Kind of mixed feelings about this one, but I think I generally like it more than a bunch of the other stuff I've written. This is another that I did for the 24 Fics in 24 Days Challenge, which I'm hoping to have all fics up for by the time I leave on Wednesday to head to Mexico for the holidays. Well, anyway, here you go. Have some more Malec, my friends.
For as long as he can remember, Alec has seen nothing but darkness. There has never been a flicker of anything else in his vision, not even once, no matter how wide he opens his eyes or how bright he's sure he's turned the lights. He used to wave his hands in front of his face, back near the start, and marvel in the fact that there was still nothing even then. Now, he stands in front of mirrors and stares at the darkness and tries to imagine the face he knows is staring back at him.
He wasn't born like this, he knows that. It's something that happened to him in the early stages of his life and left a visible scar over his face, one he can feel everytime he runs careful fingers around his eyes. He can remember flashes of sight from before, the flip of his sister's dark hair, the curve of his mother's smile, the reach of his baby brother's tiny hands. He remembers Jace's grin and his father's stern glare, the tousled look his hair got when he played soccer with the team. The grey of his room walls, the white of his kitchen counters, the blue of his own eyes. He can remember what sight was like, but he knows he'll never have it again.
He was bitter about it once, after the novelty of something being different about him had worn off, and he'd clawed at the skin around his eyes until it bled with newly opened wounds, adding to the scars that were already carved across it. He'd screamed and sobbed and beat at the walls he couldn't see and then he'd curled up under the covers and decided he would never leave them again because the world was a terrifying place when you couldn't see what it had in store.
His sister had come bounding in shortly after, begging him to go play with her, and he'd only sobbed harder because he couldn't remember the exact curve of her jaw or the swoop of her bangs. She'd had black hair the last time he'd seen her, sweeping down past her lower back, and warm brown eyes with perfect vision that would never leave her as Alec's had. She'd been small, two heads shorter than where Alec himself stood, and he'd wondered if she'd still be shorter than him when she was older than the twelve years she'd been then. Now, all Alec could do was sob, clutching painfully at sheets he no longer remembered the colour of, and wonder why she'd even asked him to play with her if she knew he could barely walk without running into things.
Isabelle, ever the perceptive one, had touched at his shoulder and told him she wanted to play a word game, one that required nothing but sound, and Alec had felt so ridiculously happy that he'd just kept crying for a whole new reason. She'd hugged him, explained the game, and started to play despite the fact that Alec was still sniffling pitifully under the covers. He'd loved her then, more than he ever had before in his life, and the next day he'd picked up the white cane he'd been given and gone outside for the first time in months.
Alec is no longer bitter about what he no longer has, but there's a part of him that will always wish he could see the world like everybody else, could admire the attractiveness of the boys Isabelle's always fawning over, could run through the house without paying attention to where he's going like he'd done when he was little, could watch movies the way everyone else does, without having everything explained to him by a monotonous voice that grates slowly away at his nerves until he's left throwing things across the room by the end of the feature.
More than anything, he wishes he could see the face that belongs to the voice he's fallen in love with.
Magnus had come crashing into his life three years after the accident, when Alec was seventeen and still struggling with being treated differently from the other students at their little high school in the middle of a tiny town. He was bright and exuberant, so colourful Alec could almost see it in the darkness he'd grown used to by then, and dragged Alec into so many things he didn't want to do that eventually he started to enjoy them. He was everything Alec had been searching for since he'd lost his ability to see the world, and even though Alec thought countless times that he was going to be left behind for his shortcomings, Magnus remained glued to his side for the two years that followed.
He's not sure when he fell in love with him, exactly, but it must have been sometime during that first year because he's spent all senior year aching with the knowledge that Magnus will never be his in that way. It hurts every time his friend goes on a tangent about his latest conquest, hurts every time he says he has a date. It hurts when he blows him off, no matter whether the reason is as good as having family issues or as pathetic as wanting to get laid, and though Alec tries to stop it he finds himself growing bitter again piece by piece because maybe if he weren't so scarred, if he weren't lacking one of his five senses, Magnus would love him back.
His sister tells him to talk to his exuberant best friend, to tell him how he feels because he can't just assume others feelings for them, and there's a part of him that's left hoping because of it. He never opens his mouth, though, never says a word, for the great reason that his hopes can't be crushed if he doesn't. He's scared, too, of losing the best and worst thing to ever happen to him, and he hates himself for letting that fear control him like this.
