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Alec groaned, opening his eyes and blinking in the blinding sunshine, His head was pounding, tiny hammers slamming into his brain. Not to mention that his mouth tasted like a gross combination of sand and vomit. This was why he avoided parties. But no, Isabelle and Jace thought it would be so much fun to go to Vegas for the weekend. The last memory that Alec had was being abandoned by both of them within seconds of checking into the hotel.
And now here he was, lying in a bed, god knows where, with a person sleeping on his chest.
A person.
There was a living, breathing—or at least he hoped they were still alive and breathing—person sleeping on him. And Alec was 99.9% sure he was entirely naked. Alexander Lightwood did not pick up strangers, that was his siblings’ job.
This meant that Alec was more than a little alarmed. Panicking, he tried to move, but the person living on Alec only clutched him closer. After a few attempts, Alec was ready to give up.
But then the person woke up.
“Who the hell are you?” The person’s voice was lovely—that much Alec was willing to admit—there was a soft melodic quality to it that Alec found himself enjoying. There was only one enormous problem with this voice. It was male.
“Holy shit!” Alec yelled, throwing himself away from the person and hoping his voice wasn’t as high as it sounded. With a somewhat ungraceful tumble off of the bed, Alec sat up and looked up at the person - his person.
“Hello?” The man was gorgeous. Irritatingly so. He had black hair that fell limp into green eyes. They were almost yellow and bright enough to glow in the dark. His soft caramel skin was flawless, and watching it dip and disappear where his navel met the sheets was enough to make Alec gulp. “Are you alright?” He sounded almost amused. There was a slight accent to his voice, but it wasn’t anything that Alec could name.
“Yeah.” Alec said quickly, scanning the room in hope of finding something he could wear, the sheet he’d half ripped off the bed in his descent was doing little to hide his modesty and the stranger was doing nothing to keep his eyes from roaming over Alec.
“What’s your name then?” The stranger took his eyes off Alec, choosing instead to look around the room. He seemed to find something that interested him, leaning off the bed to grab it. Alec couldn’t see what it was, but decided to use this moment to continue his search for clothes.
“Alec.”
There was a heartbeat of silence. “Short for Alexander?”
“Yeah? Does it matter?”
“I’m Magnus,” the stranger sighed. “And if you look at this, well then it just might.” Alec looked over at Magnus. He’d at least managed to locate his boxers, but he felt a little odd crawling over to a naked stranger. God, the whole thing felt like a bad movie. Magnus must have sense his worry because he snorted. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.” His eyes glanced down at Alec’s torso and a little pink dusted his cheeks. Alec glanced down and noticed the glaring marks that had been sucked into his skin. “Okay,” Magnus said slowly, “maybe I do. But this is more important than that.”
Alec sighed and shuffled his way over, trying to avoid touching Magnus at any cost. He plucked the piece of paper out of Magnus’ hands and stared at it. It took him all of two seconds to figure out what it was.
“Is this legit?”
“I’m going to say yes?”
“We’re married,” Alec said, his voice sounding completely hollow to his own ears. “We got fucking married.”
“It looks like it.” Magnus mused, looking at the certificate over Alec’s shoulder.
Magnus didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by any of this news, as though he frequently woke up on a Tuesday married to someone he didn’t know. This bothered Alec more than he was willing to admit. It was one thing to be married to someone on a whim, but it didn’t exactly feel nice to think that he was just someone in a long line. Irritated and beginning to panic, Alec stood up and started to pace the room, Magnus watching him the whole while.
“I can’t believe we got married.”
“Neither can I,” Magnus said, picking the certificate up from where Alec had dropped it. “Also, I can’t believe your last name is Alexander Lightwood and you haven’t even slightly considered going into porn. I mean, you’d barely have to change your name and you’ve already got the ass for it—What?” Magnus looked innocently from where Alec had stopped his pacing to glower at him. “Darling,” he said with a sigh, “we’re married. I have, like, legal rights to admire your fine behind.”
“I can’t believe we got married,” Alec repeated, pretending he hadn’t heard a word that had tumbled out of Magnus’ mouth. “We’re going to have to get divorced.”
“We could,” Magnus nodded, “but it would still show up on our permanent record—“
“I’m not sure I’m okay with that.”
“I thought so. We could try annulling it? It will be like the marriage didn’t exist, but we’d have to qualify.” Magnus shuffled around for a moment. “Let me google it and see—jesus, the service is bad.” He held his phone up higher, Alec wanted to snap at him and tell him that the service wasn’t any better a foot above his head, but bit his tongue and reminded himself it was the headache talking.
“We’ll just have to annul it then.” Alec said frantically, running his fingers through his hair. Magnus frowned and continued to fiddle with his phone, his brow furrowed. There was a moment of silence before Magnus spoke again.
“Uh, not sure we can?” He peaked at Alec bashfully. “I don’t think we qualify for annulment darling.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“No you’re not, you’re very much not.”
“I’m fucking calm Magnus, tell me what you mean.”
“Oh look, our first fight.” Magnus grinned at him and Alec scowled back. Magnus sighed and continued. “We might not qualify. Are you married to someone else? Are we secretly related? Are you secretly twelve?”
“No, no, and no.”
“See, we can’t qualify. We have nothing that verifies our annulment.”
“Let me see that.” Alec took the phone from Magnus, ignoring his slight sound of protest, and read through the page. “What if we haven’t consummated the marriage?”
“My ass would argue otherwise,” Magnus grumbled and Alec gaped at him. “You’re the one that pitched, honey.” He shrugged and Alec sunk to the floor, leaning on one wall, not a foot from the side of the bed.
“Holy fuck.” Alec said, putting his head in his hands and groaning. “My siblings are probably looking for me and I’m going to die. I’m seriously going to die. This is not okay.”
