Chapter 338: Old Friend

"Magnus, what a surprise."

Lucien couldn't say what Magnus was thinking at that moment. The fire mage had always been a very difficult person to read.

"Luci."

"A whole week has passed since your arrival to Elysium. Why didn't you come home?" Lucien's cold gaze pinned Magnus in place as though as he was a criminal being interrogated.

"I doubted I would be welcomed back."

"Bullshit." How could they not welcome him? His place in their hearts and their home had always remained a Magnus shaped hole waiting for him to fill someday. "What's the truth, Magnus? And who is the woman you've been seen around with?"

"Mina? She's a friend," Magnus responded, his confusion evident on his face. He hadn't made any mental preparations for meeting a grown-up Luci and it was obvious in the way he gaped at the teen. 

"Is that what they call their girlfriends these days, Mu-Mu?" Lucien smirked as he asked the anti mage who was silently working.

"I wouldn't know, Luci. Never had one." Artemus didn't do relationships but he was making an exception for Sebastian. 

"Girlfriend? No. But-" Magnus raised his brows at the redhead, "why are you asking about her?"

"No particular reason, Magnus. Come visit us when it suits you. It's not like we weren't waiting all these years for you." Lucien's words were bitter to the fire mage.

"Luci, listen." 

Lucien placed the cooling lunch box on Artemus' desk. He could practically feel the waves of guilt coming off the silent fire mage. The redhead then turned and waltzed past him without sparing a glance for the contrite fire mage.

When he felt a hand grasp around his bicep, Lucien smiled with satisfaction, and it was gone the moment he faced the shapeshifter.

"Wait, Luci. Please listen to me. I'm sorry. I should have come straight home but I was afraid." Lucien, Syryn, and Alka meant the world to Magnus. After so many years of separation, they would have forgotten his very existence. He wouldn't be welcome anymore. These thoughts had plagued him and kept the fire mage away from the manor.

"Afraid of what?"

When a pink tongue licked cherry-like lips nervously, Magnus' gaze darted to it for a second.

"Of rejection."

Lucien exhaled, casting his eyes down so that Magnus could see the fan of beautiful red lashes like butterfly wings on pale unblemished skin.

"I would never reject you, Magnus. I've missed that warm body in bed-"

Artemus slammed a stack of papers on his desk so loudly that Lucien near jumped out of his skin. 

"I apologise," the anti mage stated with a warning in his tone. "I thought I saw a cockroach scurrying across my table."

"Well?" Lucien asked, grinning at Artemus' irritation. "Did you kill it?"

"No."

Magnus wasn't sure what was going on. He was only starting to realise that Lucien was no longer a child. He could no longer cuddle and squeeze him like the little bun he used to sleep with.

"Right, I'll be leaving. Good luck with your cockroach, Mu-mu."

Lucien's gaze lingered on Magnus' handsome face for a few moments. Only now was he coming to terms with how much he had missed the fire mage. Being left behind by this person had made him feel abandoned all over again but Syryn, Alka, and Salem had soothed that wound. Lucien was aware that Magnus had had good reasons for leaving but it didn't change the fact that he had been left behind. And Magnus' failure to come home after returning to Elysium really rankled at him. Did the fire mage even remember the promise he had made to Luci? 

"I don't accept your apology but I can be civil to you. See ya, Magnus."

_____

After Lucien exited the office, Magnus collapsed into another chair, groaning in frustration at what had been a disastrous first meeting with his Luci.

"How bad was it?" He asked Artemus.

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"Disappointing," came the anti mage's reply. "You could have handled it better." This was their second meeting, the first being a random off-chance encounter on the road wherein Artemus had asked Magnus to meet him in the office when the fire mage had time for it.

"Luci won't forgive me. I fucked up."

Artemus opened his lunch box to find sweet rice cakes and a chicken salad.

"Go home, Magnus. They miss you."

He held out his lunch to the fire mage who declined with a shake of his head.

"It's just- I feel guilty," Magnus confided. "I don't have a right to suddenly appear in their lives and disrupt whatever normalcy they've had going on. I've been gone for far too long."

"Lucien did say he misses your warm body."

Magnus fidgeted uncomfortably when the anti mage's intense stare was fixed on him. Now why was Artemus staring at him that way?

"How old are you, Magnus?" He casually asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Answer my question."

"Twenty three."

Artemus raised his chin to contemplate the pattern on his ceiling. Lucien liked them older and he had said so under no uncertain terms. But would Magnus be amenable to the match? The anti mage disregarded the existence of the woman in Magnus' life because if Lucien wanted to have his way with Magnus then there was no stopping it unless the fire mage was engaged or married to her. Even Lucien drew a line in the sand when it came to promised couples. The anti mage was under no assumptions about Lucien's goodness of heart when it came to stealing other people's partners, but he was family. And Mina wasn't.

"What?" Magnus prompted Artemus. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. What is the nature of the relationship between you and Mina?"

"I told you. We're friends." Magnus would have preferred another topic of discussion.

"Friends with benefits?" Artemus raised a neat brow.

Magnus pointedly stared at the anti mage.

"I'm not judging you, Magnus. If you don't mind me asking, do you have feelings for each other?"

Artemus ate a rice cake as Magnus visibly broadcasted his discomfort. Well, too bad for him, Artemus wasn't stopping now. He needed the answers because it was obvious that Lucien was interested in Magnus.

"I don't have feelings for Mina. I wanted to return to Elysium alone. When we started.. you already know what we started, we both agreed there would be no feelings involved." Death had been chasing them back then. Falling in love or catching feelings was just asking to be hurt. "But I guess Mina wants more now. She insisted on following me back to Elysium." Magnus felt like an asshole because he should have seen it coming.

"Are you going to callously dump her now?" Artemus had done the same, several times that he had lost count, to many of his partners. He'd felt guilty every time he did it but his partners had been fully cognizant adults who knew his reputation and still came for a bite.

"Dump her?" Magnus echoed. Wasn't dumping an act reserved for individuals in relationships?

"Yes. Friends with benefits dump each other all the time, Magnus. You were an unconventional couple, a couple nonetheless." Artemus self reflected on his own sins as he helped Magnus make sense of his responsibility to his partner. "It's a platonic relationship where you use each other for sex without commitment. You don't owe Mina a relationship, but you do owe her a clean break. You'd have to be a real bastard to ghost or push her away without telling her it's over."

While he talked, Artemus methodically began to separate the crushed peanuts from his salad. Lucien knew he hated peanuts but never asked for them to be removed because it made his day better knowing he had inconvenienced the anti mage into wasting time even if it was only for a few minutes a day.

"You speak from rich experience so I'll take your advice," Magnus wryly smiled as he replied. 

"This will be the last time though that we speak about it." 

"Understood. But why does my relationship with Mina matter? It has nothing to do with returning home."

"It does," Artemus responded. "And I am very concerned with the matters that are conducive to Lucien's happiness."

"You're telling me that-" Magnus couldn't believe he was saying this.. "That Luci has an interest in me?" It was the only inference he could deduce from Artemus' strange questions.

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