Fragile Balances

Original story: Equilibri fragili (ITA)

Parallel lines: simple enough, really. Two paths running side by side, heading in the same direction, yet destined never to meet.

Rational. Logical. Comfortably tragic.

In the quiet heart of Brooklyn, Alexander Gideon Lightwood was fairly certain his life would dissolve into the ordinary- somewhere between a cup of coffee, a scoop of ice cream, and a job his mother considered painfully mediocre.

Much like him.

One floor above, Magnus Bane had come to believe that, after years of hitting rock bottom, things could only go up- and that a new Dior eyeshadow still had the power to fix just about anything.

Where Alexander loathed people and found conversation a slow form of torture, Magnus fed on it- on the noise, the smiles, the faces, the performance of being alive.

Where Alexander rolled his eyes at Magnus and his designer bags- symbols of a glittering, ridiculous world he couldn't make sense of- Magnus dismissed Alexander and his ever-present cigarettes, unimpressed by his distant, brooding routine.

And yet, perhaps for Alexander, those sharp, feline eyes could be the kind of storm that wrecks everything neat and predictable; while for Magnus, that tall, inked pessimist might be just another stop on his endless road of disappointments.

But what if... by some cosmic accident, those two straight lines decided to cross?

- Where Alexander lived quietly, without realizing it was peace, Magnus was a gigolo who'd been chasing it all his life.