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Vampires were cold. Magnus knew this. They did not have blood of their own, did not, in a sense, have life at all, and so—they were cold. Like a freshly dug grave. Still, and stiff, and statuesque, and it didn’t bother Magnus, because that was just what they were. Would-be corpses given miraculous second life. He had never been bothered by the natural way of things.
Camille was cold in a different way.
She wore it like a mantle, made it a part of her very being, a shield against the warm and pulsing heart of the world. A knife to cut through it.
It was just Magnus’s misfortune that he dwelled in that heart, that he needed that blood to stay alive.
She always fed so messily, letting the blood dribble all over her lips and down her chin. Debauched and animalistic. Magnus watched her drink, wine glass held loosely in her hand, all regal dominance.
She tipped the glass toward him, teeth flashing red. “You want some?”
Magnus shook his head, and she laughed, high and tinkling.
“Have some wine, dear. You look rather bereft.”
Magnus had some wine.
He watched her swan around the apartment, barefoot, her dress dragging at her ankles. She was so beautiful, so beautiful and full of darkness, like an eclipse. He couldn’t look away from her.
She held out a hand. “Come dance with me, darling.”
They danced. There was no music except that which Magnus hummed, soft and low. He had a nice voice, or so she’d always said.
She pressed herself to his chest, and he wrapped himself around her, hands to her shoulder blades. And they swayed in slow circles that gradually grew faster, her steps becoming manic and quick as she tugged him around the living room.
Feeding always put her in a good mood, the lifeblood of another creature crashing through her still body. Before he knew it she’d thrown the wine glass off somewhere and buried her hands in his hair instead, pulling him down into a kiss.
Camille’s kisses were bruising and hungry and her lips tasted of blood. Magnus gave himself to it, letting her pull him in the direction of the bedroom, stumbling to keep up.
She pulled him down onto the bed and he followed her with greedy hands, tugging open the front of her dress. Fresh blood brought a temporary warmth to her skin, an infusion of life, and he ran his hands lightly over her shoulders, collarbones, breasts, feeling that warmth, the momentary softness of her.
She cupped his face in warm hands. “Don’t get distracted, baby. I want to feel that talented mouth of yours.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, and then tugged at it. How quickly, Magnus thought, her caresses turned into demands. But he obliged, pressing his lips to her stomach, dragging them lower.
She threw her head back with a moan. “Oh, perfect, you’re so perfect, don’t you dare stop.”
And Magnus wanted her approval. He hated himself for it, but he still wanted it.
He didn’t stop.
The moment after sex was when he could have her, briefly, press his face into her neck and hold tight, still the restless hunger of his skin. “Desperate,” Camille called it. Magnus didn’t care. Soon the bed would be empty again—he needed to take what he could get.
Tonight she was in a giving mood. She stroked his hair, his shoulders, his back, pressing strength back into atrophying flesh. “So good to me, my Magnus,” she crooned. “Be a dear and turn out the lights?”
Magnus snapped his fingers, and it was done.
In the darkness, where his fantasies rose to subsume reality, Magnus could almost pretend that the phantom thrum of stale blood through her veins was a real heartbeat.
She was beautiful in the mornings—well, her mornings, evenings really—the fading light of dusk draped over her like silk, the cascade of her hair over her shoulders. She was like a different person, then, less hard-edged.
Magnus could never manage to make himself fully nocturnal, but sometimes he’d crawl into bed at sunset just to wake up beside her, catch her in that brief moment when she’d open her eyes and smile with real warmth, and he could almost see the woman he thought must have once existed before the worldly bitterness took over.
She’d reach out and caress his cheek, and he’d lean into her touch, cold though it was, and relish in the closeness of her, a closeness he didn’t have to fear losing to age or death.
“Magnus,” she’d whisper. “My Magnus.”
Her morning voice had a slight scratchiness to it that he loved, like she’d been singing too much the night before. He let it soak into him, took in as much as he could before the usual crooning pretension settled in.
