A/N: Okay, this is… depressing. There's self-harm and loneliness and sadness, but also love and a happy ending… it's one of the most instinctual and not-thought-out-just-go-with-the-flow-and-write-what-comes-to-mind things I've ever written, and just… yeah. It's different for me.
Alec knew loneliness. Loneliness was… scary. It was crushing and terrifying and all-consuming; it made you ache with sadness and burn with fury and drown in hopelessness, all at once. It was the worst feeling in the world.
He'd been alone for a long time. No, not physically, but emotionally… he distanced himself from everyone. No one could connect with him, he was just too different, and so he'd cut himself off… and one the rare occasion that someone WOULD try to help, he'd push them away the second they'd start to get too close.
So yes, he was all too familiar with loneliness. Right now he was in one of the worst forms of lonely… that one where you didn't want to do anything; where part of you wanted to cry your eyes out but the other part wouldn't let you. It was times when he got like this that he could see the appeal of cutting yourself just for the release of pain, of trading your life for drugs that would poison you, of ending it all in one pull of a trigger or tightening of a noose. The other lonelies he could fend off well enough with distractions, but this one… there was no cure but time and no escape but sleep, when the dreams stayed away.
'Will this never end?' he wonders desolately. It had been years since he'd first cut himself off from living and yet it never got easier, this seclusion…
In that single, seemingly average moment, he snapped. He just couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take the depression, he couldn't take having no one, he couldn't take never having a single fucking break from any of it and having to try to act like he was holding it together day after day after day. He dug in his jeans pocket for the pocket knife he always kept there and flicked out the blade, holding it to his pale, pale skin… and then he slashed.
The shock made him gasp and for a few blessed seconds, it all disappeared… everything. He'd never had much of a tolerance for pain and though it had always been a curse before, it was a gift now… every moment of shocked pain was another moment of no pain.
Soon, though, the high faded and a thought entered his mind: 'What did I just do… this is wrong!'
"No," he muttered aloud. Those thoughts wouldn't help. They wouldn't go away though… in desperation he put the blade to his flesh again and another thin red line appeared then joined the blood of the first wound, winding it's grotesque fingers down his arm.
No one cared. What did it matter? What did his life matter, to anyone? Not even he himself cared anymore!
Another cut, another trail of blood.
He'd never find anything good in this word. All he'd ever wanted was love, but who would love him?
And another, added before the pain of the third could completely die… it was warm, dangerous bliss in the cold hell that was his life.
He was pathetic, sitting here with tears on his face and blood on his arms, with the icey fire burning in his heart.
The fifth cut was the last… he couldn't handle the exhilarating mix of pain and adrenaline and he passed out, the blood saturating the carpet beneath him.
/3
Magnus saw the slumped shape laying on the library floor, at the back of the teen section, and immediately knew that something was wrong. He ran forward and his breath caught in his throat… it was The Boy. The one he saw every day either at school or the library, always alone. The one he'd wanted so often to talk to, but had always been afraid of rejection. Who would want to talk to him, the tall Asian freak with scary eyes and a glitter obsession? No one, that's who.
When he got within a few steps of the boy, he almost fell the rest of the way… there were dark stains on the carpet under the boy's wrists. Blood. With shaking hands he drew his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911, giving them the library's address. He just told them that a friend of his was hurt before dropping to his knees next to the unmoving figure. "It's going to be ok, darling. You're going to be ok."
/3
Alec awoke to a throbbing in his wrists and an aching in his head. But something was different… something was missing, but something he didn't miss, He just knew that it was gone.
It was a struggle, but finally he got his eyes open to see a striking face hovering above his, a face with beautiful eyes and sharp Asian features. A face that held worry for him, Alec… it had been a long time since anyone had worried about him; since his parents had died and his siblings had left for college. That face to him… it was the face of an angel.
"Oh my God, you're awake!" he gasped, his voice the most captivating voice Alec had ever heard. "Are you okay? How do you feel?"
Alec glanced around the room as he tried to think up an answer. He appeared to be in the stranger's house, his bedroom to be exact. Why, he had no idea. "Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm sorry… I'm Magnus. I... found you. At the library? I took you to the hospital and they patched you up. This is my apartment; you seemed pretty loopy from whatever they gave you and anyways, I don't know where you live." Magnus explained. He seemed distracted and his eyes kept wandering to Alec's bandaged wrists. "Look, I don't want to seem nosy, but… do you want to talk? I kind of… know, I guess."
The concern in his voice made Alec waver, and when he showed Alec his wrist with thin, pale scars running across it, he gave in. He needed to trust someone… and he wanted to trust Magnus.
Before he knew it the whole story was rushing out as willingly as the blood had flowed from his wrists earlier that day, from the time his parents died to when his siblings, whom he'd raised after that, had taken off to boarding schools in England and California, respectively, to earlier that day in the library. In return he learned bits and pieces of Magnus's life—the move from Europe, the orphanages and foster homes, the taunting that had only gotten worse when he'd come out of the closet.
The two teenagers lay in Magnus's bed, where they had both ended up at some point, just hardly touching, and bared their souls to each other—two boys on the verge of becoming men, sharing their secrets and fears despite only having just met. As Magnus drifted off to sleep and at some point his arms unconsciously went around Alec, holding him tight, Alec lay in the arms of his angel and felt safe and loved for first time in many years. Just before his eyes shut he realized what he had noticed missing earlier—the loneliness. From the second he had awoken to see that angel's face, the loneliness had disappeared… and he thought it would never again return, as long as he had Magnus to hold him.
A/N: Yep, that's it. I dunno, was it ok? Like I said, this was a spur-of-the-moment thing, I literally started writing it less than an hour ago, so I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes, and I hope it wasn't too terrible, since I'm not waiting til morning to reread it like I normally do…
