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Magnus steps out of the portal, that instantly closes up behind his back.
Even if the burst of magic hadn't painted the wall with neon blue light for a moment, the warlock would have been hard to miss in that outfit.
“What with the mint green pants, man?” Sebastian asks.
Magnus doesn't look startled by the voice apparently coming out of nowhere. In fact, he turns to it and his cat eyes spot him instantly in the shadows. “The fact that you know what mint green is says a lot about your new you,” he answers, amused. “But if you want to know, I've always loved bright colors. I leave the black to your people, and to the widows of your enemies.”
Sebastian chuckles, and seemingly comes out of nowhere. “Why here, Magnus?” He asks, as they both walk towards the table.
“Why not?” Magnus asnwers. A light gesture of his right hand and the room is illuminated, there's fire in the fireplace and a couple of beers on the table. It's like watching a painter coloring a picture in fast forward. Ragnor's old house is always the same, down to the smallest detail. Everything is exactly as it was last time Sebastian was here – and possibly last time Ragnor was too. The book open on his work table in the corner, the magical pentagrams drawn with a piece of chalk on the floorboards, a series of very weird looking plants hanging from the ceiling. Everything seems to be trapped in time, caught forever between one second and the next. Sebastian never saw Ragnor's body and yet he can't help but wonder where the warlock was when it happened. So, he knows it must be hard for Magnus to enter this house and not see his best friend dead all over again.
“For a variety of reasons,” Sebastian answers, taking off his jacket and putting it on the back of a chair before sitting down. “Bust mostly because we're in Idris.”
“Where nobody would ever think of looking for you,” Magnus smiles. “Nephilim are strong, powerful people, that is why the Angel didn't deem to be necessary to make them smart too."
"You seem to forget that I'm Nephilim, and your husband is too."
"Two crosses I'll have to bear," Magnus says, in a way that fits his suddenly dramatic face.
Sebastian chuckles again. "Would your friend be happy to have me in his house?"
"Absolutely not!" Magnus answers, happily. "If he were here, he would be standing in that corner, arms crossed, whining about how insensitive I am and how I make his life so unnecessarily harder for him. That's exactly the second reason why I chose to come here. Ruffling his feathers was my thing with him. There's no better way to remember him."
Magnus gives him a significant look. Sebastian recognizes the bait but doesn't take it. "So, what's the urgency?" He asks instead.
The warlock sighs patiently. Sometimes it's hard to remember that these kids are just that, kids. Sometimes he'd just like to smash their head against the wall. "I thought you might wanted to talk after what happened at the Gard."
"If you mean my argument with Alec," Sebastian says, opening both his and Magnus's beer together against the edge of the table, "Honestly, I don't think there's anything else to say."
"Alec acted recklessly, but he had his reasons to attack you," Magnus says patiently. He grabs his now open bottle, nodding. "But you know that. That's why you let him leash out on you for a while and then shut him up with the only thing he didn't wanna hear."
"The truth?"
"The guilt," Magnus corrects him.
"I've never said I feel guilty," Sebastian says, too quickly maybe. "I only said it was me."
"Which is exactly what he believes too," Magnus nods. "It would be so much easier for him to hate you, if you claimed that that wasn't you. If you tried to defend yourself by saying that that was another time, another you. But you don't. You agree with him. And there's nothing he hates more than to be right when it doesn't lead to nothing good in the end."
Sebastian doesn't understand. He frowns, trying to read Magnus's expression, but the warlock's face is as unreadable as it is peaceful. The only thing Sebastian knows is that Magnus is not here to scold him, so what is he here for?
"Should have I told him that?" Sebastian asks. "That it wasn't me who brought you in Hell? Who allied with the Seelie Queen? Who made it possible for her to massacre my people? Should have I told Alec that it wasn't me who killed his brother? Is this really what you wanted?"
Magnus doesn't flinch at Sebastian's voice growing more nervous and louder every second. "This is not about what I want," he says calmly. "It's about what you want."
"I want to be left alone!" Sebastian blurts out.
Magnus leans back in his chair and sighs. "Now, this is another kind of lie altogether," he says. "We both know this is not true."
