'm back from Japan, guys! this has been beta'd by technicolorzebra, but the mistakes are mine! if hadn't had this written before left would have never gotten it done... Holy crap. Sorry it's shorter. f you're interested, now have a tumblr about Giraffes. giraffeateyou with the dot tumblr dot com. t's pretty great.

WARNING: um like last chapter forced sexual encouneters. Uh oh things get pretty intense though.

BLIND Chapter 5

"Context"

"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When Alec woke up, his legs and hips hurt, his fingers were cracked up, with dried blood crusting his tips and around the nails. His shoulders and back hurt, ached, and his exhaustion had reached a new high. Or, rather, low. Despite the tugging pain of an approaching headache and the dryness in his eyes that spoke of sleep deprivation and dehydration, he knew he wouldn't be falling back into slumber. He had jerked awake, terrified of a danger he couldn't quite place and was having trouble shaking off. He put his hand to his face, and realized it was an awkward mix of sticky and crusty. It was as if tears had dried there, and his mind went back to the night before, placing an understanding in his head. The night before.

Fuck. Magnus.

Alec had left him, the night before. He'd left him shirtless and confused, half hard. He'd run into the bathroom and closed himself down, cried and cried and found that he couldn't stop. Magnus probably felt like shit, being left like that. Alec would, if their positions were reversed and Alec had been the one knocking on the door, trying to help but being ignored like he meant nothing. He would have been freaking out, concerned, and his head would be running through the countless possibilities, thinking up any flaw he could conjure, scenarios that could lead to the precarious situation they were in.

Alec stepped out of the shower, catching his reflection in the mirror that covered the wall the sinks were placed on. Magnus tended to spend a good chunk of time in there, when things were, not good, but better. There were little and big pots of glitter and eyeshadow and glosses, foundation, whatever the makeup industry made, brushes and eyepencils and mascara wands on one side of the sink, stacked up but still running over to the other side quite a bit, but it didn't matter, because all that was there were their toothbrushes and Alec's deoderant. Normal things, for them. But the bags under Alec's eyes, the darkness, the frailty his usually sturdy body possessed, was anything but the typical clutter around the sink. He was changing, beginning to decay in the one place, with Magnus, where he'd thought things would get better. Not that Magnus had anything to do with it, he thought, with a sting of guilt sitting in his gut. He shouldn't blame the warlock for his problems, no matter how easy it would be.

With a sigh, he opened the bathroom door to a quiet apartment. There was a light coming from behind the willowy curtains on the windows, and it wasn't the tinted orange-yellow popcorn butter color of the streetlamps, but the glare of sunlight the curtains made calm. Alec was late for his patrol, he knew immediately. It didn't really matter. The only one that checked in with him was himself, anyway. He didn't really have to worry about finding Jace, did he? His parabatai wasn't hurt, beside that one bruise that mirrored Jonathan's. It kind of nagged Alec, that one bruise, added worry to all of the stress, the weight, he was under. Maybe Alec should just go out for his patrol, get picked up by Jonathan. He'd get confirmation that his brother was alive and an hour of pain that would last so much longer in his head. They never did take too long, but it was impossibly, agonizingly longer for Alec.

He should really have been doing that, not standing still and observing Magnus at the island they had in their kitchen (that day, who knew what it would be like the next day), nursing a coffee stained mug that probably once held the black caffeine-rich substance and a magazine that was still flipped on the first page.

As soon as Alec stepped into the room properly, Magnus closed the magazine in front of him, setting down the mug. He was waiting for Alec, then.

Gathering himself for what seemed like far too many times, Alec moved slowly to make himself a cup of coffee, the machine completely empty. Magnus had been up a while, but Alec didn't comment, he didn't have the right to, as he filled the filter up with water, using Magnus's grinds. The methodic, slow but certain, drip started after Alec had collected himself a cup to put next to the machine.

The glass pot was half full of the dark substance when Magnus spoke, breaking the heavy tension of their silence. It was a simple question, one that had probably been asked to other people before, lots of them, but it still popped Alec's dying heart strings.

"Are you cheating on me?"

Simple, but filled with implications. Magnus didn't trust Alec (Alec wouldn't trust Alec at this point either, so why should he?), didn't trust that the off behavior, the fights Alec couldn't help but to keep starting, hadn't culminated into something dramatic. He didn't trust that it was a problem between them, that it was Alec who was being defective.

