The Malec Chronicles

Sorry

If there was one thing that Alec thought he was good at, it was saying sorry.

Sometimes, growing up, it had felt like the only thing he could do: sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry for being the way I am and who I am and nothing more, sorry for this thing that's not really my fault, sorry for some pain that you have that I didn't cause but can't make better, sorry sorry sorry, hunching in his shoulders and fading into the background to take up less space, stuttering out sentences that let him take all the blame and responsibility onto his shoulders even when it should belong to someone else.

He had grown out of it, with a little help, learning that there's nothing wrong with the way he is and that sometimes he should swallow his sorries and let someone else take the blame, but now he wishes he had that impulse back so he could say the one thing that really matters, the one thing that he thinks might stop Magnus from looking at him like he is, stop the image of him walking away and never coming back: sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm still new to the idea of being loved like I want to be loved, loved like I never thought I deserved to be, and I just wanted to know how to keep it for as long as I could, sorry sorry sorry, sorry I was afraid, sorry I did this horrible thing, sorry I couldn't trust you, sorry I wanted more even though you were already giving me all that you were willing to.

But he doesn't say that, just watches Magnus walk away by the light of the witch light, trying not to feel like everything in his life was collapsing around him.

He goes to the loft like Magnus had asked him to, packing up the parts of him that had managed to get strewn all over the place (the physical things, like shirts and his favorite mug and stray pairs of socks, but nothing is going to be able to get back the memories and emotions that had spilled here, the firsts and the lasts and the never agains that had happened in this very apartment). It's incredibly painful to be in here without Magnus with him, even more so when he thinks about how he won't be coming back, how he won't stand on that balcony in the morning with a steaming mug of coffee or stumble in late at night to find Magnus hunched over the table working while he waits for Alec, how there will be no home made dinners or movie nights.

Alec doesn't want to go into the bedroom, because he thinks then the pain of what he lost will hit him in the chest and knock him down, but he finally steels his nerves and pushes the door open, crossing the threshold and taking a deep breath, the empty box in his hands. He rummages through drawers to gather up the sweaters and jeans and sweat pants, leaving the shirt that Magnus likes to sleep in when Alec is out on a mission and can't come home. He cleans out the bathroom, throwing the comb and toothbrush and keeping the half used stick of deodorant, and then goes out to sit on the bed, wondering how it's possible that this is all that he left here.

He finds himself staring at the picture on the bedside table, the one of the two of them from their trip around the world, back when Alec hadn't cared about the ones who came before or how he doesn't know anything about them, back when he was young and in love and hadn't known what it felt like when real life came in between that. They have their arms around each other and are smiling, an unstaged smile because they are laughing at the slightly drunk girl taking their picture and proclaiming for the whole street to hear how cute they are, how in love they are, how they'll be together forever, the twilight sky wrapping around them in the back ground.

Alec wants to take it, but leaves it because it actually was Magnus', taken with his camera and printed at home with his magic and put in a frame he bought, so he forces himself out into the living room to grab the mug that he brought from home and lay his key on the kitchen table, a final goodbye. But then right before he leaves he turns back, heads back into that room and slips the photo out, because he knows that if he leaves it, it might stay there for a while, but then Magnus would send it to wherever he puts the reminders of lost loves and would never to be seen again.