Spiders
It had been a terribly long day at the Institute. Insisting on giving her at least the basic Shadowhunter training, Jace had confined Clary to the library where she had spent hours and hours poring over enormous dusty leather-bound volumes which clearly hadn't been in use since Alec, Isabelle and Jace's own training. The old tomes were mainly filled with runes, most of them simple and hardly as complex as the ones Clary had already used.
"Jace, I know all this," Clary moaned after Jace had slammed the largest book she had ever seen down onto the table. It was entitled Runes, Runes and More Runes (A Young Nephilim Encyclopaedia). "Runes are not a problem. I invent new ones; I don't need to learn these old ones. Can't you teach me some Shadowhunter combat skills? Now there's an area I could use some help."
Seemingly enjoying his role as teacher, Jace rolled his eyes lazily. "What's the point in teaching you about physical combat? We're demon hunters Clary, physical strength and ability only goes so far before you have to get creative with a stele."
"I already can get creative with a stele. Please, Jace. I'm dead on my feet. In fact I'm so dead, I'm practically undead," Clary protested. She laid her head down onto the desk and covered her face with her arms, partly because of exhaustion and partly because the sight of Jace reaching up to the highest bookshelf was causing his t-shirt to ride up and reveal an expanse of white-gold skin. She could feel the blush creeping across her cheeks and would rather die than let Jace see.
"Ha, undead. I see what you did there. Just hilarious, little sister. Fine, we're done for the day. But you'd better rest up if combat skills are really what you're after. I don't pull any punches in training. Not even for you." Clary lifted her head but Jace hadn't turned around while he spoke. Nevertheless she could picture the way his face softened and his eyes hardened with his last sentence.
Later that night, Clary lay sprawled across her adopted Institute bed, wheezing slightly. It seemed that a day of inhaling the dust from the ancient library books had not been good for her lungs. The cough wasn't even the worst of it. She felt as though she was turning into one of the old Nephilim manuscripts – stiff and creaky with rips in the pages and a leathery cover. The skin on her hands was dry and cracked, her lips a little chapped from the way she stuck out her tongue whilst making notes. Of course Jace had noticed this and it had taken over an hour for him to stop ridiculing her for it.
As comfortable as she was, stretched across her rumpled bed, Clary knew she needed to shower before bed. If this morning was anything to go by, Jace would be waking her up at the crack of dawn and she doubted he'd appreciate it if she was in the same condition as she was now. Moaning as she stood up, the Shadowhunter apprentice dragged herself into her private bathroom and assembled everything she would need to scrub herself clean. She laid out two fluffy white towels ready for when she emerged and turned up the water to the hottest temperature she could stand before it scalded her.
The hot water soothed and eased out all her aches and pains. It was such bliss that for the first few minutes, Clary could do nothing but stand under the steady stream with her eyes closed. It was quite a while before she noticed an odd tickling sensation on her left foot and she opened her eyes and looked down.
An ear-piercing shriek split the silence that always filled the Institute at this time of night. The pure terror in the scream had Jace immediately bolting for his own bedroom door and the intense pitch had him sure that all dogs within a five-mile radius would soon be joining him. He knew instinctively where the horrible, raw sound was coming from – Clary's bedroom.
Sprinting down the corridor, Jace's heart rate began to increase. She was clearly in trouble. What else could be eliciting such a treacherous noise from her? Unless Simon had somehow broken in and was attempting to show her some kind of fetching hidden birthmark. Yes, Jace thought grimly, that would definitely provoke the same kind of scream from me.
He knew why he was making jokes to himself – the sudden horror that something might be wrong with Clary, and under his own roof, was... startling to say the least. He arrived at her bedroom and crashed through the door, almost tripping over Church, who had been pawing at it anxiously. Clary wasn't in her bedroom but Jace had a good idea where she was, as there was steam escaping from under the door to her connecting bathroom.
Without giving a second thought to the consequences of barrelling through a locked door into a girl's bathroom, Jace rammed his shoulder into the door which clicked open relatively easily and rushed inside. The shower was running extremely hot water, Jace could hardly see through the accumulated mist but he waved his arms around apprehensively, dispersing the condensation, and he looked towards an odd whimpering noise coming from the corner.
