This was written for sarcasticlightwood on Tumblr as part of this year's Malec Secret Santa. As my identity had to be a secret, I had to wait to post this here until after it had been revealed on Tumblr, but here we finally are!

Warning for mentions of illness (a stomach bug) and vomiting.

Word count: 2,852

Magnus moaned and rolled over in bed for the gazillionth time in the endless stretch of hours he'd been confined to the bed. He was starting to wonder if there had been a time when he'd lived outside of the Osaka hotel room he was locked in. It felt more like that time had been nothing but a dream.

In reality, he'd been laying in bed for two hours since Catarina and Ragnor had left him to explore Kyoto. He'd insisted they leave him behind because, whenever he moved, his stomach sloshed terribly and his entire body ached. He was in no condition to ride the train from Osaka to Kyoto, let alone to actually explore the sights waiting there. Staying at their hotel had been the smart option.

That was hard for Magnus to remember when he was both sick and bored out of his mind. Maybe the fever was frying his brain. He glanced at the thermometer and debated taking his temperature, but it seemed like too much effort for too little pay off. Besides, it was in Celsius, and he didn't want to Google what a fever was in Celsius yet again. If it was too high, he wasn't sure he could make it to the hospital by himself. And if he got to the hospital by some miracle, he wasn't sure how well he'd be able to communicate with the staff.

He cursed all of the higher powers he didn't believe in for giving him a stomach bug while on vacation in Japan. It was the first time Magnus had gotten sick in years. Typically, he prided himself on his strong immune system, but he didn't think he'd ever feel comfortable bragging about it again.

But despite how terrible he felt, the idea of staying in bed any longer made him want to scream. Staring at the ceiling, he debated his options.

It didn't take that long to get to Kyoto from Osaka by train. Surely he could survive the trip. And fresh air would probably do him a good. It had to be better for him than the stuffy hotel air he'd been breathing since he'd first started feeling sick the night before.

Feeling determined, he sat up and tried to ignore his stomach's protests. Getting dressed took longer than normal, and he knew his appearance wasn't up to his usual standards, but he was in Japan. To make himself feel better, he told himself that he'd never see anyone he encountered for a second time

He made his way out the hotel as quickly as he could, only stopping a few times to lean against the nearest object and ride out a particularly strong wave of nausea.

Ragnor and Catarina might kill him once they learned what he'd done, but he'd sat on airplanes for an entire day to get to Japan. He was going to see Kyoto.

According to all of the guidebooks Catarina and Ragnor had actually bothered to read, getting to Kyoto from Osaka was easy, but Magnus, who had read none of the guidebooks, had fucked it up somehow. He just couldn't figure out how. He stood outside the train station where he'd exited after piecing together that he wasn't going in the right direction, but as he stared up at the map, he couldn't figure out where he'd gone wrong.

Inside the haze of his mind, he was having trouble remembering which station he'd actually gotten on at, and even though he could see Kyoto Station clearly labeled in a font larger than that used for the stations that surrounded it, the lines that connected it to the station he was at seemed impossible to decipher. The most frustrating part was that he knew it would have been much easier if he wasn't getting distracted every few seconds by his stomach.

The longer he stood, the weaker he felt, until suddenly he was tipping to the side. Arms caught him, and Magnus panicked as he scrambled away from the person who'd saved him from greater embarrassment. He looked up into the shining eyes of a tall man who appeared around his age. He wasn't Japanese; he was, in fact, very much white. Magnus stared at him dumbly for a second before remembering that there was at least a chance the man spoke English.

"Uh, thanks," he said before mentally berating himself for not coming up with something smoother to say, but the man was undeniably attractive and Magnus was undeniably not capable to thinking on his feet while sick.

The man's head tilted to the side, and Magnus was knew he was trying to decide what country he was from. That had been something strange about being in Japan. No one assumed that Magnus was American. He could understand the confusion, all things considered, but he had to admit to being frustrated when people spoke to Ragnor and Catarina in English, just assuming they spoke it, but didn't do the same with him.

"You're welcome," the man responded in an American accent.

Magnus almost wanted to sag in relief. He felt so lost, and he hadn't been prepared for how comforting it would be to hear someone speak English to him in his weakened state.

"Are you okay?" the man asked, hovering in case Magnus collapsed again.

"I'm fine," Magnus replied in an entirely unconvincing tone. "I'm just a little sick. I need to find my friends."

