Guess who's back :D ... and guess who is completely annoyed? :D Like, seriously, I had to write this chapter a second time because the file got deleted ... and then I had the chapter ready to get posted and I had added all my little comments ... and the changes got deleted. Q.Q Karma's a bitch.
Anyway, I am sorry for the long wait, but as I just said, the file got deleted, I had to start over. T^T
But now to the more enjoyable topic: HOLY SHIT! 22 REVIEWS! I am dying of happiness here. Q.Q Thank you so much. Thank you for your patience. :D Thank you for everything.
And a big shoutout to my amazing, awesome beta alexa-hallwell, who got this monster of a chapter back to me so fast despite having so much on her plate as well at the moment. LOVE YOU! Please stay! Q.Q
Guest#1: Thank you :D I hope the quality of this chapter will also make up for the long wait.
darlings1995: And I love you (and everybody else) for reviewing. ^-^ Thank you.
julia: I am very glad that you waited as well :) and even if it's a bit late, I wish you a very happy new year as well. :) My life has indeed gone a bit haywire these past months, thank you very much for your understanding.
julie: Here is your continuation :D I hope you'll have fun with it.
Guest#2: Does it make me a bad person to be happy that I made you cry? oO
Guest#3: I took the freedom to finish your review with a flattering adjective in my head. I hope that was the intended message of it. :)
Guest#4: I updated :D ... you still there?
Guest#5: There will always be more until I put this story on 'completed'. :3
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I think you already guessed that. ;3 Have Fun :D
Chapter 10
"No eggs", Alec yelled from the bedroom when he heard Magnus rummaging in the kitchen. He would've gotten up, but the cat still residing on his back was kind of a hindrance to that plan. Magnus seemed to have heard him though, or at least seemed to have noticed that Alec had made a statement of some sort.
The soft patting of naked feet on the floor sounded through the now quiet apartment, getting closer to the bedroom, entering said room, stopping right next to the bed. Alec lay with his face turned towards to empty half of his bed, which had been occupied by Magnus the last night. That left the door of his bedroom to his back as well as the young man who now had to be standing next to the bed. Fabric rustled and Alec could picture Magnus crouching down right behind him, maybe smiling at the back of the writer's head. He would like it if Magnus was smiling. Magnus had a nice smile when he allowed himself to be honest about it. Alec thought about waking up to that smile in the future.
"Why not? Were my scrambled eggs so bad the last time?" Now Alec could hear the smile which grew into a soft chuckle and then there were feather light touches of fingertips brushing against his hair, becoming bolder until Alec could feel a whole hand entangled in his messy morning hair. Fingers that were softly massaging his scalp with lazy movements, brushing strands of hair out of his forehead at the same time. The Chairman purred on his back, but when Alec closed his eyes, he could pretend the purring vibrating in his chest was his own.
"No, they weren't", he mumbled against his pillow. It was hard to concentrate with those wandering fingers in his hair. Damn, that felt good. "But we can't keep having important conversations through eggs with ketchup."
Another chuckle escaped Magnus' lips, but this time the sound was much closer to Alec's left ear. A breath tickled his skin before warm lips were slowly, carefully pressed just right behind his ear. Another kiss followed, lower this time, then another, reaching his jaw, another following the line of his neck.
"Why not? I definitely enjoyed the cuddling after the last scrambled eggs." Magnus' teeth barely skimmed Alec's skin when he grunted in protest.
"Because it's not how you solve conflicts in a healthy relationship and I thought we were going to try this - and don't you dare give me a hickey when I am defenselessly lying on my stomach." Half-heartedly Alec tried smacking Magnus on the head, but of course he missed and instead hit his own nose. Now Magnus right out laughed and then pressed one last kiss against the side of Alec's neck. He ruffled the writer's black hair, while Alec scrunched his nose like a five-year-old who was told to eat his vegetables.
"Don't make fun of me", Alec semi-whined. The sound of Magnus' laughter faded and Alec was afraid he had overdone it with the whining because the last thing he wanted was making Magnus feel guilty for something childish like this. He heard footsteps, but they didn't leave for which Alec was thankful, then Magnus appeared in his field of vision. He kneeled down on the other side of the bed and leaned forward enough to touch Alec's face without stretching too much.
The smile of his lips was honest, warm and calm. It was really nice. The fingers that had messed up Alec's hair only seconds ago were now slightly bent and gently caressed Alec's cheek with their knuckles.
"I would never do anything you don't want when you are defenseless", he whispered. Alec could feel his heart beating somewhere close to his throat. "I Promise. No matter if you are on your stomach, your back or even making a handstand."
Alec smiled. He felt giddy. He had never understood what people were talking about when using that word. Now it began to make sense. "I would kiss you if there wasn't a cat on my back."
Magnus took back his hand and crossed his arms in front of his chest to lean on them as he inched his face closer to Alec's. He could get close enough for a kiss, but their lips didn't touch.
"Thank you."
When Alec had been little there lived a girl across the street. Every morning she would get out of the house, look right and left and then disappear into the neighbor's garden only to come back a few minutes later. She went to the same school as Alec and his siblings and whenever he would see her in the hallway on in class, he felt his eyes drawn to her, his stomach doing somersaults.
Back then Alec thought that's what love was like.
Then he found out that the girl was leaving snack for the neighbor's cat because her parents didn't allow her one and the feeling faded until she was just a girl from the neighborhood.
A few years later Alec told his younger sister Isabelle this story. She tilted her head and then simply shrugged. "I guess you were in love with the mystery, not the person."
"So, how do I know that it's love or not the next time?" Alec had asked and his sister had grinned at him like he was the younger sibling, something that happened more often than he appreciated.
"The feeling won't fade after knowing the mystery ... it will even intensify."
Back then Alec had thought he'd never get that Love-stuff.
When Alec stood in the shower it all became very real. He paused and just let the warm water rinse his hair. The tiles in front of him were a boring white. Alec raised one hand and placed it flat against a tile at the height of his eyes, watching his pale skin against the colorless ceramic.
Wasn't White just light that could be broken into every color of the rainbow? White could be covered by everything and black was just a shade, but also theoretically created by mixing all the colors.
