She was lying in a pool of blood, sticky and hot, and red. It dripped down her arm when she tried to raise it. It seeped out of every pore. The Empire State Building loomed above her, and from this angle, it looked like the point of it would come down and pierce her. If she moved, she splashed the blood and it grew into the pavement, staining everything red. There was danger everywhere, people everywhere. She couldn't bear to move. They walked past her with briefcases, some saying,
"She's dead."
She wanted to shout, No!, but the words didn't come, only the blood . The sky was switching off and on, from night to day, clouds to sun, rain to snow. The clouds were filthy, filled with movement of angry grey angels. They wanted her, they wanted to get her, but the sky was too far away.
She would bleed until she died, and in death, she would bleed more. From the point on the Empire State Building, something fluttered like the wings of a far away pigeon. She watched the white grow whiter as it neared. White wings, white face, with a frozen expression like a white statue, the angel came close. It flew above her, and there was white and red, white and red everywhere.
"Why?" Clary sobbed to the angel. Her tears were blood. Her words were blood.
"Bloodletting cannot save you," the angel said in a voice.
"Why?" she sobbed again.
"You must bleed gold for me," the angel told her.
In the morning, the door opened to Clary's room and woke her with a start. She had been dreaming about something, but from the moment her eyes opened, whatever world she'd been in had disappeared. She was left with the feeling that she had to resolve a conflict.
"Clary?" Her mother's voice was soft, meant to be a gentle awakening. Clary felt shaken.
"Hm," she mumbled into her pillow. She didn't look up, but she could feel the sun coming in through the window, and she could feel her mother's presence at the door, looming in on her.
"I'm going to go with Luke to get some things. You should come, honey." She knew her mother meant that she should come with her so that she could hover over her, make sure that she wouldn't suddenly drop dead of nausea.
"I'll stay here," she said, cloaking the bitterness with tiredness. She still didn't pull her head out of the pillow, but she heard a long pause in which Jocelyn was probably trying to decide if Clary would wither away without her. Jocelyn knew Clary's longing for independence, but sometimes she wouldn't give her daughter a break. It's not responsible for me to leave you here when you're sick, honey. She thought Jocelyn would play that card again, but amazingly she didn't.
"Keep your phone with you," she said. "Call me the second you need-"
"I know, Mom."
"And make sure you take your-" she was about to say something along the lines of medicine, and Clary quickly remembered two things, the realization of them hitting her like a freight train; Jocelyn was going to start talking about chemo, and Jace was still under her bed.
"I know, okay?" she snapped. A flutter of fear went through her. What if his foot was sticking out? Did he snore?
"Alright, Clary."
Her mother didn't sound hurt, just like she was resigning to Clary's little wrath and backing away with her hands up. Clary felt sorry all the same. She was often irritable, but this wasn't the way she wanted to wake up. For a moment she wondered if Jace wasn't there at all, if maybe he'd left before dawn. The idea made her stomach ache with disappointment. Her mother paused in the room for another long moment until Clary looked up at her, finally. Whatever sleep she'd gotten on the sofa had not replenished her. She sill looked a little frazzled. Clary wondered how terrible she looked herself at the moment, or had looked last night. She remembered the unpleasant pale face she saw in the bathroom mirror and fidgeted uncomfortably.
"I'm fine," she told her mother.
Jocelyn gave her a simple, "I know," before backing out of Clary's room and closing the door.
Her heart thundered in her ears as she listened for the sound of the front door closing, her mother's footsteps falling away. After thirty seconds of stillness, Clary relaxed back onto the bed. She was still tired, permanently so, but her nerves felt alive and electric. Oh, what Jocelyn would say if she knew she had a boy in her room. A boy who wasn't Simon.
If she listened, she could hear soft sound of him breathing. It was morning, bright inside her bedroom, and he was still here. Biting her lip, she closed her eyes and kissed him all over again. She pressed a hand to the mattress and sent him that kiss through the springs and the stuffing. Of course it wasn't quite enough.
With as much finesse as she could muster, she stepped out of the bed and stood on the carpet. He limbs ached and protested as she got down on her knees, and then her stomach. His face was turned toward her, his angular cheek sunk into the pillow. His chest rose and fell, and under here, his breath came out heavier. It was dark and wooden under her bed, but enough light lit up the gold in his hair. She wanted him to open his eyes so she could see what they looked like in the sun. He was a Christmas present under the tree. Under her bed.
