there this instant.”
Magnus stares at him, unfeeling except a miniscule spark of curiosity at why anyone — much less a Shadowhunter who doesn’t even know him — would care about him standing on the ledge of a bridge.
He says nothing.
Perhaps he should be annoyed? It seems the universe should at least give him a modicum of peace for at least his last moments in the living world, but perhaps that is his curse.
It doesn’t matter, though — the man reaches him, snatching his wrist and yanking him down. The man steadies him with one hand, then slaps him hard across the face before yanking him into a fierce kiss and an embrace like iron bars.
Magnus blinks.
What?
Why is this Shadowhunter hugging him?
“You aren’t allowed to leave me like that, you bastard,” The man’s voice cracks and his arms tremble around Magnus, so hard he can scarcely understand how the stranger’s grip doesn’t fall apart entirely. “You think I could live without you? Don’t you dare make me do that.”
The man pulls back and Magnus stares, bewildered, at the tears glimmering in the light of a street lamp.
“What would I tell the others? What would I tell the boys?”
Magnus shakes his head helplessly, unable to figure out what this man — this strange, beautiful man — is talking about. He should be furious at the gall of this strange Shadowhunter, but he only feels empty and confused.
“I don’t understand.”
The man’s brow furrows in concern as he stares into Magnus’s eyes, then presses their foreheads carefully together. “You don’t have a fever,” he murmurs. “Did you get hit with something?”
“I — what?”
The man shakes his head and pulls away, shifting to let one arm wrap around Magnus’s back, hand moving in gentle, soothing circles. His eyes flicker up and down Magnus’s body, taking in his suit and cravat in an instant.
“Come on, darling, let’s go see Cat. You’re worrying me,” the man murmurs, the last dregs of his fury draining away to leave only concern and, somehow, if Magnus isn’t hallucinating this entire encounter, love.
He knows Cat?
Who is this?
He allows the man to guide him away from the side of the bridge, opening a portal to Catarina’s and following obediently.
“Magnus?” She asks, looking up in surprise from her book. She’s lounging on a couch in a dressing gown, hair down around her shoulders. “Is everything alright? Who’s this?”
Magnus has no answer for her, and the Shadowhunter at his side blinks briefly in an instant of confusion before he shakes it off.
“Cat, I think something’s wrong with him. I found him on the side of a bridge, and I—” His hand clenches tightly around Magnus’s, “—Please.”
Cat’s eyes widen and she stands up, setting her book aside in an instant as she moves forward, magic swirling around her hands as she presses them to Magnus’s head. She stares intently into his eyes for a long minute before she pulls away.
“I’m not finding any signs of a curse or demonic influence,” She says at last, “Thank you for finding him — Magnus is a good friend.”
Another small frown of confusion passes over the Shadowhunter’s face, but he nods and forces a small smile instead.
“Where’s Madzie? She doing okay?”
Catarina gives him a small, confused smile. “Madzie?”
The Shadowhunter nods, looking around curiously. “Yeah. Is she having a sleepover? I can’t say I’m sorry she’s not here for this mess.” He laughs without humor.
“I’m afraid I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”
“You—” The Shadowhunter doesn’t finish his sentence, just stares bewilderedly, “Okay, what’s going on?”
He looks between Cat and Magnus, silent as he takes them in and then examines the apartment with a sharp gaze.
His eyes widen.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Magnus asks. He still feels dull and empty, his chest aching like there’s an actual hole in it, but the part of him that never stops asking questions has started waking up a bit.
“I wonder how badly I just screwed up the timeline.” The Shadowhunter mutters under his breath. He turns so he can thump his head down on Magnus’s shoulder. “Whatever. I don’t regret it and anyone who wants to harass me for pulling you off that bridge can file a complaint, which I will either ignore or set on fire.”
“You’re from the future,” Magnus realizes.
The Shadowhunter nods against his shoulder. “Max probably had another accident. Most kids wet the bed when they have nightmares. Ours teleports me through time and space.”
Magnus blinks. “Did you just say ours?”
“Yup.”
“That’s — are we married in the future?” Magnus asks, bewildered.
If they’re raising a child together, then surely they must be, but he can’t see how it’s possible. Mortals are so terribly offended by the idea of men living together at all, much less raising children. And Shadowhunters are often the worst of the lot, with their devotion to their Angel and the insistence that they have to pass on their blood.
They would undoubtedly be worse without the Mortal Cup and the ability to make more of them, but there’s still the fact that the transformation has always killed more people than it’s actually turned into Shadowhunters. And then there’s still the question of whether the ones who live can actually bear Runes.
The Shadowhunter hums. “Soon. I’m getting close with the appeals process.”
Which means that this Shadowhunter intends to marry him by Clave law, not just in a civil union or by declaring they’re married to anyone who’ll listen. He wants to be married — to Magnus — in the eyes of his people and his Angel.
