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Alec arches against the back of the couch as Magnus pays particular attention to the length of his collar bone. It’s a dawning: realizing how many parts of the body could be sensual, could be so susceptible to touch.
Of course, he knew the obvious ones. But there was so much he didn’t know.
The things he didn’t know, the weight of expectation, were what was keeping him from being present in the moment, not like the last two times he’d been with Magnus where he let the sensations and the wants and the wonders of ‘now’ take over.
So even though Magnus’ affections are just as enjoyable as the nights before, Alec couldn’t manage to make himself fully indulge.
Magnus pulls back. Eyes squinting, he asks, “Alec… am I boring you?”
“Uhh…”
“Because I’m doing some very good work here, and I’m barely getting a reaction.”
“I’m not bored,” Alec says. Definitely not.
Magnus waits.
“I may be a little distracted.”
“Care to get it off your mind?”
Alec grits his teeth. No, but… “It’s just something Simon said.”
That damn vampire. Alec’s not sure why Clary and Izzy had recruited him along on their recon mission this afternoon. Yes, they were creeping around New York’s abandoned subway tunnels, so sunlight wasn’t an issue, but that sounded like a flimsy excuse when Izzy fed it to him.
But Alec put up with it. Clary’s as stubborn as hell, and she was right that they were down a man without Jace. Still painful. Clary’s eyes were sad when she said Jace’s name, and Alec felt that sadness reverberate between his ribs. Damn Clary too. That annoying girl was weaseling her way into his life, and he couldn’t find that hated it or her all that much anymore, or at all. Actually, she’s fitting under his umbrella of ‘must protect.’
“That’s…” Magnus wiggles his fingers. “Clary’s little friend?”
Alec nods.
After hours of traversing through rat-filled tunnels, with Simon making jokes about someone named Master Splinter and turtle ninjas, they did find an abandoned Forsaken nest, that held a lot less clues then they had hoped.
‘We can finish up here, Alec,’ Izzy had said. ‘You need to hurry so you can get cleaned up before your date with Magnus.’ She said that last part in teasing sing-song.
‘You’re going on a date with Magnus?’ Simon had asked, way too enthusiastic.’That’s on?’ Alec ignored him.
Izzy, though, living proudly and vicariously through her brother, was more than eager to share. ‘It’s on alright. This is their third date… in a week.”
‘Third date? That’s a big one. Congrats, buddy.’
Alec, unaware that third dates were supposedly special and now worried that he was supposed to do something special but also still consternated that Simon was here for seemingly no reason at all, glared at Simon and said, ‘What’re you talking about?’
Simon grin waned. ‘Third date rule?’
Alec remained expressionless. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s…’ Simon’s expression seemed to waver somehow between dread and humor. ‘Nothing. Forget I said anything.’
Dryly, Alec replied, ‘I always forget everything you say.’
‘Wow. Burn.’
Alec spared a glance to Izzy. She shrugged, just as confused as he was. Maybe it was a mundane thing?
Alec checked the time, and it was getting late, and he really needed a shower if she was going to see Magnus that evening. Part of him never wanted to leave a mission unfinished, but there really was nothing, and Magnus really did make him do things he would never consider before.
But what did the vampire mean about third dates?
‘Hey, Clary, can I talk to you for a second?’
Clary joins him a purposeful distance from where Simon and Izzy are sifting through some junk. They thought that these Forsaken were Valentine’s creations, and perhaps something here would lead to some idea of Valentine’s location or plans.
‘What did he mean by third date rule?’ Alec asked her, under his breath.
‘Oh,’ she chuckled once. Why was this so amusing to everyone? ‘It’s not a real rule,’ she says. ‘It’s just something people say.’ Alec waits, silent and unsatisfied. Clary sighs. ‘They say that…’ she shrugs, ‘that the third date is when you have sex.’
“What could he have possibly said?”
Alec would rather sink into a hole, but the way Magnus holds eye contact despite the way Alec keeps glancing to his lap and then somewhere past Magnus’ shoulder makes it clear this conversation is going to happen whether he likes it or not.
“He said something about… third dates.”
“Ah,” says Magnus. So, he knows. He knows.
Magnus gently combs Alec’s bangs back with his fingers. “Alexander, I have lived a long time and amongst many cultures, and courtship rituals are always changing.” He pauses, waiting for Alec to comment. Alec doesn’t.
“What I’ve found,” Magnus continues, “Is that the only rules that matter are the rules that two people,” he waves a hand between the two of them, “Make for themselves.”
This is a realization both settling and unsettling. Because as glad as Alec is that there are no concrete expectations he’s failing to live up to, Alec lives a life guided up other people’s rules. He’s unfamiliar with making his own.
“What kind of rules?” Alec asks.
“That’s the glory of it. Whatever we decide.”
This is the terrifying thing about Magnus; he is the universe wide open with opportunities.
“So…” Alec says.
“We never have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
“And when I am ready for…?”
“Just let me know.”
“... And what if I don’t know what I want?”