Of course, her hard edge was one of the things that had first attracted him to her. The way she cast off the world like it could never wrong her if she wronged it first.
He’d needed a bit of that, then, but he could never quite manage it, was always “sobbing over orphans” as she put it. “They’re just going to die anyway,” she’d say whenever he tried to bring home a stray. “Don’t drag yourself down with them.”
Maybe that was why Camille always seemed to float above the world, while Magnus was drowning in it. She hated his clinging, but he always felt like if he let go for a second, he would sink.
Magnus hated himself when he got like this. When everything became too loud and he couldn’t breathe. He forced himself to continue buttoning his shirt, to knot his tie around his throat, avoiding his reflection in the mirror.
Camille stood up from where she was finishing her makeup at the vanity table. She took one look at him and laughed. “Are you crying? Over what?”
Magnus swallowed hard, wiping at his eyes. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s even worse, then.” She strode past him towards the door. “Are you ready or what?”
Magnus shrugged on his jacket and buttoned it. “I’m ready.”
Normally Magnus liked parties, but once in a while everything just got too much and he needed to escape.
Tonight was one of those nights.
So he found himself in a side hallway, leaning against the wall, breathing hard, fingers pressed to his eyes to stop the tears from falling.
God, he was pathetic.
“Are you crying again?”
Magnus blinked, and she was standing before him, harsh and rigid in her sharply-cut dress, arms crossed.
“Just leave me be,” he muttered. “Go back to the party.”
She took a step closer, and Magnus felt a flare of hope that maybe she would stay, ask what was wrong. But she just said, “Everyone will be wondering where you are.”
“Let them wonder,” Magnus said. “This is your crowd, anyhow.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
Camille huffed. “Are you going to be pissy all night?”
Magnus swiped at his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Well, don’t. It’s no fun.”
Magnus looked at her, wondering where the sympathetic woman who had once pulled him off a bridge had gone, if she’d ever existed at all.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and hated himself for it.
Camille sighed. “I just want you to have a good time. Don’t you want to have a good time?”
Magnus supposed he did, not that he was having one right now. “Yes.”
“Then come on.” She took his hand and dragged him back out into the ballroom.
The room was loud and crowded and it itched at his skin. And he knew he was weak for being so affected, pathetic even, Camille had confirmed it often enough—but she also let him press himself up to her in the center of the dance floor, let him tuck his face into her neck to hide.
Who else would do that?
Magnus sat alone in the dark for a long time, after. After she’d left. Well, after he’d left her, technically, after he’d realized far too late that he should. But as she’d stormed out she’d spat something furious and biting, something about how he’d realize his mistake, come crawling back. So he was having a hard time feeling anything but a sort of miserable longing and resignation.
He wanted to get up. The floor was cold and hard, and he was shaking, and he should definitely go make some tea, go to bed maybe. But he couldn’t move. She always did that to him, stole all his movement.
Her voice echoed in his head: “No one will ever love you like I do!”
Wasn’t that a pathetic truth? And how lonely would his bed be without her in it, without even the subtle warmth of her just-fed skin?
Magnus swallowed hard, clenching his fingers in the fabric of his pants. He hadn’t considered it, had he? He’d only been thinking, if I have to feel like this for one more second it’s going to eat me alive, and he hadn’t thought of how the after, the loneliness, would consume him all the same.
He was just about to untangle his frozen limbs, get up, run after her with apologies on his lips even though he hated to prove her right, when he heard the door crack open, and footsteps in the entryway.
“Magnus?”
Magnus froze. That was… Ragnor.
He knew he needed to get up, he couldn’t let Ragnor see him like this, so… broken down. But he couldn’t move from his spot pressed up against the wall.
Ragnor came around the corner. He had Cat beside him. She was wearing her hair in braids now, and Ragnor’s beard was longer than Magnus remembered. It felt like ages since he’d last seen them.
Ragnor sighed when he saw Magnus on the floor. He took Magnus by the arm and hoisted him to his feet. “Come on. Up you get.”
