Unusually Long Author's Note: Sorry this is another chapter that gave me some trouble. I should have the next one up soon. Really fast though I want to answer a couple questions from the reviews and ask a couple of my own.
- I may include some of Clary POV later but you probably won't see Jace POV.
-Jonathan's demon blood works like it did in the book with a little bit of stuff I add (ex. the runes not working as well and later on you'll find out they hurt more on his skin). He's not quite as strong as the others as a result of his medication.
My questions: I have a one shot "Too Soon" that a couple people said they would like to see a continuation of it would the people who read that like an angsty story based off that? Or I was thinking about my next story being about the Chicago Institute's shadowhunters? Which would you guys rather read?
Disclaimer: I do not own TMI/Shadowhunters or any of the characters.
By the time they walked through the institute doors Jonathan had imagined about a thousand different ways Jace and Clary's raid of the Hotel Dumort could end and most of them were horrible. By the time the three of them had gotten changed and sat back down in the conference area waiting for Jace's call he had thought of another fifty. He tried every exercise that Brother Zachariah taught him to try and keep the demon blood induced thoughts away to calm himself down.
Every now and then there would be days at a time when Jonathan's medication didn't seem to work that well. For the most part he would be able to contain the hostility towards himself, but bottling it up did little to help anything. He'd lose sleep from horrific and realistic nightmares and just about anything he ate tasted wrong. By the time the episodes would pass he'd be exhausted and a little faint.
Brother Zachariah had told him the best thing he could do was focus on the most outlandish detail and start to break it apart until he could refute it.
He started with the idea that the second they set foot in the hotel they would be swarmed. Vampires were fast but they weren't that fast. And they had trouble working together. Werewolves were in packs because teamwork was easy for them, vampires were the exact opposite. By nature vampires were gluttonous, if they weren't going to get more blood out of a situation they weren't interested.
The only reason such large groups of vampires had gotten common was because of the Accords. It was a lot easier to stay out of the eye of the Clave if they hid among others of their kind. The worst Jace and Clary would encounter is seven or eight vamps at most. It wasn't ideal but it was a lot better than the whole clan.
He worked his way through his list of worries until he was faced with the most realistic. Clary had the same reckless behavior as Jace with significantly less training to back it up. He couldn't think of any way that wouldn't get Clary in trouble.
Isabelle and Alec were flipping through files on the screen. Jonathan was too focused on his task to know what they were looking at. Their lack of concern for Clary and Jace made his blood feel like it was ready to boil. Jace was Alec's parabatai, shouldn't he be more concerned? Shouldn't Isabelle be worried one of her best friends might be getting hurt right at that moment?
His stomach started to twist again and he laid his head down on the table. Alec and Izzy aren't worried about Jace because they know he can handle himself. Jace can handle himself. He'll look after Clary. Doubt began to flood his thoughts almost instantly.
"Jon?" Izzy's voice came from somewhere near him. "Are you okay?"
He stood up fast enough that his vision turned black for a moment. "I'm going to go to my room. Come get me if they call."
Izzy followed him out of the room and grabbed his arm before he could get too far. "Seriously Jon, are you okay?"
He reached up and rubbed his temples, "Look Izzy, I just really need to lie down for a while. This whole little sister thing is a lot harder than I thought it would be and I'm getting a headache. Please."
Isabelle let go of his arm and let him head off towards his room. For the second time that day he thought about what would happen if he took a second dose of his medication. His symptoms had never showed up this strong after he took a day's injection. It could have been the start of one of his slumps but he couldn't risk it with Clary's arrival.
He shut his door and stared at his room. The last time he had been in here Clary had been standing by the door asking about his father. She had gone quiet when he told her why Valentine had started the fire that night.
There wasn't really an appropriate reaction when your older brother told you that your father tried to kill him. He just told her not to worry about it which was probably the least comforting thing he could have said.
