#also the flashing was really clever in connection to the advertisements?

[deathsmallcaps]

Captain America: Brave New World (CABNW) analysis

This movie is all about themes of rehabilitation, hope, and not allowing your past to define your future.

Sam is redefining the mantle of the shield, and reclaiming his independence. Since reaching adulthood, he has worked as part of the military, or in a major team, and always besides super powered people (not that he was the only regular human in the Avengers, but you know). And now Sam gets to herald a new age of modern values of rehabilitation.

Steve was also a man of hope, but he (as a white man) fought the Other: fascists and aliens. AKA, unredeemables (in the short term) and nonhumans. He was from WWII; while the full truth of the matter is that the USA did not join the war out of altruism and a wish to save oppressed peoples, I personally feel glad that the USA was able to help out in those matters. I feel our part in the war was justified when it came to stopping multiple genocides. Many people also feel this way, and hold WWII up as this bastion of ‘justified’ wars. Many feel it’s okay that Americans went to Germany and Japan and started killing people, because they were doing it first.

Same thing with alien invasion storylines. I love Steve, but the only person he is MCU-canonically pursuing rehabilitation for is Bucky. He has different values as both a survivor of WWII, a witness to the explosive growth of fascism in the early 1900s, and a white man. Sure, Steve grew up disabled and Irish(-American) in the early 1900s, but he was also a blue eyed blond haired American man who shows no trace of an Irish identity on screen. Steve is a hopeful, principled and angry man.

Meanwhile, Sam grew up being othered as a Black child and then man, joined a war that was never justifiable (never confirmed what war he was in but no war the USA has perpetuated in the 2000s, if not even earlier, has been justifiable), and then continually had to be an examplar wherever he went. Except for possibly War Machine (I’m not sure where he fits in), Sam was the ONLY Avenger of Color. Ever. (And the only one from a more rural area)

And yet Sam always chooses hope and kindness. He has it rough - as the only Avenger of Color, he had to always choose others needs over his own. He and Isaiah Bradley (another person restored by Sam’s rehabilitative justice <3) discuss the weight of that. Bradley points out time and time again that Sam doesn’t owe the world his kindness, his willingness to be a hero, his health and well-being. After all, Bradley got fucked over for doing the right thing, a Steve-type thing, in a Black body. But Sam decides to push on anyway.

I’m not saying Sam isn’t angry. He deserves to feel angry, he has as much right to the emotion as any other human being. But every single goddamn time he can, he chooses to be kind. He chooses to believe that people can find worth again. And that takes a strength of will that is frankly insane. PLUS he does it without a consistently optimized body.

And he chooses to be kind to Ross, of all people. Ross, who is clearly trying to be a changed man in the events of the film - but still a man who imprisons innocents and whose first instinct is to pick fights with nations who own nuclear weapons.

But Sam still reaches out to him. Still helps Ross meet Betty while Ross is in prison. Is the better man, every goddamn time.

Hell, they even represent what changes Sam could herald for the fate of the United States, and even the world, visually. In Ross’s panic as the Red Hulk, he destroys the White House*, a symbol built by slave labor. And under Sam’s tenure as Captain America, it will be rebuilt - along with what a hopefully better United States of America.

I love Sam Wilson, and I am SO excited to see his future as Captain America.

*and possibly also the Washington Memorial? I know he goes by but the detail slipped my mind. It also was built with slave labor. Some might quibble and try to claim that the obelisk was built by skilled stonemasons, but many many many enslaved people were extremely skilled laborers. So there is a huge chance that the stonemasons were enslaved. And even if they used completely white/free Black stonemasons, the quarried stone was mined by enslaved people. So yes, it was built by slave labor.

(Also I think it’s cool that Sam’s getting his own villains like Serpent and Leila Taylor made an appearance? She was basically his only canon love interest EVER**, and she hasn’t appeared since the 1970s. I think it’s still possible that he might be given a male LI or they just never pursue that angle of the character, but at least she and Sam have a relationship built on at least some respect and personal chemistry. Unlike Steven and Sharon.

Personally I’m more of a fan of Samsteve or even SamJoaquin than SamBucky, but that’s just mostly because while he’s grown on me in the last few years, I’m not really a Bucky fan. Samsteve probably won’t happen because of the stupid time travel thing (though who’s to say they didn’t at least have a fling? Plz?) but SamJoaquin could happen! I wasn’t sold on Joaquin right away - his sunny personality was tripping my betrayal alarms in my movie expectations brain - but I am glad to be wrong. I’m excited to see him as Falcon again once he heals up!

**There was a werewolf princess lady? But she literally never came back. Which disappoints me because I thought she was funny (I read her issue) and really unique. She was human but had a device to specifically control werewolves? And they do exist in the MCU, thanks to Werewolf by Night…

I LOVED the dogfight scene. Great body work on Anthony Mackie’s part, interesting background, awesome moves (cutting through a plane with a wing? Punching and pulling a pilot out of their plane and letting the rest of it just fall?? Sam and Joaquin together???) and fucking BOMBSURFING

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Day 15: Wings

Harry was not a big fan of parties.

In fact, Harry downright hated parties because he hated all of the unwanted attention. Fortunately, this masquerade gala allowed him to remain anonymous.

After all, who would expect Harry Potter to arrive in a pirate costume with skintight breeches, a billowy white shirt that exposed his chest (and the fake anchor tattoo), and thigh high boots? The black mask that covered much of his face and the pirate hat with a huge, gaudy feather helped, too.

He'd happily avoided anyone and everyone on his way to the snack table and had just stuffed a tiny, flaky, savory pastry in his mouth when he looked up to the top of the staircase that led into the room and promptly choked. There, standing at the top and looking down at all of them, was a literal angel.

The man had gorgeous white and gold wings magically attached to his back, Harry's fingers twitched as though reaching for the soft feathers as they fluttered in the breeze drifting through the open door behind him. Gold sandals graced his feet, and golden straps wrapped up his legs, stopping mid thigh. Silky white fabric was artfully draped around his hips, protecting his modesty, but only just. He wore a golden corset with a delicate structure that emphasized the narrowness of his waist and the broadness of his bare shoulders. Gold was dusted lightly across his skin, making him shine even more radiantly. His mask was also gold, hiding everything but his sharp chin, strong jawline, and his lovely lips. To finish everything off, a golden laurel wreath graced his pink hair.

He was gorgeous, ethereal. And Harry's gut told him that he had to meet him. His gut was hardly ever wrong.

(Read more below the cut)

Without stopping to think, Harry set off toward the other man, but was beat to him by a man dressed in a muggle constable uniform. As Harry approached, he heard the constable berating the angel and he felt his metaphorical hackles rise.

"Oy!" he said as the constable shoved the man's shoulder. "Back off. What's the matter with you?"

The constable spluttered at him and placed his hands on his hips in indignation. "Well I don't think a costume like that is appropriate."

And suddenly, Harry recognized that voice, recognized posture and his puffed out chest. "Well, first, Auror Hibbards," he said, "It's not your place to enforce a dress code. And second, I don't think the business you conduct with your secretary after hours is appropriate but no one's confronted you or your wife about that. Perhaps you'd like me to go and have a conversation with her about what I find inappropriate?"

He followed the other man's panicked gaze across the room to two women who were standing together talking, and tried to remember what Laura Hibbards had looked like when he'd met her a few years ago.

"She's the one in the striking medi-nurse costume isn't she?" he asked. "Laura, right?"

Hibbards took a step back and his arms fell to his sides, "Who are you?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter," Harry replied. "You mind your business and I'll mind mine."

Without another word Hibbards turned and fled across the room.

He turned to look at the angel standing next to him, "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," the man replied, voice warm and a smile tugging at his lips. "I daresay you arrived in the wrong costume."

Harry looked down at his pirate apparel. "Sorry?" he asked, looking up at him.

"I think you ought to have come as a knight dressed in shining armor," he teased.

"Hardly," Harry replied, rolling his eyes.

The other man's eyes traveled up and down Harry's body, "So, let me guess, you're an auror? I would say that maybe you just work in the auror department but it was clever of you to get him to look at his wife so you could deduce who she was."

"Clever, hmm?" Harry teased. "I wouldn't go that far, but you're not entirely wrong. I've recently left the Ministry and I was an auror."

"What made you leave?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Harry lifted one shoulder, "I got fed up with the bullshit and the hypocrisy; I felt like I was slowly becoming someone I didn't want to be, so I left."

"And what do you do now?"

He laughed, "Do you want the truth?'

"Always."

"I work part time at a muggle coffee shop," he replied.

"Ah, so you're independently wealthy then."

Harry shook his head, "And you said I'm the clever one. What do you do?"

"I'm a solicitor," he replied.

He laughed, "So you really didn't need my help dealing with Hibbards then. I'm sure you could have talked circles around him."

"No, I probably didn't," he conceded. "But it was nice, just the same. A man who spends all of his time fighting on behalf of others appreciates someone fighting on his behalf every so often."

Harry smiled, "Are you here with anyone?" he asked, "Or can I get you a drink?"

"A drink would be great," the angel replied.

----------------

Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd enjoyed a night as much as he had this one. His angel was quick-witted with a dry sense of humor, he was smart and sexy, and Harry genuinely enjoyed his company. They'd danced, and talked, and enjoyed the food and drinks available; and Harry found himself wishing that the night would never end.

When the clock stuck eleven, surprising both of them, they looked around to see that many people had already left. "Salazar, is that the time?"

Harry nodded, "Seems to be."

"I've an early morning tomorrow," the angel told him, "As much as I've enjoyed this, I should probably be on my way."

"Can I see you again?" Harry blurted.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," the other man replied slowly. "This was meant to be a bit like Cinderella at the ball for me."

"Are you going to leave me your sandal, then? Expect me to come and find you?" Harry teased, really hoping that the other man would give in or at least give him something to go on. He was good a puzzles, good at pulling at loose ends until he'd unraveled the mystery.

"No, no, nothing like that," he said quickly. "I just wanted one night where I didn't have to be me. One night that I didn't have to walk around with my face and all of the baggage that goes along with it. This was never meant to be more than that."

"I hear you," Harry said, emphatically, "I really do. I find it difficult," he confessed, "connecting with people. People can't seem to see past their preconceived notions of who I am, but you..." Harry trailed off and shrugged helplessly, "it was easy. To be with you, to talk to you. I'd really like to get to know you better."

The angel rubbed the back of his neck, "I would like that, too," the other man replied softly. "Truly. But once you know who I am, you're going to change your mind."

"But isn't it worth to find out?" he asked, pleaded. "Even if you're right and I never want to see you again, that's the outcome you've assigned without even knowing."

"Maybe I'd prefer for you to remember this night fondly," the other man suggested.

"Maybe I'd prefer to have many more fond memories with you," Harry countered.

"You were a Griffyndor weren't you?"

"Guilty as charged," Harry replied with a grin. Then he grew serious, "Look, if you enjoyed tonight even half as much as I did, please just give it a chance. You might take one look at me and think this was a mistake, but at least we'll know and we won't have to spend the rest of our lives wondering what could have been."

The angel blew out a breath and Harry fought the nerves that had risen up in his chest. "Fine," he conceded, "but don't say that I didn't try to warn you."

"Okay," Harry said, giving him a big smile.

"Before we do this," he said, "I want you to know that I had a really nice time tonight. Thank you for everything."

"Stop sounding like you're saying goodbye!" Harry protested.

The angel gave him a sad little smile, "Ready, then?"

"On the count of three?" Harry asked. When he received a nod in return, he reached up and said, "One, two, three," as he pulled of his mask.

A slap to the face would have been less of a surprise than the person he saw standing before him.

"Potter?"

"Malfoy?" he splutted. "What? How?"

"This explains so much, actually," Malfoy said, his mouth twisting in a displeased little grimace. "You got to come sailing in like the hero you are to rescue a damsel in distress-"

"That's not fair," Harry replied, still reeling. "I didn't even know it was you."

"No," Malfoy agreed. "It certainly would have changed your reaction if you had." He shook his head, "Well, this has been fun. I do so love being proven right."

"It's still better to know that this was not worth losing sleep over, don't you think?" Harry replied.

"Right," Malfoy clipped. "I'm off. The pirate costume seems a bit like false advertising, by the way," he said as he started to walk away without a backward glance.

"What?" Harry asked incredulously, "And the angel costume wasn't false advertising?"

"It's a Victoria's Secret Costume, Potter. Honestly."

Before Harry could make sense of that statement, Malfoy was up the stairs and out of the door, leaving Harry staring after him with a mixture of irritation, and confusion, and oddly a bit of attraction.

"Oh, Mr. Potter!" a voice called from beside him, "How lovely to see you!"

Harry turned to see Laura Hibbards standing next to him. "Your husband is cheating on you," Harry informed her.

"Excuse me?" she asked, her right hand fluttering up to cover her heart.

"With his secretary. I should have said something a long time ago, I'm sorry," he added, because he was. No one deserved to be cheated on.

Then he walked away, leaving her floundering, and headed out the same door Malfoy had moments before.

When he got outside he looked around, hoping to see wings or a flash of pink hair, but the road was empty. Was he really lonely and desperate enough that he was thinking that he and Malfoy might be a good fit?

Harry gave it up, he didn't even know what he would have said if he had seen him. It wasn't worth losing sleep over, he reminded himself before appartating home.

Whiskers was waiting for him when he arrived and he scooped her up and nuzzled his nose into her fluffy white fur. "You love me, don't you?" he asked her. Her sweet, little meow confirmed it and he kissed her head before going in to get ready for bed. It wasn't worth losing sleep over he reminded himself again.

------------

Harry had, in fact, lost quite a bit of sleep. He'd spent the night tossing and turning, grumbling to himself, and hating himself every time his mind replayed a part of the evening and butterflies took flight in his stomach.

By the time the sun was illuminating the sky, turning it bright pinks and reds, Harry only knew one thing: he couldn't get Malfoy out of his head.

He got out of bed and he started to do some digging on the other man. It took half the morning but he discovered Malfoy had made a bit of a name for himself. He worked for a wizarding law firm and he'd made a habit of only taking clients who were desperately in need of help that they couldn't afford. Harry had a hard time learning anything else about his personal life, it seemed like he didn't really have one, but it didn't take long for him to find an address.

From there, the planning was a bit shoddy. Harry hadn't ever really been good at making plans and sticking to them so he just showed up outside of Draco's office at 5:00pm and waited.

And waited.

And then he waited some more. He waited until 6:30, wondering if he'd missed the other man somehow and as he was about to leave and return tomorrow, the door opened and out stepped Malfoy. His hair was blonde and he was wearing a well-tailored suit but he looked just as breathtaking as he had the night before.

He froze when he caught sight of Harry, looking stricken for just a moment before smoothing his features. "What are you doing here?"

Harry opened his mouth, "I'm sorry." They weren't quite the words he was meaning to say but it was too late to take them back now.

"Whatever for?"

"I had a brilliant time with you last night," Harry said.

Malfoy rolled his eyes, "Right up until you realized it was me."

"That's what I'm sorry for," Harry said. "Malfoy," he started, then he changed tracks, "Draco, you made me feel like I was just a person. Just a guy flirting with another person, enjoying life, free of all expectations."

"Yes, we established that last night," he replied as he stepped down the stairs and stood on the pavement in front of Harry. "That was the point of the masks and the costumes."

"Right, but I don't think it was just the masks and costumes. The person I was last night," he licked his lower lip but forced himself to continue, "That's who I really am. Without the weight of being Harry Potter. And I would be willing to bet my vault at Gringotts that the person you were last night is who you really are without the weight of being Draco Malfoy."

"Can you afford to bet your vault at Gringotts?" he asked. "Aren't you a barista? What if you're wrong?"

"Shut up," Harry said, "I'm trying to say something profound here."

"Apologies," Malfoy said, taking one step closer to him as his mouth tilted up at the corner.

"When who we both really are seems to be so compatible, doesn't it seem silly to throw that away on a childhood rivalry?"

"What exactly are you proposing?"

Harry took a breath, "Dinner? Or coffee if dinner is too much. I'd like the chance to get to know you better."

"You would?" Draco asked softly, looking open and vulnerable, and Harry's heart expanded in his chest until he couldn't breathe properly.

"I really would," he said, reaching out to take Draco's hand.

"Alright. Dinner," he agreed. "But don't blame me if this doesn't work out."

Harry grinned at him, "Feel free to blame me when it does."

Day 14: Louder, So Everyone Can Hear | Day 16: Tulips

[shinydelirium]

MLQC Season 2 Chapter 12 (Kiro) Part 4 [Confession of the Stars] Translation [CN]

***SPOILERS*** THIS POST CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR CONTENT NOT YET RELEASED ON EN SERVER!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!***

For previous translations of Season 2 Chapter 12: Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3

Enjoy~

[Confession of the Stars]

Even so, I still didn’t see Kiro’s face. The hospital still expressed his unwillingness to see anyone.

But nonetheless, it was fine for me to text him. I want him to know that he is not alone.

As long as he wants, I will appear in front of him immediately.

In the past two days, Kiro has asked Savin to bring his belongings to him from time to time and sometimes buy a few books.

After entrusting a lawyer to submit my alibi for me, I no longer need to go to the Task Force for regular reports.

However, the previous hospital hostage incident triggered more and more group skirmishes and discussions on the Internet continued on.

Everyone wants become the one who wins the right to speak. On the other hand, the hostile takeover incident of LFG, which had been raging before, was gradually suppressed.

There hasn’t been much movement on LFG’s side, so the problem probably isn’t that serious. I also successfully sent out the USB flash drive according to Gavin’s instructions.

Many departments of the company are asking whether or not to follow the hot topics to produce a show. I was so busy that I could only text Kiro at night.

Such days lasted for more than a week.

After nine o’clock in the evening, I had just entered the house, dragging my weary body when Kiro called.

Kiro: ….Miss Chips?

His voice was a little cautious, wary, and even quivering.

MC: What’s wrong?

Kiro let out a little laugh from the other end.

I’ve been so out of it lately. It’s been a very long time since I heard him laugh so enthusiastically.

Kiro: MC, say my name.

MC: Kiro, are you okay? Why are you so happy?

He didn’t answer but just laughed happily.

Kiro: What are you up to?

MC: Of course, I just got home from a rough day at work. ***Changed some wording***

Kiro: Thanks for all the hard work, Miss Chips.

I was lying on the sofa and complaining to Kiro about recent events. He listened carefully, and from time to time he also grumbled about his troubles to me.

This moment gave me a certain illusion, as if nothing was wrong.

The next day I heard that Kiro asked Savin to bring his guitar.

At the same time, the Task Force came forward and started to take control of the chaotic situation reasonably and accurately.

I checked Weibo and found that more and more people are no longer emotionally angry, but deeper in discussion about the relationship between Evol and ordinary people.

Along with the nice weather, I think a lot of things are heading in a good direction little by little.

I had a rare chance to get off of work early today. After thinking about it, I went and bought Kiro’s favorite canelé and arrived at the door of his ward.

MC: It would be wonderful if I could see him today…

While I muttered this, I stretched out my hand to knock on the door.

Before I could, an overly harsh and messy guitar chord came to my ears and left me frozen in place.

The crude, sharp sound felt as if it was forced out like a shout being torn from a person’s throat and the chords held some frustration within them.

It was so depressing. It was even hard to breathe.

After a profound silence, a few faint guitar notes came quietly as if crying. The voice was soft and desperate, as if it was not a note.

But a shattered dream.

I leaned on the door and listened to the broken chords, holding my breath without making a sound.

Finally, I left the snack in the nurse’s care. I told her to give it to Kiro after waiting for a bit and then left.

On the way home, a new advertisement shot by Kiro some time ago is being displayed on the large screen on the side of the road.

Passerby A: Kiro clearly announced that he’s an Evolver. Why is he still so popular?

Passerby B: Kiro is Kiro. What does that have anything to do with being an Evolver?

Passerby A: Maybe he used some special Evol to control you and made you like him so much.

Passerby B: Do you actually know him or even understand him?! Of course, there’s a reason why Kiro is so well-liked. Do you think Evol can do everything?

Passerby B: I’ll show you this collection. You’ll understand after reading it. Why hasn’t he released a new song yet….?

The girl and her companions walked away slowly and I watched their backs disappear into the night.

In this turbulent moment, there are still many people talking about him, expecting him, and waiting for him. But at this time, I don’t want to tell him this.

Stars dotted the night sky, watching the whole city tenderly and peacefully.

I took a photo of this night sky with my phone and sent it to Kiro.

I don’t know what Kiro is struggling by himself, but I hope he won’t make all his expectations become his own burdens.

There was no reply from Kiro that night.

Until 7:25 the following evening, my phone rang.

***During this next scene, the 3rd anniversary song is being played. It made the entire scene so much more emotional and touching but also sad. The BGM in this whole chapter was meticulously chosen.***

Kiro: Good evening, Miss Chips.

Kiro: How did you know that I wanted to eat canelé? When I ate it yesterday, tears were about to come out.

MC: Tears from the corners of your mouth? ***T/N: She means drooling***

Kiro: Hehe, hurry up and remove the camera you installed on me!

MC: If there really was a webcam, that would be great….by the way, how are you today? ***Woah, woah, MC!!! So you want to upgrade from sneaky pictures to sneaky videos? MY GIRL!!!***

Kiro: Of course, I’m doing well!

MC: That’s good. It seems that the retreat is working effectively.

Hearing what I said, he laughed. His voice full of energy.

But we both know that these are all tacit masks.

Kiro is too clever. He must know how weak his excuses for shutting himself up are.

So weak that he doesn’t believe them himself.

When 7:30 came around, Kiro stopped talking. Then suddenly he spoke solemnly.

Kiro: Miss Chips, I want to play some songs for you.

MC: Okay! I haven’t heard you play a song in a long time.

Gentle guitar music came slowly from the other end of the phone. I imagined Kiro playing right now and closed my eyes, feeling a little nostalgic.

Soon, one song was finished.

Kiro: Sitting on the bed and closing my eyes just now, it felt like I was in a concert.

MC: That’s not right. The audience hasn’t arrived yet and you can’t have a concert with just you.

Kiro: Then come to the special concert. A concert dedicated by Kiro himself.

Kiro: Miss Chips is the only special guest.

MC: That’s not very monotonous.

Kiro: How could it be?

Kiro: Miss Chips, are you standing by the window right now? Can you see the stars outside?

Listening to what he said, I immediately got up and went to the balcony.

The stars outside the window twinkled and hung in the night sky like little lights.

MC: I can!!!

Kiro: My favorite stage is like this starry sky.

Kiro: That was my first stage. It was not very big and crowded with people.

Kiro: That day was the same as today, a sky full of stars. There was a long passage leading to the main stage.

Kiro: Every time I stepped on a square, a star will light up under my feet.

Kiro: The audience turned on the flash from the back of their phones and the whole world seemed to be connected into a sea of stars.

Kiro: In that moment, I told myself to shine in this sea of stars and become the brightest one.

I slowly listened to him talking about his beloved stage and the brightest star in his heart.

I was on this end of the phone, looking at the starry night outside. I could feel him holding my hand and leading me towards the stage.

I saw him piously touching the places he knew and missed the most, holding the guitar and standing in the most radiant place.

His entire being seems to be shining.

Kiro: Miss Producer, would you say I’ve done it? 

MC: Of course.

MC: You did it long ago.

Kiro laughed lightly. This time the guitar music was accompanied by his singing.

His voice is so soft and sincere, like some kind of long-distance reunion. Like a farewell to something.

After a dozen songs were sung one after another, Kiro’s voice was already a little hoarse.

MC: ….Since it’s a concert, can I still have an encore?

Kiro: (chuckles) Since it’s MC’s request, I would definitely not refuse it.

Kiro: This is the last song called “Confession of the Stars”.

***T/N: Decided to include both the EN and CN versions of the lyrics. I’m not a songwriter so the CN version is what Google Translate gave me. I really love Bian Jiang’s singing in this scene so do give it a listen 😉. Also, I love how there’s no BGM music playing while he sings because I feel like that would just take away some of the emotion.***

Kiro: (EN version) “I got a song that I wanna sing for you~ It may not be perfect, but it will have to do~”

“Dreaming your dreams and going your own way~ Sometimes you feel lonely, sometimes heartbreak…”

(CN version) “There is a song I want to sing for you~ For you who work hardest in the world~”

“On the road towards your dream~ Sometimes you feel a little lonely….”

***Now I can’t hear this song the same way ever again. WHY, KIRO!?! TELL ME WHY!?!? YOU SURE KNOW HOW TO BREAK MY HEART!!! TAT***

When I heard the familiar, leisurely melody, I was overwhelmed. The song seemed to pass through time, embracing me tenderly.

I always feel that something will end after this song. I want to try my best to hold onto it, but I can only grasp at nothingness. ***FORESHADOWING!!! Actually, this entire “concert” is.***

Eventually, I could only wait quietly for it to come to an end.

Kiro: (sighs) The concert is over. Thank you, Miss Chips.

Kiro: (In the sweetest, most tender voice): Good night.

-End of Part 4-

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas ninwrites!

For @ninwrites. I was so thrilled to get you for Secret Santa this year as your Malec fics are some of the very first that I ever read when I fell into Shadowhunters way back in 2016. You gave me so many great prompts this year that I really struggled deciding what to write, especially because I know we share so many common interests! Part of me wanted to write a sweeping sci-fi, and another part of me wanted to write a clever procedural, and then I know how much you love superheroes and I also love superheroes, so that could've easily happened ...

But in the end, I decided to strip everything down and write a story about second chances. About seemingly unrequited yearning and human connection and liminal spaces and time unravelling backwards and friends-to-almost lovers-to-strangers until serendipity intervenes. Of course, I went drastically over the word limit but this happens every year so I am no longer surprised.

Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy this little microcosm of a story!

Tags: malec | rated: t | extended oneshot | human AU, roadtrip, friends-to-lovers-to-strangers-to-lovers, hurt/comfort, surrealism

Read on AO3

*****

saudade in the key of highways

saudade

/saʊˈdɑːdə/

noun

(especially with reference to songs or poetry) a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, and well-being, which now trigger the senses and make one experience the pain of separation from those joyous sensations. However it acknowledges that to long for the past would detract from the excitement you feel towards the future.

"as we fall / into the common, suspended disbelief of love, you ask / will I still be / here tomorrow, next week, tonight you ask am I really here."

— Olga Broumas, Beginning with O; “Bitterness”

first chord

There is rhythm to this loneliness.1

The endless darkness. Passing headlights; the hum of the engine; the splutter of the heater fighting against the cold that claws and scratches at the windshield. The highway, deserted, is like a strange and eerie dream that travels on and on and never ends.

The rental car: new. Nondescript in its newness. Two hands on the wheel; the faded hum of the radio, a soft accompaniment to the bright beam of the headlights. The car has a cassette player, but no cassettes. It never has any cassettes.

There’s a gas station like a beacon in the distance: a faint glow of sodium yellow that slinks along the horizon but never draws closer, spilling light like fuel out across the open fields.

Alec prefers driving at night. There is never any need to ask for directions because he never passes anyone he could ask for directions; he might be the only car he’s seen in fifty miles.