“Alexander, calm down. This is Vegas, it happens. Just tell your siblings that there’s been an issue, we’ll sort it out and then you never have to see me again.” Magnus sounded almost hurt as he said this. Alec felt marginally bad, because he didn’t mean that Magnus wasn’t okay, it was a little more complicated than that.
Alec was silent. Magnus stared at him. “I haven’t exactly—“ Alec stopped, licking his lips and giving Magnus an almost embarrassed, nervous smile. “I haven’t exactly told my siblings I’m gay.”
Magnus blinked. Once, then twice. Then he started to giggle.
It was hands down, the most adorable thing that Alec had ever heard. Given the choice, Alec would have bottled the sound and sold it to anyone who needed cheering up because it was too cute. There was no possible way a sound that adorable could come out of someone that hot. It just didn’t seem possible.
“Well,” Magnus said, clearing his throat and calming his giggles long enough to pull a straight face, “this is one hell of a way to tell them.”
“Oh god.” Alec groaned.
Magnus shuffled over on the bed, still choking back giggles. He lay flat out on his stomach and put his head in his hands to look at Alec. Up close, Alec could see flecks of glitter in his hair and smudges of eyeliner left on his eyes.
“You have really lovely eyes,” Magnus said softly, giving Alec a smile that reminded him of lazy Sunday mornings. It was the kind of smile that made Alec feel like they were married because they wanted to be. It was the kind of smile that made Alec want to wake up next to Magnus more often.
“What?” Alec mumbled, too busy staring at Magnus’ mouth to get his brain in order and process the compliment.
“I think you’re lovely,” Magnus was grinning now. He’d moved closer now and Alec could feel Magnus’ breath warm along his cheek. Alec wasn’t even aware he was moving closer to Magnus himself until their noses bumped slightly.
Alec’s eyelids fluttered close and their lips met. Alec had been kissed before. Alec had had girlfriends before and secret boyfriends and secret not-quite-boyfriends. But god, kissing Magnus was completely different. Magnus’ lips were soft and warm—they tasted the tiniest bit like strawberry lipgloss, which Alec didn’t think he should like, but he did. Magnus separated their lips for a moment to kiss up the side of Alec’s neck. Alec let his head fall back with a groan.
He could feel Magnus smile against his skin, Magnus’ arms curling around Alec’s shoulders and pulling the both of them onto the bed so that Alec was straddling Magnus’ hips. Their lips met again as Alec let one hand cup the back of Magnus’ neck. His hair was just long enough to tickle the back of Alec’s hand. Alec let Magnus’ tongue slip between his lips, a low moan passing between both of them.
Kissing Magnus was terrifyingly easy. They slotted together like long lost puzzle pieces, Alec’s thumb fitting perfectly in the hollow of Magnus’ hip, Magnus’ hand the perfect size to cup Alec’s cheek. There was no awkward moments, no little mistakes. It was like a perfectly rehearsed dance, something they’d done a thousand times before. It was the most comfortable Alec thought he’d ever been with anyone and at the same time, Magnus’ tongue ran along the edge of Alec’s jaw and lit him on fire.
It was only when Magnus’ hands skirted down to toy with the waistband of Alec’s boxers that their situation seemed to come back to Alec, jolting back into him like he’d been shocked.
He leapt away from Magnus, who was even more beautiful with kiss swollen lips. Magnus was still naked, the sheets somehow still coiled around him perfectly. Alec could see a sliver of Magnus’ hips, where Alec had pushed away the sheets himself to run his fingers along the smooth skin around to his back. It made him gulp and he looked away quickly.
“I’m not going to sit around and do stuff when we need to figure out how to get unmarried.”
“‘Do stuff’?” Magnus seemed almost perversely amused. “Alec, we had sex, we fucked. However you want to put it, this doesn’t seem to be new ground for us. I would actually be decently concerned about STDs and other things if there wasn’t a used condom next to our marriage license.”
“It feels new to me.”
Magnus looked almost pitying and Alec ignored him to get dressed.
“Darling—“
“Don’t call me that.”
Alec could feel the frustration burning in the pit of his stomach. He’d let his control get away so easily. Magnus had batted his eyelashes at him and Alec had melted, he’d let Magnus kiss him and run his fingers over his skin. Magnus had sucked marks into Alec’s skin, like he was claiming ownership of Alec, like he owned him.
“It’s not a big deal,” Magnus waved his arms around a little, his sheet threatening to slip and Alec’s face threatening to grow redder. “People have one night stands all the time. Sure, it can seem more colossal—“
“I’ve never had one,” Alec blurted, feeling like he needed to get that out somehow. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I’m your first one night stand? Honey, I’m flattered.”
“You might do this often,” Alec said sharply, getting up and moving away, carefully avoiding looking at Magnus, “but I don’t.”
Magnus’ brow scrunched. He didn’t look troubled as much as he did annoyed. Alec would have felt bad, but he was too busy feeling ashamed of what he’d done—what they’d done.
“I don’t do this often.” Magnus’ voice was so quiet that Alec nearly missed it. There was a kind of raw disappointment there that did make Alec feel bad.
Alec ignored him. He found his shirt, thrown over the back of the TV. He assumed the purple shirt next to it was Magnus’ and he tossed that in the general direction of the bed.
“I wish you would stop acting like I’m a common whore,” Magnus snapped, “I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s your fault just as much as mine. We’ll be fine if we just work together.”
“I—“ The words got caught in Alec’s throat and he cleared it, mumbling something about the bathroom and fleeing the room. The bathroom was tiny, just enough room for a classic hotel bath and shower combo and a counter. The toilet was practically crammed under the counter itself. He caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror and visibly flinched. He looked, well, like he’d spent the night with Magnus. His hair was mussed and a few of the marks Magnus had left were visible, peaking over the top of his collar. There were flecks of glitter on his arms and a few in his hair.