The man raised one eyebrow and looked between Magnus and the map. Magnus let him agonize over his next course of action for a bit, too exhausted to bother explaining himself further.

"I think you need to go to the hospital," the man said slowly.

"The hospital?" Magnus scoffed. "It's just a stomach bug. I don't need the hospital."

"At the very least, you need to visit a drugstore, but I think you'd be better off having a doctor look at you. You look really bad. Please let me help you."

Magnus was about to scoff at the man's insult to his appearance when his last words finally hit him and made him freeze.

"Wait. You want to take me to the hospital yourself?"

The man scratched at the back of his head and shrugged.

"I'm not sure you could make it there yourself," he admitted. "Taking you there seems like the decent thing to do."

Magnus watched him for a moment. Though moments ago, he had been determined to avoid the doctor, any chance to spend more time with the handsome man seemed like a chance to be taken advantage of. It was also true that he was beginning to doubt his ability to make it to Kyoto without ending up stranded and sick in a random train station. Eventually, he would have to give up, and he'd rather give up with a cute man by his side than alone.

"I can't speak Japanese," he admitted. "It'll be nearly impossible to actually explain what's wrong."

"Lucky for you, I do speak Japanese," the man said, giving him a small grin.

"Huh," Magnus said, observing the man closely. "You're a dedicated tourist."

The man laughed, his cheeks a light pink.

"Not a tourist," he said. "I live here. Now, are we going to the hospital?"

Magnus nodded dumbly as his stomach clenched painfully, following after the man with no complaints.

Magnus clutched his medicine to his chest as they left the hospital together several hours later. He didn't want to look the handsome man who had escorted him in the eye. Alec, as he'd learned his name was on the train ride to the hospital, had been forced to translate all of Magnus' unpleasant symptoms for the doctor, and now the man who looked like he'd been sculpted from marble knew every unpleasant detail of Magnus' illness. The most confident man alive couldn't have come out of the experience unscathed.

"Can you make it back to your hotel?"

Magnus finally chanced looking at Alec, surprised when the other man was watching him without a hint of disgust over everything he'd listened to Magnus describe in detail inside. If Magnus had felt even a tiny bit better, he wouldn't have been capable of resisting his urge to kiss the man in front of him.

"I think so," Magnus replied, though he wasn't sure of it in the slightest.

He'd taken the first dose of his medicine before they'd left the hospital, but it hadn't made him feel miraculously healthy in the span of a few minutes like he'd hoped it would. The look the doctor had given him when she'd heard that he'd tried to go sightseeing in Kyoto by himself had been enough to adequately shame him for his previous delusions. He didn't particularly feel like a repeat because he tried to go back to the hotel alone.

"You're sure?" Alec pushed, and Magnus couldn't find it in himself to say yes when he truly felt like his legs could collapse from underneath him at any moment.

He was likely to, at the very least, vomit at least once on the way back, and he had no desire to navigate that alone.

Plus, there was the added desire of staring at Alec for as long as he was able to, but that was something he was very much keeping to himself.

"I'll go with you," Alec concluded before Magnus could overcome his hesitation and ask for help on his own.

His heart soared as Alec led him to the nearest train station, still as gentle as he'd been since he'd first discovered Magnus.

The medicine set in while they were on the train back to Magnus' hotel. He ignored the frantic text messages from Catarina and the mocking ones from Ragnor that came as they had finally bothered to look at the messages he'd sent while waiting at the hospital. They were hurrying back to Osaka, but Magnus would beat them to the hotel. Messaging them back felt like a waste of energy.

Instead, he ranted to Alec in his somewhat delirious state all about how his friends had abandoned him in such a state. Could Alec believe how terrible they were? And how could Alec be so nice as to help him when his own friends had tossed him aside?

Alec listened to him attentively, a light blush coloring his cheeks.

"I wish I'd met you when I was healthy," Magnus said.

As his fatigue caught up with him, Magnus lowered his head to rest against Alec's shoulder. He would have loved to be in a bed, but he couldn't deny how nice it felt to be up against Alec's side.

"I'm sure you'd rather you'd done this whole trip while you weren't sick," Alec said.

"Yeah," Magnus said, allowing himself to close his eyes. "But I especially wish I was healthy for meeting you. You're one of the hottest guys I've ever seen, but I can't make out with you when I might vomit in your mouth."

