VI

Nightmares

Jace lightwood quietly opened the window of the five story apartment building, and climbed into the room with the silence and grace of a cat. He crept up upon the sleeping figure of his friend. Then shook the demigod roughly awake all silence and grace forgotten. Percy's eyes fluttered open as they adjusted to the light of the bedside lamp Jace turned on.

"Jace, What in Hades are you doing here?" Percy growled rubbing his eyes in disbelief. His eyes widened as he glanced at the clock on his nightstand. "It's 3:30am you can't just come and break into my house at odd hours in the morning!" Percy continued angrily.

"I couldn't sleep." Jace said blatantly like he didn't find his being there rude and strange.

"So you decided to make sure I didn't get any either?" Percy asked sarcastically.

"Someone's definitely not a morning person." Jace grinned.

"What do you want Jace? And it better be important." Percy asked angrily. Though he probably didn't look that intimidating while sporting a serious bed head, and drool stains on his chin. Jace sat on the end of the bed, and stared out the window at the lights of the city as he spoke.

'I haven't gotten much sleep lately, because of these recurring nightmares. Every time I go to sleep I dream that I'm hurting Clary in some way. It's different every night, and gets more sadistic every time I close my eyes. I hoped by coming here I could maybe find some peace, like I usually do." Jace admitted sounding defeated.

Percy was still angry at being woken up in the middle of the night, but as he gazed upon Jace's face he noticed the dark circles under his eyes. His skin was pale, and the usual arrogant gleam in his eyes was dulled. Percy just sighed, and ran a hand through his hair trying to wake up.

"When will Jace and Clary stop having all these weird relationship problems? Maybe then I'll get more sleep in the future" Percy thought to himself distractedly.

"Look Jace I don't know if dreams mean anything in your Nephilim world or whatever, but in my world nightmares are hardly ever just some meaningless trick my mind plays on me. They're glimpses into the past, future, and present they mean something. I know that nightmares are bothersome, believe me I know, but it probably doesn't mean anything." Percy said tiredly. 'Is everything alright with your relationship?"

Jace just looked at Percy like he was an idiot.

"Well obviously our relationship isn't going well if I'm having these visions!" Jace whispered furiously. Percy glared at him.

"Well fine if you don't want my help. Then please leave." Percy growled irritably gesturing at the window.

"Alright, I'm sorry for yelling at you. Can I stay here for the rest of the night?" Jace asked quietly. Percy just gave him an odd look, but noticed the desperate gleam in his friend's eyes.

Percy sighed and grumbled to himself. 'Yeah sure, you can take the bed." he relented tiredly, as he grabbed his bedspread and one of the pillows and got out of bed. Jace smiled and proceeded to jump into Percy's bed, and wiggled around trying to get into a comfortable position. He ended up on his back with his hands behind his head staring at the ceiling.

"Tell me a story." Jace ordered.

"What are you, five?" Percy asked sarcastically.

'I need something to distract me." Jace replied his voice cracking at the end. "I know!.' he said triumphantly. "tell me about your grey streak. I've always wondered about that."

"What did you think it was?" Percy asked curiously.

"I don't know some weird mundie fad, or you just have bad genes and grey prematurely…" Jace went on to describe even more ridiculous assumptions. Percy face-palmed, Jace couldn't be more wrong.

"Dude stop. None of your guesses are even close to what actually happened." Percy interrupted before proceeding to tell Jace a condensed version of the story.

"You held up the sky?" Jace asked in disbelief when Percy finished speaking.

"I don't care nor expect you to don't believe me. It's all mythology anyway." Percy spat bitterly. Jace didn't say anything for a while before speaking again.

"You must have had some pretty bad nightmares. How do you deal with them?" Jace asked.

"When you've been through as many nightmare-like situations in life, you learn to not let them scare you anymore, and you just shrug it off." Percy said sadly. Jace didn't reply, and just thought for a moment. Percy was still hiding a lot inside, and was obviously still reluctant to let it all out.

"How do you get a guy who has so much locked away, and has kept up this strong facade for so long to finally open up completely?" Jace thought as he started thinking of ways, completely forgetting his fear of falling asleep, and the nightmares.

