Thank you for those who left comments. Please let me know what you think of this chapter.

A/N: Some additional warnings in the warnings section. Please let me know what you think of this chapter. I really appreciate the feedback!

Disclaimer: The characters and universe belongs to Cassandra Clare.

Warnings: Discussion and memories of aftermath of the abuse, no explicit abuse but it's not an easy read (or write). This story deals with very sensitive subject matters, including sexual abuse of a minor (not explicitly described), internalized homophobia, self-destructive behavior, language and adult sexual content.

Learning to Be

Chapter 19: Exposed

Alec felt like he was trying to maintain a dam for the last five years; a dam that contained all his emotions, feelings and pain so that nobody had to know how damaged he truly was. There were cracks over the years—nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks—and the only way Alec had known to deal with those cracks was with a razor; something that could replace the pain and let him regain control in order to hide the emotions from others. But now, in the last week, it was like the cracks were too big to fix. The dam was broken and he was left exposed.

"Can we sit down?" Magnus asked. The warlock stood in the doorframe leading into Alec's bedroom. He watched the teenager carefully as Alec absently nodded and moved over to the bed, sitting at the edge.

Alec's heart sounded like thunder in his ears. Just moments ago, he had confessed to Jace that he had been hurting himself for years and given him permission to tell Izzy...Izzy, who had only found out about Manson the previous night. He sucked in some air, trying not to think about how exposed he felt, even with all his clothes on.

Magnus sat down beside him, leaving a couple of inches between them. Alec closed his eyes. And now he was about to expose himself some more to someone he had not known for more than a month. But he had no choice. Not after the way he had behaved when Magnus arrived at the Institute.

"Did you tell Jace?" Magnus finally said, breaking the silence.

Alec opened his eyes. "I didn't really have a choice, not after what he saw."

"And?"

"He's going to tell Izzy."

"I think that's a good idea."

Alec shrugged. "Maybe."

"Alec..."

Alec turned his upper body so he was looking at Magnus. He needed to get this out before he lost the little courage he had left. "I'm sorry, Magnus. I was totally out of line earlier. I'm appalled by my actions and I don't know why you're still here."

"Alec, you didn't do anything wrong. You were confused and scared, that much was obvious."

Alec laughed harshly. "And being scared means that I'm allowed to force myself on you?" Alec's face burned. "I don't know what to say about it."

"You said some things that tell me that you are keeping a lot of dark secrets inside."

Alec clenched his eyes shut and fisted his hands in the sheets. "Like what?"

"He liked me too. It doesn't matter what I want. You can do whatever you want to me," Magnus recited gently. Alec cringed.

"Who is the he Alec?"

Alec sighed and opened his eyes. He shifted around and moved further into the bed until he had his back pressed against the headboard, his knees drawn into his chest protectively. Magnus remained at the edge of the bed, only turning his torso so that he could maintain eye contact with Alec.

"His name is Benedict Manson," Alec finally said. The name left a sour taste in his mouth.

"He's the reason you've been staying at my place."

Alec nodded. "He's staying here on Clave business."

"What did he do to you, Alec?"

Alec tilted his head up. He could just stop now and ask Magnus to leave but Alec didn't want Magnus to leave. Despite all his reservations, Magnus was quickly becoming an important part of his life, even in just a few days.

"This is not the first time he stayed here."

Magnus body was tense, even though he seemed to be trying to maintain a relaxed, encouraging facial expression.

"I had just turned 13." Alec started tracing the lines of the sheets absently as he tried to calm himself down. "I'm going to tell you things I've never voiced to anyone." Alec was terrified.

"There is nothing you can tell me that will make me think any less of you."

Alec gave him a skeptical look. That was a steep statement to make. "It was around that time that I started to realize that I am...I am...different." Alec pressed his palms into the sheets. He had never talked about this, let alone admitted the truths to himself but Magnus made him feel safe. "While Jace found the girls around our age attractive, I thought..."

He looked up at the door, his heart racing faster than he thought possible. Magnus snapped his fingers. "No one outside this room will hear us, Alec."

Alec nodded grateful. "While Jace found girls attractive, I found myself..." He closed his eyes. "Attracted to Jace," he whispered. He paused and looked at Magnus intently. Magnus smiled softly, like he was silently telling him that it's okay. "I was terrified. I didn't know what to do. I felt wrong. Like I was a bad person for liking boys."

"There is nothing wrong with you, Alec. There's something wrong with our society, not you."

Alec shook his head, clenching his hands into fists again and pressing them into the mattress. "Then he moved in and everything spiraled out of control."

Magnus shifted closer to Alec, both apprehension and encouragement written across his face.

