A/N: Malec's sparking relationship through the eyes of the shy, closeted Nephilim. Alec's POV right before the kiss in the Accords Hall. May or may not be slightly AU: Alec knows that Max is dead by now and I'm too lazy to look up whether that's before or after the Accords Hall Kiss. Warning: a few cusses in there to get through the feelings Alec's going through right now.
Magnus's voice in Alec's head.
Alec's thoughts.
.
.
.
It's starting. I can feel it, a spark in my stomach, a light in the dark. It's dim, like it hasn't been blazing long, but I can tell that it will become an inferno.
It began so simply, so innocently, that I was caught off guard when I first realized it was happening. I'd never entertained the notion that it might happen to me. Izzy? Sure. Jace? It's possible. Max? Absolutely. (Oh, the irony. The one person I was dead sure would fall in love didn't live long enou – don't go down that road, Alexander. Not again.)
It's terrifying. It's exhilarating. I feel trapped. I feel freer than I ever have. I'm frightened someone will find out. I want to tell the world. It's a million contradictions and oxymorons – captive freedom, hiding in glittery sight, fighting to quash it, fighting to show it.
I want to hold my boyfriend's hand (my boyfriend!) in public. I want to show him off to the world, to tell the people like his father, who called him a freak and looked down on him, to shove their opinions up their asses. I want to hide my feelings and be the perfect Shadowhunter son and carry on the family name to make my parents proud. I want to pretend to be his friend to avoid ridicule. I can't make up my mind, and I've only been seeing him for a month and a half. (Best month and a half of my life.)
He's flashy and glittery and so… out. When I'm with him, my closet becomes transparent. It's assumed that I'm his boyfriend with differing levels of contempt and disgust. I wish I could be braver. (Hahaha, the Shadowhunter wishes he were brave. Probably why I've never killed a demon. Even my parabatai knows it.) I'm not ashamed of him. I love him.
But…
I've kept this – whatever this feeling is – bottled up inside of me ever since I was a child and saw Jace for the first time and thought, Holy fuck, he's hot. I've hidden my crush on my parabatai for years now, and no one has found out. No one but Izzy, and I told her.
She says to come out to everyone. To my mom. To my dad. To my Jace. I… For all the legendary bravery of the Shadowhunter is worth, I can't even say two little words: I'm gay. I can't tell my boyfriend I love him. I can't hold his hand in public, can't kiss him or tell people to piss off. I want to. Oh, how I want to. But I've never been one who acts on his own desires.
I'm a coward. I'm an idiot. I'm scared of love, so afraid of it that it runs my life. I want nothing more than to kiss my boyfriend here, in the Accords Hall, in front of everyone. That… Actually doesn't sound like the worst way to come out.
It doesn't sound like the worst way to admit my love, or to spread my wings and use them to say Fuck them. You're perfect. We're perfect.
I think I kind of like that idea.
xXx
Our story has no end. It spirals upward; we are eternal and mortal, chaste and passionate. We are everything and nothing.
I have no grand dramatic exit to offer you; no ending, in your perception of the word, because this story, my story, our story, is not over. It is retold and retold by our children. It is guarded in my husband's heart. This is a never-ending story; eternal, infinite, and immortal.
For immortality is not eternal life in your perception of the words, but rather in love, and in the memories of those we loved.
We are the never-ending story, immortal, infinite in all our finite mortality.
We are etched into the hearts and memories of those we touched, and those they touched, and thus forever.
We are the ones who are brave enough to love.
We are a never-ending, never-dying story.