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“Are you going to stop squirming anytime soon?”
“Sorry,” Clary mutters, forcing herself to stay still even though both of her legs itch to move. “This isn’t exactly the most comfortable spot in the world.”
Frankly, that’s the understatement of the century. On purely practical terms, the coffin is actually quite nice. While it isn’t plated with twenty-four karat gold, it’s made of intricately carved mahogany that probably cost more money than Clary’s ever touched in her life. The inside is lined with deep red satin, and there’s enough cushioning that she can press her fingers into the side and not have them touch the wood on the other side.
In a pinch, it might actually be a comfortable place to sleep, so long as she left the lid up.
But the lid is very much closed; not only is it latched, but the whole coffin is wrapped tightly with silver chains the thickness of her wrist. The interior is almost entirely dark, aside from the faintest sliver of light coming through a small hole beside her head, a hole that’s only slightly wider than the IV tube threaded through it and is serving as her only source of fresh air for the next...
Well, on that point, she’s not entirely certain. Next hour, at least, although she has a feeling it might be longer than that, depending on how long it takes the Circle to take their bait.
When all of that is combined with the fact that she’s lying on top of Camille (the coffin may be spacious, but it’s not that spacious), uncomfortable doesn’t quite cut it as a descriptor.
“It’s an upgrade on my first coffin,” Camille responds. Her voice is very close to Clary’s ear, close enough that Clary thinks she’d be able to feel Camille’s breath, if she was alive. “Burying myself in the earth was more comfortable.” When she twists her head slightly, her hair brushes against Clary’s face. “I certainly hope that this plan of yours works.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Clary snaps, leaning over, pressing her mouth against her breathing hole and inhaling deeply. Her original plan for sneaking into the hideout of a group of Circle members who’d been kidnapping Downworlders for the purpose of running a sick torture den hadn’t included Camille at all. She’d planned on being alone in the coffin, with Izzy (who is driving the van they're stashed in, glamoured as a Circle member they’d managed to capture) as back-up.
But when they’d approached Camille for permission to use her actual coffin, to lend authenticity to their plot, she’d insisted on coming along, not only because some of the vampires that had been brutally tortured and murdered had been from her own flock, but because, as she said to Clary with a slight sneer, “You could use the back-up. You are new at this, you know.”
As she takes another deep breath, Clary wonders just how long it’ll be before people stop treating her as the new girl and actually start treating her as a full-fledged Shadowhunter.
When she shifts and presses her eye against the hole, she can’t make out anything but the dark interior of the van. She can faintly hear traffic and the sound of something rolling around on the floor, but none of it helps her to determine where they are or how much longer she’ll be trapped inside the coffin.
“Can you hear anything?” she asks, shifting around until her legs are resting on either side of one of Camille’s. For the time being, it’s comfortable, but it’s likely to only be a matter of moments before the sharpness of Camille’s hip pressing into her stomach becomes unbearable.
“Traffic,” Camille answers immediately. “Also, the brakes of this van need to be replaced soon.”
“I meant anything useful,” Clary replies, trying to put more of her weight onto her knees so that she isn’t pressed against Camille so tightly.
“You should have been more specific then, shouldn't you have?.”
It takes every ounce of willpower Clary has to resist banging her head against the wall of the coffin in frustration.
Instead, she settles for dropping her forehead into the small space between Camille’s shoulder and the wall of the coffin and hopes that they’ll arrive at the compound soon.
&.
They don’t.
At least, Clary doesn’t think that they do. The van comes to a complete stop after what feels like another half hour has passed, and she hears the driver’s door open and slam shut, but after that, there’s nothing. No traffic nearby, no rumbling trains nearby, no quiet conversation. There’s just quiet, only broken by the sound of her own breathing and the occasional rustling of fabric as one of them shifts.
And that’s when the claustrophobia begins to set in.
It starts out slowly, as a creeping sensation on the back of her neck, the realization that the roof of the coffin is mere inches away from her head. She tries her best to ignore the sensation, to redirect her thoughts by going over the mission plan for the twentieth time, reviewing the intel that they gathered before they left the Institute.
But the creeping sensation is swiftly followed by another feeling that’s much harder to ignore.