Alec snorted and took his hand off the tile. So that's what I might be? he thought with a smile that felt neither fully happy, nor fully sad. The white canvas, only waiting to be slathered with every color there is and at the same time I am a complete mess of all the colors already. Everything and nothing, so to speak, topped with a bit of simple blue.
The warm water turned cold and after drawing a smiling face into the steam clinging to the walls of the shower cubicle, Alec finally turned off the water. He drew another smiling face on the fogged mirror before erasing it with his hand again and making space for his own face in the reflecting surface. His damp hair stuck up in every angle, his cheeks were flushed from the hot water, and his lips were a deeper color as well. Alec tilted his head to the right, then to the left, watching his bangs falling from one side to the other. Then he smiled ... a little bit, as if the smile wasn't yet completely there. But the premise was given.
"We will try this", he whispered. He was excited, he was scared. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Please let this work out."
When Alec started writing his first book, it was the story of a teenaged serial killer who targeted blond girls with rich parents. The killer had black hair and blue eyes, pale skin, black clothes ...
In the final draft of the book he had become a middle-aged man with light-brown hair and a preference for green jackets.
The critics loved the book; they praised the serial killer as a 'wonderfully twisted' character. But Alec was left with the nightmares, with the fear of looking into a mirror and turning into a middle-aged man with light-brown hair. One night he simply snapped. Alec took all the notes from the first draft, every written part that had remained in some folder after the changes. He cut them into little pieces and kept them in a small box till the next time he'd visit his parents. They had a fireplace; he could burn his horror-confetti there. Alec had felt better while staring at the ashes about a week later.
The first sentence in his book had been 'There is darkness in everybody' and Alec had never fear so real, so raw. It was said that thriller writers were more likely to go nuts than others or non-writers. Alec didn't know if that statement was true or not, but he'd understood if it were. Writing thrillers meant spending time with thinking about the possibilities, what people were capable of, how they could do the most gruesome things and how they could cover their tracks.
At least it had been that way while Alec was writing and in a way he kept wondering.
I could do that too, right? Like the guy in the first draft.
What was the difference between them? The mindset? That Alec knew it was wrong? Illegal. There was that abstract concept of thoughts, opinions, and common sense. The only thing that stood between Alec and the killer in the first draft. But that concept could be fragile and easy to change, to shatter even. Sometimes all it took were the right words, spoken by the right person, at the right time.
Who could make sure that such a situation would never occur?
When Alec got back into his room, he found himself thinking about honesty. It was one of the things good relationships were built of, right? Alec's hand hovered above a green shirt. Then he changed his mind and pulled out a blue shirt from underneath the green one.
Was he ready to be honest? About the time right after college. About his anger. About that one time he'd smashed the old mirror in his bathroom. Alec hadn't been able to write for a week because of the cuts. Isabelle had come over that evening, bringing alcohol for the cuts and maybe a little bit for Alec as well.
"When will it stop hurting?", Alec had asked welcoming the burn of the alcohol on his hand and in his throat. His sister had looked up at him with something that hadn't been pity, something deeper, something that would have ended in a long hug and a lot of tears, but never happened.
"I don't know", she'd whispered. Neither of them had meant the cuts.
Alec knew he had his dark side, his twisted thoughts, his weird moments and in a way he was scared of himself. What would happen when Magnus found out about those parts of him?
If I could I would lock you away somewhere, only for me to look at, only for me to touch, only for me ... only mine.
The words Magnus had said to him so long ago.
Alec paused taking a pair of socks from their drawer. He stared at his own pale fingers, gripping the socks, his knuckles like miniature mountains, colorful strips being hidden beneath snow like skin. The heat of the shower had faded. Those words-
"Hey, darling, breakfast's ready, you coming or do I have to drag you to the table?" Magnus' brightly smiling face appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. His eyebrows were expectantly raised and Alec realized that there had been a question. Magnus was waiting for an answer; his head slightly tilted, beaming at him. He was wearing a combination of blue and green and red. Alec had always thought that for a person like Magnus Bane there was no space left for dark shades. But maybe he'd been wrong.
"Sure, just a second."
There was some darkness in everybody at least. Maybe Alec wasn't the only one who'd have to struggle with honesty.
While writing his second book, Alec tried dating again. It didn't work out.
Magnus had had a crush on Alec before that night behind the history building, even before that argument at the cafeteria. He had had a crush on the gorgeous guy in one of his early classes who totally rocked the all black-attire, had amazing blue eyes and was late for the first session of the semester. He wouldn't talk much in class, but he always took notes.
Magnus had planned on skipping most of that class because he wasn't really required to be there every week, but during that semester he was never late to that particular class, not even once. He found himself looking for that guy, that smudge of ink on campus, secretly snapping pictures of him because the campus was big and life was unpredictable. You could never be sure who you were going to see again after the holidays or which face would never cross your path again. Some people were only there for one summer, one winter, one year, a day or two.
So after the holidays, at the beginning of the next semester, Magnus prepared himself so intensely for never seeing the guy again, had conditioned himself not to search for him so strongly, that when he bumped into Alec Lightwood at the cafeteria he simply gaped at these blue eyes which were intently glaring at him.
"What the hell, man!"
'You're still here', a soft voice in the back of Magnus' mind had whispered.
"Sorry, I didn't see you there." 'I was too busy not thinking about you.'
Magnus had already put his laptop on the table next to the other things he'd gotten out for breakfast. When Alec reached the table his eyes only shortly flickered towards the laptop, and maybe Magnus held his breath for those few seconds, but only maybe. Instead of the laptop though, Alec's gaze was drawn to the plate in front of him on the table. Magnus bit his lip, unsuccessfully trying to fight down a smile. He had kept his promise about making an egg-free breakfast, but as he'd opened the fridge, he'd found out that he couldn't have done otherwise even if he'd wanted to.
Alec raised one eyebrow looking up from the plate towards Magnus who simply shrugged.
He had written 'Out of eggs' on it with ketchup.
