So I actually wrote the second part of this one first and was totally in love with it and then the first part was needed and I'm sad to say I'm not as happy with it. All well, here's another fic from the 24 Fics in 24 Days Challenge I just finished. Be aware of the mild trigger warnings on this for bulimia, self-harm, drugs and self-destructive behaviour though none are described in any graphic manner whatsoever.
When they are eight, still unaware of the world that is spinning darkly downwards all around them, they will meet for the first time. They'll both be little then, still part of happy families that tuck them in each night before bedtime and take bright pictures of great moments in their seemingly short lives. They'll laugh freely and run through the park they meet in with wide grins and dirt on their faces like the children they'll still be. Magnus will turn just a little too sharply and veer into Alec, who will fall to the ground with a surprised look in his bright blue eyes. Magnus will note that he's pretty and reach out to help him up, Alec will note that he's friendly and accept the hand offered to him. They will exchange rapid introductions, no more than names and apologies, and then run off to play together in the park until their parents call them back.
When they each go to leave, they'll smile wide grins and both will silently pray to see the other again. They'll be pleasantly surprised when they reach their homes and realize they live right next door to each other, since Magnus moved all the way here from Indonesia only two days before. They will grin and laugh and play some more and eventually their friendship will grow to be the best either of them has ever had.
When they grow up enough to realize neither are really looking at the girls who flounce through their classrooms is pretty dresses and pin their hair in intricate manners, they will both look to the other and wonder if they are drawing the same conclusions. They'll realize they are— though Magnus will also note that he wouldn't mind kissing some of the girls who giggle his way— and then, in turn, realize that the way they should be looking at those girls is really the way they look at each other. Neither will say anything about it and eventually both will find it isn't as hard to ignore as they'd thought it would be.
When they are fourteen, it won't seem like as big a deal to either of them as it will become in the future both are far too young to see stretching just up ahead like a dark promise of what each will become. When they are fourteen, neither will think its going to be a problem.
When they are nineteen, struggling with the growing distance that has wedged its way between them, they will look on at the messes they have become and wonder where they fell into such a downward spiral. They will wonder when the world stole the happy families they both once had, the happy lives they both once led, and they will ask themselves if there was anything they could have done to stop it.
When Alec has turned to drugs and Magnus to sex, they'll flick their computers on and avoid looking at eachother through the screen because there is something between them now that neither are willing to acknowledge, to accept. It's probably the reason for the distance here, apart from the miles that now stretch between them as they go home to separate dorms in separate cities.
When they go first weeks then months without speaking, they'll fall restlessly into their own personal addictions and try to forget the blue of the other's eyes, the tan of the other's skin. They'll succeed, for a night, maybe two, before it will all come rushing back in a heat of burning pain, seared into each of their shattered hearts. And when they pull out their phones, swipe at the number they still have on speed dial, they will feel the other there like a cold dose of water, numbing the hurt that now follows after them like an angry shadow. They'll cry, after, in the comfort of the lonely room behind each of their locked doors and they'll ask themselves why they let it get so bad, why they didn't stop it when they had the chance. They never had a chance, though, not really, but neither of them are willing to admit it.
When finally the masks they have worn for many long years start to crack just as the rest of them have, Alec will mark the snow white skin the other has so long admired with thin lines of red and Magnus will wedge slender fingers the other has forever longed to hold deep in his mouth until he retches out the sin in him down a porcelain toilet. It is never gone, the sin, the guilt, the fault that lies within them both, no matter how long they continue with such arduous actions and eventually they will both wish the pain away so desperately they will start to wish themselves away along with it.
