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malecsecretsanta · 3 years

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Merry Christmas, koryandr!

For @koryandr. Thank you for your great prompts, I did my best to intertwine as many as I could. This is the first chapter of what will be a (hopefully) not-too-long multichapter. I hope I've come up with something that you'll like!

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*****

“We met by chance, one split decision to turn right instead of left, made no sense at the time, but it felt right and then there was you.”

― Nikki Rowe

Alec Lightwood doesn’t believe in hidden meanings and greater plans.

He’s never been the sort of person to cradle the thought that there’s something, out there, that has set up everything, even if he can’t see the bigger picture yet.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that he’s not religious in the slightest, and that he definitely isn’t a man of God. There’s no divinity, no greater good, or fate whatsoever, nothing and no-one that makes things happen and that moves people as though they are puppets to cruelly play with. It’s simply not possible.

It might even be a bit cynical on his part, but – is there really someone out there who naively believes that everything has a hidden meaning?

Sometimes, things just happen (or they don’t). Simple as that.

And Alec Lightwood happens to be one of those people who’s never fallen in love before.

At the ripe old age of twenty-something, Alec’s never felt this overwhelming, fuzzy, messy tightness in his chest, like his ribcage is on the verge of bursting and let all those things called feelings pour out, finally free to swirl up to the sky or who-knows-where.

He always tells himself that he’s not had the time for this thing called love. He’s always so busy he doesn’t have the time to devote himself to love. He has more important things to do.

Sometimes, he tells himself he does have more important things to do, but maybe he hasn’t met The One yet. He hasn’t met someone worth blowing his own routine off – and Alec flourishes in routines; someone who makes him feel like burning the world up in flames for the ardour of his love, just to make it rise from its ashes again, phoenixilly, more prosperous and beautiful than ever before. He’s just not had the chance yet to –.

No. No, no, chance has nothing to do with this. He doesn’t believe in things like chance. It hasn’t happened, simple as that.

Alec tells himself lots of things. Lots of very articulate excuses, as Isabelle points out so accurately, to hide the intrinsic and visceral fear he feels gripped by. Fear of letting go. Fear of putting the deepest, most intimate part of himself in someone else’s hands – gentle hands that know how to handle gentle, fragile, delicate feelings.

“Isn’t everybody scared of that, Alec?” Isabelle is so keen to remind him.

It isn’t just fear, though. It would be easier, if it was. But it isn’t.

Izzy’s right. Partially. He does make up excuses. They allow him to wrench himself away from the most brutal truth he could ever come to: he’s not made for love.

He can tell himself what he wants: about his hectic, fast-paced, busy life; about his not having met someone-worth-it yet; about being scared. But he’s not made for love. He’s never been.

He hadn’t been until he turned eighteen, when he couldn’t hide himself any longer and he came out to his family. How was he supposed to love, how could he love, back then, when he didn’t even have the courage to be his true self? When he wasn’t being honest, neither with the people he cared about, nor with himself, to begin with?

And he hasn’t been after he came out, when his parents – his father, specifically – made it very clear that the life choice he was making wouldn’t only condemn him to a wretched, miserable life in which nobody would ever love him. That life choice, it would also bring disgrace and shame upon the whole family. That was the reason why it would be better if he kept this whole situation for himself, behind closed doors – even better, inside a fucking closet –, if that was truly the path he was deciding to follow. Or else, he shall show Alec the door (which he did).

And he isn’t made for love even now, almost a decade later, even though he is not hiding anymore. Why should he be hiding in the dark, why should he be wearing a damn mask and lie to everybody? He wasn’t making a goddamn choice, for Heaven’s sake. He would never change that part of himself, because there was nothing to change whatsoever. That’s who he is. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

He had spent so many years to hate himself for it, to hate every single atom of his body for that part of himself that he couldn’t ever change and that wrenched the love of his parents away from him, that simply getting to accept himself for who he is has been an interminable, painful, pulling-apart-and-becoming-whole-again kind of process.

It felt like his skin was being scratched raw. That’s how he’d describe it. Like a roaring fire scorched him and left him raw, his nerves exposed to the air, sensitive to the barest of stimuli. And how could he ever love someone else if he didn’t learn to love himself first?