Alec snorted, smiled and shook his head. Magnus loved that moment and he didn't even fully understand why. Alec picked up the ketchup-plate still smiling, maybe it was a smirk, maybe not, and then noticed the clean plate underneath because really, Magnus hadn't expected him to finish off the ketchup before he got started with some bread. The smirk melted into a warm smile. His eyes found Magnus again. Words were spoken without a single sound. Alec simply put the ketchup-plate next to the laptop and Magnus was tempted to snap a picture. He could post it on Facebook with the title 'feeling content', but he didn't because it would mean shari
ng this moment.
"You could post that on Facebook." Alec's voice was calm with a slight nervous edge. Magnus smiled absent-mindedly. Then he looked at the writer, thinking about those blue eyes flaming with anger as they tried to pierce his soul when he'd gotten pudding splattered all over the young man they belonged to.
"I could", he whispered. 'I could have stayed with you from the beginning, but I didn't.' "We could make it our running gag, an inside joke?"
Alec snorted again, his gaze dancing across the wall behind Magnus' back reaching the living room window. His smile became tired, somehow sad. His hands lie in his lap, fingers intertwined.
"Yeah, and when we maybe break up some day, I can empty a whole bottle over your stuff."
It was a possible ending for them, Magnus knew that, he had always known. Every couple could break up. Every marriage could end in a divorce. Everything was possible, good and bad. And yet, Magnus also knew that this wasn't everything Alec had meant. If it would end between them, there wouldn't be ugly arguments, yelled accusations, slammed doors. There would be an empty bottle of ketchup, there wouldn't be any words. There would only be tears and anger and raw emotions. Because shards of glass always left a trace of blood and since last night they were walking on broken pieces of five years and more of loneliness, longing, silent anger.
"And we would still be the only ones to understand."
Magnus smiled and it felt good to see it returned, mirrored on Alec's face. They had exchanged so many quiet words in the past, so many arguments had passed between them without a single scream, that listening to the silence between them had become as natural as breathing now.
'You are an idiot sometimes.'
'I know.'
'I like that about you.'
'I know.'
And sometimes there were words so rough that they were barely tangible, just raw feelings floating in the air, filling the gaps between two heartbeats.
"Well then, shall we talk about all those things we … well, should … talk about?" Alec nervously bit his lower lip, five fingers of one hand restlessly drumming against the edge of the table. Magnus nodded.
"Okay, but before we start, let me show you something."
'I love you.'
In the beginning Magnus had thought Alec had to be lonely, but after some time he'd realized that this wasn't the case. And it had made him all the more interesting.
Both Magnus and Camille were social butterflies, most of the time surrounded by people and Magnus liked it. He even enjoyed Camille's gossiping because she got so easily scandalized, overanalyzing everything, though never being really serious about any of it. It was like watching a sitcom and it always made Magnus smile. Sometimes he thought Camille might be doing it solely for him, to make him smile when he had a bad day.
They hadn't been a bad couple and there had been times when Magnus had thought he'd spend the rest of his life with Camille. It was only after she'd found him looking for Alec by hacking the surveillance cameras on campus, that her gossip had gotten that mean and sometimes downright evil edge. Her eyes started to shout accusations. Her lips didn't smile as often as they used to anymore.
The silence between them became so loud that Magnus found himself more and more drawn to Alec's easy solitude.
'Teach me', he'd wanted to ask so many times. 'Teach me how to be so easily on my own. Teach me how to be surrounded by silence without being swallowed by it. Teach me how to calm the screaming inside my head. Teach me.' But he never asked. Still, in a way Alec taught him. Being with Alec calmed his thoughts, soothed his aching nerves. Every kiss was a whispered advice. Every touch a soft call. 'Listen to my silence.' Every night together was another lesson.
It was addicting.
With clammy hands Magnus reached for his laptop. It felt so weird, the mere thought of showing anybody those pictures that had been strictly personal for so long. To be honest, Magnus had never planned on showing them to anybody, much less the very person that could be seen in all of them. Maybe he had even thought that one day he might get over his borderline-obsessive admiration for Alec Lightwood. It hadn't happened yet.
Magnus' fingers trembled slightly when he moved the cursor towards the file which was just one among many to anybody who might chance a glance upon all the picture files. It was labeled 'deep blue sky' and like any other file on the laptop it was secured with a password. Magnus smirked half-heartedly at the six stars appearing in the screen while he let his fingers dance across the keyboard without looking down. A green light flashed onscreen and the next moment the screen was filled with countless pictures, a flood which Magnus had once feared to drown in.
"Do you remember that I always took pictures on campus?"
Alec's gaze lay heavy upon Magnus' shoulders when he looked up meeting blue depths that were guarded with caution, like frozen lakes careful not to let anybody drown because it would leave the lake behind with the tears and the last breath of the dead.
"Sure." It was like Alec wanted to smile, but didn't at the same time. There was pain, old pain. "You were practically married to your camera back then"
There was the smile.
„You had a complete file with pictures of Camille on your phone, right?"
There was the pain, sharp and fleeting, still drawing blood.
Magnus chuckled softly and looked back at the screen. "Right", he muttered. In hindsight it hadn't been the smartest thing to do that day, letting Alec browse the stuff he had on his phone, but back then it had seemed okay. It had been before this whole thing had turned into a mess of silence, anger and the sense of belonging. "I'm sorry about that."
He still had those pictures though. He didn't want to forget about the days he had been happy with Camille, when he had been in love before meeting Alec. He didn't want to look back on those days, thinking 'What the hell?. His past hadn't always been dark, not always been a mess, not always that childhood nightmare of an orphan. He had been happy and he didn't want to forget about that. Camille had made many things for him possible; she was a part of his past and would always be. But that didn't make Alec less important in any way. The file with pictures of him was way bigger. Alec had shown Magnus glimpses of the things he still wanted to acquire, of emotions he still longed for. Maybe Alec would understand it that way.
"I still have them, you know?" Magnus met Alec's suspicious glare without fear. Then he smiled and turned around the laptop for Alec to see the screen. "But I also still have these", Magnus whispered as Alec leaned forward to better see what he was looking at.
