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“Will!” comes a hiss in the darkness. “Will!”
Will makes a quiet groan and rolls over. The blankets twist around his waist as he shifts, turning to bury his face into the pillows. His back is exposed, fine white lines etched into the skin that covers strong muscles. There is no top sheet on the bed, the blankets bunched at his waist. Will’s legs are bare, one leg bent and thrown carelessly to the side.
“Will!” Jem hisses again.
Will’s only reply is a particularly loud snore.
Jem walks into the room, cane in hand and uses the end of it to gently poke will in the side. “William!”
“Hnghn,” Will mumbles as he finally begins to awaken.
“Get up!”
Will rolls back over, throwing an arm over his eyes. Jem watches as his chest rises and falls with his deep breaths. “James,” he asks groggily, “Pray, tell me, what the bloody hell are you doing in my room at this hour of the night? Or, actually, what are you doing waking me up? I’ve told you before, if you want to sleep in my bed just get in.”
“It’s not for that,” Jem says. “It’s for something else, get up.”
Jem remembers all the nights when they were younger and Jem was wracked with feelings of homesickness. He’d lie awake at night, thinking of a home he could never go back to. Not knowing who else to turn to, Jem found himself at Will’s door. The first time, Jem stuttered through an explanation, his thoughts tumbling over each other as he spoke. They were twelve, not yet parabatai yet Jem should have known not to worry when all Will did was nod and ask him if he wanted to come in. They sat on Will’s bed at first, speaking gently of mundane things. Then, as the night grew longer, Jem remembers lying side by side on the bed, their words turning to whispers.
“I miss Wales too,” Will confided. “Every day.” In hushed tones, weary with longing, they told each other of their homes. Of the rolling green hills and bright blue sky; of a city by the sea and bustling crowds of people. Of the languages the boys held close to their hearts, aching to hear the familiar sounds of their native tongues again. Slowly, their voices grew mumbled and their silences longer, both boys falling into the deep sleep of the unburdened, of those who have poured out their souls and now only feel peace.
It became a habit. When either of them was troubled or lonely or simply wanted to, they’d go to each other in the dark of night and find solace in hushed words and warm beds. They became so used to it that at some point they didn’t even need to wake each other, simply sliding under the covers and taking comfort from the body of their parabatai next to them.
Will sits up, grabbing the witchlight stone by his bed and glaring against the light. His glare is still there when his eyes adjust and turn to Jem. “Why are you dressed?” He asks, irritation making his voice sharp.
“I want to go for a walk,” Jem tells him.
“A walk?” Will repeats, getting out of the bed and rummaging through his drawers. He tugs a shirt on, buttoning it expertly. “Why?”
Jem looks toward the sky, light pouring from the moon and into the city. “It’s a beautiful night,” is all Jem says, offering no further explanation. He picks up a book from a pile Will has on his desk and absentmindedly flips through the pages, a paper and faint musky, sweet smell wafting up to meet his nose as he disturbs the pages.
Will gives him a look, one hand on the dresser as he tugs trousers on. “And if I don’t want to go for a walk? If the beautiful night means nothing to me?” He asks combatively.
Jem rolls his eyes, turning back to his parabatai. “Indulge me this once, Will.”
Will gives a noise of protest but tugs on his boots anyway. Jem let’s him grumble despite the fact that Will’s been getting ready since Jem woke him up. All he needs now is a coat. He picks one up at random and shrugs it on.
“Perhaps we’ll run into someone you owe money, or a woman of the night you’ve charmed that wants to express her undying love, or simply take a wrong turn and have to fight our way back home, bloodied and exhausted,” Jem says, knowing no such people exist and their chances of a drunken stranger being able to fight them both off is slim to none.
Will grins at Jem as he crafts increasingly scandalous scenarios, “Let’s go see this night of yours then.”
Quietly, they make their way down the halls of the Institute. The hallways are cavernous, shadows engulfing the ceiling over their heads, the floor in front of them. It would be eerie at night if they didn’t know every inch of the place.
