A/N: Hey guys! I've been sick a lot lately, so I apologize for the lack of new stories. Here is a oneshot for you, since I'm feeling a bit better! Warning: It's sad. Like super sad. You've been warned. Please review! I love reviews!
Rated M for mentions of suicide, and triggers. Nothing super graphic, but I'm paranoid.
The first time I ever saw you was across a crowd. As I look back on that first meeting now, it seems oddly poetic. Something you would only expect to happen in a movie, or cheesy novel, but when I saw you for the first time at that party, it was magical.
You didn't want to be there. You only came because your brother and sister forced you to. I think it was because your brother wanted to show off his girlfriend. I never did like him, but I owe Jace and Isabelle a debt I can never repay. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn't forced you there? Who knows where you would be? Who knows where I would be?
I can't even remember, now, what I was doing the moment I first saw you. The memory is faded now, like so many others. All I remember is looking up to see the most piercing, most beautiful, most blue eyes I have ever seen, staring at me shyly from the corner. It was so innocent, to stare, but you blushed and looked away as though you had been caught doing something inappropriate. Even then, when I didn't even know you, I found that blush endearing.
Being the host, I introduced myself to you. You turned your blue gaze to the floor and stammered, which I also found quite adorable. I mixed you a drink – a screwdriver, on the rocks, I remember so clearly – and we talked. I watched as you carefully started to take down your walls that you had built over years of time in the shadows. But all too soon, your brother and sister left, and dragged you with them. When you left that first party, you took my number with you.
We saw more of each other, and more, and more, as the weeks and months passed. I was delighted when he opened up to me, and distraught when you closed down. You were sick, I know. Your mood swings were as unpredictable as the weather, with one day being sullen and the next joyful. When you told me about your depression, and about your little brother Max, whose death had been the tipping point, I cried with you. We became confidants, friends, best friends – and, yes, eventually lovers.
You said "I love you" first. Remember that? It was at your apartment one night, surrounded by the popcorn I'd spilled when I tripped over your cat, and you weren't mad. You said you loved me all the more for my infinite clumsiness, and I stared. You reddened, and tried to "fix" what you had said. But there was nothing wrong with what you had said. I loved you more than life itself, and I told you so, keeping the blush still firmly on your cheeks. You whispered, "The glitter doesn't hurt, either." We laughed together, the perfect golden and sapphire sound. Then we kissed, for the first time, and all the stars in the sky above shone in harmony.
At first, when we really became lovers, it was a dream, a fairytale, a whirlwind that couldn't ever stop. I moved in with you, simply because your apartment was nicer than mine, and you wanted us to live together. Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood were signed on the rental agreement, and we devoted ourselves to a life filled with joy, laughter and happiness. It was paradise.
But, my darling Alec, our paradise wasn't eternal. It was my unwillingness to tell you anything about myself, I think, which started it. You had poured out your heart to me, leaving yourself completely vulnerable and hoping for even, trustworthy ground, and I took and took and gave you none of my soul. You had my love, Alec, and nothing else, because of my selfishness. And Alec, as much as I wished – and still wish – that this was true, a person can't live with only love and no trust.
I couldn't seem to trust you because of Camille. I had been so free with my heart, and so wrong to give it wholly to her. She had my trust, and she betrayed me, killing my heart quickly. I ever afterwards hated Camille, and all she was, but Alec, I must be honest. I understood her then, after I fell for you. Someone had to have broken her heart, to make her distrusting, and I was simply the next link in a chain. If only I had broken that cycle in time. In time to save me. In time to save us.
You slowly distanced yourself from me. At first it was simple. You had to work one night, or you were meeting your family another. You were sick, so you had to sleep on the couch, or risk infecting me with your "flu". The mood swings started again. You began to drink and stopped taking your meds. I started to dread coming home, because I never knew how I would find you – passed out on the sofa became the best option I had. Sometimes you were violent, and I locked myself in the bedroom with the cats until it was over. I was scared and sorry and guilty, all at once, but Alec, I never stopped loving you.
Over and over I began to tell you about my father who left, my suicidal mother, the stepfather I had accidentally killed by not paying attention while driving. I couldn't ever finish my sentence. Even then, Alec, I couldn't. I thought you wouldn't listen. How wrong I was. You would have listened, I know, and I think that one night was our last chance. I came home to you, cautiously, and you were completely sober. You gave me one last chance to explain everything, and I didn't. I blew it then, Alec. You know what happened next. I remember, oh so clearly, the things we said to each other. I remember you walking out the door with a bag of your things and never coming back.
Alec, I was sorry from the moment the door shut. I cried on the wine-stained floor, cried until the sun came up. But I didn't go after you. Of the two of us, you were always the braver. I knew that fact then, for the first time, and Alec, I know it now.
I never gave up on you. There were others after you left, many, many others, whose faces blurred in my mind. I was never happy. Not even a semblance, a fraction, of what we had could ever be found in the face of another. No one else could ever recreate the paradise we had for that short golden time. No one else had your beautiful blue eyes.
As much as I tried to put you out of my mind, to spare myself the pain, I did try to find you again. I had this wild hope that maybe we could try again. But Alec, I knew deep inside that in the real world, second chances didn't happen. I had spoiled the beautiful thing we had, by not trusting you fully. I made the mistake of a lifetime and left us to rot.
Alec, darling, I don't want to recall the details of that miserable day. I don't want to remember walking into our apartment – now my apartment – to find you sprawled on the floor, note next to your hand and ink stains still on your right fingers. The other hand clutched an empty pill bottle. I called for help, as I could see you were still alive. They rushed us away, and I read the note, every ounce of me numb.
You know what it said, Alec. But you can only imagine the terror I felt last night, as I waited in the hospital. I didn't know whether I'd gotten home in time. Every moment we'd ever had flashed through my mind last night, Alec. I knew – I knew, that I would die if you did. That hope, that little fluttering I had that we would eventually get back together and have our paradise, was the only thing keeping me sane. I wondered why you would do this, and immediately knew your trigger. The thing that triggered your depression was – me.
And Alec, as I kneel here now, beside your bed, I want you to know that everything in me, everything I am, is sorry. I'm so sorry, my darling. I'm sorry for everything I did, I'm sorry for everything I didn't say. I should have opened up to you before, I should have realized when you started to slip, and I should have tried to find you. I'm so, so sorry.
Alec Lightwood opened his eyes. In a trace of a voice, just the merest whisper, he spoke the three words that would finally bring peace. "I forgive you."
He locked his sapphire eyes with Magnus' green-gold ones, smiled, and took his last breath there on the hospital bed.
And all the stars went out.
A/N: Reviews please.