"He...he paid attention to me in a way that my parents never did. My parents adored Max and were so proud of Jace and Izzy's fighting skills. I was that kid that flew under the radar and after I started to have feelings that terrified me, I didn't even try to garner their attention. But Manson seemed to take an instant liking to me. He would play chess with me, teach me new fighting techniques and give me his undivided attention when I spoke."

Magnus's lips twitched angrily.

Alec felt himself starting to tremble. Could he really do this?

xxxxxx

Izzy saw Jace waiting in the living room when she got out of the elevator. He was seated in an armchair, with his legs propped up over the side and his arms crossed over his chest. He had a pensive look on his face. When she entered the room he blinked blankly before acknowledging her.

"Izzy, you're home."

"Yeah, didn't you text saying you were going to be at Clary's with Max?"

"Max is still there."

"What?" Izzy asked, alarmed.

"Jocelyn said she'd watch him. He's safer there. And no, I didn't tell her what's going on here but Alec wasn't answering his phone so I came home."

"Is he okay?" Izzy dropped her bag on the coffee table, feeling nervous. She had wanted to give Alec time with Magnus.

Jace swung his legs down and planted his feet on the floor. He frowned and Izzy's face fell, her heart picking up the pace. "He's not good, Izzy." Jace's voice was so sad, it terrified the younger teenager.

"Where is he?"

"In his room with Magnus."

Izzy ran her hand through her hair, trying to understand all these seemingly disjointed pieces of information. "Jace, what's going on?"

xxxxxx

Magnus wanted to touch Alec so badly. Hold his hand or gather him into his arms. But he knew that wasn't the right think to do at the moment. Alec looked scared and dazed. His pupils were dilated and there was a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, even though Nephilim don't perspire easily.

Magnus was also finding it hard to maintain his calm. He knew exactly where this was going now and his emotions were everywhere, oscillating from sadness to anger and back again. The things Alec described...this man paying more attention to him, making an already scared and lonely boy feel special...were the actions of a man grooming a child so he could abuse him.

"Alec..."

"No, if I stop now I might never finish."

Magnus nodded silently.

"And then he started coming to my room at night. Not this room. My old room. I don't go into that room."

Magnus's fingers curled into fists, much like Alec's hands.

"At first, he did little things. I...I didn't want him to touch me Magnus...I swear! He kept saying I liked it but I didn't." Alec gasped for air and Magnus couldn't help it anymore. Alec needed an anchor with the present so he didn't get lost in his nightmares. He grabbed Alec's hand. Alec jerked violently but Magnus didn't let go. "I know, Alec. You're safe here."

Alec looked down at their hands. The whites of Alec's eyes were painted in streaks of red. He nodded and relaxed slightly.

"I never told my parents. He told me that they would be disgusted with me. He told me that he knew I liked it...because of how I...how I looked at Jace. I was so ashamed." He sobbed and unconsciously squeezed Magnus's hand like he was a lifeline. "He started getting bolder. Making me do things to him, removing clothes. I was so scared. I hated him. I hated night. I didn't know what to do."

Magnus felt his heart breaking, watching this beautiful angel unraveling in front of him. Alec pressed his knees further into his chest but did not pull his hand away. "I..." He looked up at Magnus, tears caught in his eyelashes. "The night...he...damn it! Jace thinks if I actual talk about it, it'll help but I don't know how that'll help."

His eyes were wide and his pupils were blown. He looked at Magnus desperately, like he held all the answers. And in all his centuries of experiences, Magnus felt helpless.

xxxxxx

Izzy wanted to scream. She wanted to break things. She stared at Jace, her hands trembling and the sound of her heartbeat blaring in her ears. Tears cut through her makeup. "Jace, please tell me you're lying. I can't...I can't..."

She sank to the floor and buried her hands in her hair, tugging at the strands angrily. Only yesterday, she had found out that her brother's childhood and innocence had been destroyed in the most heinous way possible and now, to find out that he dealt with that pain over the years by hurting himself while she lived her life clueless of the extent of her brother's pain, it was almost too much.

Jace just stared at her, like he was too numb to respond. Finally he pulled her hands away from her hair. "We have to help him now," Jace said. "We all know now and we can do something about it."

Izzy snapped her head up, her red eyes blazing with anger. "No, not everyone knows the kind of torture he's been living with." Anger dripped from every word. "But we are going to do something about it, Jace. No more keeping quiet. Not Alec, not you, not me and most of all, not Manson or our parents."

"What are you saying, Izzy?"

Izzy jumped to her feet, her hand almost violently brushing the tears aside. "Where are our doting parents, Jace?"

"I'm guessing they are already in bed."

Izzy nodded. "Let's pay them a visit."

xxxxxx

Alec looked at the older man, tears no longer just clinging to his eyelashes. As he spoke, he felt like the line between the present and past were blurring and he realized he needed the contact to stay grounded in the present. His heart was beating rapidly. He wondered how much his heart could handle, given the last few days. How much would it take for an 18-year-old's heart to give?