Magnus let Ragnor pull him up and lead him towards the sitting room. He struggled to maintain his composure. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”
“We decided enough was enough,” Cat said, wrapping her shawl around Magnus’s shoulders and pushing him down into an armchair. She looked around at the empty flat. “It seems so did you. I hope that bi—” she bit her lip, took a breath to steady herself, “—that she isn’t coming back.”
Magnus looked down at his hands, playing with the fringed edge of Cat’s shawl. “No. I don’t think so.”
Ragnor crouched in front of him. His normally grouchy expression had ceded into something serious and sad. “Magnus, listen to me. You made the right call, sending her away. I know it doesn’t feel like it now—”
Magnus shook his head violently, willing his tears not to fall. “No, I— I don’t know, maybe I should go after her, apologize—”
“No!” Cat said sharply, at the same time as Ragnor said, “Apologize for what?”
And Magnus didn’t even know. It just seemed to be all he did with Camille. Mess up, ask for too much. Apologize.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Cat said, more softly this time. She magicked up a cup of tea and put it in his hands. The warmth of the ceramic was grounding. “Stay here, with us. We’re long overdue for a drink together, don’t you think?”
Magnus finally looked up at the two of them. Here, despite how he had been ignoring them, pushing them aside.
“Yes,” he said, “we are.”
The last thing Magnus had expected of Alec Lightwood—Shadowhunter, soldier, expert in parade rest and emotional repression—was for him to be a hugger.
But the moment they left the wedding, finding shelter down a side hallway and away from prying eyes, Alec caught him in a hug, pulling Magnus tight to his chest like he couldn’t help but hold him, now that he was allowed to.
Magnus froze in his arms, stunned, well-aware he wasn’t reciprocating but unable to even try. And Alec was a wonderful hugger, Magnus wanted to rest in his arms, he really should be hugging him back but he just didn’t know how.
After a moment, Alec released him. Magnus mourned the loss of him.
“Are you okay?”
When Magnus met his gaze, Alec was looking at him with a scrutinizing expression. Magnus finally managed to smile at him, relieved that it was genuine.
“I’m great. You’re… great.”
He cringed, but Alec smiled back.
“That was…” he shook himself, looking back towards the chapel, “intense. But it was good, right?”
Magnus’s smile softened as he looked at him, this man who had just risked everything to come into himself. He wanted to give him everything. “It was incredible, Alexander.”
Alec grinned. “Can I hug you again?”
Magnus didn’t expect Alec to actually grab onto him.
He’d told him off, and with a pang of regret he’d started to walk away, thinking, that’s it, we’re done, he won’t want to come back after that.
Instead, Alec had grabbed onto his arm and tugged him back. Had apologized for yelling, for demanding things of Magnus that he couldn’t give.
He hadn’t let Magnus walk away.
Alec let go of him almost immediately, stepping back out of his space, but Magnus found himself stepping back towards him, adjusting the bent collar of his jacket. Alec shot him a fond, bashful smile at the touch, and Magnus basked in the warmth of it, immensely glad that Alec had stopped him from leaving.
“So what now?” Alec asked.
“Now you have dinner with me, if you’re willing, and we can work through everything that’s going on calmly,” Magnus said, raising an eyebrow in question. “Sound okay?” When Alec nodded, Magnus took his hand, startled almost at how easy it was to do so. “Good.”
It was so easy, with him. So easy to just sit with him on the couch and talk, their knees lightly brushing. Magnus let it become a habit far more easily than he should have, let Alec get far closer than he should have.
He didn’t know how he’d let himself get so complacent, get so invested. Hadn’t he learned his lesson?
So when Alec moved to pull him closer—for a kiss or hug, Magnus didn’t really know—Magnus shifted away from him without thinking, standing up from the couch and lurching away almost the way Alec himself had the first night he stayed over in the loft.
Alec sort of reached for him before dropping his hands back to his knees, looking confused.
