: : : Chapter One : : :
: : : Flash Flood : : :
"I just don't understand why bad things happen to good people, Catarina."
Magnus enters his apartment like a hurricane slamming into an unsuspecting coastline: powerfully, loudly, and with awful, monumental rage. He strips items as he goes, dropping coat and shoes and car keys carelessly to the floor, until he's left in his tailored jeans and artfully color-splattered tee, cell jammed against his ear. Everything else he can collect later, when he feels up to functioning again.
From the other end of the line, Catarina makes a sound that is mysteriously similar to a snort. Magnus graciously allows that it could have just been because of a bad connection, or Catarina adjusting her phone. "Are you sure we're still talking about you, Magnus?"
"I'm a lovely person!" Magnus exclaims indignantly, quite the feat considering he's still awkwardly cradling the phone between his shoulder and the side of his tilted face. He fishes a tub of ice cream out of his freezer and slams it onto his kitchen counter like he's making a statement. "I still talk to you, don't I? Only someone truly kind-of-heart would continue to interact with a woman so determined to heap abuse on one of her oldest, dearest friends."
"Oddly enough, I was under the impression that I was the nice one for tolerating years of harassment." Adjusting his hold on his phone with one hand and using the other to gather a spoon as well as his ice cream, Magnus marches into his living room fully stocked for a night of moping. He drops to the couch with a deep, self-pitying sigh.
Catarina asks, "Seriously though, are you okay? I didn't think that the two of you have been going out for that long."
"Had been," Magnus corrects automatically, wrenching open the tub of ice cream with perhaps a little more force than strictly required. "And you're right, we hadn't- we started dating two months ago. But does the amount of time we were together really matter? Things were going so well!"
"Oh, Magnus…"
"I thought what we had was special."
A beat of silence passes. "…Really?" Her phone makes another noise as she moves it, perhaps the drag of her hair across the speaker. "For a moment, you almost had me."
"Just because it's a cliché phrase doesn't make it any less true," Magnus objects. He stabs his spoon into the ice cream with gusto, and takes a very generous bite. The taste of chocolate and cherries melts across his tongue, and he takes a moment to focus on its decadence instead of his single status. If nothing else, Magnus will always have ice cream.
Around his mouthful, he adds, "We spent almost every day together. We went shopping together. We assessed each other's wardrobes and offered helpful, only mildly scathing critique. We even did each other's makeup before our last date. I trusted her with my face, Catarina. It may have only been two months, but things were getting serious. Or at least, I thought things were."
"You can't possibly mean that."
"Of course I can!" Magnus says. He takes another bite of ice cream before he responds, feeling like he's on the losing side of a battle with a brick wall. "I'm more serious than 4 am on Black Friday."
"Magnus, you barely knew her, and frankly, it sounds more like she was a friend than a girlfriend."
"I may not have known her that well, but I could have. Now I never will." Magnus twirls his spoon despondently, watching stray drops of cherry drip back into the tub. Izzy would have flipped if she saw it. "It was the most promising relationship I've had in a long time, and…I'm going to miss her."
"Do you want me to come over?" Catarina asks. Her voice carries a definite note of concerned sympathy now. Apparently, she'd finally decided that Magnus's morose attitude isn't false. It's about time she realizes the gravity of the situation. "We can watch Teen Wolf and do each other's nails."
In spite of the melancholic mood that's overtaken him, Magnus smiles. He knows for a fact that Catarina hates Teen Wolf, and she's definitely not the type to ogle attractive men for the hell of it. Mentally, he amends that maybe he has more than just the tub of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia going for him right now.
"That's alright, darling. It's late, and I'd hate for you to risk public transport by yourself at this time of night over a bit of melodrama. I'll be fine. "
"Are you sure? I can have Ragnor bring me over. He wouldn't mind."
Ragnor most definitely would. The thought of his crabby ass getting pulled out of his house for an Emergency Girl's Night is almost enough to have Magnus agreeing. He sort of just wants to be alone right now, though, no matter how much he loves forcing Ragnor to interact with other human beings.
"I'm positive," Magnus says. "Your loving voice is more than enough to sooth my fractured heart and tattered soul."
Even miles away and through a phone, Magnus can tell she's just rolled her eyes heavenward. "So, you said you thought things were going well, right?"
