Two Great Loses for the Price of One
"Valentine, I need your help with something over here, can I borrow you for a few minutes please?" He had asked me.
"Yes but only, because you asked me nicely." I teased. Ever since becoming Parabatai we were closer. Those who knew the dynamics of the Parabatai bond inside and out would tell you that we were even closer than most. And those who knew the dynamics of love inside and out would tell you that we were in it and had been for a long time. However, no one who we knew could tell the difference and we behave much differently when around other people.
"Thanks, it is right over here, the thing that I needed your help with." He said, holding my hand, drawing me down the corridor after him. I knew where we were going. It was our designated spot, the place where he had first kissed me. It was also where I had held him in my arms and asked him to be my Parabatai.
"But Parabatai aren't allowed to fall in love. How could we take such an oath, knowing it would be a lie?" He had asked me.
"It might be a lie in a sense but it would also be the perfect cover, Lucian. I can't afford the possibility that my father should ever find out about us. He would beat me to death while screaming about how it's unnatural! You don't want that, do you?" I had begged him.
"Of course not! Come here Val! I would never, ever, want any harm to come to you because of our love." He had held me then and stroked my hair softly in comfort.
"Then take the oath with me! Lucian, please? If you will not, then there is no doubt that falling in love with you will have been my undoing. He has beaten me within an inch of my life before. This will be the time that he doesn't stop, I know it." I had told him, supressing tears.
He kissed me then with passion and fierce protectiveness. "I won't let that happen Valentine. I will take the oath with you." He whispered then into my ear and began kissing a trail down my neck.
"Thank you, Lover. I need you so very much right now. Let's go up to my room. You are also overdue for a tutoring session, my friend. Maybe while basking in the afterglow I will make you pull out your books and study!" I spoke seductively and began tugging him up the service stairwell so that no one would see us and we didn't have to stop kissing.
And that was how it was decided. We took the oath later that month and even though doing so made it a violation of the Law for us to be together, it also provided the perfect cover for our love. Everyone who may have been getting suspicious before turned a blind eye after that. We were Parabatai and everyone knows Parabatai are supposed to be unusually close.
So, on the day that he pulled me to our spot for the thousandth time and kissed me with all the familiarity that our year together and our bond had brought us, I reciprocated without an ounce of hesitation. "Happy Anniversary Babe!" He grinned, feeding me a mini cupcake and then licking the icing off the sides of my mouth.
"Same to you, my Love." I said, giving him a little box with his present inside. They were cufflinks that said PoV on them, which stood for Property of Valentine. Anyone who read them would think it meant the cufflinks. Of course I was really referring to him. He was mine and I was his. Little did we know that all of it was about to change.
First, came a beautiful redheaded friend of his. She picked the worst possible moment to intrude on us, claiming to be 'looking for a shortcut to the library'. To say we were caught with our pants down would have been accurate in the most literal sense.
"I'll never tell." She giggled with embarrassment. Later that night she made Lucian sit down and give her the whole story. She swore not to rat us out to either the Clave or my parents. He offered her a place in The Circle, explaining that it too was about secrecy and passion. Passion for the cause, a desire to reshape the Clave, change the rules and the Laws and the processes and make it all run like clockwork instead of the gong show that it had been up to now.
She said that she wasn't politically minded and declined the offer to join us. But she did also say "Now if you had asked me to join in your other passionate pursuit, I might have entertained the idea." And of course, from that moment on Lucian was hooked. I however, was somewhat more of a hard sell.
It took her only two days to convince Lucian to come to me and ask my permission for him to be with her on the side. She wanted the both of us, but I was disinterested. If she was 'too good' for my Circle, then I was too good for her. Of course the two of them were gradually beginning to wearing me down to the idea.
It was three weeks after that when the dreadful announcement came and all thoughts of romance flew out the window for me.
Valentine Morgenstern, to the office please!
The PA system announced. When I came out of that office half an hour later, my eyes were red and my life was forever changed. My father was dead and there was nothing I could do about it. My last words to him in a fit of teenage rebellion had been, "I hate you and I hope you die". Well, it seemed I had gotten my wish. A werewolf had killed him. My mother was too distraught to go down and identify the body, so I had to do it.
