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Magnus is already gone when Alec finally gathers enough courage to leave the bedroom. He is not sure whether he is disappointed or relieved.
Everything is hazy, blurred. If it wasn’t for the rumpled sheets and a lingering trace of Magnus’ signature scent, he would have assumed all of it was just a drunken dream.
He knows they shared the bed, because the evidence was right before his eyes. The rest, however... He thinks he touched Magnus a lot last night, maybe they even danced together? There was a dance floor and he was drinking and watching Magnus dance and thinking how magical his moves are, but he isn’t sure if the dancing actually happened or is just a fantasy that stuck with him. He doesn’t remember much from the lounge.
Next thing he remembers is the fire awakened in him when his lips touched Magnus’. This, too, could have been a particularly vivid fantasy, but he thinks it’s actually real, mostly because it seems like just his brand of stupidity. Alec cannot decide if he would rather all of the the memories of last night came back to him or not.
He had one simple job: not screw up his friendship with Magnus. And he failed that spectacularly.
He looks around his room. He hasn’t changed much since he moved in, nor did he bring much stuff with him. Some clothes, family photo with him, Jace, Izzy and Max grinning like a bunch of idiots, a quite a few books… He could pack and move within a day if needs be.
Fuck. He liked the loft. It started feeling like home way faster than was reasonable. It was always warm, and cosy, and safe. He liked waking up and getting to look out of his window down at the ever-busy streets of Brooklyn. He liked this enormous bed and the lush bathroom. He liked how close it is to the precinct.
And now he is going to lose it all. He is going to lose the loft, and he is going to lose Magnus.
Not that he had Magnus, but Alec liked to think that he at least has Magnus’ friendship.
Alec groans and lies face down on the bed. Maybe not all is lost. He is going to be the responsible adult. He is going to talk to Magnus and clear it all up and save everything. He is just going to lie here for five minutes to gather strength and then he is going to do all those things.
He has done none of those things. In his defence, Magnus has not done anything, either.
It’s been three weeks and they spent them walking by each other, barely exchanging greetings and basic pleasantries. They both seemed to avoid lounge, instead spending majority of their time home inside their bedrooms.
Whenever they bumped into each other somewhere in the apartment, Alec felt like he was suffocating. He wanted to speak, he needed to speak, but whenever he opened his mouth, he found himself unable to make a sound.
It’s unbearable. Alec concludes he would have preferred Magnus kicked him out. He promises himself he will do something about the situation at the first opportunity.
It presents itself when Alec comes back home after a tough shift one night and he notices Magnus sitting in the lounge. A anxious shiver shakes his body, but he approaches him nonetheless.
Magnus sits on the couch, seemingly doing nothing, swirling a glass of red wine. His soft smile somewhat falters when he sees Alec walking towards him.
“Good evening, Alec.” Alec. He would be lying if he said his heart did not bleed a little every time he heard Magnus using that form - which is every time he spoke Alec’s name since Halloween.
“Good evening, Magnus. I wanted to talk to you about something.” He is proud of how many words he produced. It was the most he said to Magnus at once since Halloween.
“Now is not a good time.” His tone sounds flippant. He doesn’t even looked up at Alec, focused on watching the movement of the liquid in his glass instead.
Alec feels the sudden rage boiling inside him. He wants to yell at Magnus, he wants to let out all his frustrations. He knows he can’t. They have to work through it like adults. And it is on Alec to ensure that. Magnus may not be blameless in this, but his fault is nothing compared to Alec’s.
“Magnus, I—”
A door opens behind him.
A woman exits the bathroom. Her tight burgundy dress emphasizes all her curves, leaving very little to the imagination. Dark locks flow down her shoulders and chest, her lips perfectly painted with rich red lipstick. Everything about her is superfluous.
And the worst of it all is the seductive smirk on her lips.
Alec feels as if a bucket of ice cold water was dumped on his head. It isn’t hard to put it all together. Magnus brought someone over. Magnus is living on. That night doesn’t mean anything to him by now, maybe it didn’t mean anything by now.
Of course it meant nothing to Magnus. Why would he care? Magnus is handsome and brilliant and spectacular, and Alec is, well, Alec. He has seen the type of people that catch Magnus’ attention. Alec is not one of them. That statuesque woman is.
Her eyes are cold and piercing when she looks at him.
“Who are you? Magnus, do we have another companion for the night?” Her voice is disgustingly sweet.
He fights down the bile rising in his throat. “I’m Alec. And just leaving.”
He hears Magnus explaining in hushed voice that he is his flatmate, that she has nothing to worry about, that he won’t disturb them.