Magnus feels dizzy, head spinning as though he can’t quite get enough air. “You’re… changing the law? For me?”
The Shadowhunter lifts his head, smiling so softly that Magnus’s heart aches for an entirely new reason. “I’m changing the world for you, Magnus.”
And that’s — oh.
Oh, that’s something Magnus thought he would never get, is someone who loves him so fiercely they would make a declaration like that, like it’s as simple a truth as — as the sky is blue or fire is hot.
I’m changing the world for you, like it’s a fundamental truth of reality.
Overwhelmed and at a loss for words, Magnus pulls the Shadowhunter whose name he still doesn’t know into a hot, searing kiss because he needs to do something and can’t for the life of him think of anything better.
The Shadowhunter hums softly into the kiss and returns it, clearly pleased. When he pulls back, that love Magnus saw earlier is there again, overwhelming in the best sort of way. Then his eyes harden.
“I love you, Magnus Bane, and if I ever find you standing on the edge of a bridge, or a cliff, or anything else again, I’m going to kill you myself, go to Edom again to drag your ass back to life, and then do the whole thing all over. I’ll enlist Cat to make sure you never have another orgasm as long as you live. I will tell Lorenzo Rey your deepest, darkest, most humiliating secrets, do you understand me.”
Magnus swallows and nods, pushing down the inappropriate curl of heat in his belly.
The Shadowhunter stays still, staring intently into Magnus’s eyes as he searches for any hint of a lie, any indication that Magnus might try to kill himself again.
He doesn’t find it.
Magnus is too intrigued by this man, too enraptured by the thought of go to Edom again to want to do anything that means he won’t be there when time finally catches up to the man before him.
Finally satisfied, the tight, angry lines in the Shadowhunter’s face ease away and that gentle smile comes back.
He leans forward to press a kiss to Magnus’s temple, so soft he can barely feel the brush of lips against his head.
“I love you,” the Shadowhunter murmurs, wrapping Magnus in a hug just as tender as the kiss. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
Magnus nods. “I won’t. Tell me your name?”
The Shadowhunter huffs a laugh into his hair, but Magnus gets the feeling it’s at himself.
“Alec, but you call me Alexander.”
“Alexander,” Magnus repeats, “What an appropriate name for my savior.”
Alexander chuckles again and pulls back without releasing Magnus so he can look over at Cat.
“Sorry to interrupt your evening,” he tells her.
“Yes,” She says dryly, turning a page in her book, “How dare you save my best friend’s life? Shame on you. Tut tut. Magnus, do it again and I’m either going to let this one do what he threatened or I’ll have Ragnor come up with something.”
Magnus winces. “I won’t. I’m sorry.”
She nods and looks up, mischief in her eyes. “Excellent. Your photographs are ready, by the way.”
“Photographs?” Magnus asks, puzzled.
They hadn’t been posing, and the light in the room isn’t good enough for proper exposure, and there’s also the fact that he certainly hadn’t noticed her preparing a camera.
Sure enough, though, there are several photographs on the table beside Catarina, immortalizing Alexander’s besotted expression. The camera she apparently used is in the corner of the room, though if it was there when they arrived Magnus didn’t notice. Not that he was in any state of mind to notice, of course, but regardless.
He must have been truly out of it not to notice Catarina even getting up to take them at all.
“Oh. That’s quite good,” Magnus murmurs as he examines the tiny portraits, “How did you manage the exposure in such dim light?”
Dim light for photographs, at least.
Catarina rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “I do have magic, you know. It makes things quite a bit easier.”
That’s fair enough, he supposes.
“Thank you, Catarina. They’re lovely.”
“They’re amazing. Thanks, Cat.” Alexander fingers one of the photographs and smiles again.
Her lips curl up in a small, pleased smile and she dips her head. “Of course. Now, who is Madzie? You asked about her before you got distracted and I must admit, I’m terribly curious.”
“She’s your daughter,” Alexander explains, pulling an odd, flat device from his pocket and tapping at it.
He tilts the device toward Magnus to reveal a precious little girl in a dress the color of Catarina’s skin, smiling delightedly from her mother’s arms. There’s something on her neck that Magnus can’t quite make out, but if he had to guess he would say it’s likely her warlock mark. Gills probably, given the location.
Magnus coos. “She’s adorable.”
Alexander smiles again and turns the device so Catarina can see, her eyes lighting up at the image.
“She really is, and she adores you, Cat.”
Alexander pulls back his… thing, and taps at it again until he turns it to show Magnus a new image, this one of two boys, one with skin just a little lighter than Madzie’s and the other with bright blue skin just a few shades off from Catarina. The older boy, with the dark skin, looks somewhere around five years old and the blue one is still a toddler.