Slowly she turned over and slid herself under until she looked up and saw the underbelly of the bed frame. Her shoulder brushed against his. Her eyes scanned him over and over, drinking in his sight. This felt like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study his face like this, when he wasn't watching. He had no cocky grin, stripped bare by sleep. His hand was flat against his stomach, the blanket gathered at his hips..
She turned on her side so that she could edge her head onto a bit of the pillow. There was blond hair over one eye, Clary desperately wanted to bush it away from his face, but then his eye opened. She held her breath while his eyes saw her.
"Where am I?" was the first thing he asked. He blinked a few times and looked around.
"Under my bed."
"Right," he said, bringing his hand up to run over his face. His voice was deep, hoarse with sleepiness. "I had a dream that I was locked inside a museum."
Clary itched at the block in her mind. If only she could recall her own dream. It felt dead and gone, but she knew it was important, somehow.
"I'm sorry I woke you." She bit her lip, because it was a lie, and she was not sorry at all.
Jace's eyes went over her. She didn't look her best, she was still sick and felt like she'd been wrung out like a rag. Her hair was probably a mess. Her eyes were probably red and cloaked in darkness. She knew for a fact that her skin was alabaster-white. Still, Jace was fixated on her face for long moment. She was fixated on him. Then he said,
"Come here," and those words, she decided, were the sexiest two words in the English language. They undid her, cut her loose, and she set herself against him until his forehead rested against hers. She was back in the synagogue with him, back in the night with the fresh memory of his lips. She pressed her mouth to his, hoping that she was getting better at kissing. It didn't really matter, she supposed, because Jace had a spell on him that made everything float away. She didn't care that she was awful at this, new at this, she just cared that he kept hissing her. He did. His lips went suddenly feverish, pushing against her with such force that her neck kept tipping back. It was like trying to keep your head up on a rollercoaster.
He did something unexpected. In a fluid movement, his hand went to her lower back, and like she was weightless, he pulled her against him. She gasped and he chuckled. The laugh vibrated against her lips.
He felt as soothing as warm water, warm water spilling all around her. His hand started with small circles on her back, slowly causing her shirt to ride up, but she wasn't paying much attention. She spread her fingers against his side, then gathered the fabric of his shirt, fisting it in her hand. She felt greedy like a child, wanting him and wanting to declare him, mine, mine mine! She'd never share.
She needed air, her breath was gone, and she broke away from him. Panting, they were looking at each other again. His golden eyes, filled with light, became filled with something else. His pupil dilated, she noticed, like it was coming into a focus on her. She sighed against him, lips brushing again, puckering with his at the last minute. He reached around her and braced himself. With a quick, cat-like movement, he was hovering above her. She thanked God that there was enough space for the both of them under this bed.
His hair hung all around them, sunlit and golden. She lifted her hand, forgetting that it was shaking slightly, and pushed the hair back against his head. Nuzzling into her hand, he kissed her and lowered himself on top of her at the same time. She felt his weight balanced against her torso, her legs, and he occupied every place in between. Her arms went around to feel his back. His back… She hadn't noticed this part of him yet, but it was beautiful and endless. He had smooth muscles, smooth in the concave that his shoulder blades made. She hugged him to her, and his tongue slipped easily into her mouth, like a response.
Clary decided that she officially loved his back. She felt the hem of his shirt and gained access to his skin without his permission. Her palms slid over the skin above his pants. He had baby-soft skin, and her hands felt coarse against it. Obsessively, she forgot about this kissing, and became preoccupied with the way his back arched against her hands when he dipped in to kiss her once, twice, three times until his lips landed on her neck. She trailed one lazy finger down the line of his back and he shuddered unexpectedly.
She couldn't help feeling it, because he was on her and all over her; she felt it pressing against her hip.
An alarming voice in her head yelled, like from some far away room, Clary! You've known him for five minutes!
But then his hand went to her thigh, sliding her leg up so that it was bent. He ran his hand back and forth over the fabric of her pajama bottoms. If this kept happening, she would probably bend her other leg, and that would make him pressed in between both of them. This realization was brand new, knocking her on her ass with sudden, fluttering fear. It was not butterflies in her stomach, it was panicked birds trying to get out and crashing against her ribcage.
