Chapter 11

The next morning Alec opened his eyes and wasn't surprised to find Magnus snoring like a bear. It was still early and Alec knew he should probably just go back to sleep, but he couldn't. The few things that Magnus had said the night before were still echoing in his mind, and the truth was that he didn't know what to think of them.

All this was confusing and Alec hated that feeling, so he stood up and walked out of the room. His head ached and his stomach was rumbling; he knew that some breakfast would help him feel better. He had to stop over-analyzing the interaction he had had with Magnus the night before and for that he needed some kind of distraction.

Alec walked to the cafeteria, and after buying himself some pancakes, sat down on one of the many empty tables. After all, the place was deserted. Not that he was expecting something different with the early hour and all.

He was almost done when two guys who had just sat at the adjoining table began to gossip about the party. Alec tried to tune out from their little conversation—they were talking about some random guy who had danced naked at some point in the middle of the party—but then they had mentioned Camille, and that had certainly piqued Alec's interest.

"Too bad she's taken." One of them said.

"She's not." The other one replied.

"Yes, she is. She's dating that Bane guy."

"No, she's not."

"Yes, she is. I saw them kissing last night."

Alec felt as if someone had hit him in the chest. He had been such a fool to think that Magnus might be interested in him. Why would he be? Alec was boring and lame, and just not attractive enough to draw the attention of someone like Magnus.

Suddenly, he was not hungry anymore, so he left the last bites of his breakfast untouched and walked out of the cafeteria. He had to go back to his room to start packing and go home as soon as he could. The term was over and he could really use some vacation to forget about Magnus, and everything he made him feel.

When Alec reentered the room the last thing he had been expecting was to find Magnus awake. It was still very early and he had estimated that his roommate would sleep until after noon, but he had been mistaken. The man was awake and sitting on his bed, rubbing his head with his thumbs. He looked like crap.

Alec did his best to ignore him and made his way to his bookshelf to take some book. The packing plan would have to wait. He knew that due to all the turmoil of emotions he had inside, he couldn't be in the same room as Magnus. So his best plan at the moment was to grab a book and hide in the library until Magnus was not in the room.

"Thank you." Magnus muttered out of nowhere.

"For what?" Alec said, still ignoring him. He had his eyes fixed on his bookshelf.

"For what you did last night."

Alec panicked, but tried to put the feeling aside. "I didn't do anything." He said, fidgeting with some of the books he was pretending to examine.

"Then, who put me in bed?" Magnus asked, confused.

"I don't know," Alec lied, "maybe your girlfriend." He said, sounding a bit more bitter than he intended.

"I don't have a girlfriend," Magnus said, "and I know it was you. I may not remember everything that happened last night, but there are some bits and pieces that I do remember."

Alec tried not to panic.

"I remember getting here, to the building," Magnus continued, "somehow wobbling my way up here and then collapsing when I tried to reach the door. I guess I hit my head with the wall because it hurts...a lot."

Alec ignored him.

"You helped me." Magnus said sure of himself.

Alec kept ignoring him and just grabbed the first book he found, walking to the door as fast as he could.

"Why did you do it if you hate me so much?" Magnus asked. "Why didn't you leave me there in the hall? You could have had a good laugh this morning."

Alec froze in place.

"Why do you hate me so much, Alec?"

"You really want to know why!?" Alec exploded.

"Please." Magnus said.

"Because this is just a game for you! You flirt, you have fun and you don't care about the people you hurt while doing so. You're always making fun of me, like, literally all the time. If I do something because I did it, and if don't, then because I didn't. You always have something to say. You can't keep your damn opinions to yourself!"

"Alec…"

"No," Alec snapped, "you said you wanted to know, right? Now let me finish! I've been bottling this for a very long time and I'm tired. I'm tired of this, I'm tired of you and your friends just making fun of me. Don't think I haven't noticed. You and all of them enjoy making my life miserable. Like that day when your friend Ragnor threw the leaves? I know he saw me before it happened, you all did, but pretended not to just to make fun of me."

