Thinking about the days where Magnus can’t get out of bed.
When the weight of time is honest on his shoulders, when it’s not just the memory of the past few lifetimes occupying his mind, but it’s the full thousand years of his existence pressing down on him at the same time to paralyze him against his bed, cheek tight to the pillow and immovable. When he feels exactly like the immortal man he is, a man who’s survived plagues and wars and the rise and fall of nations, watching as people’s short lives glanced briefly against his, only to disappear moments later while he remains, ever breathing.
These days are unpredictable. They’re infrequent. But still, they happen.
On mornings like this, he opens his damned golden eyes and automatically curls into himself. He aches to fall back asleep, but instead he feels like his head is on fire, burning and flickering and painful. He just – can’t shut his brain off, no matter how hard he tries, which means that he lies there, still as a rockface, while his thoughts cycle through names and faces and things he remembers, things he doesn’t. He can’t stop wondering at the mistakes he’s made, the million deeds he could’ve done that might’ve saved the lives of innocent passersby. He thinks of his mother’s smile, the dagger in her stomach, his stepfather’s face of horror, and Asmodeus’ oily grin. He thinks of blood on his hands, and imagines what he could’ve accomplished if he hadn’t wasted decades away on drinks and parties, wallowing in heartbreak instead of doing something better with his life. He thinks of every person he’s let down and disappointed and hated himself for the sheer volume of bodies that group represents.
He thinks – how much longer can he go on like this? Is life meant to be one long muddled mess interspersed with pinpoints of blinding joy? This blessing, this curse, does it destine him to being among the last beings on earth, one cynical deathless creature next to another, all halfway wobbling between the desire for closure and survival?
He has no answer. He never does.
On mornings like this, Magnus lies there, unblinking, staring into dark corners. The curtains stay closed from dawn until dusk, the only sound in the room his breath, slow and erratic, the only movement in his head, thoughts flying at a million miles a minute.
Alec – Alec knows. He knows because he’ll have texted Magnus in the morning; short, sweet messages, or requests for a lunch date, or anything, and all he’ll have received in turn is, “Not today.”
That’s enough. Alec knows what it means.
Which means that when he returns home, he enters the loft quietly, dropping his things onto the sofa, toeing his boots off by the door. He goes to the kitchen and makes chamomile tea, piping hot and floral, putting it in Magnus’ favorite mug – the one Madzie painted with purple polka dots and a crooked heart with a smiley face inside.
Alec walks into the bedroom, socked feet silent on the hardwood, and from where Magnus lies, he sees sweet hazel eyes soften, that wide, soft mouth flattening into a concerned line. Neither say anything, though, and as Alec passes behind him, all Magnus can detect is the noise of that mug getting set on the nightstand before his body dips along with the mattress as Alec wordlessly wraps himself around Magnus, arms on his waist, nose in his hair, fitting himself into all the hollow spaces Magnus has created.
“Is this okay?” he asks every time. His breath is warm on the back of Magnus’ neck, the realest thing he’s felt all day.
“Y-yes.” Because it’s nice, that there’s someone else here. Someone here for him.
How long they stay like that, Magnus cannot say. From the first time to the tenth time, it always passes in a long, excruciating blur, but what he knows is this: that each time, when he finally feels like that constriction on his lungs lifts, when his thoughts settle themselves, when he comes back to himself and feels himself lighten and lift… that Alec is always there to greet him.
A silent, comforting presence, supporting him all the while. The best man he’s ever met, his partner in every way that matters.
“Do you want to talk?” Alec asks him in return, voice rough from disuse.
Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. Always, though, Magnus is exhausted in the aftermath of that ordeal, feeling weary and tired and weak – but better, too, for having his husband here waiting, the brightest point of happiness he’s ever experienced in his many, many years.
“Thank you, Alexander,” he says.
“Never,” Alec answers, kissing his shoulder. “I love you.”
And in the aftermath of days like this, long and broken and brutal in his mind… it’s as simple as that.
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