A.N This is for BTS_Mad on AO3. Incidentally, this is crossposted on there as well
I have little idea as when this would take place, other than at some point AFTER City of Glass and The Mortal War, since that was a major turning point for Malec's relationship.
I haven't read the books in some time and when I did I read them in pretty quick succession so they're pretty blurred together for me. I really need to reread the series.
Magnus breathed a sigh into Alec's hair. They lay tangled together on Magnus' bed, Alec's broad form a comforting weight on top of him. Alec had fallen asleep immediately after collapsing onto Magnus, exhausted from a hard day of training.
Magnus pressed his nose into Alec's dark hair, breathing in deeply the scent of his own shampoo in his boyfriend's hair.
"Are you watching me sleep?" The question was murmured into Magnus 'neck. He didn't reply. "You know that's slightly creepy, right?"
Magnus smiled into Alec dark strands. "Like you actually care." Alec merely hummed in assent, fingers tracing lines on Magnus' chest that only he could see.
"You're so beautiful." He breathed as Alec turned his head to meet his head to meet his eyes, And although Magnus was always happy to give compliments, his words still caused a shy smile to break out across his face. Pink lightly dusting his cheeks, he licked his lips. Magnus quirked a barely glittering eyebrow at him, lips twisted in a smirk.
Alec reached out to run a the back of his head, fingers carding through Magnus' dark hair, pulling him gently to him, softly pressing their lips together in a lasting touch. It didn't become much more than that; the light touching of lips, soft and gentle. The sides of their noses touching and sharing of air. Hands twisted in both heads of dark strands.
As they broke apart Alec yawned into Magnus's ear and when Magnus gave a chuckle he growled lightheartedly. He bit down gently on his boyfriend's ear, tongue dancing over studded earrings before letting go and snuggling into Magnus's slighter frame. Magnus himself was rubbing the back of Alec's lean, muscled shoulders.
"Go to sleep, Magnus." Alec murmured insistently. Magnus didn't say a thing in response. His silence was obviously not what Alec had wanted because he once again lifted his head to look at his sleepless boyfriend with heavy lidded eyes. Eyes that Magnus couldn't bring himself to meet. H e expected questions. A question, at least. But it never came. All he got was a stubborn glare when he finally met the Shadowhunter's gaze.
"Go. To. Sleep." Was the request, no order, that he got instead. He wouldn't have answered anyway, had they been posed. He couldn't tell Alec that faces haunted his dreams, faces long dead and buried. They were faces he tried not to think about. To do some left a sourness in his mouth and an ache in his heart.
A reminder of human mortality and his lack of such.
A pair of hands, calloused by years of fighting, cradling his cheeks in a gentle touch brought his mind to the present.
There was no enquiry as to his health, nor as to where he'd been. No. Alec did none of that. Instead, he just kissed Magnus again, sweet and tender. A grounding touch.
It took him several long moments to respond to the comforting gesture. But when he did the touch became slightly more forceful, on both of their parts. Less sweet and more passionate.
He traced Alec's chapped lips with the tip of his tongue and Alec parted them with a breathy sigh. Both of his hands held the younger's narrow hips in a firm grip, although careful not to bruise. Their tongues brushed together, slow and tender. Savouring every last touched and caress.
When they parted, a single strand of saliva roped between them, Alec regarded Magnus with only slightly more awake eyes, fingers tracing familiar patterns on his scalp.
Those deep blue eyes narrowed and he shook his head gently.
"Not tonight. Another night." He brushed their cheeks together when Magnus smiled and nodded with a breathed 'Anything for you.'
"Go to sleep, Amatus. I'll be here when you wake." Magnus took more comfort from this than he considered he should have. But regardless of what he thought he should feel, when he'd settled down and closed his eyes, he fell into a dreamless sleep, limbs tangled with Alec's. Warm, comfy, cosy. Content.
Alec listened as Magnus's breathing evened out with the calm of sleep and gave a deep sigh of relief.
