So you'll soon notice this is set about a year after The Ship of the Dead. These two characters are often closed off emotionally, so writing a heart-to-heart was a challenge.

This includes, but is not limited to, a talk about Alex's shape-shifting in terms of her genderfluidness. You can keep your head in the gutter. WE WERE ALL THINKING IT.

She didn't do this often, okay?

Maybe the last few months she had done it more times than she'd like to admit, and maybe she liked it, but that didn't mean it was on her schedule. She didn't like schedules.

But.

Well.

There had been an accident with a dragon during the Learn-How-to-Die-Without-Panicking-and-Try-Not-to-Suck-While-at-It games that afternoon. Meaning both Magnus and Mallory had taken the blow of an unfortunate breath of fire.

The redhead had died instantly; it had been almost ridiculous. Magnus, on the other hand – either because he hadn't been as close or because had healed himself super quick –, only had his clothes scorched. And he chose not to be bothered. He simply took off his ruined armor and kept fighting, saying he was still shit at it and had to get better.

Alex was bothered.

Because it might have had escaped his notice, but his shirt had pretty much disappeared. Not completely, like some berserkers who were running around. No. It had huge holes in it, burned off, enough for one to catch very nice glimpses of his chest; just not enough to do so without paying a certain amount of attention.

Oh, Magnus still died pathetically some time after. And Alex had seen him without a shirt on before – from up close, without him moving as much, and being able to touch it. But there was something about him being in battle mode and being splattered with blood that had… done things to him.

She still had a perfectly placed poker face throughout dinner, of course – and she had resurrected as a girl. Magnus was oblivious, eating and joking as usual. He even flirted a little, because he had been in the habit of doing that every once in a while, going as far as briefly brushing a hand against her thigh to ask if she wanted a taco. He wasn't one for much physical contact – which was fine with Alex –, so that had been pretty PDA-y of him.

It all bottled down to her knocking on his door once everybody else had gone to their respective rooms. Judging by how little time it took him to answer, Alex gathered he hadn't gone to sleep yet.

A smile lit up his face. "Hey! I'm just watching Doctor Who; d'you wanna…?"

"Sure," she shrugged.

It was their usual. Every time she knocked on his door at this hour, he knew she wanted to hang out. It had been their pattern for almost a year, actually. They had steadily begun to spend more time together – they had grown more comfortable with touching and looking, kissed more often, and had added making out to their routine months before. Alex refused to call him her boyfriend, but if there was a label to be put, that would probably be it.

How sappy.

That was not what she'd come here for.

She took the center of his couch, in a way that, whichever side he chose, he'd be close enough to touch without effort. Not that he wouldn't sit that close even if he had seven feet of couch next to her.

As Magnus took his seat, he unpaused the episode on the plasma screen in front of them and resumed watching. Usually, Alex wouldn't mind Doctor Who. It was a bit crazy, but it was entertaining enough. Today, though, her mind was very far from aliens.

She gave him one (01) chance to notice her mood when she glanced his way in what she thought was quite longing. He was too focused on the series and didn't bat an eyelid. So she had to take desperate measures.

Alex rolled her eyes and huffed before climbing over and straddling his lap in one move. She leaned against her forearms on his shoulders. "You know, Chase, I lied. I'm not much in the mood for Doctor Who."

His surprised face was enough to make the whole ordeal worth it. Over the past months, he had stopped stammering every time she insinuated anything and – after he got the okay from Alex – would even initiate sometimes. Now he had been caught completely off-guard, though, and a blush tainted his cheeks. "O-oh."

She didn't wait for him to get back to his senses and kissed him, fully wrapping her arms around his neck. To his credit, he used to be much slower to react. This time, his hands found her hips quickly and pulled her closer, his mouth matching her enthusiasm.

She wasn't sappy. But this was nice.

A flashback to him in the battlefield with a ripped shirt had Alex running both her hands down his chest. When she reached the hem – a bit close to another part of him she had started being interested in and was considering exploring soon –, she simply reached under the cotton material and continued her journey.

"At first, I was disappointed the dragon didn't kill you today," she commented with a slightly breathy voice.

Since his lips were now busy with her neck, he just hummed.

"But I guess I like you better with your shirt half burned off."