Alec had never liked photographs of himself because they always were the 'Come on, honey, give me a smile'- or 'Say cheese'-kind of things. His smile had always looked like a painful grimace and Alec had hated cheese as a child. At some point he simply stopped trying and only glared at the camera. His smiles were his own; he didn't want to give them away for just anybody that asked for them. After some time people stopped bugging him. His siblings became the cute grandchildren that everybody wanted in the centre of the group photo. Alec simply was the shadow on the side. He soon grew taller than his aunts and cousins or grandparents, so he could as well stand in the back with only his face showing in that sea of happy go lucky-people. He was happy with things being that way, but it still stung when he didn't find a picture of himself among those Magnus had made. Alec tried to tell himself that it wasn't important, that he didn't want it to be any other way, that he didn't want Magnus to ask him if he could take a picture. No, Alec didn't want to be photographed.
Yet still, he found himself looking into the mirror after every shower wondering if maybe by now his smile wasn't so gruesome anymore. Maybe he wouldn't resent pictures of himself that much anymore. Maybe Magnus wouldn't ask him for a forced smile. Maybe Magnus wouldn't tell him to say 'Cheese!'. Alec still wasn't very fond of that stuff. And maybe Magnus was the only one Alec wanted to be photographed by. The only one to give a smile for.
But now, all of a sudden there were so many pictures and Alec seemed to be in all of them. They were all taken on campus back in college.
I still have these.
Magnus had made them back then, leaving Alec to believe that there wasn't a single one of him. He wanted to yell at him, wanted to be angry, wanted to be happy, wanted to be shocked, appalled even, but it just seemed like something Magnus would do judging by the way he had always caught those stolen moments of other students on film. There were so many thoughts that rushed through Alec's mind at once. There were so many emotions setting his nerves on fire. So many ways to react and yet what came out of his mouth was:
"So … you stalked me?"
Magnus opened his mouth and closed it again without a word passing his lips. Then he did it again and again and again until it actually surprised Alec when there was an actual sound.
"Maybe … kind of", he said slowly, his eyes never leaving Alec's face, not missing a single second. "But I promise I never followed you around or installed cameras in your dorm room or something like that." Magnus' eyes were unusual wide like the ones of a child that was sure to get beaten and didn't want to miss the moment when the first punch would come, sohe could duck. Alec narrowed his eyebrows; his thoughts were still a pure mess, happiness fought with shock and anger. How was he supposed to react to something like that, to the idea of a pair of eyes always following him around whenever he was in sight on campus? Alec hadn't known anybody from high school who'd planned to attend the same college. Or maybe some had planned to try it, but then changed their minds after graduation. So there hadn't really been a reason to pay much attention to other people because he was fine on his own. He occasionally called his siblings, visited his parents during the holidays, was polite to the people in his classes, but that was about as far as it went with his agenda of socializing.
In retrospect he also hadn't expected anybody else to pay much attention to him. Yet somebody had done so.
Alec looked down at the pictures again. "Why did you never tell me?" he asked softly. He wasn't really angry and wasn't overflowing with joy either. He was intrigued, fascinated, surprised by the idea of really anybody having a reason to do what Magnus had done. He heard Magnus take a deep breath, but didn't look back up. Instead he began to browse through the pictures, trying to remember the days and situations they had been taken and trying to think about those moments with someone's gaze lingering on him,finding him in the masses of students during breaks.
"Well …" His voice wavered a bit and Alec could tell that he was still waiting for the big explosion, but Alec didn't know if it would come. "Okay, this might sound weird, but I … I just wanted to have something completely to myself of you, like a good luck token, you know? Something that nobody knows about, that is completely my own." There was a weak smile hidden somewhere among those words. But Alec found himself reminded of something else.
If I could I would lock you away somewhere, only for me to look at, only for me to touch, only for me ... only mine.
Alec's anger subsided, his surprise wore off, his joy left a bitter aftertaste behind. Maybe it had just been a way for Magnus to achieve that goal in a way that didn't involve kidnapping. Suddenly the gaze that must have lingered on Alec in all those pictures felt cold and calculated and -
"And I think a lot of them were taken before I ran into you at the cafeteria, so I guess, in a way I simply continued what I was already doing. And seriously, Alec, I am really sorry about it, but it just happened and I wasn't sure if you'd let me take a picture of you if I asked you and I guess I thought if you've never said 'no' then I wouldn't have to stop with the pictures I took when you didn't know and okay, this doesn't really make it sound less creepy …" Now Alec slowly raised his gaze. He could count on one hand the times he'd seen Magnus Bane rambling. But there he was, biting his lower lip, throwing his hands helplessly into the air, desperation clear in his eyes, that deep desire of getting somebody to understand you. In the end he just let out the air he'd been holding, his shoulders sagging, his hands falling down into his lap. "You were that gorgeous guy in one of my classes and despite not knowing a thing about you, I always found my eyes drawn to you …" His words were laced with exhaustion. It was like Magnus simply gave up searching the right words to string together in sentences that held a certain meaning. He spoke the words as simple as possible. No more walls, no more pretending. Glass crunched beneath their feet, but if they did it right, they could sweep it away, turn it into dust, so that there would only be old scars and no new bruises.
'You fell for a mystery', Alec thought. 'But you stayed and you came back.' He didn't say anything out loud though because there were still words on the tip of Magnus' tongue and he was afraid that they would vanish if he'd speak up now. Magnus licked his lips nervously, moving his lips as if to test out how those unsaid words would feel when they were actually verbalized. Then he took another deep breath and Alec watched him. It was fascinating and it had been so long since he'd seen Magnus struggling with words like that.
"And … god, this is hard … but, okay, screw it, we dived head first into the confessions, so I won't stop here." He got up and put his hands on the table in front of Alec leaning towards the writers over the laptop, his eyes set with determination. "If you want to kick me out after you heard everything, you can do so, I won't bother you again, but if you don't I swear to you right now that I won't keep any more secrets from you as long as you will let me be a part of your life."
Alec wanted to say that he himself hadn't yet made a single confession, but he didn't. He wanted to tell Magnus that he hadn't thought about kicking him out again once since he'd kind of crash-landed in his life … again. He wanted-
"I'm a hacker."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm a hacker and I hacked into the surveillance cameras on campus to spy on you having lunch."
Alec stared. He stared for quite a while.
"Why?"