And yet, there he is. Almost ten years later, with a job he liked, an apartment of his own, both his siblings and a circle of friends around him. Maybe he wasn’t made for love, but he could undeniably call that a progress, after all.

Surely enough, the biggest and unexpected progress was that his mother, after all those years spent without talking to him and pretending that he didn’t exist, was trying to reconnect with him. After divorcing Robert, Maryse had changed a whole lot. She was more compliant, more amenable, sweeter, if a woman like her could ever be defined that way.

But he couldn’t find any other reason to explain the way she tried and reconnect with Alec, her son. The way she had phoned him; the way she had apologised for what she’d told him in the past; the way she had promised him to listen to him and really try to understand him in the attempt to neutralise the huge stigma that had obstructed her relationship with her son for so long.

She was in detox. Her own words.

Alec had appreciated her effort. He truly had.

He grew up carrying the burden of being the eldest brother, the perfect son, the positive role model to follow: he never allowed himself a single slip-up, it was always him who had to do his best and even more, when his best wasn’t good enough. It was always him who had to try and knock some sense into his siblings when they stuck their necks out. It was always him who had to make an effort and accommodate others’ stands.

For once, it feels nice that someone else – a someone he never meant to let down – is trying to reach out and make an effort to accommodate him.

Nonetheless, the fear of disappointing his mother is still hanging like a sword of Damocles over his head. Maybe that’s why – when she phones him as he walks in long strides down the street to grab a drink with his sister at The Hunter’s Moon – those words escape his lips before he has the time to grasp them, to seal his mouth and prevent the catastrophic consequences of his blurting out.

Yes, I’m coming over for Christmas dinner.

Yes, I’m bringing a guest.

Yes, he’s my boyfriend.

The thing is: it’s a lie – well, somewhat.

He is coming over for Christmas dinner – they’re trying to reconnect, aren’t they?

But, the whole boyfriend thing… that’s a whole ‘nother beast.

There’s no boyfriend in sight.

Alec is irremediably fucked.

_________________

Alec is fucked. He truly is.

That’s what he thinks as he steps into The Hunter’s Moon, out of breath, with scattered shards of sleet beading his dark hair. He hastily runs a gloved hand through his hair, but he doesn’t think it does much to make him look any better. Not that he actually cares about how he looks, let’s make it pretty clear.

But maybe…

Maybe, if he’s lucky enough, he’ll…

Yet again, no. There’s no such thing as luck.

He huffs out a tired breath, tugging at his gloves to take them off. With a shiver scampering down his spine, he accommodates to the familiar tingling in his frozen, heat-thirsty hands, which bask in the warmth of the pub.

Alec searches the room for Izzy’s dark hair. He spots her easily enough. She’s sitting at a table tucked across the room, and he stalks towards her.

As he walks, he nods a hello at Maia, who’s standing behind the counter. She rises the corner of her lips in that usual crooked smirk of hers.

Alec weaves his way through the room, heading towards his sister.

“Hey,” he says as he pulls out the chair opposite to Izzy and slumps in it.

“Hey, big bro,” she smiles, looking away from her phone, her dark, brilliant eyes meeting Alec’s.

Her face sobers quickly when she sees him, her eyes narrowing as she searches Alec’s face, looking for any clue of what might have happened.

She’s always been so good at reading people. And Alec makes no exception to that. In fact, he might even be the easiest book to read, for her. Always has been. Always will be.

“What?” Alec shrugs, reaching for the bar menu, a crinkled sheet of paper inside a plastic coat standing in the middle of their table.

He doesn’t really need to read the menu, he already knows what he’s going to drink. He only needs something to do with his hands and somewhere to focus his gaze on, to avoid Iz’s scrutiny. He already feels that strange heat trailing up the back of his neck, that uncomfortable feeling he always feels whenever Izzy’s unwavering stare sets upon him.

Izzy’s faster than he is, and she pulls the menu away from him, swatting his fingers when he tries to grab it back. She stares at him, an unimpressed look on her face.

“What?” Alec asks again, finally gazing up at her. “Come on, Iz, what are we, twelve –”

“I’m not giving it back to you unless you tell me what happened,” she tells him, defiantly crossing her arms over her chest. “As if you don't know what you’re going to drink, by the way,” she adds then.