The radio crackles, then laughs, ‘ we know it’s only November but nothing gets us in the mood for Christmas like -’  

Almost immediately, the signal drops, but the interluding white noise is familiar too. It fills the silence with unimportance, an invisible presence in the passenger seat who doesn’t require conversation or stops to stretch their legs, but is company enough for long drives across the country.

Moments on the road are filled like this: a hundred similar soundtracks for a hundred indistinct highways, their miles wearing down the tread on Alec’s tires and the lines of Alec’s palms, where he grips the steering wheel for hours without a break, in much the same way.

‘So if you’re listening at home, or you’re stuck on a late-night shift, or if you’re driving cross-country and need a pick-me-up, give us a ring and tell us about your favourite ever Christmas song!’ says the radio. ‘But to get us started, we have Marnie from Portland on line one -’

Alec punches the buttons on the radio until he finds a classic rock station. He taps the steering wheel, not to the beat of the song, but to dispel some of the restless energy that tingles in his fingertips.

A sign on the roadside passes him by at high speed; it tells him that he’s a hundred miles from nowhere in particular - but at the last intersection, a similar sign told him he was a hundred-and-one, and now he’s acutely aware of creeping ever closer to his destination.

It’s a destination he’s not sure he wants to reach. A destination he calls home.

There is rhythm to this loneliness . Alec is used to it: the anxious churning of his stomach, the longing for the road to continue beyond its end; the endless, perpetual, and pointless journey of back-and-forths.

One: drive across the width of the country. Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, again and again. A country of ochre-yellow wheat; plains and flatlands; tractors abandoned on the roadside.

Two: report to the local field office, where he’s given a desk too small for his long legs and a computer he doesn’t have a password to. Talk to the county sheriff who snaps at him, ‘ the FBI has no business out here, we can handle this on our own ,’ and then to the man who refuses to open his door wide enough for Alec to get a good look at his face, but whose eyes skip over Alec’s badge and land on the gun on his hip and he thinks the same thing as the sheriff.  

Three: avert his eyes from the body lying on the steel table in the morgue. Pretend that federal intervention was warranted, even though he knows this case is another crime of opportunity and the sheriff was right. The sheriff is always right. ‘ Waste of the FBI’s time, if you ask me. ’

Four: write up another field report that uses all the same words as the one before. Mail it back to Washington. Hopefully it will reach the Assistant Director before he does.

Then, five, begin the drive home.

Rinse. Repeat. Repeat again. Avoid his mother’s calls when he stops for the night at an interstate motel. Make excuses not to see his father when he’s in town. Pretend like he’s not bothered missing out on another promotion, because that would mean moving to a desk job and he likes being out in the field.

He likes driving. This is the mantra he repeats in his head rather than listening to the song on the radio.

There is rhythm to this loneliness .

The car’s engine rumbles on an empty stomach and Alec glances down at the fuel meter, ticking ever closer to the red with each passing and uncountable mile. The gas station in the distance begins to draw closer, finally allowing Alec to catch up, as its cluster of lights shift and reform into the familiar shape of civilisation.

Alec’s turn signal lights up the immediate stretch of highway with flashing orange and a click-click-click sound in the front seat of the car. There’s no-one behind him and no-one ahead of him, but he slows almost to a stop as he eases the car off the road and onto the crunch of hard-packed sand.

A single streetlamp overlooks the highway, casting a pool of unsettled yellow-white light across a phone booth that stands slanted upon the roadside. The gas station lingers a little further back: a small, stout building with a flat roof and a pile of browning-Christmas trees propped up out front. Its two gas pumps advertise diesel at a discounted price, but one of them appears to be out of order.

Beside the gas station, there is a diner; it’s old and clapped-out and almost empty at this time of night, but the bright light beaming through its windows in all directions is painful to look at. The movement of people inside is like a scene playing out in an old movie, stuck on repeat over and over again, the tape unable to skip forward. A repeated moment, and one which Alec has played his part in too many times to count.

Again, his stomach rumbles loudly and he guides the car to a stop before pulling up the handbrake.

He’s alone at the pumps. As he steps out of the car, the silence greets him; the wind falls and the road is swallowed up behind him by an encroaching night, compressing the universe into a single point. A single flicker in time.

Alec retrieves his service weapon from the glove box and clips it onto his belt, pats his chest for his badge tucked into his breast pocket, before drawing his overcoat tight around him. He won’t linger out here, not when it feels like something just out of sight is holding its breath and shifting in and out of bounds; he’s far too afraid of falling back into the passage of time.

Instead, he turns towards the diner; the bell above the door jingles the same as it always does. The TV in the corner is on mute but hums with static. The sound of plates clattering in the kitchen is enough to drown out his shoes on the chequered floor as the waitress looks up at him but doesn’t say hello.

Corner booths are best placed for people-watching and people-hiding and Alec, in his non-descript suit that matches his non-descript car, sinks onto the squeaky red-leather bench without being seen at all. He sighs heavily, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulder that has been bothering him for the last fifty miles.

There are scuffs on the leather and old coffee stains on the table, but he fishes his keys, wallet, and badge out of his pocket and tosses them on top of the menu; he already knows what he’s going to order and there’s no need to look. He’s been craving something greasy since he left Portland this morning, fuelled only by a cup of filter coffee from the machine in the motel lobby.  

Alec grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes, a soft groan catching in his throat. In the same moment, the lights overhead seem to flicker, although not for long. Must be a short circuit. The waitress rubbing down the bar doesn’t look up, focused too intently on a coffee-ring stain that isn’t really there.

Diners late at night are strange places. Liminal places. Places of beginnings and endings and threshold moments and tangled journeys, forever caught in that feeling of arriving or departing - but the longer one lingers, the more reality begins to distort.

Alec is not alone in the diner, but the diner is alone in the night that laps and recedes against the windows that look out over the parking lot. Beyond, the gas station hums with a familiar argon sound, bright and electric and not-quite-right in the dark and, behind that, the edge of the highway outlines this displaced moment.

There is nothing else. Alec’s eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark, and for all he knows of the endless fields of wheat that stretch out to the horizon, he cannot see them. The bell above the door chimes again and a young couple slips into the diner, their arms slung low around each other’s waists, giggling as they take up two stools against the bar. Three seats down from them, an old man in a trucker hat and a Chicago Bulls’ jersey is frowning at the TV above his head, trying to lip-read the late-night news anchor because there are no subtitles. In the far corner of the diner, a group of teenagers are tossing fries at each other and one of them makes a milkshake bullseye.

Alec doesn’t know why these people are here, in the middle of a late-night nowhere. He can’t remember the name of the last town he passed through, but it wasn’t more than a handful of houses and a couple of telephone poles kept upright by plywood and nails.

He glances back out at the parking lot, but his rental is the only car there. Strange.  

Strange, but not unexpected. He has learned not to question it, these fragments of unaligned reality, because soon enough he’ll be on his way again, a burger in his belly and bacon grease smeared across the corner of his mouth, and this diner will cease to exist as soon as he’s out of sight and over the ridge of the highway.

Perhaps it will appear again somewhere else. Perhaps he will come across this place again, another mile or two down the road, inhabited by a different group of late-night travellers who will watch him from the corners of their eyes but not say a word, because a lone man in a cheap suit is no more out of place here than they are at two in the morning.

The waitress brings over his burger and a side of fries, setting a mug down in front of him and filling it up with coffee from her pot. Alec nods at her in thanks and she blows a bubble of gum that pops across her mouth and sticks to her teeth, before she retreats behind the register and starts again on that stain.

Alec doesn’t waste any time tucking a napkin into his shirt collar. His tie is cheap and he doesn’t really care if he ruins it; there’s a spare in the bag in the trunk of his car anyway. He takes a large swig of coffee, and then a bite out of his burger, and ketchup and burger juice leak out through his fingers, splattering on the paper wrapper that covers his plate.

It tastes the same as it always does. His stomach growls loudly as he takes another bite and ketchup drips down his thumb.

Movement through the window catches his eye. He looks up and there, on the very edge of the light emanating from the gas station, is a man in the phonebooth next to the road. His back is to Alec but he’s gesturing wildly as he talks into the receiver, and the wind, now returned, billows through his long woollen coat.

A slice of tomato falls out of Alec’s burger with a distinct plop . He’s not sure why the man draws his attention, but Alec has long since learned to trust his gut - it’s an invaluable skill to have in the Bureau , his father would say. It will get you places. It will make people see you as someone they can trust to watch their back. You can’t buy that sort of loyalty, Alec.

The man is tall. He has dark hair and long legs and he grips the edge of the phonebooth with his free hand. He seems to be having a very intense conversation, unlike the hum of background noise that surrounds Alec now.

The man is an anomaly. He is not someone Alec has seen at a diner before - not a truant teenager or a trucker or a pair of lovers on a late-night tryst - and he doesn’t fit the narrative.

Alec wolfs down the rest of his burger, barely pausing for breath, and washes it down with a swig of coffee that burns slightly too hot. He leaves his fries untouched and throws down a twenty dollar bill, stuffing his badge and wallet into his pockets as he makes for the door.

The bell jingles a third time. Alec wipes the back of his hand across his mouth as he steps out into the cold, no doubt smearing ketchup across his chin. He knows his suit is creased and his shirt is rumpled from the drive, his hair upswept by the sudden gust of wind that threatens to knock him off his feet, and he can almost hear Jace laughing in his ear, alright, G-Man?

Alec passes by his car and heads straight for the phonebooth, but the closer he gets, the more he can hear of the man’s one-sided conversation.

“And there’s no way you can get a guy out here tonight?” the man is saying. “I can pay extra for the trouble. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes, it’s pretty urgent.”

Alec draws to a stop when the length of his shadow steps upon the backs of the man’s shoes. He shoves his hands into his pockets so as to appear as unthreatening as possible when the man inevitably turns around, but -

“I don’t see how a service can advertise itself as 24-hour and then not be available in an emergency,” the man says into the phone. He sounds stressed; there’s something about the cadence of his voice that rumbles through Alec’s chest and draws the hair on the back of his neck up on end. Something decades-old familiar. “The least you can do is give me the number for another rental service. A cab company. Something. Anything .”

The man turns away from the phonebooth, catching sight of Alec from the corner of his eye and holding up a finger as if to say hold on a minute , but he stops, whatever words on his tongue extinguished into roadside dust.

Alec’s eyes widen. He knows this man.

Fuck. He more than knows this man. He remembers the first time they met, the firm confidence of his handshake, the bright colours of his shirt, the way Alec thought, at the time, this man is going to change you .

It’s Magnus. Magnus Bane.

Alec never expected to see Magnus again. Not since -

Well, not since then .

“Magnus,” says Alec, like an exhale. And God , his mouth has not formed that name in years; he’s heard it, sometimes, inside his memories, but never beyond. “What are you -”

Magnus stares at him in disbelief, and Alec can hear the man on the other end of the phone line asking hey, are you still there? Hello? where Magnus holds the receiver away from his ear.

Something doesn’t make sense here, but Alec can’t put his finger on it. Not once has he met someone at a diner who he recognises. They’re all meant to be faceless people; people he could meet again a hundred times and still not recognise.

But Alec would recognise Magnus Bane with his eyes closed. It’s been years, and yet the feeling that floods his chest now, is -

An ache.

“Yes, sorry,” Magnus says suddenly, half-turning back to this phone call. His disbelief becomes a scowl. “No, it’s fine. I’ll call them myself. Thank you. Okay. Goodnight.”

The man on the other end of the line hangs up first and the dial tone echoes in the night for a moment, and then another, and then another.

Alec swallows thickly. He draws his hands out of his pockets and folds them behind his back, clenching his fingers in a tight grip where they can’t be seen.

Carefully, Magnus sets the phone down inside the phonebooth, and turns back to Alec, and then - he smiles.

“Alexander Lightwood,” he says, with a shake of his head. His smile grows broad, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “God, what are the chances? Any other night, and I’d think this was a figment of my imagination, but with the way today’s been going, I-” He stops himself and takes a half-step forward. “I haven’t seen you since -”

“Since before Quantico,” Alec interrupts. He knows he’s staring but he can’t help it. “Ten years. Yeah.”

Ten years, three months, and twenty one days. Alec has been counting. If he looked down at his watch, he would know the amount of time that has passed to the minute, to the second, in fact, but he’s not about to admit to that.

He never expected to see Magnus again, and yet -

He hoped.  

“Ten years, really?” Magnus remarks, folding his arms across his chest. Alec follows the movement with his eyes. “Yes, I suppose it must be. 1985, wasn’t it? Christ, that makes me feel old.”

He looks Alec up and down, focusing on Alec’s dust-scuffed shoes, and then on the gun that sits snug on his hip. The corner of his mouth lifts, and his smile becomes a little more genuine.

“I see it’s Special Agent Lightwood now, though. Congratulations.”

“Alec’s still fine,” Alec says quickly. “I mean - you can still call me Alec. That’s fine.”

“Alec,” says Magnus, sounding it out. He’s always held Alec’s name with a special sort of care, but now, he says it like he’s saying it for the very first time. “Alexander.”

Alec doesn’t know what to say. He stares at Magnus, at the space between them that is too large for strangers who have just met, and which belongs only to two people who once knew each other well.

Serendipity laughs at Alec now; it sounds like the dull hum of neon light in a desert. It sounds like a hundred unanswered phone calls stretching back years.

“Alec -?”

“Sorry, this is - this is weird, I’m being weird,” Alec blurts. “I didn’t, uh - I really didn’t expect to see you, especially - especially here . I mean-” He squeezes his fingers tightly behind his back to stop himself from talking with his hands. “What, uh, what are you doing out here? I thought you still lived in L.A.?”

Magnus rolls his eyes. “Where to start?” he says softly, “I had some car trouble. The tire blew like a mile back and I swerved off the road and hit the fence. It won’t start now, which is something of a mild nuisance - because apparently we’re so deep in the ass-end of nowhere that I can’t get a mechanic to look at it until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest - but not as much of a nuisance as the meeting I will definitely miss if I’m stranded out here for the next God-forsaken twenty-four hours.”

Alec’s eyes flick to the highway, as if he might be able to see a mile into the distance and find the 1970 Dodge Challenger that Magnus had, far too many years ago and long-since sold for scrap, wrecked upon the roadside. It is, of course, too dark to see much of anything.

“I don’t even know if I’ll be able to call a cab out here,” Magnus continues, his mouth drawn down into a frown. “And I’m far too old to be hitch-hiking. The thrill of climbing into a potential serial killer’s car lost its appeal some decades ago.” With a brush of his fingers, he flicks away hair from his temple and huffs. “I suppose if I started walking now, I might reach Salt Lake by, I don’t know, Friday morning at best.”

Alec’s eyes snap back to Magnus. “You’re heading East?” he asks, far too eagerly. “Are you coming home?”

Something minute pinches in Magnus’ expression at that word. Home . Alec doesn’t miss it.

Magnus shakes his head.

“No,” he says, and he looks away, but there’s nothing there to pretend to be looking at. “No, not quite. If I had the time to drop by and see everyone, I would, but - I’m due in Baltimore in four days for a meeting with our investors.” He smiles wryly to himself. “And I thought it would be, oh, I don’t know, meditative or something equally asinine to make the drive across the country myself, rather than fly. See the sights. Enjoy being off-grid. Which, in hindsight, was very, very stupid.”

“What are you gonna do?”

Magnus shrugs. “Wait, I suppose. There’s not much else I can do. My cell phone is out of battery and I used up the last of my change on the payphone, so it looks like I’m stuck here until tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Alec says awkwardly.

“Yeah,” agrees Magnus.

In the glow of the gas station, reality trembles, hollowing out the shadows on Magnus’ face and flickering across the back of Alec’s knuckles. The motion of coming and going calls Alec back to the road and he glances back at his rental car.

It makes sense to offer Magnus a lift. Alec is heading in that direction, and he has an empty passenger seat and a working heater in the car, and a Bureau credit card in his back pocket.

It makes sense, and yet, he still hesitates.

“Well,” Magnus announces, “I don’t want to keep you. I might as well see what sort of coffee this place has on offer if I’m to be stuck here until tomorrow. I don’t suppose I could interest you in a drink before you go -”

“I’m actually on my way back to D.C.,” Alec says, thumbing over his shoulder at the car. He wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Baltimore’s not that far of a detour, so I, uh. I could give you a lift. If you want.”

“If I want?” Magnus repeats.

Alec swallows and nods. “If you want.”

Magnus’ face softens and he smiles at Alec. “Well, I’m not going to say no, am I? Although I don’t think I’m going to get my deposit back on my car.”

He looks over Alec’s shoulder at the rental. His expression changes, and if Alec were a kind stranger offering a ride to a man in trouble in the middle of the night, perhaps he wouldn’t notice.

But they’re not strangers, and in Magnus’ eyes, there is something Alec can’t quite place. It seems a little wistful. A little sad.

He says, “I would like that very much, Agent Lightwood.”

interlude

It’s 1985 and a man stands on the edge of the sidewalk, watching as a car turns right at the end of the street and disappears. He waits, half-expecting it to come back, circling around the block and pulling up beside him, the window already rolled down, but it doesn’t.

Ten years pass, and it doesn’t, and the man has to live with it.

Empty spaces and hands on the steering wheel and loneliness and want . In the end, that’s what everything boils down to.

I want you to come back. I want to see you again. I wanted you to stay.  

This is the rhythm Alec knows well, played out in the key of highways.

I want something I still don’t have a name for.

second chord

The soundtrack to night-driving is a composition of three things: the car heater as it puffs out warm air; the rental wheezing in the cold, coughing and spluttering with seasonal flu; and the deep stretch of silence.

Usually, Alec welcomes the silence.  

In the passenger seat, Magnus shrugs out of his overcoat and tosses it into the backseat, scrubbing his hands together in front of his mouth as he wills circulation back into his fingers. His shirt, open at the throat, looks thin and flimsy and hardly warm enough for a Midwest winter, but the soft shimmer of the satin is devoid of the harsh shadows that cut across Alec’s chest like the black line of a seatbelt.

Alec forces himself to look away. Keep your eyes on the road, he tells himself. And think of something to say before he thinks you’ve forgotten how to talk entirely. He fiddles with the dial on the radio until he finds the company of static, but it morphs all too quickly into Wham!’s Last Christmas .

Alec grumbles below his breath.

“Still a Grinch, I see,” Magnus says with a smirk. “Where’s your festive cheer?”

Alec returns both his hands to the wheel. “It’s too early for Christmas songs,” he replies, “Thanksgiving was literally three days ago and it’s not even December yet.”

“Are you saying the dulcet tones of George Michael don’t do it for you?”

“I prefer Mariah Carey,” Alec mutters. It makes Magnus laugh.

Alec glances at him from the corner of his eye as Magnus begins tapping his finger to the beat of the song against the door handle.

Alec, too, feels restless, but in a different way. He can’t stop looking, stealing glances at Magnus in the rearview mirror. Perhaps he is a trick of the light. Maybe Alec has been driving too long without a break and now he’s seeing people from his past who shouldn’t be here - but are.

Nothing that happens on the road is real, after all.

He digs his fingernail into the skin of his thumb and begins picking.

He’s lived this moment before; he knows he has. Him and Magnus alone in the front seat of a car and Alec’s tongue heavy in his mouth with all the things he doesn’t know how to say, and all the things he couldn’t say ten years ago, because he wasn’t brave enough then.

Hell, he’s hardly brave enough now. He wonders if Magnus remembers any of it.

The space between them is too large for small talk. Conversations that begin with All I Want For Christmas Is You is overrated though, now that you mention it , or so, how is your mother?, or even do you remember the last day we saw each other? are not enough to bridge the gap carved out by a decade of silence.

The thought stretches Alec so painfully thin. He picks at his thumbnail until it begins to sting, then winces, and draws it to his mouth to soothe it with his tongue.

“So,” Magnus begins, in the same instance. He’s still drumming his fingers to the beat of the radio, but now he’s slightly out of time. “What are you doing all the way out here in Idaho?”

Alec could laugh. “I was in Portland,” he says, “Local P.D. request FBI consultation on a case, so. Yeah. Turned out they didn’t need my help.”

“And they made you drive all the way out there?” Magnus asks, and Alec nods. “Sounds grim.” He stops tapping and runs his index finger across the dark polish on his thumb in thought. “Are you still living at home?”

Alec clenches his hands on the steering wheel. “No, I - I moved,” he says. “Uh, not long after I graduated the Academy, actually, but only to D.C.”

“Ah,” Magnus remarks. He pauses for a moment long enough to become awkward. “Still close enough to see your mom on the weekends, though.”

Alec nods again. Close enough , yes , but he doesn’t say it out loud. Close enough for New England ghosts to haunt every intersection between the city and his parents’ big white house in the country whenever he makes the drive upstate.

In ten years, he’s barely moved fifty miles, and Magnus -

Well. The same cannot be said for Magnus.  

Magnus clears his throat, louder than the hum of the radio. “And your parents?” he asks. “Isabelle?” He scans the horizon, fixed on the markings in the road disappearing beneath the wheels of the car. “How are they? Well, I hope?”

“Same as always,” Alec shrugs. “Overbearing. Dad’s retired now, and Iz moved to New York for work last year. Max is in college, so mom’s started questioning him about his life choices instead of mine.”

“Only took thirty-five years,” Magnus chuckles. “How is your mom? Are you seeing them for the holidays?”

Alec makes a noise that amounts to yeah, something like that .

What he doesn’t say is this: his parents’ marriage has been strained a while now - not as many years as Magnus has been gone, but close enough - and Alec is thirty years too old to be used as ammunition, or worse, a bartering tool in a messy ending. The divorce is only a matter of time now.

If only the road continued on forever, he would not have to go back home for the holidays. He wouldn’t have to sit through another Christmas of icy silences and thinly-veiled insults and his mother trying to butter him up while his father does the same to Isabelle. He wouldn’t have to lie awake in his childhood bedroom and listen to his parents screaming at each other downstairs, all the while wishing for the tap-tap-tap of pebbles thrown against his window, begging for it to be open.

A lot has changed since Magnus last saw him, and Alec didn’t have to move across the country for that.

A lot has changed since Alec stood on the sidewalk and watched Magnus’ car turn the corner at the end of the street for the very last time and not come back.

A semi-truck appears in the distance: first, as a pin-prick of light, and then as two beams of headlights striking the highway and the growl of its engine. The whole car rumbles and Alec grips tight to the steering wheel as the headlights blind him and shapes dance across his eyes. The light bleaches through Magnus’ dark hair and streaks across the skin visible beneath the open collar of his shirt; he holds his hand over his brow and winces.

The truck is thunder: a brief jolt and a flash, and then it’s gone, an aftershock of red light disappearing in the rearview mirror.

For a while, there is only silence. A mile, maybe more. Long past the truck vanishing from view, its light fading into the dark; and it’s the sort of silence that is thick and heavy and awkward.

At the five mile mark, Magnus inhales and turns in his seat to look at Alec.

“So, the FBI,” he says, like he has an obligation to fill the quiet, because letting it stew is somehow worse. “What’s that like? Maryse must be proud.”

“Yeah,” Alec mumbles. “She is.”

“It suits you, you know? Alec Lightwood, Special Agent. Not that I didn’t always know that it would.”

Alec’s mouth twitches, a smile in another lifetime. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Magnus gestures with his hand. There are rings on his fingers that fail to catch the thin and distant light, but his fingers, long and slender, draw focus.

“You’re smart. Logical. Far too severe for your own good, which I imagine serves you well in law enforcement. You’ve always had a keen sense of justice,” he explains. His voice softens. “You know I’ve always thought that about you.”

Alec swallows thickly. “Magnus, you don’t have to -”

“And besides,” Magnus interrupts. “I always knew you’d look good in a suit.”

Alec looks down at himself. “What, even a suit off the rack?”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything.”

Shakily, Alec laughs under his breath, but he relaxes his hands on the wheel and his knuckles fade from white back to pink. He lets the tense line in his shoulders fall flat.

“I don’t really have anyone to give me advice on what I should be wearing anymore,” he admits. “Or what colour ties match my -”

“Complexion?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Green. It’s dark green,” Magnus says. He smiles to himself, amused by something far back in time. “Do you remember that time when-”

“Yes,” Alec says. Yes, of course I remember. I haven’t forgotten a single thing . “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I still have that tie, the one you picked out for me that Christmas.”

“And the pocket square? They were a matching set -”

“Still the only pocket square I own,” says Alec.  

Magnus chuckles to himself, swiping his thumb across his lower lip in thought. The nostalgia becomes him; his expression softens with the memory of something fond.

The same cannot be said for Alec.

If only pocket squares could be metaphors for other things. For years gone by and silences that were once not this awkward and filled with jilted conversation. Or for a place once frequented but now abandoned; or a past that Alec still calls his now .

Alec is too clumsy at this; he doesn’t know how to step back into a space once occupied with ease, making smalltalk and laughing about Christmases in 1979 as if they were yesterday and they haven’t gone ten years without talking.

He’s not like Magnus; he couldn’t drop everything and leave it all behind. He didn’t get to move on. He had nowhere to go, trapped in this endless back-and-forth of travelling, always returning to the very same place once departed.  

interlude

On a postcard never sent:

What is worse: the separation, or the place where we will meet again, afterwards, that looks and feels like nowhere and is no longer familiar?

I miss you. I am afraid that I will no longer know you when I see you again.

third chord

Two motel room doors. Two identical rooms with identical twin beds and box-set TVs with only five channels and VCRs that don’t really work. Two sets of keys, although the weight of the fob in Alec’s hand feels more like brass than cheap white plastic.

He’s been here before: a shared dorm room, long, long ago. And then, after that, two houses on the same suburban street, sharing the same zip code. And then, finally, two cities, half a world apart.

He and Magnus, half a lifetime spent apart.

Alec did not notice the growing distance until it was too late; in hindsight, he’s not sure if that hurts more or less, to be blindsided by a farawayness he never saw coming. But here, now, there’s five-and-a-half feet of space between his shoulder and Magnus’, standing in front of their respective motel room doors, and happenstance has crossed their lines again.

Alec looks down at the key in his hand and then back up.

Beside him, Magnus casts a long and lonely shadow, thin and black as it stretches back into the dark. The wind ruffles his hair and plunders the pockets of his coat in an act of midnight robbery. The cold has chapped his lips already and he grumbles below his breath as he jams his key into the lock with frost-bitten fingers.

Alec doesn’t mean to be looking, but he is. He’s not sure he’s looked away since Magnus stepped out of that phone booth, as if slipping through a gap in time connecting two unrelated places that somehow ended up overlapped.

Magnus’ door clicks and he pushes it open with a soft, “aha!”, flipping on the light inside. The light tumbles out of the room - cheap, yellow, glaring - and Magnus bends down to grab his bag from his feet.

He pauses, then, in his open doorway.

“Well, then,” he says, looking at Alec with a half smile. “Until tomorrow, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” says Alec. He clenches the key in his palm until the metal digs into his fingers. If Magnus notices, he doesn’t let on. “Listen, Magnus. About what happened, when you left-”

“I’m glad, you know,” Magnus interrupts. “For whatever serendipitous force brought you to that gas station tonight. It’s good to see you. I mean it.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Alec replies. “I didn’t think - I didn’t think that day was going to be goodbye. I didn’t realise. If I’d known, Magnus ...”