Magnus determination wavered a bit, but Alec didn't have the current brain capacity to deal with that. His mind was going overdrive. This was too much information at once. His coffee got cold and for the first time in his life, Alec didn't care.
"Well, because I could, I guess, and-"
"No, why, Magnus? Why would anybody want to watch me having lunch?" Alec threw his hands in the air, his eyes were big with confusion and some distant part of his mind kept yelling 'That's not the point right now!', but Alec ignored that little voice. After a few moments of tense silence, Magnus simply shrugged and pushed himself off the table to place his hands on his hips.
"I just like watching you, and back then you happened to be having lunch at that moment."
Now the screaming little voice in the back of Alec's head got louder. "You like watching me?" he asked with a suspiciously raised eyebrow. "Don't tell me, your middle name is actually Edward."
Magnus snorted and blew a strand of hair out of his forehead, not that it did him any good without the gel, but he still tried.
When he'd received his first paycheck Magnus had declared his independence to Alec's 'no make-up'-condition and had gotten a few new things. Under the bathroom sink there was still the bag he'd arrived with, but Magnus had said that this bag still applied to the condition Alec had set in the beginning, but it wouldn't apply to anything he'd purchased with his own money that he'd earned in New York. A part of the money he'd given to Alec for rent ("Not much, I know, but I'll work myself up."), a part of it he'd put away to save it for whatever greater purchases would come up and with the rest he'd gotten new nail polish. Yellow, judging by the color on his nails.
Alec liked that. Alec liked it that Magnus' hair was still down and fluffy. Alec liked it that his rule had been the motivation for Magnus to get a job, among other reasons. Alec liked that maybe this way Magnus would have another reason to stay in New York, just like he had moved to Paris because of a job. Maybe in the end he wouldn't choose Alec after all, but maybe then at least he could choose New York over every other city in the world. And Alec liked that Magnus didn't have any qualms about starting again at the bottom after having a high society job. Magnus was smart and hard-working despite what the idiots in college had thought about him and his outgoing way of dressing. He was so much more than the poor orphan with the rich girlfriend and the troubled past.
And Alec was proud of him. In a way it also made Magnus' confession less alarming. That and the fact that he confessed it at all. He looked at Alec like he wanted him to get angry, to yell at him, to be disgusted with him. But Alec didn't do so. Well, he still wasn't over the fact that anybody would ever be interested in watching him having lunch, but that was about it.
"I don't have a middle name, smartass, and I never snuck into your room to watch you sleep …" Magnus cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly before moving on. "I mean, I did watch you sleep because it's seriously relaxing, but only when we shared a bed anyway … and never for long, too, I swear, like only those few moments before waking you up …"
"Relaxing?" There was this one picture of Alec being asleep when he'd been about 8 years old and Isabelle had gotten her hands on a camera. He wouldn't say that the sight of him sprawled across the bed drooling was a very relaxing to behold. But maybe he looked different now. Like it might be with his smile. Maybe it wasn't that bad to be photographed anymore. Maybe. Maybe things had changed.
"It's like watching a sleeping cat", Magnus confirmed with a soft, almost dreamy smile on his face as he looked at a point on the wall behind Alec. Isabelle had titled that one picture 'paralyzed groundhog' and Alec decided that he liked the comparison with a sleeping cat better. Or was it just that he looked different now. Had he changed?
With that thought Alec turned back towards the laptop, and all those pictures that he had wished for in college, but never gotten the courage to ask for. Would he have said no if Magnus had actually asked him back then?
"Do you have one of me where I am smiling?", he asked, his voice a whisper, his words unsure if it was okay for them to be spoken out loud. Magnus beamed and Alec didn't understand him.
"Of course, it's one of my favorites." With practiced movements of his fingers he flew to what had to be about the middle of the file. He double clicked on one at the end of the line and when a bigger window opened and there it was, a picture of Alec actually laughing. It didn't look like a grimace at all.
Alec was reading some book, but the title couldn't be seen from the angle he held it, but judging by the fact that he was a literature major it had to be a book for one of his classes. Maybe the Louis Sachar-book, he'd enjoyed that one in his second semester. It had been funny and with a surprising amount of heart. Maybe it was that one. His eyes didn't look much different. He wasn't frowning, but there were more moments when he didn't frown, right? There had to be. But his lips. There was a smile, and it wasn't just his lips being curved. Alec knew that due to genetics his face in general was an assembly of sharp lines and strict angles. He had high cheekbones and a strong jaw and he had always thought that because of this fact alone his expression would be harsh somehow every time. But that wasn't true, not true at all. At least not this one time in the picture.
"I look like that when I am reading?", he whispered unbelievingly. From the corner of his eye he noticed Magnus moving to stand behind him, placing his arms on Alec's shoulders, his breath close to his ear.
"And when you are on the phone with your sister, when you are listening to classical music, when you got a good grade on one of your papers …" Alec felt a soft kiss pressed on top of his head. His mind was reeling and eventually he made a decision.
"Would you take a picture of me?" Alec got up from his chair and turned around to face Magnus who looked at him confused, eyebrows raised with the silent question 'Why?'. His arms had been dispatched from Alec's shoulders in the process and now his hands were resting on the back of the chair. "I want to try something."
'I want to try this … whatever there is between us.'
Magnus looked at him. A few seconds passed. A few heartbeats. A few possibilities of backing out again, taking it all back. There was no regret, only silence.
"You mind me asking what that is?", he finally asked as he took out his phone from one of the back pockets of his pants. Alec shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the screen of the laptop.
"Smiling", he muttered. It sounded so much weirder said out loud and maybe a bit dumber as well, like that childish wish for a pink pony. In his head there was the little voice calling out encouragements while he said the words out loud, the whole idea, was more like hectic handwriting on cheap paper.
"Come again?" Of course Magnus was confused. His confusion was calmed though, moving in regular waves, washing over Alec's skin, not dragging him under.
"Smiling", Alec's voice gained strength, his expression gained determination. He turned back to look at Magnus again who moved his fingers with practiced automaticity across the screen of his mobile phone to unlock the camera. His movements stilled when his gaze locked with Alec's.