Alec lies on the bed and bites the pillow to stifle the frustrated screams that simmers in his throat.
Thanksgiving was about as bad a nightmare as Alec could have predicted. The only blessing was the fact that Lightwoods tend to stick to the closest family for this holidays. This means he had to endure his parents and their not-so-subtle prodding into possible “girlfriends”, but al least there were no overbearing aunties or tactless uncles.
He comes back to the loft completely exhausted. Magnus is nowhere to be seen and for once, Alec is grateful. He is running too low on his politeness reserves as it is.
Christmas decorations are nothing like the Halloween ones. They do not appear all at once, instead becoming part of the loft subtly and gradually, piece by piece, making Alec question his memory more often that he would like. Is this thing new or was it always here? Is this actually Christmas decoration or just a piece of decor? It’s confusing and annoying, but as long as they stay out of his room, he is going to be fine.
He surely hasn’t even notice the very first pieces, candles and themed table covers and so on. He only notices them later, when he starts to have a better grasp at this. First thing he notices is gigantic glittery wreath hanging on the outside of the door to the loft when he comes back from his shift a day after Thanksgiving.
Alec never liked Christmas. When he was a child, those huge family gatherings were a nightmare for his shy and quiet self, and the aunties’ questions about which girl in his preschool group did he fancy were confusing and terrifying. The anxiety didn’t fade as he entered his teens, but he learnt a few vague responses to questions about girls that seemed to satisfy his aunts.
Then, as he was almost eighteen, his father caught him kissing Raj when they were supposed to be working on a science project together in his room, and Alec’s whole life changed.
There were no more slightly invasive questions about girls. Next Christmas, all aunties brought their far removed nieces or their friends with them and made every effort to push them and Alec together.
It was the last Christmas he spent at home.
He made up excuses, he put himself out there and made friends to have some company. During the first year at the academy, he spent Christmas sitting alone in his dorm room, eating nothing but instant noodles and reading the entirety of Song of Ice and Fire. Christmas at home could never live up to it.
When he and Jace moved together, inviting Izzy and getting drunk on eggnog while making fun of Hallmark movies became tradition. It was way better than any other Christmas in his life, but somehow, by the end of the evening, he always ended up in his bed, falling down drunk and miserable spiral of self-hatred.
And Christmas was always a reminder of the upcoming new year’s even, and that’s whole nother can of worms.
So Alec hated Christmas. He shuddered at the sight of glittery window displays and complained to anyone in the vicinity when those cheesy Santa Clauses started populating the streets of New York, ringing their bells and pretending to laugh in the stupidest way possible. If he had his way, this week in December and everything connected to it would be wiped from the surface of the Earth.
And this year seemed to be the worst of them all. Jace not-so-subtly hinted at wanting to spent his first Christmas alone with Clary in their apartment, even if he extended courteous invitations to Alec. Izzy was invited by Maia to spent Christmas with her family in California and she was ecstatic about going. And while there was a standing invitation to come spend Christmas in his family home, Alec feels sick at mere thought of going there without his siblings’ support. Well, Max would be there as he is still living with their parents, but no matter how lovely he is, it’s not enough to make those tortures bearable. His parents would make sure he wasn’t spending too much time with him anyway.
So he is spending this Christmas in his room, probably eating way as much junk food as humanly possible and letting his Netflix queue drown out his miserableness.
He looks at every piece of tinsel as if it personally offended him and suffers in silence. Damn Hollywood for making people expect Christmas to be a magical time.
Of course Magnus is throwing a Christmas party. Alec does not know why is he actually surprised when Magnus first makes an off-hand comment about it two weeks into December. Parties are what Magnus does, after all. One would think Alec is well aware of that.
Alec just shrugs, says whatever and ducks into his room with a plateful of pizza rolls.
Another two weeks come and go and now it is The Evening, as Alec has been calling it in his head in the most disgusted tone possible.
He wakes up in the early afternoon, groggy after sleeping for too long. He knows he has to wants to have his room stocked up and locked up before guests start arriving, so he gets to work.
When he leaves his room, he realises the loft does not look like the last time Magnus has thrown a party. There is no dance area, no bar area unless he counts the ever-present mini bar by the sofa, no open buffet with fancy snacks.
Instead, a dining table has been set up with four place settings. There are more glasses and weird cutlery than Alec can count. He is no stranger to fancy dinners, god knows Lightwoods consider it a point of honour to make each big family dinner as annoyingly fancy as possible. The Christmas decor has reached its peak, with a glorious pine tree off to the corner, covered in unbelievable amounts of tinsel and trinkets, all red and gold, perfectly fitting with the colour scheme of the entire loft.
