When You Say Forever, Chapter 3
He didn't know what he was doing... All he knew was that he was out of his mind. Crazy. It was nearly three in the morning and he was standing in front of the sparkly Warlock's door... He'd probably be struck down by a rainbow lightening bolt just for pressing the buzzer.
Alec stood there for several moments before his hand reached up and pressed the single button, hearing the buzz sound, almost waking him from a daze the same way he was sure he was waking up the Warlock. He jumped slightly and looked around, coming to his senses and asking himself what the hell he was doing here at three in the morning. Three in the morning.
"IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING," came a loud bellow that seemed to draw closer to the door with each word. "THIS BETTER BE GOOD!"
Alec considered hiding, running, spontaneously combusting—anything–to get away from the angry voice on the other side of the door. But before he could move his feet, the door swung open and he didn't have the option.
--
Magnus Bane was many things. One thing that he wasn't was prepared to see Alexander Lightwood standing on the other side of the door when he opened it.
He wanted to look up to whatever higher being had brought him back to his doorstep, but decided it wouldn't be appropriate just yet. He didn't know if Alexander remembered him or if he had just forgotten his shiny little Shadowhunter sword after the party.
"Shadowhunter." Magnus leaned against the floor.
"Warlock," Alexander said, his voice faltering slightly.
"What brings you back? Forget one of your toys? Think another of your friends might be a toad on my floor somewhere?"
At his confused look, Magnus laughed softly and then stepped aside. "Come in."
The boy swallowed and seemed to rethink his actions, hesitating on the steps.
"Boy, you did not wake me at three in the morning to stand on my doorstep and gawk at me," Magnus said, trying not to let his desperation to get him inside get the better of him.
Alexander took a few steps forward, pausing once he was past Magnus, and Magnus closed the door, bolting it securely.
"What brings you by?" Magnus asked.
"How did you know?" Alexander said, his voice soft. He was still facing away from Magnus, so he did not see the look of shock on his face at the question.
How did I know? Magnus thought. How did I know what? That you were my Alexander? That you were born to be mine? That you were the sun and the moon and the stars the second you walked into my home?
"I--" Magnus started, but he was interrupted.
"Is it obvious?" Alexander turned toward him. "Does everyone know?"
Now Magnus was becoming confused. Know what?
"The way I walk? The way I talk? There has to be something." The boy was looking at Magnus with big, blue eyes, as if begging him to answer.
"What are you talking about?" Magnus asked, admitting to himself that the boy obviously didn't remember. He could feel his heart breaking slightly at the thought that he'd have to wait longer.
"HowdidyouknowI'mgay?"
Magnus, who had always thought his hearing was superior to most people, hadn't understood a word of what the boy had just muttered. Realizing this, Alexander repeated himself, slower, "How... How did you know that I'm... I'm..." He paused and closed his eyes, as if saying it aloud for the first time, "gay."
Slightly stunned, Magnus looked at Alexander, his Alexander, and tried to come up with a reason that wasn't "Because I was your first love... I was your first kiss... First everything. Only everything."
He realized that Alexander was looking at him with such a desperate intensity and said, "It's not like it's obvious--" The boy breathed again. "--It's just that old saying, I guess... It takes one to know one."
"So you... You knew just because... Because you are?"
Magnus sighed on the inside and nodded, feeling a lump rise in his throat with the lie.
"How... How did you know that you were... you know?"
"I liked boys," Magnus shrugged.
"So you didn't have to... Do anything with anyone to figure it out?"
"Well, that's just part of the fun," Magnus smirked and winked at Alexander, making his pale skin turn red as Magnus's favorite nail polish.
"Look, little Shadowhunter, there's nothing wrong with who you are. It's just how you were born..." How I made sure you were born.
"But it could change, right?"
No. "You never know. But why do you think it would?"
"Well... I've only ever liked one boy. I... I don't know if I'd like anyone else," Alexander said, the pitch in his voice jumping octaves over the course of the sentence.
Magnus blinked.
"I mean, I might like someone else, eventually, I just don't think it would be... a boy."
"Who, then?"
"What?"
"Who is it that you 'like'?" Magnus asked.
"Um... Well.. We're friends. We spend a lot of time together..."
"The blonde boy."
This time, Alexander blinked.
"Was... Was that obvious, too?"
"No. But he was mildly attractive and I'd imagine you spend more time with him than anyone else." Magnus felt a pang in his chest at the thought of Alexander thinking he was in love with the blonde boy. The protector... Magnus had asked for protection for Alexander... Now here he had an Alexander in front of him who was a shadow of his former self's strength, but who was in love with the boy who was meant to protect him.
"I'm sure you'll find someone more suited to you, Alexander," Magnus said, taking a few daring steps toward him. "I saw how the boy looked at your friend Clary--"
"She's not my friend," Alexander said quickly.
"Doesn't mean I didn't see how he looked at her. He obviously doesn't have much interest in people like us." Magnus stopped only an inch away from Alexander, wondering if he should take the risk of moving any closer and at the same time noticing Alexander hadn't backed away.
"Like us?" Alexander breathed.
Magnus nodded and watched the boy's eyes flutter slightly, but then they stared nervously into his own.
Taking a deep breath, Magnus noted the subtle differences in the way Alexander smelled. Even after a hundred and some odd years, he still remembered every vivid scent that his Alexander had carried on his skin. It had always had a special twist of wood, from the time Alexander had spent in the woods outside of the city... With Magnus. Now that scent was gone, covered instead by the stench of the New York streets. It was more corrupt than the innocent scent of the Alexander he had known, but the smell did not fool him: This Alexander was much more innocent and vulnerable than the original.
