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“Stop, please.”
Magnus stood still in the middle of the street, rain pouring down in torrents and drenching him as he stood there, staring at Alec, who was only a few mere feet away from him. His shoulders were hunched, and even without looking at his face Magnus could see the strain in his body, the kind that came from the blows of time.
“Alec,” Magnus said softly. “We can’t- We have to try.”
Alec turned then, looking at him with eyes whose light had gone out a long time ago. A part of his soul had already been torn away when Jace died. The rest was here, in front of Magnus now, slowly turning to crumbling marble.
“We’ve been trying for the last fifty years, Magnus,” Alec said, and he involuntarily flinched. “We’ve been trying and trying and trying - and I’m done trying now.”
Magnus swallowed. “But… where will you go?”
Alec snorted, his eyes flicking away from Magnus and lips twisting up into a cruel sort of smile. “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”
Magnus just stood and watched him, his limbs rooted to the ground. Alec took a deep breath, and he suddenly looked very, very tired. “I only have you. I don’t have anyone else. I don’t know where to go anymore.”
Magnus felt something twist inside his gut. Neither of them spoke those words out loud. The didn’t have to. They knew.
He scrubbed a hand over his hand. “This is all my fault.”
Alec’s head whipped up to look at him. “ Stop. Neither of us could’ve known this would happen.”
Magnus let out a short derisive laugh. “ Love. It makes you believe all sorts of things, doesn’t it?”
Alec was silent.
“Still… I should’ve known. I should’ve stopped you.”
“I made my choice,” Alec said softly. “There was nothing you could’ve done.”
This time, Magnus was silent.
Very slowly, Alec walked towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder and catching his eye.
“It’s okay,” Alec said. “We did what we could. I guess… I think I understand now. Sometimes you just have to let things go.”
“Alec-“
“We would’ve had to part one day anyway,” Alec went on, ignoring him. “We just delayed it. We just bought more time.”
Magnus stared at him a long moment. “Where will you go?”
Alec’s eyes fell away at that, and he just gave a half-hearted shrug. “I’ll go to the spiral labyrinth, first. Tessa will be there. She can help me out.”
Magnus nodded. He wished things were different. He wished this never happened.
Not everything lasted forever. Not even love.
Neither of them had known back then. Alec had told Magnus one night, that he’d wished to be immortal, to spend eternity with him. Magnus had laughed it off at first, then he’d realised Alec was being serious, and hesitated. He didn’t want Alec to suffer through the trials and tribulations of immortality, and he had told him as such.
But…
“I’ll be fine,” Alec had said, cupping Magnus’s face in his hands, and he had melted right then and there. “I’ll bear it all. As long as I’m by your side, my love, I’ll be fine.”
Magnus had reluctantly agreed, a part of him unable to believe that Alec was actually doing this. For him. They’d poured through books day and night, had visited several libraries, uncovered lost volumes until at last they found the recipe for a rare potion.
It had several names, mentioned in several sources across history - elixir, Amrita, Aab-i-Hayat, Chasma-i-Kausar, Aab-Haiwan, Maha Ras and so many more. Ultimately, it was potion that granted the drinker immortality.
Magnus had prepared it, and Alec had been made immortal. Time passed, and Magnus couldn’t help but watch as Alec watched his family grow old and die, one after the other. Everytime he mourned in Magnus’s arms, Alec told him that he didn’t regret it, not one bit, that he would be fine. With a heavy heart, Magnus had nodded and held him close.
Time passed by. Alec slowly healed. They had been happy together for a long, long time. And then, time slowly began to build a wedge between them, until they reached where they were now.
They’d expected to live eternity by each other’s side. Neither of them had expected that in the millenia stretching out before him, at some point in the hundreds and thousands of years, they would somehow stop loving each other.
It had dawned upon Magnus sometime in the last century, this horrible, horrible truth - that he did not feel for Alec in the same way that he had several centuries ago. That his love for Alec now was simply not the same as it was then, back when things were new and wonderful and absolutely blissful. He’d kept it to himself, the truth lodged in his heart like a terrible thorn that had pierced him once. That had been a real thorn, and Alec had been able to banish its effect on him. But now…
A lot of mundane couples fell out of love after a couple of decades. Magnus and Alec had centuries in front of them. They should’ve known.
They’d talked it out, of course, and when they realised they both felt the same way, tried to put themselves back together. They’d tried new things, moved to new places. But nothing worked. It was a hopeless case right from the start.
And then, this morning. Alec had announced that he was leaving. Which led them here, standing in the middle of the street, soaked from head to toe.
Now, Alec looked at Magnus, who had his face turned away. He stepped closer, reaching out and running a hand down the front of Magnus’s wet jacket, and rested his forehead against Magnus’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Magnus’s lips twitched up into a derisive smile. “Don’t be. You couldn’t have known.”
Alec was silent.
“Alec,” Magnus said, his throat feeling constricted. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
He could sense Alec’s smile, even if he couldn’t see it.
Alec looked up, his intense blue eyes meeting Magnus’s. “I miss the days when you’d call me Alexander.”
“I miss them too,” Magnus said with a small smile. He wished he could go back to those days, but their time had passed. Their love had passed. “How much did we have together, again?”
“Six hundred and eighty three years.” Alec returned the smile. “That’s a long time, isn’t it?”
Magnus nodded. “I’ll send your things to the spiral labyrinth, then.”
Alec looked at him a long moment, then asked in a low voice, “Can I kiss you one last time?”
Magnus’s eyes widened a fraction. Alec had an expectant expression on his face, and it was apparent that he was asking for the sake of nostalgia and nothing more.
So Magnus nodded and leaned in.
They kissed, their connected lips a pinpoint of heat in the cold rain. It wasn’t much - a touch of lips to lips, a simple kiss, and yet Magnus mourned when it produced within him nothing - not desire, not love, not a spark, nothing.
Alec was the first to pull away, and Magnus had stood still for a moment before he slowly opened his eyes.
“Take care,” Alec said, and for a moment something passed between them, a hundred unspoken words.
Maybe someday, said a small, hopeful voice somewhere in the back of Magnus’s mind.
“You too,” Magnus said back, nodding at him, and that was that.
Alec turned away from him, walking away, the rain rendering his visage blurry as he got farther and farther away.
But this time, Magnus let him go.