It was a most gruesome sight and the injuries he had sustained made it clear that he had died slowly and painfully in an almost torturous fashion which seemed entirely intentional. It wasn't long at all before I realized why it had happened. I had the good fortune of overhearing a Downworlder who wasn't aware I was standing nearby say that Shadowhunters were pathetic and he would hands down ally himself with demons before he would ever ally himself with us. I heard several of his friends echoing the sentiment. That was when I knew. They were no better than the demons. Just as cruel and just as deadly.
It was up to us to make sure that what happened to my father stopped happening. And it was up to us to protect the world from their rabid filth. They were a scourge and they needed to be eliminated the same way that demons did. Thankfully, I already had a group of established followers who I knew would back my cause once I made them understand. If we didn't deal with the threat they posed, who would? Surely not the marshmallowy softness of the Clave, no! The only people they were capable of punishing were their own. And for things as irrelevant as falling in love nonetheless! They needed to be shown the truth.
Jocelyn was a great comfort to me after my father's death. Lucian tried to be, but I admittedly used him to distract myself, always either talking politics or taking him, roughly, whether he wanted to have sex or not and claiming that I needed it. I took the one great love of my life and allowed my poisonous anger and grief to subsume it into something that was merely a shadow of its former glory. Obviously Lucian noticed the change in me. I know it saddened him. He didn't judge me for it but he did look at me differently and that I couldn't handle.
As it had been since the day she'd found us, Jocelyn and I continued sharing Luke. And as they had done every few days, they both continued to recommend I be with both of them. So one day, as she held me while I cried, I said, "if you join us, then I'll join you." Meaning that if she became a part of The Circle then she could have me.
She paused only a moment to think it over and then nodded saying, "Yes, I believe that you need me on both fronts." I allowed myself to believe that bringing Jocelyn into what Lucian and I shared would solve our problems, considering that he was already seeing her anyway. I thought, maybe that had been a part of the issue. But the first time we were all three of us together, I still couldn't bring myself to be gentle with him the way I used to be. I still used sex with the man I loved as an outlet for my anger. Jocelyn noticed. And Jocelyn worried about us and what would become of our relationship.
Lucian and I still loved each other to the moon and back, but gradually he was becoming the victim of my abuse and yet, with Jocelyn it was different. She was soft and she was feminine and it came naturally to me to treat her delicately, to be tender and gentle and check my anger at the door so to speak. And I realized that what I was perpetuating with Lucian was nurturing my anger and grief and hatred.
Whereas, being with Jocelyn seemed to be helping. We both realized it and decided it was high time I saved Lucian from myself. I couldn't be with him the way I had been in the halcyon days of our youth. It was destroying us both trying to stay together the way we wished we could. I needed to set him free. So I proposed marriage to Jocelyn and agreeing that it was for the best, she accepted. We both knew it would be impossibly hard for him. But I had to do it and I sat him down to explain it as best I could.
"Lucian, something dreadful has twisted inside of me. When we're out fighting as Parabatai, I'm fine Lucian. We're brothers and we work amazingly well as a team. But it's in the bedroom that I've changed. I've been hurting you and don't you deny it! I know that I have. I know how much you've been relying on that stele of yours to fix our problems when I'm not looking. But Lucian, the problem is me! I don't how to stop hurting you like that without simply taking myself out of the equation.
"It hasn't been that way with Jocelyn. I don't understand why but things are alright with her. It's like I'm Jekyll with her and Hyde with you! I can't keep doing this, Lucian, I'm losing myself. For this reason, I've proposed to Jocelyn. She understands why and has accepted my offer. It's my duty as your Parabatai to keep you safe. And with the way things are, that needs to include distancing myself from you, physically, because you are not safe from me and you haven't been for a while now. I'm sorry. I still love you, I'm just not good for you anymore. I'm becoming a monster Lucian!" I sighed, disgusted with myself for having to break his heart and for hurting him in the first place.
I think he understood, though he cried on my shoulder. We exchanged goodbye kisses for a while until neither of us could bear it anymore. He begged to be allowed to stand up for us at the wedding, swearing up and down that it wouldn't be too much for him and that he'd be fine. He did it and I was ever so proud of his bravery, he didn't break down even once. I wasn't as strong. I barely got through my vows. Everyone thought it was just the emotion of the day that had me all choked up, little did they know my heart was breaking.
