AN: So, my first foray into Malec and - of course - it had to be sad as fuck because I´m unable to write something happy and carefree.

As always, this is not beta-read and English not my native tongue.

Alec was six when Magnus Bane moved into the neighbourhood.

"They've finally found a tenant for 3B," he heard Ms Morgenstern tell his mother, leaning over their garden fence and whispering conspiratorially. Alec liked Ms Morgenstern ('Call me Jocelyn, Ms Morgenstern makes me sound so old.' Alec never dared) because she was always nice to him when he came over to play with Jace and she never scolded him for the fights he got in with Clary. He didn't like Clary, but she was Jace´s sister and Isabelle liked her, so he kind of resigned himself to the fact that she would probably stay a permanent fixture in his life anyway.

"Who?" his mother asked, completely ignoring the petunias she had been planning to plant in favour of the new piece of gossip. Alec always found it weird how invested his mother was in her garden. She was always stern and though and barely smiled, but if you gave her flowers to take care of she would be the happiest person in the word.

(Sometimes Alec wondered if his mother loved her flowers more than him. Because they were beautiful, didn't act out and never disappointed her. Sometimes he just wanted to set them all on fire and watch them burn. Turn them into grey ash and smoke; beautiful no more.)

"I don't know exactly," Ms Morgenstern admitted. "But I´ve heard it´s a family from Indonesia. I´m so excited to meet them. I´ve already baked cake and everything." If Ms Morgenstern wasn't an adult Alec could have imagined her bouncing up and down in excitement, but so her smile just grew wider.

His mother smiled as well, but hers didn't reach her eyes. Alec knew why. His mother didn't like foreigners ('Where do we end up if everyone comes here because they´ve problems at home? They should solve them instead of running away.'). He had asked her why their family hadn't stayed in their country then, which had only earned him another disappointed gaze.

His mother was always disappointed in him. Never angry. She was only angry at Izzy.

The woman´s talk turned towards matters that didn't interest Alec any longer and so he turned back towards the house.

Hopefully Izzy hadn't eaten all the cookies yet.

Alec didn't think about the new tenants of 3B until one week later, when he came back from Jace and walked past the house in front of which several moving vans stood. The sidewalk was blocked by the many boxes, leaving him no choice but to continue walking on the street.

"These are to be moved to the first floor," a man said to the movers. He wore expensive clothes, as far as Alec could tell, and his features spoke of authority and power. Alec wondered what such a man was doing in their quaint little town.

"Hey, you!" someone whispered. Alec looked around but found no one talking to him. "Down here!"

Alec bend down and found a boy sitting beneath some of the boxes. Apparently he had built himself a cave, something of which Alec could only approve.

The boy, though, wasn't what Alec had expected. For once, he wore make-up and his whole clothes were kind of glitter-y.

"Isn´t make-up for girls?" Alec asked and the other boy pulled a face at him.

"Daddy says that´s what the patriarchy wants everyone to believe," the boy replied. "They want to devalue women by indoctrinating everyone into believing that women need to improve their appearance with make-up in order to be on the same standing as men." Alec didn't really understand what the boy was saying, but it sounded smart, so he was probably right.

"Sorry," Alec apologized. Maybe he should wear make-up as well, so that Izzy wasn´t de..de…devalued anymore?

"Have you seen Chairman Meow?" the boy meanwhile asked, already jumping to the next topic. "He´s my cat but that won´t stop him from leading his own multi-billion Dollar corporation one day." The boy said all that with a certainty that Alec had no trouble believing him.

"No, I haven´t," Alec answered.

"Then we´ve gotta search for him!" the boy exclaimed. "By the way, I´m Magnus."

They found Chairman Meow only a few streets away. The cat was more than happy to see its owner and practically hurled itself at Magnus' open arms.

On this day Alec also found a friend.

"I come seeking asylum," a fourteen-years-old Magnus proclaimed dramatically as Alec opened their front door. Alec just smiled at his best friend´s antics.