“I didn’t either,” replies Magnus. His voice becomes softer. His eyes, too. Apologetic in a way that might take Alec years to unravel - or seconds. “But these things happen. You can’t stay stuck in one place forever, Agent Lightwood.”

Alec nods stiffly but says nothing.

Magnus offers him another smile, leaning heavily on his door frame.

“Alexander?” he asks, as if oblivious.

Alec squeezes the key tighter in his hand. “Yeah?”

A pause, then. Deliberate and weighted, and for a moment, Alec wonders if Magnus is going to answer the question that hasn’t been asked.

(Do you remember the day you left?)

(Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not talk. It’s in the past and we’re both different people now.)

But, instead:

“I’ll see you in the morning, Alec,” he says. “Goodnight. And thank you, again.”

The door closes and the light vanishes, and Alec is left suddenly in the darkness, gazing at the space once occupied. The night around him is cold. A whisper sets heavily upon his tongue but goes unspoken.

Everything always goes unspoken.

interlude

Somewhere between here and 1985, there is a man who doesn’t regret letting his feelings go unsaid. There is a man who moved on with his life; a man who doesn’t live in a moment years ago, with someone else’s hand playing idly in his hair.

There is a man who meets an old friend at a gas station in rural Idaho and it doesn’t hurt in a way he can’t ever explain.

Alec wishes that he knew him.

fourth chord

It’s always night, on the road.

As with endless highways and endless diners, other things begin to repeat themselves too. Alec prefers driving at night. It’s quiet; he can hear himself think; he can run red lights without being pulled over, without anybody in the world seeing him at all. He affords himself this one little thrill, the knowledge that the power to swerve off the road is clenched in his fists.

A fuel tanker passes the car on the opposite side of the highway, the sound of its exhaust like a fog horn parting thick cloud; for a moment, the low hum of the radio is wiped from existence. Alec eases the car over into the middle of the lane with the barest adjustment of the wheel, avoiding the spray of wet grit kicked up by the truck’s wheel arches. As the rumble fades, the melody of late-night jazz begins anew.

He glances sideways at Magnus in the passenger seat. His temple rests against the window and his eyes are closed but he’s not asleep; Alec can tell by the way he’s drawing his thumb in tiny concentric circles against his index finger again, as if deep in thought.

It was always a tell of his.

There is so much of him that hasn’t changed. So much of him that has crossed the threshold from Alec’s memory and fanned out into reality, and Alec is not quite sure where it all meets and blends together. Magnus is half a stranger and half a man ten years younger than he is now, with expensive clothes and the same aftershave and a twinkle in his eye and a strange, unspoken grief on his face whenever he thinks Alec isn’t looking.

But Alec is always looking.

There are memories in the footwell and on the dashboard and in the usually-unoccupied passenger seat of his rental car. Memories that Alec often revisits on other long and inconsequential journeys as a way to pass the time as the odometer climbs.

Magnus is always the main feature of those memories.

It’s 1978 and Alec is a junior in college and Magnus is stumbling into a lecture hall half-an-hour late with a thermos in his hand. He’s wearing the shortest shorts Alec has ever seen, and he’s slumping into the seat next to Alec, whispering in Alec’s ear that he’s so hungover he’s about to revisit Thanksgiving dinner.

Then, it’s 1981 and Magnus is trading secrets with Isabelle at a drive-in movie theater while Alec buys the popcorn; and he’s flattering Maryse’s cooking while leant across the kitchen island, chin in his hand; and he’s slamming the door to his and Alec’s shared dorm, before sneaking back in an hour later, only to find Alec waiting up for him with an apology at the ready.

It’s 1982 and he’s laughing. He’s giving Alec the grand tour of his mother’s home, three streets down from the house where Alec’s parents live. I can’t believe it took moving away to college for us to meet , he says to Alec. We’ve lived this close for so long and we didn’t even know.

It’s 1984 and he’s curling his hand over the back of Alec’s neck, feeling out the knobs in Alec’s spine. His breath is warm against Alec’s jaw as he whispers gentle words into Alec’s ear.

It’s 1985 and he’s packing up his car for the very last time.

Yesterday is tangled in Magnus’ hair. Memories twist time out of alignment and rearrange it into something, and someone, that Alec does not recognise. Ahead of them, in the distance, on the horizon, is a year from a decade ago.  

But here in the car, moonlight makes crosses on Magnus’ body. He is beautiful, still. Older, more refined, more improbable , but the composition of him is something that makes Alec’s heart ache as if he’s eighteen again and they’ve only just met.

The mole above his eyebrow is too familiar.

The lines around his eyes that appeared only after his mother passed. Alec remembers that summer well. He remembers listening to Magnus cry as he stood in Magnus’ kitchen doing the dishes that had been neglected for a week.

The map of his hands. A journey that Alec never took but longed for. Longed for and left to gather dust, like an atlas tucked away on the highest shelf of a bookcase.

In the dark, Magnus cracks open one eye, as if aware of being scrutinised. Alec turns his attention back to the road, but it is too late. He’s been caught.

“What is it?” Magnus asks, and his voice is smooth and rich and fills the car like music, even so shortly after waking. “Are we out of gas already?”

“No,” says Alec. “We’ll be fine for a while.”

“Hungry, then? We could stop for a late dinner. Or early breakfast. I’m not entirely sure what time it is, but I can always eat.”

Alec doesn’t reply, but he presses his mouth into a thin line.

Magnus’ eyes narrow. “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

Magnus scoffs. “You’ve always been many things, Alec, but able to lie to me is not one of them.” He laughs a little. “You think I’ve forgotten the look on your face when you’re trying not to spill your heart?”

No , Alec thinks. No, of course you haven’t. You should’ve, but you haven’t. You should’ve, because then at least one of us could say they moved on.

Alec exhales through his nose and flexes his fingers on the steering wheel. He glances in the rearview mirror, but there’s nothing behind them for miles. Much like pocket squares, perhaps that is a metaphor too.

“You never called,” he says, trying to sound casual.

Immediately, Magnus tenses. He shifts in his seat and sits up a little straighter, angling himself to look at Alec.

“I did,” he says, “At the start. You never answered.”

“You were in L.A. The time zones -”

“Oh, come on,” Magnus laughs. “You could’ve called me, you had my number. I know you did, because I wrote it down for you and left it on your bedside table, the day I moved.”

Alec squeezes his eyes closed; for a brief moment of respite, the road ahead of him vanishes. He thinks about letting go of the wheel at 90 miles per hour - not because he wants to, but because the thought of picking up the phone and hearing Magnus’ voice on the other end was always something that felt like driving his car into a ditch.

It’s the fear of impact. It’s the old hurt of being abandoned. It’s the longing to have run after Magnus’ car and asked to go with him that day in 1985. It’s all such a blur. Alec cannot sift between it all.

Magnus sighs heavily, knocking his head back against the seat. He looks at Alec from the corner of his eye and studies him at length.

“Maybe we should stop,” he says slowly. “The next town, find a diner. Get some food.”

“It’s fine. I’d prefer to keep driving,” Alec says, “If we keep stopping, you won’t make your meeting in time.”

Magnus frowns.

You clearly want to talk about it , Alec imagines him saying. Evidently, there are things that went unsaid.  

Magnus says none of those things. His phone begins to ring and it shatters the strange tension in the front seat, splitting it like a sudden burst of lightning. Magnus twists around and reaches into the backseat, rummaging through his bag. He returns with a cellphone in his hand, pulling out the antenna and flipping it open.

He meets Alec’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he presses it to his ear.

“Magnus, speaking.”

Magnus listens to the voice on the other end of the line and taps his fingers on his knee. He makes a low noise of disapproval to whomever he’s speaking.

“Yes, yes, Raphael, I know,” he says. “My battery died and I didn’t have a chance to charge it - do you know how much payphones cost? Do I look like the sort of person who carries change in his pocket?” A brief pause. “Don’t answer that.”

Alec reaches for the dial on the radio, intending to turn the volume down, but Magnus’ free hand darts out and swats his fingers away.

He mouths the word no and returns to his phone call, but Alec’s hand remains outstretched.

There’s a tingle in his fingertips, a short spark of static that leapt from Magnus to him, and he stares down at his hand as if he’s been burned.

And it makes Alec realise, oh.

So you’re lonely -lonely.

“I’ll be in Baltimore in four days. I ran into an old friend who offered me a lift,” Magnus continues into his phone. He listens to the other speaker for a moment, glancing briefly at Alec’s hand and frowning. “You’re lucky I phoned you at all after all that car trouble. It was a courtesy only.”

The radio briefly breaks into static before the song resumes again. Magnus begins drumming his fingers on his leg, listening intently to his phone call. He uhms and ahs and says something about investors and capital and shareholders and begins talking numbers that are too big for Alec to really understand.

He opens up the glove box and pulls out an old diner napkin that Alec shoved in there three states ago, and scribbles down a note, but he has to tap his pen against his thigh for the ink to flow.

Alec curls his hand into a fist and rests it on his thigh, but the tingle doesn’t go away. He listens to Magnus talk - this whole other person that Alec doesn’t know, but who he was clearly always meant to be - but all he can think about is how long he has gone without being touched.

Do you know? he thinks. Do you know that the last person who touched me was you? Do you realise at all?

interlude

Driving is like running. The rhythm of the road; the splattering of rain against the windshield; the thrum of a heartbeat as the speedometer tips over ninety. Clear head. Relentless motion.

Forward, forward, forward, always and forever. Try to keep up. Don’t stop. Keep going. Don’t look back.

fifth chord

The diner is the first sign of civilisation that Alec has seen in over a hundred miles - and it is the same diner as it always is, an eminent glow on the 3AM horizon that creeps closer and closer like a spaceship hovering over the fields and drawing circles in the wheat and the barley.

It draws circles around Alec too, this singular moment in time. This microcosm that exists in the form of red leather seats and bright, fluorescent light, and the same empty parking lot and abandoned phonebooth on the highway verge. The waitress changes; sometimes, the group of teenagers in the booth at the back is an old couple embarking on a long trip south before they get too old to make the drive; and instead of a man at the bar watching the baseball, every few miles there will be an off-duty sheriff nursing a cup of diner coffee.

In the end, it’s all the same. A small pocket universe that Alec has crossed a thousand times in a thousand different rental cars.

Perhaps the people in the diner do not exist outside of it. Perhaps they are like pictures on a TV screen that cease to be once the lights have gone off and the static has fizzled and died.

Perhaps they exist only because Alec and Magnus are passing through, creating the world around them as they go. The Midwest has that quality about it.

“I can’t remember the last time I ate diner food,” Magnus says as Alec holds the door open for him and the bell jingles above their heads. “L.A. is on a health kick right now. Everything is kale. Try ordering a steak at any restaurant within a half-mile of downtown and they’ll have the bouncer throw you out on the sidewalk with your drink still in your hand.”

“Not sure they know what kale is out here,” Alec murmurs, leading the way to a booth by the window. He slides onto the bench as Magnus slumps down across from him, dramatically throwing his head back and closing his eyes. “You’re probably safe here.”

Magnus cracks open one eye to look at Alec. Beneath the table, his toes nudge against Alec’s, and then he shifts so that their knees knock together too. He throws a grin at Alec and expects a volley.

Alec tucks a smile into the corner of his mouth and rolls his eyes. He feels fragile, but he’s always been good at acting like he’s not. He picks up the menu and pretends like he doesn’t already know it like the back of his hand.

The waitress approaches their table with a megawatt smile that only brightens when Magnus turns his focus on her, casting her in spotlight. She laughs, tucks her hair behind her ear, and asks where they’re from. Magnus says Los Angeles. The waitress tells him she has a dream of becoming a singer and moving out West, seeing Hollywood and all that .

Alec has never been, but there was a summer back when Alec was in college, where Isabelle decided to follow a boy to California, swept up in the promise of love and adventure and new opportunities. Jace and Alec had protested, their mother had expressly forbid it, but Izzy had gone anyway, and it had ended in heartbreak six months later, as these things always do.

“Everybody in L.A. is from somewhere else,” Izzy had told him, when she came home for Christmas and Alec picked her up at the airport, her life packed up into suitcases in tow. “I don’t know how to explain it. You’re drawn there because of all the - you know, all the sparkle. The glamour, Alec. But really, people there are just running away from somewhere else. Somewhere they don’t really want to be.”

“You don’t want to be here?” Alec had asked.

Izzy shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s more … you don’t realise what was good in the place you left until you’re somewhere else. But then you’re too far to phone, or it costs too much to get a plane ticket, or you just don’t want to give people back home the satisfaction of knowing that they were right.”

Back in the diner, the waitress scribbles down their order on her notepad, pours Alec a coffee, and then tells Magnus she’ll be right back with his seltzer water.

Alec can’t help himself. “Seltzer water,” he murmurs. “And you say you don’t fit in in Los Angeles.”

Magnus laughs. “I didn’t say that .”

The diner coffee is cheap and watery; the burger Alec gets has no bacon, but too many gherkins soaked in brine. The fries are soggy, left bathing in grease all evening, but the waitress brings them an extra portion at no extra charge, because she mistakes Magnus’ friendly conversation for flirtation. Her number is tucked on a napkin beneath the plate.

Magnus rolls his eyes as he shows Alec, but he’s too good a person to crumple it up and toss it to the side. Instead, he slides the napkin into the pocket of his jacket, a keepsake. A souvenir of someone else’s dreams for the future. In that sense, it almost seems precious.  

“What?” Magnus asks when he notices Alec staring. “What’s the matter?”

Alec turns his attention back to his food, pulling out a soggy gherkin from his burger and draping it across the edge of his plate. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking?”

Alec’s eyes dart to the pocket of Magnus’ jacket and then away again.

“Alec,” Magnus gently scolds. His smile becomes sympathetic. “Just ask me what you want to ask.”

“Are you gonna call her?”

Magnus shrugs. “Probably not. But who knows. Sometimes the people you meet by accident re-enter your life further down the line and become important. I don’t know where her story might take her.”

“What about your story?”

“My story?”

Alec nods, but says nothing.

Magnus leans forward across the table. “You know my story, Alec.”

A man lights a cigarette at the table two rows behind them; he draws smoke into his lungs and it escapes through his nose, a thin grey stream falling upwards, towards the tiled ceiling. Alec watches him tap the filter on the ashtray in the middle of his table and a clump of ash disintegrates from the lit end; it lands silently, like snow. Like dust on the highway.

Magnus follows Alec’s line of sight and turns in his seat, glancing over his shoulder at the man. When he looks back, he has one eyebrow raised expectantly.

The smell of cigarette smoke fills the diner - acrid, bitter, and faintly earthy. It takes Alec back to college, to sitting out on the back porch of Magnus’ mother’s house before Magnus sold it because he couldn’t bear to look at it any more. He can picture the pack of Morley's tucked beneath Magnus’ thigh. He can still remember the way the unlit cigarette bobbed between Magnus’ teeth as he told his secrets to both Alec and the dark.

“I quit, you know,” says Magnus, in the present. “They say it’s bad for you.”

“I always told you it was.”

Magnus smirks at him and leans forward again, his elbows resting on the table. He steals a limp fry from Alec’s plate and pops it into his mouth. “I listened, didn’t I?” He nods over his shoulder towards the cigarette-smoking man. “What do you think his story is?”

“Huh?”

“What do you think his story is? Why is he here, alone at a diner in the back-end of Wyoming, past midnight in the depths of November? Smoking a cigarette? He must have a story.”

Alec’s never really thought about it. He’s always imagined the inhabitants of the diner as a backdrop, not as characters in their own story.

He looks harder at the man now: he’s older than both Alec and Magnus, salt-and-pepper hair thinning at the back. Once handsome, perhaps, but the years have stretched out his face and made his jaw sag. He’s wearing an ill-fitting suit, his shirt rumpled and his tie missing, the top button of his collar undone. He takes a deep puff of his cigarette, looks at it, and then extinguishes the lit end, grinding it into the ashtray.

“I don’t know,” Alec says slowly, looking back at Magnus. “Some sort of business trip?”

Magnus’ mouth lifts at the corners, drawing Alec in. “Perhaps, but I don’t think so. You see how he’s fingertips aren’t yellow? He’s clearly not a smoker, but he’s stressed enough to do it now.” Magnus reaches across the table and taps his finger against Alec’s fourth knuckle on his left hand. “And he’s not wearing a wedding ring, although looks like he was until recently. You see the mark?”

Alec steals a glance at the man, and then shuffles forward on the bench, so that he might drop his voice low and conspiratorial.

“Divorced, then?” he proposes.

“Maybe,” Magnus grins, “Or cheating, and he’s about to go back home and face his wife and pretend like his fishing trip with the guys from the office didn’t turn up much success, so they’re going to try again next weekend. He’s probably never fished in his life.”

Alec laughs then, loud enough to draw some attention. The sound is foreign in his mouth and a flush surges up the back of his neck as he sinks lower in his seat, hunching his shoulders and biting down on his smile.

Magnus looks delighted; in his eyes, Alec sees the reflection of the fluorescent lights above their heads, laid out like stars.

“You just made all that up from looking at him?” Alec asks.

Magnus beams at him. He reaches out and touches Alec’s fourth knuckle again. “Why, of course,” he says, and then he nods his chin towards the sheriff sat alone at the bar, making smalltalk with the waitress. “Now, how about him?”

sixth chord

The sun rises over the endless Nebraskan fields in shards of light.

Alec adjusts the rearview mirror. He will remember this moment later in figments of pale winter blue, snow-hazed pink, and November sky through the passenger window as Magnus gazes out across the passing countryside: a blank canvas for a painter to fill with bodies.

The color changes depending on where Alec chooses to angle the reflection of the mirror. Slightly to the left, and Magnus’ hands are stained in a pale wavering indigo, a purple so rare that it is only ever seen in the fleeting hour between twilight and sunrise. Move the mirror to the right, and that colour becomes orange, then gold.

Magnus swipes his hand across the condensation forming on the inside of the window, smearing colour across the landscape, but the story he might paint is hidden from view. Alec knows the start and he knows the middle - the brushstrokes the ones Alec remembers, but it’s the details that differ now -  and it’s the end of the story that is vague and undefined in sepia.

Alec thinks about cigarettes again. He wants to ask Magnus who it was that finally got him to quit. Or when exactly he started drinking seltzer water instead of shitty beer from Walmart, or decided that listening to the dial tone while waiting for Alec to pick up the phone was too much.

‘Let’s start the morning right with some ‘old but gold’ ,’ announces the radio. ‘ We’re going back twelve years to 1983 with this first track …’

Magnus makes a nose of protest in the passenger seat. The indigo has already faded from his hands, moving on to become something else, something more.

Faithfully by Journey begins to play. Alec recognises the song; in much the same way that a breath of fresh air on a cold winter morning can take him back to another place and another time, the first note paints a picture in his memories.

“This song played at Isabelle’s quincea ñ era,” he remarks. “D’you remember?”

“I remember,” Magnus says, tipping his head back against the seat and staring up at the roof of the car. He closes his eyes and basks in the light of the early morning sun. His smile grows gold. “That was the summer she dragged us all to see them in concert, wasn’t it? Jace had me make a tape for her, for the party. She played it on repeat all night.” Magnus pauses for a moment, letting his words sink in. “I also remember asking you to dance to this.”

Alec remembers that too. “Dad didn’t like that. He was pissed.”

”I’m not surprised. He tolerated me, at best. He was clearly jealous.”

Alec huffs on a laugh. “Jealous? How’s that, exactly?”

“Mhm, jealous,” Magnus reminisces. “Specifically of when I spun you around and dropped you on your ass in the grass and you laughed like I’d never heard you laugh before.”

Alec’s neck grows warm, a flush curling around his throat. He pinches at the skin between his thumb and forefinger where his hands both rest on the wheel.

“I was drunk,” he says, like an excuse. “I don’t remember much after that.”

That’s a lie. He was drunk, but he remembers being sprawled out across the grass and staring at the sky and laughing, until Magnus dropped down beside him, his hands planted either side of Alec’s head as he bent over him, and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. And he had laughed it off like it was nothing, pulling Alec back to his feet, but Alec spent the rest of the summer picking that feeling out of his teeth.

Magnus turns his head to gaze out the window again. The curve of his smile speaks of fondness, of a quieted sense of longing and looking back. He seems at peace.

“I was drunk too,” he says, after a beat, to the countryside.

And oh, Alec wants that. He covets that like he covets touch. To be able to look back and not feel all this … regret.

Isabelle’s fifteenth birthday was the first and only time they kissed. Magnus probably doesn’t even remember that night, not beyond the dancing, the beer, the spinning around and around in dizzying circles. There’s no way he would remember a kiss that wasn’t really a kiss.

Alec never once told him how he wanted to do it again.

That was the problem, in the end.

interlude

“You haven’t moved on?” says a man, once, in a bar. He’s tall and handsome, with curly blonde hair and large hands that Alec has imagined once or twice upon his chest, although it never makes his heart leap like it should.

His name is Andrew. He works in the building next door to the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington. They met at a coffee cart on the corner of the block, and this, now, is their third date.

Alec had thought it was going well.

“What?” says Alec, turning to look at Andrew, leant beside him at the bar. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t moved on from whoever it is that you loved first,” says Andrew. He pulls his American Express from his wallet and passes it to the bartender to settle their tab, but they’ve only had one drink so far. “And you know, that’s okay. I get it. The first is always different, especially when it gets left unfinished. But I can’t see this working between us if you’re still in that place. You’re a good guy, Alec, but I deserve more than that.”

seventh chord

“Take the next left.”

Alec scowls at the road before turning to look at Magnus. He is bent over an atlas he found beneath the passenger seat - it’s not Alec’s and must’ve been left behind by whoever rented the car before him. The pages are dog-eared and coffee ring-stained, and Magnus’ finger is pressed against the thin line of the highway that divides Nebraska in two.

“What? Why? This is the quickest way.”

Magnus glances up, a look of mischief on his face. He grins at Alec.

“There’s something I want to see and we’ll be passing right by. Seems like a shame to miss it while we’re here.”

“What is it?”

Magnus’ tongue pokes out between his teeth as his smile broadens. He mimes locking his mouth with an invisible key, tucking it into his shirt pocket.

Alec huffs. “Magnus, we’re in Nebraska. All they have here is grass. And nothing. And more grass, and more nothing.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Magnus folds the atlas up and sets it on his lap. He pats it with his hands. “What’s so wrong with a little spontaneity?”

“Uh, the fact that you have to be in Baltimore in three days? For an important meeting?” Alec says, gesturing with his flat palm at the road ahead. “You know I’m still on the clock, right? This is Bureau time you want to waste.”

“It’ll be an hour’s detour. We can afford it.”

“ Magnus .”

Magnus just grins at him. It’s the same grin that used to get Alec into so much trouble back in college; it leans against his doorframe with arms folded and a come-hither look in its eyes, and Alec has never been able to say no. Not to Magnus.

Magnus laughs. “Wow, they really did shove that stick right on up your ass at Quantico, didn’t they?”

Alec glares at him, but Magnus reaches out and pats Alec on the forearm, gently curling his fingers around Alec’s wrist. His touch, unfairly, is warm.

“Come on. The turning’s coming up,” he says. “Time to make a decision, Agent Lightwood. You don’t always have to play by the rules. Live a little.”

Alec rolls his eyes, but flicks the turn signal and merges into the outside lane, slowing as the turning approaches. Magnus beams at him and his laughter is buoyant, delighted as he claps Alec on the shoulder. His hand lingers, fingers pressing into Alec’s shirt, thumb against Alec’s pulse point.

Alec takes the turning.

He takes the turning and he wishes, only once, that Magnus might tell him exactly what those rules are. For a situation like this, he wonders, when you’re in the front seat of a car on an endless highway with a man you haven’t seen in years and who, once upon a time, you would’ve followed anywhere.

Although, in the end, not everywhere.  

A sign on the roadside welcomes them to Alliance, Nebraska, but instead of houses and street lamps, it’s grass that stretches for miles in every flat direction, endless swathes of frostbitten green. The road, now, is dirt and dust, and in the distance, a single white building and a cluster of standing stones appear as a landmark on the horizon.

Alec slows the car, but as the stones come into focus, he realises they’re not stones at all.

“Are those … cars ?” Alec asks, squinting into the distance. He looks sharply at Magnus. “Magnus, what -?”

Magnus holds up the atlas, his finger pressed against a roadside attraction labelled Carhenge .

“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Alec says.

“Stonehenge replicated entirely out of cars, you mean?”

“Yes. That .”

“Well, it’s not as exciting as the World’s Biggest Ball of Paint , sure,” Magnus grins. “But when in Rome, Alexander. When in Rome.”

Alec pulls off the road, passing by the visitor’s sign that reads: Carhenge and Car Art Reserve. Welcome! The parking lot, little more than a field worn thin by tire treads, is scarred by muddy trenches that have frozen solid in the night and not yet thawed, and the rental’s suspension works hard to navigate them.

Alec huffs as he pulls up the handbrake and cuts the engine, but Magnus is already twisting in his seat to reach for his coat. He shoots Alec a cavalier grin as he opens the car door and tumbles out into the cold, and the blast of icy-cold air hits Alec square in the face.

Alec grimaces, but in front of the car, Magnus knocks his knuckles against the hood and gestures for Alec to follow him. Alec grumbles and pats himself down for his keys-wallet-ID-gun , before grabbing his own coat and shoving open the driver’s door.

The only other vehicle in the parking lot is a campervan, shiny and white and sparkling in the winter sunlight, either a midlife crisis or an early retirement investment. An older couple - a man and a woman - are standing in front of it, peering over a large DSLR camera. He’s in socks and sandals and she has binoculars looped around her neck, and if the weather was any warmer, Alec is sure they would both be in cargo shorts too.

“What attracts people to places like this?” Alec mutters, stuffing his hands into his pockets and turning up the collar of his overcoat as he hurries after Magnus. He hunches his shoulders, but the wind feels like it’s gusting through him, with nothing to stop or hinder it across the plains. “Why would you drive all the way out here to see … this ?”

“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey, Alexander,” Magnus teases, walking backwards so that he can face Alec. “Why do we do anything without purpose? Because it’s there, and because we can.”

Behind him, the large circle of cars stands out of the landscape, spray-painted grey to look even less like standing stones. Alec grits his teeth.

“It’s about those little moments that break up a long drive,” Magnus continues, nudging Alec’s arm. “Or making small and inconsequential memories that can be revisited whenever one needs something slightly absurd to fall back on. It’s something to do with another person, even if that person is insistent on being a grouch the entire time we’re here-”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Alec grumbles. “Let’s just hurry up and look because it’s fucking freezing out here and I wanna get back in the car.”

Alec’s dress shoes sink straight into the mud as they traipse across the grass towards the circle of cars; the squelch-squelch-squelch of his feet is loud enough to be heard over the wind. Along the horizon, the sun is weeping yellow, low in the sky and sinking moment by moment towards sunset, and the shadows that stretch out lengthways from the stones-that-are-not-stones are long and warped.