It wasn’t that Alec didn’t know he was gay, he’d known that for ages. It was the fact that he could never say the words aloud, he could never consciously imagine being with another man and never worrying about the consequences. But damn, did Magnus make it easy to forget.
There was a soft knock on the door.
“Alec?” Magnus sounded almost embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know if I kind of tested the limits or something. I have a tendency to kind of mess with people and I shouldn’t have done it about something that’s so serious.”
Alec wanted to cry. Of all the people he had to wake up married to, it had to be the one who he didn’t completely want to divorce. “It’s okay,” he said softly, opening the door and letting Magnus wander in. Magnus had, at some point, found some boxers, but that didn’t keep Alec from blushing a little.
“I really am sorry,” Magnus frowned. “I don’t know, the whole thing seemed kind of funny to me and kind of light, it didn’t really click for me that this is a lot more serious for you.”
“I’m sorry for treating you like, you know—“
“Like a whore?”
“Please stop saying that referring to yourself. I think you’re beautiful—“ Alec couldn’t help the words from slipping out of his mouth. Magnus was almost gaping at him, eyes like honey, tinged yellow by the terrible hotel lights. He was leaning against the doorframe and Alec wasn’t lying when he said that he thought Magnus was beautiful. It was almost unearthly.
“Can I kiss you?”
“What?” Alec blinked at him.
“You’re going to need to stop being sweet to me if you don’t want me to kiss you.”
Alec just blushed and shook his head. “We need to get dressed and figure out this whole thing.”
“I could use a cup of coffee,” Magnus shrugged, “I looked for a room service menu, but this doesn’t seem to be that kind of joint.”
“Don’t even mention coffee,” Alec moaned.
Magnus almost smirked a little, his eyes roaming over Alec’s body unashamed. “Firstly, you need to stop moaning if you don’t want us to do “stuff”, second, can we just admire the utter hottie that I managed to get hitched with—“
“Now you’re making me feel like a whore.”
Alec left the bathroom in search of jeans, ears ringing with the sound of Magnus’ feather-light laughter.
—
Stepping out into the sunshine was just as painful as Alec imagined it would be and Magnus seemed to think so as well. They’d paid for the room and gathered that they had, which seemed to just be the marriage certificate that Magnus folded and tucked into his back pocket and the clothes on their backs. They both had phones, though Magnus’ was dead and Alec’s was limping towards the same fate.
“Jesus fuck,” Magnus mumbled, “I think my brain just exploded. I’m willing to bet it literally melts out of my ears.”
“That’s unpleasant. Don’t do that. I don’t want to be a widow yet.”
“Yet?!”
“Where the fuck are we?” Alec asked, squinting left and right and ignoring Magnus’ undignified shout. It didn’t really look like Las Vegas, it was more rural and, well, tiny. “And how the fuck did we get here?”
“I’m not entirely sure.” Magnus bit his lip, shoving his hands in his pockets for a moment before brightening up and striding away from Alec.
“Where are you going?”
“To get directions? Answers? General assistance?”
“Are you serious? We don’t need help.”
Magnus rolled his eyes. “Oh come now sweetheart, I’m sure your big macho man pride can handle asking for directions.” He walked across the street to the only building that didn’t appear to be their hotel or a house. It was a tiny convenience store and the bell above the door rang cheerfully as they entered. Magnus held the door open for Alec and they went in, their eyes taking a moment to adjust to the dim light compared to the bright outdoors.
Alec let Magnus get their directions as he moved around the store. He was admiring the air conditioning a little more than the condition of the store, but he started to pick up a few things. He could hear the man at the counter giving Magnus what seemed like oddly complicated directions that Alec wasn’t ready to process so early.
“You’re better off going on the 6, to the 375, then transferring to the 93 and finally onto the 15.” The man rattled these things off as Magnus nodded, scribbling them down on a piece of paper he’d produced out of nowhere. Alec was hoping he at least had the decency not to use the back of their marriage license. “It’s not the fastest way, but it’ll get you there.”
Grabbing some Advil off the shelves, Alec grabbed a pack of double stuff Oreos, a couple bottles of water and two glass bottles of suspicious looking black coffee. He figured it would be better than nothing.
Magnus took one look at the things in Alec’s hands and let out a triumphant cry. “I knew there was a reason I married you,” he said, grinning as Alec paid. Alec rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help but smile in return.
“Let’s go find a car.”
“I didn’t realize we’d need a car,” Magnus said slowly, following Alec back out into the sun. “Is it weird I forgot about us needing a car?”
“A little. How did we get here in the first place?”
Magnus shrugged. “We could ask the hotel girl?”
They wandered back into the hotel to find the petite girl who was perched behind the counter. She blushed a little as they walked in. She had bright red hair, short and brushing her shoulders. She looked like the kind of girl that Jace would have flirted with at a bar.
“She was doing that when I paid too,” Magnus whispered out Alec, narrowing his eyes and walking over to her. “Hi!” He said a little louder.
“Hello,” she frowned a little, but bounced back quickly and replaced her soft smile, “I’m Clary, how can I help you?”
“We need a car,” Magnus said, giving her a friendly smile and leaning on the counter. “Is there any way that you could help us out?”
Clary’s brow furrowed a little. “Uh,” she shook her head, “we’re kind of a small town, we don’t have a car rental service or anything, but what happened to the car you had when you got here?”
“Good lord,” Magnus mumbled, “please tell me we didn’t drive here. I don’t remember that part and driving drunk is not something that I want to add to my resume.”
“I don’t think so,” Clary said, she was looking back and forth between the two of them almost nervous. “There was someone else with you, but I have no idea who it was.” She pulled at one of her lips between her teeth and gave them a sorry look.
