Assumptions
Christ, why did everybody think I wasn't my own person? Is it because of my disability? Everybody was always pushing me around and it was beginning to make me sick to my stomach.
Perhaps Jace didn't deserve the brunt end of my force, but he made me feel like it hadn't been my decision to go into that alleyway and touch each other—it most definitely had been my choice. I was unable to stop thinking about our moment on the couch after he had manhandled me at the crime scene, but this time was different. We were acting like we were starved, and maybe I was, because I couldn't get enough of him since last night. I had almost thrown all of my inhibitions out the window and let him take me, but I had felt him hold back as if he wanted to leave my virginity intact. I was grateful he did since I was sure it would be painful, especially with his endowment, but I was still unsure about my feelings for him.
Regardless, I shouldn't have gotten angry with him.
But my anger with Simon was completely justified. He was livid when I stepped into that car with him and the first words out of his mouth were "did you fuck him?"—I denied it, because Jace and I had only made out on my couch so it wasn't a lie. Then he spewed a million different reasons why I had to listen to him when he ordered me to stay away from Jace as much as possible. To de-escalate, I reassured him I would get a ride to the precinct with my dad and that seemed to satisfy him enough to leave back to his lab.
Of course, he was waiting for Valentine's arrival and called me in a fit when I wasn't there. Little did he know, I was getting passionately fingerbanged by the very man he urged me to stay away from—but I wasn't innocent either, I could still feel his length between my hands and the way he writhed in pleasure beneath me.
And God, I enjoyed every second of it.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled into our tense silence.
"I know," he breathed. "You don't have to apologize."
"I'm just angry that I'm being pushed around by people who believe they own me." I curled my knees to my chest and lied sideways against the backrest, facing the man whose jaw was clenched with pulsing mandible muscles. "Simon dictating who I spend time with, my father shoving me into a partnership, even my mother still indirectly controls aspects of my life."
"You don't belong to anybody, not even your father. Especially not your mother." His eyes were glued to the road but I knew he could see my nod in agreement. Though, the thought of belonging to Jace didn't feel as suffocating...
"God, what is wrong with me?" I whined in a sudden wave of self hatred.
"Nothing is wrong with you—"
"Someone I had talked to only a week and a half ago just died and I'm more concerned about my personal life and fucking around in alleyways than solving his murder," I had begun to cry. My sleeve wiped the tears in rough strokes across my eyes. "Fuck, we can't do that again, Jace."
His brows furrowed and his cheek pulled into his teeth but he remained fixed on the road. "You can have a personal life and solve murders." The meaning was deeper than just my personal life, I knew he meant my sex life as well. I wasn't ready to think about my sex life yet considering I never had one until I met the detective.
"I know I just—" I growled in frustration as my brain was working a million miles per hour while my mouth stuttered to get the thoughts out. "We have to focus. There's something we're missing with each scene."
He only gave a scoff with a shake of his head. I knew he was upset about the phone call with Simon and possibly being told that we couldn't pleasure each other anymore, but all of that had to take a spot on the back burner until the puzzle gets solved.
Regardless of his willingness to participate, I continued. "Maybe we're focusing too hard on roses."
"I disagree," he said flatly.
"You disagree?"
"Yeah, I disagree," he stated more harshly. "We already know that the colored roses are specifically bred, that's a fact. What isn't a fact, princess?"
"Uhm, pretty much everything else." My brows stitched together.
"Locations. So far, the first two scenes were in spaces where children usually go. The park and the skatepark. Maybe this guy wants to expose children to how fucked the world is." He huffed.
"So, by that logic, you agree that we've been focusing too hard on the roses and we need to investigate the scenes themselves as well."
His face twisted and he gave me a gnarly side eye, but I held a smug expression, knowing I was right. "Yeah, sure, whatever." I could sense that his thoughts were scrambled and flustered as thoroughly as my own were, yet the feeling was something he wasn't used to. Seeing Jace frazzled was shocking to say the least.
I sat and tried to regain focus for a moment, bringing my knees back up to my chest.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked quietly.
