Title: Were it not that I Have Bad Dreams

Author: Emjen Enla (Fanfiction)/emjen_enla (Wattpad)/emjenenla (Tumblr)

Teaser: Jace is pretty sure he doesn't want to kill his girlfriend, but what if he really does? Or Jace hides out in Simon and Jordan's apartment in CoFA.

Rating: PG-13/T

Canon/Timeline: Mainstream, set during Chapter 7 of City of Fallen Angels

Dominant Characters: Jace Herondale (Lightwood at this point, technically, but whatever), Jordan Kyle (currently going by Kyle, also whatever), mentions of Simon Lewis and Clary Fray (Fairchild? So many name changes…)

Pairings: Clace (Clary/Jace)

Warnings: contemplated violence towards a loved one (if anyone can tell me what the actual trigger warning tag for this is, I'd be very happy to know)

Notes:

-To be honest I'm a little shocked that the first Shadowhunters thing I'm publishing is a Jace story because he's my least favorite Cassie Clare boy (outside of the TMI he's basically an arrogant jerk without any redeeming qualities). That said, I thought that his character in the beginning part of CoFA was very interesting so I kind of just ran with it (no kidding, its been a while since I wrote a fanfic this quickly). Still, I'm probably going to have to write something about Will or Julian to make up for this (not sure which one because I'm not sure which one I like better; leaning towards Julian, but not sure).

-There was something else I wanted to say in this author's note, but I can't remember what…

Disclaimer: I don't own the Shadowhunters, or Transformers or Call of Duty. Special thanks to our great and powerful overlord Google (a friend's joke not mine) for enabling me to find the names of popular movies and video games in 2007 because I sure don't remember. Title is from the same Hamlet quote Jace uses in Chapter 7.

Jace Lightwood woke up gasping and nauseous.

He was perched uncomfortably on a windowsill, the hard corner of the wall digging into his back. He stared, wide-eyed at the far wall, trying to push the memory of the nightmare away. He didn't understand why this kept happening. He didn't want to kill Clary, the thought made him sick, then why was he still dreaming it?

Or, a terrible, creeping little voice in his head said. Maybe you really do want to kill her, and you're just in denial. Maybe you're subconsciously pretending to be disgusted because it makes the urge easier to suppress.

The thought was like a bolt of terror, he rolled sideways off the windowsill and landed hard on his knees and elbows. He twisted his hands into his hair and squeezed his eyes tight closed. His stomach was churning, and he could taste bile in the back of his throat. He should never let Simon convince him to eat.

Wait. He remembered where he was and whose windowsill he'd fallen asleep on. The realization jerked him back into reality. He could not throw up on Simon Lewis's floor, he refused to.

He still had to stay crouched on the floor for a couple minutes, before his breathing evened out a little, and he felt like he was more in control of himself. He lifted his head and realized that Simon wasn't even in the room. His blankets were crumpled at the foot of the bed and his phone was gone. Jace pulled Clary's phone out of his pocket and checked the time. It was pretty early, which was a little surprising, because he'd always assumed Simon was one of those people who slept late.

He levered himself carefully to his feet, wary of the headrush he was prone to get recently, probably because he wasn't eating. After waiting a minute to make sure he was okay, he straightened out his clothes, slid Clary's phone back into his jacket pocket and left the bedroom.

Simon's werewolf roommate, Kyle, was sitting on the couch. He looked up when he heard the door close behind Jace. "Oh, so you're still here, Shadowhunter."

"Simon's not," Jace said, wondering if he looked as sweaty and panicky as he felt.

Kyle shrugged. "Yeah, well, he'll be back."

Despite everything, Jace had to admit he was probably right. They might not know who had tried to kill Simon, but even Jace had to admit the Mark of Cain was probably a better bodyguard than he would ever be. "I just wish he would have said where he was going."

Kyle was looking at him weird. "What are you doing here? I've never heard of a Shadowhunter being friends with a vampire."

Running from my problems. Jace thought, but what he said was, "He's my girlfriend's friend, not mine."

"Still bizarre," Kyle said.

"No more bizarre than a vampire and a werewolf rooming together," Jace said. "What's going on there?"

Even though Simon swore that Kyle was a good guy, something still wasn't right about him. The partial name bothered Jace. In his experience, people didn't hide their names unless they had something bigger to hide. With the exception of that Rihanna woman, of course. Jace had looked her up on Clary's phone last night along with those books about kids with two dads, because although he'd never admit it, it bothered him when people referenced things he didn't understand. He couldn't see Kyle as a person who would want to emulate a popstar, and even if he was, there were a million names way flashier than Kyle.

"Simon's a nice guy," Kyle said with a completely innocent shrug. "And he needed a place to stay."

"That was nice of you," Jace said carefully. He'd already ruled out the possibility that Kyle was in league with whoever had tried to kill Simon, but that didn't mean that the idea something else couldn't be up.