Magnus paused for a moment before going back into his pocket for their marriage license. “Maybe it was Mal—fuck.”
“What?”
“Malcolm fucking Fade. I should have known.”
“Um,” Clary said, sounding more than a little uncomfortable. She gave them two raised eyebrows and a look that Alec interpreted as a plea for them to just leave her alone to minimum wage misery.
“Right,” Magnus waved her off, “sorry have a nice day blah blah blah.” He snatched Alec by the sleeve and they walked a few feet away from the desk.
“Who the fuck is—“
“A friend. Well,” Magnus hummed, “not really a friend. But definitely the witness to our marriage. And definitely the kind of person that would sign a Vegas marriage license while sober.”
“You know him?”
“Yes.”
“Can we reach him?”
“What’s the point?” Magnus sighed. “He’s taken that car and he’s long gone. I’ve found that running into Malcolm is always a coincidence and finding him when I want to find him is next to impossible. He’s a little insane—“
“A little?”
“Get off that high horse, honey. It’s not a flattering position for you.”
“M—“
“Alright,” Magnus said, tucking the license back into his pocket, ignoring Alec’s huff, and clapping his hands. “Let’s go find us a car.”
“How?”
Magnus shrugged. “I’m banking on destiny.”
—
Destiny, it turned out, took requests.
About a block away from the hotel, there was a terribly old van with a ‘for sale’ sign taped to the windshield. The sign looked handmade and the van looked like it might have been handmade as well, but not by anyone who knew what they were doing.
“Dear god,” Alec said softly, “we’re not actually going to trust our lives to that thing. Are we?”
“We are desperate,” Magnus reminded him, plucking the sign off the car and laughing. “There isn’t even a phone number. It just says ‘find Simon’.”
“Who the fuck is Simon?”
Simon was slim, bespectacled, and, it seemed, perpetually awkward. But he offered them a nice smile and said that he was more than willing to give them the van for cheap. He and his band had managed to get enough money for a new one and they didn’t want to be bothered to find a dump that would take the old one.
“So,” Alec muttered, “it’s in great condition basically.”
“It runs,” Simon shrugged, “I didn’t think it needed to do anything else.”
“Indeed,” Magnus chirped, happily handing Simon a handful of cash and taking the keys from him. “Thank you Sheldon, you’ve been a lifesaver.”
“It’s Simon—“
“You’re literally holding a sign that has his name on it.”
Magnus just gave Simon a winning smile, grabbed Alec’s hand and waved as they walked off.
“He was a lovely young man,” Magnus said. “A little strange, but I wouldn’t be opposed to pairing him off with a friend. Said he left us half a tank of gas, which is a kindness I was not expecting. Got any relatives you need to marry off?”
Alec thought, fleetingly, of Isabelle. “No,” he said sharply. Alec got into the driver’s seat of the van—Magnus had confessed to being a truly atrocious driver and Alec had confessed to a truly atrocious habit of motion sickness—to the sound of Magnus’ laughter, a noise that it seemed was going to be the soundtrack of their adventure. Magnus contradicted this the moment the thought had crossed Alec’s mind.
“Oh my god.” The laughter lingered on the edges of Magnus’ voice. “Sheldon also left us a mixtape.”
“Simon—“
“This is the most romantic thing that’s ever happened.” Magnus said, clicking his seatbelt into place and immediately leaning forward to try and cram the tape into one of the seemingly infinite holes in the dashboard. Alec wasn’t sure who had taken a fire axe to it, but it had obviously seen better days. “I may have to leave you for him.”
“Ouch,” Alec snorted, “that’s a low blow.”
“When was the last time you made me a mixtape?”
“You say that like we’ve been married years.”
“I can promise you, our first anniversary will roll around and you still won’t have made me a mixtape.” Magnus said it so easily that Alec found himself laughing and bickering back, forgetting for a moment that there would be no first anniversary. That they’d sign some papers and never look back, laughing at this like it was some kind of cosmic joke. They got onto the highway, Vegas somewhere far, far ahead of them.
“What do you think it’s like?” He asked after they’d been on the road about twenty minutes and both had about three Oreos and the not-as-terrible-as-Magnus-bitched bottled coffee.
“What?”
“Actually getting married.”
There was a heartbeat of silence wherein they simply listened to Simon’s mixtape—which, for no clear reason, included the Star Wars theme.
“I don’t know,” Magnus said softly, “romantic?”
“As romantic as the mixtape?”
“God no,” Magnus laughed, “the mixtape trumps all. But I guess there’d be dancing? And cake, I suppose. Speeches and honeymoon plans and a wedding registry full of kitchen supplies. I think that it would be ceremony, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things—“
“You don’t think marriage changes things?”
“I think that if you get to the point where you’re getting married, you shouldn’t be stunned by what it means to have a life together.” There was a note in Magnus’ voice that made Alec bashful. He’d almost immediately assumed a kind of fleetingness of Magnus, a kind of nonchalance that wasn’t quite right. Magnus laughed this off because he didn’t think it was real, not because he’d been married a million times. He didn’t really think they were married at all.
“This is not how I would have chosen to get married,” Alec confessed. “If you hadn’t started all this.” It was meant to be a joke, a poke, but it struck a chord with Magnus.
“Can you stop pretending that this is all my fault?” Magnus’ voice was as angry as Alec had heard it.
Alec couldn’t bite his tongue. He knew that he should, because they were stuck together and they might as well try and keep this from being more painful. “It’s not, I just think that none of this would have happened—“
“It takes two fucking people to get married Alexander.” Magnus spat his name like it was something foul and Alec flinched. “I didn’t forge your signature, okay? Don’t act as though you’re some kind of saint and it’s all my fault for corrupting you. That’s not fair.”
