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“And you’re sure?” Alec asks hesitant and excited.
Catarina smiles fondly at him, dropping the vile in his palm and gripping his hand tight, “I wouldn’t be handing this to you if I wasn’t.”
Alec squeezes her hand in response. It had happened during the wedding reception, Catarina pulling Alec to the dance floor when he’d found the courage to broach the subject. He had meant it in Edom when he’d told Magnus he was never leaving him again; he just wasn’t quite sure how to live up to the promise. Catarina had looked stunned when Alec had dropped the idea of him becoming immortal so casually as they moved across the dance floor, but the shock quickly turned into glee when she realized just how serious Alec was about this.
The next day she’d seen them off on their honeymoon and whispered a quiet ‘I’ll look into it,’ into his ear as they said goodbye. He’d assumed that would mean it’d be months before she found anything that would safely do as he asked and if possible allow him to keep his runes, not that he’d receive a call from her the day they returned home to come by immediately. And now here it is a little vile filled with a few highly rare, but somehow attainable by Catarina, ingredients. The key to his forever with Magnus is no more than an ounce of liquid.
“I don’t know how I can ever repay you for this,” Alec says still holding onto her hand.
She smiles gratefully, “You don’t owe me a thing. You love my best friend the way he deserves to be loved and are about to make him the happiest man in the world once again, that’s all the payment I’ll ever need.”
Alec doesn’t know what to say to that. Knows he could promise he’ll love Magnus forever, treat him the way he should be treated forever, but she already knows all that so he just pulls her in to a tight loving hug much like the ones he gives his siblings, because that’s what Catarina is to him now. A sister.
Twenty minutes later Alec’s pacing outside of their loft the vial cradled safely in his hand. The subject of Alec’s mortality has been something they’ve discussed before; it’s involved fights and since their wedding a few much more calm conversations. Magnus had once quietly offered the prospect of finding a way to keep his magic but lose his immortality. Alec had shot it down immediately, quick to reassure as a crestfallen look fell on Magnus’ face.
“I won’t say that I don’t want to grow old with you, because I do, I want everything with you,” he’d said, it was the truth but he’d be damned if growing old together meant risking Magnus in any way. “But I won’t have you risking your magic again. Even if there was a way, there might not be a guarantee, it could be like with Lorenzo’s magic all over again, your body rejecting the change and I won’t let you risk yourself like that. I won’t let you die for me if there’s a way I can live for you.”
It was the first time Alec had truly let himself propose the idea of immortality for himself out loud in a non-dire situation. Magnus had frozen staring at Alec with this look of pure adoration and hope and love that had overwhelmed Alec completely. He didn’t say a word just kissed Alec with everything he had and in that moment, Alec knew for certain Magnus wanted forever just as much as he did.
Magnus knows about Alec’s admittedly in hindsight, irrational request that Simon turn him into a vampire so he could go to Edom, but Alec hadn’t told him about what he’d requested of Catarina. He didn’t want to get Magnus’ hopes up and have to shatter them if she came up with nothing.
But here’s the tangible proof that she not only found a maybe, but a guarantee. Telling Magnus about it leaves him the most nervous he’s ever been about anything in their relationship, usually so willing to dive in blindly head first that he didn’t grant himself time to be nervous.
The door clicks open behind Alec causing him to turn in his pacing pocketing the vial quickly, Magnus’ head pokes out with a smile.
“You know, Alexander, you live here now you don’t have to pace in the hallway, you can just walk in,” Magnus chuckles.
Alec rolls his eyes at his husband. Husband! His mind screams, still not over the simple novelty of the word. He leans in to press a kiss to his cheek as he slips into the loft, Magnus shutting the door behind him.
“How’s Cat?” Magnus asks pulling Alec along by the hand to the couch. Their living room is still a bit of disaster Magnus’ penchant for tossing things wherever until he needs to come back to them later on clear display, bags with gifts for their family are strewn about with suitcases, a few empty boxes have been tossed to the side where Magnus had opened a handful of wedding gifts that came in the mail while they were gone. “Were you able to help her out with whatever she needed?”
“Sort of,” Alec says as they settle on the couch, Magnus lifting Alec’s arm to rest over his shoulders. “It was more her helping me with something.”
Magnus lays a hand on Alec’s thigh tilting his head to look at him, brow raised in question.
Alec shifts, taking a deep calming breath before turning so that he and Magnus face each other head on. He takes Magnus’ hands in his, entwining their fingers together. It’s as if Magnus can sense his nervousness, rubbing his thumbs along Alec’s soothingly. The gesture grounds him, does exactly what Magnus was likely hoping it would do as he settles, looking up into his husbands’ eyes to tell him a truth that will change the course of their lives.
“You remember in Edom when I told you I was never leaving you again?” he says, starting with a memory that’s both terrifying and relieving all at once.
“Of course,” Magnus says with a soft smile. “You made it pretty clear you were ready to begin our royal reign in Edom if that’s what it came to.”
Alec smiles back, “Yeah I was. It may not have come to that, but it didn’t make the fact that I never wanted to leave your side again any less true. So, I asked Catarina about something at our wedding,” he pauses letting go of one of Magnus’ hands to retrieve the vile of pale blue liquid from his jacket pocket. Magnus breath hitches ever so lightly when he sees the vile eyes moving back and forth between where it lays in Alec’s palm and his husbands’ eyes.
“I asked her to look into a way for me stay, forever, and if possible, keep my runes,” Alec continues. “Though that second part wasn’t necessarily required.”
“Alexander,” Magnus whispers softly, reverently his eyes looking a little watery.
“I know you’d love me no less without my runes the same way I didn’t love you any less without magic,” Alec says truthfully, secure in their love to know it to be true. “Not that it matters, cause this,” he says lifting up the small vial. “Will let me keep them and let me stay with you, forever.”
