First Fanfiction! I hope you enjoy it! (No copyright intended, all characters belong to Cassandra Clare)

CASTLES MADE OF SAND, CHAPTER FORTY ONE

I don't need you

"Now I'm in town, break it down, thinking of making a new sound. Play a different show every night, in front of a new crowd.
That's you now, ciao. Seems that life is great now—see me lose focus as I sing to you loud.
I can't, no I won't hush. I say the words that make you blush.
I'm going to sing this now."

Magnus walked through the cluttered hallways, dodging fast-moving bodies as he went, with Alec by his side. They kept a comfortable distance between them, to keep up with impressions mainly, but they weren't so far apart that Magnus couldn't feel the heat of Alec's creamy skin seep out of him. That alone jolted Magnus back to what the previous night had been like after they had spent the day in Idris with James and Tessa.

Not that the day wasn't memorable or anything, it was just that the night had been even better. Alec had never been to Idris and was fascinated by the perplexity of the cities boundaries alone. It was huge, massive—in comparison to Alicante. When you first drove into the city all around you were old Victorian styled households that were impeccably spotless; the up-keep of Idris being near perfect. Along a thick cobble-stoned road leading up to the top of the hill in Idris, were the shops and restaurants that people delighted in from afar. Really, Magnus usually found himself visiting Idris on occasion when he was having his off days, just so he could bask in the luxury of the city. At the top of the hill there was the main city hall; a towering and wide structured building that almost looked like the structures in Athens, surrounded by three pillars made of pure glass. It was the highlight of the city, and they all spent the day carting Alec around to their favorite spots.

There were a few stolen kisses along the way... When Magnus would suggest for Tessa and James to go ahead without them, and then pull Alec into a back alley, quickly, to ravish the hell out of him. Each time, Alec would have his breath taken away and left fully satisfied; until the next time. But nothing could compare to the time they spent completely alone in Magnus' bedroom after they coaxed Maryse into letting Alec stay over, before she left that night to go back home. They spent the rest of the night, and well into the morning exploring one another's bodies—teasing and touching, brushing and caressing, every inch of skin.

If Magnus focused hard enough he could still hear and ultimately feel Alec rapidly panting in his ear, as he used his hand—again—on the most sensitive part of Alec's body, pushing him closer and closer to the edge. Every rise and fall of Alec's chest was graceful, but at the same time disastrously sexy. The image of Alec laying beside him was engraved on the inside of his eyelids, and he longed to close his eyes for the rest of the day—but naturally school became the disruption of that fantasy.

Another thing that absolutely tipped Magnus into a furry of heated emotions was simply knowing that Alec was wearing, not one, but two articles of Magnus' clothing. The first being a plain white shirt—quite possibly the only plain thing Magnus owned that wasn't embellished with something—which fit Alec rather... Tightly. The expanse of Alec's chest in comparison to Magnus' was greater; he had more muscle tone to his body, therefore creating a magnificent image for Magnus to stare at. It took awhile for Magnus to cajole Alec into wearing the shirt, and finally he won out when Magnus offered Alec a flourescent purple sweater as the other option.

The second piece of clothing, that Alec adorned, was a pair of fire-red boxer briefs that had always been a little too small for Magnus. He watched as Alec slipped them on hurriedly that morning, attempting to hide himself from Magnus, much to his dismay. That thought caused blood to rush in all the right—and at the same time wrong—places for Magnus. He had to be careful; bite his tongue; not let his mind wander; now that they were in school.

He was becoming completely accustomed to the fact that with Alec, they would always need to hide things. Maybe not from Isabelle, Sarah or Sage—which Magnus had yet to mention to Alec—but to everyone else they were two guys who fell into a fast friendship, not exactly a relationship. On the outside, Alec appeared to be even straighter than Jace in some sense. He was very much a jock, that had the body to go along with it. On the other hand, Magnus was a bit more flamboyant with his looks and the way he acted, but the thing that set him apart from being branded as gay to others was the fact that he had only ever dated girls. And, had quite the reputation.

