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Magnus sometimes found the gazes of strangers unnerving.
Normally, he could ignore it — the heat in their eyes, the appreciation, the attraction, all reminders of the way he was broken. Normally, he could forget about all the ways in which he didn’t measure up. Normally, he even liked the attention he garnered, basked in the admiring glances — and pretended that he understood their admiration as well as they did. He looked good, he liked looking good; glitter or dark makeup or bright colours, gold or red or blue, pulsing club lights or sunshine or darkness, Magnus loved the power it gave him. The thrill of knowing that people looked at him with want and admiration, the intensity of their gazes. It was a sort of quiet power, not blatant, not controlling, but thrilling all the same.
Sometimes, though, it made him want to crawl out of his skin. Sometimes he couldn’t ignore the heat when they looked at him — men or women or neither or both, their gazes full of an intent that Magnus simply couldn’t match. Sometimes it served as a vicious reminder that he wasn’t whole, wasn’t normal, couldn’t ever measure up to their expectations.
Magnus learned to imitate them — to fake a heat that he’d seen so often but never felt; to let his eyes trail appreciatively up and down, though his real admiration was more aesthetic than sexual; to make puns, and dirty jokes, so he could pretend he thought about that kind of thing. To hide the absence where attraction should be. He was good at it; nobody ever suspected a thing, not if he didn’t tell them, and he tried not to let that knowledge sneak inside his walls and send him spiralling.
With his partners… Occasionally, he’d tried to hide it — he didn’t mind having sex, liked it even, so why did it matter that he wasn’t attracted to them in the same way they were to him? But those relationships seemed to fall apart anyway, crumbling under the pressure of Magnus’ secrets, his past, his future. More often, he’d explain it to them as best he could, and watch as they either left right away or left a little later, once they’d had time to realise how badly Magnus failed to meet their expectations. Their gaze would change: instead of the attraction that’d been there at first, instead even of love, they’d look wary. Distrustful. Angry. Sometimes it took more time, sometimes less, but it was an inevitable march away from love. Away from Magnus.
(That wasn’t the only reason they left, of course. Sometimes they never got to that point, the relationship dying out by circumstance or by other problems before that particular failing of Magnus’ even came up; sometimes it was buried in a host of other issues against which no relationship could stand.
Sometimes — rarely — they would even stay. Magnus had learned that eventually, with a deep enough emotional connection, he would feel that surge of attraction, like a door opening into a new room. When that happened, usually he’d be able to convince them to stay — after all, he could reciprocate their attraction now. It all fell apart eventually, even then; Magnus had learnt from long, hard experience that he wasn’t really fit for long-term relationships. Mortality always hovered like the sword of Damocles over their heads, with everyone except Camille.
Camille had been a whole other disaster. She’d stayed, even when she’d learnt of Magnus’ failings, but there’d been a heavy price to pay, exacted from all that made Magnus who he was. She’d told Magnus that she was the only one who could ever love him, the only one who could put up with him, the only one who could ignore his faults long enough to love him. She’d left deeper scars than anyone else — ironic, perhaps, that the one who’d stayed the longest had in the end been the worst. Because eventually, like with everyone else, the love in Magnus’ heart had stopped being enough, and though he’d been the one to leave her, he’d left a piece of himself behind.
So it didn’t matter what happened, how hard Magnus tried, how much he loved. They always, always, left.)
After — after one of them had left him, again; after he’d cried his heart out; after he’d grieved yet another love for which he hadn’t been enough — he’d try to drown the heartbreak in other things. Sometimes in alcohol, though Cat always hated it when he did that and it left him feeling worse than before; often in people, allowing their scorching gaze to consume him as though it was something he felt, too. He wanted them to rub away whatever look his last lover had left him with; he wanted the heat to reach up and consume him, to make him enough.
The way people looked at him never helped with that. Their gazes were always more focused on attraction, on sex, than on Magnus himself; in the end, he always felt emptier than before. Colder. Always outside of that heat.
Alec, on the other hand — Alec was different. Yes, Alec’s eyes would darken with desire sometimes, but beneath it all was love, affection, admiration. Warmth, not heat. Alec never burned. Never — no matter the circumstances — did Alec’s gaze hold that unsettling attraction and nothing else.
When they’d first met: no love in Alec’s eyes, not yet, but an interest that wasn’t based solely on attraction Magnus couldn’t feel. Magnus knew well that if Alec had tried to take him to bed on the night they’d healed Luke, Magnus would have agreed — would have been completely fine with nothing more than that. But instead, Alec had smiled at him and talked to him, admiration and appreciation ever-present but not everything.
When they made love: attraction, of course attraction, but softened into something far sweeter by the love in Alec’s eyes. And not an attraction that demanded to be returned, that asked for all that Magnus couldn’t give — instead, warmth that wrapped Magnus up and somehow didn’t leave him cold in comparison.
When Magnus told him about it, confessed that he’d never be able to look at Alec the way that somebody else would: acceptance, and a refusal to let Magnus think himself lesser, all wrapped up in that never-ending affection. No mistrust; no anger; no hint that this would break them apart. Only a faint shadow of worry for Magnus’ well-being and a soul-deep gaze of love. There was still, of course, the possibility that he’d eventually go running — but somehow, that possibility seemed far smaller than it should have.
Always: love. Love deeper than anything Magnus had ever seen directed at him, love that he knew he didn’t deserve but couldn’t help clinging to anyway — love that believed Magnus did deserve it, believed it so strongly that Magnus found himself believing, too. How could he not, when Alec looked at him like that?
And then, later, when Magnus felt that hidden door swing open and the attraction that he’d felt barely a handful of times before came rushing in, it didn’t change anything. Alec didn’t prefer Magnus one way or another; he only loved him, with a single-minded devotion that was unparalleled in all of Magnus’ centuries. He said that he didn’t mind whether Magnus was attracted to him or not, and perhaps most surprisingly of all, Magnus believed him.
Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter anymore when a stranger looked at him with that heated attraction that Magnus couldn’t match — because when Alec looked at him, he knew he was enough. Nothing mattered but the ever-present love in Alec’s gaze.