Alec stops when his toes meet one such shadow and he looks up at the stack of cars towering over him. He tilts his head to the side, but it looks no better from an angle. Magnus steps away from him, meandering over towards an information sign.

“ ‘Carhenge is formed from vintage American automobiles, all covered with gray spray paint,’ ” he reads out. “‘ Built by Jim Reinders, it was dedicated at the June 1987 summer solstice in memory of his father. ’ Huh. How about that.”

“My dad would kill me,” Alec mutters.

“Oh, yes, mine too,” says Magnus. He bends down and squints at the smaller text on the sign. “‘ Carhenge consists of 39 automobiles arranged in a circle measuring about 96 feet in diameter.’ ”

“That seems excessive.”

“I think it’s strangely compelling, actually,” Magnus says. “There’s something about roadside Americana that has its own distinct charm. It’s a product of human eccentricities and I like that.”

“Oh yeah, and what are you seeing?” Alec says, gesturing with his hand. “Because all I see is a 15ft tall metal monstrosity.”

Magnus wanders back over to him, pressing up against Alec’s arm for the sake of warmth. He folds his arms across his chest, shoving his hands under his arms, and huffs out warm air that forms white clouds. He gazes up at the monolith above them.

“Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Alexander,” he says. He frowns then, studying the twisted shapes of metal and fibreglass as if they’re some extraordinary work of art kept behind velvet ropes and a glass case and only allowed to be looked upon for a fleeting moment, and not an old car barely spared from rusting. “Michelangelo despised the roof of the Sistine Chapel, and yet it’s one of the most impressive feats of Renaissance art that still exists.”

“ Magnus ,” Alec presses.

“Mhm?”

Alec pauses. He studies Magnus’ face in profile: the line of his nose, the sharp cut of his jaw, the purse of his lips as he contemplates some deeper meaning that passes Alec by. High in his cheeks, the cold paints his skin red.

Alec thinks he understands a little, then. Nobody really comes to Alliance, Nebraska to see thirty-nine vintage cars spray painted grey and stacked together like some prehistoric monument from halfway across the world. There are other things worth looking at.

Alec shrinks down into the collar of his coat. “Michelangelo is overrated anyway,” he grumbles.

interlude

Here is the creation of a new memory: the orange-gold of a sunset, the cold metal of a rental car against the back of Alec’s thighs, and the warmth of a cheap coffee in his hands, steam rising and obscuring the face. The sky, shifting into navy, into darkness, into the pitting of stars as the temperature plummets and each breath becomes a plume of smoke rising heavenward.

Here, sat together on the hood of the car, Magnus touches him. Not an accidental brush of the fingers or a friendly hand on the arm while driving, but instead, Magnus tips his head to the side, letting his temple rest on Alec’s shoulder.

Here, Magnus’ whispered name crosses Alec’s lips. A question posed to the night, painful and tender and purple like a bruise (‘ what are you doing? ’), but Magnus doesn’t reply. He hums and turns his head and presses his nose to Alec’s coat.

Alec’s doesn’t dare move. Magnus’ hair tickles his jaw, and Alec wants to turn his head and press his nose there and breathe him in, but he doesn’t. Ten years ago, maybe. But not now.

So, he looks up, and he exhales as the last fragments of the sun shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. The night sky, in its infiniteness, mirrors the high plains of the Midwest: how endless, how deep, how black it all is, away from the city.

How less lonely it is with another body tucked against his shoulder. How much it hurts.

eighth chord

They find a cheap motel, afterwards, on the outskirts of the Alliance city limits. This time, there’s only one room left. One room with two twin beds made up in ugly floral sheets, and a TV without cable, and a minifridge, because that’s how it always is; how it’s meant to be; how it was, once, years ago.

Standing in the doorway of the room, Alec thinks back to their college dorm. He thinks about being eighteen and away from his parents’ home for the very first time - only one city over, but far enough, far enough to breathe - and Magnus crashing into that room, laden with boxes and a bright smile.

He thinks, aged eighteen, God, he’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen .

He thinks, aged thirty-something, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.  

Magnus, in the present, slumps down on the bed furthest from the door with a heavy sigh and immediately toes off his shoes and flings off his coat. His suitcase is beside him on the bed, but Alec’s bag - Alec’s bag is still clenched tightly in his fingers.

He doesn’t move from the doorway. He can still feel Magnus’ head against his shoulder, Magnus’ weight against his side, and he’s not sure he’s taken a proper breath since; but then Magnus looks up and catches his eye and tilts his head as if to say, what next, Alexander?

He offers Alec a smile which Alec can’t return.

Alec swallows thickly and nudges the door closed with his hip. He pads over to the other bed, his feet sinking into the plush carpet and leaving tracks, and he sets his bag down on the very end of the mattress, and -

What next, Alexander?

There was never a what next . That’s the problem; it’s always been the problem. Alec, afraid to put a name to the feelings in his chest and step outside his comfort zone, and Magnus, unwilling to push him. This is the point they always reached: the touches, the glances, the wondering. The waiting for someone to do something. Around and around again, until Magnus couldn’t do it anymore.

This is always the point. The moment, repeated, just like the highway. Just like the diner.

Magnus exhales and cards a hand through his hair, combing it back against his head. He looks away from Alec, eyes drifting across the room until they settle on the cheap plywood door that leads to the ensuite.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he announces, and then he’s up, grabbing a towel off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

The shutting of the bathroom door is too soft and too careful, and Alec sinks down onto the end of his bed and rests his head in his hands. He closes his eyes and focuses on the outline of his badge in his jacket pocket, digging into his chest. The weight of his service weapon on his hip. The scratchy linen of the bed, the stains on the ceiling, the fuzzy TV as it cycles back and forth through the few sparse channels, even though the remote is on the bedside table and out of Alec’s reach.

He tries not to listen to the sound of rushing water through the walls.  

He goes to shower, after. When Magnus emerges from the bathroom with wet hair and a freshly-scrubbed face, there are no words exchanged as Alec passes him by.

The bathroom is small and full of steam, windowless and ventless and hot like a sauna and that’s definitely a fire hazard. Alec peels out of his suit and tugs the tie from his collar. His undershirt goes next, and then his belt, which hits the floor with a heavy clank. He stares at himself in the mirror but the reflection that stares back at him is blurred by condensation, and Alec’s finger is drawn to it, if only to leave a mark.

He wonders what Magnus would say if Alec told him of how he would write Magnus’ name in the steam on his mirror in the days after he left, standing in front of it to watch until it faded.

And it faded every time, until Alec stopped doing it.

He steps out of his pants and underwear, a puddle of creased suiting on the floor, and climbs into the shower, turning the dial up as hot as it goes. He stands beneath the spray until it scalds his skin pink, and then, once done, sits on the edge of the tub with a towel wrapped around his waist and finds himself craving a cigarette. He doesn’t smoke, not really. He just needs something to do with his hands.

When he leaves the bathroom, the TV is quiet and the light is off. A faint, electric glow escapes the bottom of the curtains, the same blue colour as the NO VACANCIES sign that overlooks the parking lot outside.

Magnus has his back to the bathroom door, his hands tucked beneath the pillow where he rests his head. He’s not asleep yet; Alec can tell from his breathing, not yet slowed. He will be able to count every long second that Alec spends staring at him, watching the rise and fall of his body beneath the covers, and he will be able to hear the moment Alec sighs and turns and leaves, padding across the room to his own empty bed.

Alec has lost count of the number of times he’s rolled over in the dark of a shuttered room that smells of mothballs and stale cigarette smoke, and reached for something that’s never been there. That hasn’t been there for years.

His mattress dips in the middle with the weight of one body. The pillow scratches at his cheek. He sets his service weapon on the bedside table, within easy reach, but hides his badge within the pocket of his jacket, out of sight but not quite out of mind. This is how it always is.

He listens to the rustle of blankets from the other bed and wonders, briefly, if Magnus has turned to look at him in the dark. He wonders what Magnus’ expression might be, and if Magnus stares at him now with the same sort of regret that Alec fails to hide.  

He is still in love with Magnus. He never stopped being in love with Magnus. This, too, is still the same.

interlude

In a wealth of human experience, the worst, by far, is what if .

ninth chord

Magnus taps his fingers against the car door, beating out an inconsistent rhythm. Alec knows it’s not a love song, but it could be something similar - a song about lost chances or maybe second chances. Sometimes, it’s difficult to distinguish between the two.

‘ THE PEOPLE OF IOWA WELCOME YOU ,’ reads a passing road sign, and it catches Magnus’ attention for a moment long enough to falter his rhythm. ‘ FIELDS OF OPPORTUNITIES. ’

There is little else to distinguish the crossing of the state line: the fields still stretch in endless directions, swathed in a fog the colour of glass. They set off late from the motel this morning because Magnus overslept and then insisted on breakfast, and refused to ask for the cheque until he had seen Alec consume something other than filter coffee.

He had offered to drive too, but Alec remembers what his driving is like: one arm propped on the wheel and the other fiddling with the radio, eyes barely on the road because, to Magnus, highways are straight lines from point A to point B and he has no time for speed traps or taking corners slowly or braking .

Alec, meanwhile, always has his hands at ten and two.

“Alexander, can I ask you something?”

Alec reaches for the dial of the radio and turns it down; this time, Magnus doesn’t try to stop him.

“I’m not stopping at another Carhenge,” Alec says. “Once is enough.”

Magnus rolls his eyes and continues tapping his finger against the car door.

“No,” he says, “No, I’ve seen my fill, I think.”

“But?”

Magnus smiles a little. “What makes you think there’s a but?”

“Because you haven’t said a word since I told you there’s no way in Hell you’re driving,” Alec chuckles. “And you’ve been thinking about something. I can tell. You do this thing with your hand -” He mimics the rubbing of his thumb and forefinger together, and then the touching of his ear. “And then you touch your ear. You used to have that piercing, remember? You’d always fiddle with it when something was on your mind.”

Magnus tugs gently at his earlobe. “I didn’t think I was so easy to read.”

“You’re not,” Alec smiles, “I’ve just known you too long. Or, uh. Knew you too long.”

Magnus hums at that. He begins spinning one of his fingers around his forefinger.

“Do you think I’ve changed? Since then?”

Alec shrugs. He’s never been that good of a liar, not in front of Magnus. And Magnus knows that; he told Alec as much, two days ago  “A bit. It would be weird if you hadn’t.”

“Hm,” Magnus considers. “You’ve changed, you know. And it’s like the strangest sense of deja-vu, because I know I know you, and yet there are these little details, these little things that seem slightly off. That I don’t recognise and I don’t know where they came from.” Abruptly, he stops fiddling with his ring and curls his fingers into the palm of his hand. He smiles wryly to himself. “And why should I? You don’t stay the same person your whole life.”

“I don’t think I’ve changed,” Alec murmurs, chewing on his lip. “I’m pretty much the same person I was back then.”

Magnus shakes his head, his smile fading. “That’s not true. I can see it in your face. You laugh more. You roll your eyes at me. Tell me no. You didn’t used to do that and I would drag you into so much shit , Alec. God, I was such a bad influence on you back then.” He pauses then, and his expression sobers. “But then, sometimes, when I catch you looking at me now, you seem ...”

He trails off, searching for the words with a flick of his hand. Alec doesn’t know what he means.

“I seem like what?” he asks.

“You seem so sad .”

Alec laughs in disbelief. “Sad? What - Magnus - I’m not sad, what do I have to be sad about?”

Magnus runs his thumb over his lower lip in thought. “That’s what I wanted to ask. Last night, in that motel room, I wondered - well. I wanted to ask if you resented me, after I left.”

Alec’s hands clench on the wheel. “If I resented you?” he repeats carefully. “Magnus, I didn’t resent you. Where’s this come from? What - what sort of question is that?”

“A genuine one,” says Magnus. “Just humour me a little. I want to know.”

Alec’s heart thumps in his chest. He forces himself to stay focused on the road. “Why are you asking about this now?”

“Why not two days ago when I found you at that gas station, you mean?”

No , Alec thinks. Not then. Before. Ten years ago, maybe.

Why didn’t you ask me then?

“Yeah,” Alec lies. “Something like that.”

Magnus frowns. “Do you not want to talk about it?” he asks.

“Do you?”

Magnus hesitates. He presses his mouth into a flat line and with his clenched fists, he taps his knuckles against the glass of the passenger window. The beat is one-two three-four , like a pair of heartbeats.

“I want to make sure you know why I had to go,” he says, eventually. “You understand that, right?”

“Right,” says Alec, unconvincingly.

Magnus huffs and leans his head into his hand, rubbing at his temple. When he continues, his words are addressed to the horizon and the straight line that leads them there and disappears into a singular point in time and space.

“I know I hurt you, Alec,” he says. “And I think you’re still hurt, in a way, because you’re both the most obtuse person I’ve ever met and yet the only person who I was always able to - who I can always see . And ... can I be honest here?”

Alec nods, but says nothing.

“Right, well,” Magnus continues. “How do I explain this? It’s … it’s frustrating . Sometimes. The way you keep looking at me out the corner of your eye like it causes you suffering to do so but you can’t help yourself. The way you didn’t pick up any of my phone calls, back then. The way we just … the way we just ended. Snuffed out like a candle.”

“But you’re the one who left , Magnus,” Alec interjects. “You’re the one who - it wasn’t me. I didn’t decide that.”

“I didn’t want to be stuck there. I wanted a career, Alec, I wanted to see what else there is ,” Magnus says, gesturing with his free hand to the open road and empty Iowan landscape. He sounds weary. “And there is so much else, so much more than a nice house in a nice neighbourhood with a white-picket fence and a dog and two-point-five kids. I couldn’t wait around for you to - I didn’t want to live the life my mom lived. She never left that place, not once. The same four walls, the same dead-end Middle American town until the end of her days. And that ... that was too small for me.”

He talks about getting out the same way painters talk about muses, the same way a traveler searches for God in the landscape: something they had to see before they died. A holy calling.

He always has.

Perhaps Alec is the ghost lingering at those New England intersections that keeps Magnus far and away from home. Alec, too afraid to cross over the threshold of a highway, destined to haunt the same small town for the rest of his life.

Too afraid to wander so far from home that he might not be allowed back. Too afraid to say something that he can’t recant, even if it’s the truth.  

Alec chews on the inside of his cheek. “Didn’t you ever ... didn’t you ever think about that sort of life? With the house, and the yard, and the dog?” he begins. “Just a little? Just a bit?”

Magnus shakes his head. “I didn’t want that,” he murmurs. “It’s not me. You know that. And after my mother passed and I sold the house, I - God, sometimes I would sit on the front porch and watch all the cars go by, passing through that town like it was nothing, like it wasn’t even a blip on their map, and I would think the world moves on without you . It doesn’t care if you don’t catch up. It doesn’t care if you’re - if you’re waiting for someone to say something they never want to say.”

He glances at Alec as he says it, and Alec realises then that he knows.

Magnus knows. Perhaps he’s known a while; perhaps he’s known since they were young that Alec loves him but refuses to say it. It is Alec’s worst kept secret, after all.

“I had to get out, Alec,” Magnus continues. “Sometimes I thought, if I stayed, I’d suffocate.”

I was suffocating too , Alec thinks. A gay man in the early 80s didn’t get to breathe . That’s just how it was.

Magnus, of course, already knows that. Alec would only be preaching to the choir if he said it aloud.

Instead, he mumbles, “I wanted to say it.”

“What was that?”

“I wanted to say it,” Alec repeats. He sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek and wishes he could squeeze his eyes closed for just a moment - but there’s the road. There’s always the road. “I just - I couldn’t. Not then. But I wanted to say it. The thing you were waiting for. From me.”

Magnus’ mouth falls open a fraction, as if, somehow, he is surprised by such a revelation. Alec feels Magnus’ stare boring into the side of his face and he fights every muscle in his body not to turn and look back, because he knows exactly what he’ll find in Magnus’ eyes and he’s not sure he can stomach it.

He has looked at Alec this way before. Hell, a thousand times before. He’s trying to understand Alec - why here and why now, why are you finally saying something after all these years of pulling me along at the other end of a string, leaving me hoping and desperate and in love with someone who couldn’t ever say it back - but Alec is not that complicated.

He’s just scared. Scared of change. Scared of veering off the side of the highway that he has driven all his life, even though a part of him wants to know what it feels like. A part of him longs for the impact because, at least then, it will all be over.

And Magnus -

Magnus has always been so difficult to pin down, so close to chewing through his own foot to get away (and Alec had always hoped he’d never quite manage it, so that he might stay with Alec, forever, in some selfish vision of the future). It’s inside of him, that need to wander and see the world and meet new people and learn from them and be better and be something . The need to throw the roadmap out the window at high speed.

“Was that -” Alec begins, but clears his throat again. “Was that not enough? For you to stay, I mean?”

Magnus’ expression softens. His shoulders slump and his hand falls away from his temple and his mouth curves upwards at the corner and he says nothing. In his eyes, however, Alec finds an answer.

Sometimes, you cannot wait to be loved at someone else’s pace. Sometimes, you deserve more than that. I deserved more than that.

And maybe -

And maybe I’m still waiting.

interlude

Another postcard, this time purchased from a roadside gas station and then left crumpled in the glove box of a rental car:

I loved you then. I love you now. I still don’t know how to say it.

tenth chord

The day Magnus left was a Sunday. The beginning of August, 1985. The sun was bright that morning, harsh on the roof of Magnus’ new car as he piled boxes and suitcases into the trunk.  

Alec had not understood what ending meant until he was standing on the sidewalk and watching Magnus pack up his life into ten square feet. He had not understood that some endings aren’t peaceful or satisfying or tie up all the loose threads of a story tangled by the writer; some endings are excoriations. They leave you raw and wounded.

The realisation, now, is that letting Magnus go a second time will be a worse experience than the first. This time, Alec already knows what it’s going to feel like.

In the rental car, the heater works hard to circulate warm air into the front seat. The windshield wipers battle against the thick blanket of fog that has rolled in across Lake Michigan and which obscures the signposts for Chicago from view. Frost covers rural Illinois in a comb of silver, not quite yet snow, but soon. Soon enough, the country will be white and glistening in the low sunlight as far as the eye can see.  

Magnus has his coat draped over him like a blanket, his arms backwards through the sleeves and his head resting against the window. He hasn’t slept, but he’s been quiet for a while now, watching the world pass by with little commentary, save for when a song to which he knows the words plays on the radio.

On the side of the road, timber-frame houses disappear in and out of existence, reappearing in various states of disrepair. A barn, an old farmhouse, a disused gas station, a tiny church built on stilts that extends out over a frozen lake on a wooden walkway.

Magnus makes a noise of interest as they pass it by, turning in his seat to look back at it as it vanishes into the fog.

“Did you see that?” he asks. These are the first words he’s said to Alec in nearly a hundred miles. “That church.”

Alec glances in the rearview mirror but, as always, they are the only car on the road and the fog swallows up the passing seconds behind them. He’s not sure how long they’ve been on this road without a turning, nothing but an undeviated line for miles, and sooner or later, the end of the road is going to take them by surprise.

Alec takes his foot off the gas and presses down on the brake instead, and the car lurches to a near-stop. Magnus jolts forward in his seat, his seat belt cutting into his chest and stopping his momentum. He turns to stare at Alec, but Alec throws his arm over the back of his seat, knocks the gearstick into reverse, and spins the car into a three-point U-turn.

Magnus sits up in his seat, his coat slipping down from his shoulders and onto the floor.

“Baltimore not on the cards anymore?” Magnus asks, as Alec turns the car around and begins driving back the way they came. “Alec, what’s going on?”

Alec leans forward over the steering wheel, squinting out into the fog. The shape of the gas station reforms out of white cloud, and then, beside it, the shimmer of the frozen lake and the small church that sits atop it. A place for prayer amidst the smell of petrol fumes and gasoline and road dust.

A traveller’s chapel , Alec notes. It seems apt.

The church is small and squat and built of dark, gnarled wood, falling apart at the seams. From a distance, it seems almost black, but the need to pull off the road possesses Alec and he pulls into the parking lot of the gas station, before locking the handbrake.

Once parked, he turns to look at Magnus, both hands still clenched on the wheel. The radio crackles with white noise, interspersed with the tune of a Christmas song that Alec doesn’t recognise. Magnus reaches out and turns the volume down.

There’s never really been a need for words.

Alec unclips his seatbelt first. He doesn’t pat himself down for keys-wallet-ID-gun . He grabs his coat from the backseat and leaps out into the cold, and doesn’t look back when he hears the passenger door slam and Magnus follow after him, albeit at a distance.  

What Alec finds is this: the wind is brittle and the walkway that leads out over the lake creaks and groans beneath Alec’s weight, but doesn’t make a noise for Magnus. On the highway behind them, a truck rumbles past, but the fog is so deep that Alec cannot see it, save for the glow of its headlights. There is a small placard nailed to the outside of the church that reads: Visit Your Roadside Chapel and a big red arrow points down at the doorway.

Alec reaches for the doorknob and gives it a twist. Behind him, he can feel Magnus watching him, arms folded across his chest to ward off the cold, in silence. He says nothing to Alec, no witty remark about the FBI’s predilection for breaking and entering, no tired smile, no weary remark about how he’s tired of waiting, which they both know means far more than it seems.

The door to the church is not locked and it opens with a fair shove, and out spills the smell of damp wood and dust and old smoke. Magnus coughs lightly, wafting his hand in front of his mouth, but Alec steps inside.

The church itself is small and cramped, barely wider than the span of Alec’s arms from wall to wall, and the cold sweeps through the gaps in the walls, carrying with it the earthy smell of burning. There are no church pews, but a padded piece of wood for kneeling in prayer sits beneath a floor-to-ceiling cross, and bible verses are scratched into the plywood walls in a messy hand. Empty beer cans and extinguished cigarettes litter the floor, and cobwebs are strung like garlands above Alec’s head, which he reaches up to swipe away.

A row of candles stand where the altar should be. Soot still clings to the wicks, as if freshly extinguished.

Alec steps forward and his feet crunch on dried leaves that have blown in through the door. He lifts his foot and looks down and finds a crumpled receipt stuck to the sole of his shoe, grey with running ink and dozens of footprints that have come before Alec’s. The date on the receipt is fifteen years ago. It was issued in Dallas, Texas.

This is a space of comings and goings. Of passing throughs. The afterimages of a thousand travellers linger here like memories and, carved into the cross above Alec’s head, he notices the words: what is more important to the traveller, the journey or the destination?

The silence sings, or maybe it hisses, like the wind rustling through the endless miles of wheatfields between here and where they’ve come from.

What is more important to the traveller, the fact that we got lost along the way, or that we made it back here, in the end, and met again?

Alec looks back over his shoulder, and Magnus is there, standing in the open doorway, waiting. His nose is red with the cold. The light behind him casts him in the pale yellow of a winter twilight. He is watching Alec with an expression that Alec doesn’t understand.

“Magnus?” Alec asks, low and gentle.

“Yes?” he replies.

“Do you have a lighter?”

Magnus’ mouth tips upwards at the corner. “I said I quit, remember?” he says, but he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a shiny, silver Zippo lighter, engraved with his initials. He places it in Alec’s outstretched hand, but his touch lingers against Alec’s wrist and the staccato of his pulse. “Here.”

Alec turns to the candles and flicks his thumb along the lighter. The flame is summoned into existence, its light dancing across Alec’s thumbnail as he lights the wick of the tallest candle.

He lights it for his mother, and then, once it catches, he lights another for Izzy, and then one for Jace and Max and his father. He recites the Catholic rotes his grandmother taught him beneath his breath, in Spanish, a whisper. Then, a prayer for Magnus, and for his mother too, wherever she might be.

And lastly, a prayer for himself, aged eighteen and away from home for the very first time. Aged twenty-three and in his graduation gown, Magus’ mortarboard on his head and Magnus’ arm around his shoulders, laughing in his ear. Aged ten years younger than he is now and standing on the sidewalk of his parents’ house, watching Magnus’ car pull away.

Magnus joins him at his side, his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him. An inch of space exists between their shoulders, but, even now, Alec can feel the warmth of him through his coat.

Alec has missed this. He will miss it again, he’s all too sure, but maybe it’s okay to have it only for a moment.

Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it has to be.

“Alexander?”

“Yeah?”

“I meant what I said yesterday,” Magnus says quietly. He tugs on the sleeve of Alec’s coat and turns Alec to face him. His eyes are bright - not wet, but earnest - and drop to Alec’s lips before returning upwards. “That it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. You know that, right?”

He squeezes Alec’s arm. He wants Alec to understand something that still remains out-of-focus.

“What do you mean?” Alec asks.

“I am sorry for the way we left things,” Magnus says, “And I’m sorry that it hurt more than I realised it would. I really am. But it doesn’t have to end the same way this time. You can change the way you remember it. Make it mean something, something fond that you can look back on. You can make it good, if you want.”  

Alec frowns. They’re a day away from Baltimore. In forty-eight hours, Alec will be back home in D.C., and in a week, Magnus will return to L.A. and the life he has built there, where he drinks seltzer water and no longer smokes and talks a mile-a-minute on an expensive cell phone about investments and equity and big-ticket numbers, and is loved by Alec at a distance.

It’s not like the highway extends into the sea. All roads eventually end, and this one must too, amounting to nothing more than four days in a nondescript rental car with Christmas music playing on the radio, but -

This doesn’t have to end the same way this time.

“Doesn’t it?” Alec asks, unable to help himself.

Magnus shakes his head and lets go of Alec’s arm. He takes a step forward and lifts the last unlit candle, holding its wick to the flame of another until it catches.

“No,” he says. “No, it doesn’t.”

interlude

Nothing that happens on the road is real. This is what Alec tells himself between diners and gas stations and faded markings down the centre of the highway.

I can love you now, while the engine’s still running. And you might love me too, while the engine’s still running. Sometimes I think that you do, when I look at you from the corner of my eye.

In the distance, Chicago rises from the fog, lit up in one thousand pin-pricks of light. It makes the world glow in the colour of cities and concrete and it feels a bit like a dream after so long passing through nowheres.

If we drive far enough, we might make it back to the place we once called ‘now’. If we drive fast enough, maybe that day will end differently and you’ll stay.

The speedometer tips over ninety and the countryside blurs into rooftops and stop lights and traffic backed up across the bridge that spans the highway. Streetlights line the side of the road and pass across the rental car in flashes of strobe and yellow.

“I don’t want you to stay there,” says Magnus, in one such patch of light. Sometimes, it’s like he can read Alec’s mind. “I want you to write a different ending, Alec. I want you to want it.”

eleventh chord

Chicago is behind them as they cross into Indiana with the stroke of midnight, a dull orange glow that seems too bright for the eyes after so many repeated nights driving in near blackness.

Their destination is getting closer, and Alec eyes each passing road sign that counts down the miles to Cleveland, then Pittsburgh, then Baltimore, then home with a heaviness in his heart that beats a slow rhythm.

It’s the rhythm that he knows - that lonely beat that matches the roll of the odometer on the dashboard - and yet it seems too fast now, accelerating towards an end point at which he has a choice to make.  