"Yes." Abruptly, Magnus is very grateful he hadn't put the ice cream away, even if it is starting to go soupy. Obviously, he'd better get on that. "Is there a reason you're verbally raking sandpaper over my very fresh, very raw wounds?"
"Did Isabelle say why she was breaking up with you?" Catarina asks, completely ignoring him, as usual. The woman has all the blunt force and relentlessness of a wrecking ball. "If you knew, it could at least give you some closure. Talking about things helps, you know."
"She did." The skin of Magnus's fingers tug at the metal of his spoon, sticky and tight with chocolate-cherry residue. "Apparently, we're too alike."
"What? Really?"
"Yes, really." The tip of his spoon scraps against the bottom of the ice cream carton, and he shoves it aside in annoyance. Why does a pint have to be so small? It's not nearly enough to soothe the fathomless depth of his heartache. "According to Isabelle, we were too compatible, and it would be weird to keep dating. Because getting along with your boyfriend is such a travesty."
"Shit, I'm sorry, Magnus." She sounds guilty, which Magnus guesses stems from her making similar observations earlier.
"Don't worry your pretty little head, dearest," he says dismissively. The thought of Catarina being upset with herself, especially over something said between the two of them, nearly leaves him ill. Out of the peerless trio that is Magnus Bane, Ragnor Fell and Catarina Loss, only Magnus is allowed to be emotionally compromised. She and Ragnor are supposed to be the steady, immovable rocks to his unpredictable stream. It could also be the pint of ice cream he downed so hideously fast. Either way, he doesn't feel good. "You didn't know. Besides, I appreciate your blunt honesty. One of us has to tell it like it is, and it certainly can't be me."
Catarina laughs. "Of course. You're lazy ass can hardly be bothered to face reality on the regular and Ragnor's too much of a pessimist."
"Exactly! You're so good to us."
"Speaking of, do you want me to rough her up a bit for you or something? What's a better use for a female friend than bypassing the 'guys can't hit girls' rule?"
"I'm touched that you'd be willing to defend my honor, but that's not necessary. Besides," he adds, smiling fondly in recollection, "Isabelle could wipe the floor with you. I'm probably a foot taller than her and she could take me down." Though, in his own defense, he'd been all too willing.
"Is that supposed to be an accomplishment? You're as skinny as a beanpole. I'm pretty sure I know middle schoolers who could take you out as long as they had a ladder to reach you."
"Again with the insults? I'm emotionally compromised right now, Catarina- a delicate rose wilting away from ill-treatment. You can't handle me like a ruffian with gardening sheers. Your touch needs to be—"
Before Magnus can tell her just how she needs to improve her touch, there comes a sudden knock on the door. Considering people need to be buzzed into the building, it's startling and more than a little strange, though not entirely unprecedented. A few of the other residents have been known to get drunk and mistake his apartment for theirs.
"What's up?" Catarina asks, curiosity probably piqued by Magnus's abrupt silence. He's not the sort to stop before he's said his piece.
"Someone's knocking on my door," Magnus says through a groan. He smacks a fist against one of his plush throw pillows half-heartedly, unwilling to get up but knowing he can't rest until he does. "I don't want to move, though."
"Don't then," Catarina suggests, voice the auditory equivalent of a careless shrug. "If you ignore them, they'll probably take the hint and leave."
As if to prove her wrong, the knocking ramps up into full-blown banging, forceful enough that Magnus can hear the door rattling in its frame. At this rate, one of his neighbors is going to complain to the landlord. The last thing Magnus wants or needs right now is to deal with a pissy landlord, especially one who curses the ground Magnus walks on. Jealousy can be so tragic.
"Shit, I'm gonna have to answer it." Getting up with all the willingness of a man headed for the gallows, Magnus restrains himself from kicking one of his end tables on the way to the door. It's newly refurbished, he reminds himself, completely by his own hand.
"Why? It's not like they're going to break in."
The next thud is so loud that Magnus is fairly certain the door was kicked. If he wasn't so opposed to bloodshed –too messy, too likely to disfigure people (read: himself), too exhausting— Magnus would probably open the door and punch the person in the face. Jesus, he repainted that door less than two weeks ago.
