A/N: Don't you just love being sick? No, not mentally, I mean physically. Thats right, lovelies, Wicked is bedridden for the next 24 hours! Go ahead, cry or cheer at will. Thats good for you because I will have time to write 3 and maybe 4 of 1940. If you're reading the book and criticize me for getting the Jewish religion wrong, I really sincerely apologize! I don't mean to offend anyone, honestly I'm not that cruel. I'm Catholic, so I go to church on Sundays and not saturdays. I'm not Jewish, and I don't know anybody who is, so I can't really gather my information from anywhere except for books and movies. I don't trust the internet :/ anyways, I'll stop rambling and let you read 2.
My mother and I were sandwiched in between two other Jewish families in the ghetto. One, the Lightwoods, took my particular interest. There was a mother named Maryse, a father Robert, and three children. Alexander, the oldest, Isabelle, the middle, and Maxwell, the youngest. They also had an adoptive child, Jace, but I didn't like him. I had seen them on my way to school and around town when I was with Catrina or Ragnor, but I'd never talked to them before. Actually, it was Alexander who I couldn't talk to. Usually, my flamboyant self could march right up to people, introduce myself, and within minutes have both men and women swooning in my arms, begging for more of myself. However, when it came to Alexander Lightwood, I felt a certain reluctance. My head was swimming when ever he came close, my heart thumping so wildly in my chest I was afraid it might burst. Mama had often spoke of love, and what it felt like, but until previously I had never experienced it.
Alexander had very good looks. Dark black hair and blue eyes the color of the sea when it was happy and bright and calm. His very defined features had me quivering like a child again. When he walked down the filthy street or down our rat infested hallway, he smiled at me. I just thought he was being friendly, but he was slowly returning my odd quirks of love. Soon. I told myself. Soon you will be able to talk to him like you do everyone else. Soon, you will be happy. I can still remember the first time we actually talked face to face, and not hid behind our parents forms out of embarrassment. I'm positive Alexander does too.
I was walking home from getting my daily rations of food. It was a cloudy day, much like the one where my father was beat to death. My stomach growled from malnourishment, but I had more food than others. Stumbling along the path wearily, I had failed to notice the SS officers headed down the same street. Everyone here knew the protocol. Men were to take off their hats and walk along in the gutter, letting their superiors point and laugh. We were allowed to do nothing, and most of us had just taken to walking the the streets, just to avoid the humiliation.
"Du da, Jude. Wo sind deine Manieren?" Their voices called out in perfect German. I looked at them through my long strands of black hair. Blue eyes, blond hair, both of them. The Aryan race. Hitler's desired race of humans. I didn't hate them, I couldn't. Half of them were brainwashed into believing that hebrews were nasty people who deserved to die because of their religion. It wasn't their fault they were like this. It was society's.
"S-Sorry." I stammered, stepping down into the slippery and wet puddles below. I bowed deeply, hoping they would do the usual thing: Laugh in my face, point, and walk off, chuckling more and more until they turned the corner to dehumanize another person of Jewish faith. Then they pushed me down, the bread I had carried all the way fell into the water or into the entrance of the sewers down below. Either way, it was inedible now. My hands and knees stung from where I caught myself as I crashed into the pavement. The Nazis kicked me, aiming blows at my stomach and more often than not hit their target. I willed myself not to scream out in pain. I wasn't going to let them be satisfied by my anguish. I bit my lip so hard it bled, leaving a long stream of red down my cheek.
"Das nächste Mal werde euch zu erinnern, in der Gosse, wo Sie hingehören bekommen, nicht wahr, dreckigen Jude?" One said finally, after kicking me particularly hard in the ribs. I think he relished the fact that I was writhing around in pain. I couldn't speak to the men, so I numbly nodded, the meager bread forgotten. When they walked away, I saw the people around me. My acquaintances, my neighbors, my teachers. They were just frozen, white faced, and for a moment I felt anger. They stood by while I was beaten? They didn't think to do anything? But the outrage did not last for long. I focused mainly on the wounds that the Nazis gave me. Bruises would form, purple, yellow and black, painting me a collage of fragileness.
Two sets of hands were on me, hauling me out of the dirty trough. They helped me stand after much trouble and I looked up. There stood Alexander and Isabelle Lightwood. Isabelle looked a lot like her older brother, but her eyes were dark instead of the stained glass blue I'd seen winking at me from the street corners. "Are you ok?" She asked, her irises showing genuine concern and worry.
I bowed my neck in response, noting how much pain it caused. I bent down to pick up the filthy loaf of bread, but Alexander put a firm but soft hand on my chest. "It isn't worth it. You'd get sick if you ate that. I'll give you my ration."
"Oh no," I said hurriedly. "You don't have to do that, my mother and I, we have enough food to last us the entire week." This, of course, was a lie. He didn't need to be giving me his food when his family was bigger and needed the extra grain. Still, Alexander handed me his bread, smiling with sympathy and compassion. His hands felt warm in mine, the cold wind chilling me to the bone.
"Even so, take it. We can manage without one loaf. Can't we, Izzy?" He said, pressing the grain further in my grasp and turning to his sister.
