at cavanaugh park
where i used to think that this life would be good
and i would do things that i thought i should
and no one’s gonna tear me down

“I’d like to see you undone.”

“What?” Alec lifts his head from where it’s buried in the crook of Magnus’ neck. The sweat hasn’t even dried on their bare chests pressed together, and Alec doesn’t care. He wants to be as close as possible to Magnus and never let go.

“It’s what I thought when I first saw you,” Magnus says. His hands are still tangled in Alec’s hair and Alec would be fine if they stayed that way. “You were running ice over your neck and I wanted to lick it. And then I got embarrassed and said something mean instead.”

“Well,” Alec says, trying to take in this new information and mostly failing because his skin is still tingling and his brain’t isn’t completely up and running yet. “Mission accomplished, on both counts.”

Magnus laughs, delighted and open, and he uses the hand still in Alec’s hair to tilt Alec’s head back and kiss him. And when he tries to say something else, Alec stops his words by kissing him back.

“More coffee, hon?”

Alec blinks back into the present, into the fluorescent lights and formica tables of the diner. The waitress is standing by his table, hip cocked and coffee pot in hand. His latest cup of coffee is only half drunk and now the mug is cold despite his hands wrapped around it. He looks around at the empty creamers littering the table. He’s not quite sure how long he’s been here, or even what time it is.

“No thanks,” he says. “Just the check, please.”

She slips his check out of her apron pocket and puts it on the table with a sympathetic glance. Probably because Alec looked pathetic when he walked in, red-eyed and shivering, and he probably doesn’t look much better now.

He reaches into his pocket for his cell phone, flips it open and turns it back on.

It’s 1:15am.

Alec knows he should be panicking. He’s so late for his curfew it’s ridiculous. His parents are going to kill him. He’s going to be grounded until he goes to college. He just doesn’t have the energy to care right now.

He has about a dozen missed calls from his parents, and almost as many voicemails. A few missed calls from Aline, and, his heart clenches when he sees it, a voicemail from Magnus. Just seeing Magnus’ name has him teetering on the brink of breaking down again, threatening his hard won numbness. He flips his phone closed without listening to any of them.

It’s time to go home.

The lights are on in the kitchen when he pulls into the driveway. He can clearly see both of his parents through the window; can see when they hear his car and turn toward the door. It won’t get better if he puts it off any longer.

“Alexander Lightwood where have you been?” is the first thing out of his mom’s mouth. “Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time,” Alec says. His parents are looking at him, waiting for him to say more, but he has nothing else to say. He has no excuses and he mostly just wants to get this over with so they can punish him and he can go to bed.

“That’s not acceptable,” his mom says.

“Where were you, Alec?” his dad asks. “Aline said you left your friend’s house hours ago.”

“I was just at the diner,” Alec says. “I turned off my cell phone and I didn’t realize what time it was. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t make this worse for yourself by lying,” his dad says.

Irritation begins to creep through Alec’s emotional exhaustion. “I’m not lying. Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know Alec, why would you lie about where you spent the night last week?” his mom asks.

Alec freezes. “What?”

“When you didn’t come home we called Jia Penhallow,” his dad says, “to see if you were spending the night there again. She was surprised to hear you spent the night last week, since you were never there.”

“So you better start telling us the truth,” his mom continues. “If you ever want to leave the house, or use your car ever again.”

“I swear, I was just at the diner tonight,” Alec says. “Do you want to call and ask the waitress or what?”

“Don’t take that tone of voice with us,” his dad barks. “You’re in deep trouble so you better tell us where you were last week or it’s going to be worse.”

Alec doesn’t know how any of this could possibly be worse. It might be why he says what he says next.

“I was at my boyfriend’s house, okay?” he snaps. “I slept over at my boyfriend’s house last week and this week I went to the diner and drank coffee and that was it. Can I go to bed now?”

The nearly identical expressions of shock on his parents’ faces might be funny in another circumstance. As it is, he just wants this whole night to be over and he can’t bring himself to care.

“Boyfriend?” His mom asks faintly.

His dad’s expression morphs back into anger. “Just tell us where you were, Alec.”

“Are you just not going to believe anything I say? I was at. My. Boyfriend’s house.”