Magnus hadn't slept in at least two weeks as far as he could tell and it had been causing him a lot of worry. At first, it had simply been Magnus coming to bed later than usual, but it had quickly turned to the point where Alec would fall asleep before even seeing Magus in the evenings and woke to cold empty sheets. He later found out that he had stopped coming to bed at all, consumed by his work. Whatever it was that he was currently doing. Alec had very little idea as to what it was, such was the amount of time they had actually been with each other as of late.
Magnus rarely let his exhaustion show, though, maybe from either some kind of makeup or magic. Probably both. Along with that, his attitude often left little run to suspect that he was anything but okay .
At the moment, though, Magnus's skin was clear of illusion and dark shadows smudged his eyes. His coffee skin was several shades lighter elsewhere . An age old accent had started to inflect his words, something easily explains by his birth country of Indonesia.
Magnus really hadn't been looking after himself as of late. Alec wondered whether he'd even noticed the worry of the people around him. Probably felt that he was too good and practised at hiding his troubles for any child to observe them, the arrogant prat.
Although, Magnus had never made much of a deal about age. Alec still remembered what he had to say about the matter, in fact. It had been a strangely serious conversation.
"When you're like me, you can't really afford to decide that the only people worthy of your time are the ones of similar age as you. You'd be living a very lonely life otherwise. Or very boring. There are only a certain amount of people who have lived near the same amount of time as you." He had said. "There is no point trying to stay at a distance from mortals; as much as their deaths are painful, the life you bring is bright and young and unburdened. It worth the pain, to have that happiness." Magnus had a shine to his eye and you could have tasted the melancholy that came off of him in waves.
Alec's thoughts were interrupted by the onslaught of a jaw breaking yawn that overcame him at that moment.
It didn't take long for Alec to join Magnus in oblivion, pressed to smooth coffee skin.
Magnus woke with fingers carding through thick hair and his cheek pressed against a bare shoulder.
He felt better, had slept better than he had in months.
He and Alec had swapped places in the night and it was now him who was on top, snuggling into the warm skin, and Alec was the one holding him close. It was warm and cosy and Magnus wished moments like these could last forever. Or be stored away for another day.
There were many memories that he wished he could do that with, but he'd decided long ago that dwelling so much on the past would never be good for him. Then again, many of the things he didn't could exactly be considered good for him. Many of his fellow immortals had tried to totally stop themselves from getting attached to anyone who even a tiny bit more mortal.
Magnus understood that desire; he'd been hurt plenty of times, had thought on a great deal of occasions of being regretful for getting attached. He'd been with so many people over the years, in friendship as well as romantic and sexual. So many of them had removed themselves from his life before they get much older. Only a handful had ever stayed with him until their deaths. Old, grey and wrinkled while he remained his youthful, smooth skinned self, with an energy he had carried for all of his three hundred old years while they only clung to it for a fraction of that time.
Ugh. He should stop thinking. That was enough of that. Depressing thoughts had no place in his fabulous life, especially now, in the happiest time he had had in such a long while in the arms of a man he loved.
He slowly began opening his eyes at that thought. It took a few seconds for his blurry eyes to focus on the pale skin in front of him. Runes like shadows wrapped around the shoulder like the single arm wrapped around his waist.
He studied this skin intently, marking each mark in his mind, every odd freckle and small blemish. He let out a deep sigh, the gentle breeze of it on his neck making Alec squirm.
"Magnus" Alec's voice was amused despite the way he growled Magnus's name. Magnus brought his head up, brushing their cheeks together.
" I love you." He murmured into the younger males ear, and he could feel Alec's eyes blinking in rapid succession. Could feel his jaw opening and closing against Magnus's own. He placed a gentle, lingering kiss to Alec's lips, but gentleness was soon replaced with unhurried passion.
"I love you too." Alec gasped when they broke away for merely a second before going in for more.
They stayed in bed all day upon Magnus's insistence. It was a good day.
A.N.'Amatus' generally means something along the lines of 'beloved' or 'darling' in Latin, but I'm going for 'beloved'. For anyone who's interested.