"What´s it this time?" he inquired bemused as he closed the door after Magnus had entered. "Is it your Dad again?" Alec truly liked Magnus' dead Asmodeus, but the older man was a little bit eccentric, a fact that hadn't really endeared him to his rule-loving mother.

"He´s on one of his diets again," Magnus complained. "Everything´s eaten raw, because cooking destroys the soul of the food." He rolled his eyes theatrically.

"Has he already moved on from his only-fish diet?" Izzy came stalking into the room, snatching her jacket from the hook and taking the house keys from their place on the shelf. "I loved what he did with the caviar." She turned to Alec. "I´m going over to Clary´s. Simon, Raphael, her and I are going to binge watch all the Harry Potter movies. If I´m not back by tomorrow evening I´m probably still crying in their basement over Fred´s death. Bye, losers." And then, like the whirlwind she was, his sister was already gone, leaving Alec no chance to say anything at all.

"Fred dies?" Magnus asked weakly, his face resembling a puppy from which you just took away its favourite toy and burned it in front of its eyes. "I haven't read that far." Alec just wanted to hug his friend and chase that forlorn expression away, but he didn't.

As he followed Magnus upstairs into his room, Alec wondered what had changed with him. He had always been fond of Magnus, but now there were these new urges that Alec didn't know how to confront. Sometimes when they were lying next to each other, he just wanted to reach out and touch the other boy. He had caught himself fantasizing about kissing Magnus on those delicate lips of his and once when they had been at the public pool he had stared at Magnus' bare chest longer than usual and when he noticed he couldn't help but blush fiercely.

Alec didn't know what he was feeling. Didn't know why there was this warmth spreading through his whole body every time he saw Magnus; didn't know why he felt so light-headed every time the other boy smiled at him; didn't know where this giddiness came from every time Magnus complimented him on something.

It confused Alec.

"Maybe you like him?" Simon offered as suggestion. Alec found it quite ironic that of all of his friends the one who was usually talking the most was also the best listener amongst them. What you told Simon staid with Simon and Alec didn't even want to know what the others had told the bespectacled boy in confidentiality.

"Of course I like him!" Alec exclaimed. "He´s my best friend!" Simon looked like he wanted to be everywhere but here right now.

"I never thought I´d be the one to guide you to your sexual epiphany," he muttered under his breath. "I always thought that´d fall to Izzy." He turned back to Alec. "Maybe you like him as more than a friend? Like Uncle Luke and Alaric?"

"I don´t even know if I like boys," Alec replied.

"Maybe you just like Magnus?" Simon remarked.

Alec chewed on his lips as he thought about what Simon had said. Did he like Magnus as more than a friend? Alec thought of glitter, green-yellow eyes, slender body, delicate fingers and caramel brown skin. He thought of Magnus laughing, of his bright smiles, of his compassionate attitude towards animals, of never-ending adventures that never made it past the fields on the edge of town and yet felt like they belonged in the wide world.

Maybe he did like Magnus as more than a friend.

Their first kiss was in a barn on one of the corn fields.

Alec didn't know how it happened, only that suddenly Magnus' lips were on his and that he never wanted it to stop. It was as if every moment of his live had led to this very moment, that Fate itself had aligned everything so that the two boys would find themselves here amidst the hay, pressing their lips on each other. Magnus tasted of honey, incense and something Alec couldn't quite pinpoint. Alec couldn't get enough of it, chasing the taste with his tongue as they explored each other´s mouths.

It was like coming home and Alec couldn't imagine any feeling more glorious than what he was feeling right at this moment.

It was Asmodeus who opened the door after Alec had rung the bell. The man didn't look good, his aristocratic features appearing haggard and tired.

"Oh, it´s you," he commented and his voice lacked the otherworldly quality that it usually held.

"Has something happened?" Alec inquired. "Magnus hasn't talked to me for days." For a moment Asmodeus looked like he didn't know if he should shut the door in Alec´s face or let him in, but after a short moment of indecision he stepped aside to allow the boy entry.