“That’s not… You’re not…” his dad says.

“Gay?” Alec finishes for him. “I am.”

“No,” his dad says.

Of all the reactions he imagined, the few times he imagined coming out to his parents, outright denial was not one of them.

“It’s those people you’ve been hanging out with. You just need a better crowd, instead of spending all your time with girls and boys who wear makeup.”

“Robert,” his mom says, but Alec doesn’t let her finish.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He says.

“Alec,” his mom says.

“Watch your language,” his dad says. “It’s clear we were mistaken about the level of responsibility and freedom you can handle.”

“Whatever,” Alec says. “Just ground me or whatever already.”

“You’re grounded indefinitely,” his dad says. “Give me your car keys. Your mom and I will be driving you and your sister to school. You’ll get them back when you can apologize sincerely to us about your behavior.”

“I’m not going to apologize for being gay,” Alec grits out. His dad ignores him.

“Now go to your room.”

“Finally,” Alec mutters under his breath and stomps past his parents, not stopping when his mom calls out, “Alec!”

Izzy’s light is still on, and she’s standing at the threshold of her room. “Alec? What’s going on?”

“I can’t talk about this now, Izzy.” He closes the door to his room before she can reply, then leans against it in case she decides to come in anyway. She doesn’t.

Alec slides down the door until he’s sitting on the floor. He laughs mirthlessly into his knees. He’s just blown up his entire life in one night. He’s sure at some point he’ll care enough to be upset, but right now it barely seems to matter.

He’s so fucked.

But there was never any place
For someone like me to be totally happy
I'm running out of clock and that ain't a shock
Some things never do change
Never do change

Alec reaches out and hits the back button to repeat the track without looking. He turns on his side as the song starts again, drowning out the sounds of the house on Saturday afternoon: Max’s video games, and Izzy’s homework music, and his dad on the phone.

It doesn’t matter anyway. He hasn’t spoken to his parents all week, and his dad is ignoring him in turn. He knows it’s getting awkward for Max and Izzy, but he can’t make himself stop. He hadn’t planned on coming out to his parents any time soon, but now that he has their rejection hurts. Everything hurts and being angry at his parents is uncomplicated, unlike pretty much everything else.

He wishes he could be like Izzy. Well, fuck him then, she’d said when he told her what happened at The Hideaway last week. If only it was that simple.

He closes his eyes and lets Andrew McMahon’s voice drown out everything.

He startles when he feels a hand brush his hair back from his forehead. The music was so loud he didn’t even hear his door opening. He looks up to his mom frowning at him and sighs. He turns over, dislodging his mom’s hand from his hair and hits the pause button on his CD player.

“Your music is very loud,” his mom says, “I can hear every word, even with the door closed.”

“Okay,” Alec says. “I’ll turn it down.” He doesn’t look at her and expects to hear the door closing behind her, but instead he feels the bed dip as she sits next to him.

“Do you really think that?”

“That I’ll turn it down?” He waits for her to tell him to watch his tone, but she doesn’t.

“Do you really think that there’s not a place for you to be happy?”

Alec’s so surprised at the question he sits up and looks at her. Her eyes are glassy with tears, but her expression is determined. He’s so discomforted by the sight of his mom’s tears that he opens his mouth to tell her of course he thinks he can be happy, just to make her feel better, but then he stops. He leans back against the headboard.

“I guess,” he says. “Yeah.” Wasn’t that what he was hoping the scene would be? And how depressingly, pathetically, wrong he was about that.

“Honey, I don’t want that for you,” his mom says. She reaches out for his cheek, but he ducks away.

“Well I can’t stop being gay just because you don’t want me to be.”

“I know that,” she says.

“Then I don’t see how you think ignoring me will help me find a place to be happy.”

“Alec, when you told us that last week, I was just surprised, okay? I’m sorry that I didn’t say this then, but I don’t care if you’re gay.”

“And Dad?” Alec asks. His mom pauses and the flicker of hope that it really could be that easy dies.

“I’ll talk to him,” his mom says.

“He’s not going to listen,” Alec says.

“I’ll make him listen.”

“This isn’t because of the people I’ve been hanging out with,” Alec pushes on, just to make sure they’re very clear on this. “I’ve known I was gay since I was 13.”