“I’ve just met you—“
“So why don’t you wait a little while before you throw me under the bus?”
“—For all I kno—“
“You seriously think that you’re allowed to just shift all the blame to me? Do you? You think that’s the best way to solve this?” Magnus’ voice rose and he shifted in his seat to look at Alec, who didn’t take his eyes off the road, letting Magnus glare at his profile. “You’re so goddamn scared that you’re gay and that your family is going to find out—“
“Weren’t you?” Alec blurted.
“What?”
“Weren’t you afraid to come out?”
“I don’t have anyone worth coming out to,” Magnus said quietly.
“So what you’re saying is you don’t understand at all,” Alec snapped, not willing to stop the fight that was building between them over the shitty rock that Simon seemed to favour. Magnus wasn’t going to get pity from him, Alec wasn’t going to just roll over and take this. Jace and he had talked about this once, fighting when you know that you’re wrong. When you know that you’re the one who needs to back down, but you can’t help yourself from digging in your heels and just fighting for the sake of fighting.
“Shut the fuck up. I’m trying Alec, I’m trying. But sympathy will only get you so far. It’s not going to allow you to trample all over me.”
“I’m not—“
“You act as though if I’m the one to blame for all of this, you can go back to being in the closet, you can laugh this off like it’s nothing. Doesn’t that just fucking eat you up? Pretending to be something you’re not?”
“I’m not pretending—-“
“But you are! You go to family dinners, talk about girlfriends and blind dates? You lie to them every single time you open your mouth—“
“I’m not obligated to come out to anyone.”
“No, but you have an obligation to yourself. You owe it to yourself to give yourself a shot in a million at happiness. To attempt to be yourself—“
“I’m not a fucking faggot okay?”
“What?”
Alec’s blood went cold and he gripped the wheel until his knuckles were white. “I said—“
“Pull the fuck over.” Magnus’ voice was steely. Alec felt something cold go down his spine, knowing that this was the moment he had really fucked up. That Magnus might have let him go on everything else he’d said, but that this wasn’t going to slide, no matter how much he wished that it might.
“What?” Alec yelped, leaning over grabbing Magnus’ sleeve where he was reaching for the handle of the door. His hand that was still on the wheel tightened. “Magnus we’re on the highway.”
“Yes,” Magnus nodded, “and I want to get out of the car.”
“There’s a rest stop in a few miles,” Alec said firmly, “I’m not going to leave you on the side of the road, okay? We’ll fucking stop and talk about this.”
“I don’t want to fucking talk about this—“
“What?”
“Look, Alec,” Magnus gritted his teeth, “I’m trying to help, I’m trying to understand. But I’m not going to skin myself in an attempt to please you. I deserve better than to be insulted in the passenger seat of a shitty van.”
“I’m sorry.”
There was a pause. “I know.”
“Can we start again?”
“Does that ever actually work?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been willing to try.”
Magnus’ smile was half grimace. “I’m Magnus.”
“I’m Alec.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Alec gnawed on his bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Well, maybe I did—“ Magnus raised a brow, but Alec pushed on before he could say anything. “—but it’s not because it’s you. It’s just because I’m stressed and I’m angry and you’re the only one in this shitty van. It’s easier to lash out at you than at myself, I guess.” He didn’t bother mentioning that he’d been lashing out at himself for years and this deviated from the norm.
“I will accept that,” Magnus said, with the gravity of a king. “It’s not fair, but I know what you’re saying.”
“This isn’t how I wanted it all to happen.”
“All?”
“Coming out?” Alec shrugged. “Getting married? God even just being with you would be great if we weren’t in this shitt—“
“Are you saying you like me?” A silly slip, but it made Alec blush. It was hard to confess that had this been any other way, he would have liked to ask Magnus out. It would have taken unbelievable courage, with Magnus looking the way that he did. but Alec thought that he could have managed it were Magnus looking at him the way that he had been this morning.
“I liked you enough to marry you, didn’t I?” He said instead, keeping the rest to himself.
Magnus’ laugh sounded like forgiveness, and it rang in Alec’s ears as he let out a groan and gestured towards the rest stop in front of them gratefully. They’d probably only been driving about half an hour, but the hunger was starting to kill him and the Oreos hadn’t done much.
They pulled into a parking spot, got out and moved towards the diner in unspoken agreement. It was a fairly large rest stop, rivalling the town they’d been at moments before, with a gas station, a small convenience store, and the diner. Outside the diner was a payphone and Alec perked up when he saw it.
“Do you have some quarters?” Alec asked quickly. “I’m going to try and use the payphone to call my sister—“
“There’s a payphone? What year is it—“
“Quarters?”
“Uh,” Magnus pawed at the pockets of his painted on jeans, “yeah, two.” He handed them over and Alec thanked him, practically sprinting to the payphone. Magnus rolled his eyes and gestured to the diner, saying he was going to wait inside. Alec nodded and gave him a half smile. His palms were slick when he grabbed for the phone and he knew that it wasn’t just because of the heat. Alec wasn’t sure what the hell he was going to tell Isabelle.
“Hello?” Her voice was groggy, like she’d only been up a while, like she was still waiting for the coffee to kick in and the headache to ebb.
“Iz, it’s me.”
“Alec?” Her voice was soaked in relief and Alec could hear Jace murmuring in the background.
“Yeah.” Alec couldn’t think of anything else to say, he wasn’t sure where the hell to start explaining.
“Where the fuck are you?!” The relief dried up as Isabelle’s temper came out to play.
“It’s a really, really long story—“
“I don’t want the story. I want to know where you are.”
“About an hour or two out of Vegas, I’ll be back at the hotel this afternoon.”
“What?”