I opened my mouth to answer but snapped it shut again to ensure I really wanted to put the impromptu idea out into the universe. "We could ask my mom for help."
The entire top half of his body whirred to me, a rage stricken face scanned my apprehensive one. "Absolutely out of the question."
My eyes rolled. "It was just an idea, she's good with puzzles like me—"
"She's nothing like you. She is ruthless, psychotic, twisted. You are the only good thing she has ever given this world."
I only shrugged in defeat. My mother used to be good, at least from what I knew at my young age back then. I missed who she used to be—or rather I missed the person from the deep childhood memories. Valentine and Jocelyn were a great team and made sure I had a fulfilling childhood growing up full of toys and parental affection. I looked up to her, only to have my world crumble into a zillion pieces when I got the phone call.
Simon and I were at the movies at that time and we both got a strange feeling when my dad called me three times in a row, despite knowing where I was. The feeling that courses through your body when someone tells you that your mother was arrested for the murder and butchering of seven people is one that's not easily put into words. I had wanted to break down into a puddle of tears and vomit but I also felt as if I could run the five miles home without stopping to convince them they had the wrong person. Unfortunately, all of the evidence lined up to the point where even Valentine couldn't deny the actions of his wife anymore.
My father was torn to shreds—no, worse than that. He was a shell of the man he used to be after she was convicted and sentenced to life in the Oregon State Penitentiary. Sometimes I believe he still has love for her deep down, she is the mother of his only child after all. Perhaps there's a sort of unconditional love in that sense.
Jace parked the car and got out without saying anything, but I didn't want to sit by and let him open the door for me, so I pulled the handle and stood before shutting the door.
He stopped in his tracks a foot from me with a dark face. A rough palm grasped under my defiant chin. "You open that door again, I'll fuck you against it," he growled. "And you've made it clear you don't want that." He turned and walked with his tense shoulders before tossing candy into his mouth, which told me he was stewing. I dreaded fixing that issue but it was still on the backburner for the time being. I did have to admit to myself that he was wrong, the shameful pulses were enough proof of that.
My legs lept into action until they caught up to him. I was about to get lost in thought again until I spotted Simon storm out of the front doors with wrathful eyes in a beeline for the detective and I. The two men caught each other's eyes and my instincts told me they were set to brawl in the middle of the sidewalk.
"Fuck." I rushed ahead to clash against Simon with outstretched arms. "Simon, don't," I begged.
"What the fuck did you do to her?" he bellowed over my head to the approaching detective while pushing hard against my resistance.
Jace laughed bitterly and came up close behind me until he was a foot from Simon's sneer. "What did I do to her? You should ask what she did to me. She's capable of making her own choices, after all."
"Jace, stop," I urged but they were both in their own worlds.
"You motherfucker," Simon hissed and launched an unexpected right hook into the side of Jace's jaw. Jace took a step back and wiped blood from a split on his lip but had a malicious gleam in his eye and a wicked blood coated grin.
I swallowed down unfiltered fear. "Jace, please don't—" I was suddenly pulled out of the way by his hand around my arm before he threw a fist at the tech. Knuckles connected with cheekbone but Simon remained standing to throw another punch that was easily dodged. They became a flurry of flying fists with sickening thumps of flesh meeting flesh.
"Stop!" I tried to pull the back of Jace's jacket, but to no avail. I moved around and grasped the back of Simon's t-shirt but doing so caused a chain reaction—
He spun and backhanded me in the face with full force, successfully knocking me to the ground with a short yelp in pain that scraped at my throat. My cheek stung and I spit out a mouthful of blood onto the concrete. My palm pressed to my mouth and came back slicked in bloody saliva.
I looked up to Simon's shocked eyes and Jace righting himself from the chaotic sequence. Gold eyes finally saw me on the ground behind the tech and he paled harder than I had ever seen.
"Clare, I'm so sorry," Simon spewed as he tried to kneel to me.
I stuck my bloodied hand out to keep him away and shuffled backwards out of his reach. "Don't touch me."
