They told the boy that he shouldn't live; that his essence alone tarnished the purity of the village in which he resided, that even the faintest semblance of his existence would hurt anyone that it touched. They locked him away with nothing but a pile of hay and his own self to hold, surrounded by things that no human should ever have to come near. But of course, the boy thought, wrapping his arms around his bruised body, I am not human. I am something else. That's what they tell me, and there is no reason that I shouldn't believe them.

Sometimes, when she could manage it, his mother would bring him some leftover food. She would leave the scraps at the door for him to eat before that man who was not his father would return- si jahat, evil one- and walk away quickly, careful not to see her own reflection in his animal eyes.

Membuat saya manusia. Membuat saya manusia. Membuat saya manusia.

Make me human.

Maybe, he thought with each blow, one day his mantra could become truth. The sun would rise upon him one morning and he would suddenly be the one thing that he wanted to be. He tried to ignore the scorn on his stepfather's face each fresh morning by focusing on the pain that his fist brought, but he tried to ignore the hurt that rattled his bones by focusing on why he was to be hated. It was a vicious cycle. His mantra was all he had.

Membuat saya manusia.

Now, those days were only nightmares, that pain and hate he once felt only a memory. Of course, four hundred years later, he had so much more to haunt him: his mother's limp body hanging slack from a noose because she could not have the child she wished for; his own terrified screams as his stepfather held his head down under a lake, waiting for death to come until it did and was not his own death; his first lover dying in his arms as he sang to her, menyanyi saya untuk tidur , saya akan melihat anda dalam mimpi saya; meeting his real father; a girl with her long hair still in ribbons, young enough to carry a fabric doll everywhere she went screaming when he looked at her, telling him, die monster.

Nightmares. Mimpi buruk.

He was so used to lying awake, waiting for his mind to stop reeling and for oblivion- always temporary- to take him, with nothing to make him feel like he was worth enough to allow sleep to take him and his soul to finally rest. But nightmares were nothing now.

Alexander Lightwood was everything, curled up next to him with one hand under his own head and the other hand splayed over his heart as it thudded too quickly in his chest. Because of nothing, he told himself, as he watched Alexander Lightwood's long, dark eyelashes flutter against his cheek. He smiled at the boy, at Alexander Lightwood, who slept, his bare chest falling up and down with his peaceful breaths. Turning his own body to fit against the boy's he smiled into his black hair that was tangled against his forehead.

Earlier, Alexander Lightwood had told him that he deserved the world. He had told him that he was the one who lit up his world, the one whose entire being could fill him with everything that he ever had needed. Alexander Lightwood wrapped his arms around him earlier, and as they had eaten dinner- takeout, because neither of them had any culinary skills- he looked right into his eyes and said that he loved him.

The man, who was no longer the child from the barn, now wrapped his arms around Alexander Lightwood and smiled as his eyes got heavy. Before he was engulfed in tempory oblivion, he found himself able to say one final thing into his lover's ear:

Anduat mamuat saya manusia.

You make me human, Alexander.

Aku saying kamu.