“Listen, I’m fine. I’m not alone and I’ll be back soon. I’m not dead or anything,” Alec got it all out very quickly, so that Isabelle couldn’t interrupt him. “I’m running out of time on the payphone, but I’ll be back soon, I promise. I’ll meet you in front of the hotel.”
“Alec—“
He hung up. The silence after was deafening. He’d never been the one to hang up, not like that. He could still hear the concern in Isabelle’s voice, the worry. The information he’d offered was paper thin and he hadn’t been running out of time, but he’d run out of things to say. He couldn’t tell her anything really true, so he’d settled for a vague handful of reassurances.
Alec ran a hand over his face, resisting the urge to groan or simply sit on the pavement. He could see Magnus in the window of the diner and there didn’t seem to be any more harm done by joining him.
Magnus was smiling when he came through the door and already sipping on another cup of coffee. He was examining a laminated menu with careful scrutiny and didn’t look up when Alec sat down.
“Everything here has bizarre names.”
“It’s like you’ve never been to a diner,” Alec smirked. “Everything is supposed to have weird names.”
“I’m from New York—“
“No way,” Alec laughed, “me too.” Magnus brightened at this information and something clenched in Alec’s chest.
“You’d think that we’d seen our fair share of ridiculousness. But I still can’t believe that I, a grown ass adult, am going to say to another grown ass adult, I would like to build my own ‘Grand Slam’. And then,” Magnus snorted, slamming the menu down and letting the metal corners clack on the laminated top, “I’m going to pay eleven dollars to have done so.”
“Eleven dollars seems worth it to me?”
“I’m glad we agree.”
Magnus ordered his self-built ‘Grand Slam’, which was a strange combination of eggs and pancakes and bacon and french fries that the diner seemed to have no trouble serving to him as a combo, and Alec ordered something called the ‘Dream Waffle’. They both had trouble ordering with a straight face and when the waitress left, they muffled their snickers into the cups of watery coffee.
“What a time to be alive,” Magnus murmured, watching cars out the window. “I’m not,” Magnus said softly, “for the record.”
“What?”
“Gay. I’m actually bisexual.”
“Oh.”
“But I got called it all the time in high school.”
“You were out in high school?” He couldn’t have imagined being out at his high school and he wanted to apologize again for what he’d said in the van, starting to grasp how the slur would have hit Magnus.
“Yeah, fucking nightmare. I wouldn’t recommend it.” Magnus’ mouth was turned down at the corners. “How’s your sister?” He seemed to want to change the subject and Alec wasn’t going to protest.
“Good,” Alec said, shifting in his seat, “worried.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger. My brother too. Well, brothers, but we didn’t bring the fourteen year old on the Vegas trip.”
“Oldest of four?” Magnus let out a low whistle.
“You?”
“Only child.” Magnus didn’t say this, as most people did, with a sense of pride or accomplishment. Alec had met a fair amount of people that seemed to pity him for needing to share his parents with three other people, as though this meant that he was not enough for Maryse and Robert. Magnus just made being an only child sound lonely.
“What brought you to Vegas?”
“Two old friends,” Magnus sighed, “Ragnor—“
“That’s a really weird name.”
“Tell me about it. Catarina is the other friend, we all decided it would be fun. The last time we went was two years ago, when Cat turned twenty-one and it was a nightmare.”
“Did you get married?”
“Surprisingly, no.”
They ate their food, exchanging minor details. Magnus told Alec about his string of bizarrely named cats and the brief period of time where he lived in England with an evil girlfriend he swore was a vampire. Alec indulged him with stories of his siblings and his younger brother’s incredible ability to get them involved in fist fights. Magnus managed to put his food away, though Alec wasn’t sure where, because he was impossibly slim.
“Okay,” Alec said finally, chewing a mouthful of sinfully delicious waffle, “I have to know. How did you manage to eat all that?”
“I don’t get fatter,” Magnus said, “I just get taller.”
Alec laughed and Magnus gave him a cheeky grin. Magnus was right in that he was also impossibly tall. Alec didn’t spend the whole meal analyzing him, no that would have been crazy. And even if he spent a ridiculous amount of time noticing the way that the light from outside caught the sparkles still clinging to Magnus’ cheekbones and made him look ethereal, that was his business. They were married after all, and if Magnus was going to admire Alec, he might as well repay the favour.
The waitress seemed to notice that they were making heart eyes at each other and asked if they were dating in that knowing, motherly tone.
“We actually just got married,” Magnus said, his smile looking genuine to her, surely, but familiar enough to Alec that he knew Magnus was trying not to laugh. He laid his hand on top of Alec’s on the table. Alec turned his palm up and intertwined their fingers.
Their waitress cooed and Alec could feel himself almost shaking from the effort that it took to keep from laughing. Magnus was nodding, completely serious, making up some kind of tale about their first date and how Alec had brought him daisies. By the end of it, the waitress was convinced they were soulmates and wished them a lifetime of happiness.
They opted to go to the bathroom before they paid and left, Magnus practically dragging Alec by the hand. Alec couldn’t figure out why until the door closed behind him and Magnus crowded him against it.
Magnus tasted like the syrup from his pancakes, he smelt like coffee and something that was uniquely Magnus, and his hand slid to the back of Alec’s neck and made him shiver. Alec pulled Magnus closer, until their legs were tangled. Alec couldn’t imagine anything beyond the feeling of Magnus’ skin, soft at the small of his back where Alec’s hand had wandered below the hem of his shirt. He was certain that if they were not leant up against the door, his knees would have given out when Magnus’ lips wandered to mouth at the collar of Alec’s shirt.
“Never would have brought you daisies,” Alec said breathlessly, unable to keep track of Magnus’ hands, “roses are more romantic.”
“I like lilies personally,” Magnus said into Alec’s skin.