He tries to match it, that rhythm. He tries to strike a chord with the bouncing of his leg in the footwell, with the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel. He glances across at the passenger seat to see if Magnus is looking back at him, but he’s not - he’s staring ahead through the windshield and holding himself unnaturally still.

Alec wants to slow down below the speed limit; put his foot on the brake; stall the car. Drive it off the side of the road and into a ditch and then shrug and say, guess we’re stranded for another night ‘til the tow-truck can get here . And maybe that’s dishonest - or too honest, because the thought of spending the night in the car together, crowded around the heater as if it’s a bonfire keeping them warm, does something strange to Alec’s insides - but the relentless momentum if the car is no longer a balm on his nerves.

He can’t help but think about what lies in wait at the end of the road. Another goodbye. A polite smile and a parting hug and some kind and empty and wistful words; longing and loneliness and more of the same heartbreak, made worse by the fact he knows, now, what they could’ve had, if things had ended differently the first time.

Alec doesn’t want to leave this car; he wants to keep Magnus here forever, the two of them trapped in this rocking motion of roads and highways, where Magnus tells him over and over again that it doesn’t have to end and Alec believes him.

Alec wants to keep driving off the very edge of the continent and into the Atlantic Ocean. He wants to arrive in Baltimore and say, take me with you . He thinks about grabbing Magnus’ hand when he steps out of the car, and saying, don’t leave me behind this time. Take me with you. Take me somewhere that isn’t here. I’ve had enough of coming and going back to the same place as before. You’re right about that. You’ve always been right about me.

Magnus shifts in the passenger seat, clearing his throat.

“We should probably find a motel. It’s getting late,” he says. He doesn’t need to say it, because Alec is already thinking it: tonight is the last night. Tomorrow, Alec will be in his own bed, and Magnus, in some fancy hotel room paid for on a corporate credit card. “We both need a good night’s sleep. For tomorrow.”

“Right,” Alec echoes. He clenches his jaw. “Tomorrow.”

The air in the car is thick and heavy, so Alec reaches for the radio to try and suffocate his own thoughts. He skips through the stations until he finds one that sticks, and then turns up the volume. The voice of a man quoting late-night scripture fills the front seat:

‘So, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord for a pure heart.’

Magnus exhales through his nose and runs his palms up and down his legs, digging his fingers into his thighs. His eyes catch Alec’s in the rearview mirror.

A decision, then. Alec has seen this look before.

“I really think we need to find a motel,” Magnus says again, more forcibly this time. “Let’s check the map. Can you pull over?”

“Huh?” says Alec, “Just switch the light on, it’s okay. I don’t mind. Pick somewhere that sounds good and tell me which exit I need to take.”

“Alec,” Magnus insists. “Pull over.”

Alec looks at him, confused. “What? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Really. I just need you to stop driving, please.”

“Okay, uh. Okay. Hang on, I’ll just -” The turn signal flashes and Alec steers the car off the side of the highway and onto the grassy verge. The tires sink into the mud and the car jostles them from side to side until, finally, coming to a stand still.

Magnus unclips his seatbelt and reaches for the glove box, retrieving the atlas from inside. He spreads it out on the dashboard between them, running his fingers down the page until he finds where they are, and then flicks on the cabin light above their heads.

The car becomes an island, then. The sky is clear and the road behind them is almost empty, and the world outside is completely black and they are floating in an endless void. And all that exists is Magnus leaning across the gearstick and grabbing Alec’s hand and pressing his fingertip to a point on the map and saying, “there.”

“There?” asks Alec, looking up at Magnus’ face. His voice is a whisper now. “What’s there? A motel?”

“A motel,” Magnus agrees, shifting forward on his seat, closer to Alec. His grip on Alec’s wrist is vice-tight, his rings cold against Alec’s skin. “What do you think?”

Alec pauses. There is an unasked question here, hidden in the silence between words. It’s a proposition and Alec wants to get the answer right.

But Alec also wants to kiss him. He can smell Magnus’ cologne, the aftershave patted onto the slope of his jaw in the bathroom of a cheap motel that morning. He can feel the heat of him. He can feel the flutter of Magnus’ pulse where Magnus’ thumb is pressed insistently against his skin.

He wants to kiss him and muster the courage he could never find before, and he wants to say fuck it . Give him that moment of undoing, or redoing, or whatever the fuck it is that he wants the last few years to have meant.

He’s pretty sure that’s what Magnus wants too.

“Alexander?”

Kiss me now while the engine’s still running.

“I don’t want this to end.”

“I know you don’t,” says Magnus. “I don’t either.”

“No. No, Magnus, you don’t know. You don’t - you can’t ,” Alec insists. “You can’t know because I never said anything. That’s the whole point. I never said anything, even though we both knew how I felt. We both knew. And despite all that, we still didn’t do anything about it because in the end, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. I loved you and I think you loved me and it didn’t matter.”

He and Magnus exist in a not-time. This place isn’t real; Alec can speak to these feelings and not be beholden to them in the morning, or at the end of the road, or wherever it is that they’re heading. Not if he doesn’t want to.

But he does want. He wants more than one man with a body can bear.

I loved you then but it didn’t matter. But it matters now because I can say it. Because we have circled around and found each other again after all this time and that -

That has to mean something.

Magnus’ hand relaxes on Alec’s wrist; his fingertips brush across the back of Alec’s knuckles, across the roadmap between them on the console. It is tentative and questioning and even now, still says, you can drive away if you need to.

Alec inhales deeply. He shakes his head.

He meets Magnus’ eyes on purpose.

“I was afraid that the next time you walked into my life, I wouldn’t know how we fit together,” he whispers. “I was worried that something inside of me, inside of you, would’ve changed, because things always change after this long, but - it hasn’t.”

Beneath Alec’s palm, Washington lies hidden. In the dark, the paper rustles.

“You haven’t, Magnus. Not when it comes to me.”

interlude

The radio sings, ‘It will never be the same, baby.

We will always be the same, baby.’

twelfth chord

Alec’s hand shakes as he fumbles with the key in the motel room door.

Magnus stands a half step behind him, his breath forming white clouds that float and dissipate over Alec’s shoulder. The smell of his aftershave carries. There’s a deliberate space left between their bodies, greater than the distance that has existed between them in the car for the last four days.

It’s the furthest they’ve been apart since Alec approached that phone booth back in Idaho.

“Fuck,” Alec mutters, as the key sticks in the lock and refuses to turn. His palm is sweaty and anticipation licks up the side of his throat where the collar of his shirt is too tight. “Sorry, just give me a sec-”

Magnus leans over his shoulder and takes the key from him, sliding it into the lock with ease. The door clicks, and then swings open.

This motel room is just like all the rest: two beds, one TV, the oddly stained carpet. Thin plywood walls. A single light that plunges the whole room into that low-res yellow of cheap nighttime lodgings.

Alec places both their bags on one of the beds, exhales, and then, when he turns back, Magnus is standing against the closed door. His head is tilted back, his chin aloft, and his arms are folded across his chest, the sleeves of his coat tight around his arms.

His eyes are dark and molten. Where Alec is an unlit cigarette, he is the match.

And that’s enough. All things end and all endings are terrible in their own way, and Alec doesn’t know why he shouldn’t lean into the inevitable if it’s something he can’t avoid.

He abandons the bags and steps towards Magnus, grabs him by the lapels of his overcoat, and kisses him.

Immediately, Magnus opens his mouth to Alec; the sound he makes into the kiss has the hairs on the back of Alec’s neck standing on end. They stagger back against the door with a thud , and Magnus grabs at Alec’s coat, shoving it from his shoulders, then pulling Alec’s shirt out of his belt, his hands slipping beneath Alec’s undershirt so that he can feel skin.

Something rattles around inside of Alec and maybe it’s his heart come loose at last. He kisses Magnus ever deeper for it; his chest aches; his heart aches. He should’ve kissed Magnus sooner, and yet it feels like this is the only moment in time and space where it’s meant to happen: some dingy motel in rural America where it’s just the two of them and Alec has made a choice where he refuses to let this separation be the same as the last.

They’ve never needed to speak. The span of time hasn’t changed the connection between them; Alec could be his twenty-three year old self; he could be his eighteen year old self; his self from five days ago, picking up the keys to a rental car in the backwoods of Oregon state - he would still be in love with Magnus, whether or not he has said it out loud.

Alec cups the sides of Magnus’ jaw and tilts his head back, deepening the kiss. Magnus’ tongue presses into his mouth, his hand flat against the small of Alec’s back, his fingers pressed against Alec’s spine. He pulls Alec closer until their bodies are flush.

And oh, it’s so easy for Alec to lose himself to the push and pull of it: the lick of Magnus’ tongue, the pliance of his mouth. His hands are so warm as they settle on the slope of Alec’s waist.

Alec feels like he’s standing in the middle of a highway, staring down the headlights of an oncoming truck, willing it to move first or be moved . His heart is pounding loudly in his chest. The light is so bright that he is blind to everything else.

Is this driving off the edge of the road or is this the impact?

The kiss leads to the bed. The bed leads to shucked clothes and kicked-off shoes and Alec tossing his badge and service weapon blindly onto the bedside table as Magnus kisses down his throat and the blood rushes to Alec’s head.

Magnus pins him back against the starchy motel pillows, one hand splayed on Alec’s chest - stay still, don’t move - while his other hand cups Alec’s hip and his thumb slips into the band of Alec’s underwear.

No. It is the destination.

Magnus runs his hands down the inside of Alec’s legs, his palms smoothing across Alec’s thighs. His eyes meet Alec’s as he presses his mouth against Alec’s knee.

Alec’s eyes fall closed.

He wants to say something about endings, to gasp, to whisper it. He wants to ask what happens next: if he is to leave Magnus on the side of the road in Baltimore tomorrow and never hear from him again; or if Magnus will fly back to Los Angeles in a week’s time and only look back on this moment as one of those pocket memories of his, something fond to warm him on colder nights.

Alec doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to be an uncalled telephone number in Magnus’ diary again; he doesn’t want to stop here , with Magnus’ mouth slowly kissing up his inner thigh. He cannot let Magnus slip through his fingers a second time, so he reaches out and pulls Magnus towards him, up the length of his body, crushing his mouth against Magnus’ and swallowing Magnus’ untethered gasp. He kisses Magnus’ jaw, and then the side of Magnus’ neck, and then he presses his nose to Magnus’ shoulder and breathes him in.

He says nothing, but he has to screw tight his eyes to stop himself from doing something stupid, like letting a stray tear roll down his cheek and wet the pillow. Magnus wraps his arms around him and holds him tight, words whispered in Alec’s ear that he’s been waiting ten years to hear and which Magnus thinks must all be said in one night.

Alec is too old for messes of the heart like this, but maybe that’s the problem: how long they’ve delayed this particular end, to the point that neither of them know how to exist in a world after .

interlude

The final postcard never sent:

“The boy in the yellow shirt walks like there is all the room in the world. I am standing on the edge of what is an ending world.” 2

I read this in a book that Catarina leant me. I think it’s about us, or at least it’s about me, the first time I laid eyes on you.

Come to L.A.

thirteenth chord

Alec wakes up alone in the bed, his arm outstretched across the mattress, his hand palm-up to the ceiling. There is an ache in his legs, bruises scattered across his thighs like the shattered glass of a windshield spread across the road. The smell of sex hangs heavy both in the air and on his skin where sweat has dried and not been scrubbed away, and when he tries to speak, his voice is hoarse and raspy.

Beside him on the bed, the pillow is cooling - but not yet cold.

Disappointment curls in Alec’s gut, but in his head - well, that’s empty, devoid of the constant noise that has existed there for the past few days, if not years. He hasn’t noticed until now that it mimics the sound of a car engine, a forever rumble.

There is simplicity to the silence now. The carpet is cold when Alec’s feet hit the floor, a draught slicing beneath the bed. Magnus’ suitcase is gone from the other bed; his clothes gathered from the floor. The smell of his cologne has faded, replaced by the musty smell of floral bedsheets and mothballs and wallpaper that has absorbed the smoke of a hundred cigarettes.

The only evidence of Magnus being here is his absence.

His absence - and the way Alec’s mouth tingles when he brings his fingers up to touch his lower lip.

Alec brushes his teeth to the sound of the faucet running, water gushing down the drain. He splashes his face and dresses in the crumpled clothes from yesterday that still smell like the front seat of the rental car and shakes carpet fibres out of his overcoat where it still lies by the door.

Keys. Wallet. ID. Gun. He moves through the motions on autopilot, patting his pockets and then his chest as he mentally tallies up the parts of himself worth collecting - but then stops. Standing in the middle of the motel room with his bag in his hand, he turns to look at the unmade bed, the sheets kicked into a pile, a backdrop to a journey he has taken so many times before.

The difference, now, is in the details. It feels significant. It’s worth remembering.  

Crossing to the window, he throws open the curtains and sunlight streams into the room, flooding every dark corner. Alec squints against the light, raising his hand to his face to shield his eyes. A faint sheen of frost forms fractals on the outside of the glass and, beyond that, the roof of the rental car, the prelude to the first snow of winter.

Leant against the side of the car is Magnus.

Alec inhales deeply, his breath clouding upon the window. The cold draws down into his lungs - a sharp ache inside of him that he holds for a count - and then he exhales. Deflates. Sinks back into a rhythm that is both familiar and somehow different to the one he has known for so long, as if the world now beats in imperfect time.

Magnus is propped against the hood of the car with his eyes closed and his head tipped back to catch the sun, and he doesn’t stir when Alec shuts the motel room door behind him and the gravel of the parking lot crunches beneath his shoes. On the side of Magnus’ neck, there is a hickey bitten darkly into his skin. It’s the colour of rare indigo.

Alec doesn’t feel the need to avert his gaze now.

“Have you ever been on a roadtrip?” Magnus asks, opening his eyes when he feels Alec’s shadow cross his body.

Alec frowns at him as he bends down to grab Magnus’ suitcase, before tossing both their bags into the backseat. “Isn’t this a roadtrip?”

Magnus waves his hand aimlessly. “No, this is serendipity, Alexander. I’m talking about a comprehensive tour of all the worst diner coffee in the continental United States. Hiking in the Grand Canyon. Exploring the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest.” He looks at Alec and smiles a coy smile, pushing away from the car. “You know, in Indiana, they have the World’s Largest Ball of Paint? I’d like to see that sometime. All the best roadside Americana that the country has to offer.”

Alec rounds the car to the driver’s door, opens it, but doesn’t get in. He leans his arms on the roof of the car and Magnus, on the other side, turns to face him.

“But Baltimore,” says Alec.

Magnus’ smile softens. “But Baltimore,” he agrees, across the span of the roof. He glances at his watch. “Providing we don’t hit gridlock outside the city, I should be right on time for my meeting and Raphael won’t have the pleasure of removing my head from my shoulders. You always were excellent at keeping me punctual.”

Alec smiles quietly, ducking his head. “Yeah, well, one of us had to live in the real world.”

He climbs into the car and Magnus follows, folding himself into the passenger seat and draping his coat across his lap. He buckles himself in and then leans back to look at Alec as Alec slots the key into the ignition.

“What?” Alec asks. He reaches up to touch his neck, in the same place where the bruise forms on Magnus’ throat, but can’t find any tenderness. “Is there something on my face?”

“No,” Magnus says gently. “No, not at all. I was just thinking that sometimes the real world is rather overrated. In my experience, the longer one can put off returning to it, the better.”

Alec turns the key and the car splutters into life. The heater blows warm air into the front seat, condensing upon the windshield, and when Alec reaches out to direct the flow of air downwards, Magnus covers Alec’s hand with his.

It’s a reflection of the night before, but without the urgency.

Magnus curls his fingers around Alec’s hand and brushes his thumb over Alec’s knuckles. Then, he brings Alec’s hand up to his mouth and presses his lips to Alec’s fingers, his eyes falling closed and his eyelashes casting feathered shadows on his face.

Alec holds his breath. He waits for Magnus to say something, to say so let’s not go back to the real world yet because I’m happy here , but he doesn’t.

Happy is too vague a concept. Not that Alec isn’t happy here, in this particular not-real moment, but it’s a feeling that belongs to strange, liminal motels and repeated diners. It is hard to grasp, and harder still to fathom how it might slip into the spaces occupied by a life back in the city at the end of the road.

Magnus sets Alec’s hand down on the gearstick between them, and settles back into his seat, kicking his feet up on the dashboard. He tips his seat back and rests his head against the window as Alec puts the car into reverse.

The road is quiet but not deserted. Alec knows that they will meet traffic before too long, but, for a moment, he imagines the highway stretching beyond the horizon and continuing into the sky, winter-blue and endlessly deep, leading above and beyond the curve of the Earth.

There’s a very thin dusting of snow on the hard shoulder, and the sun, shockingly bright, refracts off it with a white glare. It’s the sort of daylight that possesses Alec, that fills him up and makes him feel separate from his body.

If Alec rolled down the window, that daylight would spill in and flood the car, crisp and cold and foreign. But here in the warmth, he unspools a story in his half-awake mind: him and Magnus and the unending road. If they stop moving, they’ll die. If they stop driving, they’ll die. There was a Keanu Reeves movie about that recently , Alec thinks. It probably didn’t end well.  

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

Alec glances sideways at Magnus. “What happened to quitting?”

“Oh, I did,” says Magnus. He produces an unopened pack of Morley’s from the folds of his coat and inspects it curiously. “But I got this from the motel reception this morning on a whim and it feels like a waste otherwise.”

Alec rolls his eyes. “Right,” he says, but he cracks open the driver’s window and the cold rushes in. The wind ruffles through his hair, funneled by the cuffs of his jacket up the length of his sleeves and into his coat. A shiver ripples down his spine and he grimaces.

Beside him, Magnus pulls a cigarette out of the pack with his teeth and cups his hand around his lighter as he lights it, before holding it out to Alec.

“I haven’t smoked in years,” Alec says, but he takes the cigarette anyway and taps the lit end against the ashtray on the console. “You can’t laugh.”

Magnus lights a second cigarette, the clink of his lighter sharp, like metal. He draws in a deep breath, pulling smoke down into his lungs, and then exhales. The grey plume rises towards the roof, only to be sucked suddenly out of the open window.

Magnus coughs, clearing his throat, and takes the cigarette from his mouth, only to pull a face at it.

“Tastes like what I imagine licking the floor of that motel would be like,” he says, before stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray. He frowns at the packet in his hand, before throwing it into the glove box. “Let’s stop at the next gas station. I need something to wash that out of my mouth.”

“Okay,” says Alec, unable to stop himself from smiling. His cigarette warms his fingers. His stomach growls at the thought of cheap diner coffee and a greasy bacon burger for breakfast. He presses his foot down on the gas and shifts the engine up a gear.

A passing road sign reads: Baltimore, 405 km . About a five hour drive.

Alec will miss this rental car.

interlude

In the dark of a motel on the night before, Magnus’ eyes are almost black. Alec studies him from across the pillow, their noses nearly touching. Magnus’ hand, splayed on Alec’s ribs, draws gentle circles into Alec’s skin, while Alec’s ankle lies tangled with both of Magnus’ legs.

Magnus’ body is warm. It’s rhythm is familiar in the way that it matches Alec: how he moves, how he breathes, how the sound of his heartbeat disturbs the silence of the motel room.

If Magnus were to speak, he would say, ‘something is only beautiful because it does not last forever .’ But he does not speak, so Alec cannot say back, ‘ that’s not true. You’ve always been beautiful .’

Instead, he leans forward and he kisses Magnus and he earns a soft groan for his troubles as Magnus curves into him like the other side of a parenthesis, ‘til now unpaired.

Magnus’ hand slides upwards, cupping the back of Alec’s head. His thumb caresses the shell of Alec’s ear and the soft hair above it.

He pulls himself against Alec’s chest, his other hand trapped between them, pressed over Alec’s heart.

He kisses Alec back.

outro

The woman in the apartment above Alec’s has Christmas lights in her window: red and green flash in alternating patterns and Mariah Carey’s faint warble can be heard from the sidewalk as Alec gazes up at his building and allows himself to watch, if only for a moment.

His bag is heavy on his shoulder and his suit is stiff across his back; the thought of a shower is calling him home, but he wants to linger outside a little longer. The cold is sharp against his face and draws a red flush to his cheeks. His breath escapes him in white clouds, tumbling upwards. Baltimore lingers on his skin with the memory of a parting kiss.  

He is, now, alone.

On his doorstep, his neighbour has left him an early Christmas card; she has done the same for the last few years, concerned for the young man who lives alone and never has his family visit once December comes around. As Alec unlocks his front door, he slips his finger beneath the seal of the envelope and tears it open, and the message inside is the same as it always is, wishing him and his loved ones well for the holidays.

He places the card on the sideboard by the door as he toes off his shoes, and wanders into his living room, dumping his bag on the floor as he goes.

The stillness in his apartment is strange: the air is musty, the windows unopened for nearly two weeks now, and while there’s no dust on his coffee table yet, the scattered paperwork and unwashed coffee mug are somehow disturbed by his presence.

There are dishes in his kitchen sink and his bed is still unmade; the space is exactly as he left it, and returning to it feels a little like disembarking an airplane after a long journey spent cramped in one mindset, and now having to reacclimatise to solid ground.

Alec is not sure why he expected his apartment to be changed. Even in some small way, like the rotating characters at a diner, or the different coloured carpet at each roadside motel, or the occupancy of his passenger seat by a man he thought he’d never see again, he hoped for something new. Something welcomed but unrecognised, symbolic of a new start or, perhaps, a second chance.

Oh. Maybe he’s the one a little changed, then.

It’s not about the destination , after all , he tells himself, reaching for the remote to turn the TV on for background noise. It’s about the journey.

Briefly, he wonders if this happens every time: if each successive back-and-forth across America wears him down just a little, like the treads on car tires, and it’s only now that he has changed enough to notice that he no longer fits into the routine once occupied with ease. In his footsteps, he brings the liminality of the road into his own apartment, the threshold moment between one state of being and the next.

And Alec is okay with that.

He locks his service weapon in the safe on his desk. Loosens his tie. Pulls a bent postcard from Carhenge, Nebraska, a receipt from a gas station just outside of Baltimore, and a nearly-full pack of Morley’s from his jacket pocket and sets them all on the coffee table, before throwing his coat over the back of the couch to take to the dry cleaners tomorrow.

His suit jacket goes next - two days old and creased around the elbows - and then his belt, a heavy thunk on the floor, before he pads into the bathroom and turns on the shower so that the water might have time to heat up before he gets in.

He strips down to his underwear and wanders back out into his living room, and it’s then that he notices the red flashing light on his answering machine: a voicemail.

He hits the play button - ‘ you have three unread messages ,’ says the disembodied voice - and he pours himself a glass of water as he listens first to Jace ramble on about not coming home for the holidays, and then to his mother discuss her plans to visit her solicitor next week.

Alec empties his glass and sets it in the sink to be washed later. He heads back to the bathroom, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders, and the answering machine beeps to signify the final message.

‘ Alexander, it’s me. ’

Alec stops and turns to stare at his answering machine as if it might come alive in front of him.

‘ You’re probably not even back in D.C. yet, but - well ,’ says Magnus. ‘ I made it on time to the meeting, in case you’re interested. I’m never going to hear the end of it from Rafael, of course, and he’s never going to let me drive anywhere alone again, but it’s looking like we’ll be able to close a deal before Christmas. It sounds like I’m going to be back and forth between L.A. and Baltimore a lot next quarter.’  

In the background, Alec can hear the sound of people, of a bustling street, of taxi cabs blasting their horns as Magnus tries to hail one down.

‘ But I all that aside, this couldn’t wait and, I suppose, serendipity can only get you so far.’

Alec reaches for the handset, poised above the redial button, but then something in Magnus’ tone changes. In his words, Alec can hear the sound of his smile.

‘ How far is the drive from Los Angeles to Indiana?’ Magnus asks. ‘No, wait, how far is the drive from Baltimore to Indiana? I’ve been thinking a little more about the World’s Biggest Ball of Paint. Perhaps you’d like to see it with me.’

The beat of Alec’s heart shifts in its rhythm once again. He holds his breath. He imagines himself taking a step over that imaginary threshold.  

‘There are too many things I haven’t told you yet. ’

*****

“They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there - and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see.”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

[coeurvrai]

Last we left off, Nadya passed out for the billionth time after escaping from the room where she was imprisoned and was found by Malachiasz. This time, Nadya wakes up bandaged in a room at the top of Pelageya’s tower.

Pelageya tells Nadya that she knows who she and Malachiasz really are and is aware of her status as a Cleric, because “this palace has been without any blessing of the divine for so long that you were practically shining when you stepped inside.”

“Though,” she considered, tugging at a spiral curl, “he’s not your king. Not mine, either. He’s not even sterevyani bolen’s king, now, is he? Is it treason if we all here swear to different crowns? Except…” Her gaze narrowed on Malachiasz. “You can’t really swear to your own crown, now can you?”

“Careful…” he murmured. He flexed his hand over the arm of his chair, nails flashing iron in the dim candlelight.

Shut the fuck up, Malachiasz. Also @jefflion​ already told me this particular spoiler, that Malachiasz is actually the Queen’s illegitimate child, so I’m both annoyed but also it kind of makes sense? Because either way, Malachiasz wants the crown and sees the crown as his.

Pelageya explains that a certain Vulture rose up the ranks and found out a way to attain godhood, so he told the King in a way to strengthen the relationship between the court and the Vultures; because the previous “Vulture queen” was ruining the sect and the Black Vulture wanted equal power. And so King Izak wanted to perform the ceremony, to give him the power he desperately craved.

“The Vulture disappeared. Poof! There one night, gone the next, leaving his cult to scramble in his absence. Because the Vultures need direction, they need their Black Vulture to lead them, and he had vanished.”

Nadya was listening at a distance, refusing to let the witch’s words catch up to her, to connect all that she was hearing, but she knew, she knew. Would that it had been so simple, that Malachiasz were just a Vulture recruit who got scared and fled. The world was falling out from underneath her and she had no anchor, she had nothing, because nothing was even real.

AND NADYA PUTS TWO AND TWO TOGETHER.

Look, I’ve been 99% sure from the start because that’s what happens when you advertise your book as a villain romance and also say it’s for Alina/Darkling shippers. The plot twist isn’t really a plot twist.

It was Malachiasz. It had always been Malachiasz. The leader of the cult, the one who had spun all of this into motion, the one who had smiled and charmed his way into Nadya’s trust because he could do terrible things with her power if he had access to it. She wouldn’t be sitting here with bandages covering her body if not for Malachiasz.

Look, you didn’t have to listen to him. You didn’t even have to go with him and Rashid and Parijahan to that church, because you had no reason to trust him or believe their plans or to even stick around to hear their plans. You, by all rights, shouldn’t had no actual reason to have been in that situation in the first place.

It’d be more believable if the book had gone along that Nadya was naive and unbelievably sheltered and that had a great effect on her nature and how she interacted with people.

But we literally threw away any semblance of that out of the window by Chapter 2 to double down that Nadya is Independent and Capable and Can Make Her Own Decisions and her upbringing at the monastery and especially as a Cleric has no greater effect on her perception of the world and her social skills.

