10/10/2017- 3, 942

Chapter 9

Stirring the Beast

I love you...

I love you?.. My mouth had committed suicide, and I was going to pay the price.

"I love you," I said again. It was effortless to say, and maybe that is why I knew that it was the wrong thing to do.

What was I thinking? This is the Jon that used to mentally scalp me if I hugged him too long, and revealing my feelings was a level I never dared think of entering into. Well here I was, I said it, I was an idiot but I was pretty proud of cementing on my poker face, and keeping the turmoil of my thoughts at bay. I had to stand up for this, because with a person like Jon he thrived off those that wavered in their beliefs.

His lips were cherry red, his nose chaffed from our love session, "What did you say to me?"

He never looked better, but the old Jon was coming back, this one more reasonable, less lovable.

I had no idea what I looked like, loved up and eager, "I love you Jo-"

"I know what you said, be silent," he pulled on his platinum hair, rolling over, and away from me.

I felt empty, he made me empty, "Then why did you do this? Why were you-"

"I can't believe this," he sighed out, covering his eyes, "I told you to be still."

He was deadly silent, and his gaze looked glassy. The happiness trickled out of me, and ebbed to a silent glow. My lips felt raw, but so did my heart. I wanted him to say it back, but I knew I would be pushing him. I dared not speak. He lifted his hand up and I winced taking a few steps back.

It was clearly the wrong move, because he was only correcting his shirt, but the damage was done. I had recoiled from him. Fire blazed in his dark eyes, and I was fearful for what came next. For a moment I thought he was going to strike me. No one had struck me unless it was for practice, or an attack from battling against demons. Enemies struck you down, and Jon was not my enemy. I was in love with him, but I was afraid of him. Was that love?

He gripped his black jeans, "Take it back."

"I won't," I wrapped my hands under my chest, my words were true, "I meant it."

"How could you say something so ridiculous?"

Now it was clear, he coudn't take the truth, "My love for you is not ridiculous, it is right," it is true, it is strong, it is us. Now I was making it sound like a Broadway musical. I had thought about this for a while, and there was no backing down now that it was out of the closet.

He chuckled with no amusement, "You are ridiculous for believing so. What do you think you are doing? You say 'you love me' and I follow you back home, and we live happily ever after? Is that what you want because if it is then let me just cut that loose and say I will never feel anything more than lust when it comes to you."

I shook my head angrily, "That is a lie!"

"I mean every word I say," He repeated, "Do not delude yourself with a few kisses. What do you think that was a few moments ago." What the hell? He needed to stop that, "Don't confuse lust for love."

My arms went skyward, "Don't do this Jon! After everything we have been through, how can you feel nothing?"

"I can't," his jaw was set in a stern grimace, "It is impossible."

"Don't you remember being fruit buddies? The bets we made on what I could steal? Burning down Old Man Sam's cow pen?"

"Irrelevant," he dismissed.

"What? But," my mouth pouted, "uggghhh…. okay, How about visiting France, Italy, remember California? Now that was a lot of fun we had that month remember, I left Idris for you! Don't you remember?"

"Oh the sacrifice," he was getting up now, he was going to leave me.

"We had fun," I begged him to remember, "We got into all sorts of trouble, but we always got out of it. We got out because we did it together. That is why loving you is not wrong, how can this be wrong?" The taste of sea-salt from Santa Monica beach, and the course sand on my bare feet assaulted my mind with the memory. It was one of my most favorite memories to replay. The ocean was a wonder to me, and how endless it looked. The way the ships disappeared as they trekked across the ocean as if they fell off the edge disappearing from sight. The same way my heart-felt now, as if I fell off the edge with them. Jon had held me when the winds picked up, and that had been my favorite part.

"This would never work, we could never work."

His face was hard and mean now, I knew him, his fears, "you are just afraid of us. Afraid of losing what we have."

"I am afraid of nothing," his lips said, I focused on his reddened lips to remember that it was not all my damn imagination that we had shared such a passionate experience. It happened Sera calm your tits, As if my imagination was that great to start with.

His eyes calculated the way I began leaning away, holding my arms weakly at my sides, and trying to keep the hurt at bay, "Do I remember? Of course I do. I do not see what difference it makes. You act as if these memories would make you have ownership over me. The problem does not lie with my memory, but you thinking emotions exist when they do not."

He was making me very pissed, "Oh, SAVE THAT CRAP FOR THOSE THAT BELIEVE IT! Explain to me how you cannot remember how awesome it felt to just live, and be free to do whatever we wanted. Be whoever we wanted; sleep wherever, and at the end of the day we knew that another adventure was right around the corner."