"I never liked it when people took pictures of me with me knowing because they always wanted me to smile and I felt so forced that it simply looked like a grimace. I always fought against the smile. I always thought 'why should I smile for you? You don't get to decide what my face looks like.' It made me angry and at some point people stopped asking … but then I thought, that maybe, maybe things have changed now, maybe its okay to smile on command, you know? For people you like. Maybe it's like asking for a hug, maybe sometimes they just do it to remind you that you can still do it, that there is still someone who wants to see that smile? Maybe they want to take pictures because they are scared of forgetting, maybe …"
He stopped, only now noticing how out of breath he was. His hands were braced against the table, his fingertips digging into the wood, only meeting cold resistance. But brown wasn't just a cold color and wood could get warm. Alec's eyes never left Magnus. Silent words were still brimming at the tip of his tongue.
"Maybe-"
Then there was a kiss. Magnus moved around the chair and just did it. He didn't cup Alec's cheek, didn't put one hand behind the other's neck, their bodies only touching at one point. Gazes getting lost in each other, longing kisses hovering between their lips after they had shared that one short moment of intimacy.
"Maybe a smile is often the best thing to do to make someone you care about smiling as well. Maybe it's not your own decision anymore, not just your own smile -" Words kept pouring, Alec's lips kept moving, his thoughts urging to get outside, to be heard by himself. And Magnus drank them with one kiss after another until they ran dry. Until there were none left but a smile.
You don't smile for the camera; you smile for the person behind it, so stop looking at the lens and start focusing on their eyes.
The moment he snapped the picture Magnus decided to make it his new background. It was cheesy and he knew it, but it wasn't like he'd cared about these things before.
"Can I see it?", Alec asked while looking like he'd wanted to do anything but that at the moment. Magnus didn't comment on it and just handed him the phone with the newest picture on the screen. Alec had pressed his eyes shut, blindly reaching for the phone and Magnus helped him so he would hold it in his hand with the screen titled upwards. Slowly, the writer opened one eye, holding the phone like it could explode any second. Then the second one followed and in the end he had the phone right in front of his face squinting at the picture.
"That doesn't look so bad", he eventually stated with pursed lips that Magnus wanted to kiss again. He chuckled softly his fingers absent-mindedly playing with the hem of Alec's shirt.
"Nobody said it would look bad." His voice was as soft as the chuckle.
"I did", Alec muttered under his breath, his expression sober, distant, oddly serious. "I never liked pictures of myself." He raised his head looking at Magnus, his face a closed book now. "But I actually like this one, Magnus … so some things can change." Tension prickled around them, scratching their skin and Magnus was suddenly acutely aware of the broken glass beneath their feet.
"Things can always change." It was a plea, but Alec's gaze fell from Magnus' eyes. The hand holding the phone sank with it until it dangled next to Alec's hip, next to Magnus' fingers still holding onto the hem of the other's shirt.
"No, sometimes things don't change." Blue found green again. The mobile phone was placed carefully on the table, right next to the package of cheese. Cold fear pierced Magnus' gut. 'No', he thought panicking, 'don't shut me out again, not now, not ever.' A selfish wish, a selfish demand, the one thing that ruled his mind at this moment. Yes, he had prepared himself to get kicked out, for being yelled at for what he'd done in college, for what he'd kept from Alec. But things had been going so well between them until now, hadn't they? And then he realized that right now they didn't really have anything. He had somehow managed to stumble back into Alec's life, stealing two nights and a couple more kisses. They had a loose chain of shared moments, memories, and the promise to try a relationship. But that promise had been made last night. Things could change between them any second. Between one word and another.
They didn't have a relationship yet or a healthy friendship to look back upon. Any second they could break like brittle driftwood.
"Sometimes people don't change." Alec brought up both hands and cupped Magnus' jaw, his right thumb tracing the line of the hacker's bottom lip. The situation didn't make any sense "Sometimes people don't really regret." Their faces got closer, but never reached each other. Magnus noted with half a thought that his fingers were fisted into the fabric of Alec's shirt. HE wanted to close the distance between them. He wanted to make Alec stop talking because the other's words were cold and sharp, there was darkness clinging to them that scared Magnus and hypnotized him at the same time.
"Alec, what-" A kiss stopped him from talking, questioning, thinking in general. How could it be that Alec had such power over him?
Alec's lips were always chapped because he chewed so often on his bottom lip and because they were sensitive to the cold. He always had lip balm with him and it had been one if the first things Magnus had learned about him. Alec could get stranded somewhere in the middle of the night, no money, no keys, no phone, no shoes, he'd still have some lip balm on him to offer it to you or use it himself. It had never bothered Magnus though, those chapped lips, while others dreamt of the ideal, soft, unblemished skin. In his opinion it had just added another piece to the perfect imperfection that was Alexander Lightwood. The shy tease, the oblivious grumpy kid, the aggressive sweetheart, the one who could break your nose or help you find the right room on campus by walking with you. The one who could, with nothing more than one look, make you feel like you knew nothing about reality and that he wouldn't tell you all those secrets of the world because he was sure you wouldn't be able to handle them. The one who would paint smiley faces with his index finger against the glass of a window when it was raining outside. The one whose kisses could be warm and cold, that could burn you up from the inside or freeze you on the spot.
And sometimes they tasted like desperation.
Magnus pulled Alec close, trying to somehow calm the restlessness of the kiss, but he couldn't. Sometimes Alec was like a cold fever, a legal drug that was only legal because nobody really believed it existed.
'I'm not giving up, I'm not letting you wash me away like this.' Magnus backed the writer against the table, something clanked, maybe some coffee got spilled, but he didn't care, it had to be cold by now anyway. It wasn't important right now. No longer did Magnus play along. He answered Alec's pressure with his own, with more than before, stealing the other's breath until they had to break apart both flushed, both breathing heavily.
"What's going on, Alec? Talk to me." The writer's hands were still cupping Magnus' face, but now they slowly slid down on top of his shoulders, but Alec's eyes stayed locked with glowing pools of green. He huffed a humorless laugh, tension dissipating from his features, his posture.
