A/N: Okay, firstly I need to apologise to those of you who are waiting on the next chapter of my Ib fic, I promise I'll get around to it eventually! But this came into my head and, with TMI being my most recent obsession, I felt I had to upload it. It's depressing, yes, but I hope you'll like it.
Cold.
People always say that death is cold. If that's true, does that mean I'm dead? It doesn't feel like it. After all, I can still hear. Still see. Even if all I do is stare at the sterile, white ceiling. Everything in here is sterile. The smell of chemicals and illness hangs in the air like a haze. I can almost taste the bleach. The cotton sheets are rough under my unmoving fingers, although I am almost numb to the texture. Every part of me - my hands, my feet, my heart - is cold. I have been cold for some time, but now that cold is sapping the strength from my limbs as if it is trying to trying to convert it into warmth and failing. I know I am injured. I know it's a deep wound. And yet the numb cold steals the heat of pain. I wish I could feel it again, the heat. Like fire straight through me. I remember it well, though the feeling escapes me.
I had been sent to kill a pack of hellhounds set loose in downtown Brooklyn. It seemed easy enough, as hellhounds are not the brightest of demons. I had grown reckless in my absence of emotion, and Jace and Izzy had specifically told me to be on defence. My speciality. I managed to do as I was told until there was only one left. Jace was occupied: apparently dying hellhounds make for interesting target practice for him, and Izzy and I were taking on the last one, me distracting its attention away from Izzy's whirling blade as she tried to land a fatal blow. I was ducking and dodging its massive jaws as Izzy went in for the kill. As she struck it, it whirled on her, but before it could attack, I had pulled the dagger from my belt and had sunk it into the creature's hindquarters. It let out a pained howl, black ichor spewing from the wound. I drove my blade in deeper, focusing on keeping it from attacking Izzy, when I heard Jace shout my name. Startled, I looked round, only to feel a sudden flame in my abdomen. Izzy screamed, but I barely registered the sound. Looking down in disbelief, I saw a bizarre protrusion from the front of my battle gear; a thick, bone-coloured spike, dripping gore. Unbeknownst to me, the demon's spiked tail had swung at me, hitting me in the back as I stabbed it. I stared at the thing, wondering at the tongues of flame that licked my insides with sharp pain, the only thing I had truly felt in days. Jace quickly beheaded the beast, and, as it folded in on itself, I collapsed, like it was the only thing holding me up. The flames slowly dissipated, and, as Izzy knelt beside me, eyes full of worry, my strength went with them, and I blacked out.
I can feel my sister's touch on my palm now. She clasps my still, frigid hand in her own, and although my eyes remain on the dirty-white ceiling, I hear her.
"Alec... Angel, Alec, I don't know if you can hear me, but please... Come back to us," she sounds close to tears, "Please Alec, I've already lost one brother. Don't make me lose you too." Her vicelike grip on my hand sends a dull pain down my arm, and her touch burns. Yes, she'd already lost one brother. Little Max, in his overlarge glasses, not even ten. The wide-eyed, inquisitive boy who'd always looked up to Jace rather than me. Sometimes it hurt when he went to Jace with scraped knees or broken toys rather than his real brother, but I loved him. And I miss him. All the times I'd carried him to bed after he'd fallen asleep on the sofa, all the times he'd watched, open-mouthed, as I trained with my bow, they all seem so distant, like a dream. I hope the angels are looking after him. Maybe I'll see him again one day. If I make it to the same place as him.
I doubt it.
Now I see a flash of gold against the monotonous pale grey of the ceiling - Jace. He waves a hand in front of my face.
"No change?"
"Nothing."
"Damn it." He curses. "It's been three days. Maybe we should call Bane." Part of me wanted to laugh out loud at this. He wouldn't help me. He hates me. His name suits him. He truly is the bane of my existence. Magnus Bane. The man I had risked everything for. The reason I'm going to hell. Because of him, I'm an outcast among my own people. A freak. The faggot who dated - Angel forbid - a downworlder. A stupid, sparkly warlock. I can still remember the looks of horror on their faces on that night in the Accords hall when I'd taken him into my arms and kissed him in front of the whole Clave. In that moment, I hadn't cared about what they'd thought. All that mattered was Magnus. His touch had burned too, in a different way to Izzy's. Where hers was on the surface, his touch had burned under my skin, and I had loved it. I had loved him.
Since then, I haven't really had a civil conversation with my parents. Especially my dad. My dad, the Inquisitor. Apparently my sheer existence jeopardises his position. I'm a disappointment. They keep asking whether or not I'm over my 'phase'. They don't want to believe they have a gay son. They don't want me, but they're stuck with me. But hey, at least they're free of the warlock. I made sure of that. I betrayed his trust, and now he hates me.
I miss him.
The absence of him hurts. Not hot, burning pain, but a slow, draining ache in my heart. Just thinking about him intensifies the pain. I can see his face in my unconscious mind, a bright mix of colour and light against the monochrome, steel-grey ceiling. Bright yellow cat's eyes pierce my own, and a familiar blue fire sparks from long, thin fingers. My memory blurs and darkens the image, but those colours remain vivid. If I concentrate, I can hear his voice too, his sultry, velvet tones wash over my ears. It doesn't matter that I can't understand what he says, just that I can hear his voice. But I can't hold on to the image forever, and eventually it is drowned by the charcoal ceiling once more. Even as it vanishes, I can feel his touch, its burn, once more, ghostly and distant on my wrist, and his voice rises in volume.
"Alec! Stay with me! Come back, please!" I smile internally. Dream-Magnus would always want me, no matter what. I don't like that he sounds distressed though. I'm here, Magnus. I'm always here. Always yours. His tones send a note of sadness through me. All of a sudden, the beats of my sore heart are contrived, painful. I feel them heavy and laboured, and I can feel the heat of Magnus' hand on my bare chest. I want it to stop. It hurts.
And then it does stop, halted by a single, basic sensation. The familiar feeling of his lips on mine, pressing down roughly. My memory preserved that feeling perfectly. As he kisses me, I feel a flutter in my chest. He still elicits these reactions from me. But almost as soon as I feel it, it's gone again, and so is his mouth. I want to cry out, to tell him to come back, but it's no use. You can't talk to your imagination. The pain in my heart returns, thick, forced beats in my cold chest. One, two, three, four. And then he comes back, and I relish the feeling of his mouth against mine once more, and again the flutter, as if of a summer breeze, in my chest. It becomes a routine. Four beats. A kiss. Another four. Another kiss. I don't understand.
Eventually it stops, and the last sensations rush from my body as I succumb to numbness again. I barely feel it when the dead-black ceiling falls on me, erasing the last dregs of my conscious thought. But before my illusion disappears entirely, I hear that beautiful voice once more, although it sounds broken and muffled.
Ave atque vale, Alexander.
Hail and farewell.