"Well, they certainly sound like they're trying," Magnus snaps. He probably shouldn't, because Catarina doesn't deserve his anger, but he's been through a bad enough night without having to deal with some drunk asshole too smashed to recognize a seven from a one. He'll apologize to her later, maybe take her out when he's feeling up to facing the world again.
"Then you definitely shouldn't answer the door!" Catarina curses, which is followed by a vague crash in the background, like something was dropped.
"Don't worry mommy. I'm a big boy now. Besides, I have long-since perfected the art of handling drunks." Magnus peers through the eyehole and frowns.
The man on the other side of the door looks like some punk in his late teens, wearing more black than the average mourner at a wake. Normally he wouldn't associate himself with someone who wears the wardrobe equivalent of a sign reading "I'M A DRAG", but his straight black hair and pale skin strike a chord of familiarity. The man is scowling at the door like it looks familiar too, the sort of familiar that involves running into someone that once questioned his mother's virtue.
"Magnus? You still there?"
"Oh, yes, sorry dear. I was just distracted by my house-breaker's hair. It is awfully unkempt, I'll have you know. It must be from all the pantyhose he pulls over it."
"Shut up, you ass! I'm concerned!"
"Well, you don't need to be. I can handle myself," Magnus assures her. Another knock rocks the door again, the chain shaking in its bolt. "You should be more concerned for the kid outside. If he scuffs my door, Lord knows what I'll do to him."
"What kid? I thought you said it was a drunk or something?"
"I said I thought it was," Magnus corrects, unlatching the door's bolt. "Excuse me for a moment. I have to tell this brat to beat it before I decide to use his blood to repaint the door he's ruining."
"Wait, Magnus! You don't even know who he is, and he seems angry. Be reasonable. Wait for him to leave, or…call the pol—"
As with most of Catarina's advice, Magnus ignores whatever she's suggesting in favor of doing what he feels is best. In this case, he yanks to door open with a fierce scowl. "I don't know who you are, but if you think you can barge into this complex and start harassing me, you've got another thing coming!"
The kid clenches his fists, lips twisted into an ugly sneer. Which, really, is a shame—he looks like he'd have a nice face if he'd wear a more pleasant expression. "I'm here for my sister, you dick."
Magnus raises a brow. "What are you-?"
For a split-second, Magnus sees a flash of the man's blue eyes, as bright and beautiful as the sky right before the storm clouds roll in. Then he sees one of those clenched fists fly straight for his face.
The punch is a good one. Or, Magnus dazedly assumes it is. Surprisingly, he has never actually been punched before, no matter how often Ragnor, Catarina and dozens of other friends and acquaintances have threatened to. Pain and how to rate it, though: that, he is familiar with. It definitely hurts, blazing a shock of pain across his jaw that throbs its way up his cheek. It's the sort of pain that will mean bruising and swelling and cover-up for at least a week.
Instinctively, he stumbles back—one blow is always, always followed by another— and finds himself tripping over the pile of things he'd ditched in favor of wallowing and ice cream. One moment he's still on solid ground, flailing ineffectually to try to catch himself on something, and the next he's falling, gravity's newest bitch.
He has one moment to remember that there is a table behind him before his head connects with it. It's the newly refurbished one that goes perfectly with his new couch. He doubts he'll be able to get bloodstains out of the distressed grain of the wood. What a shame. All that effort wasted.
Then a bright burst of searing pain erupts behind his eyes, white-hot and blazing like a supernova in the darkness behind his lids. There are countless starts there, floating around in empty space.
"Oh fuck, a…kay?"
Distantly, Magnus registers a voice calling out to him as though from a great distance, followed by the weight of hands on his shoulders.
"I…so…king sor…"
They move to lift him and the stars scream in shrill, cosmic voices. He's pretty sure he vomits, and hopes that it's on the jackass's shoes. The guy keeps lifting though, and this time he swoons, his consciousness flung back past the stars dancing around him and into the blackness beyond their light.
: : : Weather Advisory : : :
: : : Storm Warning Now In Effect : : :
A/N- This fic has a bunch of elements from ideas I've wanted to use in a story plot for several fandoms running, so I'm extremely excited to actually write it. The fact that I get to try my hand at a Magnus-centric POV is icing on the cake. Tell me what you think!