His thoughts slid back to the Hotel Dumort and Clary's lack of training. He winced at the images of blood and fangs flashing through his head. His eyes locked on the boxes on his dresser. He had a whole box full of doses, he had enough that one extra dose wouldn't be missed
Maybe it would stop the scenarios from playing out in his head and ease the tightness in his chest. He thought of Alec and Izzy, calm and rational in the control room and wondered how they could pull it off.
He didn't hesitate on the way to the dresser but paused with his hand on the latch. He was sick of being the only one out of control. How would Clary ever trust him if he couldn't figure out a way to keep himself in check?
Isabelle always looked to Alec when she was in trouble and he never hesitated to fix it for her and he never let her know what stress he was under. He should be able to do that for Clary.
Jonathan stripped off his gear jacket and opened his box of medication. His hands were steady as he loaded the syringe, to his surprise. Usually when he got to the point when he started seeing things he would be shaking and sweating.
He gave himself the injection, trying hard to predict the outcome of this decision. Admittedly, Jonathan had never been anywhere nearly as careful as Alec but he never got too close to Jace's reckless edge. This was probably the closest he had gotten to Jace's impulsiveness.
He put everything away as carefully as possible and sat on the edge of his bed and waited. The usual chill didn't come and neither did the heat wave. He just started to feel heavy, like his limbs were made of lead.
His eye lids began to slide shut and he laid down on his side. Jonathan tried to calculate how long it had been since he took his first injection of the day, but the numbers didn't make sense. He thought he had been worried about something but he couldn't quite remember what it was.
Clary. Something had happened to Clary or Clary caused something to happen. Something with Clary. His thoughts started to blur and fade until he was completely unconscious.
-o.0.o-
Cold fingers pressed against Jonathan's neck just under his jaw. "His pulse is back to normal," Hodge's voice was low as he moved around beside Jonathan's bed. "He'll probably be awake soon. You can all go to bed, I'll stay up with him."
"If he's going to be awake soon why would we go to bed?" Clary protested quietly, "You need to check on Simon anyway. I'll stay up with him."
"He means," The authority in Alec's voice seemed out of place among the other's soft voices even if he wasn't speaking all that loud, "That we shouldn't all be in here. It's good bedside manner to let a patient readjust without a bunch of people in the room."
Alec left with a comment about needing to check on his sister. "I'm going to go get cleaned up, do you want me to bring you a change of clothes?" Jace asked. His voice was a little hoarse when he spoke. He sounded exhausted. It bothered Jonathan that he didn't know how much time had passed since he got back to the institute.
He forced his eyelids open and blinked against the dim light. Clary ignored Jace's question. "He's up," She said a little louder than she had probably meant to speak. "Jon, are you okay? What the hell were you thinking?"
He turned his head and squinted against the light on his bedside table. Hodge was watching him warily from the corner, probably checking to make sure he didn't overdo it. Jace and Clary stood side by side a few feet away, clothes torn and dirt and blood smeared on their skin.
"What the hell was I thinking, the girl who ran off to a vampire hotel asks," His sarcasm probably would have been better if he had been able to put any volume or force behind it. Jonathan had no idea how long he had been out but he knew it had been long enough that he had no right to feel as drained as he did.
Jace gave Hodge a quick look. "This seems like something that should happen between siblings. I'm going to go ahead and turn in. Good night everyone."
"And I'll go check on your friend, Clary." Hodge and Jace left a little too eagerly. They had been in between enough of Alec and Isabelle's fights that they knew it was best to steer clear.
Clary waited until the door shut behind them to step forward and kneel by the bed. "Jace and I can handle ourselves, we're shadowhunters. Why did you feel the need to knock yourself unconscious?"
"First of all," Jonathan tried to sit up but it didn't quite work. Clary got up and helped prop him up on a couple pillows. He muttered a thank you and tried to ignore the aches appearing all over his body.