It took him a moment to connect her words to her wandering hands. When he did, Alex expected him to maybe smile shyly into her neck or chuckle in embarrassment. Instead, he just paused. His fingers relaxed a bit in her hips. "Oh."

"Monosyllabic much today, Maggie? That's okay. We don't have to talk," she tried to joke it off, but it was obvious something had ticked him.

Two seconds stretched before he turned his face completely to her neck, resting his forehead on her cheek. He took a long, deep breath as he squeezed her lightly, and Alex felt herself freezing up. Sure, the right thing to do would be to just ask him if she'd said something that offended him – because, duh, of course she had, by his reaction –, it was just… Magnus was usually the one concerned with feelings. He made sure to know when he'd said something offensive and he apologized. Alex wasn't good at that.

It was pathetic, how she stood still while he caressed her back. She glanced his way with just her eyes so as not to disturb him, but his eyelids were shut. Her hands were still under his shirt, against his abdomen, and she felt like maybe she should take them back, but she didn't know how to do it without drawing attention to the fact that they were there.

His left hand made its way from her back and cupped her cheek, so now her face was trapped between his palm and his forehead. It was intimate enough to freak her out for a second before she got used to the feeling.

(Yeah, that pattern happened a lot.)

A few seconds went by, and Alex was almost properly Freaking Out at him just taking deep breaths at her neck, when Magnus cupped her jaw and angled her head. The first kiss he planted underneath her opposite jaw made her toes curl and her breath catch. Thankfully for her, as he continued pecking her skin, it went back to how he was doing it before she said anything.

Her consciousness complained that she probably should have pressed the issue. That, however, would entail a conversation about feelings. So she went back to making out.

She supposed his enthusiasm wasn't the same as before, but by no means did that mean he wasn't enthusiastic. Most thoughts were erased from her inner monologue when he returned his lips to hers, and he hadn't taken her hands off his abdomen, so she kept them there, roaming. At one point (after he pulled her hair to slightly position her head better), her fingers curled and her nails lightly scratched down his chest. He responded by squeezing her waist with his right hand and pulling her hips down.

It was probably an automatic response, but Alex felt her face heating up anyway.

Soon, he lied down on the couch and dragged her on top of him. This wasn't new. However, her head was fuzzier than normal – maybe from lack of oxygen, maybe because of everything else going on. She could tell their pace was faster this time, more urgent. Hands grabbed more firmly and moved quicker. Kisses were sloppier but deeper. They were both panting.

When she bit his neck, his hands did the thing again – squeezed her hips and pulled them down into his. She wasn't one hundred percent sure it had been an automatic body reaction this time, and she could, like, feel him, but it felt good and she was comfortable and definitely not thinking straight.

She ignored the little warning bells in the back of her mind.

His shirt was halfway up his torso and his hair was a mess from Alex pulling at it (she had to admit she liked it better like this, a bit longer). She almost couldn't see the gray in his eyes – when she had time to look into them, anyway –, his pupils almost completely dilated. All the signs were there and yet, she didn't stop to think about what was happening.

It took her a bit more to realize. During a particularly deep kiss, Magnus's hands ran down her frame with pressure, pressing their bodies together as he inhaled, until they reached her ass and did The Thing again.

So. Totally intentional. No doubt about it.

With a smack, she pulled back from his lips and buried her face against his shoulder. When he noticed she wasn't doing anything, Magnus immediately took his hands from her ass and placed them on her waist. "What is it? Did I do something?"

See? He was the one concerned about feelings.

And it wasn't the ass. She liked his hands there, which is why she'd put them there in the first place a couple of months back so he'd know it was safe to touch. She just wished she didn't have to broach the actual reason for her pulling back. She didn't want to have that conversation, dreaded it even. She hadn't planned on ever mentioning it, but she knew that it had the potential to hurt her so badly if she didn't. Her sense of survival spoke louder.

Gods. She hated being responsible.

"Alex?" Magnus asked hesitantly.

With a sigh, she pushed herself up on her forearms to face him. His forehead was scrunched up in worry. "We can stop and watch TV or something, if you don't wanna –"

"I want to, okay?" she closed her eyes firmly. "That's the problem."

"I don't… see how that's a problem?"

Of course he wouldn't. Idiot.