It's in the summer of their senior year, before they both head off to colleges that are far too many hours from each other, that it happens. It's normal at first, just another day of forced laughter on Alec's part and endless ravings about his hot new lay on Magnus's, until suddenly Magnus cuts himself off abruptly and Alec is left wishing he could read the expression on his best friend's face.
"Does it hurt?" Magnus asks and the voice Alec loves so much sounds different than it ever has before, strange and unreadable in the way Alec has never found it to be. It's hard; Alec has always relied on others' voices to read their expression.
"Does what hurt?" he responds in confusion.
"When I talk about the people I've been with."
And Alec stops, would stare if he could, his mind trying to figure out what he means. Yes, he wants to say, more than anything. But the fear is still clinging to him and he doesn't want to let go of the hope just yet either. "Why are you asking me that?"
"You get this look every time I do and you sound like you're forcing yourself to laugh and be happy for me." And he is, that's the problem. He's forcing himself and it hurts because he's tired and he's lost and he's bitter and he's alone and there is nothing that has ever hurt more than this except for the accident that took away any chance he might have had here.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he mutters back, turning away from where he can sense Magnus at his side. He can hear the birds chirping happily in the trees he's sure are overhead, feel the grass itching at his hands as he runs them over the ground, and he tries to focus on that instead of the growing panic and desperation to just see Magnus's face, to know what he's thinking.
"Alec…" This time his best friend's voice is soft, gentle, and hesitant in a way it has only ever been one time in the two years they've known each other; the day he'd asked about the accident. "Is it because you like me?"
He feels his heart stop, feels his body shake, and then he curls in on himself with a quivering breath and buries his face in his knees so Magnus won't see him cry because yes, that's exactly why. But Alec doesn't like him; he's in love with him. It's so much worse.
"Hey," Magnus whispers quietly and then there's a touch on Alec's shoulder as his arms wrap around the breaking boy and Alec hates himself for flinching because it shouldn't hurt so much to touch him. "Hey, I'm sorry. It's okay. I'm not mad, Alec. I just— I just wanted to know for sure."
Alec's next words are lost in the muffling of his legs, his harsh swallow coursing through his whole body like a flashing signal that he's not okay in even the barest sense of the word. He has to breathe first, twice and then twenty more times, before he shifts his face away from the side Magnus is pressed to and repeats it. "Yeah," he mumbles softly, his voice so soft it barely reaches the other boy's ears. "I'm in love with you."
There's an exhale, loud and heavy at his side, and this time Alec doesn't flinch but the darkness swims with tears as he starts to cry again. It isn't until Magnus is whispering his name and his gentle fingers are brushing Alec's cheek, turning him to face him even though he knows it won't make a difference to Alec because there will always be nothing, no matter how hard he wishes he could see. "It's okay," the exuberant boy repeats. "I love you too."
His breath hitches, his shoulders shake, and then suddenly Alec is staring into the face of an outcome the small spark of hope had always tried to provide him with but that the darkness had chased away at every opportunity. "Really?" he asks, just to be sure, and brings a hand up to rest over Magnus's on his cheek.
"Really," his friend confirms and then there's a press of lips to his and his heart picks up speed and he can feel Magnus's smile, can picture the curve of it in his mind just by the way it brushes against his mouth. It's not everything, not a full image of the boy he's come to love so much he can hardly breathe sometimes, but it's all he could ever have asked for. He's happy, suddenly, and the bitterness goes away like it was never there to start with.
The next year, they'll go to separate colleges and run up phone bills neither can really afford and they'll visit more than they probably should. They'll press together and hold each other and love and love and love and Alec will stop wishing he didn't have these scars after Magnus tells him how beautiful he is for the thousandth time. He'll run his fingers through his sister's hair and not wonder if it's the same colour as it used to be. He'll laugh with Jace and not wish he could see the grin he knows must be there. He'll smile at his mother and not wonder if she's smiling back in the same way she used to. He'll be happy and okay and maybe the world is still a scary place, but it's a lot less terrifying when Magnus is holding his hand the whole way through.
Aw, didn't that ending just happen too fast? Ah well, I still like the story. Let me know what you thought?