“Immortal,” Magnus says picking up the vial from Alec’s palm with his free hand, the other clasping even tighter to Alec’s. He’s quiet for a while eyes never leaving the small vial of liquid.
“I know we’ve never directly talked about it, about real legitimate options, more in if only sort of terms,” Alec says piercing through the quiet. “But that’s just because I never wanted to get your hopes up if there wasn’t a way, I couldn’t set you up for that kind of heartbreak.”
Magnus finally looks up from the vial placing it back in Alec’s hand before moving his hand to Alec’s neck fingers caressing through the hair at his nape like he always does. It’s a reverent touch that never ceases to calm Alec and to send a pleasant shiver down his spine.
“My Alexander,” Magnus says on a whisper that turns more serious. “Are you-“
“Sure?” Alec finishes for him, anticipating the question. “Magnus, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. You and me, what I want for us, it’s the one thing I can always be certain of. I’ve been thinking about this in some ways since the day we met and every day since the idea of ever having to leave you, ever having to break your heart by leaving even if it was out of my control became less of an option for me. I know it won’t be easy, I know I’ll have to watch people I love pass by, but I won’t ever be alone and neither will you. I want this, I want you, for as long as you’ll have me, which I’m kind of hoping is forever.”
He doesn’t bother mentioning the change and the progress they could make and the lives they could lead with centuries ahead of them instead of just a few decades, he doesn’t have to. Because while those are important factors behind Alec’s decision as well, the most important piece of it is Magnus, always Magnus. A tear slips from Magnus’ eye when Alec finishes, he moves his hand from Alec’s neck hastily wiping it away.
“Alexander Gideon Lightwood-Bane,” Magnus says like his name is a prayer moving impossibly closer to him, eyes still brimming with tears that are threatening to spill over. Happy tears though, Alec notes. “You’re the only one I’ll ever want. Forever.”
Alec smiles, bright and loving before leaning in to kiss his husband. They’ve kissed hundreds, probably thousands of times by now, but this kiss somehow feels different, monumental much like their first kiss at the end of an aisle Alec can’t believe he walked up in the first place and their first kiss as husbands at the opposite end of that aisle where he was always meant to be. This kiss is the start of another new chapter, a chapter that will have no end in sight.
They pull back, another one of the tears Magnus is trying to keep at bay slipping out.
“How do you keep doing that?” he says wiping the tear away.
“Doing what?” Alec says genuinely curious and uncertain to what his husband means.
“Making me the happiest man ever to live and then one upping yourself,” he laughs pressing his forehead to Alec’s.
Alec chuckles, “I think this one’s gonna be pretty hard to beat.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way,” Magnus says pulling back a bit. Alec let’s go of Magnus’ hand unscrewing the tight cap from the vial. “Wait,” Magnus says gripping his wrist as he’s about to put the vial to his lips. For a millisecond Alec worries he’s changed his mind, but Magnus’ hesitation isn’t about if he wants this, but what it means for someone else. “Shouldn’t you talk to your brother about this first?”
“I already did, this morning before I went to Catarina’s, it’s my decision, not his and he knows that, not that that matters because we’re good,” Alec says easily. It’d been a tough conversation to have with his Parabatai so shortly after losing Clary, and while he could see the twinge of sadness in Jace he only felt happiness radiating through their shared rune. Jace understood him, understood his need to do this and would never say a word against it, even if he had it wouldn’t have stopped Alec from taking this leap. Isabelle had been there for the conversation as well, the tears in her eyes as he explained what he intended to do nothing but joyous, he gets the strong feeling when he tells his mother she’ll react similarly.
“But Alexander you already almost lost him once,” Magnus says referring to the ordeal with the owl. How Alec had almost been forced to kill his own brother. Now one day he’ll lose him, lose that bond, but this is different and he says just that.
“I love my brother, but there was always a pretty high chance he dies first anyways,” Alec says truthfully, Jace’s recklessness would never totally fade no matter how much he changes. “Everything that happened with the owl was harder because I would have had to kill him, not get to watch him live his life out. Losing him one day, it won’t be easy, but I’ll survive it. As long as I have you, I can survive anything.”
“I love you,” Magnus says dropping his hand from Alec’s wrist. “I don’t feel like that remotely covers it, but, Gods do I love you.”
Alec understands. The simple words carry so much weight, yet don’t feel like they encompass all that they are to one another, but Alec knows just how deep this thing they have runs. How it lives in their hearts and their bodies and their minds and their souls. Connected and bound at every level just by existing at the same time, in the same space.
“I love you too,” he says with every emotion he feels for Magnus pouring out of the three words. He puts the vial to his lips tilting it back and down in one go just as Catarina had instructed. For a second there’s just silence, neither him nor Magnus say a word, nothing feels any different. Then a static shock of electricity runs through his entire body, his veins alight in the same shade as the liquid for a moment before fading back to their regular hue. His heart beats at rapid pace, then calms.
Magnus lifts his free hand placing it on Alec’s chest over his heart, the beat steady and regular now.
“How does it feel?” he whispers his thumb rubbing small circles into the fabric of Alec’s shirt.
It feels the same in a lot of ways, his heartbeat the same, the blood in his veins isn’t more noticeable or anything like that. But somewhere in his very soul he can feel a shift, a cosmic change that inexplicably tells him it worked.
“Right,” he says, simple and to the point. “It feels right.”
Magnus falls into him wrapping both arms around his neck fingers trailing along his back. Alec grips his husband’s waist tight and steady holding Magnus as close to his body as he physically can in this moment and every moment in the wide expanse of their lives that lies ahead.