A firm bloodied hand grasped my wrist. "Just let me fix it—"
"Get the fuck away from her," Jace growled through trembling lips and ripped Simon back until he sprawled flat against the pavement several feet away. My detective crouched in front of me and hovered his palms around my face in silent request. It seemed he had dodged most of the punches aside from the split in his lip and a bit of redness around his eye.
It took everything in me to lean away from his touch to the point where I had to avoid his eyes, too. He got the message as I watched his face grow regretful from my peripheral vision.
The doors launched open behind me, I craned my neck to see an angry Valentine flicking his eyes between the three of us. He rushed over and hooked his arms under mine to hoist me to my unbalanced feet. My head was dizzy and my mouth tasted heavy with iron. "All of you, in my office. Now." He kept an arm around me as he helped me regain my equilibrium on our way inside the precinct. My eyes avoided Jace's once again as he held the door open for us like he always has. Something told me he slipped in before Simon and let it fall closed, another act of pettiness.
The lobby was empty of civilians and police, thank Christ. Natalie stood from her chair with big, worried, mascara-caked eyes and even bigger breasts. "Oh my god, Jace, are you okay?" Her whiny voice made me snap.
"Go fuck yourself, Natalie, he won't do it for you," I hissed.
Her head jolted back like I had smacked her, an unattractive sneer pulled up her botox lips. "Jesus, you're a psycho. Like mother like daughter, I guess," she retorted.
I launched from my dad's grasp and clutched a decorative vase from the desk top. "You wanna fucking see psycho?" The vase aimed for her head as I chucked it with my full strength. She screamed and ducked out of the way milliseconds before the ceramic could shatter against her skull. It hit the wall and burst into a hundred shards instead.
"Clary!" A jumble of different voices called even as I sprinted around the desk and tackled the receptionist to the ground. We clawed at each other and she fisted a handful of my hair, making me hiss with more anger and climb on top of her. I threw a couple furious, and frankly untrained, fists into her hands as she blocked her screaming face until strong arms ripped me backwards from her.
"Psycho bitch!" Natalie shrieked as she sat up and smoothed her hair.
"Say it again, skank!" I tore from the hands and crashed back on top of her with more swinging punches. She put up more of a fight this round, clawing and pushing as much as she could. This time, Jace pulled me off of her and swung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"Let me go!" I screamed, kicking and wiggling in his grasp, but to no avail.
He turned to the Captain. "We're going to take the stairs up," his voice rumbled through his back and against my upside down chest. I gave up and hung lifelessly as he walked to the staircase door.
My friend turned to my father. "You can't just let him take her—"
"Simon, he's got her, it's fucking fine! Office, go," my dad pointed in the direction of the elevator then the staircase door closed, blocking my view with a steel sheet.
Jace was quiet as he very slowly ascended the stairs, the only sound coming from his boots against the metal steps with soft echoes. I could feel my blood rushing to my head with whooshing inside my ears.
"Are we crazy?" I asked into the silence.
"I definitely am. You might be, but all of that in there with Natalie was justified in my eyes. So you may be more sane than me," he answered.
I reached my hand into his hidden jacket pocket and nabbed a couple M 's. "What was justified about it?" The taste of chocolate was overpowering the taste of iron, making me sigh in relief because that metallic taste was nauseating combined with being upside down.
"Nobody gets to compare you to your mother, not a single person."
I swallowed. "Thank you," came out in a whisper.
He squeezed my legs and rubbed the palm of his free hand up and down my thighs in a comforting gesture. "Who's the possessive one now?" He gave a sharp slap to my ass with a chuckle.
"Don't fucking test me, I'm still upset with you. And I stand by what I said in the car, no more touching or kissing or…being charming," I started stammering for words toward the end, making me seem unsure…But I was sure…
I had to be, we didn't have time to figure out our situation when there's three unsolved murders now.
"Not even a little?" he asked cheekily.