"I once made a plan to kill Camille", he whispered, his eyes trained on Magnus, not missing a single movement. "And I don't regret it." He smirked. "I thought about asking you for forgiveness, telling you that I'd have never gone through with it … but I can't because I don't want to be sorry. It's a part of my past, along with the anger … and the jealousy."
Magnus blinked. Camille hadn't been exactly Alec's best friend in college and he was sure Alec wasn't the only one who had harbored such aggressions towards his ex-girlfriend. She'd gotten pretty nasty in the end
"But you didn't."
"But I had a plan, Magnus, a real plan. How to do it, which weapon to use, where to ambush her, how to dispose of the body, how to make it look like an accident."
Magnus knew he should be shocked, scared, terrified. He knew that Alec thought he was scary, twisted, creepy. Magnus knew this should be a bigger deal and he knew that Alec was scared of himself because of this. In blue eyes he could see the fear Magnus should have felt himself. 'Take this seriously, take me seriously, take my fear seriously', they screamed. 'Tell me, I'm a terrible person.'
"But you didn't do it." Magnus' fingers ached when he untangled them from the fabric of Alec's shirt, but the sensation was dull and far away. "And I am not suddenly scared shitless of you, okay?" It was the truth and to be honest it hadn't really surprised Magnus all that much. Alec wrote pretty graphic thrillers and it had happened more than once that instead of a 'Hello' in front of the room of their next class Alec had asked him off-handedly something like 'If you'd plan to stab someone would you bring your own knife or take one of theirs from the kitchen?'.
"I would be halfway out that door if Camille had gone missing during college and you'd just confessed that you had murdered her and buried her somewhere on campus. But, Jesus, Alec, you simply thought about it, okay? And of course you had a plan, you probably have multiple plans for a murder in every book of yours, not counting the early drafts."
Alec simply blinked and opened his mouth, but Magnus pressed his index finger against the writer's lips, quickly shaking his head. "More importantly is why you're not more creeped out by what I told you? I mean, I kept a secret stash of photographs of you on my laptop-"
"Yeah, but you didn't break into my dorm room to install cameras there and I'm not naked or in any state of undress in one of them", Alec intervened glaring down at the finger against his lips because it was a bit of a hindrance while talking. Then his eyes suddenly shot up. "You didn't, did you?"
"Of course not", Magnus exclaimed.
"See! Now, my plan on the other hand-" Alec slapped Magnus' hand aside, but the hacker was fast and instantly Alec's mouth was covered again, this time with a whole hand.
"Shush, I'm not finished yet, okay?" Alec glared at him and Magnus felt his heart swell. It was so irrational that he would have loved to break out laughing, but he was on a mission. "I told you I'm a hacker and I invaded your privacy, I got your schedule, your middle name, your birthday - all that stuff before I ran after you in the hallway that one day to ask your name. You understand? I already knew your name, I just wanted an excuse to talk to you. I'm a bad person-"
"Tch, I'm not exactly Mother Teresa either!" It was weird hearing Alec's muffled yell, but Magnus enjoyed the warm breath against the palm of his hand. "I daydreamed about dating you and prayed for Camille to fail her finals."
"I hacked your schedule for heaven's sake!"
"I had my schedule written on the back of my folder, every person sitting next to me in class knew my fucking schedule!"
"Then the pictures-"
"Maybe I like it, okay?", Alec screamed gripping Magnus' wrist and tearing the hand from his lips, his eyes blazing with fury. "Maybe I am glad that you were interested enough in me to do so? Maybe I am pathetic enough to simply forgive your semi-professional stalker-thing because it-it fucking shows that you thought about me, that maybe you would have liked that relationship to happen in college as well, but decided against it for your 'What if'-reasons. Maybe I am just glad about it because …" His voice suddenly broke. The scream getting lost between here and there, some seconds pinned to the wall and never taken down. "Because it shows you cared. Yes, Magnus, I guess it is creepy in a way, but seriously I fantasize about brutal killings on a daily basis. In the first draft of my first book I wrote myself as the serial killer, I wrote Camille as my first victim. You were long gone to Paris, lost for me anyway, and I was still so stupidly, pathetically hung up on you. I smashed a mirror. I redefined the word 'creepy'! And I am not scared because you never crossed any important line, you kept those pictures without my consent, yes, but you didn't photoshop yourself into them, you didn't camp outside the window of my dorm room to get them. And I know you would have never done so because I trust you."
With the last word a long held breath escaped Alec's lips and his whole body seemed to deflate after that monologue. He looked at Magnus exhausted, just tired of holding all those words and thoughts in for so long. Then he raised his hands to cover his face and groaned.
Alec hadn't meant for all of this to get out at once, but it simply made him so angry seeing Magnus practically begging to be judged for something that had filled Alec with warm dizziness at the first moment. His thoughts were still spinning. Magnus hadn't forgotten about him the whole time and just remembered him when he got dumped and bored. He had thought about him, maybe he had smashed a mirror as well or maybe not and it was only Alec's way of coping with emotional stress, who knew. But he hadn't completely left Alec behind in New York. He hadn't thrown him away for the sake of a better future in France.
It was the same case with the hacking. Disregarding the fact that Alec had always had his own suspicions about Magnus' permanent attachment to his laptop and the knowledge about random I.T.-stuff that came with it, he still wasn't mad about it. It sounded like a slightly more serious version of facebook-stalking and Magnus sure enough wasn't the only one to do that, he simply had the better set of skills.
"You are not some creepy weirdo who would force me to do things I don't want to do." He brought up his hands to carefully cup Magnus' face, to hold the gaze of uncertain green eyes, to make Magnus look at him, really look at him. "You didn't force yourself onto me that first night, you would turn around and leave if I told you I don't want to see you again. You would respect my decision. You would go and maybe after some time you would forget, you would-"
"I could never forget about you." Magnus put his hands over Alec's, dark skin against a pale complexion. Alec's breath caught in his throat at the look in the other's eyes, how it changed from uncertain to raw and unguarded. "I tried so many times, so many nights I screamed inside my head. I wanted to forget you, Alec, I wanted to make that life in Paris work because I didn't know if you'd ever want to see me again …" Tears shone in green eyes, tears laced every word, tears that Magnus had never allowed himself to show, now made his voice sound hoarse. "But it didn't work." His grip on Alec's hands tightened slightly, not enough to hurt yet. Alec was frozen in place, his insides on fire. He felt Magnus' forehead finally touching his own. His heart was beating so fast, he was scared it might just run away. "You were like the last cigarette I couldn't drop, that last glass of whiskey I could never say no to, that stupid romcom-cliché that I couldn't help but smile at, that one heartbeat I didn't want to live without."