She opened her eyes, but didn't face him, choosing to stare at his shoulder and tap her fingers impatiently against the cushion next to his head.

Another sigh. "I never planned to talk about this, okay? Because, honestly, it's nobody's business."

He didn't pressure her to keep going when she stopped again. That was a thing he did, yeah – he never insisted to try and get the words out of her. She thought it had something to do with when she asked him for space, and ever since then he had taken it very seriously. It was, quite frankly, a bit annoying, how considerate he was. She couldn't even be mad and distract him from the issue.

"I still don't wanna talk about it," she muttered.

"We don't have to."

His voice was so soft. It didn't help things. At all.

"We have to, though. It's…" She felt like all she ever did was sigh in frustration. Then she motioned at their current position. "It's obvious we do."

That's when it downed on him that she was talking about sex. She could tell by the blush on his cheeks and how he seemed to barely tense up underneath her. "Oh."

At that, her lips threatened to curl up. She promptly forced them down and distracted herself with the leather cushion under his head, cursing it for not having any stray threads for her to play with.

"On my birth certificate," Alex started, already cringing, "it says male."

"I don't care about that," he was quick to reassure.

Yes, she was aware of that. She thought. It didn't hurt to be reminded, even though this was the first time she was telling him this. Either way, she shot him a look for him to shut up and he obeyed.

"Yes, well, I didn't stay like that for long, apparently. My father and stepmother were too shocked to actually spell it out to me, what I did when I was a baby, but I kept changing. Physically," she felt the need to clarify. She saw it in his eyes (she glanced over, quickly) the moment he went Oh again and she tried to fight down her blush. "Loki had already told them about everything, but obviously they were pissed. They decided that what was on paper was the right thing and blocked it out, I guess."

A pause. Then she scoffed. "And honestly, it's nobody's business. I…" I just hadn't considered until a few weeks back when it could become somebody else's business as well. "I don't change much. I don't see the point. This is me. Sometimes I feel super femininely but don't feel like I have to dress that way or have that body. And I don't have to." She took a deep breath, still not meeting his eyes even if his hand was lightly caressing her back. "But I do. Change. When I feel like it. Mostly when I change genders, but it's not a rule."

She waited for it to register in his brain. The thing was, he didn't react at all, apart from his hand stopping its movements. No questions came. No Ohs. He didn't force her up and out of his bedroom.

When Alex couldn't take it anymore, she risked looking at him. She found him looking back, his face serene. "Okay."

She blinked. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"Did you listen to what I just said?"

"Of course."

"Did you understand what I just said? Like, really understand?"

"Yes."

She wouldn't have believed him if not for the matching blush he had that grew redder.

"And it's okay?"

"Yes."

She narrowed her eyes. "You know this isn't something you can make yourself like for my sake. You have to tell me now. Because," she sighed yet again, "I was a dude just this morning, and now I'm a girl, and by the time we wake up tomorrow I could be a dude again. So it's…" her voice faded out when he brushed a bit of her hair that was covering her eyes. She swallowed. "I need you to tell me now."

"And I am telling you now," he repeated, "that it's okay."

Her suspicion must have been written all over her face, because it was his turn to sigh. He played with her hair, eyes on his hand, for a few more seconds before he spoke again. "Don't be so disbelieving. I wouldn't lie about that. Why is it so hard for you, of all people, to accept that I… like both?" he finished meeting her eyes.

It wasn't as if Alex hadn't met anyone who liked more than one gender. And it wasn't as if she actually thought Magnus only liked girls. There was this once, when they were out for coffee in the city, that he had bumped into a guy while grabbing some sugar – indeed, a very hot guy – and he had been a stuttering mess during the whole apology, flushing bright red. Alex had caught him staring discreetly at boys as much as he stared at girls (which was next to nothing; he hardly stared at anybody else, but case in point).

That wasn't the hard-to-believe part. No.

It just seemed too much of a coincidence that the one person who, apparently, liked her for real had no reservations whatsoever concerning her being genderfluid and a shape-shifter. What were the odds that he was actually…

"What was that word again? Pansexual? That was it, wasn't it?" Magnus frowned like a confused puppy. "When you just don't care about the gender."

"Something like that," Alex heard herself whisper.