Alec rolls his eyes fondly at that remark. She knows him so well.

“What if I told you I wanna try something new,” he dares her.

She puts on a surprised face, just to make him laugh.

“Do you mean something or someone,” she then suggests allusively, her eyes moving sideways towards someone behind Alec’s back and a smile blooming on her red lips.

Alec swallows thickly. He already knows whom he’s going to see when he’ll twist on his chair to look.

Magnus Bane.

He slightly turns his head, a bare movement that allows him to glance at Magnus from the corner of his eye. He already feels his stomach churn. He wets his lips nervously.

Magnus is as beautiful as usual. Today he’s wearing a magnificent charcoal-grey three-piece suit and a burgundy tie that stands out impressively against the pure white of his shirt. He gracefully slips out of his long, black trench coat as he steps into the room, and he bends it over his arm as he smiles gleefully at Maia.

Alec feels a strange, humid heat pooling on his palms, so he clamps them together and places them in his lap, under the table. He turns his attention back to Iz, who’s staring at him with a knowing look on her face.

“What,” he deadpans, for what feels the umpteenth time tonight.

“Nothing,” she retorts, but the tone of her voice makes what she’s thinking about very clear. “So,” she adds then, “Are you gonna tell me what happened or are you leaving me guessing?”

“Mom called,” Alec tells her, but when he notices the way Izzy’s brows alarmingly shoot up to her hairline and her eyes widen in surprise, he rushes to give her some context. “Well, you know we’ve been trying to… y’know… reconnect.”

“And?”

“Aaand,” he says, trying to gain time before he tells her the mess he’s made. He wets his lower lip, his mouth abruptly dry with shame.

There’s no point in delaying this, he thinks. Iz’s gonna pull the truth out of his mouth anyway.

“I told her that I’m bringing someone home for Christmas” he blurts out. “My boyfriend,” he clarifies, when Iz says nothing.

“Okay.” She sucks in a breath, her nostrils flaring a little. “Okay,” she repeats, placing her palms flat on the table. Her long, red-painted nails stand out against the dark wood. “What do you think you want to do about that?”

Sharply, Alec looks up to her, not expecting his sister to shrug this off and act like he hasn’t fucked up.

“I don’t know!” he exclaims, “That’s why I’m asking you! I don’t even know why I told her so.”

“You’re allowed to mess up and do stupid things, you know that, right?”

Alec looks down to his hands, still clamped in his lap.

“Alec.”

“Mh?” he mumbles under his breath.

“Alec, hey.” Iz reaches out, and Alec feels her fingers gently brushing his hair. “Hey,” she says softly, “Can I speak with my brother or am I meant to talk to his hair?”

A little snort escapes him, and finally he hesitantly gazes up at her. He finds her looking at him, a kind look in her stare, her lips slightly parted, a hint of a reassuring smile.

Izzy always knows how to make him feel better. She listens to him, she really does, and she does not judge him, whatever he might do. She’s always there for him, every step of the way. Always has been and always will be.

Alec slightly rises the corner of his lip.

“You wanna know what I think?”

“Yes,” he says, like a plead. Yes, please. Show me the way out of this.

“Well,” she hums, wetting her lower lip and tucking her hair behind her ear. “You can tell her the truth.” A pause. “Or you can pretend that you and your mysterious boyfriend no-one knows about have broken up just before Christmas,” she suggests ironically.

“God, no,” he replies in horror, “I don’t think I could handle the pity looks.”

“There’s one more path you can take, then.”

“Is there?”

“You can actually find a special someone to bring home for Christmas.”

Alec looks at her, his eyes widening and his body tensing, completely still. He must look like a deer, caught in the middle of an empty street in the dead of night by the abrupt, violent headlights of a solitary car.

“Think about it!” Izzy exclaims. “It would definitely be a win-win for everyone: you find a boyfriend; you get to spend Christmas holidays with your family and your special someone; we would all be happy!” she enumerates, proudly counting the advantages of her suggestion on her fingers.

“You do know that real life is not one of those cheesy romcoms you secretly adore and that you can’t really ask people to fake-date you or something, right?” he deadpans.

Izzy rolls her eyes, a grin blooming on her lips.

“Besides, I’ve been on my own for my entire life, what makes you think that I’m going to find a boyfriend in – what – twenty days or something.”

