BLIND

Context Part 5

"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When Alec woke up, his legs and hips hurt, his fingers were cracked up, with dried blood crusting his tips and around the nails. His shoulders and back hurt, ached, and his exhaustion had reached a new high. Or, rather, low. Despite the tugging pain of an approaching headache and the dryness in his eyes that spoke of sleep deprivation and dehydration, he knew he wouldn't be falling back into slumber. He had jerked awake, terrified of a danger he couldn't quite place and was having trouble shaking off. He put his hand to his face, and realized it was an awkward mix of sticky and crusty. It was as if tears had dried there, and his mind went back to the night before, placing an understanding in his head. The night before.

Fuck. Magnus.

Alec had left him, the night before. He'd left him shirtless and confused, half hard. He'd run into the bathroom and closed himself down, cried and cried and found that he couldn't stop. Magnus probably felt like shit, being left like that. Alec would, if their positions were reversed and Alec had been the one knocking on the door, trying to help but being ignored like he meant nothing. He would have been freaking out, concerned, and his head would be running through the countless possibilities, thinking up any flaw he could conjure, scenarios that could lead to the precarious situation they were in.

Alec stepped out of the shower, catching his reflection in the mirror that covered the wall the sinks were placed on. Magnus tended to spend a good chunk of time in there, when things were, not good, but better. There were little and big pots of glitter and eyeshadow and glosses, foundation, whatever the makeup industry made, brushes and eyepencils and mascara wands on one side of the sink, stacked up but still running over to the other side quite a bit, but it didn't matter, because all that was there were their toothbrushes and Alec's deoderant. Normal things, for them. But the bags under Alec's eyes, the darkness, the frailty his usually sturdy body possessed, was anything but the typical clutter around the sink. He was changing, beginning to decay in the one place, with Magnus, where he'd thought things would get better. Not that Magnus had anything to do with it, he thought, with a sting of guilt sitting in his gut. He shouldn't blame the warlock for his problems, no matter how easy it would be.

With a sigh, he opened the bathroom door to a quiet apartment. There was a light coming from behind the willowy curtains on the windows, and it wasn't the tinted orange-yellow popcorn butter color of the streetlamps, but the glare of sunlight the curtains made calm. Alec was late for his patrol, he knew immediately. It didn't really matter. The only one that checked in with him was himself, anyway. He didn't really have to worry about finding Jace, did he? His parabatai wasn't hurt, beside that one bruise that mirrored Jonathan's. It kind of nagged Alec, that one bruise, added worry to all of the stress, the weight, he was under. Maybe Alec should just go out for his patrol, get picked up by Jonathan. He'd get confirmation that his brother was alive and an hour of pain that would last so much longer in his head. They never did take too long, but it was impossibly, agonizingly longer for Alec.

He should really have been doing that, not standing still and observing Magnus at the island they had in their kitchen (that day, who knew what it would be like the next day), nursing a coffee stained mug that probably once held the black caffeine-rich substance and a magazine that was still flipped on the first page.

As soon as Alec stepped into the room properly, Magnus closed the magazine in front of him, setting down the mug. He was waiting for Alec, then.

Gathering himself for what seemed like far too many times, Alec moved slowly to make himself a cup of coffee, the machine completely empty. Magnus had been up a while, but Alec didn't comment, he didn't have the right to, as he filled the filter up with water, using Magnus's grinds. The methodic, slow but certain, drip started after Alec had collected himself a cup to put next to the machine.