#this is so fuckinf dark i know guys i know but i was feelinf emotions

[raspberryjellybrains]

Blessings of Frey

In nature, life and death are not mutually exclusive.

characters: magnus chase, alex fierro

pairings: alex/magnus

tags: post-canon, chronic illness, hurt and a little comfort in the fluid nature of mortality, both she/her and he/him pronouns are used for alex, perspective fuckery

warnings: illness disease (its a metaphor for chronic illness y'all), major character death, minor homophobia mention

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there is something crawling out from under Magnus' skin. he can feel it it day and night, never more than a wriggle and speck of green disquiet. it's been growing, intertwining itself with the light that shines when he uses his powers. he doesn't know how to feel about it.

most of the time it's inobtrusive, but lately he's been feeling it... clog. his joints are stiff, small spots of his body numb, and he's getting scared. in the night, it's started to whisper, and when he wakes in a cold sweat, he wakes in his atrium, grasses and flowers twining his feet. they've been climbing, too, pulling him down with every step as if make him one with the earth and they're powerful, more powerful than he is, sometimes. it was nice at first to have plants in his hair, they seemed to beckon his friends to braid it all back in elaborate styles, but it's out of control. the follicles are full of vines, barely any room for hair to grow, but grow it does down down down.

Alex is scared for him as well, in his angry and quiet way. he almost breaks up with him when she finds him laying on the floor of his garden space, limbs spread out and curled tightly in the grass, his eyes reflected the sky above.

magnus had been there for three days.

this becomes a bi-weekly occurrence. by the fifth month, he's tired of the looks others keep sending him that feel like they should be sympathetic, but end up feeling reprimanding when he walks the hallways with his pipestem boyfriend. they say "this is what you get for chosing someone so strange and weak. this is what you get for being loki's son." and he wants to rip out their eyes. Magnus walks beside her and feels every look, wishing to every god that he could be better if just to make them stop.

it's easy to forget it all in their rooms, gentle hands and soft lips, easy to romanticize the flowers he coughs up when they're roses. they can lay on the massive couch and watch shitty movies, hoping that tomorrow won't be the day magnus walks into his atrium and doesn't get up again.

in the sixth month, an episode lasts a week before Alex checks on him, knocking on the door before kicking it in and finding magnus the way she always does, spread across the floor, half covered in grass. she picks him up, mourning the loose warm weight in her arms until the roots retracted enough from his brain to let him walk.

the effort makes him want to throw up, so he does, and clumps of moss and brackish water come out, soaking into the grass, growing it by an inch where it lands. they both stand there for a moment in confusion and wonderment tinged with no small amount of disgust before moving the rest of the way to the bathroom, Alex once again carrying magnus and wishing her einharji strength would go away so that his weight would feel more human than a bundle of weeds.

finally in the bathroom, she beings the graceless work of stripping someone who is only now gaining a sliver of mental presence, hating herself for loving him and the feel of his skin, hot breath and piercing eyes the whole time. when magnus' shirt finally comes off, the reason for his isolation becomes apparent. leaves and moss spill out of a torso so emaciated, it must be half decomposed, with a riot of daisies resting between his hips and english ivy climbing an exposed rib. he winces like the removal of his shirt hurts and he looks up at her with empty grey eyes that still seem to apologize.

alex finishes stripping him, not even able to eek out a joke about how the first time she sees him naked, it's because he's turning into plants. the bathtub fills too slowly, and both are so used to the immediacy of Valhalla that it chafes unbearably, sitting under their skin and reminding them how slow time really passes. Once it's full of steaming water, magnus gathers himself enough stand and offer Alex one last look before stepping into the water, dropping flora in a way that almost feels endearing, like that time he smiled at her with food between his teeth and she felt like the sun itself had chosen her to love, or when he bumped a pot she didn't even like and felt so bad about it he made a new pot that looked more like rock than a mug, or any of the other times she's fallen in love with a dead boy so abundantly full of life.

his foot sinks, then the other foot and his leg and his torso and his head and he barely has a moment for the water rushing into and out of him before he dissolves into botanical array of tear-jerking proportions. vines crawl the walls, with water lilies and lotuses and duckweed covering the top of the bathtub, spilling onto a floor that has turned into the softest grass and brightest flowers. the bathroom becomes alive and it is everything Alex can do not to destroy it all, scared this is all she has left of the love of her afterlife, angry it's all she gets, and indescribably sad she fell in love in the first place. all she can do is hope magnus shows up to breakfast.

(he doesn't.)