Her chest slowly grows tighter and tighter, like there’s a metal band wrapped around her ribs, keeping her from drawing in a full breath. Even though she’s just managed to find a position that’s almost comfortable, she leans forward and presses her mouth to the hole in the side of the coffin and inhales deeply.
She can feel the air flowing into her mouth and down her throat, but somewhere between there and her lungs, it’s like it ceases to exist.
There’s a cold sweat breaking out on the base of her neck, and she’s pretty sure that she’s about to have a panic attack.
Abruptly, Camille’s hand drops onto her lower back, just above the line of her jeans.
“You reek of fear,” she says, thumb dragging over the knobs of Clary’s spine.
Clary almost apologizes, but she catches herself at the last second.
“I didn’t think we’d be in here this long,” she says instead. When she tries to lean forward to take another gulping breath, the pressure of Camille’s hand on her back increases, effectively pinning her to the spot.
“You’re breathing too fast.”
“What would you know about breathing?” Clary snaps.
“You do know that I wasn't born this way, correct?” Her other hand curls tightly around Clary’s hip. “Hold your breath for five seconds. Then let all your air out and take another deep breath.”
Clary still isn’t exactly sure that she wants to be taking breathing advice from someone who hasn’t needed oxygen for centuries, but it’s worth a shot. Dropping her head back down, chin skimming against Camille’s shoulder, she forces herself to keep her lips pressed closed, even though what feels like every cell in her body is screaming to do just the opposite. She counts to five, and as the number rings out in her head, Camille gently squeezes her hip.
“Breathe out.”
Clary repeats the cycle ten times, and by the time she finishes, her body no longer feels starved of oxygen.
She still hopes that they move soon, but she thinks she can handle waiting a little longer.
“Thank you,” she says sincerely, turning her head so that the words are directed towards Camille’s cheek. “How did you know that would work?”
“I told you, I wasn’t born a vampire,” Camille answers. Her hands haven’t moved, are still molded to Clary’s lower back and hip respectively, and her hair is tickling Clary’s face again. She shifts, and her nose brushes against Clary’s.
For the first time since she climbed inside the coffin, Clary is aware, actually aware, of all the places they are touching, of all the scents twisting together on Camille’s body; roses from her hair, something sharper near her neck, some kind of perfume perhaps, and blood underneath it all.
Somehow, Clary doesn’t hate the last smell nearly as much as she thinks she should.
“You don’t smell afraid anymore.” Her nose brushes against Clary’s again, hard enough that it has to be a deliberate action.
“What do I smell like?” It’s on the list of the weirder questions Clary has asked someone before, but she’s not so much looking for the answer as looking to see if Camille will brush against her again.
She doesn’t have to wait long to find out.
“Like arousal,” Camille replies. This time, her nose stays pressed against Clary’s, and her thumb rubs deliberately along her hipbone. “Much more appealing. I can almost taste it.”
Whether it’s the sheer lack of shame in her tone, or the fact they’ve been pressed together for literal hours, or some other factor that she’s not entirely conscious of that makes her press her lips against Camille’s, Clary doesn’t know. Camille’s lips are cool but not unpleasantly cold, and she tastes like lipstick, deep crimson that matches her dress and the inside of her coffin.
There’s also an undercurrent of blood, of course, but it’s not entirely unpleasant.
Clary quickly wonders just how many Clave rules she’s breaking by doing this, and then just as quickly decides that she’ll worry about it later.
Just as she brushes her tongue against Camille’s bottom lip, the back doors of the van open, and the voice of the circle member Izzy is glamoured as comes drifting in.
“Sadly,” Camille murmurs, trailing her lips over Clary’s cheek and down to her jawline, “I think it’s time for us to focus on other things. But one kiss is not going to keep me sated.” She practically purrs the last word, and a shiver rolls its way down Clary’s spine, all the way to where Camille is still holding her.
“Me neither,” she says, allowing herself one last moment to revel in the moment before she closes her eyes and shifts her attention to what’s happening outside of the coffin.
She definitely plans on seeing just what it takes to make Camille sated.
But first, she has some Circle members to take care of.