The Fulcrum of Doom is from Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Serum III
You can't have everything you want.
"I always pass this thing and I never think to use it."
Alec nodded and grunted as he continued to do the majority of the pedaling. "I usually take one out when I need time to think," he said. "Usually there's a lot less weight to propel..." He began to turn them around so that they were heading out into the middle of the green man-made lake. The yellowing swan they were sitting in wasn't exactly the sea vessel Magnus was dressed for. In fact, he looked like he was heading out on an all male cruise in his tight sailor suit. If anyone asked Alec, his boyfriend was on break from working at an underwater themed kid's restaurant.
Magnus got the point and his immaculate beige Rugged Shark loafers lifted off the floor and began helping once again. "I thought Shadowhunter's were supposed to be super strong."
"I feel like spaghetti," he said.
"Like starch and wheat?"
Alec snorted gracelessly. "Oh, shut up!" He play hit Magnus, noting that his arm felt like a noodle - limp and soggy. But there was no way he was going to explain it fully to Magnus. That would make him worried, which would end with Alec spending the rest of the afternoon lying on a couch with a glittering thermometer in his mouth, legs bent awkwardly to rest in a tub of hot water. Once Alec had had a terrible cold while he was at Magnus's and woke up with a picture perfect clear coat pedicure. What a fight that was.
He was dragged out of his reverie when Magnus's head rested gently on his shoulder. He remembered a time not so long ago when he would have turned red and pushed him away, most likely ending with them both screaming at each other in the water. Three years wiser, Alec simply sighed contently and leaned into him. They let the boat drift, Magnus's hand sliding down Alec's wrist to clasp his hand. It was so sunny and warm. Alec closed his eyes and saw pink. With his eyes shut tight, he imagined an eternity of that moment stretching on and on and on...
You can't have everything you want, Alec.
He didn't know where the thought came from, but he tried to push it away as hard and as fast as he could. Too late. The thought was there and it wasn't going any time soon. His eyes opened and he jerked away from Magnus. Central Park swung dizzily as Alec began to heave for air. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it was going to burst and his muscles tensed up. He was dying. Oh Angel, he was dying in a paddle boat at the age of 21, four steps away from immortality.
"Alec, what's happening? What's wrong?" asked Magnus. Alec saw the look of pure panic directed at him. The pedals sparked with blue lightning and the boat took off at mach 50 for the shore.
Alec couldn't answer him because he couldn't take a full breath. Pain flowered in his chest, making each breath tear through shallowly. And then suddenly he understood what was happening - he was having a panic attack.
The last time Alec had had one was when he was sixteen and Jace found a letter he had written to Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Not only was it supremely lame that he'd written a letter to a fictional character, he took it up a notch by describing how perfectly tailored he was to Alec. It was meant to only leave the confines of the locked drawer in his room to be burned at a later date - he should have known that Jace would choose the one fortified spot in the entire room to go snooping for blackmail material. When he saw Jace pull it out of his pocket at dinner his lungs had shriveled and his heart had nearly exploded. The whole thing was dropped once Alec had an almost heart attack on the weapon's room floor. Jace wrote it off as a joke. Alec prayed that that was true.
Magnus heaved him out of the beached swan by his underarms and dropped him unceremoniously on the sand. He wasn't the strongest fork in the drawer. The panic was ebbing just as quickly as it had come. People were staring, but that didn't matter much. Nothing mattered in the wake of a panic attack other than finding the cause. The cause, though, found him. It was that thought. It was that terrible, horrible, pessimistic thought. Alec couldn't get everything he wanted. There was no such thing as a happy ending. Something was going to ruin it. He could feel it in his bones.
O-O-O
"Happy endings exist, Alec," Magnus assured him.
They were huddled together on the warlocks couch, Alec wrapped in a blanket even though it was plenty warm out. The sun was lowering on Brooklyn and Chairman Meow was playing in the fading reflections thrown off of the glass. "That's what I used to think," was all Alec muttered.
That wasn't enough for he warlock. He resettled himself on the couch and rested a hand on his boyfriend's knee. "Okay, how about this. The other day I was in the Times Square and I saw this old tourist couple buying I Heart New York t-shirts for each other."
Alec waited for the rest of the story, but it never came. "And?" he asked.
Magnus smiled. "That's it. They have each other and they have their traveling. That seems like a pretty happy way to live."
"But it isn't an end."
"One day it will be." Magnus pecked Alec on the cheek and stretched out, resting his head in his boyfriend's lap. He played with the edge of the blanket, staring up at Alec. There was something unbelievably beautiful about his face when he looked at him, his eyes widened. It was one of the few times the mischievous glint left his eyes. "Don't you think that would be a happy ending? Spending forever with someone you love?"