They stopped at Alec's locker briefly, so he could pick up his bag that he left there the week previous and a pair of work out shorts that he needed for the schools soccer try-outs after school. Magnus watched as the muscles in Alec's arms and back subtly flexed as he wrestled to close his stubborn lock.

"Magnus," Alec sighed, leaning his back against his locker.

"Hmm?" Magnus quirked his eyebrow and shoved his right hand into the back pocket of his tight leather pants.

"You've been staring at me ever since we got up this morning." Alec pointed out, a bit seriously, with a hint of a impish smile on his pale face.

"...And is that a bad thing? Do you want my eyes to wander towards some other unsuspecting person?" Magnus teased as he took a step forward, closing in on Alec who was still leaning against his locker in a nonchalant way. At the simple movement that Magnus made, Alec's lake blue eyes widened and he instantly stepped out of the way, rounding off to the side. For a short moment Magnus was perplexed as to why Alec rejected his advances, then, he had to remind himself again that they were in school. It was proving to be harder than he expected to maintain an impression on others when he was around Alec.

"Don't you think people will notice that all you do is stare at me?" Alec asked, nibbling on his bottom lip.

"Someone's very sure of themselves today," Magnus winked as Alec's face flushed with color, his cheeks staining a bright vivid red.

"I—I didn't, uhm, mean that—"

"Alexander, I know." Magnus shook his head and chuckled lightly to himself. The way Alec tended to stumble over his words was so endearing, Magnus couldn't possibly get enough of it. He liked every aspect of Alec; the nervous part, the confident part, the sensitive and caring parts. He just really liked Alec. Even if Alec wasn't his boyfriend and they weren't in the situation that they were now, he could see himself always valuing the friendship and company Alec had to offer. "And I'm sorry. I do get carried away a lot, with just looking at you."

"What do you think about?" Alec inquired, a small almost unnoticeable glint of smoldering light flickered in the core of his eyes.

"When I look at you? Wouldn't you like to know," Magnus smirked widely and began to walk away, jerking his head slightly to indicate for Alec to follow, so they wouldn't be late for their first block: English.

"Is that too weird of a question to ask?" Alec wondered out loud, not that he was angry that Magnus didn't give him an answer, but more so that he questioned his own actions in asking it.

"Not at all." Magnus stopped when they reached the closed bright orange door of Ms. Graymark's classroom. "I think about you, or more so what we do... At night." Alec gulped strongly, his Adam's apple bobbing up, then down. It was sometimes weird thinking that Alec was this confident sex-fiend in the bedroom—car or boat—when they were alone, but here, out in the open Alec clamed up timorously. "Oh come on, don't feign like you don't have the same dirty, sexy thoughts that I do Alexander."

"Yeah, well I'm a bit more subtle about it than you are." He muttered in retort under his breath.

"You're the one who asked, lovely." Magnus pointed out and clasped his hand around the shiny metal of the doorknob. The bell would be ringing in a couple of minutes and although Magnus was never in class occasionally early, he decided that today he needed to talk to William about some outstanding circumstances that had come up. One being the fact that for sure he was backing out of whatever plan William had him agree to in the first place; the other being to keep himself and Alec a secret. It would be a lie to say that William had no idea what was going on between Alec and Magnus; as to the expanse of things going on between them, William didn't exactly know... But he had enough information from Magnus to suggest that there was a relationship in place.

He was in way too deep with Alec, and he wasn't going to let anything jeopardize his relationship with Alec, even if that meant losing a bond between a long-time friend. Was he ready to do that though? He didn't exactly know, but it needed to be done. Magnus made his way over to his seat, which was currently occupied by Sebastian, who was hassling Clary about something. She kept her head down though, staying concentrated entirely on the empty surface of her desk.

"Hello, Clare-bear," Sebastian waved his hand in front of her face, but somehow she didn't flinch at all. "Clary," he drawled out in a sing-song voice.

