lost_boy | (no subject)

I had a really big favour to ask of Magnus and I knew it was still months away, but it turned out, when the world was gentler, I was rather impatient. I could wait forever if I was hunting or if I knew the pirates were nearby and staying silent was the only way to stay safe, but this was different. This was fun.

Before Darrow, even though Peter would have told a very different story, I didn't have a lot of fun. It was difficult, being on that Island. I had been a hunter and a caretaker. A murderer and healer. A doctor and a parent. All the roles that required responsibility on the Island had been mine, even if I hadn't realized at the time. Looking back now, so much of my time there had been warped and twisted through Peter's dark vision.

But Darrow, for all the strangeness it held, offered me the chance to just be a boy, too. To have fun and do things because I wanted to, not only because I felt I had to. I thought I was being responsible, too. I was doing well in school and I hadn't been in a real fight in weeks, but I still couldn't just turn a blind eye when someone was getting picked on. What helped me there were the bullies who didn't want to admit they had been beaten up by me.

Admittedly, I still found fighting fun, but I was more excited for what I had to ask Magnus. I had texted him earlier, politely asking if he would meet me for tea, and I had told him I would pay. The workers at the Home had given me some of my money for it and I was waiting in a comfortable chair at a tea shop, sitting on my hands to prevent myself from squirming impatiently.

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"Besides the killer cookies, it was a lot of fun," I agreed with a grin, squirming a little in my seat again. I picked up my tea and took a long sip to cover that and to recover myself before I set it down once more.

"I've never really had a big New Year's Eve celebration like that," I told Magnus. "I've never done a lot of things until coming to Darrow, but I like the parties. I like yours the best, but being up on Kagura with all the lights and... well, all the champagne. That was nice, too."

I had nicked a few glasses and had gotten a little drunk, but I thought the champagne could be thanked for my bravery with Eddie that night.

Magnus rolls his eyes at the reminder of the killer cookies. He, too, had had fun with his significant other despite the kooky attack of the City's magic. It seems they both have built up their own immunity to the tricks of the City. Or at least love made one blind to some of the ridiculous (and sometimes horrific) acts of insane magic.

"There is something intensely romantic about Kagura," Magnus agrees without any offense. "I wouldn't try to replicate it. That seems gauche. But I like to add my own flare to make things a bit more fun than mistletoe."

"I don't like the mistletoe," I admitted, making a face. "Eddie got stuck and I didn't check my phone for almost an hour and he was so angry with me."

The kiss had been nice, even though he had been mad, or maybe even because he had been mad, but I hadn't liked that feeling. Of worrying that I had let him down somehow, done something wrong. It had made me feel a little like I did those first few months on the Island, although the difference between Peter and Eddie was that Eddie forgave me. Peter simply forgot he'd been slighted at all.

"And what if you got stuck and had to kiss someone else?" I asked. "What if I got stuck and had to kiss someone else? I would feel so terrible."

Maybe Eddie had been mad, but Magnus could help the smile that crept onto his features. He thought it amusing, in that no real harm was done but someone had to suffer a little kind of way. And it wasn't as if Jamie had been purposefully avoiding Eddie; it just happened.

The question, though, caught Magnus slightly off guard. On the one hand... a kiss had nearly ruined everything between him and Alec. On the other, this was different.

"It's mistletoe," Magnus said, a touch dismissive, though he could understand where Jamie was coming from. "It's the city messing with us, once again. I don't count anything like that as being a true kiss." He paused. "Alec probably wouldn't free anyone from the mistletoe, except under duress. But I helped one or two people and I don't feel guilty about it."

I considered that and decided Magnus was right, it wasn't necessarily and real kiss, but I would still feel guilty. Even if it wasn't a real kiss to me, Eddie might not feel the same way, and I never wanted to hurt him.

"How do you know if you love someone?" I asked curiously. It felt like an abrupt switch once I'd said it out loud, but I didn't think it was. For a long time now I had been wondering. I thought if I had to wonder, maybe I wasn't there quite yet, because everyone seemed to say it was something you just knew.

I thought I had known with Sal, but it felt different with Eddie.

Oh. Oh, dear. He hadn't been expecting that question.

Magnus didn't think he was the wrong person to ask, necessarily. He had loved (and lost) dozens, hundreds even, of times in the past. Some turned out to be mere infatuations and some never got off the ground for various reasons, but he knew love.

The problem was that love was such a tricksy thing that he wasn't sure he had a good answer.

He sighed gently, considering his answer.

"It's different, I think, for every person. But, when I know that I love someone, it just comes to me. They'll do something small and insignificant and I'll feel this rush go through me like... like nothing else. And I know that I don't ever want to be without them. It's the sense that you'd do anything to make them happy. To care for them."

He realized he was speaking a bit of Catarina now as well as Alec.

"They are the most important thing. Their happiness."

I liked that answer and I smiled as Magnus spoke, still looking down at my tea. There were days when I thought maybe I loved Eddie. Or, if I didn't already, that I would soon, but I was never sure which feelings I could trust. Which feelings were really love and which were something else.

But I liked what Magnus was saying. It made sense to me.

"Thank you," I said, looking up at him again. "For answering me seriously. I feel like most people think just because we're young we don't feel things like that or that we don't know what we're feeling and I don't think that's true."

"Ah, they're all idiots," Magnus said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He didn't believe in the idea that the young didn't understand, didn't feel like adults. They might be more naive, more innocent, but that didn't change their ability to feel.

"Never let anyone tell you that what you're feeling isn't.. right or real or invalid in anyway. They're not worth your time if they do."

I liked that, the way Magnus took me seriously even though I was still young. It made me feel like I could trust some of the grown ups here in Darrow, like it would be okay, as long as I could stay here forever. If I left, I wasn't sure where I would go anyway, except back to the pirates, and while that seemed less daunting than it once had, I preferred this life.

"Thank you," I said again. "I like it here. I like... I'm glad we're friends."

I had a lot of friends here. It made me feel so much less lonely than I had thought growing up would be.