“I’ll remember that,” Alec smiled.
After a few more breathless moments of kissing, Magnus stepped back, pupils blown and smile impossibly wide.
“I think it’s time we hit the road, seeing as I have no desire to drop trou in this bathroom and if we stay any longer I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Alec nodded, not sure he was going to be able to form words if he opened his mouth. He offered to pay the tab and Magnus spluttered until Alec told him that it was nothing, his voice serious enough that even though Magnus didn’t know about the fortune Alec would inherit from his father, he conceded.
“Fine, fine,” Magnus sighed, “but while you wait for the bill, I’m going to go next door and get us more water and some kind of gummy.”
“Gummy?”
“If I eat another Oreo I may vomit.”
“We just ate.”
“I want to be seven feet tall by the time I’m thirty.” Magnus took advantage of Alec’s incredulous laughter and slipped out of the diner and into the early afternoon light. Alec paid the tab, blushing with the knowing look that the waitress shot him. He was grateful when he got back into the van, despite the fact that it smelt like microwaved Doritos, to wait for Magnus.
“You’ll never believe what I found in the store!” Magnus said delightedly, already condensation covered bottles of water and crinkly packages of candy tumbling from his arms and onto the seat around him as he nestled into the passenger side and did up his belt.
“What?” Alec asked, starting the car and being treated to an earful more of Simon’s music taste.
“A phone cord so we can charge the corpses of our children,” Magnus said, digging through his haul to produce a sketchy looking chord. “It was cheap,” Magnus assured him.
Simon, despite the fact he had a tape player and a mixtape, did have a dashboard lighter that took a USB and Magnus crowed his victory as his phone turned on.
“We’ll swap when mine passes the bar of death,” Magnus said, thumbing through his phone and texting his friends. “Everyone thinks I’m dead. Ragnor thinks that I’ve been murdered, but Cat thinks I just accidentally stumbled into the street somewhere.”
“Charming.”
“Smile!” Magnus snapped a photo of Alec, driving and trying to smile while still keeping his eyes on the highway that was increasing in business as they got closer to the city. “Adorable,” Magnus mumbled, sending it and then throwing the phone down.
“Can we talk about something?” Alec asked, tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel with his index fingers.
“Sure?”
“What exactly are we?” Alec could feel himself flushing, but Magnus didn’t look to be judging, in fact, he was taking the question quite seriously, to Alec’s relief. “I mean, we got married—“
“We did.”
“—had sex—“
“Affirmative.”
“—got in a van, went to a diner, made out in the bathroom—“
“All true.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know,” Magnus shrugged, “I’m not exactly opposed to keeping this pattern going and just seeing where it takes us? I like you, I would like to continue to like you.” Magnus didn’t seem embarrassed by this at all, though Alec was sure his face was the colour of a tomato.
“I like you too.”
“So,” Magnus sighed, “I guess we could get divorced if the on-paper stuff weirds you out, but I’d like to call you when we get back to New York. We could be boyfriends or something.”
Alec bit his bottom lip. He never, in a million years, could have imagined being here even twenty four hours ago. Sitting in a shitty van, driving on a Nevada high way with a beautiful guy in the passenger seat proposing being boyfriends.
“I think I would like that,” he said, aware that he couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. He chanced a glance at Magnus, who was giving him a smile like sunflowers, his face opened and turned to Alec as though Alec was the sun.
“So it’s settled,” Magnus nodded firmly, opening a bag of gummies and pop three into his mouth, humming along to whatever obscure song Simon had gifted them.
About halfway into the drive, Magnus got bored of filling both him and Alec with sugar and started digging around in the car.
“Oh my god!” Magnus screamed, causing Alec to almost swerve and panic, dividing his attention between Magnus and the cars in front of him.
“What? What?”
“The best thing has just happened!” Magnus shouted, actually managing to get the attention of the car that was driving beside them because he was so loud. Alec wasn’t sure how they heard, but they looked over at him in alarm and Alec just shrugged, flooring it to get away from the suburban family that looked concerned for his health.
“What happened?”
“Simon left us another mixtape.”
There are times when laughter is like a dam, one tiny little burst and all of it comes rushing out. This was one of those times. Alec was afraid they were going to crash, but most of his worry was washed away by the tidal wave of his laughter and Magnus’. Magnus had tears in his eyes, laughing and waving the mixtape over his head like a flag.
“It’s a miracle!”
Alec would have never thought he could have agreed, but the few songs they’d been listening to on loop were getting taxing and the laughter couldn’t help him from being relieved they could listen to something else.
Magnus slid it into the player, still giggling and waxing poetry about what a miracle it was they had opened the glove box to find this lost treasure.
Only to find that the first song was the Star Wars theme.
“For the love of God!” Alec yelled, banging his head on the wheel and sending Magnus into peels of laughter.
“At least he’s consistent!” Magnus defended, though neither of them could stop laughing or smiling as the song droned on and on. The ringing of a phone was the only thing that interrupted them and Magnus answered it with laughter still floating on his voice.
“Hello?”
A look of shock and something that could only be described as ‘oh no’ went across Magnus’ face.
“This is not my telephone,” Magnus blurted, chucking the device at Alec like it was on fire. “Fuck,” he whispered as Alec scrambled to pick it up and raise it to his ear, “I thought it was, I just picked it up without thinking about it.”
Alec nodded, waving his hand slightly from where it was on the wheel, it was an honest mistake. Magnus’ laughter was gone now and he looked at Alec with wide eyes.
“I think it’s your brother,” he whispered.
“Jace?”
“Alec,” Jace’s voice sounded as relieved as Isabelle’s. “Who the fuck was that?”
“Long story.”
“No, that’s the bullshit you gave Isabelle. I’m your best friend, you don’t give me that.”
