Chapter Text
Light. Brilliant white light that burned his good eye and made his bad one ache. With the light came searing pain that blinded him. It crescendoed, throbbing in his veins, making every inch of his skin want to peel itself free of his body to rid him from the pain, making every cell in his body scream.
Light. He was drowning in it. He was burning in it. Hands were tearing into his chest, tearing into his eye. The rest of it was pretty bad, but God, the pain thrumming between his broken heart and his blind eye was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. He wanted to be free. He tried to move his hands, wanting to claw at his own body, but he couldn't move. He was paralyzed. Through the haze of pain he felt sweat break out on his fevered skin. Adrenaline surged through him. He needed to move. If he could just twitch a single finger he'd be ripped out of this horrible nightmare—
Images flashed through his eyes. A man with a silver face and deep scars channeling his bare chest. He stood tall as a mountain, inspiring fear. But he was dead.
A half-man with flowing white hair, looming over him, expression unclear. Sparks jumped from his fingertips and lingered in that impenetrable eldritch gaze.
Five still statues standing alone, beams of more sickeningly painful light shooting from their bodies, killing and leaving blood and destruction in their wake. But it was a good kind of destruction, like amputating a gangrenous limb. Behind them stood a slim figure both earthly and extraterrestrial—a demigoddess.
A red star hung in the sky, portentous and pregnant with festering decay. It itched and burned his skin and made him sick, withdrawal-like frissons running through him.
Behind the star, cloaked in shadows, a robot with shiny all-seeing eyes awaited. He was dead and yet not dead, and he seemed to phase in and out of reality at will.
Last of all he saw a squirming, mewling maggot of a man, crouched on the ground like frightened vermin, begging for his life. He felt disgust and pity at this vision. The once-handsome face twisted into a parody of bravery when all that lay beneath was cowardice and treachery. This man was worse than a villain. He was someone who blindly followed whoever could best serve his needs, and they were unholy needs.
He wanted to puke, not just because of the turmoil in his gut, but to rid himself of the vision of that man.
One of this man's eyes was deep brown, nearly black; the other was pale and clouded over. His dark hair had been lustrous at some point but now it straggled down his back like vines climbing a wall, grey shot through at the temples. The deep crevices and high peaks of his face couldn't hide the rage, this mask wasn't strong enough for that. His wiry arms were spattered with constellations of needle tracks, fragments of a better time. A time before he'd met the man with the silver face.
He wanted to kick this man in the teeth.
The visions dispersed and were overcome by the bright white light again, and he wanted to writhe in pain. This white was the white of death and decay, pus leaking from wounds, pale cold skin, an avalanche of cold snow.
Something broke.
malleo surgit malleo surgit disperdere fratres vestros
His eyes snapped open. The white-haired old man was the first thing he saw, followed by their surroundings: empty boxes, abandoned tools, spiderwebs crawling in the corners against corrugated-steel walls.
The white-haired man's lip curled, like it wanted to twitch up into a sneer. The man tossed him to the ground, and only then did he realize that he'd been gripping him by the neck.
He fell to the ground, and took in a reedy breath. It felt like a paradise of pain. He breathed again and again, wiggled his fingers, curled his toes. The pain in his body faded, mostly hurting where he'd hit the ground on his tailbone, and in his left eye and his chest.
"Magnus Hammersmith."
The memories came back. He curled up. It hurt just as much as the white light had.
"Answer me, Hammer." Salacia's voice boomed.
Magnus coughed. A sudden lurch wracked through him. He turned around and vomited on the stained concrete floor. Acid burned his throat and mouth as his stomach relinquished everything inside of him, which wasn't much except for vodka that burned even more coming up than it had going down.
"Fuck," Magnus panted. His voice was cracked and his throat was dry. He needed a smoke. "Fuck..."
"Magnus Hammersmith, welcome to your second lease on life."
"What the fuck?!" Magnus lay flat on his back. The cold floor soothed the ache in his spine. He closed his eyes as his empty stomach churned.
The Half-Man raised an eyebrow. He wasn't looking at Magnus directly, which seemed odd. He was wearing a plain black suit. In his visions, Magnus had seen him wearing armor of bleached bone, adorned with medallions.
"I am Mister Salacia..."
"I know who you are," Magnus said quietly. "I've heard the legends."
Salacia's thin lips curved into a dry smile. "I see."
"Why are you doing this?" Magnus groaned.
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand..."
"Why me? Why the fuck do you have to dig me outta the fuckin' ground where I belong and breath fuckin' zombie life shit into me? Why can't you let me die?"
