He was scared, a few weeks ago, that this would stop, yet Magnus still comes in silence and asks something of him every other day now, as if they had never met. As if they had two lives, two ways to look at each other. Alec likes when they talk. He also likes when they don’t. There’s relief in the curves of a word, in the familiarity of a handwriting. There’s history where they built it, between the lines of notepad paper where they first found each other. That’s where traditions come from. In the corner of a smile, in the warmth of a blush, that’s where men look when they need a reason to do something over and over again.

All that matters is Alec, playful Alec, looking at him to check if he’s smiling too, if he’s laughing too. All that matters is the joy on this perfect face, the ridicule of it all; Alec is comfortable and when he’s comfortable, he blossoms into a star Magnus would be glad to live under for the rest of his life. There is little he could think of, even less he could say; all he knows is that he’ll marry this man one day.