Magnus wants to impress his girlfriend, he guesses. And maybe her parents, too, given four plates.
He doesn’t want to consider it any more than that. He goes to the kitchen and tries to figure out which food is the best for stocking up his bedroom for the night.
He heard woman’s muffled laughter and it struck his heart. His mind supplied the image of that woman he was a month or so ago. He did no see here around again since then, but Magnus was probably just more careful about when he brought her in. Alec’s sulking is a great mood killer after all.
He is not jealous. He cannot be. There is nothing to be jealous about. Magnus can do whatever he pleases with his Christmas. It is not like he gives a shit about cozy Christmas dinners with loved ones, full of great food and making merry, Alec think as he bites into an orange segment.
He drifts off sometime after eight. He doesn’t dream.
When he wakes up, the loft is silent, eerily so.
He goes to fetch some water from kitchen when he spots a dark silhouette sitting in front of the fireplace alone. He walks up the the sofa. It’s Magnus, a glass of scotch in his hand, looking absently into the flames. His sweater is a stark contrast to the rest of him, red with an outrageous Christmas tree on it, complete with actual tinsel sowed to it. However, he doesn’t look festive. He looks overwhelmingly sad.
Alec can’t stop the words coming out of his mouth. “Magnus, are you okay?”
Magnus comes back from whatever daze he has been in with a shiver. He looks up at Alec, eyes bleary. Alec expects his answer to be cocky and along the lines of what do you care . Instead, he says quietly, “I’ve been wondering why you didn’t join us for dinner.”
Alec is so taken aback he can barely process what Magnus said. Several responses whoosh by in his brain. I was not invited. I ruined our relationship bad enough. I cannot handle seeing you happy with someone else.
“I didn’t want to ruin your first Christmas with your girlfriend,” he finally mutters. It is not the most diplomatic response, but he cannot force himself to keep it in.
Magnus frowns and blinks furiously. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” He takes a sip of his whiskey. “I don’t have a girlfriend, as far as I’m aware of. And I was really looking forward to you meeting Ragnor and Cat.”
Oh. He knows those names. Magnus used to talk about them a lot, back when they were still talking to each other. How they met during a college party when Magnus was blackout drunk and Catarina took care of him while Ragnor, whom she knew already, grumbled at Magnus’ irresponsibility, but still got him breakfast the next day. How they were inseparable ever since, even when their careers started making it harder and harder to find time and energy for anything more. Alec haven’t met them, but everything he heard from Magnus made him looking forward to the day when he does. “I assumed—”
“Well, you assumed wrong. Happens to the best of us, really.” His tone is bitter, and he pointedly looks away from Alec as he speaks.
It feels final. While he knows he should say something more, Alec turns away to go back to his bedroom. The anger and frustration buzz under his skin. He barely takes a few steps when Magnus speaks again.
“I don’t like it.” He pauses. “In fact, I fucking hate it.”
Alec stops and turns. Magnus has gotten up from the couch. He does not look drunk, but he looks broken. Small. Magnus Bane does not look small. He is all glitter and grandeur and dramatic gestures.
But before Alec’s emotions can take over and make him walk up to Magnus, embrace him and never let go, the bitter memories of the last two month come back.
“You don’t have to say it. You can say me - you hate me .” He spits it out before he can think better of it.
Magnus looks taken aback. “I don’t hate you. That’s the fucking problem, Alec. I hate that we never talked... I hate that I hate that my own home feels alien to me. ” He walks up to Alec in two long strides. Alec shivers at the closeness, but does not back down. “And I hate that I like you despite everything all that.”
“Magnus.” The breathless whisper is everything Alec can manage anymore. Magnus is right in front of him, eyes shining and flickering magically in light from the fireplace.
“I hate that I can’t stop liking you. I hate that I can’t stop thinking about that bloody night.”
“ Magnus .”
“And I know it’s stupid and it meant nothing, but I can’t seem to move on and it drives me crazy.”
Alec cannot listen to it anymore. He crowds into Magnus space in a blink. Magnus’ breath hitches and Alec can feel it on his face. It makes his head spin. “Shut up and let me kiss you already.”
When they crash together, the world stops. It is everything Alec has ever imagine it would be and more. He pulls Magnus closer and closer, until every inch of their body is pressed together. He drags his fingers down Magnus’ neck and back into the short hair on his nape. Their moans mingle together.
“I fucking like you, too,” Alec says when he pulls away for air.
Magnus’ lips are puffed and shining. He looks dazed. “Now you shut up and kiss me again.”
And who is Alec to say no to that.