He stared at the ground, rubbing his tip of his shoe into the ground. How could he be doing this to me? When had I ever hurt him like this? Didn't he know what his silence was doing to me?

If I kept this up I was going to get a heart attack.

I rubbed my forehead, "For God's sake, Jon. I tied your shoe when we were waiting for the taxi, and then I let you sleep on my shoulder," that was one of my favorite memories, and it hurt trying to invoke some feeling when he was the one of the main reasons that memory was my favorite.

"It does not matter," his voice was quieter.

"Why?"

"You have these notions that if you dealt with me during my times of weakness, then I will thank you. That you could hold it over my head, and have power of me."

"Who thinks like that," obviously this self-righteous know-it-all did, "I DON'T WANT A FUCKEN THANK YOU JON! I DON'T CARE ABOUT POWER EITHER! ALL I WANT IS TO CARE FOR YOU!"

He didn't answer me, too focused on grabbing his things, and getting the hell out of here.

My voice was hoarse, "Why can't you feel anything?"

I kicked the portable table making caviar fly, and glass break. He stopped grabbing things, "why don't you listen to a thing I say!"

He was silent as I threw my three-year old fit, breaking everything in sight. I wanted him to join in to show him how much fun I could really be, but I then it would defeat the purpose of the destruction. I was supposed to show my disdain through destruction, not want to include him in my mayhem.

"WHY!" I threw a wine glass at a tree, and it broke on impact.

"CAN'T YOU FEEL!" I wanted to pull my hair out of the roots. I sounded like the exorcist, and I was pretty sure I looked like one, "WHYY!

He screamed teardrops flying, "BECAUSE I AM CORRUPTED!"

I froze in my tirade, because Jon was shaking from head to toe. He had been the entire time I had destroyed his birthday scene. Now that I was paying attention he had rivulets of tears going down his cheeks. Jon. Was. Crying. Oh god what had I done! I broke him!

He did not hold back, "I AM NOT EVEN HUMAN! I AM A MONSTER AND NO ONE CAN LOVE ME! IT WAS MY FAULT MY MOTHER LEFT US," he caught his breath, but I was afraid he was going to blow the vessel in his neck, "I CAN'T EVEN THINK RIGHT. ALL I WANT TO DO ARE BAD THINGS TO PEOPLE, AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY?"

He gasped loudly the oxygen entering his lungs in great gulps, "I don't- know- why." I had no idea what to say or do so I stood there waiting for him to say more, "I try so hard, and it never helps. I want to be normal, but I can't be. I never could be, and it makes me feel…" his eyes searched back and forth across the field, but they did not see.

"It makes you feel sad," I finished for him. I had never seen so much emotion in one person before. He finally was able to let go, and I was happy I here to help him as he did. He didn't have to go through this alone.

"No, it is not grief. It makes me feel furious," he wiped his cheeks, "I am so angry for my choices being taken. I never wanted this, and I am the one that has to pay the price for this."

"Who did this to you, Jon?"

He didn't answer me. He had his hand over his mouth.

"Who took your choices from you Jonathan? Why would they do that?"

His hand was shaking, "I am a product of revenge. Revenge for a grandfather that was lost," he whispered, "and the product of hatred for a mother that decided to leave."

I was still in shock over all this emotion. It was like he was holding this back, and the floodgates just opened releasing every tiny emotion in its path. He screamed.

He stood there in a daze afterwards, not even seeing me, and it scared me to see him lose so much control. I dare not go near him, my instincts were telling me to run screaming bloody murder, but I just bit my lip instead waiting for him to return to me.

I wanted to tell him that he was stupid for thinking this was his entire fault, and that his feelings would come in time. Though I felt this went deeper than that. Someone had seriously hurt Jonathan, damaging him in a way that I knew naught how to repair. Well not yet anyways.

He began swaying, "You cannot care for me."

"It's too late for that," I was too invested into this to go anywhere now.

He knelt his energy was spent. This was definitely his crashing point. He had his hands covering his beautiful mourning face. Even when he was crying he was still was the handsomest man to me. In a way his emotion moved me to want him even more, "I can never be the man that you love. You loving me would kill us both," his eyes closed, "If you even conceive the horrors of my origin, you would turn me over to the Clave the moment you heard it."

I leaned down placing a hand on his shoulder, "That is where you are wrong Jonathan! I could never do anything to hurt you. You don't hurt the people you care about. Whoever did this to you we are going to make them fix it. Okay, we can make this better, together."