Alec pushed the blanket back and began absently playing with Magnus's hair. "That's not the point. Happy endings exist for other people. I'm a Shadowhunter. I don't get to have everything I want."
"And I'm sure you won't," he said, eyes closing at the welcomed scalp massage. "I see what you're talking about. You think that you can't have happiness without suffering, only you're overestimating how much you're going to suffer."
"You don't know that."
He leaned his head back, mouth tilting up at the corners. Alec was curling his hair around his fingers and leaving it twisted like that, watching it fluff back out. He'd toned down the gel that day - sailor's have limited amounts of hair product available, apparently. "I'm old, sweetie. I know the percentage of suffering that comes with immortality. You watch people you care about grow old and die while you're tethered to the spot - but that doesn't mean you don't have a happy ending."
Alec shook his head.
"Oh, don't be negative. You're such a Raincloud sometimes."
"But I'm your Raincloud," he smirked. "Invest in an umbrella - I'm anti-optimistic."
Magnus's laughing was swallowed up quickly by Alec's mouth.
O-O-O
The attic of The House of Plenty was slowly making it to the top of Alec's Most Hated Places lists. The Hollow Lady (Magnus had told him her name and the nasty story attached to it three days earlier) wasn't there yet, though Hockensmith, the meat-headed warlock's apprentice who was always hanging around in doorways, said she would be along shortly. Alec fidgeted on his cushion, fighting the urge to look at his phone. Couldn't this whole thing hurry up? Jace and Isabelle needed him to help with a particularly nasty gang of rogue vampires. He'd lied, saying that Magnus also needed him that same night. He'd been replaced by the not-so-Mundie Mundie kid, Simon. The thought made him grimace.
"It'll be over soon," Magnus said. "Then we'll go help."
Alec stopped rocking back and forth like a madman and perked up. "You're coming?" As much as Magnus wanted to help, it wasn't exactly smart for business to run around messing with Downworlder's. Dating a Shadowhunter was one thing; acting like one was another.
Magnus nodded. "What if the serum makes you all weird? We wouldn't want that on the job, now would we?"
The Hollow Lady didn't appear, but suddenly the cup was there and the table was flaring. Alec nearly jumped out of his skin. Her voice hissed through the room in warlocks tongue, making each and every hair on Alec's body stand on end. He looked to Magnus for guidance. He didn't seem to notice how freaky it all was.
"She's out on business, but I needed to finish this one anyways." Magnus leaned over the table and tapped the four edges lightly.
The blue light turned faint green and the stone goblet shook. Ancient words slid out of Magnus's mouth and into the cup, lighting the carved runes green. The way his mouth moved, forming the words that seemed to vibrate every inch of the room, was almost a magic in itself. His hand reached out over the cup and his left hand flicked so fast that Alec didn't realize what had happened. By the time the image of the knife dragging across his palm caught up with his brain, Magnus already had the cut covered with a handkerchief. The light turned rusty red and then slowly died.
"I have to drink your blood?" he asked with a look of disgust.
Magnus rolled his eyes. "My blood tastes like apple juice."
"Really?"
He snorted. "No. It tastes like blood. Just drink it."
Alec flushed and took the heavy stone goblet from the table. Ironically enough the majority of the liquid was apple juice, though Alec couldn't help but imagine he tasted the metallic tang of his boyfriend's blood. It was one of those things he'd hoped he'd never do, right up there with seeing Magnus in a bright yellow thong. At least he'd avoided the latter.
A warm tingling spread over him, like he was coming in from the cold. The weird limp feeling flooded out of his arms and legs, leaving the faint traces of muscle burn. He liked muscle burn. It told him that he'd been doing his job as a Shadowhunter - running and jumping and fighting and moving. He set the cup back on the table, noting how it felt lighter. Was this how Jace felt all of the time? Like there was a fire burning inside of him, begging him to be active? Something like that had to be present to force someone to do so much. Alec didn't feel the same compulsion that his brother did. He liked the active part of the job, but had never felt a compulsion to do it.
Now he did.
But before he could say anything his phone rang. He flipped it open and pressed it against his ear, feeling like he was going to break it. Jesus, was he pumped.
"Alec! Things got messy! We need - "
He slammed the phone shut on Isabelle and jumped straight up onto his feet. "Come on, they need us," he said, and then started running out the door. Magnus struggled to keep up with him all the way to the Lower East Side.
Sometimes when I read my own FanFic's I cringe because of how bad my grammar is. So thank you all for putting up with my lack of motivation to edit. :)