“What if someone sees us?” Will asks casually, running a hand along the wall, feeling the texture of the wallpaper beneath his fingertips. “What will we tell them?”
“That we were simply going to get a glass of milk to help us sleep better,” Jem replies easily.
Will snorts, “Fully dressed?”
Jem nods, humming quietly to himself, “A gentleman should never be caught indecent, even in the middle of the night.”
Will laughs quietly, teeth flashing white in the darkness.
“Or I’ll say my violin needs new strings. Urgently.”
Will shakes his head, “Only you could get away with something so ridiculous.”
Jem grins back, the mischievous expression making him look younger, like just a boy who can’t wait to get into trouble. “Unlike you, Will, they’ll believe me. Or at least not ask too many questions.”
“I have corrupted you, Jem,” Will bemoans. “Look at you, sneaking out at the devil's hour. Dragging me into your crimes. Using other’s trust to your advantage.”
“Please,” Jem says, “If anything I’ve reformed you. Look at you, clucking like a mother hen about impropriety and getting caught.”
Will’s eyes widen comically before he gasps and turns to Jem, “What have you done to me?”
Jem lets out a muffled laugh, the sound swallowed up by the gloved hand in front of his mouth.
They reach the Institute’s entrance, quietly slipping out the door. They make their way down the stairs, shoes and Jem’s cane clicking quietly on the stone steps. The night air is startling against their skin, the cold as invigorating as it is unforgiving. Jem is glad he brought his thick coat.
Will shakes his head in mock-astonishment, “What can I say? You’ve changed me, Jem Carstairs. The women of the night will weep at my absence, rapscallions will mourn the loss of one of their own.”
Out in the open, walking down rain-slicked streets, Jem allows himself to laugh, tipping his head back. The sound is melodic, rich and smooth. Will’s heart clenches at the sound, wanting to savor every note.
They walk, Will following Jem through rain-slicked streets and narrow alleyways. The city is quiet, still, as if nobody but them could be bothered to be out tonight.
“Did you bring me out here to kill me, Jem?” Will asks as they make their way down a familiar cobblestone alleyway. Will figured out where they were going long ago, but he can’t help but tease Jem just a little.
Jem snorts, “Why would I do it out here when I could take you to the park and just as easily give you over to the ducks.”
Will gently shoves Jem’s shoulder, making the other boy laugh. “You wound me.”
“If you think this is bad, just wait and see what those ducks do. Have you seen their teeth?”
“Of course I have!” Will says. “Why do you think I hate them so much?”
Jem laughs, “There are far easier ways to kill you that don’t involve us climbing a thousand flights of stairs.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Will says, throwing his arms out. “At least if I die now I’ll have the best view in the city.”
Jem rolls his eyes but doesn’t disagree. Quietly, they make their way into the large building, the Silence runes they drew on each other while walking muffle any sounds. Quickly, they climb the steps that lead up to what feels like the top of the world.
Jem shoves the final door open, a cold wind bursting through to meet them. He shivers before tugging his jacket tighter around himself. Will follows closely behind, grinning from ear to ear. From up here, the gas lamps twinkle like stars.
A few years ago, Will got it into his mind to try and get to the top of the Clock Tower. Jem told him it was a bad idea a million times but followed Will out the door anyway. It was surprisingly easy for them to get up there. A glamour, a Silence rune for their footsteps, and a few minutes was all they needed. The city, the entire world, from here feels distant. To sit above the clock, nothing more than two specks in the shadows, feels surreal.
Will plops down next to Jem, stretching his legs out in front of him. He knocks one foot gently into Jem’s. Jem huffs a quiet laugh and returns the gesture.
“What did you want to talk about?” Will asks, turning to Jem.
Jem looks at Will, at the features Jem knows better than his own. Eyes so blue Jem would wager there’s nothing else like them in the world, lips full and pink, cheekbones that curve and slope, giving way to a face that could make gods weep. Angelic, dangerous, beautiful, but terrible in that beauty. Jem doesn’t know what haunts Will to make him look so burdened even in his youth, but he won’t stop trying to understand him until those shadows move from his eyes.
