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“Hello?” Alex gruffly answered her cell phone, it was 1 am, she’d fallen asleep early only to be awoken by the asshole on the other side of the phone.
“Hi, Alex.” Magnus’s voice came through the speaker “Did I wake you?” he fretted.
“It’s fine.” She sat up in her bed, she hadn’t heard from him in nearly a week, sue her for being excited to talk to him. “What time is it by you?”
“10 pm,” Magnus responded, voice becoming muffled for a moment as he checked the time on his phone. “What’s it by you?”
Alex bit her lip, Magnus knew she had a tendency to stay up late but would he reschedule the call if she told him how late it was? “It’s earlier than that.” Not technically a lie.
She could practically hear Magnus role his eyes, “I did the math. It’s 1 am by you, why did you answer the phone? You need sleep!”
I also need to talk to you, she thought but she would never say that. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll sleep later. Have things settled down by you?”
Magnus sighed but thankfully didn’t hang up. “A little, I haven't finished unpacking but classes have already started and I’m exhausted.”
“And you’re telling me to sleep, hypocrite.” Alex smiled smugly.
“I have to get myself used to the time difference. You have no excuse,” he retorted.
Alex could hear a crack of thunder from Magnus’s side of the line and immediately understood why he hadn’t hung up when he realized the time by her, and the real reason he was awake now.
“How are things by you?” she asked trying to sound nonchalant but hoping he would get the message that even though they were miles and miles apart she was still there for him.
“I’m better now,” he breathed into the phone happily and Alex felt herself flush.
“You’re a dork.”
She could easily picture his smile.
“Oh, that reminds me!” Magnus started excitedly. “I was going through my photos on the plane and a found a great one of you that I forgot about.”
“Oh?” She was curious, “send immediately.”
“Doing that, also you’re on speaker now but no one else is here,” Magnus said and soon her phone let out a ding alerting her that the picture sent.
“You’re on speaker now too,” she said before opening the photo. “Oh my gods Magnus delete that right now!” she jokingly screamed upon seeing the photo of herself. It had been taken while she was having a male day, Alex was looking down with a clear double chin, eyes small and squinty. His tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth in concentration as he worked on a pottery piece.
“Nope,” Magnus said popping the ‘p’.
“When did you even take that?” Alex complained.
“I came over for a movie, you thought I dozed off,” he explained.
“Ugh, you’re the worst.” Alex pouted “two can play at this game.”
“Prove it,” Magnus taunted.
Alex knew he was making that same challenging expression he always made that she would have kissed off his stupid face had he been with her but he was not, he was what felt like to her, an infinity away. “Finding the best picture, one second.”
“The best? How many do you have!”
“A lot,” she responded smugly before settling on a photo of him sleeping. His hair was a rats nest and he had some drool dripping from the corner of his mouth, nose scrunched as if he was having a very unpleasant thought in his dream.
She sent it and was quickly rewarded with the expected response “Noooo,” Magnus groaned “it’s so bad.”
“Don’t worry there are more,” Alex teased and sent her second choice of bad picture.
This one from when they'd gone to get Slurpees and Magnus had sipped his too fast, resulting in a brain freeze. As a reaction he sunk his face back, giving himself a million chins and his face scrunched in discomfort. Alex had been lucky to have had her phone camera open to capture the moment.
Magnus snorted and burst out laughing, “that’s the worst picture ever, oh no!” after getting over the little fit of mirth, “wait, wait I have more of you!”
Soon enough she had 3 new images sent to her, they were a series of her mid-sneeze. In the first, her head was tilted back nostrils flared wide her eyes were half closed and her mouth looked like it had unhinged from how wide it was open.
She cringed and swiped to see the second photo. Her face was scrunched and her shoulders were raised - obviously, this had been a full body sneeze. The picture wasn’t so bad which made her more concerned for the last one. Especially because Magnus's laughing fit had gotten worse as he obviously looked them over.
In the last picture, her face was tilted down as she finished the sneeze, her head had sunk into her neck and her shoulders were raised nearly reaching her ears. She wasn't showing off any extra chins but the pose looked so unnatural it was bad enough without them. Then her facial extra oh gods!