Something in Alec’s heart ached. He looked at Magnus, curled up in the passenger seat, watching him with wide but hopeful eyes. He couldn’t tell Jace the truth, not really. It would mean telling Jace over the phone that he was gay, that he was now married to someone he didn’t hate. That maybe this wasn’t a terrible mistake. That maybe this was just destiny, that maybe a shitty van wasn’t always a shitty van, maybe sometimes all it needed to do was run and you could make the rest work on your own. That he’d been dealt a hand and he hadn’t had a single idea what to do with it, but now he was sitting listening to the mixtape of a teenager he’d already forgotten the face of and he was starting to get an idea. That whatever was between him and Magnus, rocky start or no, worked, and that was all that they really needed. They could make this, whatever the hell it was, run and that was all that it really needed to do.
“I got married,” he blurted, coaxing a surprised noise out of both Magnus and Jace.
Jace started to laugh. Then he stopped. “Oh my god. You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Nope?” Alec said, laughing a little himself. “It’s kind of a ridiculous story. I promise I will tell you everything when I get back.”
“What’s her name?”
Oops.
“I’ll tell you everything when I get back,” Alec said again, feeling his heart sinking a little.
“Alright, alright,” Jace said, chuckling, “I’m glad you’re making friends.”
The line went quiet and Alec wordlessly handed the phone back to Magnus.
“What’s wrong?” Magnus asked, unable to have heard more than half the conversation.
“He thinks that there’s a girl and that you’re just another friend that I’ve picked up.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to be able to tell him otherwise?” It wasn’t accusing, but it was honest. Magnus knew, if only slightly, what it would mean to Alec to look his brother in the eyes and reveal that there was only two people in the van.
“I don’t know,” Alec said, shaking his head, “but I guess I’ll find out.”
“We could lie,” Magnus said quickly. Alec looked at him in surprise. “I’d hate it, I want you to know that. But I also wouldn’t correct you if you told Jace I was a friend and your wife had fucked off to somewhere else—“
“No,” Alec replied, surprising the both of them. “I think you were right. I think it’s time I stopped pretending.” Imagining dismissing Magnus made him feel a little sick, even if they’d only known each other about a day.
“I’m proud of you.”
Alec smiled. “Thanks.”
“A—“ Magnus was cut off by his own phone ringing this time. “Oh,” he said, “goody.”
The moment he answered the phone there was a slurry of noise on the other end. Some guy seemed to be chewing Magnus out for disappearing, but Magnus took it all in stride. “Hello Ragnor, my sweet cabbage patch doll. I am actually rather close to the city now—if you would just—watch your language—I do not enjoy your tone mister—Rag—can you at least put Cat on the ph—because I can understand a word that comes out of her mouth dip—Catarina! My love!”
Alec snorted.
“I know,” Magnus smirked, “he is quite a looker, isn’t he?”
“Shut up,” Alec muttered, flushed.
“We’ll be back soon, please tell Ragnor to put on his big boy pants and watch some TV. I’ll be back before four pm when our senior citizen will be wanting his dinner.” Without waiting for a reply Magnus hung up, sighing. “Parents, am I right?”
“They took everything well, I imagine?”
“You’d be surprised the weird things I’ve done since I’ve known them. Poor Tessa and the merlot debacle.”
“The what?”
“I am the owner of a small vineyard in Canada because of it, but that might be a story for a different day.” Alec barked out a laugh and Magnus smiled, languid and lazy in the sun. “It’s near Kelowna, really quite nice.”
“We’ll have to go sometime.”
“Honeymoon idea!”
The rest of the drive was spent the same way, exchanging barbs and teasing and enjoying the way that silence cloaked them but never suffocated them. Simon’s mixtape were just as unlike Alec’s taste as the last, but the songs were at least different—minus the Star Wars theme—and Magnus seemed to find it entertaining.
Alec couldn’t keep his eyes off of Magnus, eating gummies and singing along even when he didn’t know the words and just made them up to make Alec laugh. He was almost mournful when they reached the city, because he knew that he wouldn’t see Magnus for a while. Even a few days, which is when Magnus said he’d be back in New York, seemed too long. He wanted to be in Magnus’ company forever. The few hours in a van hinted to the entertainment and light that Magnus could give to everything else in his life and Alec didn’t ever want it to stop.
They pulled up in front of the hotel and Alec texted Isabelle and Jace that he was back. They immediately came out the doors, they must’ve been waiting in the lobby, Alec thought, surprised. Isabelle looked confused at the sight of the van and Jace just let out another laugh. They both seemed stunned when Magnus got out of the passenger side and made his way around the front where he met Alec and Alec handed him the keys.
“Have a good flight,” Magnus smiled.
Alec wasn’t looking forward to the plane trip they had planned for that night, but he smiled back and nodded. “Drive safe.”
“I don’t think I know how.”
Alec laughed and before he could think too hard about his siblings standing a few metres away and waiting to bombard him with questions, he leaned in and closed the distance between his lips and Magnus’.
“I’ll see you soon?” He asked as he pulled away, seeing Jace’s mouth drop open in his peripheral vision and Isabelle’s knowing grin.
Magnus just nodded and got into the van, brushing his hand against Alec’s one last time. Alec walked over calmly to Isabelle and Jace, trying to keep the smile from being too manically wide on his face and he turned around when he heard Magnus say his name.
Magnus smirked, the crooked smile that made Alec want to kiss him silly. “You’d better call me, mister, or you’re going to be in huge trouble.” He paused, his eyes shining. “Who knows, then maybe we’ll actually get divorced.”
Alec couldn’t fight the laugh that burst from his lips and Magnus’ grin grew. He saluted the gaping Jace and the beaming Isabelle, getting back into the van and pulling out after winking at Alec one last time.