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"James? James Carstairs?"
A half-groan escaped the sleeping boy's slightly-parted lips as he tossed amidst his sheets, but he did not wake to the call of his name. Jem, twisted in his bedding, was a study in whites and silvers; his unnaturally-colored hair was tousled and sticking to his forehead with sweat, his skin was eerily pale, his lips only touched with the ghost of a shade of pink, and his eyelids thin and shadowed as his eyes flicked rapidly behind them, darting from side to side with dreaming. And likely not good dreams, 15-year-old Will Herondale decided as he leaned further over his parabatai, bringing his face down closer to Jem's as he slept. It seemed as if he were having a nightmare.
Will had looked at Jem when he was not looking back before—often, in fact. He rather enjoyed examining the other boy, and if Jem noticed his attentive eye (and Will suspected that he did), he did not complain. There were things Will looked for when he looked at Jem, of course; the amount of color in his cheeks and lips, the size of the dark circles of exhaustion that ringed his eyes, the signs of pain he tried fruitlessly to disguise on his ever kind, ever open face.
But, if Will were being honest, his gaze was always drawn to Jem for more than just indicators of his current health. He liked looking at his parabatai. He was unique, certainly, in appearance, and Will had found more and more, as Jem's hair grew paler and the silver swallowed the dark brown of his irises more completely, that he appreciated the distinctness of James Carstairs. It was one more way in which the brother of his soul was different, special, even if it had been brought about by the very thing that would tear his Jem from his side in the end.
Lost in his thoughts, Will did not notice that Jem had stopped twisting in the bed below him and now lay still, Will's face hovering inches above his. The other boy’s eyes shot open, luminous and silver in his pale face, and Will leapt backwards, startled, knocking a few miscellaneous objects from Jem's bedside table as he did. They crashed to the ground with a clatter, and Jem blinked, moonlit eyes disappearing from view for a moment as he seemed to process the presence of his parabatai in his bedroom.
"Will?" The word was a whisper, soft and dreamlike, and Will straightened, tugging at the sleeves of his shirt to recover from his rather undignified scare. Jem, now seeming as if he were returning to consciousness in earnest, turned in his bed to face him, propping himself up a skinny elbow and still blinking sleep from his eyes. "Will, how long have you been in my room?" His eyes narrowed, and he turned to face the window, where rays of early morning sunlight were just beginning to dance across the frosted glass. "And what time is it?"
"6:00 in the morning," Will announced, recovering from his shock and plopping himself down unceremoniously on the edge of Jem's bed again.
"Will," Jem began with a groan, turning to flop back onto his pillows. He ran a slightly-shaking hand through silvery hair, which was already sticking up in places with sleep. "I am tired. Could you not come back when the sun is properly up? It is unlike you to begin wreaking your havoc at such an early hour."
Will blinked, trying to keep the hurt from his expression as he retorted with a small scowl, "I am not wreaking havoc, James. It is our anniversary."
"What?" That captured Jem's attention, Will noted with a degree of satisfaction, and the other boy turned to look at him again, pale brows drawn together and creased just a little in the middle.
"Our anniversary," Will repeated with a flourish. "A year ago today, we became parabatai." A year ago today, Will had finalized what was, he alone knew, his most selfish act. A year ago today, Will had officially condemned Jem to death, though the already-dying boy was not aware of the fact. A year ago today, Jem Carstairs had become his great sin, and Will Herondale was determined to make the short time they would be able to spend together worth it for the doomed mirror of his heart. "I would like to celebrate."
"Celebrate?" Jem's voice was edged with incredulity. Will wasn't surprised; Shadowhunters didn’t celebrate the date of their parabatai ceremonies, not like birthdays or wedding anniversaries. But this most recent November, Jem had noted the decline in his mood that accompanied the date that signified two years since he had come to London from Wales, and had made a marked effort to distract him from his melancholy. So why not celebrate their parabatai anniversary? It wasn't as if Will had many positive date associations to commemorate.
"Yes, celebrate," Will said, and stood from the bed, offering Jem an outstretched hand so he might do the same. "I have decided we should make a day of it. I have plans," his mouth pulled up at the corner into his characteristic and, admittedly, rather impish grin, "though I have determined we should probably avoid Hyde Park."
Jem returned Will's smirk with a wide smile of his own, the sort that transformed him from a sickly boy to a benevolent young man, all kindness and sunlight and love. Love, Will knew, directed at him. He almost blanched, as he did so often when the undeniable knowledge that Jem loved him resurfaced, but he remained standing still, hand outstretched, as Jem placed his own frail one within its curl. "Are you still scared of the ducks? The poultry pies were your idea. You have created a monster."