He mumbled into his hands.

"What did you say," I rubbed his shoulder, "I can't hear you."

"L-ebe-ee"

"What?"

He shouted, "Leave me!"

I hooked my arm around his biceps, "Not until we overcome this," I urged him to get up, "not until we have this all figured out. I am not going to leave you like this."

He got up with me, "Save me your false security." When he stood his hair hid his eyes, "Since the day you met me, you pitied me."

I tried to fix his hair, "Jon?"

He rejected my touch, "Don't deny it. It is written on your face, your games you play, and this patched up birthday excuse. Yes, all you have felt for me is pity. Let's feel sorry for the boy without anyone. No mother, horrible excuse for a father, and no friends. Maybe he will reveal everything, and we can laugh at him for the failure he truly is. How weak he is to let a girl teach him the reasons to give up one's duty in the name of love."

"Jonathan I do not pity you."

"Liar!"

"Why can't you do both. Duty and Love. I am a Shadowhunter, and I believe in love. Heck, I live by love."

He turned showing me his back, "You know nothing. When have you truly suffered for what you believe in?"

I could bring him back, I would bring him back from his corner of gloom and doom, "You don't have to suffer to believe in things, or to stick true to something. Pain does not equal investing yourself into your beliefs. It is just a form of oppressing people."

"Well have you been oppressed in your beliefs, Sera? Name one time?"

"Well, If you want to speak in explicit terms. Let's see um... well I am doing it right now. I am dealing with all this nonsense about you are unable to feel emotions or something, and I have been doing it every past Sunday it seems."

"That is what keeps you weak," he cursed, "sloppy, arrogant, and a fool of a person if I ever have met one. Do you expect me to grovel at your feet now? Oh THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LOVE ME! I AM SO THANKFUL!"

This was harassment; he made me feel pitiful, and then made fun of me, "STOP ACTING STUPID! I am only caring for you, this is not weakness. Love makes you strong. Whoever told you that was sorely mistaken."

"Why should I listen to a half-blood," my blood froze, "the bastard of a warlock, and an unnamed Shadowhunter mother. Yes, I can see it now, Seraphina Fell the Warlock Bastard, future Consul extraordinaire," he mocked.

Suddenly I was back at the Academy with Aline Penhallow scorning my existence, my hand ached to hit him across the face, asshole, "Go ahead tease me, but when I get home someone is waiting for me, who is waiting for you? Who cares for you except me, tell me that?"

His face crumpled, and new row of tears cascaded down his face.

I had hurt him, so bad. My face contorted in pain reflecting his, and I knew that he was right. I did pity him, but I also loved him, and cared for him. I wished he had someone to go back to. At least someone out there that loved him even more than I did.

"You were right."

My eyebrows rose, he stared me in the eyes, my own words came out of his mouth, "the people who love us, know where to hurt us."

My pants came is short bursts, and my heart hurt from beating so fast. I knew I had ruined this. I had fucked this up, and it was my damn tongue this time that brought me there. If I had a mind I would snip it out and be done with it. I bit the tip of my traitorous tongue, just to stop it from shaking.

"Jon," I whispered trying to rectify the moment, "I didn't mean it like that. I'm so-"

"You have said enough, Sera. Leave me."

"I am not going anywhere," I opened my hands in surrender, "my place is here. I can stay longer."

"Go, back to the people who love you," he whispered scornfully.

"Maybe- if you want you could come with"—

"NOOO!" He shoved me away, and I fell down terrified at his reaction. He was horrified with my offer to him. I was ready to cry, but the tears would not come.

"You ruined this," he wrapped his arms around himself. He looked in pain and I cursed my stupidity for the millionth time.

"Don't follow me!" he shouted. I was too surprised to do anything, but to view his retreating back escape through the forest line. He ran away from me, and my declaration. I knew he would act this way if I said it, but there was a part of me that hoped that just this once he would listen to me, and I could finally take care of him in the way I always wanted.

I stiffly got up, packed my things, and walked away. It was all robotic, but in the back of my mind I knew this would hit me, and I would beat myself up after.

I made it to Amatis' house in the dead of night, and I knocked on the door instead of walking in. I could not go to father's, not like this. I stood out there for a while, numb to the world, and kept wiping my running nose making it fell sensitive and raw. It still did not hit me.

