A/N: 3x18 was PAINFUL. And I dread what 3x19 will bring, now that Magnus has NOTHING left. (whimpers) My mind danced around for DAYS before finally settling down enough to produce this.
DISCLAIMER: Please…! If I owned ANYTHING, we'd already have the happy ending Malec and we deserve on hand. (POUTS)
WARNINGS: DESCRIPTION OF DEEP DEPRESSION, other than that… Nada. Such a short list!
Awkay… Are you ready? Whether you are or not… Let's go! I REALLY hope that you'll enjoy the ride.
Lost
/ "You continue to surprise me." /
Alec surprises Magnus yet again, this time in the most terrible way imaginable. And he berates himself over being caught off guard in such a way. No one's ever stayed with him before. Why should the young Shadowhunter have been any different?
Magnus has repelled great many lovers and people he genuinely loved in the past. Because he's always too much, or too little. Yet he hoped, foolishly, that perhaps Alec might be different. Maybe, if he'd try hard enough, he might be able to stop the archer from leaving him, too. But history repeats itself painfully. He's failed again. During the dinner he destroyed the jagged edges of his new, broken self cut Alec harshly enough to make him give up.
Waking up to an empty bed, with no message of love and forgiveness waiting for him, was the first warning. (The dread, disappointment, shame, remorse and abandonment served to intensify the cold that'd been Magnus's constant companion since his magic was torn away. He almost couldn't make himself leave the bed.)
The tension between them when he walked into Alec's office was the second warning. (Magnus wondered briefly which ones of the words he'd heard so many times before Alec would use to end things. He was ridiculously relieved when Jace and Clary showed up so he didn't have to find out yet.)
The third warning was Alec lying (poorly) at his face about a Clave meeting. (Seeing Alec so uncertain of himself, of them, and dishonest… It hurt, because both things echoed the poison darkening Magnus's mind. He was ruining Alec, and it was the one thing he always swore to himself he'd never do.)
Magnus has been through far more than enough nasty breakups to recognize the beginning of one. He doesn't blame Alec. Who could want a pathetic shell of a man who can't even handle a dinner without drinking himself to a state where he poisons everything and everyone around him? But love is selfish. And he can't lose Alec, especially not when he's already lost everything else.
So he goes to help Maryse, like Alec asks him to. (I can still be useful.)
He decides firmly to stop drinking. (I can do better.)
And he's an idiot enough to believe that if he works hard enough, proves himself, he can change Alec's mind.
'I'm trying, just give me a little more time, please don't give up on me', he wants to beg but doesn't.
It turns out that Alec is sick and tired of waiting for him to adjust and recover. Of watching him drowning into the pitch-black darkness slowly yet steadily consuming his mind. The archer calls it a break but Magnus understands what it really means.
Magnus knows that he should let Alec go. Set him free to find someone actually worthy of the archer's love. Instead he begs the man he loves so much that it hurts to stay.
Yet no matter how much he pleads Alec goes, as anyone with self-preservation instincts would've, and Magnus hates that it surprises him.
When he first lost his magic Alec swore to be there for him, no matter what. When he regained magic, agonizingly briefly, Alec wanted them to build a home together. When Lorenzo's magic was killing him Alec pleaded with him until he chose to live. Just the night before Alec loved him, asked desperately for him to let the Shadowhunter be there for him.
But Magnus slipped up, lost control and destroyed it all by revealing how shattered he was. He lashed out. And pushed Alec so far away that this time they won't be able to find their way back to each other.
This final, most bitter loss is killing him, slowly and painfully, and he has no one but himself to blame for causing it.
Magnus stands in the middle of Maryse's store. With absolutely nothing left. With nowhere to go. And wonders what in the world he's supposed to do now that he's lost everything.
Moving slowly and robotically, he finishes his work. It's his last favor for the Lightwood family. By the time he's done he's so exhausted and pained that all he wants to do is to slump to the floor and never get up. Instead he slips something he no longer deserves to an envelope and writes two short notes. One of them is for Maryse.
'Thank you, for yesterday. It would've been an honor to truly become a part of your family. I wish you all the best. Can you do me a favor and give Alec that envelope?'
Daylight is about to break by the time Magnus walks out of the store. It's so early that the street is practically empty and he freezes, pained, breathless and somehow weary beyond his years. He stands there, feeling more lost than ever in his life. The longing for Alec is so great that he would likely start screaming if he would've had enough strength and breath for that. Any place he can think of to go reminds him too much of the Shadowhunter he lost.
Pain, tearing him to shreds from the inside, is all he has, now.
Breaking up with Magnus when the older man would've needed him more than ever before… With Magnus kissing him and begging him to stay … It was the hardest thing Alec has ever done. But he forced himself to go through with it, telling himself that his now ex-boyfriend would be alright and happy soon, move on. For Magnus Alec was more than willing to tear himself to pieces.
He's in more pain than ever in his life. But he has the bond between Clary and Jonathan, as well as a dramatic security breach, to offer a distraction. To keep him from feeling and thinking too much. Somewhere along the way he's almost able to forget about Magnus and how broken the man sounded during their breakup.
/ "I can't lose you, too." / Those words torment him beyond everything else. No matter how firmly he tells himself that Magnus will recover.
All attempts at focusing on other things fall apart when his mom comes to visit him with an envelope that contains the omamori charm and a note.
'Aku cinta kamu. Not that that changes anything, but I need you to know that. And I'm so sorry that I ruined everything. Because you're the best thing that ever happened to me.'
Alec imagines that it couldn't possibly get worse. That it couldn't hurt more. Until he receives a message from Catarina.
'I can't get a hold of Magnus, and I'm getting a little worried. Do you know where he is?'
A/N: Oh man… Poor Magnus! Alec, too, of course, but… Oh man…! What has Magnus done?!
Soooo… Thoughts? Comments? PLEASE, do let me hear from you! Comments ALWAYS make my day.
THANK YOU, so much, for reading! You never know. Maybe I'll see you again one day?
Take care!