Also you still haven’t found out what he did with your blood that one time!!!

“But he fled?” Nadya asked. If she pretended the one they were speaking of wasn’t sitting in front of them, listening in calm contemplation, maybe that would make this easier.

“He did,” Pelageya said. “But he came back. Do you think that is coincidence? That this clever boy and his clever magic have returned now?”

“Malachiasz?” Nadya said, her voice smaller than she would have liked, weaker. She willed him to look at her.

He looked different, sitting in the witch’s chair in a way that made it seem almost a throne. His black hair parted far on the right side, falling over his shoulder in inky waves, his pale eyes cold and blank. Less a boy, more a monster. Was that all he was? The silly boy who smiled too much and felt too deeply just a mask for the monster underneath?

Had she fallen for his lies exactly as he wanted her to?

I am going to scream.

You literally have called him a fucking monster and an Abomination and a Heretic ALL of the time, just to remind us that, yes, you still consider him an Enemy even though your hatred is paper thin and not at all believable even though your hatred for Tranavia and Vultures especially is supposed to be Important to your character.

But yes, you did.

He finally met her gaze, eyes softening, growing familiar. “It’s all right, towy dżimyka,” he said, voice soft.

It wasn’t. Not at all.

Pelageya laughed. “Is that supposed to make her feel better?” She stood up, walking around Malachiasz’s chair. “Is that supposed to earn her trust again?” She hooked a finger underneath his chin, forcing his gaze up to hers. She looked young. Nadya didn’t know when the shift had happened but knew the witch was a force of nature. A magic just as old and dangerous as either of them possessed, made worse by the wisdom of her years. “What have you done, Chelvyanik Sterevyani?” she whispered. “What will you still do? I don’t think love is such a force that it will stop you. I’m not sure you’re even capable of it.”

Okay, words are just getting thrown around now.

Also, bullshit! It’s not even something close to love. It’s more lust and attraction than anything else. They barely know each other! So of course love isn’t going to be able to stop him because there isn’t love between him and Nadya, because there hasn’t been time for love to develop between them.

Also this isn’t an enemies-to-lovers dynamic. I know I’ve said that before, but I want to just say it again. This isn’t enemies-to-lovers.

Nadya starts to have a moment, blaming herself and then saying that maybe he had changed, maybe they had changed him, maybe Pelageya is just trying to make trouble.

“I just want to end what I started,” Malachiasz finally said.

Ah yes, with a king dead at your feet and a crown sitting on your head.

Pelageya carries on, throwing around more words:  

“But, this isn’t just about you, Veshyen Yaliknevo. Chelvyanik Sterevyani. Sterevyani bolen.” She sat down on the arm of his chair and he shifted to the opposite side, as far from her as he could possibly get. “This is about the little scrap of divinity you’ve drawn to the depths of Tranavia.”

Nadya lifted her chin. She wasn’t going to let them see she was falling apart.

“She followed you a long, long way from home. What did you tell her to make her come so far without putting a blade in your back?”

Nothing too difficult, really. Just that they had a plan to assassinate the Tranavian King and for some reason, Nadya just went along with honestly without that much fuss, because y’know, the plot demanded it.

Also, as much as I find Pelageya amusing and intriguing, the way she’s being all touchy-touchy with Malachiasz, who is still a teenager, slightly uncomfortable.

“... Now that you point it out she does have the look of a girl who goes for—” She leaned over and tipped Malachiasz’s head back again, baring his throat. His fist clenched over the arm of the chair, nails now just long enough to be visible claws. “—sensitive flesh.”

Like, could you not? We get that Pelageya is creepy and strange already, Emily Duncan, you established that in a Serefin chapter with the prophecy thing.

“I never told her anything that wasn’t true,” he said, voice carefully restrained.

Lie by omission is still a lie, mate. What you omitted was pretty important. I mean, it was obvious and I already knew it, but still.

Pelageya still keeps creepily touching Malachiasz and Malachiasz keeps trying to find excuses for everything, insisting that they’re going to end the war. 

“Why are you here, Malachiasz?”

“I have told you. My reasoning hasn’t changed just because you know what I am now. I want to save my country. I’m one of the few people who can; surely you understand that.”

He was giving her nothing, less than nothing.

“I don’t believe you,” she said softly.

That’s one of the smartest things Nadya has ever said, and that’s saying something.

Nadya, who didn’t know how to hold herself together after this. Nadya, who couldn’t pull her gaze away from Malachiasz, unable to reconcile that the boy she had traded jokes with, that she had kissed, was a symbol of Tranavian heresy. A monster greater than all others.

I- you literally knew that he was a Vulture. That made him “heretical” as is. You knew he was powerful, you literally he was more powerful than Serefin! You called him a monster.

I know, objectively, that this is supposed to be a betrayal for you but you can’t just act like you haven’t been calling him all these things for 75% of the book!

She thought she knew what she was doing, coming here, but now she was in a foreign country, surrounded by her enemies, and the one she had anchored her safety to had been lying to her from the start.

Because the plot demanded that you trust him and go along with their plan even though you had no real reason to.

Pelageya tells her that the entity connected to the necklace that Kostya gave to her is called Velyos, a former member of the Pantheon. That the reason she is cut off from the gods currently is because King Izak is strengthening that “veil” of blood magic that hangs over the capital. 

“There is your magic, which is good, of course. And then their magic. Blood magic. Heresy.”

“It’s just magic,” Malachiasz said.

Still haven’t explained why Marzenya just can’t fuck shit up when magic is one of her domains, plain and simple. And yes, you can argue “the veil” but the veil is still made from magic. It still hasn’t explained why blood magic is so different and untouchable when blood magic is still, at its core, magic.

Pelageya tells Nadya that a witch is just someone with magic of their own, not beholden to the gods. Nadya balks at the thought. Pelageya taunts them both, stating that Malachiasz doesn’t have the power of Vultures that he once did.

The witch had said it to sow more discord, but if he didn’t have full control of the Vultures, maybe that meant he actually was helping them? She shouldn’t give in to hope. She hated that she was so damn hopeful.

I’m rolling my eyes, because Nadya is being predictable at this point and I have no hope for any character consistency besides the fact that it's inconsistent.

A sudden insistent knock on the door made all three of them pause. Then a voice, terrifyingly familiar, came from outside.

“Pelageya? I need to speak with you.”

Of course it would be the prince.

And that’s the end of Chapter 26! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!

[virtchandmoir]

Tessa Virtue steps into the style spotlight for new 'uplifting' fashion campaign

Canadian Olympian talks personal style, women supporting women — and what's next for her off the ice.

August 30, 2019

From left: Ashley Callingbull, Karine Vanasse and Tessa Virtue are featured in a new campaign for Canadian retailer RW&CO.  HANDOUT/RW&CO.

Growing up, Tessa Virtue faced no shortage of strong female role models.

“I was so lucky. I grew up with an incredibly strong grandmother, mother and sister,” Virtue says. “All three, independent, fierce, clever women who were hard workers, had goals and visions for themselves, and were really ambitious.”

“And, they didn’t apologize for those goals.”

The trio’s individual and combined influence left a Virtue with a sense of “limitless,” she recalls.

“I really believed that I could do or be anything,” she says with a smile.

While she didn’t pause to think much on it then, she’s now keenly aware of the fact that her inspirational upbringing, surrounded by a network of strong women who promoted the underlying message of “yes, you can!”, wasn’t always the case for other young girls.

“I didn’t realize that not everyone felt that way. That, not everyone felt that privilege,” she says.

The realization has been a contributing factor to the increased visibility of Virtue in media and advertisements in recent years — primarily those following the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics where she and ice-dancing partner Scott Moir stole the spotlight for their riveting routines — that allows fans and followers a glimpse into Virtue’s life that goes beyond her on-ice achievements.

“For whatever reasons, after the Pyeongchang games, there was a different awareness of both Scott and me … but it provided so many unique opportunities. And, hopefully I can have some kind of impact for young girls to look up to,” she says humbly. “I feel very privileged to be able to be considered any kind of role model.”

Olympic ice dance gold medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada hold up the Canadian flag after their winning performance at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games on Tuesday in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. PAUL CHIASSON / CANADIAN PRESS

Her visibility on social media platforms such as Instagram, where she boasts a following of 364,000 and counting on her account @tessavirtue17, is one area where she works to constructively (and carefully) share her struggles and successes, in the hopes of leaving a positive impression on those who may happen to scroll by.

“I’m conscious of that. And I try to do that in a way that is authentic,” she says of fully realizing the scope of her role via social media and beyond. “I think, often, about how a nine-year-old girl would feel if she were to scroll through my Instagram. And, what messaging I’m sending, both objectively and subjectively. I think, ‘What kind of role model am I?’”

Focusing on the type of content she shares — positive messages and happy shots of herself attending events or with friends and family —  has kept her somewhat safeguarded from the rampant online trolling that plagues many celebrities online. And, when she does face negativity, she doesn’t allow herself to get too caught up in it.

“You put yourself out there and I think there is always vulnerability with that,” she says. “Whether that’s standing at centre ice and waiting for the music to start, or posting something on social media for everyone to criticize, you just have to hope that the good outweighs the bad.”

Her ambition to present a positive role model to young girls and women led her to a recent collaboration with the Montreal-based fashion brand RW&CO. The campaign, which sees her featured alongside Canadian actress Karine Vanasse and First Nations activist Ashley Callingbull, the first Indigenous woman to be crowned Mrs. Universe, aims to promote “powerhouse” working women, in various stages of their careers.

“The campaign is so in line with my messaging and the things that I’m trying to accomplish now, outside of sport,” Virtue says. “And it’s something that I can relate too, also.”

Virtue hopes people pick up on the collaborative, supportive air of the campaign stars and feel empowered to introduce that outlook into their own lives.

“The culture now of this competition that’s ingrained in us, to pit women against other women, and this unrealistic standard that we’re all held to — all these issues are pervasive,” she says. “We can only be stronger for women when we support one another.”

Speaking on a hot, sunny day in July at a studio space in Montreal during a brief break in shooting images for the campaign (with her mom looking on in support), Virtue reflected on how, at 30 years old, she’s reached a point in her life where she’s “transitioning,” personally and professionally.

“And I’m looking to other women to support and uplift me,” she says of the changes. “So, I think it’s really neat that (RW&CO. is) putting together, really, a movement to incorporate so many things. And, they’re not just talking the talk.”

To mark the release, the retailer will be running a contest for Canadians to nominate an inspiring woman in their lives. The winner will receive a donation to the charity of her choice.

In addition to providing a visual representation of strong female role models, the partnership provided Virtue and her campaign co-stars with the opportunity to donate a portion of their fee to a cause of their choice. Callingbull directed her share toward a shelter for Indigenous women and children, while Vanasse chose a women’s shelter in Montreal.

Virtue, chose to promote another passionate platform, highlighting her efforts as an ambassador for the Canadian organization FitSpirit, which works to promote and support physical activity and athletics programs for young girls.

“It’s something that is so close to my heart,” she says of the role. “Obviously, I’ve reaped the benefits of sport and activity. But not many girls, as it turns out, even have the resources available to them to be physically active or to maintain that as they go through high school. So, FitSpirit is connecting with schools and giving that accessibility to young girls and youth at a time when they might otherwise drop out our prioritize other things.”

“It’s an opportunity to be active and connect with other girls — and to realize the power that those lessons and the sense of building self confidence and self worth that will carry forward for them.”

Recalling a recent visit to a school with FitSpirit where she met with young girls in the program, she recalls, with evident pleasure, sharing her enthusiasm for athletics with the girls — and how she took a little bit of something away from the visit for herself, too.

“They were so curious and it’s so obvious that they’re capable of taking over the world,” she says of the energetic assemblage of youths. Needless to say, it left her feeling inspired.

“When we realize the powerhouse of that sisterhood and the camaraderie among women — there’s no stopping us,” she says.

Flash fashion: Style talks with Tessa Virtue

Canadian Olympian Tessa Virtue may be known more for her on-ice moves than her off-ice style — but, these days, the 30-year-old athlete and ambassador is putting a lot more emphasis on what she wears.

“I lived in either sweatpants or athletic wear,” she says with a laugh of her go-to uniform during her training days. “I was really of two extremes, which plays to my personality as a bit of an extremist. I was either in full-on workout wear or black tie. So, I didn’t have that middle range.”

But, now, as she ventures confidently into her next career adventures that see her stepping away from amateur sport, she says she’s having fun exploring her personal style as she spends more time in the “corporate sphere” and much less time on the ice.

“It has definitely evolved over time,” she says of her fashion sense. “Now, I would say my personal style is pretty classic and refined — with a bit of a twist. I like to have a bit of an edge to every outfit.”

Virtue recently took time away from her busy schedule to dish four tidbits about her personal style. Here’s what she had to say:

On how she chooses her outfits: “I definitely dress based on my mood. I like accessorizing differently. Having classic, quality pieces and mixing in graphic tee, a headband, a pair of funky boots or a belt and changing the outfit entirely.”

On here greatest style influence: “My mom has always shopped for me. I’m so lucky that I have an in-house stylist.”

On her MVP (most valuable piece): “I love a good blazer. Whether it’s jeans, a T-shirt and a blazer, or a power suit, I think that would be my staple.”

On her most cherished item: “My grandmother’s necklace.”

—Windsor Star

[pickalilywrites]

bringing back this au ♡ ♡ ♡

Let’s Talk About Love!

Rivetra. Dating Show AU. 

Let’s Fall in Love! series: Part I

2736 words. 

Buy me a ko-fi!

“I know you said you didn’t really care about the show, but it looks like you’re pretty excited for this interview of No Name’s,” Eld says, glancing at the television screen that his other bandmates were currently fixated on. He looks back at his friends, who are all piled up on the bed together and waiting for the commercial break to end so that the late-night talk show will return. “And it’s not like we need more advertising. That show that Petra’s doing is getting us a lot more album sales than we could have gotten by ourselves.”

“I guess,” Petra mutters. She’s certainly pleased about how album sales are doing. Their last album sales are going through the roof despite being released almost a year ago, and the rest of their albums are in high demand as well. A few years ago, their band the Special Ops Squad was almost unheard of, but now they’re one of the most talked about rock bands in the music industry and it’s all because of a weird dating show. Of course, not all the talk is good. “I think I’d be happier about album sales if crazy No Name fangirls weren’t just buying them to burn them or smash them to pieces just to show how much they hate me.”

“Hate us,” Auruo corrects her, putting a reassuring hand on Petra’s shoulder. She knows he means well, but his words do little to make her feel any better. The face mask he has on doesn’t help either. “We’re a band. Whatever happens – the good, the bad, the dirty – we’re in this together.”

“Auruo,” Eld says with a frown. He points to his own face. “A face mask? Really?”

“It helps keep my skin clear!” Auruo says defensively, his hands covering his face as if to protect his mask from being snatched away. “And they’re really relaxing!”

“Do you want one?” Gunter asks. Like Auruo, he also has a face mask on. He’s currently peeling a new one and putting it on Petra’s face as they wait for the late-night show to come back from its commercial break.

Eld thinks for a moment. “Alright then. Couldn’t hurt.” He clambers into bed with them, squishing himself in between Petra and Gunter even though the rest of his bandmates complain about how there’s hardly any room for anyone else. He manages to squeeze himself in though and the entire band sits on the bed, snug as four face masked peas in a pod.

“Do you think they’ll talk about the show at all? Maybe squeeze something in about our band?” Auruo wonders. He reaches over to grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl sitting in Petra’s lap. With his mouth full, he continues, “I mean, I know the whole point of the interview is for No Name to promote their tour, but it couldn’t hurt to squeeze our band in, right?”

The others chatter about the possibility of it – how exciting for the chance to be mentioned even in passing on a big late-night talk show by one of their favorite bands! – but Petra merely shrugs. She’s been tense ever since she appeared on Let’s Fall in Love! a reality TV show where celebrities “date” each other. While she had gotten off to a rough start with her partner – none other than Levi Ackerman, the lead singer of No Name, the biggest rock band in history – she eventually warmed up to him. Now it’s only the hate comments directed at her on social media and the scathing tabloid headlines that attack her character that really gets to her. She does her best not to notice them – even going so far as to disable comments on all her social media accounts as well as the band’s – but just knowing there are people out there who want her dead just for fake dating someone else really eats away at her some nights.

“Hey,” Eld says, noticing her downcast expression. He puts a comforting arm around her and squeezes her shoulder. When she looks up at him, he gives her a smile. “Are you okay?”

Not wanting her friends to worry about her more than they have, she gives him a tight-lipped smile. “It’s nothing,” she whispers back, turning back to the television as the late-night show returns.

“Welcome back to the show!” the talk show host says with a wide grin on his face. Roy, the speaker, is a long-time television host whose show entertained a wide number of guests – from political leaders to celebrities of every kind. He’s well-loved for being charming and polite, although younger generations of viewers felt that he could throw in more comedy to engage viewers. Still, he’s one of the most well-respected talk show hosts in the industry. “I have with No Name with me tonight, which, my granddaughter tells me, is the hottest rock band of all time. We’re happy to have you all here tonight! Thank you for coming!”

While the other two members of the band, Hanji and Mike, sit relaxed on the couch, Levi slouches over like a bored child, avoiding eye contact with the screaming studio audience by staring at the floor. It’s something that Petra would have found attractive in her teen years, annoying a month ago, and absolutely endearing now. Just looking at him hunched over is putting a smile on her face, although she can’t exactly explain why she finds his terrible posture so charming.

“Thanks, Roy,” Hanji says. Although many consider Levi as the leader of the band, it is Hanji who typically takes the lead during interviews. They’re charismatic and funny, easily making the audience laugh with a clever quip or two during the few talk show appearances that No Name makes every year. “Thank you for having us. We’re really glad to be here with you all.” They wave cheerfully at the audience, eliciting more screams from the crowd.

“It might surprise you, but even an old man like me has heard about your band,” Roy laughs. He fiddles with the small stack of notecards filled with the prepared questions for the band. Smiling at the band members, he says, “This is your tenth year as a band – you guys began when you were in college together – and you’re currently going on your fifth tour. Does it ever surprise you, the dedication you receive from your fans?”

“It did surprise us a little in the beginning,” Hanji confesses, reaching back to brush down their ponytail with one hand. “But we found that our fans really connected with our music – with our lyrics, our melodies, our stories – and we’re really grateful for that. It allowed us to be more open in our songs as the years went by, and it’s amazing that they’ve been with us the entire time.”

“They certainly have!” Roy grins. “You sold out tickets to every stadium a week after the tour was announced. That’s certainly an impressive feat. I suppose by now you’re touring veterans. Is it a challenge keeping things fresh for your audience with every new tour, every new album you put out?”

“They’re very good,” Gunter observes as he munches on popcorn. “Very likable on screen and in real life. Do you think we’ll ever be able to go on Roy’s late-night show?”

“Maybe if this momentum keeps up,” Eld replies.

Hanji really is an expert when it comes to public relations. Levi might be the face of the band, but Hanji is definitely the brains behind the entire thing. Even though they’re answering the bulk of the questions, they always wait for Mike to speak every now and again, sometimes even allowing an opening for the drummer to speak. They strategically get Levi to answer every now and again – usually only getting a one-word answer from him – but they’re quick to make a joke or steer the conversation in a new direction so that their bandmate doesn’t look rude. If Levi had been the one to head these interviews, he probably would have turned everyone off from the band with his awful personality, Petra thinks affectionately.

On screen, Roy straightens out his cards once more and looks over at Levi. “So, Levi, let's talk about love. I know you’re a man of few words, but I was wondering if you would be willing to speak with us about this reality TV show you're on,” he grins. If he’s bothered by Levi’s scowl, he doesn’t show it at all. Then again, he might be distracted by how Mike and Hanji are childishly poking and prodding their bandmate, sly grins on their faces. “I believe this show is called Let's Fall in Love!, where two celebrities date each other. You happen to be paired with Petra Ral, the lead singer of the Special Ops Squad. My granddaughter is a fan of your band as I’ve mentioned, but she’s also a huge fan of the Special Ops Squad and of Miss Ral in particular. She’s absolutely ecstatic whenever she sees segments that include you and Miss Petra Ral, and she insists that you two have amazing chemistry.”

Levi looks slightly irritated. At first, Petra believes that it’s because of the question that was asked; she knows that he didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of being a part of this reality show and was only participating for more publicity much like her own band, but she was fairly certain that he wasn’t entirely miserable appearing on the show. Surely, his sour expression doesn’t have anything to do with her, right? She’s about to open her mouth and ask her friends’ opinion when she sees Hanji reach over and squeeze Levi’s arm before glaring at the audience, and Petra realizes that his reaction was not to the question, but to the members of the audience that were booing and hissing at the mention of her name.

“The show is…alright,” Levi finally replies. That flash of anger is now gone from his face, replaced by his usual neutral expression. He fidgets in his seat for a bit before straightening up. “It’s an interesting experience to work with Petra. Her band is very talented.”

At these words, her bandmates begin to bounce excitedly on the bed, silently celebrating because they don’t want to miss anything else Levi has to say. Gunter reaches behind Eld to give Petra a pat on the back, raising his eyebrows at her to congratulating her for being mentioned on the show, and she smiles back at him.

“Yes! Her band does put out wonderful songs – I believe their album is currently number two on the charts; it’s right below yours – but I really wanted to ask your opinion of Miss Ral in particular,” Roy says, giving Levi an apologetic smile. “My granddaughter begged me to ask. She really ‘ships’ the two of you, as the young people say.”

Petra thought that Levi would scowl and refuse to answer the question. It doesn’t seem like his style to answer things like this, and it’s not as if they were really dating, but she’s surprised when Levi seems almost…bashful. He fidgets a little more in his seat, his hand reaching up to run through his hair. “I…she’s very…cute,” he finally says. He looks up, looking at Roy with a tortured expression, but the late-night show host only leans over in his seat, wondering what else Levi has to say. “And…she’s…her voice is beautiful.”

Beside him, Hanji snickers.

“Well, my granddaughter is going to be over the moon when she hears that,” Roy says with a laugh. He turns to the camera with a smile. “That was No Name. We need to take another commercial break right now, but stick around to see their performance! They’ll be playing songs that they’ll be doing on tour, so stay tuned!”

When the camera zooms out and the commercials begin, Auruo immediately mutes the television and turns to Petra. “Did you hear that?” he asks excitedly, looking as if he might burst from joy. “Roy said our name on television! Twice!”

“Never mind that!” Eld says, shoving Auruo so that the band’s keyboardist fell back into the mountain of pillows behind them. He turns to Petra, a wicked gleam in his smile. “Did you hear what Levi said about you? He called you cute!”

“And that your voice is beautiful,” Gunter adds.

“It’s nothing, probably,” Petra says. She shrieks when Eld catches her in a headlock and begins to ruffle her hair. When she breaks free from his grip, she sits back against the pillows and holds one up as a shield so that her friends don’t attack her again. “I mean, he was caught off-guard, and it’s not like he can say anything bad about me without looking like a jerk. He probably just said that to promote the show. It’s not just good for our band. His band gets more attention if more people know about it too.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun,” Eld says, sticking out his tongue. He smiles when he flicks Petra on the forehead. When she yelps, he grins before turning back to to the television and commenting on the commercial that's currently airing.

It’s just for show, Petra tells herself, squeezing the pillow tightly against her chest. She’s fairly certain that’s true, although that flush of pink across Levi’s cheeks was unmistakable. Then again, maybe it was from the heat of the studio lights. She buries her face in the pillow. She should probably be happy that Levi had said such kind words about her, but she feels heartbroken somehow. It’s just for show, she tells herself again and again. It’s not real. It’s just for show.

As soon as the show’s over and they’ve thanked the host, Levi immediately makes his way to their dressing room. His bandmates enjoy teasing him about everything, and they’re going to have a field day after this interview. He tries to escape them by walking as quickly as possible, but of course they catch up to them. Damn tall people and their long legs.

“So, Levi,” Hanji says, throwing an arm around his shoulders. The bassist leans on him, grinning mischievously. “You think Petra is cute, huh?”

“Shut it,” he growls.

“And what is that other word that you used to describe her?” Hanji asks. “Good? Great? Amazing?” They knit their eyebrows together, confused. Looking over at Mike, they ask, “No, those aren’t it. What was it again, Mike?”

The drummer grins. He never starts the teasing, but he’s always happy to play along whenever Hanji invites him to join them. “I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘beautiful,’” he replies. His grin grows wider when Levi visibly cringes beside them.

“That was her voice. I said that about her voice,” Levi snaps as if that makes a difference. Ugh. He probably shouldn’t have said anything at all, or at the very least stuck to just mildly positive compliments – good, nice, alright. Cute? Beautiful? He probably looked like an idiot back there. Petra probably watched him and laughed at how stupid he was, if she was even watching at all. She probably has better things to do tonight though, like write music with her bandmates, exploring the city and its various eateries, or going on a real date with someone she actually liked and not a miserable asshole. For some reason, that last bitter thought makes him feel even worse.

“Aw, come on, Levi. Don’t look so gloomy. We’re just joshing with you,” Hanji says, patting him on the back. They lean down, observing his face. Suddenly, their expression sobers as they ask, “Besides, this is all just for show, right?”

Ah, yes. The constant reminder that this entire reality show is just a publicity stunt. None of it – the conversations and the dates – are real. Even celebrities that do enter relationships with each other as a result of this show split up a month or two afterward. It’s stupid of him to think that anything can come of this other than boosted album sales and sold-out stadium tours. Petra probably goes home after taping every day and forgets about him entirely.

“Yeah,” Levi grunts, his feet dragging across the floor with each step he takes. “It’s just for show.”

[noorkhan1]

Free Online Marketing Tools Makes You a Rookie

There is a well-known axiom, "The right apparatuses can make a man," and that additionally passes on well to organizations where the right instruments can make you fruitful. For certain organizations out there that don't have an enormous pool of assets to draw from, free devices are necessities for things line internet showcasing. As a digital marketing agency newcastle, we have worked with various little and medium measured organizations and have shown them how not thinking about these Free Online Marketing Tools makes you a freshman.

Maybe than remaining in the lower levels longer than needed, look at these extraordinary apparatuses to assist with lifting your game to a higher level.

Top Free Online Marketing Tools

Title Maker – Crafting great or incredible titles to articles, blog entries and so forth can be hard. Let's be honest; the innovative flash simply isn't generally there. Fortunately the decent individuals at Portent have an answer as a Content Idea Generator that will rapidly give you some extraordinary thoughts. To sweeten the deal even further every thought incorporates pointers with regards to why you would utilize a specific expressing which can be enlightening.

Chrome SEO Page Review Extension – Another diamond from Portent is this clever expansion for Chrome that can survey essential SEO components. It is exceptionally smooth, speedy and considers quick testing of essential things like Title Tags, Meta Description, Twittercard and then some. You can discover it HERE at the Chrome Web Store.

Read Also: 7 Less popular methods of Digital Marketing

Posting and Reviewing Social Media – Hootsuite is a fabulous instrument for posting and looking into web-based media updates and it very well may be utilized as an individual web-based media the board apparatus. They have a paid form too, yet the free choice gives sufficient juice to assist most anybody with posting rapidly and audit discussions and messages without any problem. Another pleasant alternative is Buffer which takes into consideration booking posts early. This is a decent apparatus for individuals who like to stack up posts early with a particular delivery plan.