She looked upset, sounded upset too, "Seraphina? Where have you been? I went all the way to Ragnor-"

I did not feel anything. "I'm sorry," I mumbled, the tears fell even more now when I felt the warmth of her home, and the smell of her baking.

"That's right," she brought me into the house's light, "You should have been here, wait, what happened to you?" I remembered where I was before, and with whom. Oh gawd, how did this happen? It hit me full force. Like a freight train and I fell into her arms, sobbing, and repeating the same thing over and over.

"He doesn't love me,

He doesn't love me, h-

-e doesn't love me, he"-I couldn't breathe, "He doesn't," the tears made it hard to see.

After taking a hot shower and tucking me into bed she joined me.

"Take this," Amatis gave me a sleeping drought. I didn't have to ask her, and I was grateful that she stayed with me. She stroked my wet head while I rested on her stomach. She didn't say anything at all, but held me until I cried myself to sleep.

There are times when words are not needed, and this was one of those times. Before I went into my induced slumber the last thought in my mind was of his face as he smiled and laughed twirling my white rippling ribbon in the air.

As I fell into deep sleep his face turned to pain as he crumbled to the ground lashes going across his chest and heart.

Jon!

I screamed at him to get up, looking around for the demons that were attacking him, and reaching for my seraph blade ready to counter back for the both of us.

"You were right," he said to me. He put his leaking blood on the side of my face, "you hurt me best." My seraph blade was already bloody, and it matched the marks on his body. I threw it away in horror as his eyes rolled back into his head.

NO! Jon Nooo!

He died in my arms. I was trapped in the worst nightmare possible. In a world where I was the cause of Jonathan's hurt and eventual end. I started gasping oh my god this is reality, this feels so real! I am going to kill Jon if i keep this up! I pinched myself, slapped myself, but I could not wake.

I had nightmares for the rest of the night. Sleep swallowing me whole, and reality mixing with the hallucinations of the wrongs I did to Jonathan Christopher, the man I loved.

The next morning was not better.

"Your father is coming."

"Okay."

"The breakfast is on the table."

"Okay."

"I am going outside for a bit," Amatis had not been still the entire morning, "you need to eat your food, before it gets cold," she advised in a tone that left little resistance for me work with, she began putting on her coat and leaving me desperately alone in the living room. I watched her. I could not bare to watch her leave, and I wondered how I must have looked like last night to her. Ragged with emotion, and broken-hearted beyond repair. That was the first time she had ever been maternal to me, loving, motherly, or whatever you would like to call it, and if I had known that me being a blubbering baby would have made her like this... no I did not deserve her love.

"Okay," I said dejected.

"I will be right back," she promised, and she was.

"What the hell happened to you," she had brought back Adam, and he did not look happy, probably at Rachel's house again, "Amatis thought I had broken up with you or something," he joked, "you have told her we are not dating right? That you are like my baby sister."

"Oh shut-up Adam, you are not helping," I cried some more seeing him feel bad for me, "he was right," I cried aloud, "everyone just pities you."

"What is she talking about," Amatis glared at Adam, like he was the cause of this whole problem.

"I don't know! I don't know anything, I am just as surprised as you are," he shrugged under her cold stare, "I am serious."

"Sera," the front door opened, and my father saw me, "what happened," he also glared at Adam.

"geez, it's not me!"

"Oh Daddy," I reached up to him, "I am so sorry," I hiccuped when he hugged me, "I want to go home, take me home."

"Sure hun," he tipped my chin up, just as worried as Amatis, "what happened? Did someone do something to you," that just made it even worse.

"No," I hurt him. I pushed him too far, and there would never be another Sunday with him again. Oh Jon, Oh Jon, I was so close to screaming his name in agony, all those Sundays for what, wasted on him. Wasted growing into something that could die in a day.

"I just messed up really bad," I began shaking, and he became even more worried.

"It doesn't have to do with the Law hunny right?"

"Oh god," Adam groaned, "not this again."

"No, it was a boy," Amatis spoke up, and that just made me even more depressed.

"Oh so it's just boy problems, whew," Adam hit his thighs, standing, "I thought you had killed someone," killed him emotionally, then yes I had killed my once best friend and almost lover, oh it hurt to think that.

"Thank you Adam, you can leave now," Amatis said, "I regret bringing you," she whispered as she lead my naive friend to the door.

"Come over later, whenever you're ready Sera," he said as he was escorted out, oblivious to how fucked up I was going to be after this.

My father knew, he always knew, "tell me Sera."

That was just it, I had promised, and it still meant something to me, "I can't."

He was not happy with my answer.

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