Slowly, as if his age had suddenly caught up to him, Asmodeus made his way towards the sitting table. Alec followed.

"You deserve to know," he whispered and a dreadful sense of foreboding settled upon Alec. "You´ve made my son so happy. I´ve never seen him this happy since his mother…after his mother hung herself." He paused for a moment. "We were at the doctors a few weeks ago. They found some irregularities in his blood tests. Turned out that it´s a rare kind of bone cancer. Fatal. No healing chances." The man looked at Alec and it was like the whole pain of the world was captured behind Asmodeus' eyes as he looked at the boyfriend of the son he was forced to watch wither away. It was so raw, so desperate and desolate that Alec couldn't bear to look at it any longer.

"I had to bury my own wife," Asmodeus whispered to no one particular, having forgotten about Alec´s presence. "Now I have to bury my son as well." Alec couldn't stand it any longer. He turned around and ran up the stairs towards Magnus' room, his emotion creating a turmoil within him that threatened to overtake him any second.

Magnus was dying. Three words and yet they shattered his world like a tornado would shatter a house of cards. Alec couldn't believe it – didn't want to believe it – that all of a sudden their love had been marked with an expiration date that they couldn't fight against. What about their grand plans? What about their dreams, their hopes, their aspirations?

With shaky hands Alec opened the door to Magnus room. The other boy was sitting on his bed, staring into nothingness. When he heard Alec entering he focused his gaze on him.

"You´ve heard?" he asked in resigned tone. Alec just nodded. He sat down in front of Magnus and took his hands into his, noticing that Magnus' hands were shaking as well.

"That´s it with our grand plans, isn´t it?" Magnus laughed. A mocking sound, full of bitterness and without any hope. "I´ll die here and you´ll move into the great big world on your own."

"No," Alec answered back, placing a kiss on Magnus' knuckles. "There´s still time to see through at least some of our plans."

"They say I only have a few months left," Magnus confessed and Alec could feel his heart shatter.

"Then I´ll make sure that they aren't wasted," he promised and for a few peaceful seconds everything was alright.

Alec could feel the atmosphere around him change the moment he entered through the hospital doors.

The noises from outside suddenly abated and were replaced by shouting nurses, crying family members and the ticktack the wheels of the hospital beds made when they were pushed over the ground.

The warm sunlight was replaced by the cold and clean white light of the neon lamps hanging on the ceiling. Everything was white in here – the floor, the walls, the people – and Alec hated it. Hated how a colour that should stand for purity and innocence became associated with illness, pain and death.

White was Magnus' favourite colour.

Around him nurses and doctors ran through the corridor; shouting and giving orders, a flurry of activity. The sounds of screaming, crying and sorrow echoed through the walls and Alec would have given everything to just be able to blend it out. To turn it off.

But he couldn't.

Like a robot Alec made his way towards the room number that Asmodeus had told him over the phone. No one bothered to intercept him, even though technically they should have. But maybe, with his dead eyes (devoid), his pale skin and the expression that practically screamed his pain to the world he looked like the part of the loved one.

Magnus' room was at the end of the hallway, off the main corridors and activity. The further Alec walked along, the more silent everything became. He felt like he was moving into a whole different world, away from the hectic of the hospital and the pain it entailed, towards something serene and peaceful.

But he knew that there was no peace to be found here. No serenity held behind the white doors.

Finally, Magnus' room. For one short moment, Alec´s hand hovered above the door handle. He hesitated and hated himself for it. Opening the door would make everything real. It would mean confronting the agonising pain that was lying in wait for him. The door was his barrier to the ugly truth and as long as it was closed he could still pretend that Magnus was waiting at home for him, Asmodeus cooking something weird and Chairman Meow sitting in Magnus lap, commanding all of his attention.

But as fast as these thoughts had come they vanished again. Alec owned it Magnus – owned it to their relationship and to everything they have had – that he didn't act like a coward. He owed it Magnus to see this through until the bitter end.

So Alec pushed down and gently opened the door.