In a way, though, it was true. He wasn't being nice, he wasn't being a proper lover. But he was so stressed, and so tired, and fraying all around the edges. He was falling apart. Bits of him were being left in the cold, but sometimes hot, cement basement-modeled room, like he would leave bits of himself with another person he loved, or was screwing, or whatever Magnus thought.

Maybe it was stupid, or childish, but Alec laughed out loud. He'd had enough of trying to be an adult, and maybe it showed in his voice. He wasn't going to be perfect, he'd never promised that. What else was there to do but laugh? It was his life, and it was falling apart.

"No, I'm not cheating on you," Alec said, desperate chuckles clearing away. "It's just something in the weather." He might as well have resigned to his fate of talking about the fucking weather. As always.

"What in the hell is that supposed to mean?" Magnus asked, the power of hundreds of years seeping into his voice. "Lately, all you seem to talk about is the weather. As if it bloody means something!"

Alec felt a pull in his feet, then, with only a half understandable desire to walk out of the door and to the nearest alley and- "I can't say anything else!"

Magnus grunted. "So you can't talk to me? When have I not been there to talk to you, Alec." It was bitter, but not full of rage or power. It just was, weak and small, clinging on the edge of desperate.

Alec took a deep breath, trying to call himself. Trying to convince his burning feet not to walk away. It wasn't Magnus's fault. It was Jonathan's fault for… who was he kidding? It was his fault, for being weaker, for not killing a demon until he was an adult. He was to blame for not fighting off Jonathan, for not protecting Max, and now Jace.

"Magnus… I'm sorry. I'm not seeing anyone else. I'm just having some… Things aren't going my way. I can't say anything about it, and I'm sorry I have to keep you in the dark about it but it's not for lack of trying I just… fuck, I love you, Magnus. I hope that's enough for now."

Magnus sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I don't even know what that means."

"I'm sorry," Alec apologized again, walking over to the warlock. He leaned forward to give him a peck on the lips, but Magnus shifted so slightly so that he hit his cheek.

Alec pulled back, the message coldly clear. He'd lost his greatest ally, and that cracking sound was just the chinks in his heart moving out of key, damaging.

"We'll talk more tonight. You have work to do, and so do I."

He nodded, leaving with that, in his crumpled clothes from the day before. He closed the door, the rift between them growing at an alarming rate. He left with a bad taste in his mouth and his feet burning for him to go. There was guilt eating at his stomach but he just kept walking to his patrol areas, distracted from Jonathan's chilling promise of what would happen the next time he had Alec in his clutches. Really, he should have been more careful. He should have stayed home, with Magnus, where his heart was. He shouldn't have followed the yearning in his legs, and he shouldn't have gone on patrol that day. He should have known it would be the beginning of the end, that it'd ruin what he had left of everything.

But how could he have ever known that it would be the worst day of his life?

Alec felt like a wanderer, sometimes, when he was on patrol. Just another invisible (literally) face in a crowd of millions. He could let his mind rehash everything, while his body would go through the motions. He could be wrapped up in himself, or get distracted by a street performer, the pavement and the mundies walking on it. He used to take walks around the city sometime, when he didn't feel like doing much. When he needed to think with no thought, or just be.

But, you could only wander for so long before you were lost—or worse, found. Alec was found at the tail end of his patrol that day, and his feet had stopped burning with the desire to be in one specific place. He was already on his way to the apartment for a discussion he knew would be exhausting and probably involve a bit of yelling.

He wasn't taking any alleyways, and that was where he was usually picked up (because he was a coward who couldn't fight back and win, but he wasn't Jace, he knew his limits), he was staying in the sightline of people he was invisible to. Not exactly a cover. But he could try, couldn't he? Maybe he should just stop and let himself slip… suddenly, he was doing just that. Jerking away from the street he found himself derailed from his path home, his arms quickly captured and tied in front of him, his head bounding off of a (sadly familiar) gray wall that he was quickly completely pressed against, disoriented from the blow to his head.

Seb- Jonathan was there, pushing his arms above his head and keeping him pinned with the rest of his body. There was a pair of pliers in his hand, which were quickly shoved into the dark haired man's mouth. He'd only just begun to register the taste of the steel alloy, the metallic tinge and smooth surface before it'd latched on to one of his molars. It took just two pulls, painful but quick, for Alec's mouth to be flooded with blood and missing a tooth, another tooth loose, pulling up in the back.