“I think we deserve a refill,” Magnus said, snatching their glasses from the table, even though that hadn’t been why he’d gotten up.
Alec seemed to know it, too, though he didn’t say anything, just nodded.
Magnus fled to the drinks cart, mixing himself another martini with shaky hands. He didn’t know why he was being like this, running from Alec when he knew perfectly well that Alec would never hurt him.
He felt more than heard Alec come up beside him. “You okay?”
Magnus turned to face him, sidling back to lean against the wall and subtly put another few inches of space between them.
Apparently he wasn’t as subtle as he thought, as Alec looked at him for a long moment and then took a step back.
“Magnus? You okay?”
There was a hesitation in his voice now that hadn’t been there moments ago, when they’d been sitting and talking easily on the couch. Magnus had put that there, had made Alec doubt him.
He swallowed. “I’m perfectly alright, darling.”
Alec didn’t seem convinced. “Do you want me to go? It’s okay if you do.”
Magnus didn’t particularly think it was okay, but he appreciated Alec saying it nonetheless. “Not at all. Just give me a moment to fix our drinks, and I’ll meet you back on the couch, hm?”
Slowly, Alec nodded, and retreated back into the living room, concern evident in his posture. Once he was alone, Magnus took a deep breath, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes, trying to center himself.
He was okay. He was fine. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He had to get over himself.
He took another steadying breath and pushed himself off the wall, making his careful way back into the living room.
It wasn’t until he’d sat down beside Alec again that he realized he’d forgotten their drinks. Christ.
Alec seemed to notice it, too, glancing between Magnus’s face and his empty hands with growing anxiety. And Magnus didn’t know how to reassure him that he’d done nothing wrong, that this was Magnus’s problem.
He took Alec’s hand. Alec almost made as if to pull away at first, before settling into the hold.
“I think that I…” Magnus said, tried to say as some sort of explanation— “feel a bit too much for you sometimes. Forgive me if I occasionally need a moment to come to terms with it.”
This was all true, but not the whole truth. Magnus didn’t like to lie, but he was very good at saying things that were true but not the whole truth.
His explanation seemed to soften the hardest edge of Alec’s worry, though there was still a bit of a pinch in his brow. “It’s okay. I mean, I feel that way about you, too.”
Magnus looked back up to meet his gaze, surprised. “Really?” It wasn’t that he hadn’t been told many times how ‘affecting’ he was, but the closer he was to someone, the harder he found it to believe.
Alec chuckled, tugging at their joined hands. “Yeah, I mean, what did you think? I walked out of my own wedding because I had mild feelings for you? Every time I get to kiss you it reminds me how lucky I am.”
Magnus just stared at him, dumbfounded, especially because Alec seemed to really mean it. Not as a way of getting in Magnus’s pants or getting him to do something for him. He just meant it.
Magnus had to kiss him.
He tipped into Alec’s space and pressed their lips together, feeling Alec jolt at the sudden contact and then settle into it. His broad palm came up to tentatively cradle Magnus’s jaw, and Magnus hummed, loving the gentle strength of him.
“You, my dear, are a treasure,” he told him when they parted, and Alec smiled.
Having Alec so frequently in his home, and not feeling on edge, was a revelation. It was strange not to have to tip-toe around the enormity of someone else’s feelings, but Magnus slowly began to realize that he truly didn’t need to—though Alec’s feelings were enormous, in a way, they didn’t push Magnus up against a wall, they merely parted around him.
It was strange.
Strange enough that Magnus found himself tempted to ask for more, for what he wanted, to sit down beside Alec when he was working on the couch and cuddle up to him, to ask him to stay the night. But it was hard when he didn’t have a reason, when they weren’t kissing, or healing one another’s wounds, to just push into Alec’s space for something as trivial as wanting to be held. He had to have reason for it, he had to have the right circumstance.
Sometimes Alec would look up from his paperwork and raise an eyebrow when he caught Magnus staring at him. “You okay?”