This time when his mom reaches out for him, he lets her brush his cheek with the back of her knuckles. “I know. When I thought about it, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. But you’ve always been such a private and self-contained kid. It was easy to believe that if you had crushes or girlfriends you just didn’t tell us about them. And I guess I can understand why you didn’t tell us about your boyfriend.”

Alec drops his head to his knees. “He’s not my boyfriend,” he says into the fabric of his jeans.

“What?”

Alec lifts his head back up. “I mean, I thought he was, but apparently I was wrong. I was just being stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, Alec. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Alec says. “I thought he liked me. He said he liked me. He gave me a mix CD. He said all these things and we did-–” he swallows, “things. But then as soon as we were around his friends it was like I didn’t exist and I wasn’t cool enough to be his boyfriend and I just…” he trails off, not knowing how to describe the hurt and the embarrassment and how angry he is, but at the same time how much he misses Magnus, how much he wants to talk to him anyway. “He made me feel like I was okay as I was, but apparently I wasn’t. I’m not.”

“Oh honey,” his mom says. She reaches an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into her side. “Of course you’re okay as you are.”

Tears prick Alec’s eyes and he tries to blink them away. “Then why?”

“Well, I don’t know this boy–”

“Magnus.”

“I don’t know Magnus, but to me it sounds like this is about him, not you.”

“What do you mean?” Alec asks.

“Usually when someone makes other people feel like they’re not cool enough, it’s because they’re insecure themselves. Do you think he was lying when he said he liked you?”

Alec thinks about it. “No,” he says finally. Magnus had no reason other than liking him to find him after they first met, no reason to keep talking to him if he didn’t want to. He has doubted over the course of the last week, but ultimately he never really thought that Magnus never liked him in the first place. “But that makes what he did worse,” he says.

“It sounds to me like he’s scared. And maybe that doesn’t excuse making you feel like it’s your fault, but this is a hard age and it’s easy to get overwhelmed.”

“He’s 22 though,” Alec says.

“Alec!” his mom sits up straight. “That is too old for–”

“Mom! Not helping!”

“But–”

“Mom.”

His mom closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Sorry. You just surprised me again. Is he in college? What about his parents?”

“Not really the point,” Alec says.

“Right,” she says. “Well, I know 22 seems impossibly old from 18, but to me it still seems unbearably young. At 22 I thought I had all the answers, but when I look back, I had none.”

“Great,” Alec says. “When do you start actually knowing any answers?”

His mom smiles. “Sorry to say, but the right answers are never as concrete as you’d like them to be. The older you are, the more clear that becomes.”

“Well, that sucks,” Alec says.

“Yeah,” his mom says, “it does.” She reaches down and pats him on the knee. “Max wants to make cookies, if you want to come down and join us. But turn down the music a little, okay?”

“Okay, mom. Thanks.”

In the silence after his mom leaves, he picks up his cell phone. There’s still one voicemail he hasn’t listened to and deleted: the one Magnus left him last Saturday night. He calls his voicemail and presses his phone to his ear.

Alec, Magnus says, I know you probably don’t want to hear from me and I understand. But Aline just called and she said you haven’t been home, and I’m just. Worried, I guess. Anyway, if you get this, your parents are looking for you, and you should call them. Um. Get home safe. I’m sorry.

Alec flips his phone closed and drops it on his bed. What the fuck is he supposed to do with that?

He leans over and presses play again, careful to turn it down a few notches. The last strains of Cavanaugh Park fade out and the next track starts. Alec lets it, still thinking about Magnus’ voicemail.

Something in the lyrics catches his attention and he tunes back in, sitting up and leaning over closer to his CD player.

And so I fall
I don’t wanna feel this small
You know I just can’t handle this, handle this at all
And I just fall
I let my heartbeat drop
I falter as the music stops and you watch me
As I stall
And wonder when I fall

He listens to the whole song staring intently at the player, then repeats the track and listens to whole thing again with his eyes closed.

“Fuck,” he says when it’s done.

He slaps at the power button, grabs his wallet, and jams his feet into his Chucks. He runs down the stairs into the kitchen.

“Mom, I gotta take my car,” he says breathlessly. Max, his dad, and his mom all look up when he runs in.

