Danger Line (Malec)

Danger Line Chapter 10 Give 'Em Hell, Kid

Alec goes to the school library after he leaves Magnus to his own devices, his mind a defunct whirl of chaos and organized insanity that he doesn't bother trying to escape. Much unlike the band, he can't seem to escape his fate. He's too far in for that.

When he gets to the library he doesn't bother to pull a book off one of the many sturdy shelves, or even give the pretense of studying. He's in the room to collect his racing head, to analyze what he's done and what he's going to do. He's not forcing himself to be someone he's not as he makes himself to self-destruct in one of the dirtiest, most disgusting yet strangely appealing plans. It's a deception, and more than enough lies for him to be occupied with, more than enough of him can be lost in this terribly risky game he's playing. It's a good thing he's only playing for the ill-mannered risks.

He's already los himself, or more so, he's already thrown himself away like the tormented, used up and filthy trash he knows he is. He's been walking a thin line since the incident, since before that even, and now he might be falling off. He can't find the line, so he has no way to know if his balance is good enough. It took less than a month for the line that divided Alec's mind between insanity and whatever else to be gone with no trace or whisper off its previous presence. It's almost laughable how little time it took, how pathetic he is, but he's working on it.

He's going to stop being weak, he's going to make it so that burning inside of him is gone, but he's still defiantly left emptily alive yet still resistant, the perfect nightmare for his imperfect parents.

As long as Alec's internally deficient and not altogether there, yet externally healthy and rebellious, perhaps a bit blandly, he doesn't care. Alec wants his parents to be ashamed. He wants to spite them with his imperfections. He wants them to catch him with his tongue down Magnus's throat, maybe with other things in other places. He wants to prove his father's words wrong, that the words spat on him while he lost himself in the whirl of a hate-crime, won't ring through his ears in a terrifyingly ill fantasy of a perfect son.

Alec refuses. He refuses the ideals set upon him, he refuses to even be a normally defiant teen. If his parents thought that he was bad before… he was practically a tame kitten compared to what he's going to turn himself into. His meek, self-conscious and blunt person is gone, purged from his behavior. He was shot by so many different kinds of bullets, again and again until eventually he had to change, compromise his old self for a new layer. He's like an ogre, or more specifically like an onion. Onions have layers, and so did Alec before they were brutally purged.

Before, he would have been too scared to go out with Magnus, much less in public. He would have put off being with him, he wouldn't even be doing such simple of things as listening to the music he's finally allowed himself to love. He wouldn't have worn skinny jeans without protest, much less nearly every day. He wouldn't have acted as anything other than what was expected of him.

But all of that changed, was obliterated like it meant nothing when he was finally called out on his false life. It took time, but slowly, Alec realized that if you hate something you can try and fix it, make it better than it'll ever be without help. All it took was a half Asian girl who'd developed a backbone and the booksmart jock was gone, replaced by a teen who dressed in black and wasn't afraid of himself, of what he was becoming. He was still strong enough to not be bullied, for the most part, and once he started using his brain to come up with quick and effective defensive insults it was hard to stop.

His parents hated it. They wanted him to change, go back to being 'normal' while he could still salvage some of his 'good' reputation. That wasn't going to happen, no matter how many fists connected with his already bruised body. He and the girl, Aline, became thick as thieves, and she was the first real friend he'd ever had, discluding Jace.