Magnus would shake himself and go back to his potion-making. “Perfect, darling, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
Sometimes Magnus would find that he didn’t even mind being injured, because it meant he could guiltlessly have Alec’s hands on him, bandaging and caressing and handling him so gently. What was a little scratch when it meant Alec leaning in, voice soft in Magnus’s ears and hands soft on his throat, asking him if he was in pain? No, Magnus would think, I'm not anymore.
It was why he was both relieved and terrified when Alec initiated sex for the first time, because sex made room for more, for bruising touches and holding each other in bed afterwards, gave Magnus reason to touch him.
It also made room for Alec to leave.
For a moment, Magnus really thought Alec would just leave. Just slide out of bed now that they were finished and disappear back to his easier life.
It would have been consistent with many of Magnus’s past experiences, though still gutting coming from Alec.
But Alec just turned back on his side, grinning at him. He didn’t leave.
Magnus had been so worried about this. Sex with Alec. Worried not so much that Alec would push, but that Magnus would give too much of himself as he always did, too desperate to keep his affection.
But Alec was so gentle with him, so gentle and eager and genuine in his desire, that Magnus forgot his reservations almost as soon as they’d started, losing himself in the soft press of Alec’s body. It was so nice to be touched by someone who so clearly wanted to touch him, make him feel good, instead of just having him touch them.
And by God Magnus wanted to get his hands on Alec, too. He’d been dreaming about it.
Their first time was clumsy and imperfect and lovely and everything Magnus had almost forgotten sex could be. He didn’t care that Alec didn’t one-hundred-percent know what he was doing, because it was perfect anyway.
Magnus wanted to drown himself in Alec’s touch. As soon as he was sure Alec wasn’t disappearing on him, he leaned in close and rested his head on Alec’s shoulder.
“That wasn’t too soon, was it?” Alec murmured. His voice rumbled against Magnus’s cheek. “I just thought—”
Magnus placed a finger over his lips. “It was perfect. You were perfect.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alec smile, his arm coming up around Magnus’s shoulders. Magnus snuggled in closer to him.
Sunlight draped over them like a blanket, warming their skin, and Magnus felt Alec slipping toward sleep underneath him.
Magnus stayed awake a moment longer, just watching the rise and fall of his chest, the play of the sunlight over his runes. For a creature of the shadows, he thought, Alexander was stunning in the morning light.
Magnus couldn’t stop moving. His leg kept bouncing no matter how hard he tried to suppress it, and he kept finding himself playing with his rings, twirling them around and around on his fingers.
He kept staring at the spot where Camille had been.
He had only touched her briefly before he’d banished her, but still he felt blown wide open, the simple moment shocking him to his core.
She had been so cold, still. Even after all these years. Cold fingers wrapping around his wrist, and eyes like chips of ice.
When they were together, Magnus had always wondered if by touching her, he could bring some warmth back to her skin. Give her some of his own.
It had never worked. Of course it hadn’t.
The key turning in the front door snapped him out of his trance. Alec. That was Alec coming home. Coming home to Magnus sitting on the couch and shaking apart over absolutely nothing.
He wanted to get up, hide himself in the bedroom until he could calm down. His skin was itching to run. But he couldn’t. It was like Camille’s coldness had seeped into him, frozen him in place.
So he stayed on the couch, watching his hands, and listened as Alec stepped into the foyer, took off his jacket and boots, and walked cautiously into the living room until he was standing before Magnus.
“Magnus?”
It sounded like the third or fourth time Alec had called his name, not that Magnus had really heard the others.
“Alexander,” Magnus replied, voice flat. He didn’t look up at him.
Alec knelt into Magnus’s field of view, reached out tentatively to rest a hand on his knee. Magnus flinched at his touch, and Alec took his hand back.
“What’s going on?”
Magnus didn’t know how to explain to him the absolutely pathetic headspace he was in right now. Freezing up over nothing. So he didn’t try, just dug his fingers into his knees, staring somewhere in the vicinity of Alec’s shoulder, eyes unfocused.