Clary sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at him. He had to give her credit, she had one hell of a poker face. He couldn't tell if whatever had happened with the vampires had traumatized her or affected her at all. Or just how mad at him she was for risking the second dose. It was a little intimidating.
"First of all, you literally became a shadowhunter a day ago. You didn't know anything about this until twenty—well I don't know how long ago because, as you've pointed out, I was unconscious. My point is that you shouldn't be acting like you know everything." Jonathan could feel his strength returning the more he spoke but he had a feeling it was his worry from before coming out that made him so talkative.
"Jace has training, Clarissa, he's one of the best," Jonathan explained, "But he's not exactly the most predictable in battle. You don't know anything about fighting, you would have no idea what to do fighting beside him. If I'm being honest I'm a little surprised you made it out with a few cuts and scrapes.
"I had a plan to get Simon back, one that would have been a lot less of a headache. I spent the entire way back to the institute thinking of every way that your little mission could go wrong. You couldn't even take a second to figure out one before you jumped in head first?
"Don't worry about me and what I did. I was stupid," He faintly remembered giving himself the second injection but he didn't remember his rationale for doing so, "I wasn't thinking clearly. Just do me a favor and concentrate on taking care of yourself just as much as you do everyone else?"
Clary looked down at the blankets covering Jonathan and cleared her throat. "Can I use my third question now?" Her voice sounded so small that Jonathan felt a little bad about scolding her. He had to remind himself that with their mother M.I.A. it was his job to keep her safe and sometimes that would mean chastising her.
He sighed and leaned back into his pillows as far as he could. He stared up at the ceiling and the old beams that ran across it. The light from the lamp by his bed made interesting shadows across the plaster and wood. "Why not?"
"Have you ever thought about—would you ever," She paused and took a deep breath, "Did you ever consider getting your runes stripped and becoming a mundane?"
Clary had a habit of knocking him off guard with her questions. At least it's the last one. He tilted his head to the side so he could see her again. She waited for her answer just like the last time. "Why would I?"
She looked down and played with the frayed hem of her dress. "I just thought it might be easier for you if you could live in a way that no one would know there was something different about you."
"Clary," Jonathan sighed and shook his head with what little strength he was gaining, "I wouldn't be living it up in some one room apartment in Brooklyn, working during the day and partying all night. I would be in one of your mundie prisons. Or locked up where ever they put the people that see things and get angry at the drop of a hat and have violent tendencies.
"The second my runes come off and I sacrifice my title as a shadowhunter I lose access to my treatment," He chose his words carefully so he wouldn't frighten her.
"I've read up on mundane medicines," he confessed, "I thought they might help take the edge of but they won't work. Mundane medications help fix chemical imbalances in the brain, Izzy explained it to me. My condition is a mutation of my DNA and not one mundane doctors have figured out."
Clary's face turned a little pink like she was embarrassed she had thought of the idea at all. Jonathan didn't want her to feel ashamed for trying to look out for him. He was actually a little surprised that she had been thinking of ways for him to get out of his situation at all.
He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Besides," He made his voice as light as possible, "If I did that I would be proving everyone who ever called me an abomination right. I'd rather see their faces when we turn our father over to the Clave. It would be a lot more entertaining for me."
He was a little surprised to hear Clary laugh at that. He was being partially serious, actually he was being a lot serious. Her laugh faded into a yawn. Jonathan looked back down at his little sister. "You've had a long day, you should go to bed," He nudged her knee with his hand. "We need to start your actual training tomorrow. And not just the fun stuff like seraph blades and combat but the boring stuff like memorizing runes too."
Clary groaned and stood up. "Gee, I can't wait." Jonathan laughed at his sister's false enthusiasm as she shut the door behind her.
He moved as slowly as he could to stretch and turn the light out. The muscles in his torso ached as the witchlight went out, plunging his room into darkness. He shoved the extra pillows out of the way and let himself relax back into the bed. Training was going to be difficult tomorrow.