Okay, this is my first ever fanfic, so I hope you like it, and please review *puppy eyes* and tell me what you think! Also, I majorly ship Alec and Magnus so this won't be all doom and gloom!
I don't own the Mortal Instruments, if I did it would all be Malec! Also, Luke would get more credit.
Camille's movements were fluid in the darkness, and the moonlight reflected off her silvery hair. Magnus had called her beautiful. Alec couldn't see it; she wasn't unattractive, he supposed, but her dead-white skin was cold to the eyes and the touch, like a corpse's flesh, the way she moved unnatural, and her huge hypnotic eyes unnerved him.
Alec had never been one to hate, but he could not like her.
"Camille!" he called, his voice echoing emptily into the night. He needed her. She slowed and turned slightly, not looking at him, but seeming to acknowledge his presence.
"Alexander." Alec mopped the loose black hair from his eyes, wishing that he wasn't so clueless, that he could be confident like Izzy or Jace.
"Just... call me Alec." The vampire turned fully, and struck him with her heavy gaze. Alec squirmed, as though in a spotlight, and wished that his life could be simple for once. "What do you want from me?" Camille shifted a little, not betraying any emotion but as if she were surprised by the question.
"Oh Alec, you're no fun to play with." He opened his mouth to say 'So don't', but suddenly Camille's cool fingers pressed against his lips. It was startling how fast she could move, but more so was her touch, so intimate, so strangely familiar; it was something Magnus did to him all the time, but his fingers were warm, and the yellow-green eyes behind them regarded him playfully, fondly, nothing like Camille's. Her stare was calculating, curious, and a hint of something else. Alec felt like a microbe pinned to a slide under the lens of a microscope as some unseen eye scrutinised his every pore.
"It is not a question of what I want from you, Shadowhunter, rather what you want from me." Her fingers withdrew from his lips, trailing down his cheek to follow the curve of his throat. It felt as though at any moment she would spring into action, slash for his jugular. But she wouldn't. One, the Clave would stake her out to burn for slaughtering one of their own, and two, he was worth too much to her. The power Camille held over him was like an owner dangling meat in front of a slavering dog, he was her tool to do with what she liked, to manipulate others accordingly, and she knew it.
"My, you are beautiful," she murmured, brushing the hair back from Alec's forehead, the other hand lingering where the pulse beat in his throat. "So like William, and yet- so different." A rush of anger flared up in Alec and he twisted away, bitterly.
"Magnus won't tell me about him. Not anything. But he has told me about you." Camille appeared unruffled, amused even; she knew exactly how to play with her little toy. "He told me how you use people. Manipulate them, twist the truth to your own advantage. He told me you did that to him, and made sure he could never love you again."
At this, Camille's fangs slid from between her lips.
"Is that what he said? I am immortal, Shadowhunter, I understand him more than you can imagine. He may not think of me now, now he has acquired his new pretty little amusement; for that is what you are, Alec, but he will. Mortal emotions are like mere flames, they sputter and die, but Magnus and I- we love in a way that no human could ever fathom. We do not have need of each other constantly, for we have eternity, and we endure whatever we must, for our feelings cannot simply be forgotten. We can have each other forever."
Alec's heart felt as though it had been dumped into a cold, stinking pond. It was true. Magnus would have Camille long after he himself was dead.
"You know I would give you whatever you wanted, if there was a way-"
She nodded, almost sympathetically, blonde hair playing delicately about her pale face. She knew it.
"There are ways, but" she paused, with an expressive shrug. "Magnus doesn't want it. You know that." The vampire's lips were inches away from Alec's cheek, close enough to taste the tears he couldn't hold back, though he was trying, with a sinuous flick of tongue. She inhaled, purely to experience his scent- he supposed, as vampires didn't breathe- and Alec tried to wriggle away but she clamped his wrist in an icy grip.
"You might think that I hate you, Alec. That I say these things to hurt you, but it is not so. There is no malice, no desire to hurt in you- and you are beautiful. You may have noticed I have a weakness for beautiful things, Magnus and I both. I care for him. That is the reason behind these harsh truths that I speak. You may also think that I wish to steal him from you, out of jealousy or loneliness, but it isn't the case. I have no need to be jealous, Magnus will always have me, after you die, or he realizes that what you have together can bring only harm."
A terrible coldness, like that of Camille's unbeating heart, began to creep through Alec's veins. It was all true, all of it; maybe Camille was a manipulator, but not out of spite. His silence didn't seem to bother her, in fact the hand that had clutched his wrist now gently circled his shoulder, a gesture of comfort to soften the pain of her words.
"I even like you, and I am truly sorry when I say that I hope you die young. While you are still energetic and lovely, before age marrs Magnus's memory of you. Because the longer you live, the happier you make him, will make it more painful when he loses you. You want him to say that you are the only one he will ever love, but as long as that is true you cannot really love him. Don't you see?"
The ice was now in Alec's heart, his bones, the backs of his aching eyelids. He had never thought that way, never realized how selfish he was being in letting Magnus love him, or the sacrifice Magnus had made to do it. Camille was right; if he truly loved Magnus, which of course he did, he couldn't let him live an eternity of pain and loneliness.
"My advice, Alec, is to find someone else while you are still young, and lovely. It will hurt, as the first love is always the hardest, but there is always another out there and they can make you happy. Even if you were immortal, you would not be indestructible, and the pain of losing you then would be even greater. In the end, that's real love, isn't it?"
Camille's deep, sea-green eyes gazed softly, imploringly. She just wanted what was best, for both of them.
"Doing all in your power to make that person happy, no matter what?"
Alec collapsed into her cool, soothing embrace, no longer trying to bite back the burning tears, sobbing into the woman's hair. If only he had realized the truth sooner. It was Jace all over again, falling in love with the wrong person. Not that he had really loved Jace. At least, this time, he would have his family, his parabatai, for support. Surely it would be all right?
Things will get happy soon, I promise! I might even slip in some lemons...not that I really know how to write them. Being a lesbian, cocks aren't really my area of expertise, so advice is welcome! And you know you want to click that review button. Love, China. xxx