As Jem looks at Will, he feels a familiar stirring in his heart. It’s love, it’s devotion, surpassing eros or philia or any other love that exists. Will is his heart, his soul, his very essence. And it makes Jem’s next words even more painful.
“I feel it,” Jem says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back, savoring the feeling of a slight breeze on his face. It smells like smoke and soggy streets and crisp night air. “Don’t you?”
“Feel what?” Will asks cautiously, like he knows the answer but doesn’t want to admit it.
“My death,” Jem says plainly.
Will’s face tightens but he doesn’t reply. Instead, he looks at his parabatai. For all that he’s deprived himself, Will is secretly glad his own selfishness won when it came to the matter of Jem Carstairs.
Will’s eyes bounce from the silver hair, gleaming like liquid starlight in the night, to his eyes, closed and slightly upturned, hiding equally breathtaking silver eyes underneath. Will sees the slight flush on Jem’s cheeks, startlingly bright against his cream-pale skin. The only color is the jade pendant around his neck, the green color as pale as the rest of him. Jem is cast in shades of white and grey, the ghost of Will’s own sins haunting him incessantly. What a wonderful haunting it’s been.
As he looks, Will is overcome by a wave of grief and overwhelming love. The curse lies in the forefront of his mind as he stares at Jem, at the reflection of his own soul, the contents of his heart in front of him. Will’s greatest sin, his ticket to hell, his salvation.
Will has sent up a thousand prayers to the gods for Jem, his gods, Jem’s gods, any gods that would listen to save his parabatai. He’s prayed for a cure, for a better medicine. For time. For another year, another hour, another minute with Jem when he was ill and Will felt in his heart that he wasn’t long for this world. Will has prayed for all of his, but above all, he has prayed that Jem Carstairs stay with him, in whatever way he could. If dying, going on to the beyond where Will cannot follow, is the inevitable end, then Will has prayed for a small mercy, a way to know that Jem is gone but that he has not left him. At times Will thinks he’s come to accept the fact that Jem will die before him, but nights like tonight, where Jem looks healthy, energized, alive Will knows that he’d fight every god and every devil in hell to keep Jem next to him.
“Why are you saying that?” Will finally asks gruffly.
Jem opens his eyes, turning toward Will. “I feel it, in my bones. There is...something coming. And I will not survive it.”
“What is coming?” Will asks him.
“I don’t know,” Jem admits, “Something bad, something so foul even the angels have gone silent. Don’t you feel it?”
Will nods. Yes, he has. For weeks now there’s been an energy in the air, a prickling on his skin. Something is wrong, something has gone sour. An evil is being conjured that no one has seen before. Where before he’d feel comforted with the weight of a stele or seraph blade in his hand, now he only feels pressure to perfect his maneuvers, to train harder before time runs out.
“I feel it,” Will answers. “It’s almost here.”
Jem nods.
Will says nothing.
“Whatever it is, whatever it may be, I do not think I’ll survive it,” Jem says plainly. As if speaking of his suspected-imminent death was no more painful than speaking of the weather. In his eyes Will sees a muted sort of acceptance. Jem has come to terms with the end of his life, even if he wishes it was otherwise. Will can’t find it within himself to do the same.
“I’ll make sure you do,” Will says determinedly.
Jem huffs a laugh, not an unkind sound, just one that lets Will know that he appreciates his determination even in the face of the inevitable. “Oh my precious, Will. Always trying to beat time.”
Jem leans his head on Will’s shoulder, letting his parabatai’s warmth seep into him, sink deep into his bones, chasing away the night's chill. Will’s arm wraps around his shoulders, pulling him close.
Will rests his chin on the top of Jem’s head, smelling the familiar scent of rosin and his sickly sweet drug. Underneath that is the smell Will would know dead, alive, and in any life that may come after this one. It’s subtle, too faint to detect from a distance. But here, nose pressed into Jem’s hair, bodies close enough that their shapes blur into one, the feeling of Jem’s presence wrapping around him like a veil, hiding him from the city below, Will can make it out. Citrus, crisp and biting, like cutting into the rind of a ripe fruit and watching as droplets of juice rain down. Citrus. And the sea. Salty and comforting, the ocean lapping away softly, crying out its eternal song to the moon. Will’s never been, but he knows Jem smells like Shanghai, like the shores of the country he loved so much. Will hopes Jem will see it again one day, Will hopes he can see it too. He inhales deeply, letting Jem’s essence invade his nose, his lungs. Jem is the reason he lives and breathes anyway.
