A/N: Anything you recognize belongs to Cassandra Clare. I just own my laptop, my words, and the puppy who is currently asleep in my lap. :)
In Sickness and in Health
"The next time that I cough, I'm going to have an aneurysm. I'm sure of it."
There was a big crack in the ceiling of their apartment. Clary had discovered this because her eyes had been turned skyward quite a bit in the past two days. She was sitting on the couch and Jace was lying down, his head on the pillow in her lap. Jace, as it turned out, was one the single most whiny sick person that she'd ever come in contact with. She loved him and she would put up with it, but by the angel. "You're not going to have an aneurysm," she said with a yawn.
He looked up at her accusingly, his eyes unfocused. There was a faint flush to his skin, and Clary could feel the heat radiating off of him where they touched. "You're tired," he said, voice sounding clogged. "You should go to sleep."
"I'm fine," Clary said, shaking her head. In all honesty, she hadn't gotten more than an hour or two of sleep since Jace had come down with the flu two days ago. He'd been completely delirious through most of it. Apparently, according to Isabelle, the Nephilim hadn't yet come up with a cure for the flu, and Magnus was off somewhere in Europe with Alec, so Jace was stuck healing the mundane way—through sleep and lots of television. "Don't worry about me. Really, you're the sick one."
Jace struggled to lift himself up into a sitting position. "I'm fine," he said, now at eye level with her. Clary opened her mouth to speak, but Jace turned away from her and launched into another coughing fit. Clary winced at the sound—it was genuinely horrible, but then again, she never had been able to deal with sick people. But this wasn't just a sick person—this was Jace. She raised a hand a placed it gently on Jace's back, beginning to rub slow, soothing circles as his whole body racked with the force of his coughs. His skin felt hot through the thin material of his white shirt. The coughs finally subsided, and Jace let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a whine. He settled back, lying down again. "Okay," he allowed, voice scratchy. "Maybe I'm not. But you should still sleep."
"Jace," Clary said. She tenderly pushed the hair out of his eyes, letting her hand rest on the side of his face. He was on fire. Isabelle had assured her that Nephilim normally ran hot anyway, and that Jace's temperature wasn't something to be worried about, but Clary was having flashbacks to the horrific videos she'd had to watch in health class back in high school. "I'm fine. Really. And if it makes you feel better," she added, improvising when she saw the unconvinced frown that he was giving her, "then you can move your ass over so that I can lie down, too." Jace nodded, realizing that this was a reasonable compromise, but he still looked dazed. After a few moments of struggle, Clary managed to position herself so that she was lying down with her back against Jace's chest. He let his arm fall down around her waist, and Clary didn't hesitate to thread her fingers through his.
She had purposely put herself closer to the edge—she didn't want him tumbling off the couch and breaking himself. It was strange to think something like that about Jace, who was always so graceful and strong, but she couldn't get the image out of her head. He had just been so destroyed yesterday. It was terrifying.
It didn't take long for her worries to take a back seat to the sheer exhaustion that bore down on her. She hadn't slept in a while anyway—she seemed to have come down with a severe case of insomnia—but she hadn't given herself the opportunity to sleep in almost two days. The rough fabric of the couch rubbed against the skin of Clary's cheek, but she found herself too tired to care. Her eyelids seemed to be getting heavier with every passing moment.
"Does it bother you?" Jace's voice was low, not enough to snap her out of her daze.
"Does what bother me?" Clary asked, sounding nearly as dazed as he did.
"Seeing me like this," Jace said without hesitation. Clary wasn't sure if it was the fever or the medication that made him so readily say something like that. She sighed and ran her thumb over Jace's knuckles. She wasn't sure how to answer honestly, because she hadn't really thought about it. Sensing her hesitation, Jace continued. "Because it bothers me. Being like this."
"You're sick," Clary pointed out.
"I noticed," Jace said wearily, though there was a hint of a smile in his voice. "I just mean…" He trailed off, and Clary got the feeling that he'd forgotten what he was talking about for a moment.
"You can let your guard down sometimes," Clary said, squeezing his hand tightly. Her eyes were completely closed now, and she could feel herself drifting away, comforted just by the feeling of being near Jace. "It won't scare me away. In sickness and in health, right?"
"'Til death do us part," Jace yawned, burying his face in her hair.
"Hasn't stopped us yet."