troubled waters (FierroChase AU)

seventeen

Alex had slept in the afternoon, being way too tired because of the last night, pushing hard to finally finish his newest pottery creation. He had started just after having eaten dinner at nine, putting on some classical jazz, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, regaining and solidifying patience, precision, creativity. Serenity. In his head, he had an exact view of what he was going to create, what it would look like, what style, what ornaments, what sense it would have. Alex thought about hidden messages in the way the curves were to be shaped, about beautiful decorations and patterns on the outside, about what the combination of these different aspects could uncover about the person that had thought of them. In this work of art of his, he put all he felt, this strange, intense mixture of joy, of anxiety, of absolute freedom and a mind full of restraint. He added both his inner conflict and harmony, he added Magnus Loki, Boston and the universe. Each displayed by colours, by form, by lines and circles, by the depth of space.

He also added the dimension of time, influencing the final result, deciding on when to add what element, ensuring that the flow of time played a role not only in the process of creation, but also could be felt and seen in the reliefs and intertwining designs and symbols, sometimes reversing, sometimes even stopping it altogether. And although Alex had that plan, that complex combination of aspects he had been thinking of in mind, the spontaneity of art came soon into play, contrasting and amplifying what she knew already, adding another dimension of change and of meaning to what was already dense and deep. He had worked through all the night, merely ending at dawn. And the music and his tiredness, voices that he remembered, the street lights and the moon, finally the slow return of light to the outside added, supplemented, completed a piece of art, that was intense, global, and yet so specific in the way it expressed who, how, even why Alex was.

He had needed a long conversation to convince his prof to let his use the pottery room during the night, and he met him in the morning at the college's cafeteria, exhausted, yet still full of adrenalin, satisfied, happy, about the work he'd done. Exchanging some words, promising to present and explain his creation to the curious man that had started liking Alex quickly, he drank an espresso, took the bus and went home. Back in his room, he ate, read a little while, and then fell asleep, in the middle of the day.

The sun changing its position, rising to its zenith and lowering again, its rays reaching further and further into Alex' room, while the shadow provided by the wall diminished, it was only a matter of time until Alex awoke, sunlight shining into her eyes. But Magnus was faster. He knocked on the door, two times, shyly, then waited for some time. As he was turning to go down, continue his work and maybe come later, he heard steps, thus remaining in his position, until the door opened. Alex had woken up from the first knock already, but decided to wait in bed, because she was still very tired and slow in her thinking and acting, but also because she immediately thought that it was Magnus who was knocking and wanted to see how he would proceed without an answer from her. He did as she had expected. To shy to make a decisive move, he probably waited a bit and then went away.

After the time she felt he would wait, she stood up and stepped towards the door to open it. With all her calculations about how Magnus was going to act and how she could act to find out and so on, she had forgotten one tiny detail. When she opened the door, she stood directly in front of Magnus wearing only an oversized purple Fall Out Boy shirt, that left her left shoulder entirely uncovered, falling far down her arm, reaching only to the upper parts of her thighs. Magnus stood there smiling softly, then his eyes quickly wandered down her body, registering how she was dressed, and he blushed hard. Alex could observe the change in his face happening within seconds, and chuckled.

"Yep Mags, I just got out of bed. Your knocking woke me up, to be entirely honest. Now should I call an ambulance or are you going to survive the view of my legs without further medical support?"

Magnus blushed even harder, if that was even possible, and before he had the chance to answer, Alex' chuckling expanded to big time laughter. Magnus tried to respond.

"Uhm, should I come back some time later? Like, sorry Alex, I didn't want to disturb you..."

She continued laughing, then calmed slowly down.

"It's okay, Mags. If you're going to survive seeing me like this, I am going to survive being seen like this. Okay? Anyways, why did you want to see me?"

"I-I wanted to ask you, if you had something planned this evening. I thought maybe we could continue our conversation from last time. But I see you have a differing biorhythm right now, so I'm not sure, if this is a good idea..."

"Okay, what did you think of? Like I don't care about my biorhythm at all, either I'm going to survive or not. I had a great night, and now I just needed to rest a little bit, to regain that missed sleep, to recharge those batteries, you know."

"Ohh, okay. I see. I'll let you rest then."

"Hey, Mags. I was working on a project at college I had to finish in the night. I don't know, sometimes I just feel that artistic spirit at night, during long, dark hours, not during those few hours a week I'm normally working on such things. I needed the inspiration and the motivation. But I'm fine now. I'd even say I'm really happy, doing that was great fun! So, what did you want to do? Please tell me!"

"Well, there's that one restaurant some streets down in the park that just opened a couple weeks ago. One of the guys in my literature course told me it had a great vegan menu, so I thought we could go there, if you want to. We could like talk some time and enjoy the weather; it's September after all, it won't be this warm forever."

"That would be great. Honestly! Let's meet at 7, alright?"

Magnus nodded, smiling again, though not convincedly yet. The red colour in his face had mostly faded again. Alex looked at him, grinning at the way he spoke to her, but also because he had practically asked her out; he had done it. She could never have imagined. She shut the door and laid back down on her bed. This did not mean anything yet. But she was going to spend some time with him and that was good.