Chapter Text
Magnus Bane was an expert with words.
You might not realise it at first glance though.
Magnus knew that most people looked at him and just saw an Asian man in his twenties with an extreme sense of fashion, clad in heavy make-up and jewellery and walking his path in high heels without a care. Anyone who saw him at a club or designing the next fashion line was never surprised.
And yes, Magnus was all of that. But he was also much more than that. The few people who chose to look deeper and get to know him found that while he was a pretty successful fashion designer and enthusiastic party organiser he also had another secret passion.
Magnus loved to write. Ever since he was a child he had found solace in books, wrapped up in words that filled his brain and soul. And then they started to spill out of him as he spun stories of his own. Magnus could talk about his passion for writing and reading for hours but this was not the time.
The whole point was that Magnus was in love with words but he had come to absolutely despise anagrams.
Magnus stared at the letters with bleary eyes. Hell he didn't even need to stare at them, they were forever imprinted in his mind along with a list of all possible anagrams he could ever find.
He had given up on this years ago. He knew this was a fool's task, Catrina and Ragnor had told him as much but some days he couldn't stop himself. Some days when he ached for the warm embrace of a beloved, days when he thought he was unlovable. And days like today when he ran into that soul sucking vampire called Camille.
Magnus took a sip of his drink as he let his thoughts flash back to when they had met. Of course he had known she wasn't his soulmate. But Magnus had decided a long time ago that he wasn't going to waste his whole lifetime waiting for his soulmate. Who knew when he would find them, if he ever found them. At that time Camille had seemed like a good choice. A year later when she threw his heart into the gutter and walked all over it in her high heels, Magnus had been crushed. Now a little over two years later she was a poison that Magnus had the misfortune of calling his past. She reminded him of his mistakes, the fact that he was too much for everyone and he would never find love, let alone his soulmate.
Magnus swallowed down the rest of his drink in one gulp. Blinking a couple of times he refocused his eyes on the black letters engraved on his wrist.
A L X W H G T E R L O E D A N I O D
Everyone had a soulmate on this earth. Every time someone turned 18 a jumble of alphabets would appear on their wrist. But these weren't random letters. When re-arranged the letters would form the name of your soulmate. Every year on your birthday one letter would rearrange and set itself in place. This process would continue until your soulmate's name would be spelled out on your wrist. Unless you meet your soulmate before that. The moment soulmates touch hands the alphabets rearrange themselves and turn golden.
Magnus had it unfair.
First off, his soulmate had a ridiculously long ass name. Some people were lucky. A name like Eva Chase could be deciphered in mere 8 years. Magnus on the other hand could be on it for 18 years before he got it right.
Secondly, Magnus had a larger pool to choose from. He was a free wheeling bisexual which meant he had to scramble for names of both the genders.
Magnus was 25 and all he knew so far was that his soulmate's first name started with AL, ended with ER and his last name started with L and ended with OD. It wasn't enough at all and on nights like these he felt like screaming till his lungs burst and banging his head against a wall.
Instead he lets his head drop on the table and closes his eyes in defeat. Not today then. Maybe tomorrow? Even as he was lulled into sleep another part of his brain whispered, what if never?