Alec stiffened only for a second before relaxing. Magnus felt his shoulder move as he struggled to hold in a laugh.

"I'm flattered," he said quietly. "And if you're ever in Japan and don't have a stomach bug, I'd be happy to experiment with that idea."

Magnus felt a sense of thrill run through him despite the medicine and his queasiness that wasn't being helped by the movements of the train. It was impossible to keep his grin from his lips.

"I may be drugged up right now, but don't think I'll forget that," Magnus said, reaching out blindly to pat Alec's knee.

"Of course you will," Alec said, and Magnus could hear the smile in his voice. "You took anti-nausea medicine. You're not exactly 'drugged up' as you put it."

He was daring enough to let himself snuggle closer to Alec's side, and he let out an internal cheer when Alec readjusted to wrap an arm around his shoulder.

Perhaps things would have been easier if he weren't sick, but he was doing a hell of a job even while sick. He had a feeling he'd be bragging about Alec for the rest of his life.

Alec helped Magnus navigate the convenience store and buy food, drinks, and other comforts before he dropped him off at his hotel, and Magnus felt warm as he settled into the hotel bed that he didn't know what to do with himself.

He'd leave Japan in two days, likely still feeling sick, but he'd do it having slept on a cute boy's shoulder and with said cute boy's phone number programmed into his phone. Missing out on Kyoto didn't feel as terrible as it had earlier that day. In fact, he was beginning to change his tune on his illness being a curse instead of a blessing.

Though his gratefulness for the nausea lasted only until the anti-nausea medicine wore off again.

One Year Later

"This is it?"

Magnus stared ahead of him as if the crowd would part and he'd suddenly see the magnificent view of Kyoto he'd imagined. But the crowd never parted. The sea of people just moved and weaved around him without any gaps in sight.

"I told you it'd be crowded," Alec said, coming up behind Magnus and wrapping his arms around his waist.

The touch was at least as much to keep the crowd from separating them as it was a show of affection, but warmth blossomed in Magnus' chest nonetheless. The constant stream of messages and video chats over the last year couldn't compare to having Alexander in front of him again. The other boy's attractiveness hadn't been something he'd imagined in a delirium induced by illness. It was very much real.

"It's still beautiful," Alec said, placing his chin on Magnus' shoulder as they looked at the temple they could hardly see through the people surrounding them. "I know the crowds aren't ideal, but you can at least get a sense of why there's so many people here to begin with. It's gorgeous."

"It is," Magnus said, swallowing as he tried not to let Alec's proximity affect him too much.

He wasn't lying. The temple was breathtakingly beautiful, but so was the boy Magnus was with, and said boy was being very distracting.

"Are you happy to finally see it?" Alec asked.

"Yes," Magnus said with a grin. "I've only been thinking about this trip nonstop for the past year."

He turned in Alec's arms to smile up at him.

"But then again, how could I not be excited to see you again? We only have a little bit of time together, so we should make the most of it."

Alec blushed, and Magnus couldn't contain his smirk was he wrapped his arms around Alec's waist.

"Actually," Alec began, clearing his throat, "I wanted to talk to you about that. How much time we have that is."

Magnus' brow furrowed, and Alec, sensing his unease, hurried to continue.

"My contract at work is up in two months, and I decided not to renew it."

"Oh," Magnus said, eyes widening. "You're coming back to America? To New York?"

"Yes?" Alec said, voice tilting up as if it was a question.

But of course he was going back to New York. It was where his family and most of his friends who weren't in Japan were. It was also where Magnus was, and Alec living in the same city was one he hadn't dared hope for.

Actually, scratch that, he'd hoped for it daily since he'd learned that Alec was also from the city he called home, but considering Alec's current job and how much he loved living in Japan…

"You look like you're thinking really hard about something," Alec said, voice shaking.

"It's just that—" Magnus cut himself off, reconsidering his words. "I don't want you moving back to New York because you think that's the only way things can work out between us. You're happy in Japan, and I don't want to take that away from you."

Alec's smile was gentle as he cupped Magnus' cheek.

"I am happy in Japan. Part of my heart will always be here, but after giving it a lot of thought the past year, I think New York is where I need to be again."

Magnus couldn't stop his smile from taking over his face.

"Really?"

"Really," Alec confirmed, leaning down to capture Magnus' lips with his.