The lyrics Alec "comes up with on the spot" is from the beautiful song by Dashboard Confessional called Vindicated. I love the song and you guys should really check it out!

Narnia and Titanic, by the way, don't belong to me. Just thought you should know. (I don't own any of Cassandra Clare's characters either, just in case that was a point of confusion xD)

Now to the story.

~L.C

_xxXxx_

The breeze smelled of hotdogs and taxi cabs and I was halfway to Magnus's house. If I was right, and I wasn't sure, I had 102 steps left to the front door of the building but 109 steps to the front door of his apartment. I usually could tell the exact number of steps down to the half and even quarter steps but this man had shaken something up inside of me and I was shining on the inside like a glow stick. I could think of nothing other than his voice with its funny accent and how it jumped slightly in pitch whenever I had blushed.

I hadn't told Jace or Izzy I was leaving. They wouldn't notice me gone anyways. They probably would run off with their new friends and not think of me for the rest of the day. It didn't make me sad anymore but if I was completely honest with myself I was slightly upset the Jace ignoring me but I had long moved past my feelings for my adoptive brother.

28 steps left and my heart was beating out of my chest. I realized the second or third week of having my "lil problem" that people loved to screw with the visually impaired. Since we can't see people's faces it's hard to tell when people are lying to us so when Magnus had offered for me to swing by I had taken a leap of faith by saying yes. 13 steps. 5 steps. Suddenly Jacob sat down and I nearly tripped over him for the 12 time. He licked my hand obviously worried. We were usually so in sync that some people joked about how we were one person but my mind was preoccupied … on a very interesting preoccupation.

"Sorry buddy. Good boy!" I reached up my hand to brush the apartment logo and was relived when it was the right one. I quickly walked up to the door and hesitated. Had he been kidding? Why would he want to see me? I was so plain and … and … broken. I shuddered at the word. Broken. But I hadn't walked all this way for nothing and suddenly a quote from a John Wayne movie Izzy had made me watch came to mind. "Bravery is being scared to death and going on anyway."

Scared to death? Check

Going to do this thing anyway? Check. I mean what could really go wrong?

The knock on the door seemed louder than a gunshot. The door felt cool and solid under my hand and almost decorative in a way as if it had carvings in it. Just as I was beginning to trace the design to figure out what it was the door opened and I stood there like an idiot with my hand stretched out and a heat rising in my cheeks. "Real smooth Alec. You look like that red head off titanic," I thought to myself. Before the accident Titanic had been my favorite movies but now it's just a reminder of all that had been stolen from me. I shook my head and said the smoothest thing I could possibly say in front of this man who had made me feel truly happy after knowing him for only a day and even now with just his presence in front of me I felt my stomach flutter, "Hey uhhh … I didn't get lost!"

Yeah that's me: sex on a stick with a side of a mental gps! I turned my head down with heat rising in my cheeks and I inwardly cursed my ability with words. Why can't I be like Jace who could get a girl to do just about anything with a simple sentence or Izzy who could talk to anyone with ease? I just sat there in my permanent cage of darkness and decidced to curse that too, but I was like that for only a minute before I heard the one sentence that could put my mind to rest.

"Well that's good I would have hated to eat this bag of pretsels all by myself." I thought I heard a smile in his voice. Suddenly I realized that I didn't know where the chairs were. I swallowed and mentally prepared for how to ask one of the many awkward questions that came with my disability.

"Umm I know this is weird but could you help me to a chair… I don't know the place and I-"

"Alec, shut up." I laughed out loud as he tossed the words I had told him last night in a rare moment of courage back at me. When he took my hand I instantly stiffened and blushed even more. The next second Magnus dropped my hand. "Oh my god. I'm sorry I ugh I was trying to … ugh but that's cool .. umm ya so-"

"Magnus, shut up." I reached out for his hand and felt the shake in his hand from him silently laughing as he led me over to a plush chair not unlike the one from last night but not the same one either. This one was felt like it was made of something close to a denim and I sunk in so deep that I felt as if it was swallowing me whole. I laughed when I pulled my hand away from touching the seam and felt the crumply sand texture of glitter.

"So … What would you like to talk about?" Ahh talking. Something I was not good at but feeling the whoosh of air and smelling the waft of matches and soft cologne from Magnus sitting directly across from me made me feel brave again and decided to go with the burning question on my mind at the moment.

"What are you wearing?" The heat in my cheeks must have betrayed me because all of a sudden he started laughing. It was an amazing laugh that gave me the butterflies in my stomach and it bounced around the house in a way that made me feel almost at home in the fluffy chair. It made me feel like I was being let in on a private joke that only Magnus's best friends knew and I loved the feeling of it. It was deep and rumbled like thunder and I almost needed to hear it again.

"Let's see … Dark blue jeans and a white sheer wife beater with sparkles because me and this heat do not agree. Oh and I'm not wearing shoes because I am a lazy man." Alec grinned at the mental picture.

"Thanks. You're very descriptive. It's nice," I shrug," Most people think it's a way to hit on them but.. I don't mean it like that at all."

"That's a damn shame …" I blushed at what he thought Magnus had meant and in an instant decided to lay it all out on the proverbial table. Suddenly he heard one republic playing in his head.

" I'm gonna give all my secrets away"

"I wasn't always blind ya know… I used to be normal." There it is. My chest clenched the moment the words left my mouth but it also felt like a 100 pound monkey just climbed off my back. To admit to someone this little detail was almost suicide in my opinion. I knew the hushed whispers with well wished things like "Oh my god I'm so sorry" or "I had no idea. You are very well adjusted". All of it dripping with sympathy and pity, both things he didn't want.