He rolled over and pressed his face to the ground, which smelled faintly of piss. He faintly remembered long ago, being afraid of dying...waking up in the hospital surrounded by those four whose names he didn't want to speak, and the CFO... Time after time he'd get a panicked chill when he thought of how close to the edge he'd been, and time after time he'd swear off the drug that gave him life and dreams and hope. He always went back. It's hard to swear off hope.
Now he didn't want anything except for the cold embrace of oblivion. He thought of all the wonderful ways he could die. Electric ecstasy coursing through his body, water pulling him down and silencing his cold struggles, the bittersweet blood tang of metal against his lips as he kissed the muzzle of the revolver he'd had to pawn off. He sank his teeth into his chapped lower lip and tasted his own blood.
He pictured himself, a shivering and fragile badly aging junkie—well, ex-junkie—curled up like a dead bug on a dirty floor, at the mercy of the half-man's whims. He fucking hated himself so much right now. Weak, pathetic piece of shit, he berated himself. You couldn't kill yourself. You couldn't do it. Fucking coward.
He patted his pockets down for his Swiss Army knife, needing to feel the blade against his skin, wanting to feel real. It was gone. He let out a defeated gasp.
"We need you, Magnus Hammersmith."
Magnus opened the good eye and looked up at Salacia. Blood-tinged vomit was strung between his pale lips and matted into his dirty hair.
"No you don't," he said. "No one needs me."
The half-man was still staring up at the ceiling. Magnus was puzzled—until he remembered something.
The man with the silver face had told him about the dead man, the robot, how the half-man couldn't see him since his tether to the earthly realm had been severed and tied back together. Maybe this was the same thing. Maybe Salacia couldn't see him at all.
"We need you to go back to the Church of the Black Klok," Salacia said. "Work your way into its foul heart. Find the blueprints of the Doomstar and bring them to me."
Magnus nearly said "Stars don't have blueprints, idiot," but the snarky voice inside his head had long since been beaten down, so he just moaned "Why?"
"You are the only one left."
"Kill me," Magnus breathed. "Please kill me. I don't want this. I can't stand it, it hurts so fucking much—agh!"
The Half-Man had wound his fingers through Magnus' hair and jerked him to his feet. The pain in Magnus' scalp was excruciating, but it grounded him.
"Oh, my dear Hammer." Salacia smirked at the ceiling, letting his shriveled face show a hint of emotion. "But that would be letting you off easy."
Something filled him, his blood burned like fire, his lungs screamed with every breath he could pull from the cold air. He was forced to his knees by some unseen force. Salacia's hand was clenched in the air.
The pain ripped through him one final time before releasing him. He fell to the ground, his face landing in the puddle of vomit. He panted.
He realized that his cock was completely hard and then shoved the thought out of his mind.
"I promise you, there are worse things than self-hatred," Salacia murmured. "You wouldn't like me to show you."
Magnus shrugged, still stubborn.
"I do not have much time left here, so I will say one thing. If you aren't in the Church of the Black Klok by midnight tomorrow, you will know a fate worse than death."
Magnus didn't doubt it.
"I could extend your life by hundreds of years. Make you see things that aren't there. Your skin will crawl with spiders, your teeth will fall from your mouth, your father will return—"
Magnus twitched.
"Did that strike a nerve? Surely you love your father, Magnus. What kind of good boy doesn't love his father?"
Magnus didn't think he had any tears left in him, but they were coursing down his face now as the half-man's words tore open old infected wounds.
"Fuck you," he whispered bitterly.
They both knew that was a yes.
The Half-Man smiled. For a moment, Magnus saw him glowing bright white, with that decorated bone armor. The sky was red above him, five planets encircling a repugnant red giant.
Then he was gone.
Fuck, Magnus thought. Fuck. How did this happen?
He hadn't meant for any of this to happen. One thing had just led to another. All he'd wanted to do was maybe cause those five fucking scumbags—beneath his feet, they were—a wee bit of pain. Especially Nathan.
The dark fantasies that had got him through those years-gone nights of withdrawal bubbled up again, like something rotted floating in a fetid swamp. How he'd like to whip Nathan, tie him down and bring him pain. He wanted to watch Nathan bleed. The thought of it warmed him inside. How Nathan would suffer at Magnus' hands...
He was getting sidetracked. He didn't mean to get that man from the Church fridged. That wasn't his style.
Fuck, he was in a mess.
And it hurt.
He banged his head against the ground. It felt good. He did it again. When his weak muscles couldn't take any more, he settled for punching the floor and screaming.
He was having a tantrum, and he didn't care who knew, although he suspected he was in the middle of nowhere.
He screamed his heart out, every ounce of agony pouring from his mouth, all those tightly-pent-up emotions slowly unraveling. When he finished his throat was raw and swollen and his head and hands hurt. He didn't care.
He rolled over, jacked off, and then fell into a shallow sleep. The Church could wait. He still felt like he was dead.