"What's wrong with her?" Magnus questioned Sebastian, as he got up from Magnus' seat.

"Beats me. She just walked in her this morning and didn't say a word to us." He shrugged his broad shoulders and made his way to the seat directly behind her, and beside Johnathan. Magnus noticed Alec's eyes shift to Clary hesitantly, before he took his own seat in front of Magnus. Odd, Magnus thought—considering the fact that Clary was usually lively and not at all like the stoic mannequin she was acting like now; and Alec must know something about it.

William walked in the classroom with seconds to spare; taking a leisurely slow walk to his desk as he went. His hair was swept to one side; curled at the nape of his tan neck. He was wearing a dark blue hoodie, with starch-white draw-strings, and a pair of black jeans. Magnus could remember, faintly now, when the image of William was the thing to rouse his desires. But that feeling had since left, once he met Alec, if he had to think about it.

Before William walked past Alec's desk to go to his own, there was a small exchange between the two; a sort of curt nod that conveyed something Magnus was unaware of. He did take into account that William's deep blue eyes narrowed slightly to Alec, and he considered that something must have happened between them that William didn't like at all.

"Mr. Herondale, why don't you hurry to your seat a bit. We do not have all day to watch you walk." Ms. Graymark called from the front of the classroom, earning a few laughs from the class, as she began to scribble on the white board in green felt. She wrote a list of short stories on the board and the corresponding pages that they could be found on. Among the list were stories such as "Horses of the Night" and "Paul's case"—short stories which Magnus had already completed reading years ago after finding a grey book shoved in a little nook of a bookcase, in his father's study. "Okay class. Today I want you to partner up, and no Eric I mean partners, not groups of twenty or so. You will need to read over this material together and discuss the basic connotative and denotative language used in these stories."

Everyone was silent for a short while, staring blankly ahead at Ms. Graymark, who had her hands bunched into fists at her hips. "Well," she stressed, tucking a stray piece of brown hair behind her ear. "Get to it." And with that people in the class began to partner up, moving their desks together. Magnus had the decision of asking William to work with him, on the notion that he could talk to him about backing out of the plan, or Alec. Quickly, the idea of working with Alec won out and just as he was about to tap on Alec's shoulder, William got up out of his desk and came to stand beside Alec—much to Magnus' surprise.

"Do you want to work together?" William asked Alec quietly.

"I... Uhm," Alec blundered, looking back at Magnus curtly.

"Oh come on, I don't bite." William smirked maliciously, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. "I also have to talk to you about something," he whispered, probably trying to advert Magnus' attention away from them, in which it didn't work. Alec nodded his head hesitantly and got out of his desk, stealing another quick glance to Magnus, before he followed William to the back of the room.

"Do you... Want to work together?" A small voice questioned from Magnus' side, pulling his attention from William and Alec. He turned his head to find Clary staring at him, her emerald eyes rimmed and hazy with pink and red—as if she had been crying.

"Of course," Magnus shifted his desk over, until it connected with the edge of Clary's. She had her hands folded and tucked under the desk, in her lap. Her thumbs were lazily running circles across the palms of her hands absent-mindedly. "Will you tell me what's wrong?" Magnus implored.

"Mag, I don't want to talk about it. Can we just work on the assignment?" She sighed loudly, letting her fiery crimson curls fall in front of her pale face, shielding those vivid eyes and the dusted freckles splattered all over her face.

"I can find every connotative and denotative word in a couple of minutes. Trust me." Magnus stated as he pushed her hair back behind her ear. "Now, why don't you tell me what's wrong." He said quietly, in a soothing voice. It broke his heart to see Clary in this state of distress. He had only ever seen her like this on one other occasion; when their mother walked out on them for a short period of time. She raised one of her, now, trembling hands to her mouth and breathed out a slow shaky breath. It took a few moments for her to muster up the courage to talk; she used her hand like it was a paper bag, breathing in and out deeply through her fingers to calm herself down.

