I've got truckloads of PM's asking me if 'Clary's Massage' would ever be continued. And well, sorry, but the answers gotta be a 'no', guys! Both the original and revamped would remain as a two shot.
Well, basically, this is something for all of you guys to chew on while I complete the two chapters of 'Supermodel Much?' which is now currently being rewritten and known as 'Project: Crescendo'. (because frankly, the old title sucked...and I just don't know what in the shit I was thinking.)
So here we go! Please give me some feedback guys ;) I really want to know what you think about my rewritten stuff.
Kudos!
"Clary," he wasn't panting as hard as she was. "Clary," Jace stood over her aching body, his hands on his hips. "Come on, come on! Push yourself more, Clary, concentrate."
She stood up on her own, her muscles screaming in pain. Her hand shook as she swiped it across her forehead to get rid of the sweat threatening to drip into her eyes. She felt like crap and here was Jace sodding Lightwood, that superhuman boyfriend of hers, commanding her to push herself more.
"Oh, fuck you." she muttered, and then launched herself onto him, her left hand reaching toward her belt where her blade was.
Just as she tackled him to the wooden floor and pulled out her blade, Jace's hand was on her hip, gripping tightly, and his other on her wrist. With an effortless twist on his part, the blade flew out of her hand and landed next to his body with a sad 'clink'.
And then came the most shocking part.
Without even breaking sweat, Jace let go of her wrist and grabbed her shoulder instead. She looked up at him to see him extremely concentrated, his eyes narrowed and burned with such intensity. She froze.
Then he literally threw her away from his body.
She found herself flying through the air one minute and landing on her back with a painfully loud 'thud' at the other. With a grunt, she struggled to get up. Her muscles were on fire, aching in pain, and refusing to obey her.
When she was about to give up, she felt two strong hands gently yank her into a half sitting position. Said hands were quickly checking her for wounds and came across a few nasty red spots on her hip, left wrist and shoulder. Her elbows were an angry shade of red from sliding against the wood during her rough landing. It was nothing an iratze and a hot bath couldn't fix, she concluded.
She was in no shape to follow Isabelle out to go clubbing that night thanks to her really tight muscles though.
Jace silently guided her out of the hot training and into the kitchen. Very slowly, he helped her into a chair and then filled a glass of water for her.
After about four more glasses of water, Jace casually reached out for her left hand and held it in place as he traced the healing rune on her forearm. He let go of it right away when he was done. Then he apologized.
Clary didn't say anything. She just stared at him, unable to understand how Jace Lightwood worked now. He could be this playful loving boyfriend; teasing her, holding her and doing all those sweet things boyfriends would do. Or he would be that crazy no-nonsense man whenever she stepped into the training or weapons room.
It wasn't that she doubted his love for her, because that was just silly. Someone like Jace to say things like that in Alicante wouldn't be lying about such feelings. She was sure he meant every single word out of his mouth that day, three weeks ago on the stairs of the Accords. In fact, come to think of it, she was sure she saw his eyes getting teary in the midst of all that.
So, no, she was sure he loved her just like how she was sure she had red hair.
What was bothering her, was the fact that after the night of sweet love making after the firework show, Jace didn't really touch her. He never went beyond kissing her on the couch and he totally steered clear away from the bed.
But after training today, she had something else to be bothered about: Jace was not going easy on her.
In fact, Jace was training her hard.
He never let her rest during their sessions, and by the time he was through with her, she'd always be too tired to continue Demonology with Maryse or archery with Alec. Which was why Maryse decided to reschedule her sessions: combat with Jace would always be her last lesson of the day.
And about two weeks of Shadowhunter schooling, Clary was going nuts. Alec was a good archery instructor, and she wasn't a bad student. She never hit the target spot on, but it was always close enough that Alec wouldn't blow up on her. Then there was Maryse who explained everything Clary needed to know about Demons, and there was Jace, who worked her so hard, she wanted to hate him.
But she couldn't, because, well, she was heads over heels in love and crazy in lust with him.
Which brought her back to her current dilemma: Was Jace even lusting after her?
He cleared his throat and apologized for her wounds.
And she just... stared at him.
Her sharp emerald green eyes studied his face as he waited for any sign of forgiveness from her. She was confused; her eyebrows were furrowed and her totally kissable bottom lip was being worried by her upper teeth. Behind the mask of confusion she wore, he could tell she was hurting from the lack of attention from the boyfriend part in him.
His apology seemed to be lost on her, so he caught her eyes and repeated himself, louder this time.
The hardness in Clary's eyes was washed away as she nodded at him, accepting his sincere apology. But he could still feel her torment, her hurt as she pulled her hand away from his loose grip and slowly stood up. She winced and muttered a string of profanities while she limped to the kitchen doorway.
"Where are you going?" he asked, because she really shouldn't be going anywhere. Her muscles were probably going to tear if she were to exert herself and he would take the blame for it. He'd gone way too far this week, working her to her breaking point without giving it a rest.
