Notes: If anyone's confused about the timeline, the only thing that's really different is the relationships. This is written by the prompt, things you said when you thought I was asleep. Hope you enjoy it!
The familiar sound of Magnus's boots against the linoleum was enough of a warning about his approach, but that didn't lessen the surprise of seeing him up so soon; not by a long shot. Jace had expected him to sleep a good hour or so more after the night they'd had, but he supposed that it made sense – it was his first time sleeping in the Institute and everyone here was an early riser. He had warned him that he wouldn't enjoy it, but Magnus hadn't wanted to listen – hadn't even wanted to let him out of his sight, actually.
"Why didn't you tell me there was something wrong?"
"There's nothing wrong." If Jace was going a bit harder than usual at the equipment in the training hall than usual, then no one was allowed to blame him for it. It had been a long week and he'd earned a little bit of aggression.
"You kept saying that," Magnus nodded and Jace faltered mid-move when he neared him. "And I believed you. But— Jace, you should know by now that I can help you with those things."
"No one can help me." Jace had officially given up on the pretence of training and reached for his shirt, but didn't get too far – Magnus darted out and wrapped a hand around his wrist, keeping him in place. He was grateful for it, to a degree: his boyfriend wasn't a fan of letting other people bottle things up and there was no escaping him if he had really made his mind up about something and whether he wanted to admit it or not, Jace actually wasn't really opposed to talking to him about this. It was slightly better now that he'd talked to Alec, but he still felt as if he was buzzing with the information that was hanging over his head like a sword. And it wasn't just that; deep down, he felt the need to warn them about the possibilities of what was to come now that he knew what being brought back from the dead felt like.
He doubted that his parabatai had told Magnus anything, though. He'd sworn that he wouldn't say a word until Jace was ready to share it with someone, even if he'd insisted on looking for a solution – or an explanation – anyway. Instead, Magnus had to have heard them when they'd talked despite Jace's deep conviction that he was still asleep. Please talk to me, Alec had said and he had obeyed; had told him about the sharp, borderline unbearable pain he'd gone through just outside of the Hunter's Moon just a few hours prior. Unlike the night before, he'd been completely honest – he was just as clueless about all of this as Alec was and his parabatai had frantically started trying to come up with something that could prevent it from happening again. He'd looked almost as scared as he had been back at Lake Lyn and the last thing Jace wanted was to make him go through the same thing again, but it wasn't like he'd had a choice. Clary had decided to use up her one wish on him and, for better or for worse, he was here now.
"Don't be ridiculous." Magnus's voice didn't sound quite as composed as before. "There's a solution for everything."
"Really? Alec holed himself up in the library two hours ago and he said that he'd call me if he found something new." Jace hadn't wanted him to go and even if he hadn't been able to stop him, he already knew that it was a wasted time: there was no precedent for his situation; nothing that the Angel's directions that the Nephilim had piled up over the centuries could possibly come up with. "I haven't heard from him since then."
"There's always magic." Magnus's hold around his wrist turned gentle all of a sudden and blue sparks danced over his skin; a caress and a promise at once. Jace had long since given up any reservations he'd had about people seeing them together in the Institute, but his eyes still made a quick assessment of their surroundings just in case. The last thing he wanted was for people to see that they were feeling troubled in any way – almost everyone in the Shadow world was still riding the wave of cheerful relief they'd been on since last night and it wouldn't do to ruin the illusion."If you're hurting—"
"You can make it stop," Jace filled in impatiently. "Yes, I know. But what if it never stops? What if you have to do it forever? What would you do then?"
He hadn't meant it as a challenge, but he suspected that it had come out exactly that way. It had been an honest question, the realisation that this could very well not be the one-time oddity that he'd been hoping for and that it was possibly not the only thing wrong with him either washing over him like a cold shower. There were too many questions he had no answer for and too little hope of finding anything that could point him in the right direction for him to start his search and he hated the fog stretching on ahead of him more viciously than he ever had before, but talking did seem to help. It eased the terror inside of him at least to a degree, and it gave him a security of sorts, bizarre as that was.
I'm about to die and it could be sooner than you'd expected. Magnus had already known that when they'd started dating and Alec had known it since the day they'd become parabatai, but there was safety in making sure they were aware that things had changed and it was fair to give them that much if nothing else. He hadn't even mentioned anything to Izzy and Clary yet and while it gnawed at his conscience, he would have to leave it for another day.
"I would still try to find a way." The reassurance was laced with disbelief, as if Magnus couldn't quite believe that he had to voice it. "Do you even have to ask?"
"I don't know." It wasn't the correct answer. He shouldn't have felt the need to look for confirmation, but everything that had happened recently – the war, the Seelies and their betrayal, all the revelations he'd had to endure in such a short time span – was enough to cloud his judgement. "Magnus, I don't know anything. I can't—"
"You can't make any promises," Magnus filled in for him with a nod. "I know. I'm not asking you to."
Jace let himself be drawn into an embrace and closed his eyes against the tears as his arms tightened around his boyfriend. He couldn't will himself to speak, not right then, and what exactly would he say anyway? The feeling curling up inside of him and threatening to spill out wasn't one he'd felt before; the mix of gratitude and relief and affection growing into something that he could name with one word only, but he wasn't ready to say it just yet. Not because he wasn't sure – he was, as sure as he'd ever been in anything in his life – but because he would never be able to take it back and Magnus didn't deserve that. No, he deserved to hear declarations like this one with someone who had the time to prove them true, and time wasn't on Jace's side.