BLIND

Chapter 3 Split Ends

"Conscience, as I understand it, is the impulse to do the right thing because it is right, regardless of personal ends, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability to distinguish between right and wrong." -Margaret Collier Graham

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Alec hated the nightmare that Magnus had awoken him from. It was a situation he was becoming used to, hating things, with himself tied up and at the mercy of Jonathan Morgenstern twice in the previous three days. It was how the nightmare had went, predictably enough. He was in that cold concrete room, fastened to the sloped wall, and he was terrified. He couldn't remember exactly what had been done, but it was awful. He had begged and pleaded and bargained, but it was all for naught, just like it always was. His words were useless and the platinum-headed fugitive had come at him anyway.

He had screamed because it hurt and it wouldn't stop. It felt like he was having a seizure or something, his entire body pounding and shaking with little control. Even when his eyes snapped open, he was still there for a second, just trying to make the pain stop. Then Jonathan became Magnus and Alec hardly knew how to deal with it all. He wanted to tell Magnus, but all he'd be able to say would be weather-related. He'd begun to dislike the weather. The sky and its moods could go fuck itself.

Alec had kept secrets before, like the bottle of whiskey that went missing the year before, and contrary to what everyone thought, he wasn't horrible at it. He might have been, had people dug further, but they never did. He knew how to keep out of the limelight. But he'd never had to keep a secret like this, one that was always sitting at the back of his throat, laying his tongue with slick oil that the truth kept slipping on, trying to get out from. His head spun with ways to try and communicate what he was trying to say, but it didn't happen. No one dug deep enough into his strange behavior. He wasn't Jace, so it wasn't a dramatic change that had to be fussed over at every turn (because, face it, Alec would be the one doing all of the fussing).

It wasn't as though Alec had never kept secrets he'd wanted others to know. He had wanted people to know that he was gay, but he couldn't say anything because there was too much fear holding him back. It had been a secret, but not really a problem. Not like this. This was a new category of secret for him, and one he wished he hadn't been faced with. At least it wasn't Izzy who got it, understood, with her odd way of just knowing. He wouldn't want her to know first, he'd prefer his mom, or maybe even Magnus. He didn't want to seem too weak in front of his little sister, or anyone, for that matter.

Secrets weren't supposed to physically hurt him, like Jonathan did, and hide the evidence. At least when he was hit when he was younger his mother was upfront about it, and it was a means of punishment. It wasn't a secret if everyone knew, if everyone could see the marks. It stopped just before Isabelle was old enough to realize what was happening, as the stress of Valentine dying and the Clave's wrath became less harsh and the punishments with it. Those hits weren't a secret, and they didn't hurt anyone. They didn't prevent him from keeping anyone safe, because at the time, he hadn't had anyone to keep safe. He was on his own.

He wished there was something he could do other than let Magnus rock into him, both of their heads not completely there. Magnus was worried about the nightmare, Alec could tell, even if his own head was still trapped away in the unreachable hell of a cement room he'd become accustomed to.

A room that he didn't ever want to visit again if he could help it. Little did he know that he'd be making a forced appearance there again that evening, after he kissed Magnus goodbye and as soon as the weariness of working began to set in yet again.

The third time Jonathan stole Alec from the real world was horrible. Not in the usual horrible way, because Jonathan seemed determined to up his game with every visit. Angel, he almost wished for Jonathan's normal brand of crazy. Fuck. He'd began to think of what Jonathan was doing as 'normal.' But this wasn't 'normal,' this was awful, torturous, and completely vile in its own way. And Jonathan didn't even have to touch him. It almost made Alec glad he couldn't talk about these abductions to anyone, because he was ashamed that he'd done them. That he and them existed together in the same sentence.