Jem hums, enjoying the sensation of Will’s hand carding gently through his hair. It’s so odd the moments that Will lets himself react, to touch when he likes and give his love freely. He grabs Will’s hand, letting his own rest on top. Together, here, entwined like ivy on a trellis, feels right.
Jem feels Will’s hand around him, gripping tightly. He knows every scar, every mark in Will’s skin, roughened by years of fighting and practice. Yet Jem knows that his touch is tender, caring. It's no different tonight, Will squeezes his hand gently before his fingers almost absentmindedly trace the Voyance rune on Jem’s palm. It tickles, and Jem wants desperately to scratch it but he stays still. If a small discomfort is the cost of letting Will feel what he needs to, do what he needs to, as he accepts the fact that Jem knows his death is imminent, then it’s a small price to pay. Jem only hums in contentment as Will’s hands trace patterns over the skin of his hand. Jem thinks he catches a letter or two in the mix, his Welsh too poor to make out what Will is confessing to him, to himself. Jem knows Will doesn’t mind that the message is lost, he’ll tell him if he wants to.
Jem wishes they could have more of these moments, away from the chaos of London and Shadowhunter business. Here, wrapped up in Will’s embrace, his strong smell of firewood and leather surrounding him, Jem wishes the world would stop completely for a minute, just one, so he could have his fill of the simple life. Just two people existing in the same space, nothing more than two tangled threads in the looms of fate.
Together, they look out into the night. A comfortable silence falls between them, as if the world is doing them this one favor, giving them a break for once.
It’s been minutes or hours, Jen doesn’t know, doesn’t care. He’d sit up here with Will until the sun came up if he’d let him. Jem feels his stomach turn a while later and he sighs. He’ll be sick if he doesn’t get home soon.
At the soft sound of his exhale, Will sighs too. Their unspoken language passing between them. “Help me up,” Jem asks softly.
Will nods, “Of course.”
Standing to his full height, Will towers over Jem’s sitting form. His hand comes out, every mark on the pale skin as familiar to Jem as his own name. Jem takes it. A brief bit of sadness washes over him as his fingers curl around Will’s hand. He remembers being a young child, young enough to still cling to his mother’s skirts. He remembers the way his skin would grow golden under the sun when he played outside. Jem sees his hand now, paler even than Will’s, and briefly, desperately, hopes he can feel that same sun on his skin again one day. He hopes Will is there too.
“Let’s go,” Will says, subdued, as they dust themselves off and start walking. The stairs leading to the ground feel more somber this time around, every one of their soft steps, every tap of Jem’s cane startling, too loud for the silence that seems to have invaded their minds.
Jem doesn’t mention that Will still has his hand. Will doesn’t mention that Jem’s holding on just as tight. They don’t say anything at all, preparing themselves to reenter the world.
As soon as the air hits them, Will and Jem’s hands drop. In the Tower, in the Institute, no one would blink twice at their casual touches, the need to be close to their parabatai. But out here, the mundanes wouldn’t understand, couldn’t understand the bond that links them. And still, Jem takes a step closer to Will as they walk, throwing his arm around his shoulders, nothing more than two drunk friends stumbling their way home in the dead of night. He doesn’t mention how Will’s shoulders shudder at the feeling, as if he too was already missing the feeling of his soul-bonded’s touch on him.
They make their way to the Institute, the sky still black. It’s been an hour, maybe two. Dawn is still far off, the night swallowing the sky whole. The Institute is dark but it doesn’t matter. Will and Jem make their way through it on memory alone, moving like specters through these hallways they know so well.