Her lips were parted as she spit with the sneeze, it looked like they were being pulled from her face with a string, and little drops of spittle could just be made out. Her eyes were squeezed so tightly shut it looked as if they had been pushed back into her face behind her cheeks. He nose jutted out nostrils flared as air was expelled from them.
“That looks like the most uncomfortable sneeze, I look so gross,” Alex whined, a joking lilt to her voice so Magnus could tell she wasn’t upset that he had those photos saved.
“Yes, yes you do,” he agreed with a laugh.
“I’m not gonna let you win that easy!” Alex scrolled through her photos -she had a folder dedicated to bad pictures of Magnus. “Aha!” she exclaimed and sent what she knew was the ultimate bad picture.
Magnus had the classic multiple chins, but unlike the usual scrunched features, Halfborn had been blowing a heavy duty fan at him, so all of Magnus's facial features were being blown back. One eye was shut tight, the other half-lidded, fighting to stay open. His cheeks were practically inverted from the force of the air and spread far out and back. His teeth were bared as his lips were also being pushed back showing off his gums. Blonde locks of hair flying wildly everywhere.
“I remember that!” Magnus burst out laughing as soon as he opened the image “Okay you win Alex.” he conceded giggles still escaping.
“Of course I do,” she responded over dramatically haughty, she raised her nose into the air even though he couldn’t see.
“How is Halfborn and everyone else?” he asked as his laughter subsided, quickly moving the conversation along from his loss at the bad picture war.
“I haven't really had time to talk to anyone the semester just started and yet I’m already loaded with assignments,” Alex complained, flopping back onto her bed, allowing the conversation shift. “I think the same goes for Mallory and T.J, though I still hear Halfborn and Mal hooking up from down the hall so those two must not be too busy.”
Magnus snorted “sounds like things haven't changed from last semester then.”
“If you exclude the fact that you decided to study abroad this semester, sure.” Alex hoped she didn’t sound too whiny over the phone.
“I’m no exactly abroad just a few states over,” he clarified.
“Whatever,” Alex rolled her eyes “I don’t understand your program. All I know is you’re not here and the dorm is different without you.”
“Are you saying you miss me?”
Alex could easily imagine how flustered Magnus must look right now just by the slight crackle in his voice as he asked that question.
“So what if I do?” she responded blase, loving the reaction it got from the blonde on the other end.
“I-I miss you too.” he managed to sputter out at last “it’s only a few months.”
“I know, I know,” Alex sighed, she would never admit it but she had begun counting down the days to his return pretty much the moment he left. A large sparkly sign with NERD lovingly written across it already in the making for when she picked him up from the airport.
“I want to hear how things have been, but I also don’t want to keep you up too late,” Magnus said after a brief pause. The storm having long since quieted.
“It's not like I ever really go to sleep at a normal time anyway,” she huffed and would have continued the argument had a yawn not completely betrayed her at that moment.
“You should really sleep,” Magnus advised.
“You’re not a doctor.” Alex stuck out her tongue even though he couldn't see.
“Yet,” he responded easily.
“Whatever Mr. Sunshine.” she held back another yawn.
“That’s a new one,” Magnus chuckled, used to her arsenal of nicknames. “I’ll call you tomorrow at a normal time for both of us, Okay?”
Alex pouted but knew he would just hang up if she continued to argue. Might as well get something out of it, “I agree on one condition.” she stated.
“What’s the condition?”
“Tell me where you left your hoodies.” she grinned once again imagining how red she must have been making his face.
“I didn’t leave many.”
“I still have a key to your room, tell me where the ones you did leave are. Or I won’t pick up the phone tomorrow if you call.” honestly she probably still would have picked up, but he didn't have to know that.
“There should be some left in the top left drawer in the cubby in my closet,” he said at last.
“Great goodnight, talk to you tomorrow!”
“Goodnight!” he quickly got in before Alex hung up.
She looked at the black screen longingly for a moment but knew Magnus would make good on his promise to call tomorrow. So instead of wallow and be sad that he wasn’t there she got up and made her way to his room. She easily located his sweaters and slipped one on, and hey once she was there might as well just sleep in his bed too. She would never admit it to anyone, but she really couldn’t wait for him to come back.
Alex settled into Magnus’s bed and found one of the bad pictures of him she’d sent and set it as her phone background. She fell asleep soon after, as usual, the stupid blonde sunshine boy crowding her brain as she slept in his empty room.