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.