"The hell is not!" Sebastian says, annoyed. He sounds like a pouting child to his ears too, and that makes him even more annoyed. "I'm tired of people fussing around me."
"People in general or somone in particular?" Magnus insists. His voice is still calm, but he's really making an effort to remain calm. He's a very old, very powerful warlock, he should not be sitting here cuddling Nephilim boys into expressing their feelings. This is not his job. This has never been his job. And yet, it seems to him that this is the only thing he has ever done in the past two centuries – they were usually Herondale boys, but in some weird way Sebastian is connected to them as well, so the tradition is safe – and that must say something about him too.
Sebastian sighs. "Jace," he admits, giving in. He fought this for a while, but he's tired of fighting, and ultimately he doesn't even want to. He likes Magnus, and at least he knows for experience that if there's a solution to his problem – whatever it is – the warlock will give it to him. "I wish Jace gave me a break. I need time."
"To do what?"
"To think," Sebastian says, honestly. "Everything happened so fast that I haven't had the chance to process anything. I mean, when I decided to break out from prison and avenge my sister, the only thing I knew was that I wanted to break out from that cell so I could kill the queen. I hadn't planned further ahead than that. In fact, I think that deep down I didn't even care if they caught me or not. I just wanted to kill her. But then I ran and you helped me. And then I had the apartment and Jace was constantly visiting, and staying, and refusing to go back. And when I thought I could just go on like that forever, the Council pardons me because it has no other choice. And, frankly, I don't know how I feel about it because they might have pardoned me, but I don't want anything to do with them!"
Magnus lets everything sink in for a moment. Sebastian didn't say anything he didn't know already. He understands how confusing everything must be for Sebastian right now. He litterally went to hell and back like the rest of them, but unlike them he has no certainties, no affections, no love to hang on to while he tries to find his balance again. What he knew is gone. What he was is gone. And things are moving so fast around him that he doesn't know what he's supposed to do.
"They just assume that now that I'm cleansed, I can't wait to side with the good guys," Sebastian continues. Now that he started talking, it's easier to go on. "But Shadowhunters are not the only option."
"Aren't they?" Magnus asks, ironically. He knows very well they are not. According to their self-centered vision, Nephilim like to think that they are the only good thing in this world. But the world is bigger than them, and not all of it is bad. You can be a Shadowhunter and defend the people from demons, but there are many other beautiful things you can be. It doesn't surprise Magnus that Sebastian didn't automatically think of going back to his people when he never really considered them as such.
"No," Sebastian confirms. "There was a time, when I was a kid, when all I really wanted was to be a Shadowhunter like my father. Like Jace. I wouldn't say that to Valentine, of course, because he would tell me that I was a monster, and the only reason why I was still alive was that he was merciful and only he could love me. It was enough not to be killed, wishing to be a superior being would have been arrogant, even ten-years-old me knew that. But being a Shadowhunter was the only aspiration I knew of. What else would I have wanted to be, after all? Sure, those who sat in the Council at the time were enemies, but those were not Shadowhunters, not according to my father. Those people had to be killed in order to go back to the origins of our people. I didn't want to be like them, I wanted to be like him."
Magnus can see how. Sebastian was raised alone, in the middle of nowhere. Valentine was the only other person he would speak with, his only source of education and his only basis for comparison. If being raised by Valentine for ten years had left an indelible mark on Jace, what could have done to Sebastian?
"But that changed in time. When my father called on Raziel, I understood that he had lost his mind way before that. When I ran, I was alone, that's how Lilith found me first. That's how the Seelie Queen found me later. I've moved from one psychopath to the other because I belonged with them. I was one of them," he actually chuckles, bitterly.
"But now you're not one anymore," Magnus says. And Sebastian doesn't find it annoying because Magnus doesn't say it out of politeness. He says it like he really believes it, as a fact.
"No, I'm not. But it doesn't mean I'm a Shadowhunter," Sebastian says. "Actually, I'm quite sure I'm not. But I don't have a third alternative right now, given that Shadowhunter is an alternative for psychopath, of which, honestly, I'm not sure."