"Yeah," Kyle turned away and began rummaging around for the TV remote, a clear sign that the conversation was over.

Jace watched him for a couple minutes, his stomach still rolling unhappily. His shoulder blades were tacky with partially dried sweat. "Can I use your shower?" he asked.

"Sure, just keep your paws off my shampoo," Kyle said. "Simon's is in the right-hand cabinet."

"Thanks," Jace said and retreated.

He'd grown to hate showering in the last few weeks. He was perfectly aware that that wasn't really something it was socially acceptable to hate, but he did anyway. When he was in the shower there was no outside input, nothing to distract him so he just ended up worrying about the dreams.

Today he tried to focus on how Simon used different soap and shampoo than the Institute did. He tried to think about how weird the shampoo smelled. He tried to wonder what kind of shampoo he'd use if he had a choice, but each thought sprang an association and before he knew it he was thinking about the knife in his hand and Clary's sticky blood coating his hands.

Stop thinking about it, he told himself. Its not that hard. Just stop thinking about it. Think about something else. Where will Alec and Magnus go next? What could Magnus wear that would look more ridiculous on him than anything else he's worn?

But it didn't help; he could not get the image of Clary dying at his hands out of his head.

You know, you probably really do want to do that. Something said. If you didn't want to, you would be able to stop thinking about it. You're fantasizing about it, and just convincing yourself that you're not.

He jammed his hand down on the handle to turn off the water and stumbled out of the shower. He toweled off and braced himself against the sink, trying to catch his breath. He didn't feel any better than he had before the shower. In fact, he was starting to get a headache on top of everything else; either from lack of sleep or lack of food or both.

He ducked his head and tried to decide what to do. He couldn't just say to someone, "Hey, I'm having vivid nightmares about killing my girlfriend" and expect that do go over well, even if he hadn't been raised by Valentine Morgenstern. No, he needed to deal with this on his own; no one could ever know.

He pushed himself away from the sink and dressed in his dirty clothes, because he wasn't about to ask Kyle for a change of clothes. He caught himself chewing on his thumbnail and forced himself to stop.

He stepped back into the rest of the apartment. Kyle was sitting on the couch, watching some kind of action movie with poor graphics compared to the Transformers movie that Jace, Alec and Izzy had snuck away to watch last summer. As he got closer he realized it wasn't a movie at all, and that Kyle was controlling the person on the screen with black plastic controller.

"What are you doing?" Jace asked.

Kyle jumped like he'd forgotten Jace was there. "Call of Duty," he said. "You play?"

"Um, no," Jace said trying to hide that he had no idea what Kyle was talking about.

Kyle looked back at him for a moment, then laughed. "Oh, I forgot, Shadowhunters eschew all the wonders of the modern world. It's a video game. That's a-"

"I know what video games are," Jace said tightly. He did; he'd been in plenty of arcades during his demon hunting forays. "I just didn't know there were fighting ones."

"Well, that's too bad," Kyle said. "Sit down, and I'll try to educate you on everything you're missing about the 21st century."

Jace didn't really want to deal with Kyle's almost certainly condescending idea of "teaching him," but it was better that hiding out in the bathroom and obsessing about whether or not he wanted to kill his girlfriend, so he rounded the couch and settled down. He reminded himself that even though Kyle had had a normal childhood that allowed him to enjoy movies and video games without sneaking around, Jace could probably still lay him out, werewolf or not.

Kyle devolved into an explanation of the point of the game and the controls. Jace tried to pay attention, but the worry about the nightmares and hurting Clary hung around in the back of his mind just outside of his consciousness.

He rubbed at the skin under his eyes. He was exhausted. He had plenty of experience with all-nighters, but it turned out that long-term partial sleep deprivation was a completely different animal. He was surprised by how much he wanted to curl up on the couch and take a nap. He might have even considered it if not for the fact that he didn't want either of this apartment's inhabitants to see him jerk gasping back into wakefulness trying to convince himself that he didn't secretly want to commit murder.

It took him a second to realize that Kyle was looking at him with obvious concern. "What?" Jace asked.

"Are you okay?" the other boy asked.

Jace was surprised by how badly he wanted to say no, he was not okay. He had never had much urge to trust people, his father—Valentine—had trained that out of him at an early age, but right now he wanted to try. Maybe talking about it would help, maybe Kyle would be able to help him figure out how to make this stop.

He came to his senses a second later. It was ridiculous to think that Kyle would be able to help, after all, he was just another teenager. If Jace told, Kyle would take it all literally and assume Jace really did want to kill Clary—and maybe he'd be right. Either way, that wouldn't end well. Jace needed to work this out on his own; that was the only way to guarantee he'd be safe.

"I'm fine," he told Kyle, then leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees. "That guy over there in the corner is totally looking the other way," he said nodding to the TV. "A spinning wheel kick would put him out of commission."

And that's the point at which Simon walks in.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed,

Emjen