“Alec, you know you’re–” his dad starts, but his mom holds out her hand.

“Shut up, Robert.” She looks at Alec, then smiles. “Okay, but call if you’re going to be more than a few hours.”

“Thanks, mom!” he says, already going for his keys hanging by the kitchen door.

“No more sleepovers!” his mom calls after him. He waves in acknowledgement and slams the door the behind him. Then he’s in his car and on his way to Magnus.’

Of course, once he gets to Magnus’ it’s a whole different story.

When he’s standing at Magnus’ door it all catches up with him. Magnus might not even want to see him; might be completely done with him. Hell, Magnus might not even be home. He turns around and takes a couple steps back to his car before stopping and forcing himself back to the door. He came all the way here, and he’s gonna be in the shit with his dad when he gets back. He has to at least try.

He hits the buzzer for Magnus.

He fidgets as he waits, more convinced as time goes on that Magnus isn’t home. He’s about to turn around again when he hears footsteps on the stairs inside. Alec swallows.

Magnus couldn’t look more surprised when opens the door and sees Alec. Alec panics for a second, sure that Magnus is about to slam the door in his face, but he doesn’t.

“Alec,” he says, and his voice is tight and full of hope and Alec takes a breath. Magnus looks tired, in sweats and a tank top, no make up, and unstyled hair. Alec probably doesn’t look much better. He didn’t even comb his hair in his mad dash out of the house.

“Hi,” Alec says. “Can we um, can we talk?”

Magnus nods and gestures him inside.

“I’m sorry,” Alec says when Magnus has closed his apartment door behind them.

Magnus blinks at him. “What for?”

“For pushing you for more than you were ready for. You had reasons, and I didn’t listen to them, and I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for implying you were sleeping with other people, that was out of line.”

Magnus just looks at him for a moment and panic crawls up Alec’s throat again. He’s going to get thrown out on his ass.

“I’ll accept your apology for the second thing,” Magnus says finally, “but not the first.”

“I–”

“Because you don’t need to apologize to me for that. You weren’t pushing me, you had completely reasonable expectations of how I’d treat you. I freaked out and I made a mess of things, and I’m really sorry, Alec.”

“If you’d told me beforehand that you wanted us to be discreet, I would have done it,” Alec offers.

Magnus flops down on his futon and puts his head in his hands. “I know that. But I also knew it was ridiculous so I didn’t want to. But then I got there and I was sitting in my car and I panicked, and I convinced myself it was for your own good. It was bullshit, and you were right to call it bullshit.”

Alec cautiously sits next to Magnus on the futon, keeping a careful few feet between them.

“Magnus, what do you want from me?” Magnus turns his head to look at him and Alec presses on. “Because I like you and I want to be with you, but I don’t–” he swallows, “I don’t think I can just be your secret, unlabeled whatever. I just don’t think I can do that.”

“No, you shouldn’t put up with that,” Magnus says.

“But if you don’t want to be in a relationship with me, that’s fine, I understand. You just have to tell me.”

“I do,” Magnus says. “I do want to be in a relationship with you.”

“Okay, so you mean…”

“I mean I’m an idiot and I’m really sorry, and if you’ll have me I would like to be with you in a public, labeled whatever.”

Alec is helpless to stop the smile creeping across his face. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Alec says. “I’ll have you.” He scoots over so he’s closer to Magnus. “Can I–”

“Yeah,” Magnus says, already reaching out.

He kisses Magnus’ mouth, and then again when Magnus grabs onto his shoulders, a bit too tight. Magnus kisses him back, desperate and little messy, crowding close to Alec until he nearly falls off the futon.

“Sorry,” Magnus says, but doesn’t let Alec go. “Sorry. I thought I’d fucked this up for good. God, I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Alec whispers. He shifts around so he’s leaning back and he can pull Magnus up to straddle his lap. “Hey, it’s okay.” He threads his fingers through Magnus’ hair and uses his grip to make Magnus look at him. “It’s okay.”

Magnus nods and leans his forehead against Alec’s. “When Aline called and said you hadn’t made it home I was so worried. If something had happened to you and you thought I didn’t care about you…”

“I’m fine,” Alec assures him. “I went to the diner and turned off my phone and lost track of time. I’m sorry I didn’t return your call. I only listened to the voicemail today.”

