Silent Understanding

He looks around him, wondering why he is in a mosque. Sun shines through the towering windows and dust dances in the light. He starts to laugh in delight of the simple beauty, but then he's jerked backwards, pulled by strong hands and thrust into a chair. All of a sudden, half a dozen clones of a maulvi surround him, looking at him with complete trepidation. One holds a copy—one of the few in this time, he notices distantly—of the Rite of Exorcisms and begins chanting from it in rapid, powerful Arabic.

The boy starts struggling, flailing his short limbs to get loose from the painful grip holding him to the chair. He sees two figures behind the chanting version of the maulvi: one, the mullah of the mosque who stands will a resigned expression and the other the mullah's apprentice, a boy not much older than himself. The apprentice's face is contorted in fear. The boy starts to cry out to these two for help, but is silenced by hands grabbing his head, and sharp Arabic demands than the jinn within him repeat Allah's scripture for repentance. A splash of water hits his face. He gasps and sputters, shocked that it is so extremely cold. The maulvi—all of them—are now his father who is screaming the chants at him. He's splashed again and sputters all the same, the freezing water soaking the top of his linen robe. He looks to see the mullah and apprentice again but they are gone. He cries out in horror at the sight he sees over his father's shoulder.

His mother swings slowly from side to side, a pendant on a string, hanged from the beam that belongs in his family's barn but somehow stretches across the mosque. Her eyes are open and dig into his soul, pleading, "Why? How could you? My own son, a monster…it is your fault." His eyes begin to sting, but the tears are as ice cold as the water still being thrown in his face. The chanting comes from all the clones and escalates to a fortissimo. There's so much water. Everything becomes frantic in his mind.

ThereissomuchwateritissocoldIcannothearanythingitisallabigroar
IcannotbreathewhycanInotbreatheICANNOTBREATHE!

Water is everywhere and he can feel rough calloused hands on the back of his neck and head, holding him under. He thrashes around, sending legs flying, trying to land a hit, trying to free himself. His wrists are strangled by strong rope behind him. "Father! Father, stop!" he pleads from beneath the surface. He just keeps swallowing water. His panic becomes impossibly worse and his mind gets more cluttered and then he feels that feeling: that feeling, like warm bath water coursing through his veins, which often gets him in trouble and causes odd things to happen. But this time it is so much hotter, like a boiling stew. His fingers tingle and before he really understands what happens, everything erupts in orange behind him. His father's hands release him immediately and he pulls himself out of the river, gasping and coughing, puking up swallowed water.

But then he looks up. And sees this father, on the ground, screaming in agony as the flames eat away his clothes and sear his skin. Before he can run away, the screaming ceases and his father stands up very calmly and points to him. "You do not deserve to live," the figure—the corpse—says. " You do not deserve to live."

"No. No, Father, do not say that." His voice sounds different than that of the small boy he'd been in the river. Magnus recognizes himself from the twenty-first century, frozen at nineteen, hair brushing his shoulders and eyes almost six feet from the ground. He feels warm tears slide down his cheeks. "Do not say that. Do not. Please, Father, I beg of you. I am your son," he pleads. Somewhere in his mind he understands that he is speaking Arabic, just like his father, something that he hasn't done in centuries.

He steps forward as if to prove his identity but his father isn't in the flames anymore. Instead the fire holds a young, dark-haired boy in itsclutches. Magnus stands still and shakes his head frantically, like a child. "No, no, no, no, not him. Please not him."

The boy looks sorrowfully at Magnus with blue eyes that pierce through the fire. He appears to not feel any pain but Magnus knows—just does—that the boy he loves is suffering quietly. Always quietly with Alexander.The boy opens his mouth to speak and Magnus perks to listen intently, eager to hear an "I love you".

"You don't deserve to live, Magnus. You don't deserve to live." Hatred fills the boy's eyes and the cool blue turns to ice, shattering the Warlock with pain. Magnus sinks to his knees. "You don't deserve to live, Magnus. You don't deserve to live." The boy says it over and over, like a desperate prayer, and each time Magnus feels a stab in his chest.