He spit out as much of the blood as he could, swallowing some of it, but trying to get rid of the globs of uprooted flesh trying to force their way under his tongue to the bottom of his was disgusting, and it hurt, but it felt like a paper cut compared to what he was used to (and he'd gotten many paper cuts over the years). It was, however, only the prelude to his visit.

Looking at the bloody tooth in Se-Jonathan's pliers, he felt a surge of twisted, misplaced, excitement. Maybe this was a way for him to show that there was something wrong. Maybe he could use it to point Magnus in the direction of foul play. But then there'd be question, like what else had happened. It hadn't been… he wouldn't be able to say it.

Even if he could talk, he wouldn't really want to say too much. But it would be better if he could get help. He'd mention Jace as little as possible, not get him into trouble. It's not Jace's fault, anyway. Not really… He'd have to mention Jace and what happened to his foreskin and why he was falling apart at the seams and splintering inside. His heart sunk. He'd never get through this with both his and Jace's prides intact. But fuck it, he thought, his eyes meeting Jonathan's, courage slipping into place. He was going to make sure Jonathan payed for what he'd done to him. Jace… He'd have to figure that out along the way.

He finally had proof, that didn't involve his dick, in a little bloody hole where a tooth used to be. He couldn't help a small smile, but it was still the biggest he'd done in a while, his teeth coated in blood and red smeared down his chin. He would get them caught, and he knew that revenge would be a meal he would enjoy. He briefly went through the different ways he could torture Jonathan to the brink of death before he realized how bad that sounded. That his sanity might have had a brittle hold on planet Shadowhunter.

"You're happy, are you?" The part demon smirked, wiping blood from his victim with a rag from his back pocket. "I don't know if you'll be smiling much longer. Jace and I will be working with you all night on a job I doubt you'll ever forget, no matter how much you want to."

The platinum-hared killer secured Alec's wrists to a hook at just the perfect level then stepped back, and Alec noticed Jace next to him for the first time. The two Jonathan's made eye contact, the demonic one patting the angelic on the shoulder before turning to look at Alec one last time before exiting to wait for his turn.

"You should be happy. I know how much you've always wanted it. Enjoy, gay boy."

There was the sound of a Jonathan walking up a set of stairs Alec couldn't quite see and the shutting of a door. Alec felt his mind go into hyperdrive as dread wrapped itself through his body, weaving into his innards.

Jace didn't hesitate, as soon as the door closed. He moved close and claimed Alec's lips (those are Magnus's Jace you know this why are you). There was a camera rolling, he could see it set up on a tripod over Jace's shoulder. The same one used when Alec had been forced to kill the werewolf.

Alec felt his throat closing up, he was so afraid and he wanted didn't want this, but he wasn't winning. He tried to fight back, fought with everything he had, tried so hard, but his parabatai only managed to get closer to him. He only managed to get more clothes ripped open and off. He was crying, begging for it to stop, kicking and shoving his weight around (and he had Magnus, why was this happening how could Jace do this to him those claims of cheating would be true now, but he didn't cheat, but what if Magnus didn't understand nothing makes sense can't it all just go away I want to be with Magnus, watching a movie, not being forced open by Jace this can't happen it can't it can't it can't). It was hazy, unclean, the actual events, because it couldn't be Jace doing this to him and it couldn't be happening. Not only was his best friend trying, and about to be succeeding, in raping him, but Alec was a guy. Rape wasn't supposed to happen to guys, he never really heard about it. When people said rape it meant women, in shadowhunter society. In most societies. It must have been his other punishment, karma, for being fucking gay. It wasn't his fault! It only made him cry more, sob, because he couldn't believe this was about to happen.

"Jace, stop, please!"

His pants were gone, rough hands pulling up his naked hips. A dick, Jace's, pressing against his bottom.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Jace, no! Stop it! Fuck, please, stop!"

