Chapter Eight: Magnus
My heart thuds so loudly as I wait for the blue-eyed intruder to answer, I swear he can hear it over the music. Just looking at him makes my mind turn to mush; I've never seen someone so beautiful. Even looking completely guilty and terrified he's breathtaking, all sharp angles and perfect symmetry. His hair, damp from the heat of the room, curls in around his porcelain neck, and I have the sudden urge to step forward and brush it away for him. Unfortunately, I can't move: his eyes, which are a bright, clear blue I didn't even think existed in the natural world, have me rooted in place.
It's absolutely infuriating. No one should be able to make me feel like this: tongue-tied, flushed, and…giddy. Like a twelve year old girl. He needs to go.
"Well?" I ask, narrowing my eyes. "Can you speak?"
My rudeness seems to snap him from his trance, and a flurry of words rush out of his mouth at once; apologies and platitudes so garbled that he may as well be speaking a foreign language. He seems aware that he's making absolutely no sense, but it just makes him more flustered. His cheeks flush bright red, which makes me even more suspicious; nobody is that adorable unintentionally.
"What are you doing in here?" I repeat slowly, trying my best to look pissed, and not like I would just love to kneel down in front of him and…Christ, I need to get it together. People kneel in front of me, not the other way around. "Camille sent you, didn't she?"
"Camille?" The boy looks genuinely confused, too blissfully naïve to be poking around for information. Well, if it wasn't for Camille, why did he sneak into my barricaded bedroom?
"Are you talking about the blonde girl that tried to get me to dance with her?" he asks, interrupting my thoughts.
Oh God. There is only one reason a young, attractive guy would look disgusted at the idea of being propositioned by Camille Belcourt: he has to be gay. There is no other possible explanation. The revelation excites me a lot more than it should.
"How am I supposed to know who asked you dance?" I snap, hoping that I can push away these feelings through sheer force of will.
"Right, that was stupid," he mumbles, looking down at his feet.
Great, now I've made him feel like shit, just because I can't control my own libido. Because I'm sure that's all this is – the same (albeit much less disturbing) kind of excitement creepy old men get from watching school-girl porn: a lusting after the innocent. Because if this kid is anything, he's innocent. Virgin is practically painted on his forehead, what with his inability to maintain eye contact, his bumbling answers, and the way he's trying to shield his hard-on like it's some kind of curse.
I reach out to grab his hand to pull him over to the bed and try to get a sensible answer out of him, but jerk back when I feel how cold it is. Upon closer inspection I can see that he's shaking slightly, but doing his best to suppress it.
"Are you okay?" I ask. A wave of concern floods through my body; the sheer force of it surprises me, and I repress the instinct to act like an ass again.
I grab onto his hand again, braced for the cold this time, and lead him over to the bed. He sits right on the edge, as if he's almost afraid of the piece of furniture, but his shoulders relax a little. Not wanting to overwhelm him, I grab my desk chair and sit across from him.
"I didn't mean to be such a dick," I say, worried that I may have been bitching at someone who's actually sick. "I was just surprised to see someone in here."
He finally looks up at me, and when his eyes settle on mine, I feel another jolt shoot through my body. Suddenly the thought of him being sick makes me sick.
"It's not that," he says, pushing stray pieces of hair from his eyes. "I was feeling a little overwhelmed and I just wanted to get away from the party. I'm really sorry." Another, lighter, blush colors his cheekbones and I feel my mouth go dry. I grab my drink from the desk and take a long gulp, hoping that he's too clueless to realize what he's doing to me.
"It's just, my sister really wanted to come, and even though I don't really like parties, I didn't want to let her down." He pauses, and tilts his head to the side. "By the way, I don't really think you understand what the word exclusive means."
The line is so blunt and so unlike the unintelligible rambling he's been doing that I can't stop myself from laughing. This has to be Isabelle Lightwood's brother: the level of discomfort is proof enough – the ethereal beauty cements the fact.
"I'm sorry," he says, looking sheepish. "That was probably rude. I told Isabelle I shouldn't have come; this always happens."
"It's okay…"
"Alec," he fills in, giving me a small smile. I feel like I could blush myself, if I was prone to that sort of thing. "Alec Lightwood."
"It's okay, Alec. I'm sorry that my party made you uncomfortable." I reach out tentatively, wary of spooking him, and brush my fingers against the top of his hand. It's rough and wiry and even though I should be figuring out what's wrong, all I want is to feel that hand running down my back, or lifting me into the wall. Alec's eyes shoot up to mine, wide and bright, and I can feel his tendons tighten under my touch, but he doesn't push me away.
"I should, -" he begins, but I stroke my thumb across the top of his hand again and he falls silent, all of his energy devoted to trying to control his erratic breathing.
As I'm leaning forward, I keep repeating to myself what a bad idea this is. This isn't like all the other times; Alec is obviously shy and sweet and definitely not a one-night-stand kind of guy, and I shouldn't be giving into feelings that I don't understand, but I feel like I'm under some sort of trance. I can't stop myself.
And much to my surprise, Alec doesn't stop me. He doesn't flush, or turn away, or run out of the room in horror. Instead, he leans toward me, as if prisoner to the same intoxicating spell, until our lips press together.
Alec's lips are warm and soft, and when I gently slide my tongue across them, he emits a soft sigh that sends tingles right to the tips of my fingers. He tastes nothing like the beer he left on my bathroom sink, but rather like the candy my mother used to hide from me as a child: sweet and unreal and forbidden.
I lean forward out of my chair, and Alec's body shifts with me, sliding back on the bed to make room. However, when I move my arm from Alec's hand up to his shoulders, to try to shrug him out of his jacket, whatever electric current keeping us together fizzles out. He clamps his arms to his sides, starts to shake even harder than before, and jumps up from the bed so quickly that I almost lose my footing and end up at his feet.
"Alec, what's wrong?" I ask, my heart racing at his sudden outburst.
"I shouldn't have done that," he says, shaking his hands in front of him as if trying to dust something off. "I'm sorry." He tries to move past me, but I grab his wrist before he gets to the door.
"Wait, I'm sorry." I reach over on my desk and grab one of my business cards. I slip it in his jacket pocket before letting go of his wrist. "Please, call me." The vulnerability in my own voice surprises me, and it must give Alec pause as well, because he turns around.
"Magnus, I –" It's the first time he's said my name, and I would be lying if I said that the sound of it coming from his lips didn't elicit another rush of infuriating warmth.
"I don't do things like this," he finishes lamely. "I'm not, you know."
"What?" Now I'm really confused – is Alec trying to tell me he's not gay? He looks so…broken that I can't bring myself to argue. Instead, I just reach out for his hand again. "Alec, I can tell you really need someone to talk to. Someone other than your sister. Just, call me, okay?"
I think I hear the quietest "okay" before he slips out the door and back into the party, but I'm not entirely sure. Unwilling to face the crowd after whatever it was that just happened, I walk over and twist the lock, ensuring that I don't get any more unexpected visitors. I then down the rest of my drink, pick up my phone and send a quick text message to Josh asking him to get everybody out, and finally collapse on the bed, a vision of Alec Lightwood lingering behind my eyelids, just waiting for me to fall asleep.
This chapter took me a long time to write, and I kept going back and changing things once I had finished. I really wanted to capture the conflicting emotions of both characters while still acknowledging that there is some kind of connection between them they can't explain. I would really love to hear everyone's thoughts on this one :) Next time, we'll find out just how Alec feels and a little more about the mystery surrounding Jace...
