#its literally just self-indulgent pain im sorry fellas

[dakohtah]

i’d never hurt no one, and no one would ever hurt me

Oops! All Magnus fic, set post balance arc bc I felt like the boy was in need of some Hurtin. also available on my ao3

..

After the Day of Story and Song (TM TM TM), Magnus stayed pretty busy. He had to: even with the Hunger defeated, the devastation left in the wake of John’s appearance had left the entire planar system reeling with the weight of what it had nearly lost.

It wasn’t for his own sake, honestly. He was made to help. To protect. It’s what he’d wanted to do in Raven’s Roost. It’s what he’d apparently fought to do for—well. For a good while. So, when he started cleaning up the city of Neverwinter, it was just another facet of his duty. Real natural. A different way to save the world.

It was what he was supposed to do.

So, Magnus set out. 

His work in Neverwinter spread slowly, inexorably down into Rockport. He just figured folks could use a friendly face and a couple of helping hands as they got back on their feet, that’s all. These people—their weary faces lighting up in the face of a multi-universal semi-celebrity—they were almost always grateful, offering him a hot meal and a place to sleep as he passed through. Kids would beg him to stay a little longer, to play just one more game, or at least to show them his sword again before he moseyed onto the next town. Magnus had never pegged himself as the nomadic type—by choice, at any rate, but he wasn’t going to think about—well. So much to say, life on the road very nearly suited him. He really, really liked it.

The labor was nice, too. Folks always needed something done, big or small. He might find himself rebuilding houses. Spooking bandits away from some older pathways. Maybe helping to shape up old furniture. More and more, he found himself chopping firewood in preparation for the incoming Faerun winter. It all kept him just busy enough that he didn’t. Well. There wasn’t much time to overthink, was all.

He never admitted, out loud or in the privacy of his mind, that he wasn’t ready to unpack it all. Not the hundred years he wasn’t supposed to have or the way that he’d lost them—like they’d never happened to begin with.

And then, to have remembered it all anyway.

To have heard it, experienced it being broadcast across the planar system—left gasping at pieces of his own story that hadn’t quite settled in the amalgamated mess the voidfish (Fisher and Junior, their names are Fisher and—) had left of his mind. To have accomplished in one day what one hundred years of effort fell short of.  

And then what?

Was it time to celebrate? Or mourn? Magnus had lived nearly eighty percent of his life on borrowed time, and now the clock was ticking. He didn’t—?

It’s just. He couldn’t unpack it yet because he wasn’t sure what was supposed to come after. Somehow, he never in one hundred years thought there could be an after. Not for him.

Not after the Hunger and not after Julia.

So, Magnus set out and he fixed things because it was what he was supposed to do. He stayed on the move and helped where he could because he always had, and he was good at it. He almost always liked the people, and the work, and the children, and the way that almost no one ever asked him to talk about it more than once.

Sure, they’d always ask at least one time if he’d tell them about it. And he’d always answer, with an aborted little ‘eh’ hand gesture, “Maybe later?”

And then they’d let it go. And if they didn’t then he left as soon as the work ran dry. Maybe sooner, depending on their persistence. He’d heard that the city of Goldcliff was real warm, even in the winter. He let the thought settle in his mind. A little warmth felt like something he was well overdue.

“It sounds like you’re doing good work, Magnus,” and if Lucretia’s voice was halting as it traveled through the Stone of Farspeech, Magnus would chalk it up to a faulty fantasy connection. He didn’t look into it. If he thought too hard, he’d find himself buried in particulars that had been tucked away with Junior for nearly a decade. (Lucretia sounds like this at the beginning of every new year—this is the sound of her processing regrets. Don’t ask her if she thinks we could have saved them, she does. She’ll tell you how and you don’t want to hear it and she doesn’t want to say it. Remind her to eat. Remind her to sleep. Remind her you love her. Remind h—) “I. Well, I’ve told you about the work we’ve been doing at the Bureau of Benevolence. It’s—a start. If you ever decide that. Um. Well, you’d be welcome, of course, if you ever wanted to come and—well, if you’d like to—”

Stay. She wanted him to come and to stay and Magnus wanted—something. Not that. Not yet. Maybe never? Magnus wanted, but what?

“Thanks, Luce,” and maybe Magnus’ voice was a little soft. Faulty fantasy connection. Hard to tell. “Might take you up on that here soon,” but not yet. “Glad to hear things are still coming along with the rebrand. I gotta hit the hay, but I’ll catch up with you later, okay? Send my love to Carrie and Killian and Avi and Fish—uh, y’know. Everybody.”

Lucretia gave a halfhearted chuckle, “I will, Magnus.” The pause was as long as it was palpable, steaming in the chill of the air alongside Magnus’ puffs of breath, “I love you, you know.”

“I—” and it wasn’t easy to find words, but he managed eventually, “I, uh. Yeah. Yeah, I love you, too, Lucy. G’night.”

“Goodnight.”

The barn—too small for livestock, but just large enough to shelter a little feed, a load of firewood, and one Magnus Burnsides—seemed to hold an echo as the line cut out. It hadn’t felt too quiet when he’d settled in for the evening, but Magnus found himself wanting—something, anything. Early on in his pilgrimage, there had been crickets. Summer cicadas. The rustle of nocturnal animals who hadn’t yet tucked themselves away for the season. The sound of children laughing, sneaking out for moonlit mischief.

Magnus couldn’t quite pinpoint when his evenings had become silent.

He couldn’t quite pinpoint when the stillness had begun to bother him.

Not to say he was bothered. He wasn’t. He traveled alone for years, long before he’d even seen Craig’s List or heard any names even vaguely resembling Merle or Taak—oh, and there he went. Thinking about it.

Magnus took a moment to count the pieces of wood stacked in the corner. Seventy-eight. He would chop a little more before he left in the morning. It was shaping up to be a bitter season.

He just. Well.

He could stand to invest in a fantasy noisemaker, that’s all. For the first time, Magnus found himself wishing that Fantasy Costco hadn’t fucked clean off his plane of existence. Garfield may have been unsettling in a way that scraped at his bones, but he had a great selection.

Magnus took one deep breath, and then another. Tried not to remember the way Merle’s snoring would echo in tight quarters, tried not to remember the way that it was a menace this year but a comfort for about eighty before.

Seventy-eight pieces of wood in the corner. The dual sounds of pens on papers, now visceral in their absence, and Magnus would chop more before he left in the morning.

The lack of gentle footsteps pacing at one, two, three in the morning, and the lack of a rustle at four when Davenport would crawl back into his bunk. It was shaping up to be a bitter season, and Magnus could almost hear Barry and Lup whispering in the early morning. Heart-wrenching and gentle. In the silence of the Starblaster, Magnus would sometimes catch the tail-end of an “I love you,” and he took one deep breath. And then another.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, seventy-eight pieces of wood, and Taako leaning down over the top bunk at the Bureau of Balance. “Couldn’t sleep either, big fella?” The joke was stupid, elves never fucking sleep, but somehow, he always, always knew when Magnus was lying awake. Merle would say something about old habits, and fuck. Fuck chopping wood in the morning.

So, Magnus set out, just as the sun was teasing a light blush along the horizon. His feet crunched merrily as they hit the frosted ground. A bird chirped once, and then again.

It was shaping up to be a bitter season.