"Oh sure we can manage. If by manage you mean one of us will go hungry tonight-" Her words were cut off by Alexander elbowing her in the ribs, giving her a stern look. She looked at me and smiled again. "Yes. We'll be fine." Isabelle looked into the distance, waving to a mysterious person whom I didn't turn and look at because the pain was too much. "Excuse me. Simon's waiting for me. Bye Alec, don't wait up!" She kissed his cheek, gazed over him and I, and ran off in the street, twirling as she did so.
"Simon is Isabelle's boyfriend." Alexander explained as we stood on the sidewalk. I couldn't believe I was taking to the boy that I loved, and I didn't even know if he like me back. "Papa doesn't approve."
I could relate with him on that. My deceased father would have never liked my choice of men. He would rather me marry a nice Jewish girl and give him many grandsons and daughters. Seeing that he was already dead gave me a new sense of hope. I scolded myself mentally. I loved my father, I did. But I was not cut out to be a straight rabbi. "Mine didn't either." I say softly, looking at the grey bricks that made the pathway down the street and around the corner.
"Oh?" Said Alexander, raising an eyebrow. "Are you dating a girl who isn't worthy of the name 'Bane'?"
I smiled, dragging my feet as I did so. My whole body ached, and I wished at that moment that I could just sleep the pain away on the ground. It wasn't much different from my bed at home. "No, no. It's what I like, rather than who I like. And my father is dead, so I suppose it doesn't matter." I said, wrapping my arms around me.
"Ah. Sorry." He said. Our conversation came to a quick halt, but I liked Alexander's voice, so I didn't want the talking to end. I liked everything about the Lightwood next to me. He fascinated me immensely.
"It isn't like you were the one who killed him." I said. I noticed that I was about an inch taller than him. "You know my last name." I remarked. "How?"
"I do research on the people that I have a particular interest in. You're the first boy in a while I wasn't able to stay away from." Alexander answered like it was no big deal. "I know who your mother, Sarah is. I know who Jacob, your father was. And I also know that you sleep talk at about 1:30 a.m. without fail."
"Seems to me like you're stalking me." I smiled. But I wasn't in the least bit creeped out. Which was weird, because if anybody else did it, I'd probably get the police in the ghetto involved. With Alexander, it felt... Normal. I didn't know how to describe the feeling.
"If I stalk you then you stalk me. I've seen you looking at me from around corners and street lamps. You're just too scared to talk to me, aren't you?"
I sighed. "All my life, my father told me that being a homosexual is bad. He basically shunned me. I don't know how to act around you."
"Well you could just act like yourself. Thats what I usually do." Suggested Alexander. "By the way, call me Alec, everyone does."
Alec. It was short, sweet, and to the point. I loved it the moment I heard the name roll off the tongue. I liked it more than 'Magnus', which was an old name that nobody had. I looked at Alec and smiled the biggest that I had in the weeks that I had been in the ghetto. Nothing really made me happy. Mama and I rarely talked anymore, but it was because I worked all day. Sarah Bane was grief stricken, her husband cruelly taken away from her in an instant. I wasn't mad at her, I didn't have to heart to be. Every night, I heard her scream out 'Jacob.' again and again. Sometimes my name slipped into her nightmares and I wanted to go and wake her, but I knew that she needed her rest to gain the strength she needed to survive.
My job consisted of building the walls around the ghetto. It was hard, bone-breaking work, but I got paid with lunch everyday that I managed to get to the outskirts of town. I saw my old friends on the other side, and it was like they were brainwashed. Camille and Sebastian threw rocks at my head, calling me a 'dirty Jew.' Catrina just stood behind them, tears shining in her pale face. That was what probably hurt me the most. How could she just stand there doing nothing?
I realized that I had stayed silent for far too long. Alec was staring at me. "Sorry. I was thinking. Yeah, I will act like myself. I'm Magnus and I've got no nickname."
"No, you have a nickname. Everyone does." Alec said, and we continued walking. I smiled. It would be so easy to act like my magnificent self around him. He was so likeable, and I hoped I seemed the same in his eyes. I wasn't usually this insecure about myself, but under the circumstances, I pardoned this strange attitude that had clung onto me. Before I could answer him back, my legs gave way, fed up with the pain and the over use. I fell, clutching onto Alec's shoulders for support. "Whoa whoa whoa. Are you ok?" He asked me, concern flooding his baby blue eyes.
"Yeah." I said, trying to stand up again.
"No, you're not. Come on, I'll take you to my house where you can rest. Those Nazis hurt you pretty bad." Alec said, hooking his arm over my shoulder and helping me walk. I looked up at the side of his face, marveled at the way the grey light hit his chiseled features. I was so very grateful for the kindness he was showing me. Unlike so many of the people in the ghetto, who stole for a meager ounce of bread that wouldn't sustain them for the day, Alec was just helpful towards me. I've never forgotten that.
That was our first meeting, but it wasn't our last.
A/N: If you want to figure out what the SS men are saying, use google translate. I used it and yeah... So I realized about halfway through the Malec moment that Magnus acts like Alec and Alec acts like Magnus. I wasn't going to go back and rewrite the entire conversation so I'll make sure to change their personalities in 3. SO DON'T BASH ME ON HOW I CAN'T WRITE CHARACTERS CAUSE I CAN OK? It's the trees I have problems with... - Ok Wicked you're obviously delirious, go to bed.
Ave Atque Vale,
Wicked.