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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.