I never asked to be a monster. I never asked to be rejected by my mother, isolated from my sister, or separated by death from my father, the only one who accepted me. I never asked to have any blood flow through my veins except for that of the honourable Morgensterns, but I suppose that we don't always get what we ask for in this or any world. As a demon slayer who is part demon, it's no wonder that my supposed kind hates me- I am not only like them but also the very thing that they are to kill. I am the very thing that I am to kill, but that is not what destiny has in store for me. No, I will be great. I will take everything that is rightfully mine. I will force my sister Clarissa to love me, because I hold her in the palm of my hand as mine and mine alone to love. I will raise hell because God knows I cannot raise heaven. And as I rule over this beautifully carved shadow that is the demon realm it will be my sister who takes the throne next to me. That is one thing that I have always known, one thing that I have always wanted.
I look up at her now, sitting in the bone throne that I pictured her in so many times before this very moment. She is beautiful. My sister, my queen. Her lovely red hair shimmers in the dim light that illuminates what otherwise is a room swallowed by darkness. Her green eyes remind me of all that I could be if I were not born into a life of sin and cold, simmering hatred. My eyes are pitch black, but I wonder what colour they would be if they had any hue. I wonder if they would have the same glimmer as my queen's. It doesn't matter now, though. I have everything that I want. I have Clarissa. I have this world.
I will my sister to say something, to do something. She is my possession. She is mine alone to love. She will listen to my internal pleas because that is her place in this realm, in any realm. I am her brother and I have taught her to love me. She leans into me. As she slowly presses her lips to mine, she tastes of strawberries but also of strengths, of sugar but also of the pain that she has endured to bring her to this moment. The pain that she has endured to become my queen. The pain that she has endured to gain the satisfaction of driving her dagger into my back, burning me out from the inside. I never asked to be a monster, but now I was paying the price for exactly that. The last thing I remember seeing was the black that surrounded me as I fell to the ground.
It was as if I had been asleep, just risen from a bad dream. Here I am lying on the ground of the shithole that he created, the dystopia that he had once believed to be a paradise. He is someone entirely different from who I am now, the newborn man sprawled across bone and dirt. I would never do something like this. I would never hurt anyone like this. Let alone my sister… let alone Clary. I guess that's why it hurts me so much inside when she leans over me with a look of curiosity and queer fascination on her face, as if studying an animal, and breathes the name of the one person I hate the most.
"Sebastian…"
"No, I'm not him. I'm- Jonathan," I choke out, trying not to let Clary see how pathetic a death I am about to die. "I'm Jonathan." I want her to see me for who I am just once, just this one time, before I die.
"Go to Sebastian!" I hear an Endarkened Shadowhunter scream, and suddenly I am aware of the chaos that is around me. I look around myself, trying to decide what to do as I lay here breathing my dying breaths and watching these monsters that I have created race towards Clary screaming to kill her. I order them to retreat, and they look shocked. Confused, but obedient. They stop attacking her. And suddenly…
"Mother?" Jocelyn, the woman that he hated more than anyone, is standing in front of me. She knealt before me and I choked out the only words that I could utter. "I know that there is nothing I could say or do now that would allow me to die with even a shred of grace, and I would hardly blame you if you cut my throat. But I am… I regret. I'm… sorry." I ramble on for a few minutes, trying to give my mother all of the information that I can in my dying moments. I am not a real person- I am only the shadow of someone that could have existed, so I should not be mourned for. As soon as I die, the Endarkened will rush at her and Clary as well as their friends, and there is nothing I can do to prevent that. I have regret, so much regret… and so much pain that I will carry with me to wherever it is that fallen angels go after they die. I do them one last favor while I still can- destroy the army that he who I am a shadow of had created. I tell them that there is no way to get out of this realm. Sebastian never did anything but lie, but I will tell the truth, even if it is an ugly truth.
I talk for a few minutes about the beautiful dreams I had, the ones where I am almost human. The dreams where I have a family and a life and know how to love and people know how to love me. Dreams where I am the man I asked to be, not the demon blood that ruined me even before I was born. All I can think of the whole time is how light I felt, with the pressure of the pain and the sorrow and the force of evil that acted as a paperweight on my soul the whole time. I've never felt so light… maybe I said it out loud. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Because as soon as I closed my eyes, I felt my mouth go up into a smile, the only time I ever would do that as myself.