I blushed even through the blood draining into my face. "Not even a little." We reached the second floor platform, where he slowly set me back onto my feet. He stepped forward, backing me into a wall with him looming over me. Gold eyes were analyzing me up and down before he leaned within an inch of my face, a hand grasping my chin held me in place.
"So if I wanted to kiss you right now, I couldn't?" He was challenging me—challenging my willpower. I could melt into a puddle just from the way this man talked to me.
"M-maybe I'll start enforcing it after we leave the staircase—" his mouth cut off the rest of my sentence, but he was gentle even while our tongues danced with a strangely erotic mixture of blood and chocolate. The typically needy hands were slow as they came around my waist under my sweater with soft caresses of fingertips against my flesh. Shivers coated my skin and I wanted to make him go faster, but I knew he wanted to be slow for himself rather than to tease me.
This moment between us was…romantic. Both of us were battered and bloodied in defense or feeling of possession of each other—for the most part—now we're sneaking kisses in a stairwell. Yet, I knew it was another final goodbye kiss for the books.
He leaned back an inch. "As much as I don't want to stop, your dad is already going to rip us new asses. It's probably best to avoid a second scolding."
"Okay, let's go," I raised my arms up in preparation. He raised an eyebrow. "If you don't come out carrying me they'll think we did something. You can say we took so long because I was heavy."
"But we did do something," he kissed my lips again.
I stammered, "I know that but they don't have to know that."
"You're no fun," he groaned before flinging me over his shoulder again. From my view, concrete turned to blue carpet through the hallways of the precinct. Judging by the silence in the cubicles, everybody watched us go by with confused expressions made between each other in search of why a detective was carrying the captain's daughter into his office.
I kept my eyes locked on Jace's legs until I could smell the mint aftershave emanating through the halls then I knew we were in my dad's office.
"What took you so long?" Simon asked Jace bitterly.
"She fought me the whole way. You got a little brawler, Cap," he lied and slowly set me onto the sofa between two armchairs. He plopped into one chair while Simon took the other. They were both giving me space, but I was sure one was out of resentment and the other out of respect for me.
"I have to agree with you on that. Makes it hard to tell her what to do," dad murmured.
"Tell me about it," Jace agreed.
"Guys," I hissed.
"Ok but really," my dad suddenly got serious and stood with his hands braced on the edge of the desk. "What the fuck is going on with all of you? Everywhere I look something weird is going on. So imagine how not completely shocked I was when I saw a full blown fist fight going on in front of my police station. But you know what really surprised me? When I watched my daughter take a hit so hard she smacked the concrete."
"I'm sorry, it was an accident," Simon pleaded, then looked at me with wide auburn eyes. "You believe me, don't you?"
"Was pretty fucking hard for an accident," Jace mumbled under his breath. I wanted to shoot him a warning look, but he was right. My teeth still ached along my top jaw, something about that made me feel like this wasn't something I could easily forgive Simon for. I looked away from Simon without giving an answer.
He didn't appreciate my avoidance, instead turning his attention to Jace. "If you had stayed away from her she wouldn't have gotten hurt," the tech spat.
"I didn't lay a hand on her that wasn't unwanted," Jace raised his hands in surrender. "It's sad that you can't say the same."
"Son of a bitch, I'll—" Simon's threat was cut off by my father clearing his throat. His green gaze slid between the three of us.
"Simon, listen to me, and you listen good, boy," Valentine's fatherly voice came through, snapping the tech's attention straight to him. He practically raised Simon alongside me and has told us both off quite a few times before. "Clary and Jace are partnered on the recent murders, that's just how it is, how I need it to be. And if you think you can give orders to my daughter and expect her to disobey mine instead, you couldn't be more mistaken."
Simon paled. "No, it wasn't like that—"
"And you," Valentine directed his eyes onto Jace. He was quiet for a few seconds with narrowed eyes, staring at the battered detective. "You're actually in the least amount of trouble this time. Why are you duking it out with my forensic lead?" The way he spoke to Jace was definitely more of the softer fatherly voice. One that didn't feel angry but oozed disappointment because he knew you could do better.