Sunlight was streaming through the half-raised blinds, their warm light making the room appearing more welcome than it should have any right to be. It´s rays shone upon the particles of dust that floated sluggishly through the air, making it look like a thousand little diamonds were glistening in the atmosphere. There was silence, no sound getting in through the closed windows.

It was serene and peaceful and comforting and Alec hated it with every fibre of his being.

"You came," Magnus whispered from where he was lying in the hospital bed. Always having been of a leaner and skinny built, the figure that Magnus had become was a sick parody of his former self. Skin, so thin that Alec could see the blue veins underneath, so strained that it looked like there was nothing underneath but bones. Magnus' lips were dry and chapped, his hair dull and thin, but his eyes…his eyes held still the same spark as they did all those years ago when they had been nothing but boys ready to conquer the world and find their own path. So full of curiosity, warmth and compassion that Alec never wanted to break their eye contact, fearing that Magnus' fire would extinguish the moment he looked away.

"Of course I did," Alec replied hoarsely. He wanted to say more but he feared that his voice would fail – that his emotions would overwhelm him – and so he said nothing and just sat down on the bed besides Magnus and took the other boy´s hand into his.

"Don´t look at me like this," Magnus snapped at him.

"Like what?" Alec asked, confused.

"Like a love-struck idiot," Magnus shot back. "Like I´m someone beautiful. Like I´m someone precious, priceless; someone to be cherished. Like you love me." Tears were starting to spill from Magnus' eyes. "I´m none of these things. I can´t even stand on my own, I can barely eat without help. Everyone looks at me like I´m a geriatric, old man, ready to drop dead any minute. I´m hollow, I´m broken and there´s nothing left of the boy you fell in love with. My own body is killing me and I hate it – I hate myself for it. I´m a wreck you shouldn't hold on to for the sake of the past."

"I don't care," Alec interrupted Magnus forcefully. "I. Don´t. Care. You could be the most bitter, broken and hollowed person on this godforsaken Earth and I´d still love you as much as I do now. You could lay waste to the whole town – to the whole world – and I´d still stand by your side through everything. Do you know why? Because I love you, Magnus Bane, and no amount of tubes sticking in your body will change that, okay? So…just don't push me away. It won´t work. I´ll come back to you again and again and again."

Now Magnus was crying, the tears spilling forth uncontrollably and the pain in these green-yellow eyes made Alec´s own desperation grow even further. Yet, he couldn't break down now. Magnus needed him strong, unbreakable, unmoving in the currents that were threatening to drown him and so Alec just scooped his boyfriend up and embraced him as tightly as he could, fearing that the frail body underneath would break.

Alec let Magnus sob and cry into his shoulder, letting him hold onto him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. Alec couldn't do much anymore for Magnus, but he could do that. Be the anchor the other definitely needed.

When all tears had dried, Alec let go of Magnus. The other´s face hovered in front of his and for a moment Alec studied every line, every wrinkle, every colour of Magnus' face, traced every part of it with his eyes, fearing that if he didn't do it right now he may have never the chance to do it again.

"Kiss me," Magnus breathed and Alec didn't need to be told twice. Their lips met and with the desperation of two men drowning they tasted each other.

Their kiss was everything. It was past and future folded into one inconsequential part of eternity and yet it transcended eternity like it was nothing. It was hurt, anger, grief, betrayal and friendship, forgiveness, laughter, love all laid into one single gesture. It spoke of possibilities that once were and of futures that once upon a time could have been within their grasp but now were shrouded into darkness.

It was a promise of remembrance and Alec hated that he had to give it.

Eternities could have passed or only a second when they let go of each other.

"I don´t want to die," Magnus confessed.

"You won´t," Alec said and he knew that it was a lie.

But lies were all they had left to tell themselves and so Alec continued to spin his tale of a happy future that would never see the light of the day but in their dreams.

Magnus died one week later. Passed away in his sleep.

Love conquers all, Alec thought bitterly as he looked upon the white headstone.

He wished that he could go back to when he still believed in that lie.