"I don't think that's very healthy." Jace spoke. When Percy didn't respond Jace figured he must be asleep.

A couple hours later Jace woke up in a cold sweat after a nightmare of strangling Clary with his own hands. He looked around the room wildly forgetting for a moment where he was, when he suddenly remembered the events of the night. Jace smiled and forgot about the vivid dream more easily than usual. The first rays of dawn, shot their way through the early morning fog, as Jace left the building on his way home.

On his way home Percy found Jace at his usual spot by the lamppost looking, as arrogant and nonchalant as ever.

"Tell me about your nightmares." Jace ordered blatantly. Percy looked away.

"I've never told anyone about them. What makes you think I'll tell you." Percy said quietly moving on.

"Yeah I know you haven't told anyone a lot of things, but you can't keep stuff locked away forever. Besides I can be very persuasive." Jace urged pressuring the demigod, and flexing his muscles.

"Are you going to try and beat it out of me?" Percy asked amused.

"Whatever it takes." Jace shrugged

"I-I can't. Besides you'd probably think they were stupid. If you try to beat it out of me, I'll fulfill my promise." Percy continued dangerously.

Jace was suddenly very aware of something. Percy was afraid that he'd lose control of his emotions, if he'd revealed what scared him most. When the demigod told Jace his stories he was strong, and didn't reveal anything he would later learn to regret. Jace was also reminded of Percy's "promise" to demonstrate the full might of his powers. Jace put his hand on the shorter boy's shoulder, as he spoke.

"Dude its okay, you can tell me. I promise I won't judge." Jace said with his other hand on his heart. Percy glared at Jace unimpressed.

"You not Judge? When have you ever not judged someone?" he asked.

"Alright fine, but seriously." Jace tried again.

"No." Percy growled with finality. The two powerful teenagers continued to walk in silence, until Percy stopped at a coffee shop and looked up to the sky in annoyance.

"You're not going to go away are you?" Percy asked defeated.

"Nope Not unless you unleash your godly powers on me." Jace said smiling; bringing his hands up to make air quotes on the words "godly powers". Percy rolled his eyes, and scowled at the shadow hunter before walking into the coffee shop. They sat down with their cappuccinos, as Percy reluctantly told Jace about his worst nightmares and fears. Jace listened intently, and couldn't help but notice how Percy's would lose volume at times, his eyes dulled and blurred with unshed tears.

The shadow hunter was surprised to find out that Percy hardly cared for his own life, as much as he did the lives of those closest to him. They were also alike in that nothing in the mortal/mundane world scared them.

Percy's fears and nightmares were pretty freaky. Just thinking about them made Jace uncomfortable even if he still had a hard time believing everything Percy's done and seen. When the demigod finished he still looked depressed, as he looked away and stared at the ground while stirring his cappuccino absentmindedly.

"I don't see why you're so upset. It seems to me like all these enemies of yours should be scared of you instead of the other way around." Jace said with a shrug and a smirk. Not showing sympathy towards the demigod's depressed state.

'All my enemies know my weakness. They know what will me crack, and it's not fair that my greatest flaw causes the pain and death of others. If I overcome my weakness they'll still get hurt. It's a lose-lose situation." Percy said exasperated in his outburst one of the tears finally fell, and he quickly turned away furious with himself.

"No one expects you to be perfect, and if these people are really your friends they wouldn't blame you. In fact they probably would blame you if chose them over the world, or something else more important. I know I would." Jace said with a smirk.

"I'll remind myself not to save your butt when the world needs saving again." Percy said managing a small smile.

Jace just gave him his cocky grin, his gold eyes twinkling. "There's the smile!" Jace shouted, like he would to a little kid. Percy crouched away from the stares of the other customers, as he glared at the shadow hunter. Unfortunately he couldn't keep up the glare for long, until his face broke out into laughter.

"Really Jace?" Percy asked sarcastically with a small smile and a shake of his head.

"Hey it made you happier right." Jace asked with a shrug. Percy just shook his head in answer. Jace walked with Percy the rest of the way to the demigods apartment building, he clapped his friend on the back in a goodbye gesture.

"Sweet dreams fish face." Jace called out, as Percy was about to go in.

"ditto" Percy replied rolling his eyes, as he went inside.