“You know what they say, will is power.”

Alec glares at her, his eyes narrowing in that peculiar look of reproach of his.

“I’m just kidding!” Izzy exclaims, holding her hands up in surrender. “Relax, Alec, it was just a joke, Dios mío. But really, I’m serious about the fact of bringing someone home for Christmas. You should really consider that.”

Alec opens his mouth to protest, but Izzy precedes him. She already knows what he’s going to say.

“Don’t,” she warns him, threateningly pointing a finger at him. “Don’t you dare say it. We both know whom you should ask to.”

Alec swallows thickly, that uncomfortable heat rising again on the back of his neck. He finally unclamps his hands and he nervously scratches his nape.

“I don’t think he’d accept,” he mumbles under his breath, gazing down at the plastic-coated menu in the middle of the table.

“You see? You don’t even deny it!”

“Deny what?”

“That you like him, you ass!” Izzy throws her hands up in despair.

“I don’t – it’s not – I mean –”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“I’m serious, Iz,” he says, and he slightly turns his head to glance briefly at Magnus, who’s sitting on one of the high stools near the countertop and is lively chatting with Maia. Alec glances away, and his eyes go back to his sister. “I don’t even know him.”

“That’s what dates are for,” she says, imploringly, “If you never ask him out, you’ll never get to know him for real. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“Iz –”

“Promise me, Alec.”

Alec pulls a face and huffs out a breath, defeatedly. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” she retorts, “And now, if you don’t mind, I’d want my Pinot Noir.”

_________________

Alec fumbles with his keys outside the front door of his apartment, muttering a curse under his breath. He eventually decides to fish his phone out of his pocket and use its torch to scatter some light and finally manage to jam the right key into the lock.

He opens the door, his hand feeling around the wall for the light-switch. He finds it and switches it on, the warm, yellow light flickering to life over his head. He stumbles into his apartment, kicking the door closed behind his back. He lets out a tired huff of breath and he kicks his work shoes off without untying the laces.

The shoes have left dirty footprints, wet with slush, where he has walked. He’ll clean tomorrow, he thinks with a shrug.

Alec takes his coat off and hangs it to the coat hanger, along with his bag, glad to get it off from where its strap was sinking into his shoulder.

He traipses to his bedroom, where he gracelessly takes his clothes off and carelessly slips into his bed. He scrubs his hand down his face as he sinks among the pillows, his skin unpleasantly goose-bumping for the cold of the sheets.

Rolling over on his side, Alec looks outside the windows. He forgot to shut the blinds. New York spreads out before his eyes, melancholic in the dead of night under the swirling snow, the white and light blue lights of the city dance before his eyes, liquid and impalpable.

His hand moves cautiously on the bed, reaching out, as though he was searching for the company of a sleepy lover. But there’s no one there. Alec is alone. He longs for the human warmth of another body next to him, and he wonders what it’d feel like to let himself be so vulnerable to sleep next to somebody else.

Promise me you’ll think about it, Alec.

His thoughts cannot help but wander to Iz.

Well, not to Izzy specifically. They wander to Magnus Bane.

You don’t even deny that you like him.

Izzy is right – shocker.

Alec does like Magnus.

Actually, Alec doesn’t think there might be someone who doesn’t like Magnus. He’s sharp, and smart, and brilliant and charming. He is undeniably handsome, and Alec always struggles to keep his eyes off of him whenever he enters the room. It’s like there’s something magnetic about him, and Alec is just drawn to it.

Maybe it’s not a magical magnetism, though. It’s something gravitational. It’s something solar.

Yes, solar might be the right word. Magnus is like the sun. His golden light can’t be avoided, he is meant to shine, and people can only stop and stare at him in awe, like a devotee falling to their knees in witnessing a miracle of God.

If anyone asked him, Alec wouldn’t be able to say exactly what it is that he likes about Magnus so much. Alec can’t even claim to know him well. In fact, they met just some weeks ago and he could probably count on one hand the times they talked.

A snort escapes him, remembering the unfortunate event that brought them to talk to each other for the first time. Right away he wanted the Earth to open up and swallow him whole. However, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe it wasn’t all too bad that Simon tripped over his own feet and bumped against Alec, who took a step back to brace himself and his back collided with a too-close Magnus. It was so sudden and unexpected for both of them that Magnus ended up spilling his glass of whiskey over his own shirt.

