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Magnus leaves the store through the front door, pulling it shut slowly. The click as the door slots into place is as loud as a flatline inside his head. A finality. Goodbye, Maryse. And sorry. It's selfish, but he's glad she isn't there to ask why and for what; he isn't sure he would be able to answer. The night stills around him, holding its breath. Waiting. It feels like an entire lifetime before he takes a step back from the door, pivots on his heels and starts walking.
His cheeks are, inexplicably, dry.
What use does he have for tears? He'd shed them twice in front of his beloved. One: aggrieved by his own ugly history, for a mother who chose death over a hellbound son and a father who rose from sulfurous ash to drag him back into the gaping maw of flames and darkness. Two: terrified by his newfound fragility and uselessness, of the empty spaces he finds in his fractured being and what they mean for the finite future. Alec, wide-eyed and beautiful and oh so selfless Alec, had held him tightly through both.
Please. Stay with me.
And still, after all those pretty promises and his desperate pleas, Magnus is left behind.
Again.
The streetlights flicker. He pays them no mind, focusing instead on each step he takes. Moving forward and away, with the world muted in the background. He allows Alec's words to nest inside his head, in a familiar bed of disgust and self-loathing: I've been feeling overwhelmed and I need a break from us I need a break from you you are overwhelming without your magic you can never be happy you're making me stressed you're no longer fun without your magic there's no fixing this I'm tired of trying to fix you you're not worth it I'm not waiting around to see you suffer I didn't know the spark inside you the one I fell in love with is out for good you are not who I fell in love with not anymore I can't stay—
—I don't want to stay.
Magnus whimpers and the unexpected slip startles him so much that he veers to the side, slamming into brick wall. He brings a hand up to curve around his treacherous mouth, the architect of his many destruction throughout the centuries. Countless I love yous and goodbyes, each heartfelt. There's a sharpness sitting at the back of his throat, the echo of a scream corralled tightly behind clenched teeth as he tries to keep himself moored to something solid. His lungs ache with the effort to breathe and he gasps, his other hand clawing at his throat. Thumb digging into the soft underside of his jaw, as the enormity of his loss finally dawns upon him.
The magnificent Magnus Bane, reduced to a cardboard cutout of his former grandiose existence.
Nothing to his name.
Not power. Not title. Not home.
Not love.
Magnus' chest heaves, painfully, and he looks up at the velvet dark of the sky.
What am I, then?
What purpose do I serve by living?
"My son."
The voice is familiar, a susurrus sliding knife-sharp under his skin. Magnus is slow to turn and his eyes widen in horror when he sees the figure in the middle of the street.
"Y-You—"
"My son," the demon repeats, crisp suit and crisper smile. Both of his hands are extended towards Magnus in an affectionate gesture. "It has been a while."
Magnus stumbles back, raising his arms to summon his magic. Defensive offensive a portal anything to get him away. Only to remember too late that he's now as helpless as a lamb inside a slaughterhouse. Panic screeches inside his head, urging him to run, but he's rooted to the ground. Terror is a thing painted in absolutes. Asmodeus watches him struggle, fond and amused, and Magnus remembers the price he had to pay the last time he'd met his father. He also remembers Alec's guilt-ridden face at the edge of the flaming pentagram, watching as he sank into Edom's embrace.
But he didn't tell you to stop, did he?
"You shouldn't be here. There's no way—"
Asmodeus draws closer, eyes shifting from brown to gilded gold. He palms Magnus' jaw and sighs. "Your pain called to me." His voice gentles, almost a physical caress, and Magnus has to stifle the urge to lean into the touch. "And I have come for you, as I always will."
"You're wrong," Magnus grounds out each word like spitting rocks. He wrenches his head to the side and sees his father's eyes narrow. "My place is here. With—"
—With Alec.
In that half-second, they can both hear the resounding crack in his brittle armour.
Asmodeus shakes his head, as if humouring a child. "You have always been too stubborn for your own good. Willfully blind to something so obvious, to the simple truth that you will never be enough for that shadowhunter." Magnus flinches as if struck, nails digging into his palms. "You will always come second. To his family, his duty, his—" The demon pauses and a mocking smile scythes across that handsome face. "—parabatai."
"Stop," he whispers, a trembling of syllables. His chest feels too tight, too small to contain the enormity of his grief and he can feel himself unravelling at the seams. "Please. Stop."
"Can you not see it, Magnus? How they've trampled all over you? They've taken so much without offering anything in return. Where are they now, hm? Where is that accursed half-angel when you needed him?" Asmodeus' knuckles graze his cheek and only then does Magnus realise he's crying. The tears evaporate in seconds, the heat coming off his father's body is making the world spin in a different direction. Those golden eyes shine like pinpricks of stars, pointing the way home. "But I am here, my son." Too-warm lips press against his forehead. "I will not leave you."
You will always belong to me.
You will always belong.
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