But he had to. Didn't anyone understand? If she was the same innocent Clary he knew, she would be easily killed by many dangerous things that were still out to get them. The fact that Jonathan's body was still somewhere out there was really terrifying. If he didn't teach her to defend herself soon, she wouldn't be able to make it back to him. God knows what that idiot psycho would do to her!
He watched as her hand went up to her neck and gently massaged at the sore spot there. "I'm going back to my room. I'm kind of desperate for a hot bath." she resisted to add that she'd had enough training for the day.
Jace cleared his throat and offered to help her back to her room. Which was sadly quite a long distance from the kitchen. She was tempted to accept his offer, but if he stepped into her room, she didn't think she would be able to fight the urge to do stuff on her bed with him, fully naked and sweaty. And she didn't think she would be able to accept it when he would pull away from her and walk out of her bedroom, leaving her frustrated and unwanted.
So she said, "I can do it on my own."
He didn't like her guarded tone. One, she couldn't do it as convincingly as he did, which made him feel like he was being pushed away – which was what he was unconsciously doing – and two, it was making him very uncomfortable. He'd find out later that he was actually nervous.
He shook his head. "You're obviously in pain, Clary. If you were to limp back to your room even Simon would be bored to death." he mentally gave himself a hard slap for the lame joke. "And you'd probably die of pain which I wouldn't really appreciate, merci beaucoup."
The golden haired man didn't really expect her to giggle and smile at his lame attempt of showing how much he cared, but he did not fully expect her to snap at him. Which was quite an un-Clary like move.
"I'm positive,"she said, her pitch slightly higher than normal, "that if I could go through a whole week of being trashed around with you, I can definitely survive a walk back to my room. And I'm sure that if Simon would ever die, it wouldn't be because he got too restless waiting for me to walk -
She broke off suddenly with a loud frustrated sigh. She felt awful talking to Jace like that. Here was the boyfriend part of Jace that she desperately missed and there she was pushing him away like that. If Jace was offering to walk her back to her room, then so be it. If Jace didn't want to sleep with her again, never mind. There would always be other opportunities.
The point here was that Jace wanted to make sure she didn't hurt herself, and that was him showing her that he cared. And she'd be a downright stupid cow for not taking up his offer.
"I'm sorry, Jace. It's just that I'm tired with you treating me like I'm just Clarissa Fray and not your girlfriend. You're constantly pulling away whenever I do something wrong like... like the other day when we were kissing and I just pulled your shirt up a little bit, then you just – just froze and left!" She turned around slowly to face him and closed her eyes. He could hear Jace speaking softly, so she spoke up louder to make sure he heard her. "I thought, that maybe since that night in Alicante... Maybe you'd, you know... Sleep with me often and that... That things would change between us and..." She broke off with a frustrated noise that sounded distinctly like 'gaaargh!' "I just knew things would change between us, but I didn't expect all this – !"
She broke off again when she opened her eyes to see Jace on the phone, talking quietly to someone. She picked up the words 'Raverners', 'four', 'attacking', 'help', 'will'. and 'there'.
When he hung up and shoved the cell phone back into the pocket of his track pants, he immediately hurried to her side before she could do anything like, say... slap the crap out of him?
He cupped her face with both his warm hands and said, "Hey, look at me." When she did, he told her, "I'm sorry, alright? But when I get back we'll talk about this." He bent down and pressed his lips to hers. With every word he said, he punctuated it with a peck on her soft lips. "Stay here tonight. Stay."
Then, like many times before, Jace ran his fingers through his messy hair and with a glance her way, he left her alone in the room.
They were done with the Raveners almost immediately by the time the three of them got there. Nothing funny happened; no mundie girl interrupted in the middle of a hunt, no one claimed Valentine was alive and out to get them and Isabelle didn't stab anyone in the eye with her stilettos (which was quite a miracle itself).
Jace was back in two hours, lying next to Clary as she slept. He'd taken a quick ten minute shower before he entered her room to find her lying on her bed pretty much naked with the covers drawn up to her waist.
His tiny redhead goddess was sound asleep, her slightly damp hair and the smell of vanilla and rose indicated she already took the hot bath that she had been so desperate for.
He carefully eased himself onto the bed. He rolled onto his side and rested his head on his left hand so he could watch her sleep.
Her lips were not their usual healthy pink and there were dark circles under her eyes. Two signs that told him she didn't get enough rest for the past two weeks. Jace felt a pang of guilt as he continued watching her, those lips of hers slightly parted, letting out a cute soft little snore.
"Angel, if anything ever happens to you, you crazy, beautiful woman, I'll never live past it." he whispered. He stroked her hair and watched her take in a breath and let it out slowly. Utterly hypnotized as her chest moved up and down as she breathed.
Then very slowly he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny bottle. He got up and turned her so she was sleeping on her stomach instead. Then he squeezed a healthy amount of the bottle's contents into his hands and warmed it up by rubbing his hands together. He placed both hands on the base of her back and started to massage her.
She'd be as good as new by the time he's done with her.