"Alec…"

"Don't!" Alec snapped again. "Don't try to justify yourself, Magnus. I know how you all are. You just go through life pretending to have fun and making people love you, but I can see through the facade. You all are a bunch of hypocrites, especially you. I've seen you, Magnus Bane. You flirt and make people think you're interested in them and then you simply dispose of them. You make them believe they are special to later crush their hopes. You use them, like you did with me! I may be inexperienced, but I knew you were flirting with me. I thought you were interested, but you never were. You just played with me. You're like that with everyone and I hate you for that. I hate you because you made me believe that I was interesting and special, and even attractive and-"

Alec didn't finish what he was saying, because next thing he knew Magnus was kissing him, and what was worse, he was kissing him back. Awkwardly and inexpertly, but Alec was kissing him back, and he wanted to keep doing that until the day he died because it was perfect. Kissing Magnus was the definition of perfection.

"You, stupid boy." Magnus said, pulling back just a bit to look into Alec's eyes. "Of course you're special and attractive and interesting. You're the single most interesting man I've ever met and, yes, I flirted with you, but I did it not because I like playing games, but because I was interested in you. You put a spell on me the moment you crossed that damn door. You and your stupid books captivated me and for some days I thought you liked me too. That's why I flirted with you, but then one day you just started being rude to me and I stopped because I thought you were not interested. And yes, arguing with you was the only way to get your attention. Whenever I was a bit nice to you, you ignored me, so I realized that by yelling at you and making you mad I got your attention. All this time I've just wanted you to notice be because I like you, you idiot."

"You-you like me?" Alec asked, confused. He was still a bit dazed with the kiss.

"Of course I like you, why else do you think Camille hates you so much? She knows, everyone knows. My friends...what they did to you was just because they were trying to help. They were trying to make you notice me. They are stupid, I know. I have no excuse for their behavior, but they thought they were helping. Ragnor, Raphael, Catarina, Tessa...they all knew I liked you."

"If that's true, then, why did you kiss Camille last night?" Alec asked. "I heard some people talking about it."

"I didn't kiss her, she kissed me, but I pushed her, I swear." Magnus said. "I saw you leaving the party and I had been trying to get some courage to ask you to dance with me. I knew you hated me, so I was very reluctant to ask, but when I finally made up my mind, you were on your way out, so I panicked and tried to rush after you, but she stopped me."

"With a kiss?"

"Yes, she kissed me right in front of everyone. I got mad at her and I don't think we're friends anymore because we said some nasty stuff. It was quite the scene, but I don't really care. Then I followed you, but I had had one too many drinks and, with the cold air and everything, I kind of started to feel very, very drunk and everything's just fuzzy from there. I'm sorry if I made you feel like I was playing with you. That was never my intention, I just wanted you to notice me and like me."

"I like you." Alec confessed.

That had been the issue all these months, because Alec had liked Magnus since day one and, although he had tried to bury those feelings with his alleged dispute against him, the truth was that he liked him, he liked him very much.

"You do?"

Alec nodded. "I liked you from the first time I saw you. I-I...no one had ever flirted with me the way you did, so I didn't know how to act around you, that's why I only laughed and blushed when you spoke to me. But then I saw you with that boy Will, and you were acting with him like you did with me, so I got mad. That hurt my pride and that's why I started to ignore you and-"

"Will is just my friend...if you ever saw me close to him in that way was because I was actually teaching him how to do it. He, Jem, and Tessa have some very weird love triangle going on between them. I was giving him some pointers."

"So, you actually like me?"

"Yes, Alexander. I like you...I like you very much. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Just one more time."

"I like you."

Alec smiled and leaned in for another kiss. They were in the middle of a more passionate encounter, when the door flew open and a woman walked in.

"Catarina, knock the damn door." Magnus said, rolling his eyes in exasperation, but the woman who stood there didn't look like Catarina. "Oh. You're not Catarina." He said, looking at the newcomer.

"I'm not."

"Lily…" Alec said out of breath. His friend was wearing the biggest of the smiles on her face.

"I came here to share some stuff that happened last night at the party after you left, but I guess I don't need to do that anymore." Lily said, giving them some playful look. Alec could feel his cheeks reddening at the speed of light. "So I'll just go. Please do continue, and pretend I wasn't here." She said, quickly closing the door behind her.

Magnus walked toward the door and locked it. "Where were we?"

"We were-"

"Oh, yes." Magnus said, getting closer and capturing Alec's lips. "I remember."

So it happened... It was about damn time, right? Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. I'll finish this story tomorrow, so wait for the last chapter. It's going to be as long as the first one (3K words) so I hope you like it. See you tomorrow!