Search engine optimization Spider Tool – Website crawlers are exceptionally valuable to help you discover broken connections, check diverts and take a gander at other SEO components. Individuals across the lake at Screaming Frog have an extremely decent SEO Spider Tool that does the entirety of that just as discovering copy content. While they do have a paid variant, the Free form can creep up to 500 URLs which is regularly enough for most more modest organizations.

Catchphrase Research – Keyword.io is outstanding amongst other free watchword research apparatuses accessible. In digital marketing agency in stafford can give profoundly applicable catchphrase ideas to article composing, SEO or advertising efforts. The interface is basic and they offer looking through dependent on a couple of stage choices.

Site Optimizer – Hotjar is a standout amongst other free choices to show you how individuals really utilize your site when they are there. With alternatives like clickmaps, scrollmaps, and heatmaps they can limit where individuals will assist with breaking down the progression of the site from an assortment of points.

Free Social Media Images – While we have frequently examined the significance of utilizing unique pictures, it can set aside time and energy to consistently make your own. Pablo by Buffer is an incredible site that proposals more than 50,000 eminence free photographs. They have pleasant choices for text overlays, choices to utilize your own experiences, and logos. Canva is another incredible choice on the off chance that you need bigger pictures or utilize an assortment of online media stages in view of their underlying formats.

Content Ideas –  The fundamental words are converted into essential classifications arranged by the standard 7 key inquiries (who, what, where, when, why, and so forth) and changed into a straightforward realistic which gives speedy motivation to the advertiser in a hurry.

[sylviajackson10]

How To Use Lynchburg Search Engine Optimization To Help Your Site Succeed

Having a website is useless if it does not have any visitors. You want your site to sit atop search engines everywhere in order to be profitable. Learning how these search engines work can assist you in obtaining great results. The following tips will help you improve your search engine ranking.

Choose an SEO Agencies oriented style over an AP style to improve your site’s search engine positioning. To maximise the Search Engine Marketing style, repeat the important keywords as many times as you can without ruining the flow or quality of writing. Since the search engines rank pages based in part on the density of various keywords, this will help boost your rankings.

Search Engine

Use keyword-friendly anchor text for links between pages on your website. If you are only typing “click here” and subsequently linking that term, that is doing absolutely nothing for your search engine results. A better option is to employ descriptive keywords for your anchor text. This makes your page seem more relevant to the search engine spiders, helping to boost your overall rankings as a result.

Use header tags on your website. Sometimes a header can be really large, but CSS can be used to reduce the size. Search engines use the headers to rank websites. The most important aspects of your page, like the service or product you are offering, should be flagged with either H1 and/or H2 tags.

To expand your customer base and bring more traffic to your site, use a product feed to boost your presence online. Your feeds should include detailed descriptions of your product offerings or services, along with prices and pictures. Submit them to sites which compare prices and to the major search engines. A feed reader is a program which allows people to keep up with their favorite websites via email. Your clients may interested in following your feed this way.

Don’t use Flash on your website if you want it to be search engine friendly. Flash can not be read by the spiders and text used in flash won’t be read. To properly optimize a site for the search engines, the content must be crawlable and visible to the search engines.

Site Map

Adding a site map to your website is a highly important search engine optimization step. If you have a site map a search engine can find you easily. If your site is particularly large, you may need multiple maps. It is important to keep the amount of links per map to under 100.

Your keyword phrases should appear in your titles too. Find clever ways to incorporate keywords in your titles, so that you engage both the search engines and the readers. If you do this, your website will closely correspond with users’ queries.

Make your content better to boost page rank. Site visitors are wanting to read relevant information, and better optimized content is the way to help improve your site traffic as well.

Search Engines

Make the most of your title tags to ensure that search engines correctly interpret the purpose of your site. Your title tag should be 60 characters or less, because search engines won’t display more content than that. Tags generally carry less weight past that point anyway.

To help your website rank higher use keyword in your page’s URL. Should there be special characters or numbers in the URL, you must consider whether people will actually search using them. This can hurt your search rankings. Include the keywords you would use yourself.

If you want to raise your search engine ranking, educate yourself on social marketing and look into the free sites that are out there. This includes many more than Facebook, Twitter and Yelp. There are a lot of specialized social media sites that cater to folks interested in things like photography or dog breeding. Join ones that you find relevant and use them to promote your site.

As a first step, conduct research about keywords. The keywords should be referenced throughout your website and in the titles of your articles. Researching keywords can help people find you in your specific area. In order to appear more on quality search engines, be sure to use this knowledge you have obtained.

Make sure your site is easy on the eyes. In order to climb up the page ranks, you need to include accessibility features and optimize your website for text-to-speech readers. Make your site for people and the search engines.

Use adwords and adbrite as a form of online advertising. DIY SEO Companies does not always produce the jump in rankings you want. These online advertisers can help increase hits. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Title Tag

Be certain to concentrate on creating a great title tag. Your title tag is one of the first things people see when they enter your website. This should be a description that is unique to your website’s content with keywords that are relevant. Also make sure it isn’t too long.

Using relevant links to trusted reference sites will also improve your search engine ranking. Linking to good quality content is important to the linking process. Search engines rank relevant off-site links higher than internal ones than just connect the various content of your site. Linking options that let you correspondingly link to yourself, like link exchanges, will also increase your rank.

Creating engaging, fresh content is very important when you are trying to maintain a high ranking on a search engine. It’s important to say something new. This can range from a different spin on subject matter to covering a more detailed aspect of your subject matter. There is a lot of traffic on the Internet and you’ll want to stand out in order to keep traffic coming to you. Readers tend to come back and visit often when you give them content that is special and even helpful to them.

SEO Agencies strategies are definitely pertinent to your site’s success on the web. Hopefully, these tips will help you get the results that you want and motivate you to make changes to your site. Your visibility will increase and your business will start to boom.

A number of people would like to learn more about When it comes to search engine optimization, you really should not depend on your business’ Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are looking for someone who can assist you raise your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

, but not everyone knows where they should look. Thankfully, this piece has given you information to help you do it. Simply make the best use possible of this valuable information.

from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/how-to-use-lynchburg-search-engine-optimization-to-help-your-site-succeed/ from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.tumblr.com/post/621005755962753024

[markdaniel9]

How To Use Lynchburg Search Engine Optimization To Help Your Site Succeed

Having a website is useless if it does not have any visitors. You want your site to sit atop search engines everywhere in order to be profitable. Learning how these search engines work can assist you in obtaining great results. The following tips will help you improve your search engine ranking.

Choose an SEO Agencies oriented style over an AP style to improve your site’s search engine positioning. To maximise the Search Engine Marketing style, repeat the important keywords as many times as you can without ruining the flow or quality of writing. Since the search engines rank pages based in part on the density of various keywords, this will help boost your rankings.

Search Engine

Use keyword-friendly anchor text for links between pages on your website. If you are only typing “click here” and subsequently linking that term, that is doing absolutely nothing for your search engine results. A better option is to employ descriptive keywords for your anchor text. This makes your page seem more relevant to the search engine spiders, helping to boost your overall rankings as a result.

Use header tags on your website. Sometimes a header can be really large, but CSS can be used to reduce the size. Search engines use the headers to rank websites. The most important aspects of your page, like the service or product you are offering, should be flagged with either H1 and/or H2 tags.

To expand your customer base and bring more traffic to your site, use a product feed to boost your presence online. Your feeds should include detailed descriptions of your product offerings or services, along with prices and pictures. Submit them to sites which compare prices and to the major search engines. A feed reader is a program which allows people to keep up with their favorite websites via email. Your clients may interested in following your feed this way.

Don’t use Flash on your website if you want it to be search engine friendly. Flash can not be read by the spiders and text used in flash won’t be read. To properly optimize a site for the search engines, the content must be crawlable and visible to the search engines.

Site Map

Adding a site map to your website is a highly important search engine optimization step. If you have a site map a search engine can find you easily. If your site is particularly large, you may need multiple maps. It is important to keep the amount of links per map to under 100.

Your keyword phrases should appear in your titles too. Find clever ways to incorporate keywords in your titles, so that you engage both the search engines and the readers. If you do this, your website will closely correspond with users’ queries.

Make your content better to boost page rank. Site visitors are wanting to read relevant information, and better optimized content is the way to help improve your site traffic as well.

Search Engines

Make the most of your title tags to ensure that search engines correctly interpret the purpose of your site. Your title tag should be 60 characters or less, because search engines won’t display more content than that. Tags generally carry less weight past that point anyway.

To help your website rank higher use keyword in your page’s URL. Should there be special characters or numbers in the URL, you must consider whether people will actually search using them. This can hurt your search rankings. Include the keywords you would use yourself.

If you want to raise your search engine ranking, educate yourself on social marketing and look into the free sites that are out there. This includes many more than Facebook, Twitter and Yelp. There are a lot of specialized social media sites that cater to folks interested in things like photography or dog breeding. Join ones that you find relevant and use them to promote your site.

As a first step, conduct research about keywords. The keywords should be referenced throughout your website and in the titles of your articles. Researching keywords can help people find you in your specific area. In order to appear more on quality search engines, be sure to use this knowledge you have obtained.

Make sure your site is easy on the eyes. In order to climb up the page ranks, you need to include accessibility features and optimize your website for text-to-speech readers. Make your site for people and the search engines.

Use adwords and adbrite as a form of online advertising. DIY SEO Companies does not always produce the jump in rankings you want. These online advertisers can help increase hits. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Title Tag

Be certain to concentrate on creating a great title tag. Your title tag is one of the first things people see when they enter your website. This should be a description that is unique to your website’s content with keywords that are relevant. Also make sure it isn’t too long.

Using relevant links to trusted reference sites will also improve your search engine ranking. Linking to good quality content is important to the linking process. Search engines rank relevant off-site links higher than internal ones than just connect the various content of your site. Linking options that let you correspondingly link to yourself, like link exchanges, will also increase your rank.

Creating engaging, fresh content is very important when you are trying to maintain a high ranking on a search engine. It’s important to say something new. This can range from a different spin on subject matter to covering a more detailed aspect of your subject matter. There is a lot of traffic on the Internet and you’ll want to stand out in order to keep traffic coming to you. Readers tend to come back and visit often when you give them content that is special and even helpful to them.

SEO Agencies strategies are definitely pertinent to your site’s success on the web. Hopefully, these tips will help you get the results that you want and motivate you to make changes to your site. Your visibility will increase and your business will start to boom.

A number of people would like to learn more about When it comes to search engine optimization, you really should not depend on your business’ Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are looking for someone who can assist you raise your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

, but not everyone knows where they should look. Thankfully, this piece has given you information to help you do it. Simply make the best use possible of this valuable information.

source https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/how-to-use-lynchburg-search-engine-optimization-to-help-your-site-succeed/ from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-use-lynchburg-search-engine.html

[lynchburgseoexpert]

How To Use Lynchburg Search Engine Optimization To Help Your Site Succeed

Having a website is useless if it does not have any visitors. You want your site to sit atop search engines everywhere in order to be profitable. Learning how these search engines work can assist you in obtaining great results. The following tips will help you improve your search engine ranking.

Choose an SEO Agencies oriented style over an AP style to improve your site’s search engine positioning. To maximise the Search Engine Marketing style, repeat the important keywords as many times as you can without ruining the flow or quality of writing. Since the search engines rank pages based in part on the density of various keywords, this will help boost your rankings.

Search Engine

Use keyword-friendly anchor text for links between pages on your website. If you are only typing “click here” and subsequently linking that term, that is doing absolutely nothing for your search engine results. A better option is to employ descriptive keywords for your anchor text. This makes your page seem more relevant to the search engine spiders, helping to boost your overall rankings as a result.

Use header tags on your website. Sometimes a header can be really large, but CSS can be used to reduce the size. Search engines use the headers to rank websites. The most important aspects of your page, like the service or product you are offering, should be flagged with either H1 and/or H2 tags.

To expand your customer base and bring more traffic to your site, use a product feed to boost your presence online. Your feeds should include detailed descriptions of your product offerings or services, along with prices and pictures. Submit them to sites which compare prices and to the major search engines. A feed reader is a program which allows people to keep up with their favorite websites via email. Your clients may interested in following your feed this way.

Don’t use Flash on your website if you want it to be search engine friendly. Flash can not be read by the spiders and text used in flash won’t be read. To properly optimize a site for the search engines, the content must be crawlable and visible to the search engines.

Site Map

Adding a site map to your website is a highly important search engine optimization step. If you have a site map a search engine can find you easily. If your site is particularly large, you may need multiple maps. It is important to keep the amount of links per map to under 100.

Your keyword phrases should appear in your titles too. Find clever ways to incorporate keywords in your titles, so that you engage both the search engines and the readers. If you do this, your website will closely correspond with users’ queries.

Make your content better to boost page rank. Site visitors are wanting to read relevant information, and better optimized content is the way to help improve your site traffic as well.

Search Engines

Make the most of your title tags to ensure that search engines correctly interpret the purpose of your site. Your title tag should be 60 characters or less, because search engines won’t display more content than that. Tags generally carry less weight past that point anyway.

To help your website rank higher use keyword in your page’s URL. Should there be special characters or numbers in the URL, you must consider whether people will actually search using them. This can hurt your search rankings. Include the keywords you would use yourself.

If you want to raise your search engine ranking, educate yourself on social marketing and look into the free sites that are out there. This includes many more than Facebook, Twitter and Yelp. There are a lot of specialized social media sites that cater to folks interested in things like photography or dog breeding. Join ones that you find relevant and use them to promote your site.

As a first step, conduct research about keywords. The keywords should be referenced throughout your website and in the titles of your articles. Researching keywords can help people find you in your specific area. In order to appear more on quality search engines, be sure to use this knowledge you have obtained.

Make sure your site is easy on the eyes. In order to climb up the page ranks, you need to include accessibility features and optimize your website for text-to-speech readers. Make your site for people and the search engines.

Use adwords and adbrite as a form of online advertising. DIY SEO Companies does not always produce the jump in rankings you want. These online advertisers can help increase hits. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Title Tag

Be certain to concentrate on creating a great title tag. Your title tag is one of the first things people see when they enter your website. This should be a description that is unique to your website’s content with keywords that are relevant. Also make sure it isn’t too long.

Using relevant links to trusted reference sites will also improve your search engine ranking. Linking to good quality content is important to the linking process. Search engines rank relevant off-site links higher than internal ones than just connect the various content of your site. Linking options that let you correspondingly link to yourself, like link exchanges, will also increase your rank.

Creating engaging, fresh content is very important when you are trying to maintain a high ranking on a search engine. It’s important to say something new. This can range from a different spin on subject matter to covering a more detailed aspect of your subject matter. There is a lot of traffic on the Internet and you’ll want to stand out in order to keep traffic coming to you. Readers tend to come back and visit often when you give them content that is special and even helpful to them.

SEO Agencies strategies are definitely pertinent to your site’s success on the web. Hopefully, these tips will help you get the results that you want and motivate you to make changes to your site. Your visibility will increase and your business will start to boom.

A number of people would like to learn more about When it comes to search engine optimization, you really should not depend on your business’ Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are looking for someone who can assist you raise your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

, but not everyone knows where they should look. Thankfully, this piece has given you information to help you do it. Simply make the best use possible of this valuable information.

from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/how-to-use-lynchburg-search-engine-optimization-to-help-your-site-succeed/

[lexiehewitt6]

How To Use Lynchburg Search Engine Optimization To Help Your Site Succeed

Having a website is useless if it does not have any visitors. You want your site to sit atop search engines everywhere in order to be profitable. Learning how these search engines work can assist you in obtaining great results. The following tips will help you improve your search engine ranking.

Choose an SEO Agencies oriented style over an AP style to improve your site’s search engine positioning. To maximise the Search Engine Marketing style, repeat the important keywords as many times as you can without ruining the flow or quality of writing. Since the search engines rank pages based in part on the density of various keywords, this will help boost your rankings.

Search Engine

Use keyword-friendly anchor text for links between pages on your website. If you are only typing “click here” and subsequently linking that term, that is doing absolutely nothing for your search engine results. A better option is to employ descriptive keywords for your anchor text. This makes your page seem more relevant to the search engine spiders, helping to boost your overall rankings as a result.

Use header tags on your website. Sometimes a header can be really large, but CSS can be used to reduce the size. Search engines use the headers to rank websites. The most important aspects of your page, like the service or product you are offering, should be flagged with either H1 and/or H2 tags.

To expand your customer base and bring more traffic to your site, use a product feed to boost your presence online. Your feeds should include detailed descriptions of your product offerings or services, along with prices and pictures. Submit them to sites which compare prices and to the major search engines. A feed reader is a program which allows people to keep up with their favorite websites via email. Your clients may interested in following your feed this way.

Don’t use Flash on your website if you want it to be search engine friendly. Flash can not be read by the spiders and text used in flash won’t be read. To properly optimize a site for the search engines, the content must be crawlable and visible to the search engines.

Site Map

Adding a site map to your website is a highly important search engine optimization step. If you have a site map a search engine can find you easily. If your site is particularly large, you may need multiple maps. It is important to keep the amount of links per map to under 100.

Your keyword phrases should appear in your titles too. Find clever ways to incorporate keywords in your titles, so that you engage both the search engines and the readers. If you do this, your website will closely correspond with users’ queries.

Make your content better to boost page rank. Site visitors are wanting to read relevant information, and better optimized content is the way to help improve your site traffic as well.

Search Engines

Make the most of your title tags to ensure that search engines correctly interpret the purpose of your site. Your title tag should be 60 characters or less, because search engines won’t display more content than that. Tags generally carry less weight past that point anyway.

To help your website rank higher use keyword in your page’s URL. Should there be special characters or numbers in the URL, you must consider whether people will actually search using them. This can hurt your search rankings. Include the keywords you would use yourself.

If you want to raise your search engine ranking, educate yourself on social marketing and look into the free sites that are out there. This includes many more than Facebook, Twitter and Yelp. There are a lot of specialized social media sites that cater to folks interested in things like photography or dog breeding. Join ones that you find relevant and use them to promote your site.

As a first step, conduct research about keywords. The keywords should be referenced throughout your website and in the titles of your articles. Researching keywords can help people find you in your specific area. In order to appear more on quality search engines, be sure to use this knowledge you have obtained.

Make sure your site is easy on the eyes. In order to climb up the page ranks, you need to include accessibility features and optimize your website for text-to-speech readers. Make your site for people and the search engines.

Use adwords and adbrite as a form of online advertising. DIY SEO Companies does not always produce the jump in rankings you want. These online advertisers can help increase hits. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Title Tag

Be certain to concentrate on creating a great title tag. Your title tag is one of the first things people see when they enter your website. This should be a description that is unique to your website’s content with keywords that are relevant. Also make sure it isn’t too long.

Using relevant links to trusted reference sites will also improve your search engine ranking. Linking to good quality content is important to the linking process. Search engines rank relevant off-site links higher than internal ones than just connect the various content of your site. Linking options that let you correspondingly link to yourself, like link exchanges, will also increase your rank.

Creating engaging, fresh content is very important when you are trying to maintain a high ranking on a search engine. It’s important to say something new. This can range from a different spin on subject matter to covering a more detailed aspect of your subject matter. There is a lot of traffic on the Internet and you’ll want to stand out in order to keep traffic coming to you. Readers tend to come back and visit often when you give them content that is special and even helpful to them.

SEO Agencies strategies are definitely pertinent to your site’s success on the web. Hopefully, these tips will help you get the results that you want and motivate you to make changes to your site. Your visibility will increase and your business will start to boom.

A number of people would like to learn more about When it comes to search engine optimization, you really should not depend on your business’ Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are looking for someone who can assist you raise your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

, but not everyone knows where they should look. Thankfully, this piece has given you information to help you do it. Simply make the best use possible of this valuable information.

from https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/how-to-use-lynchburg-search-engine-optimization-to-help-your-site-succeed/

from Lynchburg SEO Expert - Blog https://lynchburgseoexpert.weebly.com/blog/how-to-use-lynchburg-search-engine-optimization-to-help-your-site-succeed

[thesuperseoblog9842-blog]

Enhance Your Site’s Google Look For Rating With Good Design And Style

One of many frequent faults some entrepreneurs make is to consider Website positioning and Layout as two diverse components.

Most SEO specialists are inclined to concentrate on content composing, keyword organizing, meta tags, and website link developing. When these are, little question, critical aspects of a good Web optimization campaign (Google admits that content material and high-quality backlinks are the key metrics in Web-site ranking), applying a wise design technique will improve your web page’s look for position too.

For exceptional outcomes, a collaboration of Search engine optimization very best techniques and clever Website design will complement your web site’s All round performance.

A ‘little’ algorithm known as RankBrain

In October 2015, Google declared its new algorithm often known as RankBrain. The program was developed to deal with about 15% of exceptional queries to the online search engine.

RankBrain is machine-Understanding algorithm that adjusts the functions of other algorithms with time, to organise a more practical purchasing procedure. It also identifies and data the pertinent key terms from queries and long thoughts to comprehend Just about every Google question and respond to them as precisely as you can.

To put it simply, RankBrain is really an AI. Looking at Google’s new acquisitions of providers specialising in Synthetic Intelligence technological know-how, we are able to only infer the search large is fine-tuning its lookup capacities. RankBrain is at present the third rating factor for Google look for.

Why Is that this important? Each webmaster desires her or his web page to stay Search engine optimization- related, irrespective of new updates. Given that RankBrain updates alone frequently and covertly (it really is an AI), it means World-wide-web entrepreneurs can wake up at any time to discover their Google lookup ranking in disarray. The answer? Always keep on the good side in the ‘legislation’ with good Web optimization and good Website design.

The necessity of responsive web design

It really is beginning to audio like a broken record, but we could never ever say it a lot of; aquiring a cellular responsive web page is significant to Web optimization results.

By default, Google decides whether or not an internet site is cellular-pleasant or not and boosts its visibility on engines like google for mobile users. This could appear as no shock simply because Google declared a several years back that cellular search had exceeded desktop lookup by sixty%.

Not too long ago, Google also said that It will be prioritizing Web-sites having a cell-1st design and style configuration. This implies, all Web-sites, whether on a desktop or cellular, might be ranked determined by cellular search traits.

So, In case you have a website that has a wonderful consumer encounter on desktop, but a weak cell UX, you will be rated (for the two desktop and cellular research) based upon the weak mobile UX. It can be consequently vital to get your buyers’ cell practical experience as severely given that the desktop UX.

Is your cellular web site’s dwell time ok? How high (or reduced) will be the bounce rate? These are metrics you wish to wonderful-tune on your web site. It should be a hundred% cellular responsive.

What other metrics does Google have a look at?

In addition to the oblique measurements of dwell time and bounce charge, Google also evaluates unique components of Website design that influence your Search engine optimisation specifically.

In accordance with a study performed by Backlinko, wherever they analysed about 1 million search engine results, it had been identified that information with at least a person picture outranked Those people with none picture.

Speed of Web site

Google is centered on quality UX for the web user, Therefore if your web site is slow, expect it being penalized. Even so, the a lot quicker your internet site, the better the UX as well as Website positioning might be Increased.

You can find various techniques to check your web site’s speed performance, which include free web sites like GTMetrix and Pingdom.

You may boost your Website pace by:

• Resizing the pictures in advance of uploading them on your site. Likelihood is They may be way too huge and for that reason creating a lag while in the file retrieval. A lot of websites use CSS and html to optimise images. What What this means is is the fact a 1000px by 1000px may possibly appear as 300px by 300PX. By resizing it, you can drastically improve the speed.

• Compress the CSS information and pictures

• Snip out any irrelevant code

Watch out for flooding your site with ads. True, several web-sites need to have the advertisements to generate earnings, however, if your site is too gradual, the idea of Screen ads will probably be counter-successful. A lot less people, minimal income.

The Bane of flash Web-sites

In case you are still employing flash inside your Website design, you might be in all probability nonetheless in 2003. Flash is no longer appropriate with iOS units and Google lookup bots locate it nearly impossible to index. You are improved off discarding it fully.

A user-pleasant website link format

In exactly the same way backlinks from exterior Sites effects Search engine marketing efficiency, your web site’s inner back links are also applicable. Especially links from the principle menu or bottom menu.

Do not regard your Main landing web pages as unique features with only Search engine optimisation relevance. Fairly, include them to the overall template for your web site so that all web pages on your site connection again to essential landing webpages.

In keeping with Google’s person recommendations, reviewers are requested to rate websites with backlinks to an “About Us” and “Contact Us” web site pretty very. Particularly when They may be Obviously noticeable.