"That really does suck and I'm sorry Alexander, but I have a question then." I could feel my heart burst right at that moment with all the adoration I had for the man in front of me. Everything he had just said didn't make me feel like a child whose cat had gotten run over but like he was answering a math problem. He said like he knew it must suck but he didn't sound like he pitied me or looked down on me because of it. It was so refreshing I could have kissed him. Wait! Where did that come from? I had barely known him for 24 hours and already my thoughts were plagued with him and already I could just feel my heart begin to fall for Magnus.

"Shoot." At this point I would have answered just about anything.

"How do you get dressed?" I laughed at the randomness of the question. But thinking back to how he described his wardrobe the 2 times before it made sense to me.

"I had a tag attached to everything that tells me what it is and what its looks like." I pulled out the tag at the bottom of my black tshirt and suddenly Magnus sucked in a huge breath. "What's the matter?" I quick put down my shirt and tensed when he didn't answer me.

"Alec, how did you go blind?" Oh. OH! The scares were still there and in the pure moment of joy I felt after what Magnus had said after my announcement I had forgot and of course they would shock him. Suddenly I added my whole body to the things to curse in my head.

"Ugh well it's a long story. I'm sure you wouldn't want to hear it ." But I wanted him to want to hear it. I had lied to everyone about what had happened and maybe I had even lied to myself. After years of blaming myself suddenly I wanted someone to share my sadness and I wanted it to be Magnus because in the short 24 hours of our friendship I felt closer to him than anyone else... ever. Maybe I was falling to fast but I wasn't going to worry about it now.

Magnus took my hand and squeezed before saying, "Alec, I promise I have plenty of time and I would listen to anything you needed to say .. at any time about anything and everything." I sucked in yet another breath and mentally ran back to that day when my whole life changed.

"I was 11 and everyone found out... about me." Magnus shifted in his chair. I could almost feel his eyes burning confused holes into my hair. I decided to open my eyes after a moment and felt the pain of light but still the darkness enveloped me. I blinked once or twice before continuing just from old habits.

"They found out I liked … that I liked guys and, well, let me say it wasn't accepted well. My parents went totally batass crazy and the kids got just as crazy. Which was expected I guess, I went to a freaking Christian school after all. Well as your probably guessing they bullied me. That's how I got the scars. They used to beat me with their belts off our uniforms. I at first fought back but the teachers never believed me. All the kids would whisper when I walked by. They said that I was the devils child and that I deserved to die." When I felt Magnus stiffen and then shudder I felt that I needed to explain better, "I don't blame them. We were all playing house at that time. Acting like adults but really I was a stupid child just like the rest of them. We were all children and they didn't know better. They were just playing adults because that's what we all heard each Sunday since, God, forever. But it got pretty bad and I believed them. I had one friend, though. Jonathan didn't think I was really gay because at that point I had gotten good at hiding it, but one day I accidently walked into his room after we had gone swimming and I admit I stared. He got really pissed off and he chased me through the house." I shuddered, remembering the feeling of the bleach splashing down all around me. Into my mouth, up my nose, and worst of all into my fully open eyes. It burnt and I remember screaming for so long that my voice broke and was hoarse for days after. Then when the darkness hard finally taken over it had never lifted. Trapping me in my own personal hell forever.

"Alec, are you alright?" I quick pulled my head up and realized that I had never finished my story. I cocked my head to where I thought his head was and finished the story as simply as I could.

"He caught me in the bathroom and poured bleach in my eyes. It burned my eyes and I went blind. Permanently…. I didn't tell anyone because I was ashamed of myself but now I realize that I wasn't the one that was wrong but it's too late for anything but karma to touch the son of a gun." After a few minutes of silence I decided to say, "You know I've never told anyone this before."

Magnus shifted forward a little and at first I thought he was just making himself comfortable but then his soft lips were on mine and with a shock I realized that he was kissing me. I slowly closed my eyes so as not to creep him out and I deepened the kiss. He almost naturally slid his hands into mine and interlocked our fingers.

After about a minute he pulled back and said right next to my ear, "I am so sorry Alexander. Please know that you are beautiful as you are and for my sack don't ever change." Then he leaned all the way back into his chair and as crazy as it sounds I felt the loss of closeness tug at my heart. I again thought about how someone might say that I was falling to hard or it was crazy to feel this way about someone you barely knew but this time I didn't give a damn.

Over the next few minutes we talked about fluff and nothing of real importance. At some point in the conversation a I thought Magnus threw a pillow at me but it turned out to be his cat. Magnus described him for me automatically and I felt my heart swell for the 100th time after meeting the magnificent Magnus Bane.

After a while I got up and asked if Magnus could help me to the door. Once I was just outside I turned around and took his hand. I trailed my hand up his arm so I could find his face and once located I kissed him with all I had. That's not saying much because the kiss on the couch 20 minutes ago was my first kiss and it had set the bar pretty high for me. Just as I was about to pull away embarrassed and run off Magnus growled and grabbed my belt loops effectively pulling me closer. I pulled back and leaned over to his ear just like he had and said, "Thanks for the first kiss."

I could hear the shock in his voice when he murmured "First kiss?" I nodded in the direction of the voice and turned and walked away. After a few steps I turned back and knew he was still standing there because I hadn't heard the door shut.

"Same time tomorrow?"

Magnus still sounded dumb-struck when he said, "Ya.."

I again started to walk away, Jacob effectively leading as always when again I stopped and turned around to say, "Thank you Magnus for everything."

After this I really did leave and heard him shut the door after I got to the front of the building. As I walked home for the first time in a long time I heard myself singing.