Comatose – Timmy Curran
Magnus
Magnus woke the next morning to the light peeking in from the curtains, blinding him. He rolled over, groaning. If sun was coming through his window at that angle, it was far too early. He stretched with a groan and turned his nose towards the air, waiting for the scent of waffles and cooking eggs to drift into his nose the way they always did when he was woken up ungodly early. But the smell never came, and Magnus opened his eyes. He opened his eyes to see the blue scarf raveled up beside him, and he remembered. There was no breakfast, because there was no Alec.
The sheets on his side of the bed were mussed from their rough lovemaking the night before. Did it count as making love? Or was it just fucking when you did it in a fit of anger, as a last stand to the lover who betrayed you? Magnus didn't know. The question made his head hurt. He rubbed his eyes and groaned, rolling back onto his back, reopening them to the blank, cracked ceiling. Cracked straight through the center, just like his heart when he read the note that had been slipped under his door night before last.
Magnus had wanted so badly not to believe it. He wanted to wake up in the morning to find Alec by his side, and pull him close, knowing he had been played by Camille. But still, he couldn't risk his own ignorance in something so severe. He'd cast a spell before he climbed into bed the night before. A spell that would wake him instantly if Alec left the flat. And so when Alec had snuck out in the early morning light, Magnus had woken with a start, and snapped himself into his clothes, before following the young shadowhunter through the cold New York Streets.
When they came to the entrance to the abandoned train station, Magnus had to pause to steady himself. So it was true. His one true love had betrayed him, conspired to shorten his life. At first Magnus couldn't wrap his head around it, but he wasn't so foolish as to be convinced by his own unwillingness to accept the truth.
Magnus clenched his eyes shut again, coming back to reality. To his empty bed, and his empty house. His flat, filled with clothes and things from all over the world, had never felt more desolate.
As badly as Magnus wanted to lay there in self-pity and go back to sleep, he still forced himself to roll out of the bed, realizing he was still wearing his clothes from the night before. He let it go as he rubbed his eyelids, nursing the headache that was beginning to bloom. He snapped himself out of his clothes and into an embroidered robe he'd gotten when he stayed in Athens with Alec. Magnus shook his head, but he couldn't forget the memory that flooded his mind. Athens had been the first time the warlock and the shadowhunter had slept together.
Two weeks and one country after the Battle at Brocelind Plain, Magnus and Alec had landed in Greece. Alec had insisted that he just wanted to stay in the hotel room and relax. Magnus had consented, never being able to say no to those blue eyes, and in truth, he didn't mind. They stayed at the hotel, had room service bring them food, and lit some candles. It wasn't long before one thing led to another and they were tangled between the bed sheets as they fell asleep.
Magnus whipped the memory away with the sound of the sheet as he tore it off the bed. They needed to be washed. The canary yellow linens were covered in sweat and cum, and Magnus realized now, swallowing down a hard lump in his throat, a little blood. Magnus hadn't realized just how rough he'd been with the boy. Sure he hadn't been gentle, but Magnus realized now that he had barely prepped him at all, and lube or no, he hadn't eased himself into it. And he had made Alec bleed. Magnus closed his eyes as words like rape and molester flashed through his thoughts. But Alec wouldn't see him that way, would he? Magnus couldn't bear the thought if he did. Whether he was with the Shadowhunter or not, he loved him, and the thought of him hating him tore Magnus to shreds.
Magnus balled up the rest of the sheets, the blue scarf tangled with them, and walked downstairs to the laundry room. Usually he would just snap the load into the washer and be done with it, but today he found something therapeutic in actually doing the small bit of work. Magnus dumped the bundle into the washer and measured out the soap, dumping it in too, before closing the lid and pressing start. Magnus closed his eyes and leaned against the washer. The thump-thump of the spin cycle somewhat lulling, bringing a small smile to his lips.
He had woken up one morning to find the bed empty, even though Alec had been there the night before, a long time before he would ever have had to worry about Alec sneaking out to meet Camille. He had sat up and found a small slip of paper on Alec's smoothed pillow case with two simple words on it. Doing Laundry. Magnus had smiled, snapping on a robe, and gone downstairs to find the dark haired boy in front of the rickety communal washer for the building. "Haven't been down here in a long time," Magnus had mused, startling the boy. Alec had rolled his eyes and returned to putting in each piece of clothing one by one. "Well sorry some of us can't just snap our clothes into cleanliness," he'd retorted with thick sarcasm. Magnus had just given a light laugh, and kissed the boy's neck, to which Alec protested, but once all the clothes were in, Alec slammed down the lid and turned to crash his lips against Magnus's.
Magnus shoved himself off the washer and headed back upstairs, snapping himself a cup of coffee along the way.