“Oh, shit! I’m so sorry, I –”

“Never fear.” A pause. A beam. “I’m Magnus. I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

“Alec.”

“ Short for Alexander, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Then, Alexander, I think you owe me a whiskey.”

Alec hasn’t had the opportunity to get a drink with Magnus yet.

They have seen each other after that very first, disastrous meeting – they’re both regulars at The Hunter’s Moon, after all – but they haven’t really had a date. Alec doesn’t feel brave enough to ask Magnus out, even though everybody keeps telling him that he should, and that if Magnus isn’t flirting with him every single time they see each other, then they don’t know what that is.

But Alec knows that Magnus flirts. He flirts, he laughs, he uses his magic, his solar attraction. His sparkle.

Alec doesn’t mind being on the receiving-end of Magnus’ attention, but he just doesn’t believe that this makes him special. Magnus is the type of person who makes everybody laugh without them even realising. He is the type of person who makes people feel flattered by the simple pleasure of talking to him. And Alec is just like anybody else. He is not special. He doesn’t think so.

The thing is, however, that Magnus does make him feel special. And Alec treasures that. He doesn’t think he’s made for love, but maybe he can just have that: a platonic what if? to cradle and hold onto, the possibility of a what-could-be to dream about and hold dearly to his chest, like it’s the most pure and treasured secret to ever preserve.

If that’s how he makes you feel, why don’t you give it a chance? You’re self-sabotaging, a voice inside his head points out. It annoyingly sounds like his sister.

If I don’t act on it, then I won’t be disappointed if things don’t sort out the way I want them to and I won’t be confirmed that I’m not made for love, Alec would tell her petulantly.

If you don’t try, you’ll never know, she’d retort matter-of-factly.

(Promise me, Alec.)

He promised her he’d think about it. Not that he’d act on it.

I can feel you clutching at straws from here, Alec, Isabelle’s voice inside his head reproaches him.

Alec frowns, a wrinkle forming between his brows. He purses his lips like a scolded child.

Do what’s in your heart. Make your what if come true, write your own narrative. Go for it.

(Promise me, Alec.)

And if it doesn’t turn out the way you expect it to, then you’ll know that at least you’ve tried. You have nothing to lose.

(Promise me, Alec.)

He pinches his eyes shut and sucks in a deep breath, in the attempt to shut out the voice of his sister. It’s difficult to do something exclusively for yourself, he wants to argue, when you’ve been trying to live up to people’s expectations for your whole life to avoid feeling like a walking failure. It makes him feel selfish, when all he’s ever been is selfless. How do you write your own self in your own narrative when you’ve always tried to write it out and make room for someone else’s wishes and wants?

It’s not a switch Alec can just turn off, even though Izzy claims he has a switch that is always on when it comes to being selfless. She might not be wrong, but it’s not that simple.

He rolls over on his other side, turning his back to the window and the city lights beyond it. Maybe he only needs to sleep this whole thing off. He can’t sleep though. He tosses and turns for great part of the night, his mind still running a mile a minute. He clenches his fists, incapable of decompressing.

His thoughts are very loud. They go adrift, they swirl, they spiral and entangle and he eventually realises that maybe he should just follow his little sister’s advice, just for once, and see what happens. Maybe it will turn out to be a huge disappointment. Or maybe something great will come of it.

When his alarm goes off and he gets up in the morning, he steps out of his bed like a man with purpose. After a night spent in the opaque labyrinth of his mind, he’s reached a decision. Maybe the bravest decision of his life, after his coming out.

He approaches the window and lightly rests a hand against the cold glass, which mists up around the pads of his fingers. He looks outside and he quirks up his lips at the corners: a pale sun is shyly lighting up the horizon, welcoming the break of a new dawn, a flimsy glow on the plate-glass of Manhattan skyscrapers.

Alec Lightwood doesn’t believe in hidden meanings and greater plans. He doesn’t believe in signs. And yet, he cannot help but admit to himself that the sun shining on the very same day he’s going to ask Magnus Bane out is the loveliest coincidence of his entire life.

TBC on AO3!

#koryandr #malecsanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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