"I think I'm, oh god." She closed her eyes tightly. "I might be..." She stopped again, relentless on continuing.

"Clary, it's me. You can trust me with anything. It can't be that ba—"

"I might be pregnant." She whispered out in a rush—looking around quickly to see if anyone had been listening—cutting Magnus off in the process. Or more so stunning him into utter disbelief.

"Pregnant?" Magnus asked incredulously, his thick eyebrows rising high on his forehead. "You mean Jace got you pregnant? When did this happen?" Magnus made sure he kept his voice down; Johnathan, Clary's brother, wasn't too far away from where they were sitting. He could only imagine what Johnathan would do if he found out Jace had impregnated his little sister.

"Homecoming. We were so stupid. We should have been protected, and now..."

"You can't know if you're pregnant yet, Clary. It takes some time for these things to happen." Magnus placed his hand on her wool clad back, rubbing his hand in a small circular pattern.

"Don't say that. Honestly Magnus, what are the chances that I'm not pregnant? I can't—Magnus, if my dad finds out... I don't know what I will do." Silent tears began to leak out of her eyes, and she quickly wiped them away. "How am I suppose to raise a child on my own? For sure, Valentine is going to kick me out of the house. I can't do this... Not now."

"What does Jace think about all of this?"

"I... Haven't been talking to him..." She told Magnus, regretfully.

"Clary!" Magnus admonished as she flinched at the height of his voice.

"Don't Mag, you don't understand what this is like... To wonder if I'm carrying a baby or not. And I don't expect him to be able to understand it either." She huffed and crossed her thin arms over her chest, leaning back fully in her seat. Magnus slid his hand out from behind her and placed it on her knee, squeezing lightly.

"Do I necessarily need to understand what it's like? No. Because obviously, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer for whatever it is that you're looking for. But Clary, don't think for a second that Jace might not know. He is in the same situation as you. Not, that he has to carry a baby inside of his stomach and push it out of his—"

"I think I'm going to puke."

"Because of what I was about to say?" He quirked his eyebrow, tilting his head back to get a better look at her. She was a shy bit paler than usual and tiny creases lined her forehead greedily; but that could be attributed to the substantial amount of stress Magnus knew she must have put on herself.

"Forget it." She sighed loudly, bending over to her left to search through her large fuchsia tote bag. "I'm just not going to freak out," she placed a handful of colored point pens on top of the desk surface and then hastily dove back into her bag. "Everything will be fine, if I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant." She slammed her books down onto the desk next, and all around them, people turned to look their way. Her hand was back in her bag before Magnus could even mutter a retort and he looked upon her with such... Fascination. On the outside, he would have thought she was having a breakdown; he couldn't even imagine what it could be like on the inside for her. "I just need to stop freaking—"

"Out?" Magnus clarified, catching her wrist once she brought out a lip balm palette. "That's exactly what you're doing right now."

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Sebastian walked up beside her desk and squatted down so he was eye level with her. He was annoying, in the way that he thought he knew how to counsel people in their life—giving, most of the time, hopeless advice. But that was Sebastian, really, never fully taking things at face value in a serious light. Magnus could see the beginnings of a smirk stretch across Sebastian's lazy lips and he knew that whatever came out of his mouth next would push things over the edge. "Is little Jace not putting out enough for you? We," he pointed between them, and Magnus watched as Clary's face turned bright red—not with embarrassment, but with anger. "Could try us out again. I promise that I can give you whatever you want," he sneered.

"I think I'm just going to go," Clary whispered lightly to Magnus, shoveling all the materials, she took out in haste, back into her tote bag. They watched as Clary made her way to Ms. Graymark's desk, talking to her briefly before Clary left the room. Magnus shook his head and glared at Sebastian.

"What?" He returned Magnus' harsh gaze.