Jace was smiling, but this wasn't the Jace that Alec knew. His parabatai would never do this. His parabatai was gone. Alec was trying to kick the blond away, to no avail. He was lowered by unyielding hand, crying out, onto Jace's cock. He screamed as Jace penetrated his first sphincter, his anal cavity nearly completely unprepared. He hadn't had sex in… a week, though it felt like longer, and it showed. He wasn't stretched out, but he didn't have a choice. And it hurt when he was prepared… He couldn't quite describe how bad it felt, fighting every bit of the way. He was being breached on more than one level, in multiple ways and he was trying to pull the cord tied around his collapsed heart. It was like he was being touched in every once-okay way and he was melting under his body's own terror, lack of control. Jace was moving too soon, too fast, pounding into him without relent.

It was then, with his pants shoved somewhere gone and blood steadily dripping from his raped anus that he realized that he could never talk about this. This hell, it would be his.

He wished it had stopped when Jace had finally come, but then Sebasti-Jona—fuck it, Sebastian, was between his legs with toys, and later, his own cock to please. Then there were more toys, and Jace was back again. His phone was ringing, somewhere, but it didn't matter.

Every thing, every sound, every move seemed to echo itself in Alec's head. It was slower, glazed, muddled, and Alec wasn't sure when he went from being present, to hiding in himself, to being a useless, broken, piece of fucking shit. Maybe it was when the hair curler—heated and ready to scorch his skin—had been shoved into him, burning all of his wounds and cuts closed. Or maybe it was when his parabatai had finished with him for the second time and said, as he'd never forget, how's Clary? He was done. He was so, so done. He didn't care. He wanted to die. He wanted to have been gone years ago. The embarrassment, the pain. He'd let someone else do that to him.

What would Magnus think? How would he ever face anyone again? Why had this happened to him? Why? He just wanted to know what he'd done, but then, he didn't. He was a fuck up, and he really should have been gone by now. Why wasn't he? He'd stopped crying, stopped fighting. He was just lying there. He'd never really seen it before, besides in nightmares or when he fought the Greater Demon, but he saw images of his body, mangled and destroyed, glassy-eyed and dead. This time, though, he wished for it.

There were words, again, echoing again, somewhere in his head where he couldn't hear them. Maybe there was something important, but he didn't know. He'd been written on with a stele, he recalled, been runed, but it had been a long time since he'd stopped feeling the pain, physically and otherwise, what seemed to be days ago.

He'd been dropped in an alley, his pants back on and his things about him, covered in a glamour awaiting the morning glow of the sun he was shaded from. He fell asleep, or his eyes closed (who could really tell?) and the next thing he knew it was late in the day and his phone had been blown up with messages and calls because no one had seen him and he was late to a meeting for some shit or other.

He called a taxi to the institute, unglamoured and no doubt looking crazy and exhausted and not giving a fuck to the driver. A lot of the messages were angry, and one concerned, and Isabelle wanted him to spy on the meeting for her and then 'spill', then she'd beat him until he'd tell her what was going on with Magnus and why he hadn't been, well, anywhere the night before. They were talking to each other now, it seemed, comparing. It didn't matter. Alec'd already sunk so low. He didn't care.

Maybe he should. Care, that was. He just wanted it all over with and forgotten. He didn't want to go to the meeting, but after lying in the alley with all of his comrades in filth he decided he needed to leave. Sitting there like that wasn't going to change anything, for better or worse. As much as he felt like shit, helpless, he knew that it might not be the end. If he decided to slit his throat, there were plenty of weapons in the institute. He could try, maybe, to get one. He had little hope, his depression quickly turning to despair, but he could try and wade through life, maybe. It didn't matter. He was putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to topple. He had to forget. As if he'd let himself. As if they'd let him, his brother and that monster.

He still had Magnus, maybe, even if the warlock was still mad at him. The funny, sweet party animal he was in love with. Even if he'd cheated, he hadn't wanted it, and maybe he'd be forgiven. Did rape count? Alec knew it depended on the century but he wasn't sure about that one. He hoped not, though what little he'd seen of Mundie Rape Culture he knew it would likely be considered his fault. It was similar, if not the same, to the way Nephilim treated it.

He was damaged goods. He could only hope that his warlock still wanted him, wasn't repulsed. If he ever found out. What was Alec worried about? He couldn't tell anyone. The only proof he had was a lot of pain, his slow-healing limp and burns running all through him. It would convince, probably.

He didn't care. He should, he knew, and he was kind of trying, but sitting in a yellow cab not feeling pain he knew was there surrounded by a sea of other yellow and checkered cabs he didn't.

Caring was not for people who'd been raped by objects, people and words, all night.