Malec One Shots

Forever and Always

300 years after Alec's death, Magnus still hasn't moved on. When their son Max's life is threatened, Magnus does everything he can to protect him. Though he succeeds, Magnus is injured. What happens next made me cry while writing this.
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Saying goodbye, for Magnus Lightwood-Bane, had never been easy. For someone over a thousand years old, you'd think he'd be used to that by now, but some things never got less painful.

Sure, as time passed, losing people got easier. He expected it, he found ways to drown out the pain (whiskey was always his go-to), he learned how to push memories away. But the pain left in their wake never became easier to handle. He supposed it was his own damn fault for repeatedly falling for mortals.

Losing a loved one to death was always the worst kind of loss. Saying goodbye to someone he'd spent decades, sometimes even centuries with, who he'd created lifelong memories and happiness with... There was nothing as horrible as seeing the light leave the eyes of someone who meant everything to him.

This had only happened a few times. Few people died still loving Magnus. That's just the way things worked and he'd accepted it, ruefully, centuries ago.

His mother was the first to leave him. Then Angela, Henry, Benjamin, Evelyn and Alvin. The latter six had been the only lovers before Alexander who'd spent their whole lives with him. They'd all died in his arms. Ragnor and Raphael had left him too. Every single one of these deaths had destroyed him in different ways. Ways Magnus never though could never be surpassed.

Goodbyes were not his forte.

"Time can heal, but never erase the scars left by loved ones lost"

If this was true, Magnus didn't quite understand why the one left by his Alexander hadn't even begun to heal, even after three hundred years.

Alec, who had died peacefully in his sleep of old age after spending 64 years at Magnus' side, left a hole in the warlock's heart that he knew would never heal.

There was not a day that passed when Magnus didn't think of his shadowhunter. Their sons Max and Rafael, who were so much like Alec in every way, did their best to be there for Magnus in the beginning.

The first decade was the worst. Magnus didn't think he left his bed for at least the first two years. He didn't work for the first five. Thank Lilith for Max and Rafe, who were constantly there for him. He wasn't sure he'd have made it through without them.

Now, over three centuries later, his heartbreak felt just as fresh as it did then. Rafe was gone now too. Max did his best, but he had a family of his own now and Magnus knew that logically, he shouldn't be taking care of his 1000 year old father.

Magnus smiled at the thought of Max, who made him so proud every day. Toward the end of his life, Alec revealed to Magnus that he spent hours teaching a young Max things he'd never need to actually know. Ancient battle strategies, facts about the origins of rune designs, tales of legendary Lightwoods long before he was born. When he got older, Alec told him stories of him and his siblings growing up and had made Max promise to wait to share those facts and stories with Magnus until Alec was gone and Magnus really needed a part of him. In the centuries since Alec passed, Max had shared so many. But only when things got really bad.

Despite Catarina's attempts to introduce him to new people, Magnus refused to ever fall in love again. For him, Alec was it, and he never wanted anyone else.

Over 300 years after Alec's death, Magnus still felt the pain as if it had happened yesterday. He knew he'd never be as happy as he had been with Alexander by his side.

It took 308 years, 7 months, and 23 days for Magnus to find that happiness again.

A new villain, a new problem, a new battle; it was normal after so long.