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How to make a website like YepMe

Troika Tech Services - Website Designers in Mumbai

107, Kothari Milestone, Near Railway Station, Malad, Malad West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400064

Troika Tech Best - eCommerce Website Designing & Development Company in Andheri, Bandra

102, Sagar Shopping Centre, Dawood Baug, Opposite PK Jewellers,, J.P. Road, Andheri (West) Station, Mumbai, Near Metro Station, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400058

 Troika Tech - Website Designers & Developers Company in Sakinaka Marol and Andheri East

4, Summit Business Park, Kurla Rd, Mota Nagar, Shivaji Colony, Mota Nagar, Andheri, Andheri East, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400099

Your key navigation structure should be basic.Always integrate navigating controls into the footer of your website.Breadcrumbs should certainly be kept every page barring the homepage so individuals are aware of their precise navigating route.Offer website visitors with an alternative to look your website utilizing keyword phrases, by including a noticeable search box in the direction of the top.Lessen the arrangement of unneeded navigating choices as for feasible.It is a clever suggestion to maintain 3 degrees of navigation, and few.Ought to you include web links in your website, simply go over as well as explain their locations, along with this is additionally exceptionally effective for SEO.Prepare your site maintaining your target audience in mind.Ensure that the total navigating of the site is uncomplicated, so that individuals can discover their ways to just what they prefer without running through a complicated procedure. See to it that factor to consider for the individual is decreased by incorporating a basic interface.8)Decrease Flash as well as Computer Animation.Reduce using JavaScript as well as Flash as for feasible, as a variety of mobile phones in addition to tablet computer systems do not sustain Flash, along with this would sorely hinder the navigability of your web website. Numerous net browsers run obsolete versions of Flash plugins, and also some could not also have really Blink placed, so you have to maintain the masses in mind. Change to HTML5 if appropriate, in scenario you require computer animations. HTML5 is a fantastic browser-compliant choice to Flash.9 )Make Your Internet Site Available.If you are striving for an irritating internet site web traffic then you need to make your internet site appropriate and also attuned to several devices as well as web browsers. You must assure that your site can be accessed by everybody visiting it no matter what application or browser they are using.10) Functionality.It is essential to bear in mind that the success of a website depends on its usability and out its visual design. It is best to utilize a user-centric style if you have a profit-oriented site in mind. The success of a net site relies on its functionality due to the fact that its existence is worthless if individuals could not use it. There is certainly absolutely nothing incorrect being made use of captivating 1-2-3-done actions or huge switches with eye-catching aesthetic effects. It is needed to allow the individual sight all the used features plainly. Function direct exposure contributes to a fantastic user interface style. The website visitors should certainly have the capacity to engage with the system comfortably.11 )Take Notice Of the Composing Design.Internet content writing is a lot various from print. You need to compose based on people' browsing practices and choices. Usage unbiased language. No person is interested in evaluating marketing material. Everyone would absolutely remain clear of lengthy message blocks without keywords as well as photos. You have to speak service and also offer crisp as well as concise material. You have to categorize your web material, remember to utilize subheadings, make use of bulleted checklists as well as visual elements to harm the uniformity of blocks of consistent message.12)Minimize Individual Work.Lessen Individual Work.First of all it is best to reduce cognitive tons so that it becomes much easier for website visitors to identify the idea behind your system. Additionally, make sure that less activity is needed from customers to try a solution. Just then would an arbitrary site visitor attempt it out. Very first time website visitors are not thinking about filling out web kinds for some account which they may never ever use one more time. It is a smart idea to create your web website as though visitors have the simplicity and also flexibility to browse the website without being required to share individual data. They would definitely maintain coming back to your internet site when they find your services.13)Use Negative Area.Using adverse area in your web site style is an excellent idea. Nobody wants fluff. Site visitors need to be able to recognize exactly just exactly what they have in front of them without method way too much browsing. Developers must not worry about negative location while generating a site. You simply have to create normally as well as afterwards experience it and also remove points any type of place required to acquire the desired look.14)Conventions Are Fruitful.Incorporating traditional site aspects need not always make your site boring. Actually, conventions are good for decreasing the uncovering contour or the need to comprehend simply exactly how a certain factor jobs. Do not you think it would definitely be an use dilemma if different internet site had entirely different RSS-feeds'aesthetic discussion? Conventions aid you to accomplish consumers 'trust fund, self-confidence and dependability. It is a smart suggestion to keep an eye on people'presumptions as well as recognize specifically just exactly what presumptions they have from search positioning, web site navigating, message structure and so forth 15)Assessment Early, Test Usually.TETO-principle is crucial for all internet site design tasks. Usage evaluations are wonderful for providing vital understandings right into the major problems and also troubles associated to a supplied design. You should check out early along with never ever before far too late. You should opt for comprehensive examinations. Technical SEO is a remarkable area. There are a great deal of little nuances to it that make it interesting, and its professionals are should have exceptional logical as well as necessary thinking abilities.In this article, I cover some delightful technical SEO truths. While they might not excite your day at a supper occasion, they will definitely improve your technological Search Engine Optimization knowledge-- and they may help you in making your web site ranking far better in online search engine result.Allow's research the checklist.1. Page speed matters Most of take into consideration slow-moving lots times as a nuisance for clients, yet its consequences go furthermore compared with that. Page price has actually long been a search ranking variable, as well as Google has likewise claimed that it could promptly use mobile website price as a factor in mobile search rankings.( Certainly, your target market will certainly value much faster page lots times, too.). A number of have really utilized Google's PageSpeed Insights gadget to obtain an analysis of their internet site rate as well as suggestions for enhancement. For those looking for to enhance mobile internet site efficiency specifically, Google has a new page rate gadget out that is mobile-focused. This tool will absolutely examine the page lots time, examination your mobile internet site on a 3G connection, assess mobile functionality as well as even more.2. Robots.txt data are case-sensitive and also need to be placed in an internet site's primary directory site site.The documents must be hired all reduced situation(robots.txt) in order to be recognized. In addition, crawlers only look in one location when they seek a robots.txt file: the website's key directory. If they do not situate it there, usually they'll just continuously creep, believing there is no such documents.3. Crawlers can not frequently access boundless scroll.And if crawlers could not access it, the websites may not rate.When making use of unlimited scroll for your web site, guarantee that there is a paginated collection of web pages along with the one prolonged scroll. Guarantee you perform replaceState/pushState on the unlimited scroll web page. This is a delightful little optimization that the majority of web developers are not knowledgeable regarding, so ensure to examine your unlimited scroll for rel ="complying with"and rel="prev"in the code.4. Google does not care exactly how you structure your sitemap.As long as it's XML, you might structure your sitemap however you 'd like-- category failing and also general structure is up to you as well as will not influence simply how Google crawls your site.5. The noarchive tag will not hurt your Google positions.This tag will maintain Google from revealing the cached variation of a page in its search engine result, however it will not negatively affect that web page's basic setting.6. Google usually slips your web page initially.It's not a policy, nevertheless normally speaking, Google typically locates the websites initially. An exception would definitely be if there are a great deal of connect to a certain web page within your internet site.24 Aug. Osanda Cooray @osandacooray. Replying to @suzukik as well as 2 others.Hey @JohnMu does GBot frequently begin sneaking from the homepage?Follow.John ☆. o( ≧ ▽ ≦ )o. ☆ ✔ @JohnMu. No, yet that's typically the first page we locate from a website.12:45 PM -Aug 24, 2017. Responds Retweets 1 1 like.Twitter Advertisements info as well as personal privacy.7. Google ratings internal as well as outside links in a different way.A connect to your web content or site from a third-party web site is heavy differently than an internet link from your very own site.8. You could examine your crawl budget in Google Browse Console.Your crawl spending plan is the selection of websites that online search engine can in addition to intend to slip in a provided quantity of time. You might get a concept of yours in your Appearance Console . From there, you could intend to boost it if required.9. Prohibiting pages with no Search Engine Optimization worth will certainly boost your crawl budget.Pages that aren't important to your SEO efforts frequently consist of privacy policies, expired promotions or conditions.My guideline is that if the page is not indicated to rate, along with it does not have One Hundred Percent distinctive top quality content, block it.10. There is a great deal to understand about sitemaps.XML sitemaps must be UTF-8 encoded.They could not include session IDs from Links.They should be much less compared to 50,000 Hyperlinks in addition to no larger than 50 MB.A sitemap index documents is advised instead of multiple sitemap entries.You could make use of various sitemaps for various media types: Video clip, Photos as well as Information.11. You might examine simply exactly how Google's mobile spider'sees 'web pages of your website.With Google moving to a mobile-first index, it's more crucial compared to ever to gain certain your web pages perform well on mobile devices.Use Google Console's Mobile Usability report to discover specific web pages on your website that could have issues with use on smart phones. You could furthermore try the mobile-friendly assessment.

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Selecting High Quality Seafood

Selecting High Quality Seafood

 The strongly valued journal Consumer Reports carried out screening as well as located rampant cases of salmon misstatement. This commonly involves ranch brought up salmon being offered as wild caught fish. The issue is actually worldwide. Wild salmon offered in the UK have actually shown to be farmed. In one holder exams showed that concerning 10% of bush salmon examples were in fact farmed fish.

 Replacement as well as mis-labeling is actually certainly not restricted to finned fish. Various other sea food things like lobster have to deal with comparable controversies. One institution that has been vocal regarding seafood is the Maine Lobster Promotion Council. Fish and shellfish tagged as lobster are often actually a shellfish referred to as langostino. The Maine Lobster Promotion Council as well as various other institutions are quick to indicate that reduced premium, frosted bring in products can easily harm the track record of the premium American lobster when consumers view "lobster" on the food selection and also connect a second-rate food with the photo of a clean American lobster product. Buy Salmon Fish Online

 Shrimp are actually another product where one name obtains applied to lots of varieties. In the USA alone, native crazy shrimp feature white shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus), brownish shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus), pink shrimp (Penaeus duorarum), royal reddish shrimp (Pleoticus robustus or even Hymenopenaeus robustus) as well as rock shrimp (Sicyonia brevirostris).

 While premium seafood distributors might use one or more of these products new, buyers locate any type of variety of items to become market just as "shrimp". Most of shrimp offered in the USA are actually imported farm increased item. Obviously appearance, preference, wellness and also quality variables may vary between new regional shrimp and also a refined product of unknown origin, makeup as well as age Buy Flounder Online.

 As a consumer, exactly how do we get what we pay for as well as anticipate? Much of problem gets back to image and also being actually a clever consumer. A credible market or dining establishment may have the capacity to confirm that the seafood it offers is really what it is actually labeled as. Many bistro managers know bogus seafood items as well as have enhanced quality control in their purchasing strategies. Customers can easily increase their possibilities of acquiring top quality seafood by discovering exactly how to recognize as well as evaluate fish and shellfish.

 An additional terrific technique to enjoy leading level seafood is actually to purchase straight from the farmer, either in your area or even online. Several seafood cpus offer fish, complainers, seafoods, shellfishes and various other sea food that is actually basically quickly the boat. Seafood aficionados can easily get either crazy captured or farm raised products as well as feel confident that they are acquiring the real thing. The very same chooses several of the smaller sized regional sea food markets where the shopkeeper has a face to face connection along with regional commercial fishermen. While discount looking is actually tempting, taking a handful of minutes to shop around and maybe spend a little much more can definitely create the distinction in regards to flavor as well as pleasure.

 Just How to Buy Top Quality Fresh Seafood

 Seafood stays well-liked as customers look for simple, healthy meal options. The perks of consuming fish and also various other sea food are being mentioned nearly daily, along with authorities all over the world endorsing fish and shellfish as a crucial part of a well-balanced diet regimen. Along with health and wellness benefits, consumers like the ease of preparation, flexibility and wealthy taste that sea food provides. When opting for main courses, these attributes produce fish and also fish and shellfish a superb enhancement to every week food strategies.

 Fish and also fish and shellfish is actually accessible in a myriad of kinds. Sea food markets and various other outlets deliver fresh fish, commonly simply hours from being captured. Surprisingly, very clean seafood may be acquired online. Things are actually quickly washed and prepared to cook after that rushed to the buyer, packed in solidified carbon dioxide which keeps the product cooled throughout shipment. A couple of specialized online establishments also deliver real-time crustaceans, and mollusks in unique containers that guarantees the priceless payload is going to get there in peak disorder. Popular live shipped sea food consists of lobsters, complainers, oysters, scallops, clams, mussels as well as other seafood.

 An additional possibility for fresh fish and shellfish is to join an area catch allotment plan. These innovative advertising plannings give a way of hooking up buyers to fishers. Participants pay an expense in advance for a pointed out volume of sea food. When harvesting takes place, participants are advised as well as come in to pick up the freshest seafood imaginable, typically straight off the watercraft. Neighborhood drawback allotment programs are actually an outstanding means to obtain quantities of outstanding high quality sea food at a lessened price Buy Flounder Online.

 Icy items are actually an exceptional selection when purchasing sea food. Frosted fish and also shellfish are available not only from sea food markets, but at basically any type of grocery store or even specialty supermarket. Frosted items are usually harvested, refined and also show off frozen mixed-up. Other species are iced and also rushed to port, then flash-frozen as well as delivered to stores. Of specific interest to premium prepares are actually frozen fish in vacuum cleaner product packaging or even covered along with a preventive finishing of ice.

 Smoked and also dried fish is actually an additional delicious product that is widely on call. Smoking cigarettes enhances flavor, focuses useful fish oils and preserves fish. Vacuum packaging protects the product as well as deals with the demand for refrigeration. Many of the most searched for and valued seafood main dishes are smoked products like untamed salmon, char, cod, haddock, saithe, mackerel, herring, dogfish and also various other types of fish. Standard smoked items are available in the majority of retail shops while connoisseur products can be located in specialty shops or via on the web fish and shellfish shops. As with other fish, superior product is often accessible straight from the anglers.

 Surprisingly, even tinned fish and shellfish can easily deliver flawless premium. Tinned fish and shellfish carries out certainly not require refrigeration as well as can be stored for months or longer. Everybody is familiar with tinned tuna, however there are lots of various other canned sea food products, much of which are great tasting, effortless and healthy and balanced to ready. Tinned fish and also various other fish and shellfish is actually offered in a wide array of kinds, coming from large sizes up to solitary serving traveling compartments. A few of one of the most preferred fish species offered as canned products include tuna, salmon, anchovies, sardines, herring and also various other popular fish. Various other seafood used as prerecorded items consists of complainer meat, lobster pork, shellfishes, clams, mussels, cockles, chilly water shrimp as well as others. Non-traditional packaging is additionally supplied, along with aluminum foil bags being a regular choice for individuals Buy Flounder Online.

 A Guide to Buying Fish and also Seafood

 Online, your Local Fishmonger or even at the Supermarket What is the most ideal alternative for purchasing Seafood?

 At the Supermarket.

 They might have a fresh fish counter or even a section in the chiller division, they will definitely possibly possess a fridge freezer department.

 You may or even may not realise this, but all fish begins to pamper as quickly as it's extinguished and also the even more the fish and shellfish is actually processed/handled the quicker it begins to degrade. When purchasing seafood you want it as new as achievable, ideally still agitating.

 When acquiring fish an excellent way to say to if it is actually new is to press it with you hands, the flesh must bounce back, certainly not leave your finger print in it. It must give off the ocean, a little of ozone and most definitely certainly not of FISH Buy Flounder Online.

 The main reason that the seafood in supermarkets manages to possess such a lengthy shelf life is actually given that those little covered containers have actually pumped air in them - not air exactly as you as well as I take a breath yet air with the exact same elements adjusted to a different proportion as well as this is what ceases the fish blowing up thus swiftly. As soon as that container is opened the fish will begin to spoil faster (I may include that they carry out the same along with bagged mixed greens). Perform you definitely intend to be actually getting fish that's been artificially kept nutritious?

 At the fish counter you will probably locate not just whole fish and seafood but additionally cutlets, fillets and steaks. When the fish was caught/brought in, it is actually a really good suggestion to ask the aide. They must manage to inform you. Know any type of fish that's been covered in ice along with just the heads protruding, this is actually an old trick to disguise outdated product, get them to take it out in order that you can view the fish appropriately. If there are fillets on sale, especially only or even plaice fillets examine to view if there's any yellowing of the flesh; this is actually an additional indication of stale fish, and naturally, ask to smell it.

 If you're considering an entire fish - take a great take a look at its eyes, they need to be bright and also transparent, over cast and not recessed. The gills ought to be actually a deep red colour and the skin glossy and also unsafe. If you get the fish it ought to feel secure, not weak like some aged wiper toy.

 If you're after shellfish there's 2 incredibly easy policies to use. Prior to food preparation, if it is actually accessible as well as does not close when utilized dramatically don't buy it or prepare it. After preparing food if it is actually still closed, don't eat it.

 When buying complainer or even lobster, pick it up, it must really feel hefty for it is actually dimension.

 The 3rd option in the Supermarket is actually the freezer department. This could be an excellent substitute to new fish. Search for fish that has actually been actually 'flash frozen', this indicates that the fish has actually been captured and also filleted very quickly - possibly at sea, at that point icy very swiftly thus maintaining all the flavour and nutrients. This is actually commonly a much better alternative than fish stretching out around for times in the fridge closet Buy Flounder Online.

 If you are actually privileged adequate to become near to a suitable Fishmonger, understand him as well as he'll care for you. He is going to inevitably recognize where the seafood has come from as well as when it was actually caught. He may prep it for you as well as offer you recipes and tips. If you possess an unique occasion appearing, tell him in advance and also he will certainly be simply to satisfied to satisfy your purchase, handing it over ready to invest the stove or whatever.

 The good news is, once the Internet has entered into its very own, purchasing fish as well as seafood online has actually certainly never been easier. There are actually numerous little, specialized providers where you can easily acquire not just clean fish and seafood yet delicacies like Smoked Salmon as well as Caviar. They supply excellent fish and shellfish either fresh in cooled packages, icy or even suction packed.

 Benefits of Consuming Seafood in Frozen Form

 Today, eating sea food resides in fashion; individuals coming from all profession choose seafood in their lunches as well as dinners. They certainly not only choose sea food, however give utmost help to it as it is highly delectable in attributes. Individuals also like eating frozen sea food in various parts of the globe. It gives the same taste, health and nutrition, healthy proteins as well as quality. Seafood supplier supply freshly loaded seafood all throughout the planet at the most economical rates. They give fresh and also promised seafood items all around the world according to the demand.

 As a matter of fact, eating frozen seafood is a good; lots of people believe that it is actually dangerous to wellness, but the simple fact it is that it is entirely healthy and balanced and also as healthy as fresh caught fish and shellfish. It possesses very same amount of healthy proteins, acids as well as minerals as that of usual seafood. Getting frozen seafood, whether it is s frozen tilapia fillets, cod gadus morhua, Alaskan Pollock fish, vannamei white colored shrimp, tuna, salmon, gold pompano, frosted squid or frosted blue mussels is actually good for health and wellness. It not just decreases the general ecological influence, however also reduces the trouble of on-the-spot freight. Producers can easily ship fish and shellfish by means of rail, ships, aircrafts or even truck with dramatically lesser ecological effect Buy Flounder Online.

 Makers effortlessly method fish and shellfish at their resources for the shipment purposes and also definitely reduce refuse in total processing. By means of their combination procedures, top quality inspection method, packing as well as warehousing procedures, they additionally make sure swift distribution of fish and shellfish products. They actually, work depending on to the demands as well as regularly supply items to various national and worldwide markets. This is the best measure against the economic climates of scale as well as cost-reduction. They merely provide highest items throughout the year after making certain the items high quality at several scales.

 Several fish and shellfish processor chips sell fish, complainers, seafoods, shellfishes and other seafood that is primarily right off the boat. The perks of eating fish and other seafood are actually being reported virtually daily, with authorities all over the planet endorsing seafood as a vital part of a healthy and balanced diet plan. Today, eating fish and shellfish is in manner; people from all strolls of life like fish and shellfish in their dinners and lunch times. Seafood manufacturer source newly packed seafood all throughout the planet at the very most practical prices. Consuming frozen sea food is actually a great; several people presume that it is actually dangerous to health and wellness, however the truth it is actually that it is actually completely healthy and also as nourishing as freshly recorded seafood.

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7 Best Places to Find Premium Domain Name for Sale (+ Expert Tips)

We had been usually requested by many readers regarding probably the most real looking seemingly places to acquire prime class enviornment names available on the market.

There are a mode of enviornment identify registrars available on the market, each individual in each of them are trying to advertise you probably the most real looking seemingly enviornment names.

On the alternative hand now no longer all of them present you probably the most real looking seemingly devices to acquire the perfect enviornment identify. Some even are trying their easiest to advertise you lesser-identified enviornment extensions at cheaper costs.

This makes it advanced for freshmen to discontinue their enviornment identify study and procure a brandable identify for his or her trade or weblog.

Listed proper right here, we’re able to allotment probably the most real looking seemingly places to acquire enviornment identify available on the market together with contemporary, expired, and prime class enviornment names. We’ll moreover allotment educated options on the way to discontinue due diligence when procuring a prime class enviornment identify.

Space Title Registrars

The primary house to open up your enviornment search is through a enviornment identify registrar. These are the businesses allowed by ICANN to advertise enviornment names to a lot of the of us.

On the alternative hand, now no longer all enviornment registrars are the identical.

Some are trying to aggressively upsell diversified merchandise and firms that you could be presumably now no longer need. Others are trying to lock you in by making it advanced to modify your enviornment identify.

Below our suppliers that we make use of and point out.

1. Space.com

Space.com is probably the most real looking seemingly enviornment identify registrar available on the market. It has a helpful e-book a tough and uncomplicated enviornment search instrument which helps you with out grief procure a enviornment identify readily available on the market.

They provide all high-degree enviornment names, at very aggressive pricing for extra moderen enviornment names.

In the event you’re shopping for for enviornment names on sale, then merely click on on on the best class domains tab to acquire strange, brandable, and shorter enviornment names.

High payment enviornment names are usually extra expensive, nonetheless you procure a much bigger choice to settle from.

Space.com makes it easier to help a watch to your domains the utilization of a easier enviornment administration connect. From there, it’s possible you’ll presumably moreover degree your enviornment identify to any internet hosting firm and open making a web scenario.

Discovering High payment Space Names on Space Marketplaces

Domains are a worthwhile trade. It’s seemingly you will be prepared to concentrate on it as exact property for the web.

A whole bunch of of us change enviornment names every day which method that at any given time there are prime class enviornment names on sale from enviornment traders.

It’s seemingly you will procure these enviornment names on enviornment marketplaces. Right here is the place customers can itemizing their enviornment names available on the market, allowing others to look, manufacture a proposal, or right away buy the identify at a prime class maintain.

2. Sedo

Sedo is one among probably the most real looking seemingly enviornment marketplaces on the planet. They provide a gracious and secure platform for enviornment house owners to itemizing their enviornment names available on the market.

It’s seemingly you will procure a mode of prime class enviornment names available on the market there. Only a few of them had been weak within the earlier, nonetheless most of them are by no method at chance of impact a web scenario.

Sedo is moreover a lovely platform to discontinue your enviornment identify study. It’s seemingly you will procure attention-grabbing suggestions matching your key phrases, which you will presumably moreover then make use of to acquire similar enviornment names at a customary maintain.

3. Flippa

Flippa is the realm’s foremost platform to advertise on-line firms, web websites, and enviornment names. It’s a market the place sellers itemizing their enviornment names available on the market. Most of them are prime class enviornment names listed for public sale or challenge buy.

It’s seemingly you will be able to see enviornment names, observe auctions, or enter the public sale by bidding on enviornment names.

In case your advise is permitted, then you definately definately may also observe the worth options. Normally, sellers make use of Flippa’s escrow service for secure funds and swap of registration to the purchaser.

4. GoDaddy

GoDaddy is probably the most real looking seemingly enviornment identify registrar on the planet. They prepare thousands and thousands of enviornment names for a terribly gigantic completely different of consumers throughout the realm.

They provide enviornment study devices, enviornment identify generator, enviornment dealer service, and extra. They moreover preserve their fetch prime class enviornment market with auctions.

On the alternative hand being an enormous trade, they provide a lot of fairly a lot of merchandise and firms and upsells which usually is a runt bit overwhelming for freshmen.

Many GoDaddy choices present extra focused, cheaper, and larger merchandise and firms to compete which a technique or the alternative advantages the shoppers.

Discovering Space Names for Sale on Boards

There are a whole lot of on-line communities and boards the place web scenario house owners can focus on on-line trade suggestions, advertising and marketing strategies, and setting up web websites.

All these on-line communities focus totally on buying and selling enviornment names, whereas others preserve devoted sub-forums for the topic. Listed here are among the many procure boards it’s possible you’ll presumably moreover make use of to acquire enviornment names readily available on the market together with expired enviornment names or quickly to be expiring enviornment names.

5. NamePros

NamePros is one among the principle on-line communities to buy and promote enviornment names. It’s miles moreover a gargantuan house to find about setting up on-line firms, investing in enviornment names, and discovering strange enviornment identify suggestions.

They’ve a devoted enviornment market allotment, the place sellers can itemizing their enviornment names on sale. Domains are listed as auctions, spend now, bargains, and manufacture a proposal.

6. DNForum

DNForum is but another in vogue on-line neighborhood to acquire strange enviornment names. The dialogue board is weak by each sellers and traders to alter domains, tempo auctions, manufacture presents, or search information from serve from enviornment identify brokers to acquire you a transparent realizing.

Win a Free Space Title by means of Web internet hosting

In the event you unbiased need to register a model contemporary enviornment identify to your trade, then probably the most real looking seemingly scheme to acquire a free enviornment identify is by signing up for a web scenario internet hosting story. This vogue it might properly perchance properly put you cash on enviornment identify registration and like a flash manufacture a web scenario right away.

7. bluehost

bluehost is one among probably the most real looking seemingly internet hosting firms on the planet and formally advised internet hosting supplier by wordpress and WooCommerce.

They’ve agreed to current WPBeginner customers a free enviornment identify SSL certificates and a pleasurable nick carry on internet hosting. It’s seemingly you will be able to open up for merely $2.75 per thirty days.

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The style to Win a Colossal Space Title for Sale

There are such a lot of places the place you’re going to procure enviornment names readily available on the market. On the alternative hand, it’s miles a extraordinarily aggressive trade and at the same time as you occur to are actually no longer cautious, then you definately definately could properly dwell up paying far more for a enviornment identify.

First, we suggest you to acquire a transparent enviornment identify realizing by your self. Spend the enviornment availability checker instrument on Space.com to find in case your required identify is right away accessible for registration.

This vogue, it’s possible you’ll be prepared to acquire a enviornment identify on a customary maintain which could be between $10-14.99 per 300 and sixty 5 days.

Understand our guide on the way to acquire a enviornment identify for some options on growing with catchy suggestions to your enviornment.

Discovering a High payment Space Title for Sale

Discovering a enviornment identify could be laborious. It’s seemingly you will maybe lastly really feel that each individual lawful enviornment identify suggestions are already taken.

On the alternative hand, at the same time as you occur to are interesting to invest in procuring a shorter, extra brandable, and clever enviornment identify, then enviornment marketplaces usually is a lawful useful resource.

This helps you slim down your search and procure a enviornment identify that is now no longer available for registration.

We point out the utilization of platforms like Sedo and Flippa to acquire strange prime class enviornment names on sale. These platforms present larger devices for secure swap of enviornment possession, larger devices to asses vendor’s reputation, and are relied on by legit firms all through the realm.

The style to discontinue Due Diligence When Procuring for a High payment Space on Sale

After you’re going to preserve got here throughout a transparent enviornment identify that you simply desire to buy, it’s time to discontinue some due diligence outdated to inspiring ahead.

Domains that preserve already been weak could be blacklisted, marked for spam, or preserve a contaminated reputation. Procuring for the type of enviornment identify could properly preserve an influence to your trade.

Fortuitously there are devices that you could be presumably moreover make use of to discontinue your homework outdated to creating the acquisition.

First, it’s possible you’ll need to fabricate particular that the enviornment identify is now no longer a registered trademark of an present trade.

In accordance with ICANN pointers, if a enviornment identify violates an organization’s registered trademark, then that firm can advise the enviornment identify or put a search information from to you to buy it down.

It’s seemingly you will be able to confirm the USA Patent and Trademark Office’s database to discontinue a helpful e-book a tough trademark dwell up to your enviornment identify to find it’s already registered by a trade.

Subsequent, it’s possible you’ll need to find if a enviornment identify has been beforehand at chance of manufacture a web scenario. An easy scheme to discontinue that’s by the utilization of the Wayback Machine. This huge archive crawls the web and takes snapshots of web websites.

It’s seemingly you will maybe moreover need to look a enviornment identify’s historic information the utilization of the Whois devices. This allows you to uncover when a enviornment identify turned as soon as created, closing renewed, DNS adjustments, and historic information.

Lastly, it’s possible you’ll need to confirm if a enviornment identify has been misused to ship spam electronic message, unfold malware, or diversified malicious actions. It’s seemingly you will be able to invent a helpful e-book a tough enviornment well being confirm check to find if it raises any pink flags.

We hope this text helped you procure probably the most real looking seemingly places to acquire enviornment identify available on the market. It’s seemingly you will maybe moreover need to find our choose of probably the most real looking seemingly trade telephone merchandise and firms and probably the most real looking seemingly electronic message advertising and marketing merchandise and firms that you could be presumably moreover make use of to develop your trade.

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