There were no kisses because the moment right before the kiss was always the most important one. Magnus took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes, but Alec could still feel unsaid words brimming beneath his skin, so he simply stayed quiet, simply waited, listened to their heartbeats filling the gaps between their moments of happy memories.
"But I did it again." Alec's lids drifted close as well. The words were heavy on Magnus' tongue. "I researched you in every possible way, where you live, what you do now, who you talk to, I did so many stupid things, I-"
"And why did you do it?" Alec felt like he broke the surface after being underwater for way too long. He was engulfed by the darkness of his closed eyelids, the warmth of Magnus' touch on his skin.
"I wanted to know everything about your current life, I am dis-"
"Why?" The question fled from Alec's lips with butterfly wings, nothing heavy to add to the weight already resting on Magnus' shoulders.
"I didn't want to wreck your life … I didn't want to start fights between you and your eventual boyfriend, didn't want to enter a picture that didn't have any place for me, didn't want to … Of course, I couldn't have ever been sure, but I noticed that you still spent a lot of time alone and … and I just hoped - I promise, that if you'd been dating someone I would have stayed away." Alec opened his eyes again. Magnus had his eyes still screwed shut, his hands were shaking on top of Alec's. He had never seen the other so afraid as he kept talking. "And I'd still do it, I would walk away, but …" Now Magnus opened his eyes again as well and Alec didn't know if their color had ever been this intense.
"Don't expect me to forget you."
A smile grew on Alec's lips, filled to the brim with warmth. He felt his own tears burning, but he never cried them. "I trust you." Another shuddering breath. They were so close, but they didn't kiss because the moment right before the kiss was always the most important one. "And we are all broken in some way, nobody's surface is perfect there's a crack in everything … Magnus, that's how light gets in. And what would the light be without some darkness?"
Magnus' face was an ocean of raw emotions, there was no wall, no mask left to overcome. His lips moved silently, trying to catch words that had hung between them so many times, words that had left so many scars already because they had remained silent, unspoken.
"I love you."
Magnus' tongue stumbled over them, but the words were still crystal clear, soothing all those old scars on Alec's heart, but yet he couldn't find them within his own lips. He opened his mouth to … maybe explain, maybe ask for some time to get used to the idea, maybe to try to say them after all? He didn't know and he never should find out because Magnus' lips were on his, the other's fingers finally letting go of his hands. Once again Alec's arms dropped onto Magnus' shoulders, stayed there while the kiss exploded with tears.
He cried. It had been so long since he'd last done it without trying to fight them. Salty pearls dragged away a weight he'd never realized he was carrying. Alec just let go as he drowned in the sensation, in all those silent whispers that came with the kiss. A kiss that was like their first real one.
'I love you, but you don't have to say it back. Don't force your lips around those words because as long as you'll have me I'll be here to wait for them. I love you.'
Alec's fingers got lost in Magnus' dark hair. He really hoped that the other wouldn't get any gel because doing this was so much easier without the gel. He loved it this way.
'I love you.'
Tears kept flowing, almost lonely without the desperate screaming, but as Magnus slung his arms around Alec's waist there was no space left for those screams. They weren't needed.
'I love you.'
'I love you.'
'I love you.'
'I love you.'
'I love you.'
'I love you.'
When they broke apart his tears had dried, leaving traces behind that could be washed away so easily. Magnus didn't ask because there was no question needed.
'I love you.'
Do you know the story about the nymph and the demon?
No.
The demon was sad because he didn't have a heart, but then the nymph saw him crying and she came over and asked: 'Why are you so sad?' And the demon told her: 'My chest is empty, I don't have a heart to give away. How will I ever fall in love?' The nymph smiled and replied: 'Loving someone isn't only a matter of the heart, it's a matter of your whole being. If you don't have a heart to give away, you can hand out smiles and kind words, comfort, support, protection … but you must be careful when you do so because too much can smother even the strongest heartbeat.' The demon nodded and promised to live by her advice.
So? Did the demon find love?
He did.
And the nymph?
She stayed with him and taught him how to smile when he wanted to cry and how to stay strong when he wanted to give up. She gave him her heart and he never left her. He was never lonely again.
Crying was exhausting. Emotions were stressful. Alec really felt like getting drunk this evening, but as things were, he first had to finish breakfast first. Alcohol on an empty stomach was never a good idea. With a deep breath he tipped his head back to look straight at the ceiling. He lounged on his chair with his feet propped up on Magnus' lap who was busy with pouring himself a new cup of coffee. The brown liquid was steaming, they had made a new pot of coffee. Alec had his own cup in his hands, his palms warming up by the touch of the ceramic.
"I wanted to ask you something", he said absent-mindedly as his eyes landed on the couch which still had Magnus' blanket spread across it with the pillow almost falling down. From the corner of his eye Alec could see Magnus tense a bit and he had to smile. It would still take a while until they could have relaxed conversations again without suspecting a life-changing confession around every corner, but Alec was sure that this was only normal after the kind of conversation they had only about an hour ago. He tilted his head to the right when his gaze swung back to Magnus who had at least opted for looking at him as well. It was unnerving trying to talk to someone who determinedly stared at their plate like they wanted to ask it out any second.
"Hmm?" Magnus took sip of his coffee, then hissed because it was still hot. Alec smiled. He seemed to have gotten himself a boyfriend. A boyfriend who was still sleeping on the couch like some temporary guest. Magnus' shoulders relaxed again, maybe Alec's expression wasn't considered serious enough … and maybe he started getting over his fear of being kicked out any second.
Alec nodded towards his own bedroom. The last night had been nice.
"You want to move in?"
It's done :) please leave a review to let me know your thoughts, thank you so much for every favorite and follower!
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- Bye Pumpkin