“That’s completely understandable.” Magnus leans in close to Alec’s ear. “I’ll be absolutely honored to help you figure it out.” He nips at Alec’s earlobe.
Alec startles, then stutters out: “Yes. That -- That’s in the rules. That’s allowed.”
Magnus runs his hands along Alec’s shoulders, and must feel that they’re still stiff across.
He sighs, draws back. “Something else, darling?”
“I’m fine, y’know, doing what we were doing...”
“That’s all well and good, but if there’s something bothering you, we should talk about it.”
Alec purses his lips.
Magnus sighs again as he uncurls his legs from the couch. “I’ll get us some drinks.”
Alec watches Magnus walk across the room, watches him work over the drink cart, watches him walk back with two scotch glasses, so at ease in his own body. Like he goes through existence knowing all the choreography. Alec is a trained fighter. He knows how to throw a punch and string an arrow, but he never felt quite right with the everything else in the every day.
Alec takes the offered glass, holds it between his knees, harboring no desire to drink. Magnus sips from his glass, holding it loosely between the pads of his fingers. Alec’s sure he’d drop his glass if he tried this.
“Are you happy with what we’re doing here?” Magnus asks when Alec fails to volunteer any words.
Alec looks to the left.
Long answer: Every moment he spends with Magnus -- ever since he had allowed himself to give in to his own yearning hope and kiss him that day at the wedding, ever since then, and even many times before then -- fills Alec with happiness. Beyond happiness -- elation? A happiness that he sucks in with every breath, that seeps into his very bones, that he carries with him even after the have parted. A happiness he didn’t know existed, and if it did exist, that he didn’t believe he’d be allowed in his rigid and dutiful life.
Was happiness even the right word? For the sense of contentment Alec feels with Magnus, where he doesn’t have to be the good son, the stoic leader, the Clave’s soldier. Where he’s just Alec -- Alexander -- who let his heart lead him over his head, who is doing something for himself, putting his own needs in front of service and tradition, who is fumbling his way through, unprepared and inexperienced.
And in all of this, there’s Magnus. The impetus and the end point. A planet to which Alec feels like an orbiting moon, or perhaps some lesser satellite.
He can’t just say this, because he doesn’t know how. Although Magnus sits now on the other end of the couch, patiently waiting for Alec, he is -- as he always is -- amazing, intense, and immense. And Alec is just Alec.
Magnus, a man known for his exquisite taste, had chosen Alec. Already, he has given Alec sweetness, reassurance, looks that made him sizzle from the inside out, looks that made him shiver like he was caught outside during a mid-autumn morning breeze, carefully placed touches that were all exciting but never intrusive, and most of all... patience.
What can Alec give him in return? Certainly not poetry. Not when he has all these feelings exploding inside him but he can’t utter even the simplest one without chocking on some phrase or the other. That left other options. He can date him properly in other ways. There’s sex and other iterations of physical affection, but in that area he’s just stumbling through the dark. If (former) mundanes like Simon knew how this was supposed to play out, Alec is really behind.
Short answer: Alec loves what they are doing, craves it, but he doubts what he has to offer in reciprocation.
So Alec counters, when he manages to make himself glance again at Magnus’ face, “Are you happy with what we’re doing?”
“Did I ever give any impression that I wasn’t?” Magnus says, head titled, giving one of his coy-smirks.
Alec inhales deeply. That should be enough of a reassurance.
“It doesn’t bother you…” Another breath, eyes to the ceiling.
“That we’re not having sex on the third date? Is that the question?”
Magnus is so good at filling in Alec’s gaps.
Another shortcoming.
“Because I’m not bothered in the least,” Magnus continues as Alec continues not to look directly at him. “I’m sure I’ve made it abundantly clear that I find you desirable and attractive, but that’s hardly the only thing I’m after, and certainly not the most important.”
Again, that perfect understanding should be enough, but it’s the perfection that made it so difficult. It’d be easier if Magnus demands something, lays down a rule, then Alec will have some kind of guide on how to proceed. Easier, maybe not better.
“This is really bothering you,” Magnus says.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t like not knowing what I’m doing.”
Magnus sets his scotch glass aside on an end table, eases Alec’s glass out of his hands, and sets it aside as well.
He grips Alec’s hands with his own. “Look at me,” he says.
Alec drags his eyes up from his knees.
“Tell me.”
It’s not the third date thing. Not exactly. That had just started him down the path of uncertainty. He tells Magnus this.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s just…” When Alec looks away, Magnus tugs his hand a little, and he looks back. “You’ve already done so much for me.”
Alec thinks back to the night Magnus had requested his presence at the loft, and they had shared strength to heal Luke. How after, when Magnus admitted to just wanting to see Alec again, how Alec had asked ‘Why?’ He wasn’t so stupid that he hadn’t recognized Magnus flirting with him up to that point. He knew that ‘why.’ But he didn’t know why him, why Alec, out of everyone in the world?
“I just don’t know what I can do for you.”
Magnus stares at him, hard, like making sure he had finally broke through to the truth.
