Utterly Unrepairable

Broken down. A piece of junk. Waste of space. Unwanted.

That's really all he ever was.

Magnus Bane was eight hundred years old. All he had ever known was heartbreak. Maybe most wouldn't ever think that he was capable of feeling anything except absurd joy, but they were wrong. There was much more to Magnus than just magnificent.

Magnificent, he was, with dealing with pain.

He'd been born. His Mother had grieved. His Father had looked at him with hate in his eyes.

He'd grown up. His Mother lost it. Dead, she hung. His Father lost it. Dead, he burned.

Magnus lost it.

It was the first chip of many that was wearing away at his immortal self.

Magnus fell in love. He didn't know how. He'd known hate all his life, and compassion had suddenly clutched at him. He was confused, but he was in love. But, he didn't know. Love is futile when you're immortal.

Compassion was gone, cold with the kiss of Death. It had fled from the touch of his hand, and he was left with ice.

Another crack made Magnus its home. It was connected to the earlier chips, and it was stretching out, waiting to capture. Waiting to break.

Magnus didn't care. He found feeling was dejectable. There was nothing but pain to come from feeling. Only better was it to close your eyes and watch the world pass by.

He fell in love again.

How could he? But she was a vampire. She would live forever. There would be no Death to come for her.

But soon, he found it was nearly Death for himself.

Torment of another lost relationship, one that he had broken off. He built his walls carefully, and said that he would never love again. Not with his heart.

The crack splintered and stretched, and a little piece of Magnus fell away. Throughout it all, he was crumbling. It was useless. He was useless. It all was.

Flambouyant self, let's wreak havoc. Live for the moment that you hope will come, although it never really will. Magnus, with his chipped, broken self, had learned not to wait for that moment.

But, come, did that moment.

It came in the form of black hair and blue eyes; it came in the form of a Shadowhunter. His name was Alexander Lightwood, and he was everything unlike the previous ones Magnus had known. He was cute, he was shy, and he asked him on a date. No one, so point blank blunt, someone being so gay and confused, had ever asked Magnus out on a date. Magnus said yes. Magnus should have been wary.

But there was no pain. It was effortless, like breathing. And the warlock found his heart open to the Shadowhunter. Immortality issues, he couldn't think about them. He couldn't think ahead to the future. He was living in the moment, the one he had waited so long for it to come.

"Alexander. Why do you love me?"

"Why is the sky blue?"

"I'm serious. I'm broken. I've been ripped apart, torn up, smashed and trampled upon. Parts of me have fallen away and sometimes I wonder who I am and who I was. I've lost essential parts, I don't function correctly... Obviously. And I'm sure you know, Nephilim, more than anyone else, that broken weapons are useless."

"Broken weapons... Everything can be put back together with the correct care. Everything can be mended, morphed, or shaped into what it used to be, or into a whole new shape that serves a new purpose. Maybe the broken parts are used for other weapons. But no weapon is useless, Magnus, and you will never be either."

Mended... morphed... shaped... It was all very strange, but Magnus felt himself drawn towards those ideas. Parts of his past he'd longed to forget, could they really be erased so simply? No, not erased... just mended, as Alec had said. Could it really be true that everything broken, everything that was so utterly unrepairable, could be fixed?

Despite himself, Magnus knew without a doubt, that no one else on the earth would be able to mend him.

Except Alec.

This was my entry for the September prompt of the Monthly Contest in The Towers of Alicante. The prompt was "Broken weapons are useless, every Shadowhunter knows that."

Thanks for reading. Reviews are always nice, too.