“These are our boys. Max and Rafe. We got Max when he was a baby, but we only found Rafe a few months ago. They’re already inseparable.”
Magnus coos again but reluctantly allows Alexander to shift the device so Catarina can see this photograph as well.
“They’re lovely,” Catarina tells them.
“They’re great — when Max isn’t sneezing the loft upside down, at least. We still aren’t sure how he managed that one.” He gives Magnus a wry amused grin. “This is not the strangest thing Max has done. It’s not even the weirdest place he’s sent me.”
“And what is the strangest thing he’s done?” Magnus asks.
Alexander doesn’t even hesitate before he says with a shudder, “He turned me into a woman for three days.”
Magnus chokes on his laughter, already able to see Alexander’s horrified expression when he’d noticed the change.
“Well, okay, it probably wasn’t the weirdest,” Alexander admits, “But it was definitely the most unpleasant. The weirdest one was probably the thing with the aliens.”
“Aliens?” Magnus asks hesitantly.
“They were asking about the Earth’s albedo or something. I told them it wasn’t my department — I have my hands full with demons, does it look like I have the time or resources to deal with global warming?”
If Alexander is making a joke, he has the best poker face Magnus has seen in two and a half centuries. Magnus has no idea what to say.
“You aren’t even phased by that,” Catarina comments, impressed.
“As long as he keeps it to confusing stuff and not dangerous stuff, he’s fine. He’ll grow out of it.” Alexander pauses. “Probably, at least. If he doesn’t, he’ll at least learn how to deal with the chaos.”
Catarina looks at Magnus. “Keep this one.”
Magnus nods. “I’m quite lucky, aren’t I?”
Anyone who can handle that much magical chaos is someone Magnus wants to keep around, and not just because he’d be helpful in a pinch.
“I really am,” Magnus’s own voice says from behind him, and he turns to see another version of himself stepping out of a crackling portal. Magnus eyes him hungrily — his hair is fabulous.
“How long do I have to wait until that’s in vogue?”
“Another century or so,” Future Magnus grins, tilting his head so he can greet Alexander with a kiss. “Hello, darling. Have a nice trip?”
Alexander hugs Future Magnus just as tightly as he’d embraced Magnus himself a few minutes ago. “If you ever try to kill yourself again, I will keep the threats I made.”
Future Magnus’s eyebrows shoot up in immediate alarm and he asks, “Ah — what threats were those?”
Alexander hums and doesn’t answer — Future Magnus turns to the Present Magnus and Catarina, clearly trying not to panic. “No, really, what did he threaten you with? Alexander can be extremely creative and I’d really rather not have to find out what he threatened you with the hard way.”
“Well, then don’t make me,” Alexander says, tone deceptively mild. His eyes go dark and serious as he cups his partner’s face. “As a wise man once told me, don’t push me away when things get crazy.”
Magnus’s eyes soften — he didn’t even know he could look like that, so in love that he would do anything for the person he’s fallen for — and he covers Alexander’s hand with his own.
“I promise, darling.”
Alexander nods in relief and kisses Future Magnus again before he turns to the others. “I’ll see you around, then. Keep him safe for me, will you Cat?”
“Of course,” she promises, so immediately and without hesitation that tears spring to Magnus’s eyes without him willing them there.
Lilith, how did he ever find such amazing people? How could he have forgotten about Cat and Ragnor and how much they care for him?
“And you,” Alexander says, focusing on Magnus, “Don’t push her away. Let her help you.”
Magnus nods, swallowing the hard lump in his throat as he realizes that he’s going to be alone again in just a few minutes. “A century, you said?”
Future Magnus looks at him with a depth of understanding that can only come from being in the same place as the person you’re talking to. “You’ll make it. Just don’t give up. It’ll be worth it in the end.”
He forces himself to nod, to watch as Alexander follows the future version of himself back through the glowing portal even though that’s the last thing he wants to do. He wants to call Alexander back and cling until he no longer feels like he’s falling apart.
“Oh, sit down, you idiot.” Catarina smiles sadly when he blinks dumbly at her. “What? Did you think I was going to let you run off on your own like this?”
Oh. Oh.
How could he have been such a fool? The tears come back, welling in his eyes until a few slip out. He has no doubt that they smear the kohl lining his eyes, but Cat doesn’t care about that sort of thing when they’re alone; she never has.
Magnus smiles a shaky, watery smile and sits down beside one of his two closest friends in the world. “Thank you.”
Cat squeezes his hand gently and leans into his side. “Of course. Let me know if you want to talk about it.”
He doesn’t, not right now, but he will later on. It’s one of the things he’s learned helps even when it hurts, but his friends are strong enough to hold him up when he needs them to.
“I will.”
He summons a book for himself, and two cups of tea, and allows himself to take comfort in Cat’s presence.