"Can I sit in front of you?" Magnus asked softly.

Alec nodded as Magnus shifted into the bed and crossed his legs so that Alec's feet brushed against Magnus's ankles. He pulled both of Alec's hands into his laps and squeezed them gently. "Alec, I'm not going to ask you to do or say anything you don't want to but I'm here. I'm here to listen, Alec."

Alec bit his bottom lip. He had kept it in for so long and it only led him to self-destruction. Talking to Jace or even Izzy seemed impossible but for some reason, sitting here, with Magnus holding his hands, he felt the slightest bit of agency to spill his darkest feelings.

"The night he...it was raining. I remember the rain pattering against the window." He looked at door, as if the man of his nightmares would barge through and take him back to that moment. "He came into my room and he drew a soundless rune on the door...he hand't done that before. He alway knew how to keep me quiet. The things he said, it was like he controlled my voice. I never screamed or called for help. I was so pathetic."

"No, Alec," Magnus said but Alec barely registered the protest.

"If he thought I wouldn't be able to stop myself from making a sound, he would just press his hand over my mouth. He was also good at keeping quiet. I would see him biting his lip instead. That night, he told me that we...we were..."

Magnus squeezed his hands and Alec looked at him, gratefully, like the warlock knew when he needed to be reminded of where he was.

"He told me that tonight we were going to do something different. I told him I didn't want to do anything. He just laughed, his eyes blazing with this animalistic need that terrified me. He pulled me out of the bed and told me to strip. I refused. He just smiled and...and grabbed me, tugging at my shirt. When has no ever stopped me, Alexander?"

Alec looked at Magnus. "Soon I understood why he used a soundless rune. How else was he going to hide my screams?"

Magnus's hands twitched.

"He taught me pain that night, Magnus. He called it sex. It was like he was stealing my soul. After that, something snapped in me and I stopped speaking."

Alec lay lifelessly on his back in the bed. He knew there was wetness against his thighs, soaking into the sheets but all he could feel was the pain. It throbbed through his body, paralyzing him. Lips were pressing against the tip of ear, an illusion of comfort, but Alec couldn't move.

"That was the best sex I've ever had, Alexander."

Hands grabbed at his hip and pushed him onto his side. "Oh dear," the man whispered as his hand pressed into the wetness on the back of his thighs. Alec didn't even flinch. He was completely numb. "That's a lot of blood."

He felt the tip of a stele against his backside and the familiar feeling of the metal running over his skin. "This will fix the worst of it." Alec was barely listening to him. It was like there were balls of cotton stuffed into his ears.

For a moment he was left alone and Alec wondered if he could just lie here and never move again. He wished that the man hadn't applied the iratze so he could just bleed until there was nothing left to keep him alive.

But then he was back and his body involuntary jerked when the man pressed a wet cloth against him and started to clean away the evidence of what had happened that night.

"Alec. Alec..." There were hands on his face, suffocating the tears running down his face. Alec blinked and looked at the man in front of him. "Hey, stay with me, Alec, darling. You are not there, okay. You're here, with me, Magnus."

Alec sobbed, his voice sounding desperate. His body was shaking. He gasped for air between sobs. Magnus leaned forward and pulled him closer to him. Alec allowed his knees to fall to the side as he fell into Magnus's embrace, pressing his face into his shoulder. "He never stopped, Magnus." His words were punctured with sobs. "Pleading didn't do anything, so I stopped talking."

Magnus held him tighter and Alec gripped his shirt. His words were muffled but he couldn't stop them from spilling out between gasps. "I learned how to not scream even though it never stopped hurting. I controlled my voice, Magnus. But I always cried." Like now, he thought. "I couldn't control that."

Magnus pressed his lips into his hair. It felt so different from when Manson tried to comfort him afterwards.

He always thought of Manson as a punishment. A cruel sentence sent down from the angels for his feelings. But how could this be something that was supposed to be punished when Magnus made him feel safe? Asking Manson why was his desperate attempt to believe that there was another reason.

"I was being punished," he whispered into Magnus's shoulder. "Wasn't I?" He pulled away slightly and looked at Magnus through glassy eyes. "He broke me because I'm not allowed to be happy. But why, Magnus? I only ever wanted to be good."

Magnus had tears in his eyes. He didn't want to make Magnus cry. "You are good, Alec. You are so good." He sounded desperate to make him believe.

Alec shook his head. "I was never good. And he...he made sure I will never be worth anything."

"You're worth everything, Alec," Magnus said, tears running down his beautiful face. "And I'm going to do everything to prove that to you."

A/N: So that happened. Please let me know what you think. I really want to hear your thoughts.