Rolling in the Deep – Adele
Alec
Alec eventually dragged himself back to the Institute sometime in between midnight and 1 in the morning. When he stepped out of the clanking elevator at the Institute, he could hear his mother calling to him, demanding to know where he'd been so late, but he ignored her as he made his way to his room and fell into bed.
He woke up having slept like crap and feeling like he'd been crapped on. He had never showered or changed so there was still a thick, sticky mess lining his thighs and gluing the denim of his pants to them. He hauled himself out of bed and into the bathroom, shedding his disgusting clothes and turning on the shower as hot as it would go with the old plumbing system. He stepped into the steam, trying to let the scalding water sooth the tense muscles in his shoulders, but it did little good.
Alec went to work cleaning his body of the dried cum and quickly found that it was mixed with blood. Alec groaned. He had felt at first as if Magnus were ripping him from the inside out, but he had never suspected that he actually had. That the warlock had literally and metaphorically torn him apart from the inside out in his last stand to the shadowhunter, his last goodbye.
The word made Alec see red. Goodbye? GOODBYE? What the fuck kind of goodbye was that? Fucking him senseless and then telling him to leave like nothing had happened? Leaving his body feeling worse than when he'd been on the brink of death with demon poison in his veins? It wasn't a good bye. It was exactly what it was called, a thorough fuck you.
Alec turned off the water quickly, his forehead wrinkled in anger. Alec had given Magnus everything. He had given him his love, his trust, his care; Alec had risked being disowned for the warlock. Yet at the first mistake, Magnus dumped him and walked out like it was nothing that they loved each other and had risked their lives for the other countless times over the last months. Alec stepped out of the shower and tore the white towel off of the rack, wrapping it tightly around his waist. He put his hands flat on the counter, his shoulders rising and falling with his deep, angered breaths. He reached up to wipe the steam away from the center of the mirror and looked at his reflection.
Had he changed? He felt like he should have. Like his skin and his face should show some aging or scar from the brutal beating his soul had taken. But no, he was the same, young looking, blue eyed boy he had always been, only dark circles and red eyes to show that he had cried out all that was left of him. Alec had been shattered to dust, but his body stood unfazed in front of him. Alec raised his hand and shot forward, shattering the glass with his fist. The pieces of the mirror clattered around him with a tickling sound. A sound that reminded him of the necklaces around Magnus's neck clanging together, and Alec squeezed his eyes shut, and all he saw was red. He didn't feel the cuts on his knuckles, or his feet as he stepped on the broken glass.
He walked out of the bathroom and into his room. Everything in it was so pristine and neat. So different from Magnus's eclectic apartment. Suddenly the cleanliness sent a wave of fury through him. The world was not like this, neat and clean; everything in its place. No, it was messed up, and broken, and about to be burned to the ground. This was only an example of the front the world put up to allow itself to believe that if the world looked clean, it was.
Alec's eyes grazed over his bed, sheets smoothed as he'd done a short while ago. Next to it, his nightstand, a few books stacked on it, biggest on the bottom, smallest on top, in a neat pyramid. On the other table, a small lamp and a glass of water. His closet door was open and Alec could see his clothes hanging there, white on the left, black on the right, gray in the middle. His dresser was just to the right of the door, and on top was an assortment of picture frames. Him and Izzy, Him and Jace, his parents, the whole family in Idris. And on the wall above hung pictures held up by tacks. Him and magnus all over the world. England, India, Morocco, Athens… So many places Alec had lost count.
And snapped. Alec rushed to the dresser, sweeping all the frames off the top, sending them flying and shattering on the ground. He reached for the pictures on the wall, tearing them down carelessly, ripping and crumpling them. He screamed out as he tore the pictures apart. They fell like confetti to the ground among the shattered frames.
Alec moved to the closet, throwing the siding door open so hard, it came off the track, and reached for the clothes, tearing them off the hangers and throwing them haphazardly around the room. Tears were flowing thick on Alec's cheeks, but still all he saw was red. He wondered what Magnus would do if he saw him now. Alexander! He would call, appalled. Alexander, stop!
But he couldn't stop. Not now. And He wasn't with Magnus anymore. He didn't have to listen to him. Alec turned to his bed, tearing off the comforter, knocking the glass off the night table in the process, spreading water and glass across the floor. Alexander Gideon Lightwood! Magnus's voice snapped in his head. This isn't you. Calm down, you're over reacting.
"Shut up!" Alec yelled, throwing over the other nightstand. The books skidded across the floor, the pages beginning to soak up the water on the floor.
Alexander, enough! Magnus's voice snapped at him, just as he was about to flip the mattress. A pair of strong arms wrapped around his bare waist, and were dragging him away.
All Alec could think as he was dragged out of the room was, This is what the world is. Broken.
