In City of Heavenly Fire, it’s mentioned that Alec had tried to contact Magnus many times after their breakup and this short one shot is based off of one of those attempts, inspired by the song ‘Need You Now’ by Lady Antebellum. (I’d recommend listening to it too).
This was the first fic that I ever published online and one of my first ever fic attempts form years ago and I never had the courage to post it here, but I figured, hey, might as well do it now.
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Alec watches as a single tear trails a solitary path down his cheek, dropping onto the photograph in his hands. It was one of the many pictures of him and Magnus laid out on the floor of his room in the Institute; both of them smiling into the camera, looking pathetically happy. Most of them were Magnus-instigated “selfies”, a mundane term which Alec had not known of before Magnus. There were a lot of things he hadn’t known before Magnus.
As the lone tear multiplies, Alec’s resolve crashes - allowing him to reach for the phone that had been temptingly close, calling to him. As he glimpses the picture of him and his Warlock that was his home screen, he finds himself wondering if Magnus was as broken as he was…did he think of him incessantly like Alec did of him? All day-long for the past two days and 18 hours Alec had replayed scenes and memories of him and Magnus, always coming back to the moment when Magnus had said it was over, beautiful cat eyes glistening. 'Aku Cinta Kamu’ he’d said…but it hadn’t been enough.
He stares at the name that was at the top of his contacts and he can’t bring himself to care that it was a quarter after one in the morning and that Magnus was probably already asleep. He taps the call button as he waits with baited breath to see if he’d answer. He doesn’t know what he would do if the High Warlock of Brooklyn didn’t answer.
* * *
Magnus felt the burn of the whiskey as it slipped down his throat. He had lost count of the number of shots he’d had and between each one he would catch himself staring at the door, wishing that a certain blue-eyed Shadowhunter would burst through it just like he used to, sometimes with a couple scratches and his bow in tow…But that couldn’t happen, because not even three days before, Magnus had broken up with him in an isolated subway tunnel. He remembers the anguished look in Alec’s cerulean eyes as he told him he loved him but that it just wasn’t enough. The mere thought of it compels him to reach out once again to the bottle of alcohol, in the hopes that it would somehow drown out the hurt. The fiery drink consumes his senses, a poor way of attempting to numb his pain.
He has a fleeting thought that, no matter how excruciating, he would rather hurt than feel nothing at all. As a Warlock who had lived for many hundreds of years, he knew that with each passing decade his ability to feel - and worse; his desire to feel- had been slowly deteriorating…until he met Alec. Something about the innocent and pure-hearted Shadowhunter had captivated him and made him feel like just maybe, life might actually still be worth living.
These thoughts flitter through his mind as he finds himself inadvertently reaching for his phone. He brings up Alec’s contact, still on his speed dial, the profile picture piercing him like a dagger as he spots the familiar hole in the left hand shoulder of the gray sweater that Alec had been wearing when Magnus had snapped a picture of his boyfriend while he slept, looking peaceful and wholly adorable, for once not on the alert. He gazes at the small smile curving his lips as he sleeps and it feels like a dream. Alec, Alec, everything was Alec. Alec as he was when he’d had his first ever kiss, Alec sharing his strength on Valentine’s ship, Alec kissing him with urgent determination in front of a crowd of both Shadowhunters and Downworlders, Alec standing in the middle of a fancy suite in Rome during their world tour, looking flustered and completely delectable. His Alexander.
Then, he remembers. He is no longer his.
All the reasons for their breakup, the betrayal, the hopelessness, the hurt, enter the forefront of his mind and instead of pressing call he hurls the phone at the wall, the glossy white paint chipping at the impact as the screen cracks and goes blank.
* * *
A few days later when he emerges from his stupor long enough to magic the expensive phone fixed with a spark of blue, he sees the missed call from Alec and ignores it, labeling his temporary lack of resolve that night as ‘the alcohol’s fault.’