"Okay," he grinned, as if their problems were solved that simply and she needn't have worried so much.

She had to check, though.

"And you're sure you're not, like, panromantic?"

Of all the times he'd blushed during their encounter, this was when he did so the hardest. "Pretty sure it's pansexual, yeah."

"Oh."

Oh, indeed, her brain told her. She didn't think she'd get this far so smoothly. She had unloaded so much emotional baggage on him with a couple of sentences and he had strolled in and basically been like, But I would still have sex with you either way.

His hand went from stroking her hair to pulling her down for a kiss. Gradually, they got back to their rhythm of wandering lips and hands, only now Alex's heart was beating twice as fast as it had been beating before, which was saying something.

When she stroked his abdomen again, she remembered she had intended to ask one thing. "Why'd you react that way? When I said I like you with… with your shirt burned off."

He very clearly wasn't uncomfortable with her touching his chest and everything, and the fact that he would still sometimes take off his shirt before fully closing his door showed he wasn't ashamed either.

As expected, he slowed his movements. "It's nothing."

"Okay, so I was pretty freaking honest a minute ago. Need a little reciprocity here. You're still an awful liar."

"Awful?" he pouted.

She wasn't buying it.

His smile melted and he looked away. Alex tried to be as patient with him as he was with her, but the seconds lasted forever. She never realized how hard it was to wait for someone.

"I guess when you climbed on top of me and started kissing me, all handsy, and basically said we shouldn't talk and that you were – I don't know, I felt… used?" he finished with a question, turning back to her. "Because you didn't come to hang out or whatever this past week, and then suddenly I'm partially shirtless in combat and you show up?"

Okay. When he put it like that, it sounded horrible. And she knew he wanted to add more: she hadn't watched the damn Doctor Who episode with him. Sure, they usually didn't watch the whole thing – it was 40-50 minutes –, but this had probably been a new record for her lack of patience. He'd most likely thought it was too petty to mention, even though she knew it was important to him.

"I might've… not expressed myself well," Alex sat up and back on her heels, feeling as though she shouldn't be trying to apologize for objectifying him while being on top of him, straddling his hips. He followed her movement more slowly, eyes never leaving hers – and it sort of ruined the not-straddling-his-hips-anymore-part, but whatever. "I didn't want you to feel like that."

Magnus tilted his head to the side and once again raised his hand to brush her hair (mostly her pseudo-fringe) from her face. "I don't expect much, really. You're closed off, I'm closed off. We both don't like much PDA. It's fine. But, Alex, no one can see you inside this room. And I've given you, and will keep giving you, all the space you need to feel comfortable. As long as you, you know… know I'm not joking."

He put enough stress into those last few words that she couldn't think of many possible meanings. The most obvious one still scared her. It had been almost a year since they'd been dying in Niflheim and she'd kissed him. If she had to guess, she'd say it had been, what – seven months since she'd actually accepted she liked him and had started spending time with him without any excuse. He was a (partially) open book and she'd thought this, what they were doing, was enough for him to understand she cared as well.

"I know," she whispered.

He nodded and waited, expectantly.

"And I'm sorry," she managed. "I'll… We'll have one of those marathons you're so fond of. Sometime this week. Your pick."

"Even if it's something as tedious as The Lord of the Rings?"

"Well, if I get too bored, I can always kill you, right? I'm sure I can find some new, exciting way."

He chuckled and leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her lips. "Do you wanna… stay today?"

She honestly thought she'd ruined any chances of even continuing making out with him after all that he'd said about her indifference to his feelings. She knew she was the one holding back and that, if it were up to him, they would have been officially dating since before their welcome back feast after defeating Loki. She refrained from putting a label even now, even with him looking at her like that – pupils dilating again, hands digging into hips, voice dropping a few octaves – because it scared her to commit.

She didn't know what she'd done to deserve his affection. She hadn't been much worried about it before, but now she knew it wasn't unwavering – like any human being, he could simply decide she wasn't worth the effort anymore and walk out. And maybe she should stop taking him for granted. She wouldn't want to be taken for granted.

"Sure. Sure, I'll stay."

This was presented to you by your average cisgender, straight girl. But I'm like Magnus - I need to know if it's offensive to anyone. So please tell me? I'd love some feedback from my LGBT+ pals.