"Wait," she breathed.
He waited, detaching himself from her neck.
"What is it?" he said clearly. How was his voice so steady? Clary swallowed as a lump rose in her throat. Last week, she had only ever kissed one boy, and now she was a girl with a boy between her legs. She fought off the mad urge to laugh, but instead, she did what she usually did and asked him a question.
"What's your last name?"
Jace laughed at this, pressed his face into the pillow, into her hair. She let her own arms fall to her sides, reluctantly away from his smooth back.
"That's kind of a big question," he said in her ear. A big question?
"You've had a lot of last names?" She was reminded of what he said last night in the dark, and the word foster, grew bigger in her mind.
Slowly, he slid off her, careful not to hit his head on the bed frame. She noticed that there were dust bunnies under here with them. Seeing them made her wish that she'd been brave enough to let him into her bed. She wasn't brave enough to do that, though. She put a stop to a good thing because she couldn't take not knowing him for another second. She wanted to know the little things about him, and the big things. It was selfish. It was unfair. She had told him nothing.
"It's just Jace," he said, echoing the fist time she'd asked him. His answer disappointed her, but she couldn't blame him for keeping it secret. His name, his foster parents, it must be complicated. There was so much she wasn't saying, either.
She turned her head to look out into the space of her room. She'd never seen it from this angle before, from this low to the ground. Her head ached now that Jace wasn't kissing her. Soon, she would probably have to throw up again. And in a ten days, she would have to go back and inject more radiation into her awful blood. The dread rose up around her room. It was growing into a shadow, trying to reach the glow under the bed and leech the light from them. She didn't turn her head back to him for a moment, but then she felt his hands slide over her stomach, easing her with his arms until her back was pressed against his front. His heat wrapped around her protectively as she kept one eye on the shadows that wanted to get her. This place with him was a sanctuary.
His fingers slipped through her hair, and he spoke against her neck, making her skin prickle.
"There's another show tonight," he murmured. "At The Steele."
"As president of your fan club," she began. "I suppose it's necessary that I'm there."
"You can sell our autographs and headshots."
She laughed at this, the image of her holding up an I'm with the band sign came to her mind. She didn't know how true the statement was. How "with" Jace was she? Surely, someone you made out with in your bedroom should know that there was Leukemia there, between the both of them. He should know what he was getting himself into, and she should tell him. She should tell him.
"I'll be there," she whispered instead. For how long, Clary? How long will you be there?
They were quiet. His head stayed resting against her neck, his long legs fitting inside her bent knees. If they stayed there long enough, she thought they might fall asleep again. She knew it would be nice to sleep in his arms. She might think about it on cold nights for the rest of her life. They did not sleep, however. They untangled themselves, and when his body heat was gone from her, she felt like there was a missing piece to her comfort. She was used to soothing herself, rubbing her own arms when she was cold, falling asleep with just her own legs in her bed. She was not used to being kissed, or being held. As she watched him slide out from the sanctuary, and become a pair of feet in her line of vision, she felt a weird displacement. Maybe she had just ruined herself, ruined her solitude. At that moment, she couldn't imagine wanting to be alone in a bed ever again, or under it.
She inched her way out to join him, finally standing in the normal light of her normal room. Jace standing by the window was like a bright splash of paint on the walls. A bright splash of gold.
She walked over to the window and helped him slide the stubborn frame up. The air was warmer than it had been last night, and Jace climbed through, into the breeze.
"You could have used the front door, you know."
Jace turned and faced her, squatting on the fire escape the same way he'd come in. It was several flights of stairs down onto the street, but she imagined that Jace could swing down them gracefully, like a street jumper or a gymnast. He gave her a long, smiling look. His lips were swollen, she realized, from kissing her. Her stomach stirred with excitement.
He leaned in again, and she was getting used to him filling up all her vision with his hair, his ears, his skin. He kissed her lightly, but didn't seem to want to pull away. She didn't make any effort to. She imagined kissing him forever in this spot, through the threshold of her fire escape window. He finally did let go of her lips, and flushed, he looked at her for a long time. Her arms wavered, lowering the window frame slightly from its weight. He scanned over her face, her lips, her chin, then back up to her eyes. Finally, he said,
"Jace Wayland."