Piano Days and Other Malec One-Shots

The Last Christmas

Happy holidays, lovelies!

Christmas in New York had an aura that grew stronger and stronger as the day approached.

Magnus Bane loved that particularly good feeling where all was calm and the Christmas lights that lit store fronts on 5th Avenue made everything bright.

But he still felt uneven, hidden in the happy crowd doing their last minute shopping.

He was shopping as well, but it wasn't last minute: it was tradition. He always waited til Christmas Eve to shop for his presents, unless the gift was pre-planned. It was an excuse to go out and enjoy the freezing cold with cheery strangers.

This Christmas was different, and it was like a dull aching in his bones, a constant pain that couldn't be repressed.

He wanted to go back to the hotel room, but he had a slew of grandkids expecting presents in the morning and he needed to prove that he was getting better to his kids.

He just needed time. Time. Time. Time, that's what he told himself.

Time, because he was still stuck in the denial stage.

Time, because he needed to go back to that rock-hard, emotion-less place he had been at thirty years ago.

Time, because he hadn't cried enough silent tears into his pillow in the dead of night, when that aching became sharp, twisting stabs of pain, brought on by raw memories.

Magnus dug his fists deeper into the pockets of his coat, tugging the entire jacket down. The headphones tucked under his black hat played his own musical playlist, currently Bastille's Oh Holy Night. He liked the way the vocals could sound so much like a church organ. He also liked the older Christmas music compared to the jarring modern music.

He used to go to church.

It seemed like ages though, since he had been. He stopped going when he realized there was no place for him in heaven. For the longest time, it had made him bitter to think of his damnation.

Then he realized he didn't care.

That was sometime around the time he stopped caring in general.

His eyes caught on a massive teddy bear in the window of a toy shop.

Sophia would love that.

And that was that.

That was what one had to do when they waited until Christmas Eve to do their shopping: buy when they found the first thing that seemed perfect. And the look on his granddaughter's face when she saw the massive thing would be priceless. He stepped inside, tugging the earbuds out and stuffing the chord in his pocket. The price was irrelevant and he could have magicked one into the hotel room, but that defeated the point.

He chased a store clerk down, and she went in the back and came out with a honey-golden colored bear, wrapped in plastic. He swiped his card, paying the $279.99+tax. She offered to help him carry it out to his card, but he turned her down with a polite smile and a "Merry Christmas."

Magnus heaved the bear over his back and trekked back out onto the street. He had already teleported the boys' gifts to the hotel, just waiting to be wrapped. He found an alley and ducked into it, willing the heavy bear to disappear into thin air. When it was gone, he put his music back on.

His Christmas playlist had ended, and his phone had died.

He kept the headphones in anyways, blocking out the mundaneness of mundane conversation and their laughter that made him envious of his lack of company. He watched them instead, because it was less overwhelming. Ugly Christmas sweaters worn mockingly, couples holding gloved hands, a child racing away from a snowball-wielding sibling, an elderly woman watching the sidewalk for ice as she hobbled along, business men searching desperately for a gift for their wife.