Hardly able to stop himself and his curiosity, Magnus leaned forward and chastely brushed his lips against Alexander's.
The boy gasped and his body jerked noticeably, but he did not pull away.
Magnus noted with a slight upward twist of his lips that Alexander tasted almost the same.
--
Alec stood, stunned, when Magnus kissed him. It had been the last thing he expected when he had come back, hadn't it? Hadn't he just come here to talk to the Warlock?
Hadn't he?
Yet here he stood, closing his eyes and wishing he could draw back, but feeling as though he were under a spell.
If only I could blame it on his magic, Alec thought, trying to find the courage to either pull away or kiss him back. His body wanted him to do the latter... But his head was telling him he needed to get out of there. Now.
When Magnus gently moved his lips, as though asking permission for the kiss to go ever-so-slightly further, Alec's body won over and he surrendered into the kiss.
He hadn't ever felt anything so thrilling. How can anyone kiss a girl, he wondered silently. Girls are all soft and... He stopped thinking. This wasn't a girl. This was Magnus Bane the High Warlock of Brooklyn.
How many people has he kissed to get this good at it? Alec wanted to shake his head to make the thought of Magnus with anyone else go away. He suddenly felt possessive of the Warlock, though he couldn't place the feeling. It was suddenly overpowering the jealousy of Clary.
Magnus pulled back slightly, as though testing the waters to see how Alec was after the slightly-unexpected-yet-slightly-expected kiss. Alec, who had now thrown away any and all hope of ever thinking of a girl as anything other than just a girl, brought a nervous hand up, cupped Magnus's neck, and pulled him closer.
Taking this as a positive sign, Magnus took hold of Alec's waist and brought him closer. As his mouth opened hesitantly to an almost-equally hesitant tongue, Alec wondered if Magnus was as nervous as he was. Of course, he probably wasn't, but it made him feel better to think that maybe Magnus was unsure. Magnus was the High Warlock, but what did that mean if an entire legion of Shadowhunters was breathing down your neck for making out with one of their boys? Which, of course, would be what happened if anyone ever found out... After Alec had been stripped of his runes and deemed a Mundane, of course.
Alec's eyes snapped open as he realized what he was doing.
He all but jumped backwards and was, he admitted to himself later, thankful that Magnus had had a good grip on his waist, lest he would have fallen backwards and probably caused some kind of injury that he would never be able to explain.
Magnus looked startled, but Alec refused to meet his eyes. He simply looked at the floor and muttered something about how he needed to go back to the Institute before someone realized he was missing.
This was a lie, of course, since no one would notice he was gone. He could stay here all night and no one would ever be the wiser...
No! Don't get any ideas! He scolded himself, trying to put his mind back into a proper place. But when he looked up from the floor, all he could focus on was Magnus's lips, full and flushed, and think about how pleasant it had felt to kiss him. How natural it had felt...
His entire body felt warm, but now he wondered whether it was from their kissing or from the embarrassed and shamed flush that was starting to engulf his body. Alec stepped around the still-shocked Magnus and headed for the door.
"Alexander--" Magnus said, trying to grab his wrist as he passed.
"No! I—I have to go. I—I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have come here," Alec said, trying to pull the door open.
Magnus, who came up behind him and unlatched the door for the frustrated Shadowhunter, stood so close that Alec could feel the heat radiating from him and could smell the distinct scent of lavender. He let himself wonder if his clothes would smell like that when he got home, but he quickly thwarted the idea of it and opened the door.
"Alexander, don't be afraid of who you are."
Alec decided not to turn around, but he did pause long enough that Magnus placed a hand against the small of his back. He took a deep breath, feeling the heat of Magnus's hand all but burning into the skin below his shirt, and then quickly took the stairs two at a time.
He didn't look back.
--
Magnus stood and watched Alexander rush away. He had pushed him too far, asked for too much too quickly... But how could he not? He had been waiting so long for him to come back. And here he was for the taking, but he was so out of reach.
As he walked back to his bedroom, he wasn't sure what to expect. Would Alexander come back?
Eventually, his memory would return and he would remember everything about their relationship... At least, that was how it was supposed to work out. But even if he did, would it scare him too much for him to return to Magnus? Or would he stay with Jace, the boy who could protect him and who would let him worship the ground he walked on until the day he died?
Magnus leaned against the hallway wall and stared blankly ahead of him. What if Alexander eventually remembered and chose to ignore it? Wrote it off as a mistake he had made once and wouldn't make again?
"No," Magnus choked. "No. That won't happen. That's not how it's supposed to happen."
He trudged on to his bedroom, wondering how he had let himself fall into his current situation. The spell hadn't been fool proof... It wasn't a guarantee. It had just been his only chance, so he had taken it. He had to hold on to hope that his Alexander was in there and that he hadn't accidentally created Jace's Alexander.
It would all have to play out one day at a time...
But in the meantime, he had that kiss. That kiss...
He had opened his eyes after a few moments, to see if Alexander still had the habit of opening his eyes when they kissed, but his eyes had been squeezed shut so tightly that Magnus recalled wondering if he was hurting him.
Then he realized that things were playing out the way they were supposed to... That had been Alexander's first kiss.
Or at least he was hoping so.
What did he have to hold on to if he couldn't hope that it was going to work out?
So he crawled into his bed, pulling the canary-colored comforter up over his head and trying to savor the last remnants of Alexander's scent on his pajamas.
--
Back at the Institute, Alec was doing the same thing.