“Magnus?” Alec’s voice was alarmed now. He started to reach out again, but stopped himself before he touched Magnus. Instead, he leaned down further, tilting his head to try and catch Magnus’s gaze. “Hey, can you talk to me? You’re scaring me.”
Magnus was always helpless to deny him anything. Still not meeting Alec’s gaze, he said, quietly, “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not.”
Magnus looked up briefly at him, but the worry in Alec’s gaze had him looking away again, guilt clogging his throat.
“Magnus,” Alec tried again, quieter this time. “Come on. Talk to me.”
He was too gentle, it made Magnus’s chest feel all tight in a way that was hard to breathe around.
He swallowed hard. “I banished Camille. I sent her to the Gard.”
“That’s… a good thing, right?” Alec tried again to meet Magnus’s gaze, and this time Magnus let him. “Or… it’s not?”
“She deserves to be there,” Magnus said.
“Okay…” Alec rested his hand on Magnus’s knee again. His palm was warm and grounding, and this time, Magnus didn’t flinch, even though he couldn’t help but feel that this shouldn’t be allowed. “But it’s upsetting you?”
Magnus squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.
“How come?”
“It’s stupid,” Magnus whispered.
“It’s not stupid.”
Magnus shook his head. “I touched her, I shouldn’t have— I shouldn’t have—”
“Did she hurt you?” Alec demanded, his grip tightening on Magnus’s knee. “Did she do something to you?”
“No. It was my fault. It was all on me.”
When Magnus finally opened his eyes again, Alec didn’t look like he agreed, but he just asked, “So what happened?”
“Her skin was cold,” Magnus said, shivering at the memory.
“All vampires are cold…” Alec said slowly.
“Not like her.”
Alec considered this, head tilted in thought. Finally, he asked, “What do you need?”
Magnus didn’t know. He could only shake his head helplessly. Every part of his body felt tight and on edge, but moving was an immense burden. He didn’t know how to do anything but stay where he was.
Alec reached out to cup his face, thumb brushing over his cheekbone, wiping away a tear that Magnus hadn’t realized was brimming at the corner of his eye until it spilled over. Alec smiled a little, but his eyes looked mostly sad.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
Magnus didn’t, really, but the look in Alec’s eyes drew it out of him. “When I was with Camille,” he began, working through his thoughts, “she always took. She took whatever she wanted, and I gave it to her. I wanted her to love me.” He shook his head in disgust with his past self. “She never gave. I don’t mean material things, I don’t care about that. I mean—” he touched where Alec’s hand was still pressed to his cheek “—this.”
Alec kept watching him. His gaze was intense on Magnus’s face, but he stayed silent.
“This was not a good time in my life, I was… very needy then. Of course I had my friends, but one needs other kinds of intimacy in one’s life, and Camille could provide it—not that she ever did, really. Just enough to keep me coming back.” Magnus bit his lip. “I was foolish to believe I could change her. I expected too much.”
“Hey.” Alec took a hold of his chin and tilted his face up until their eyes met. “Weren’t you the one who told me it’s okay to have needs?”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll be met, Alexander.”
Alec considered him for a long moment, some kind of new understanding in his gaze. Then he was standing and pulling Magnus to his feet by a hand. He tugged him through the living room towards their bedroom. Magnus followed him uncertainly.
Alec let him go once they were in their bedroom. “Take off your shirt,” he said, pulling his own over his head.
Magnus watched him, alarmed. “Alec, what—”
“Not for sex, just— just do it.”
Magnus started unbuttoning his shirt, watching with growing unease as Alec pulled off his socks and then started tugging off his pants, too. “Alec—”
“It’s okay, just trust me.”
Magnus decided to trust him. He slowly took off the rest of his clothes until he was standing there in just his underwear, still feeling slightly wary.
“Okay,” Alec said, “now come here.”
He held out a hand. Cautiously, Magnus took it.
