#146things

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.]

11. paint your nails a new colour

There’s grey on her sheets, a blob of purple stuck on one of her pillows, but she’s too invested in swiping the cool brush of paint across her fingers to notice. In fact, she’s so caught up in swirling the lavender artistically over the grey that she doesn’t even notice the door creeping open.

“Helen?” she hears a soft voice call. She doesn’t look up, sighing gently as twists of long hair blow slowly away from her face.

“Are you going to come down for dinner?” her girlfriend tries again, her tone both concerned and easily understanding in the way only she has ever managed. Helen doesn’t look up at that, either, though she does stop her painting long enough to reply quietly.

“No, thanks,” she mutters, going back to drawing the fortitude rune across her index. Aline doesn’t say anything after that, though she can feel her hovering curiously in the doorway still. Eventually, a quiet breath fills the room and the door slips shut.

She wrings out her hand to dry the wet pollish.

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.]

10. think about how you don’t want scars for summer

He’s so close, he is. The bathroom door is open and his foot is nearly through it, eyes trained on the farthest drawer, and he’s so close but he can’t. Because he knows, he knows, that Magnus sees the scars and is itching to ask the questions he always fends off with a smile.

He can’t because he loves Magnus and maybe he loves himself a bit, too, and maybe that’s the real reason he can’t take another step forward. He loves himself. He loves himself too much to leave any more vicious symbols of his inability to cope.

He can cope, he can do this. Because he’s tired of saying Church is the devil and he was doing origami. Because he’s tired of looking down and being reminded of the temptation he still struggles with. Because he’s tired of Magnus’s eyes (like he knows) and he wants to wear short sleeves when it’s hot out without feeling like he’s baring all his demons to the world.

He can do this.

He swallows hard, takes a step back, and closes the door.

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.]

8. watch a favourite tv show

“Alec?” Magnus calls out into the loft, letting the door fall shut behind him. He can hear noise coming from the living room, people talking and laughing and music flowing out with their voices, but there’s something off about the sound. He frowns, toeing off his shoes and heading in the direction of the noise.

He calls his boyfriend again as he nears it, pausing for a second to wait for a response that never comes. Concern washing over him like the tide crashing against a steep cliff, Magnus steps into the living room and blinks in realization.

Project Runway is playing out on the TV, Alec sunk into the couch with an odd expression on his face as he watches the model strut down the runway in a red plastic bag. Magnus pauses, blinks again, then rounds the couch to sink down next to the shadowhunter.

“Good to know I’m rubbing off on you,” he says, looping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into his side. Alec remains quiet for a long minute, eyes fixed on the screen like something bad will happen if he looks away for so much as a second.

Then, so softly Magnus almost doesn’t catch it, “Guilty pleasure.”

He doesn’t call him out on the fact it’s so obviously more than that.

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.]

7. be with other people

He can hear them, downstairs in the living room watching some show he’s never cared Enough about to learn the name of. They’re laughing and happy and he wants to go down there, to be a part of the joy and the love and at least try to get away from the constant whispers of do it, just once, no one will notice, no one will care. He doesn’t want to ruin it, though, to bring down the mood like he always does or make them feel like they need to direct it right at him. He doesn’t want to take it from them, he just wants to bask in it with them.

Magnus laughs, bright and suprised, and Isabelle joins in with a satisfied giggle and yeah, that’s what does it. Alec takes a deep breath, tells the stupid voice in his head to shut up already because they do care, they care so much it hurts sometimes, and then suddenly he’s standing in the living room doorway, looking in on a happy scene that feels almost out of place in his life. He’s about to back away, his mind screaming abort! abort! when his sister looks up from where she’s laying in Simon’s lap.

There’s a moment where neither does a thing, where she looks at him and he at her and an entire novel of conversation passes in silence between them. I’m scared, he tells her, I’m going to ruin it.

You won’t, she replies. We’re a family, we look out for each other. And then she’s smiling brightly, gesturing with painted red nails for him to come take a seat beside Magnus, who’s sprawled out on the floor at Simon’s feet. Simon looks up, drawn by her nearly smacking him in the face, and he grins, too, eyes bright and welcoming as he lifts a hand of his own in a wave.

“Come join us,” he calls out as Magnus grins over at him. Alec manages a small smile back.He takes a deep breath.

“What are we watching?”

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.]