They both laugh, for a moment. Magnus cannot agree more. Maybe Shadowhunters and psychopaths are two faces of the same coin. The only difference between the two groups is that one wants to save the world and the other wants to destroy it, but they pretty much act the same to get what they want.
Sebastian's laugh slowly stops and he sighs. "I just want some time to myself to figure out what I wanna do next," he says eventually. "I don't expect their forgiveness, and sure as hell don't want it if they give it to me just to make themselves look good. If anything, I want to earn it. And, most of all, I don't need protection. Jace keeps stepping in for me and I don't know how to stop him."
"He just loves you," Magnus says. And then frowns. "I mean, in a care-for-you way. I don't know about the rest."
Sebastian chuckles. "Let's not go there, okay? Things are already complicated as they are."
Magnus briefly raises both his hands. "Fair enough," he agrees. Then, since their bottles are empty, he summons two more beers. Somewhere in Ireland a pub owner gets paid. "But, seriously, how do you feel?"
Sebastian doesn't immediately look up. He plays with the neck of his bottle, acting like the question doesn't touch him in the slightest, when he's actually moved by it. Nobody would ask him how he felt in the past, everybody would just assume that he felt great when the world was on the verge of collapsing and sad when it was not, because that's how demons feel, right? And even now, Jace doesn't really ask how he feels. He feels it – most of the time right – or he guesses it – most of the time wrong – but they haven't been doing a lot of talking. Words have a weight, though. And when you can say them aloud, that weight is lifted somehow.
"I'm surviving," Sebastian finally says, and then he laughs embarrassed of his own words. "Don't take me wrong, I don't think my life is hard right now. I'm well aware that is not. I should be grateful of this second chance, and I am, but until I understand what I wanna do with it, I'm not really living. Sometimes I think that if Clary was still here, she would probably punch me in the face until I make a decision."
Magnus smiles. "I agree, she could be very... persuasive."
"I will be fine," Sebastian says after a while. He feels like Magnus deserves to hear that, because he took a lot of chances with him, he stuck his neck for him when nobody else would and, if anything, he deserves to know that he did it for something. "I might decide to just retire somewhere and be the guardian of the Morgenstern legacy, which by the way, amounts to a crumbling house and two swords."
Magnus makes an apologetic face, or some weird expression that wanted to pass for apologetic, at least. "Er..."
Sebastian frowns. "What?"
Magnus sighs. "After what happened," he says, and then he realizes that Sebastian doesn't need any sugar coating, "...the deaths and the families that were lost in the war, the Council is very protective of the few Shadowhunter names that remain. They're trying to safeguarding tradition."
"That is exactly what I would do," Sebastian protests. And then understands. "But Morgenstern are a tradition they want to erase."
"I don't know about that," Magnus instantly points out. "Let's not jump to conclusions. I'm just saying that family names are a big issue for them right now, so just retairing might not be as simple as you think it is."
"When is ever with them?" Sebastian shakes his head, taking a sip from his beer.
"But, if they are indeed trying to preserve the tradition as they say, they might want you to keep your last name. Morgenstern was your father's name, but it was also Clary's, and if you ask me, both of them deserve to be remembered, even if for very different reasons."
"What about Jace?" Sebastian asks. "He can take on the family name. He wouldn't be the first husband taking his wife's last name."
"I think it's hard enough as it is for him. Jia has been asking him to decide for years," Magnus says. "And now Alec told me she actually summoned him to the Gard to talk to him about that. They are pressuring him to be a Herondale, they don't want to lose that lineage."
"But he never stopped feeling like a Morgenstern, even if he was never one," Sebastian comments. "And, if anything, he's a Lightwood."
"That's what Alec thinks too," Magnus smiles.
Sebastian smiles too. "He must be very upset."
"Oh, he's furious," Magnus nods, thinking that upset never fully describes the deep state of anger Alec can dive into sometimes. "He's ready to fight for this as he's fighting for everything else, which is a lot at the moment."
Sebastian raises his bottle. "To family names and the preservation of the past."
"... in order to make a better future," Magnus responds, raising his bottle too. If this Council understands that it's not the past itself that must be protected, but what you can learn from it, this generation of Shadowhunters will be already so much ahead of all that came before it.