Alec climbed backwards onto the bed and led Magnus along with him. And Magnus thought he knew what Alec was doing, but he couldn’t actually—
“Come here,” Alec repeated, lying down in the sheets, and Magnus followed him slowly, settling himself gingerly alongside Alec’s body. And Alec’s arms came up around him and he pulled Magnus flush against his chest, and—oh.
Oh.
That was so nice. The warmth of him with no barriers of clothing between them, Alec’s strong arms around him, the quietness of it, a chance to just be with no intention of doing anything more. Magnus tucked his face into the hollow of Alec’s throat and sighed.
“Good?”
“Yes.” He might have been shaking a little with it, actually, but he found he didn’t mind. He just pressed closer and let Alec absorb the tremors.
Alec pulled the comforter over them, cocooning Magnus in his warmth. He ran a hand through Magnus’s hair. “Magnus…” he started slowly, contemplatively, “you know… you can always ask me. If you want this. Or… anything.”
Magnus sighed. “I know, darling. I’m sorry.”
Alec held him tighter. “I’m not sure that…” he trailed off, thinking. “Have you been… holding back?”
In lieu of an answer, Magnus pressed a kiss to his collarbone.
Alec let out a long breath as if that was answer enough. “Magnus…”
“It’s not your job to coddle me,” Magnus told him, not quite looking at him, letting his vision haze out so all he could see was Alec’s skin, the vague shape of his runes, the royal blue sheets under his shoulder. It was something he didn’t frequently allow himself, ignoring the rest of the world in favor of just them. Maybe he should more often.
“It’s not work,” Alec said. “Magnus, you deserve everything you want.”
Magnus scoffed. “No one deserves everything they want.”
“You do.”
Magnus had to tuck his face back into Alec’s neck at that. Even just looking at Alec was too much in the face of such declarations, he had to remove one of his senses to deal with it.
Alec didn’t say any more, and neither did Magnus, too overwhelmed by it all to speak and preferring to just rest on Alec’s chest, relishing in the heat of his bare skin. Eventually his shaking subsided and he slipped into a doze, warm and content and almost forgetting the ice that had crawled up his veins at Camille’s touch.
When he woke, it was dark outside the windows, the barest hint of moonlight slipping in and illuminating the curve of Alec’s shoulder, the edges of his hair. Magnus lifted his head to find Alec already awake and looking at him.
Magnus’s lips quirked up at the sight. “Watching me sleep, hm?”
Alec’s gaze slanted away and then back. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Maybe a little.”
Magnus leaned up to give him a quick kiss. “Don’t be embarrassed, darling. You know I love to wake up to you.”
Alec rolled his eyes, but a smile was tugging at his lips. He slid out from under Magnus, and fear lurched through Magnus’s stomach at the thought that Alec might leave, might have had enough of Magnus’s fragile nonsense—but Alec just shifted onto his side so he could face him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
Magnus hummed. “What do you want to know?”
Alec thought about it. “Can I help? Can I help you feel better about asking?”
“You already do.”
“Magnus, I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Magnus took Alec’s hand and held it on the sheets between them. “I’m not used to having this. Someone who will just… hold me. Who will give that to me. That already means more to me than you can know.”
Alec kissed his hand. “I want to hold you. You can take it for granted if you want.”
“Never,” Magnus swore. “I want to cherish you. I never want to take you for granted.”
“I didn’t mean me, I meant me holding you. Me wanting to touch you. Don’t you think I want that more than anything? I don’t feel like I have to give it to you.”
Alec’s gaze was so earnest and sweet, and he didn’t even understand. He didn’t understand how monumental this was. Magnus held Alec’s face between his hands and pulled his head down so he could press a kiss to his forehead.
Alec’s lips curled up in a smile, his body curving in, giving in to Magnus’s touch, and Magnus thought, if Camille was an eclipse, then Alec must be the moonlight peeking around it.
“Sweet darling,” he whispered, and it felt impossible to say it, to know that his desires would be received and cradled safely in Alec's palms, but he spoke them anyway. “I always want to hold you, too.”