"No. Alec. Please, not you. Not you too. Alec, please don't hate me," he begs through his tears that never quite stopped. "I love you. Don't resent me, not you." His thoughts are interrupted by an ear-shattering scream. Alec, finally expressing pain, tears his throat apart with the agonizing sound of someone suffering. "ALEC! ALEC!" Magnus runs toward the fire but Alec has already fallen, not moving. His blue eyes are still open, however, and still hold all the hatred in the world for the the crying man. The next person Magnus hears screaming is himself, drowning again, in tears and one simple thought. I don't deserve to live.

~*~*~*~

Alec's eyes flew open as he realized what had woken him so harshly. "Magnus?" He rolled over, seeing the Warlock next to him, curled in a ball and twitching sporadically, covered in cold sweat.

"Le! Arraja, Allid! Allid, le!" Alec couldn't understand a thing Magnus was saying. But he clearly understood the urgent furrow in Magnus' brow and that his voice was desperately pleading, so desperate it was heartbreaking.

"Magnus!" Alec laid a hand on Magnus' shoulder and shook his boyfriend gently. "Magnus, wake up." Worry threaded through Alec's mind. He knew Magnus had occasional nightmares, had been through them before. Yet every time, his worry only seemed to be worse than the last. And this particular nightmare was tormenting Magnus more visciously than any of the others.

"You don't deserve to live. At aletta storah ku…" Magnus' eyes were leaking stray tears as he mumbled the words. But they stayed mercilessly closed, trapping him in the nightmare. He shook his head suddenly, looking lost in anguish. "Le, le, le, no!…not him….Alec, no." Here Alec felt his heart break further and began shaking Magnus a little too roughly. "Don't…Don't hate me. I love you. Don't resent…no…Please. No…" he pleaded as more sobs escaped him. The next second his expression was raw terror. "ALEC! ALEC!"

"Magnus! I'm here, Magnus. Wake! Up!" Alec was frantic with worry about what pain his dream-self could be causing the man next to him. "Yes you do, Magnus. You DO deserve to live! Magnus!"

The Warlock bolted upright, a long, painful, terribly real scream escaping with throat. His eyes were closed tight, afraid and in pain. His first scream gave way to a second but this one fell off into a wail of grief. Alec held him tightly, trying to pull him out of the dream's reality. "Magnus, everything is okay. It was a nightmare, only a nightmare. I'm here, Magnus, I'm here." Over and over, Alec repeated the words, rocking the older man in his arms, waiting for a response through the sobs. After countless minutes that could have been hours, the words seemed to reach Magnus' pierced ears. He sat back to look at Alec, hands still fisted in the fabric of Alec's shirt.

Alec just stared worriedly, hands cupping Magnus' face and shakily stroking his hair. Cat eyes stared back at him, unbelieving. They moved after a few seconds, seemingly to check Alec's wellbeing. Then they closed again as Magnus collapsed against Alec, holding him even more tightly than before, all the muscles in his thin arms flexing. He cried again, but softly. "Alec. Oh God, Alec," he whispered. Magnus said Alec's name again and again as he wept, so many times that Alec wondered if he would ever stop. But still he just held Magnus in his arms, whispering comforting things, waiting patiently, and simply thankful that his love had returned from the torturous reality of his nightmare.

Finally, Magnus sat back again, tears and snot everywhere, but still beautiful to Alec. Alec reached to the bedside table where a box of tissues sat. He plucked a few out and returned to Magnus, worry still etched in his features. Gently and carefully, he wiped all the snot and tears from the Warlock's perfect face. Magnus just watched him as he did it, not complaining or moving. When Alec was finished, he tossed the tissues into the trashcan without looking, focused on Magnus' wellbeing.

They sat there for a few minutes, just looking at one another. Alec resumed stroking the onyx locks as he stared into the amazingly enticing eyes of the man who had taken his heart. As he let his fingers slip down to Magnus' cheek, a hand reached up to hold them.

Then Magnus lifted his other hand to the back of Alec's head and pulled the other boy towards him. Their lips met slowly but forcefully. The hand in Alec's hair was clinging so tightly it hurt and he knew Magnus' brow was furrowed with the same urgency as before. Their lips did not move, but stayed perfectly still against each other. Alec somehow understood that Magnus was assuring himself that this was real and that he'd never forget the way their lips fit together. And he knew Magnus understood that Alec was assuring him of the same thing.