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It’s not that Alec is ashamed about it, no matter what everyone else seems to think, and it’s certainly not that he’s afraid. His first kiss with a man--his first real kiss with anyone, for that matter--happened in public, in front of possibly the most hostile audience ever, and it’s still one of the sweetest memories of his life. The revelation of it, the feel of Magnus’s mouth against his, the way his breath caught in his throat and the smell of his cologne and the sturdy warmth of his body under his tailored jacket, all of the things that made the shocked whispers of the crowd fade to silence in his ears. He’s never regretted anything about that kiss save one, and that was the fact that it was their first.
He wishes that he’d kissed Magnus for the first time that night at the loft, dazed with exhaustion over a dizzying array of cocktails, easing closer and closer on the couch, mesmerized by the flicker of Magnus’s hands, his rings glinting in the dim light, the smear of glitter across his cheeks and his soft lips. By the way every shift of their bodies seemed to bring them closer, until it would have been the easiest thing in the world to reach out and touch him.
He wonders sometimes how their worlds might have pivoted if he had. With the benefit of hindsight, he knows that despite all his outrageous flirting Magnus was being almost desperately careful with him, but at the time he had seemed otherworldly, electric, both magnetic and untouchable.
That would have been a different kind of kiss, there in the privacy of Magnus’s home. He knows Magnus better now than to think that he’d have let it get too out of hand, as thrilling as the idea was at the time. The dizzying half-formed fantasy of letting Magnus touch him and kiss him and press him back into the couch and will his clothes away with a thought--that wouldn’t have happened, probably, but even so it would have been a different kind of kiss. It would have been about them, and not at least partly about Alec telling his parents and the Clave to go to hell in the most pointed way possible.
Anyway.
It’s not that he has an issue with public displays of affection, no matter how Magnus likes to tease him about it. It’s more that holding himself back is a habit so ingrained that it outlasts the reasons for its existence. He doesn’t flinch away from Magnus’s hands anymore when they’re walking through the halls of the Institute or the streets of New York or Paris or Tokyo, but neither does he seek out their touch. He saves nearly all of his deliberate touches for when they’re alone, or at least in the company of people he’s comfortable with. For the rest of it, he usually lets Magnus take the lead.
It’s an ordinary day the first time that changes, a lazy morning at the coffee-shop down the street from Magnus’s loft. Magnus is telling a rambling story about Catarina and some snake-oil salesman in 1920’s New Orleans and Alec is only half-listening, mostly just taking the opportunity to drink in the sight of Magnus smiling and talking with his hands in the a pool of sunlight streaming in through the windows. The cadence of his voice is warm and familiar, and the shop is full of sleepy-eyed early-morning commuters and the smell of good coffee, and Alec only becomes aware that he’s smiling dopily at Magnus when the latter pauses mid-sentence, gives him a look caught between exasperated and fond, and says, “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”
“Of course I have,” Alec lies cheerfully. Magnus pushes his lower lip out in a pout that’s simultaneously ridiculous and adorable, especially on a 400-year-old warlock who’s dressed like a steampunk runway model. Alec wants to kiss it off his face, and it suddenly occurs to him that, actually, he can do exactly that.
It’s a gentle kind of revelation this time. He leans across the table, catches Magnus’s cheek in his palm, and presses a soft, lingering kiss to his mouth. There are plenty of people around to see, but he hears no shocked whispers this time. He doesn’t know if anyone is paying attention to them at all, and more to the point, he doesn’t care.
“Don’t think you’re going to get out of this that easily,” Magnus murmurs when they finally pull apart, but he looks both startled and pleased, almost embarrassingly so. “That’s cheating.”
“Oh, is it?” Alec asks. He can’t keep the smile off his face; there’s something giddy and light expanding inside him, and he kisses Magnus again, just for good measure.