They walk through the hallway that leads to Jem’s door and then to Will’s. Jem’s foot falters, unnoticeable to anyone but Will. He doesn’t want to be alone tonight. Without speaking, Will takes his hand again and grips it tightly. Jem relaxes. They walk into Jem’s room. It’s pristine, neat, as polished as Jem himself. Will feels his anxiety melt away in the familiar space. He runs his fingertips across Jem’s violin reverently.
“Play for me?” He asks quietly.
And so, Jem does. He picks up his bow and rests his violin on his shoulder, the weight a comfort, and plays. Sad, sweet. Jem closes his eyes, letting the music carry him away. It’s an old song, simple in its beauty, one of the first Jem learned to play as a child, and one he’s played for Will a thousand times. It reminds him of home. When he opens his eyes and sees a love so raw and unfettered in Will’s eyes that it makes Jem’s throat close up, he thinks that it still does. The song ends on a high, drawn out note, one that lingers in the air between them, a sob, a cry for more. More life, more time, more of everything that slips away like sand through their fingers.
Will swallows roughly as Jem stares at him. He’ll miss him. In death even, Jem Carstairs’s heart will cry out for Will Herondale’s. In the depths of Will’s blue, Jem sees that it’ll be the same for him too.
Silently, Will lies down in the bed, curled onto his side at the edge of the bed, facing the door. His clothes lie in a pile on the floor, something he knows irks Jem. “How hard is it to toss them in the hamper? Or even somewhere else where they won’t collect more dirt? This just makes them harder to clean.” Will shrugged at him, a grin playing about his face, “then I’ll simply scrub until my hands are raw and cracked.” Jem rolled his eyes, “Sophie’s gonna kill you.” The memory almost makes him smile. Jem sets his violin back in its case, leaving it open. The moonlight gleams off the polished surface, illuminating it in a melancholy light.
Jem undressed quickly, tossing his clothes into a chair, something he knows irks Will. “A chair just full of clothing? Aren't you supposed to be the neat one?” Will has asked him a thousand times. When it comes time for laundry, “I’ll simply sweep it into the basket and be on my way.” It’s endearing, Will thought, to see Jem so be so casual about the issue. So at odds with the way he normally comes off. The cracks in Jem’s perfectly polished and polite persona reveal nothing more than a teenager who hates laundry. Will can hardly blame him, mind going to the pile of clothes at the foot of his bed, dirty and muddy from when Will accidentally stepped on them with his boots still on. He’s glad he won’t be there when Sophie finds them.
Jem sidles up behind Will, ignoring the expanse of mattress behind him. He takes one arm and wraps it around Will, his leg coming up to hook around Will’s waist. Will snorts, he knows Jem likes to sleep hugging something when he feels well, body yearning for the human touch he is deprived of in the daytime when everyone around him treats him like glass. Will’s had many nights where that something is him. Tonight is no different. He feels Jem’s warm, even breaths at the nape of his neck. It causes a shiver to travel down his spine. Despite it all, Jem is warm next to him, his body providing warmth that would be stifling if the night's events hadn’t left Will feeling so cold.
“Goodnight, Will,” Jem mumbles, sleep already threatening to overtake him.
“Goodnight, Jem.” Will pauses a moment and frowns. “Where did Charlotte say we were going tomorrow? The Shadow House? The Black House?”
Jem huffs a quiet laugh. “Does your mind ever turn off, William?”
Will says nothing, almost able to feel Jem’s eye roll.
“The Dark House,” Jem says finally. “To see about two sisters accused of performing the Dark Arts.”
Will nods, unsure why his gut twists at the name.
“Now go. To. Sleep.” Jem orders, burrowing his face back into the covers, arm tightening around Will. “If you keep me up all night with your chatter, I’ll kill you at that house and make it look like an accident.”
Will laughs, startled and real. He’s still giggling when he leans back into Jem’s figure, snuggling closer to his parabatai. Tomorrow, they can worry about the Dark Arts and the Dark Sisters and every malignant force in their universe. Tonight, Will’s weary mind can finally, blissfully, rest.
A slurred, “G’night, Jemmy,” is all Will says before letting the smell of citrus and the distant sea carry him off to sleep.