My detective scratched the back of his neck. "Well, he threw a punch first—"
Simon cut in, "But he said—"
"Simon," I interrupted with clenched teeth.
"Clary," my dad scolded.
Jace spoke again, "I was only defending myself—"
Simon leaned forward in his chair. "He said—"
"Don't," I spat.
"Guys—" my dad sighed.
"He took advantage of Clary," Simon bellowed over the chaos.
My dad's attention flicked from me to the detective and back several times. I noted how his eyes snapped down to Jace's throat for a millisecond, raising an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"
"I think he defiled your daughter while they were out doing god knows what and she was afraid to say no to him."
I bit hard on my injured cheek, yet it still didn't hurt as much as finding out my friend believed I couldn't advocate for myself.
Dad rubbed his eyes in exasperation. "Did Jace take advantage of you, my love?"
"Not a single time," I replied immediately, earning a smirk and a quiet sigh of relief from the man in question from the corner of my eye.
Dad blinked. "Yeah, I truly didn't think so—"
"She's covering for him," the tech muttered.
"So this entire thing is a misunderstanding, got it, it's done and over with," my dad spoke loudly in Simon's direction before turning to me again. "Clary, I need you to go say sorry to Natalie—"
"Fuck no," both Jace and I exclaimed in unison.
"You will," he said dismissively.
"If you make me do that then you're no better than the people who have tormented me my entire life," I grit. "I'm finally at a point in my feeble existence where I can actually defend myself against people who think they're higher than I am because of what my mother did and how my brain works. You shouldn't favor her just because everybody else enjoys staring down her blouse." My teeth still ached and it was beginning to deplete my energy for this conversation.
Regardless of the fatigue scraping at my bones, I continued. "You don't understand what it's like to be compared to Jocelyn everyday. Fucksake dad, you compare us all the time. Forgive me for being a little sick of it and reacting badly on an already not-so-great day." I stood and brushed off my clothes in an attempt to clutch onto some dignity and self control. "I saw a friend of mine with his throat slit, dealt with a particularly confusing emotional roller coaster, got pimp slapped by my best friend, and was called a psycho by a Badge Bunny—so, I'm going to go back to work, with my detective, and everybody else can fuck off. Are there any issues with that?" I made sure to shoot Simon the nastiest look I could muster, he only rolled his eyes.
The Captain sat back down in his seat with a grunt. "All three of you are coming to dinner tonight," my dad suddenly chimed.
I threw my arms up in exasperation. "What? Why? Everything is fine—"
He raised his palm to silence me. "Look, I didn't argue with anything else you said because you're right, I understand that now, so you can forget what I said about apologizing to Natalie. But nobody in this precinct wants to deal with the awkward tension floating around between the three of you. I care about all of you, I just want to keep the peace."
"Uh," Jace spoke for the first time in a minute, holding white knuckled fists at his knees. "I can't make it, I have something at that time."
"I didn't say what time it is yet. If any one of you doesn't show up at 7:30 tonight, I'll start giving write ups for all the fighting that happened today." A cacophony of groans sounded through the room.
"Fine," I said with my arms crossed.
"Alright," Simon grumbled.
"Nah, I'm good," Jace answered nonchalantly and stood to walk from the room but grabbed my hand in his on the way out.
"This will be your third strike, Jace," my dad warned. I pulled back on my hand, stopping him in his tracks. Everybody knew the age old term: three strikes, you're out. My dad was powerful enough to fire him regardless of how I felt about it.
He turned and laughed with no amusement. "You're going to fire me because I won't go—"
"I'm going to fire you because of your constant insubordination."
Simon piped up. "No, this is good. Let him not show up, Clary needs some separation from him anyway." I felt Jace's hand tighten around mine before I got close enough just for him to hear.
"Just come, spend a half hour, then we can go back to my house if that's still what you want," I begged.
"Alright, okay, I'll go," he caved. "Now are we dismissed?"
"Go on," dad sighed.
With a surprised yelp from my lips, he whisked us away down the hall.