6. cuddle with a stuffed toy

“Goodnight,” his brother mutters softly, flicking the light off as he closes the door behind him. Max listens after him for more than a minute, Alec’s footsteps echoing heavy down the hall in that sad way that seems to accompany everything he does lately. The young boy frowns, taking a deep breath, and then climbs over to the very edge of his bed to reach under it and grasp at something soft. It lands with a silent bounce on the bed beside him before he pulls it to him with a relieved sigh.

He settles back down into his pillows, clutching the stuffed dragon to him like a lifeline.

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.]

5. write poetry

Demon pox, oh demon pox Just how is it acquired? One must go down to the-

“Is that...” came a sudden voice over Will’s shoulder. “A song about bloody demon pox?”

Will cleared his throat, shoving the wrinkled paper further away from him as he turned to face his parabatai. He swallowed hard, the attention he’d had focused on the light-hearted lyrics going back to his thoughts from before with a feeling like nails on a chalkboard. “Yes,” he said firmly, meeting Jem’s eyes determinedly as he tried to shove the thoughts away again. He was a shadowhunter for God’s sake; he shouldn’t be having them in the first place.

Jem gave him an odd look. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Will repeated, even harsher this time. He purposefully kept his gaze locked with the other’s, narrowing his eyes to convey a strength he didn’t feel. Part of him wanted to say something else, to let his best friend, his other half, into the dark closet he’d found himself trapped inside for the past few months. Another told him not to say anything, that he couldn’t burden someone as selfless as Jem with the fire he wanted to immerse himself in. “I’m sure.”

Jem didn’t look convinced, eyes lingering too long on Will’s before shifting to the paper that now lay forgotten on the desk. His expression cleared, wiped clean like a windowpane, and Will no longer had any idea what he was thinking. “Promise you won’t sing it to Charlotte, will you? I believe she’s getting quite fed up with this whole demon pox thing.”

“I promise,” Will offered with a grin that said otherwise. Jem merely shook his head and turned to leave him alone with his thoughts once more.

The shadowhunter almost asked him to stay, but that would have brought up too many questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. Instead, he turned back to the song at hand and scribbled down the rest of the line.

- bad part of town Until one is very tired.

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.]

4. scribble on sheets of paper

“Will?” Jem asked cautiously, peeking a head of tangled silver hair into the study. He waited for a reply from the boy seated at the desk across the room, but when none came he furrowed his brow and took a step inside, letting the heavy wooden door fall shut behind him with a bang that still did not draw his friend’s attention. He tried again, the name falling from his lips a little more insistently this time.

Hand working across what must have been a piece of paper at a frantic pace, Will still did not look up as he replied with a distracted, “Yeah?”

Jem frowned. “What are you doing?” he inquired, stepping closer to get a better look. It didn’t look like he was doing much of anything, if Jem was being honest. The page, which it was, was covered in thin black scribbles so profuse it appeared as though the paper had simply been black to start with. And yet still Will showed no signs of stopping his desperate scrawls, though his writing hand was nearly black itself from the ink.

Will didn’t answer, every flicker of his attention fixed firmly on the task at hand. There was something almost poignant in the curve of his wrist and the flutter of his eyes. Something almost desperately lost, as though he were seeking a piece of himself in the defacing of a clean white canvas.

Jem brushed a soft hand over his shoulder and left the room.

[bamf-alec]

146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm [Taken from this.] 

3. draw on yourself with washable red marker, then take a shower and wash away your pain

The lines are shaky and unsure, red slips of hesitancy sliding through a snow storm. He almost thinks they’re nicer than the silver lightning they cover, prettier than the pink stitches on fragile porcelain. Maybe it’s the way they glide across the surface, with prose and no resistance, instead of cutting through and leaving marks that last.

Because he’s never liked the scars. Not even when it started and he knew that he could stop. They’ve always been these indelible souvenirs of moments that hadn’t needed to happen, that shouldn’t have even crossed his mind. They’re weakness and loss and desperation and silence because he’s the only one who can hear himself screaming out for help.

But this- this is different. This is the smooth and gentle glide of a felt-tipped to ease away the mnemonic of silverpinkredscar. He feels ephemeral as he runs the instrument across his arm and then his thigh, more so when he steps under the running water of Magnus’s shower and washes it all away. It feels curative, peaceful, free; like he’s washing away four years of scar tissue with the tears of the whole world. Like he’s washing his own tears right down the drain along with it, back to the oceans his lover sometimes says he comes from.

It feels like hope.