When they return to houses they no longer call home, they will glance longingly at the one beside their own and pray the other can see them, can feel them, will come over to them so they won't have to go to them. Neither of them will and instead they'll both trudge tiredly up their creaking stairs, shrugging off the parents they lost many years ago, and curl miserably onto their beds. Alec's sister will crack his door open, flick the light switch, cast her sad brown eyes over him, and then leave him in darkness as she turns back the way she's come. Magnus's new father will knock on his door, call out his name, and then slip back down the stairs when he gives no reply. Both will glance longingly at the phones at their sides, at the number one they still have only to press to reach the other, and they'll will it to ring, to buzz, to do anything to show that the other is still there. That they haven't lost them entirely. Neither of them will reach out to press the key.
When they meet for the first time in months not long after in the foyer of the Lightwoods' house, they will wonder how they let the distance grow so great that they can no longer reach the other across the gaping chasm they have left between them. Alec will shift, turn away, fingers itching for the scissors he can see on the kitchen counter or the powder he knows is in his dresser drawer. Magnus will swallow, breathe deep, feeling cold as he wonders if the walls of the house's bathroom are thick enough to drown out the sound of him retching. They won't speak, at first, will barely so much as glance in the other's direction until the dinner their parents have set up is over and they have been left in Alec's room together with no one to fill the silence they have let wrap around their tongues.
When they break the ice that has settled between them like a wall they have each built to keep the other out, it will be because Magnus has reached for Alec in a desperate attempt to fix things and noticed the silver whips that now decorate his arms. There will be no pink or red, those are higher up where Alec has learned no one will see them, but their cause will be obvious. Magnus will let out a quiet breath, Alec will suck one in sharply, and both will finally meet the other's eyes. There they will find everything they had so long tried not to look for in an effort to keep their dying hopes from climbing too high and everything that this has brought onto them. Alec will note Magnus's thinness, will ask him about it. Magnus will not lie, he never can to the boy before him, and neither will Alec when Magnus asks about the scars on his arms.
When they have talked long into the night, past their parents falling into bed and the sun fading under the horizon, they will both reach for the other and tangle into Magnus's addiction together. It will be different, though, than all the others he has used to fuel this unshakable habit of his, and will feel like something new. They will speak of love, as they lay twisted together in the aftermath of it, and while neither will be fixed, they will both feel the drill that has been cracking their hearts into fine bits of dust lift away from their chests. Later, Alec will glance at the drugs he had taken so freely only yesterday and flush them down the toilet Magnus has sworn not to crouch at the foot of ever again. Alec won't throw out the razor and Magnus will still fall into his bed more often than he should, but it's a start. They'll both take that and find that it's enough.
When they slip, they will call the other in tears or turn their computers on in the dark hours of the night just to see the other's face. They will break, piece by piece, and then put themselves back together again with different parts that do not reek so potently of past mistakes. These new pieces of themselves will fit even better with each other and eventually the distance that once stretched so widely between them will be nothing but a blurry memory of the years they fell apart. They will learn back the smiles they once shared so easily and their laughs will no longer sound as fake or as strained as they did. They will heal, over time, and be better for it than they ever were before.
When the distance is gone in the miles between them as well, they will fall into the same bed at the end of the each day and curl together. They will find the homes they lost in each other, in blue eyes and tan skin, and they'll find the happiness that was stolen from them as though they never lost it. Alec will still call his sister, still bring his brother flowers, and Magnus will still dream of his father, still speak to his mother, but they will both have slipped easily into a whole different world where things are no longer as dark and terrifying as they once were. They'll slide bands of silver over slender fingers and wrap them together to admire the way they match so seamlessly. They'll smile and laugh and be home as they never have been before, happy as they never were.
When they look at the scars that mark each of their bodies, the silver whips over Alec's and the thinness that has never left Magnus's, they will glance at each other and their patchwork hearts will beat in sync. They will twine together and kiss the scars away, remove the stitches that hold those hearts together and find that they are healed now. They will smile at the smoothness of them, the flawless way they beat for each other, and they will know that they're okay.
When they are twenty-eight, their past will be nothing but a shadow to trail along behind them and drive them forward to the future they can both see glinting brightly up ahead. When they are twenty-eight, they will be happier than either had ever thought possible.
Let me know what you thought?