"Clary?!" Incredulously, Jace edged closer to the impossibly tiny figure cowering in the corner. Her damp red hair was starting to curl around her neck and shoulders, hectic, feverish spots were high on her cheekbones and her eyes, huge and full of worry, looked infinitely glad to see him. She was clutching a fluffy Institute towel to her in an absolute death grip, which, from the amount she was trembling, was no mean feat. "What's happened, are you okay?" Jace quickly scanned the rest of the bathroom. It was definitely empty.
Her bottom lip wobbling, Clary looked on the verge of tears. Surely not even Simon could invoke this panicked reaction. Surely a demon had infiltrated the drainage system and threatened to gouge out her eyes, before throwing itself out of the window. She didn't even look like she wanted to tell Jace what was wrong. Forgetting the fact that one wrong move could result in him seeing more of his sister than he should ever be intending; Jace moved towards her and took her by the shoulders.
"Clary," he said firmly. "Tell me what's wrong."
It took a few seconds for Clary to gather enough composure to form words. "...there's a spider. In the shower."
Jace thought he had misheard. It was certainly possible; the running water was making quite a racket. "Speak up Clary, I didn't hear you."
"A spider," she clarified, looking more embarrassed by the second. She unconsciously adjusted her death grip on the towel and Jace let go of her shoulders, feeling colour steal into his own face. "In the shower."
Before he knew it, Jace was laughing. There was a slight note of hysteria in his laugh, having been convinced for a few seconds that Clary was in mortal danger. Now, however, that she had confirmed she was okay and that the reason for the tortured scream was a household pest, Jace couldn't hold in his amusement.
"Clary, you killed a Ravener demon with your bare hands and you're scared of a creepy-crawly?!" He positively hooted with laughter. "It's a tiny spider, what harm do you think it could have done to you?"
"It was on my foot," Clary huffed, as though this gave reasonable grounds for her screeching fit. She was still trembling but looked a little indignant now, the curling hair around her neck looking like licks of fire.
"Oh, well I guess if it was on your foot, that's a perfectly good reason to scream down the Institute at 11pm," continued Jace relentless, obviously milking this moment of weakness for all it was worth. "Honestly, you call yourself a Shadowhunter? Maybe tomorrow, when I should be schooling you in hand-to-hand combat, we should have a session on how to handle household pests. Just in case you ever happen across a warlock with a cockroach problem..."
"Will you just get rid of it please?!" Clary yelled suddenly, paling a little. Jace couldn't hold back a chuckle. She was like an angry kitten. An angry kitten who was completely convinced that she was a tiger.
Pulling back the shower curtain, Jace saw the subject of Clary's terror. It was a perfectly ordinary brown spider with a little round body and spindly legs. It wasn't even that big. It fit into the palm of Jace's hand with room to easily spare. He set the spider on the window ledge outside of the bathroom and closed the window securely so that it couldn't intrude on Clary's bathroom activities again.
"Satisfied?" Jace asked, turning back to Clary. With the offending insect gone, she seemed much more herself.
"Yes, thank you," she said haughtily. "You can go now while I finish my shower."
This is too easy¸thought Jace with a smirk. The blush had disappeared from Clary's face now and Jace had to admit it had looked good on her. He'd like to see it one last time before he left her in peace.
"Okay. If you're sure you want me to leave?" he said with a wink. Her facial expression alone was amusement enough – her jaw dropped before she recovered herself and narrowed her eyes.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Clary demanded.
"Oh nothing. I just thought you might need some help with those hard-to-reach places," persisted Jace, his eyes flicking over her towel-covered form suggestively. He thanked the Angel he was better at hiding what he was feeling than Clary obviously was. His own words were conjuring up all sorts of images.
Clary opened and closed her mouth a few times like a goldfish and then took a deep breath. "No thank you," she said in her best snooty voice. "Now please leave."
"Fine. See you in the morning, bright and early. And squeaky clean..."
"Out!"
Jace left the steamy bathroom and closed the door gently behind him. He heard the slight change in the sound of the water running which meant Clary had resumed her shower and for a minute he just stood there, in her dishevelled bedroom. He wasn't sure what he was waiting for, or even if he was waiting for anything. He just wasn't ready to move yet.
After about ten minutes of standing, motionless with his back to the bathroom door, he heard Clary shut off the water altogether and decided he'd best make a speedy exit. As he heard the click of the bedroom door behind him, he set off back to his bedroom, contemplating that he may need a shower of his own. A cold one.