troubled waters (FierroChase AU)

eleven

Magnus had been surprised by Alex standing outside her apartment, ready to go down the stairs. Did she want to go see him? Or was she going to leave, so that he would actually be disturbing her? He had become anxious to talk almost immediately and throughout their short and awkward conversation he was feeling incredibly nervous. Afraid to say something wrong, he was mostly just keeping quiet; however, in the end he even managed to offer to go out, to sit in a more comfortable setting than standing on the stairs.

He did not really notice, but he was slightly blushing, causing strange looks by Alex, which made him blush even more. Truth be told, he did not know what was happening. Of course he had been looking forward to meeting his new neighbour and at first he had not really known what to expect. But now, standing in front of her, everything turned out to be different than what he imagined.

She did kind of intimidate him, by that air of enormous self-assuredness, by that look in her eyes, by...her eyes themselves. They were of two different colours, one a little hidden by her green hair falling down and covering it. The other one though was clearly of the most beautiful amber Magnus had ever seen, almost looking like gold.

The first one, though hidden, seemed to be of a dark brown, contrasting her hair, as well as her other eye. It was a confusing yet somehow pretty sight on her face, that was causing Magnus to gasp inside and to stare on the outside, what was noticed by Alex leading to mutual confusion and anxiousness.

The impression Alex's face made on Magnus added to the fact that he was shaken by the way she was speaking, as well as in general, not being the most sociable person, his difficulty in talking to a stranger, that attracted him in a mysterious way. Not that he was conscious of this though, he was just really confused, not knowing what to think or say.

These new kinds of emotions, spontaneous yet strong, were an experience he still had to process. All he knew by now was that this was not an ordinary conversation between two strangers barely meeting. There was something more to it, perhaps expressed virtually in the awkwardness, in the hesitation between them, that would never take place in establishing a normal contact between two persons.

It was the attraction both surprisingly felt grow while observing the other that was the cause for their behaving this reserved. And Magnus was not able to overcome this state, as much as he would have liked, if he had put deeper thought in this and understood what was causing his behaviour. He hoped to get time to think until they were seated down in the garden, a proposition he had mainly made to this purpose.

Having installed themselves, Magnus started talking again, hoping to break through the weird atmosphere he felt he was causing all alone:

"How was your day, how did you arrive", he quickly said, breaking the silence. Alex was watching the sky above Boston downtown, observing and absorbing the view of violet, drifting clouds, shed into pieces, holes made into them. Magnus followed her glimpse.

The sky displayed his soul ad reminded him of ancient times of grief or anger. Yet Alex smiled at the view of it, and Magnus came to see the beauty behind the arrangement, the constellations and the colours, the constant movement, shifting and transforming the whole picture all the time. Alex turned around to him, kept the silence shortly, then answered:

"Well, it's been a long day. I'm from Chicago and I flew here today. So I've been here in Boston roughly a few hours in the afternoon. You are the first person I'm actually talking to except for Mrs. Blaxton. Isn't that odd? And how fast I found this apartment here! I'm happy to be honest. I like it here."

Alex chuckled lightly, looking at Magnus' expression.

"What's up with you anyway?" she said. "Who are you?"

"Uhm, I'm Magnus."

"Yeah, hi Magnus, I knew that", she laughed even more. Magnus was becoming increasingly nervous about her laughing at him. He was not that shy usually, was he? Thinking about that, he decided to behave differently.

"You did? Odd. Who are you though?" A small smile crept onto his face and faded only moments later. He was looking at her hetero-chromatic eyes as seriously as possible. She stopped laughing and stared at him for a second. He did not know what it was that caused it, but he felt his cheeks heat a little, only sensing this for a moment.

Soon Alex had also started smiling. She stood up, pretended to be coming from inside, stopped, looked at him and gave him his hand, slightly bowing before Magnus. "Alex Fierro, nice to meet you."

There was a short moment of silence when the two watched each other, not knowing what to say. Then they broke out into laughter. It was as if an invisible frontier had crumbled down between them, the awkwardness had somehow gone away. Tear down this wall, someone had said, and there was the freedom to talk to each other, to look at each other without shame or fear. It was almost magical.

Magnus relaxed and started to enjoy their conversation. "So, coming from Chicago, what are you going to do here in Boston? Are you in college?"

"Yeah, I am. French and art combo right in front of you. And no, don't ask me what I am going to do with it, Imma like study forever, as if I am dead already..."

"Wow", Magnus chuckled. "You're decidedly into what you are doing. That's great! What led you to it?

Suddenly, Alex's smile froze, and all of a sudden, she grew cold. "That's none of your business, Magnus." She bit her lip, and turned her eyes off him, staring again up into the sky. The clouds had shifted, the sun gone down. Alex stood up, leaving a shocked Magnus behind, saying "I think we should catch up at another point, shouldn't we?" and going away. As she climbed the stairs going back to her apartment, Magnus sat and stared into the empty, shaken and speechless, his mind mirrored in the darkness of a starless sky. He sat and thought and was sad.