"She doesn't deserve your condescending words at the moment Sebastian. We all know how you love to whore yourself around, but she obviously doesn't want that." Magnus pushed out of his seat, picking up his bag and hiking it up his shoulder. He turned and started towards the back of the room where William and Alec were bent towards each other talking. It was an odd sight to see; as if both were attempting to stay away from one another, putting a large distance between their bodies, but at the same time they were trying to keep their conversation closely kept—their necks bowing down in awkward angles.

"What am I supposed to tell him?" Magnus could hear Alec say from the short distance away. "He's going to keep asking about it," Alec hissed as William rolled his eyes.

"Tell who, what?" Magnus made his presence noticeable, catching Alec completely off guard. Alec flushed a light red and nervously gnawed at his bottom lip. William crossed his arms over his chest; a small smile on his pink lips. Both didn't give any reply to Magnus' question and he became increasingly annoyed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was interrupting a very private conversation, wasn't I?" Magnus inquired sarcastically.

"No, Magnus—" Alec began, but William instantly intercepted him.

"We were just talking about who gave him that bruise." William shrugged nonchalantly as Alec slightly gasped. As to why he did, Magnus didn't completely know. Maybe it was the fact that Alec was scared about what Magnus would think about the fact that Alec could discuss with William who gave Alec his bruises, but not Magnus. Granted, that did actually make him staggeringly mad and he could fully see why Alec would have gasped, once he thought about it.

"Oh? So you can talk to him about it, but not me, huh?" Magnus said straightly, shrugging off the slight burn that came with Alec not being able to trust him.

"I saw what happened at Homecoming. And I just wanted to see if Alec was okay. He doesn't want to tell you, because he doesn't want to make it a big deal. Right, Alec?" William turned to him, and silently conveyed a small message with his eyes.

"Yeah... Really Magnus, I... It's no big deal." Alec cast his eyes down to his cream colored shoes, shuffling on his heels slightly. Magnus didn't realize it instantly, but his mouth had fallen agape to the situation. If Alec couldn't trust him with that kind of information, could he even fully and truly trust Alec at all?

"Class, straighten out your desks. The bell is about to go." Ms. Graymark called from the front of the classroom. Without hesitation, Magnus walked away from both William and Alec, making his way for the bright orange door. He didn't look back as he heard Alec call out to him, although he did flinch momentarily, wanting to wait for Alec. But in that second he didn't know what accusatory words would fall from his lips, had he waited.

It was safe to say that Magnus was more than a little bit pissed off. And it was also, safe to say that he was beginning to care about the trivial things in life.

A/N: Small-ish hiccup in paradise you guys! It isn't anything that would break them up really... Or is it? Don't worry about Magnus and Alec for a moment (although, that's what I would still do if I were in your situation), worry about Clary! I can't imagine being in a situation such as that, but I give respect to all the girls who have had children very young. (Not that Clary is for sure pregnant though...) Will I include William's and Alec's conversation in the next chapter? I'm not all too sure yet... Maybe I will just have to make you guys wait for those words to be released in the future. I'm terrible aren't I? So next chapter could either be: the rest of the school day, a different school day, or the beginnings of the lake chapters (which is less than likely). I build up things too much don't I? Forty-One chapters in, and there's barely any smut... I'm working on it :)!

Something that (oh gosh) I should have mentioned a long time ago is that all of these chapter titles and the italicized writing underneath them, are all Beatles songs! I, personally, love the Beatles, and I'm just mentioning this now (oh gosh again) just in case some of you didn't know that. But now, I am changing up the chapter songs, and this one is by Ed Sheeran (it's actually called: You need me, I don't need you. But that was too long of a title...).

Another thing! (This is becoming such a long authors note...) I got a review today, that basically said they didn't understand how I would wrap this story up in nine chapters :P... Tehehe, so at the beginning I might have said this story was going to be forty-fifty chapters. I'm thinking now it will be at least... sixty?

I'm so happy that I didn't lose a lot of you during my hiatus, and I was even happier that I got reviews for last chapter! Thank you so much.

Review pretty please?

Amber,