Chapter Text
Her hair was a raging red, her eyes were green, her skin was clear, Alec had never dated before, and it just made sense, he supposed. Alec Lightwood and Quinn Seelie just made sense.
She was different, simultaneously a child and a goddess, exquisitely carefree and wild. She was the person that would dance around barefoot in the middle of a city, with her hair flowing around her and her porcelain skin sparkling and her freckles winking in the sunlight. The one who completely knew how she looked and her unique identity and used it to her advantage. She had a sort of manic, playful spark in her eye that sunk right into everyone's- particularly the male species'- hearts. And it did twist Alec's a little bit, when he saw her. But, for whatever reason, for reasons he liked to think revolved around his sports and studies instead of wasting time with girls, he passed on by without much of a second glance. Not like Jace, not like Matthew, not like Arthur, not like the boys that say they hated the girl's guts but let their gaze linger on her shoulders, face, hair anyways, as much as they wanted to look away. Alec just... He just didn't. He didn't know why he didn't.
Quinn didn't like that, as it turns out, a month into junior year of high school, where she wove a web of a conversation around Alec and under his feet, and then tripped him up by asking if he thought he was too good to say hi once in awhile.
Alec didn't like that idea. He knew he was solemn. He didn't like being mean. And he didn't think he had been being mean, but something about Quinn made him... feel guilty. Feel like he was selling her short. Or hurting her.
Alec, unable to respond, walked away.
As it turns out, Quinn actually did like that. Very much. So much that she continued catching Alec after his classes, and soon enough, her intoxicating words, dripping with a sort of ambrosiac quality Alec had never quite been exposed to before, had managed to rope him into coffee after school, studying after school, giving her rides after school…
It was all like a numb dream. She did all the talking, and Alec tuned in and out when he wanted to. It was relaxing. It was not a bad friendship to have, and she was a very unique, exotic specimen of person- like some foreign alienistic flower. It was hard not to enjoy being around such a different type of beauty like that.
And one day, while Alec was driving her to school, he nearly got into a car accident as she laced her hand through his at a stop sign.
His brain slammed into itself, and he panicked, flinging a gaze to her, wide-eyed, before guilt fell over his expression, causing the panic to grow even further. To his utter and bewildered surprise, she doubled over laughing, planting a kiss on his cheek.
"Okay?" her voice like ringing honey, warm on his ear. And Alec, throat tight and stomach twisted in a way he couldn't quite decipher, nodded.
"We're going to be a bonded pair," she announced, quietly, words trickling against his earlobe, and he froze again, automatically. Fifteen of the longest silent seconds had gone by, and a car honked behind him, causing him to jump in a flurry of motion, a slam of thoughts smashing its way into his body. Somehow, the ones that emerged was "are you stupid?" And "Do you want this?" And "This tightness in your chest? It means something."
It must be attraction. That's what it was. How was Alec too stupid to realize it?
Was attraction supposed to make your stomach feel this queasy?
With a start, Alec realized he was driving, and he slowed down to another stop to look towards Quinn. Quinn, who was apprehensive, tight-lipped, looking at him with wide, watchful eyes, vulnerable- the first time he'd ever seen her like that. And Alec, slowly, numbly, nodded. Once. And a smile broke out on her face that looked like a sunflower blooming, and they made sense, him and her- they were both attractive, and she was wild where he was still, and he was on the starting varsity football team and had a 4.0 GPA and she was the vivid, hypnotizing girl that did nothing and had no talents and skipped through the halls and was going nowhere, but was so damn sparkly and so damn bold and so damn carefree that it was easy to just look at the surface and stare and stare and stare. And they were both beautiful. And there were values in both and they were both too good for the other and they shouldn’t make sense but for whatever reason in they did.
And so they became Quinn and Alec.