Magnus shrugs. “I made Aline call me as soon as she knew you were okay. She also told me I was a fucking idiot for like, ten minutes, but it was worth it.”

“I’m totally grounded for missing curfew though,” Alec says. “So after today I think we’re going to be limited to IM conversations for a while.”

“Maybe I can sneak into your room,” Magnus says.

“Well,” Alec says. “I might be able to convince my mom to let you in the front door. I think she’s going to want to meet you.” Magnus raises his eyebrows. “I also came out to my parents.”

Magnus laughs. “You’ve had a very eventful week, Alexander.”

“More like one eventful night,” Alec says. “The rest of the week was just moping while listening to Something Corporate.”

“So basically like my week then, except mine was with Dashboard Confessional.” Magnus says.

“Wow, I rated a Dashboard spiral?”

“Shut up.”

“So we’re both pretty pathetic,” Alec says.

“Definitely.” Magnus reaches up and brushes across Alec’s cheekbone with his thumb. “I like you anyway though.”

“Me too,” Alec says. “Me too.”

epilogue: konstantine

They leave their jackets in Alec’s car and run hand in hand through the frozen field to the basement doors.

“Come on, Lorenzo, just let us in, it’s fucking cold!” Magnus says when Lorenzo takes a little too long in counting their cover. Lorenzo rolls his eyes and looks to be gearing up to get into it with Magnus, but Alec just smiles at him and says, “Thanks Lorenzo!” and pushes Magnus through the doors and into the party.

The Hideaway Christmas Eve party is in full swing already. There’s tinsel everywhere and a box of santa hats for people to wear. The speakers are blasting some sort of punk cover of All I Want For Christmas Is You.

“I missed this awful place,” Magnus sighs happily. Then he tries to make Alec wear a santa hat.

“Magnus, no,” Alec says for the fifth time, batting Magnus’ hands away from his head. Thankfully, at that moment they’re interrupted.

“Magnus, my man!”

“Eli, hey!” They high five enthusiastically.

“How’s the big city treating you, man? It’s not the same here without you.”

“Oh you know,” Magnus says, “I’m doing okay.” Alec snorts. Magnus loves his job at the hipster cocktail bar, is transferring to NYU in the spring, and has written several articles for a local underground music zine. In the same time frame Alec has passed all of his classes and turned half his laundry pink in the dorm washing machines by accident. (The red shirts was Magnus.’ Alec doesn’t want to talk about it.)

Someone jumps on his back and he automatically catches her legs.

“Hey, stranger,” Aline says in his ear.

“I just saw you last night,” Alec says, but he adjusts so he’s carrying her more securely.

“So?” she asks.

“Where’s Helen?”

“She and Mark are upstairs trying to talk their new bassist down. I think he was throwing up.”

“Sounds like a winner,” Alec says.

“He’s good,” Aline says. “I saw him at practice the other day. He just has stage fright, apparently.”

“Whatever,” Alec says. “I’m gonna get a beer. You need a ride over there?”

“Nah,” Aline says, so he lets go of her legs and she hops off his back. “I’ll walk over there with you though. Who knows how long it’ll be until New Years Project is ready to play.”

“Magnus, you want a beer?”

Magnus waves his hand at Alec without stopping his conversation with Eli. Alec interprets the gesture as yes.

Just as they get back with the beers, Helen pops up, dropping a kiss on Aline’s cheek. “Hey guys,” she says. “Greg finally stopped throwing up, so we’re gonna go on in a few minutes.”

They shuffle over to claim some space on the wall near the front. Alec drapes an arm around Magnus’ shoulder and Magnus leans in, tucking his hand in Alec’s back pocket.

“Having fun?” Alec asks.

“Mm-hmm,” Magnus says. “You? Glad to be back?”

Helen and Mark make their way to their instruments then, followed by the rest of the band. Aline perks up and the noise of the crowd swells.

“Yeah,” Alec says just as Helen counts off the first song. “Glad to be back.”

and then you bring me home
and we'll go to sleep but this time not alone
no no
and you'll kiss me in your living room
i know