Things were alright with Jocelyn and I… for a time. But after a while I started missing Lucian so much, even though he wasn't all that far away, it was my heart that longed for him. It was like we had become a triangle with one of the sides missing. It was painful and every time I thought of him all by himself without us, it grew harder to be happy with Jocelyn. I was eaten by the guilt and I distanced myself from her.
I threw myself into The Circle by day and my science experiments by night. When Jonathan was born he was nothing more to me than an experiment because I knew by then that to love is to destroy. I had destroyed Lucian with my love and surely my love for Jocelyn would eventually be doomed just the same. I had given her the demon's blood in the hopes that the baby would be something better and less ingrained with human flaws such as the need for love. I thought that it would be ideal for me to have a child who thrived on hate, since I had oh so much of that to go around in those days.
I didn't realize that the demon's blood would make her sick but it made sense because I knew I would end up hurting her in some way, shape or form eventually. I tried to fix it with the Angel blood and when it seemed to be helping I decided that the Herondales might also benefit from that elixir, since they were expecting a baby of their own.
Meanwhile, my zealous ideals had brought the conflict with the Clave to a head and we had begun planning the Uprising. Little did I know I was about to lose Lucian for good. I know everyone thought later that I sent him into that werewolf nest hoping to be rid of him but none of those people knew he had ever been more than my Parabatai and they thought we were in conflict over Jocelyn. The only reason I didn't have his back in that moment was because I had caught of glimpse of the werewolf who had killed my father and I had taken off to slay him. When I came back, I was able to get Lucian to safety but just barely and the damage was already done.
The story of the dagger in the woods is a misrepresentation too. What I actually said to him that night was this, "I will always love the man that you have always been. But I cannot love the monster that dwells inside of you, any more than I love the monster in me that tore us apart in the first place. I need you to take this knife Lucian and either kill me or kill yourself because one day, we will win over the Clave to our way of thinking and when that day comes we will wage war on all of Downworld. If you and I are both still standing when that day comes, it will me against you, brother against brother and I'm sorry, my Love but I cannot let that happen." And I handed him the knife.
"Val I can't kill you, I could never even hurt you and you know that! You know how much I love you!" He said and started to turn the knife in on himself with fear in his eyes. As the blade began to pierce his skin, I stayed his hand.
"Stop! I can't do it! I can't let you end your life! I love you too much to watch you die Lucian. But you have to run! You have to run and you have to go somewhere I will never find you. If I find you I will have to kill you. And I'll die if I have to do that. So don't let me find you Lucian! You hear me!" I screamed standing close to him with our heads bent together seeing for the last time the love that was evident in each other's eyes.
"Fine, I'll go. But kiss me goodbye Val? It's all we have left to us now, so please, I ask you this last thing. Kiss me goodbye, my Love, with the intensity of our first kiss. Kiss me goodbye and breathe into me the strength I need to leave you!" He begged and I did. It was a kiss of passion and intensity, a kiss full of love and lust, a kiss born of desperation and of pain, a kiss with no promise or hope for the future. Just a last kiss filled with what ifs and what-might-have-beens, a kiss of shattered dreams and broken hearts. From that point on we would be enemies. I could prolong the inevitable a while by going home and telling everyone that he was dead.
But I knew he would side with the Downworlders from that day forward because they were his people now. I just didn't know he would drag Jocelyn into it. I suppose he just couldn't bring himself to walk away from both of us. The hesitation in his step told me he was barely able to survive leaving even me. And I imagined he hoped she'd be more sympathetic to his plight. I never could have anticipated that my sending Lucian away would end up causing me to lose both of them, or that they would end up siding together against me. But their betrayal hurt me, oh so very much.
It wasn't until many, many years later as I died by the Angel's arrow, that I realized they had been the right ones all along. And my senseless hatred had been exactly that…senseless. I only hope that one day we shall all meet again. And I hope that if we do, they can both somehow find it in their hearts to forgive me.
AN: Okay peeps, time to get your vote in on the great debate… more one shots (and if so which pairings?) or more story updates (and if so which of my neglected stories should I get back to?)? Let me know what you prefer! Thx :-D