“Alexander,” he says. “You’re already doing it.”
Alec’s eyebrows dip down. Confusion.
Magnus’ runs his thumbs over Alec’s knuckles, their hands still locked together. “The fact that you’re sparing a bit of your time, a bit of your heart, for me… That’s all I ever wanted.”
“That’s enough?”
“My darling, those are the most valuable things any of us has.”
Oh.
That is to say, in other words, that Alec, as he is, is enough.
The words he had shot out to is father not so long ago ring back in his mind, ‘You drilled into me that I was never good enough.’
Here is Magnus, saying the exact opposite.
“Thank you,” Alec says, although it doesn’t make sense outside of where his mind has grinded itself to.
Magnus smiles at him regardless.
Over their still-held hands, they share a short kiss, chaster than most, sweet, and so comfortably familiar and domestic it seems like a landmark.
“I know I can be a bit forward,” Magnus says. “But I hoped it came across that I’m interested in the entire package, so to speak.” He looks away now, down, seems to wilt with a blink. “Or perhaps my reputation proceeds me so much that it’s clouded matters.”
“It’s not that,” Alec says quickly. “It’s not you.” Here’s something he can give in return; he can reassure as Magnus had endless reassured him. “It’s not like that at all.”
Magnus gives a chagrinned kind of shrug.
Alec says, “Even if I had heard something about you --” He had. “I wouldn’t listen. I don’t want to learn about you from anyone else. I want to learn about you from you.”
Magnus lifts Alec’s hand to his mouth, presses his lips to the knuckles. “You’re sweet,” he says.
“I’m serious.” He needs Magnus to know. “Even though I don’t know what I’m doing… I want to try.” Alec wants to make Magnus feel as good as Magnus makes him feel.
“I can’t promise I’ll be good at it,” he goes on. “I don’t know how to date someone. I don’t know how to…” have sex. “Be intimidate.” Magnus raises his eyebrows, teasing, at Alec’s phrasing. “I don’t know how to be someone’s boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?”
Alec’s eyes go wide. He had internalized those comments Izzy and Clary had made about his relationship with Magnus, and now he had just blurted it out without actually making sure he and Magnus were on the same page.
“I like the sound of that,” Magnus says, cutting Alec’s panic short.
“Yeah?”
“If you do.”
“I do.”
Magnus grips the collar of Alec’s shirt. “Then come here and kiss me, boyfriend.” Magnus pulls Alec in. Alec goes.
Alec thinks he’s getting better at this kissing thing. He knows that practice is the best way to develop any skill, and Magnus sure has been giving plenty opportunity.
Magnus hasn’t released his shirt. He keeps pulling Alec closer and closer even though there is no closer to be had. It’s when Alec has to reach out an arm to brace himself that he catches up with Magnus’ intent. He had been pulling Alec’s above him as he laid back on the couch.
Now Alec holds himself up, just hovering over Magnus’ body, not sure how to work with this new configuration.
“Darling,” Magnus says, “I may not be over six feet tall, like you, but neither am I easily breakable.”
Alec slowly eases himself down, bracing himself now with just an elbow on the couch cushion, until he’s hovering over Magnus at a much closer, kissable range.
Magnus waits. Doesn’t surge up to connect their lips or tease-flirt anything. Here’s another layer of Magnus’ intent. He has put Alec in the position of control.
What to do with it?
Alec lays his lips lightly against Magnus’, barely pressing. He feels Magnus’ mouth shift open. Alec takes this a an opportunity to pay attention to his bottom lip.
When Alec pulls back, Magnus sighs, quiet but very content.
Alec had done that.
He presses a kiss to the corner of Magnus’ mouth, to his chin, his cheek, down the entire length of his jaw, anywhere he can reach. He wants Magnus to know -- wants to spell it into his skin -- how much Alec feels.
Magnus hums, pleased with Alec’s ministrations. Alec feels it deep in his chest. This is something else new about this arrangement. Alec had had Magnus on top of him, and cuddled against him, before; he thought he knew what it was to have Magnus’ body pressed up against him own. But with gravity playing a role, all the sensations amplified: Every shift, every arch, every moan, every breath, all those subtle shifts of Magnus’ body.
Alec is getting unbearably turned on. Soon, ducks his forehead against Magnus’ neck, trying to calm down. Magnus scratches his fingers through Alec’s hair, seeming just as breathless as Alec.
Had Alec struck Magnus wordless, for this one time?
…
“It’s okay to be scared,” Magnus says some time later, when they’re huddle-cuddled on the small width of the couch. He walks his fingers up Alec’s arm. “First times are scary… even for me.”
Alec had once challenged Magnus on what he risked in this romantic pursuit, but he understands it now. To open your heart, inherently, is a risk. And for Magnus, who’s guaranteed to lose everyone to time, it’s the biggest risk -- that the good now will outbalance the hurt later.
Alec catches Magnus’ hand, interlaces their fingers with a little fumbling, and settles their held hands between their chests near their hearts, and hopes this says enough: he’ll risk it too.