"Monsters," Will made to correct, but was cut off as Jem stood, his hand clasped in Will's, and immediately unbalanced, collapsing backwards onto the bed. He began coughing, and instantly Will detached himself from the other boy’s side, beelining to retrieve the box that held Jem's yin fen. The silver container was cool in his hands, and he traced the too-familiar image of Kwan Yin patterned on the lid with a deep blue gaze brimming with an unabashed loathing he hoped he was concealing.
Setting it down gingerly on Jem's bedside table, he took up his position on the edge of the bed again, expression and movements and countenance all gentle in a manner he did not allow himself to adapt with anyone besides Jem. His parabatai had stopped coughing, and Will tried not to look at the small spray of red that splattered the sheets as Jem tucked that section of blanket beneath his pillow, clearly attempting to hide it.
"I will not take any," Jem declared in a surprisingly firm voice, and Will's dark brows shot halfway up his forehead.
"Yes, you will."
"No, I will not." Jem's expression was all obstinance, and Will sighed inwardly. He would not win this fight. "It is our parabatai anniversary," he continued, and Will visibly flinched, but the other boy pushed forward, "I would not like to dampen it with drugs."
"That is not—"
Jem held up a thin hand. "I do not care, William. I will not take any yin fen today." His expression, set and stubborn, did not change as he met Will’s eyes, though there was immeasurable softness behind the rigidity. Will's heart tugged. "It is my decision."
A pause, and then, "That it is." Will sighed, accepting his defeat with grace, if he might say so himself. He would not force his parabatai to take more, nor less, of the drug that kept him alive. The other boy's struggle with his yin fen was both profound and personal, and though Will certainly sometimes begrudged Jem his decisions, he would not prevent him from making them.
"We can still—" Whatever it was Jem was about to declare they could still do was interrupted by another coughing fit, and Will could not stop himself from flinching when he saw a pale pink splatter blossom across the sheets as Jem brought them to his mouth. Oh, my James.
"We will still celebrate," Will announced when his parabatai had stopped coughing, silver eyes now watery and half-lidded with exhaustion. His tone deceptively bright, Will continued, "We do not need to leave this room." Jem’s appeared unconvinced, but Will stood, fierce determination written clearly across his sharp-boned face. "Excuse me for just a moment." With that, he ducked from the room, stubbornly ignoring the bout of coughing that emitted from behind the closed door.
—
Jem did not have to wait long for Will to return, though the other boy was gone just enough time for him to recover from his coughing fit. Nightmares had plagued him, the sort that featured his parents' screaming voices and fire searing through his veins, and he was feeling generally rather weak. Still, his spirits were high, and in no small part thanks to Will, he suspected. Although he could do without being woken to the other boy's deep blue eyes filling the every corner of his own vision, he could never manage to be completely consumed with self-pity when his parabatai was in the room.
And when Will had declared that they would be celebrating their parabatai anniversary today—well, if he were being honest, Jem had been struck with the profound urge to cry. After the death of his parents, Jem had not imagined finding such unwavering love in anyone again, would not have believed he could discover a second family, a chosen family, in the bad-tempered blue-eyed boy and the other inhabitants of the London Institute. But Will had exceeded his every expectation with his hidden wealth of affection and devotion, he had grown to think of Henry and Charlotte as a rather parental pair of older siblings, and Jessamine had captured his heart in a peculiar, pitiful sort of way. Even lovely, generous, and scarred Sophie, stoic and faithful Thomas, and spirited Agatha had grown dear to him. And just now, there had been Will, standing over him and declaring that they would mark the date of their parabatai ceremony with a yearly celebration as if it was some sort of…
Jem shook his head to clear it as Will shouldered open the door to his room again. He was carrying an assortment of items within crossed arms; as Jem looked on, books, paper, quills, playing cards, and even colored wax crayons were unceremoniously spilled from his grasp and across his bed. When Jem glanced from the pile to his parabatai, his thin lips rounded with surprise, Will met his eyes with a grin that, he thought to himself with a degree of humor, could only be described as wicked.
"We shall spend the day together," Will announced, once again plopping himself onto the bed, causing the assorted items to spread further across the sheets. Jem groaned at the mess, and Will's smirk deepened. "Here, in this room. You need not leave your bed. I will fetch meals and whatever else we may require, but we have plenty to do here," he gestured towards his hoard, "and you have your violin, too."
Jem straightened. "You wish to listen to me play?"
Will rolled his eyes, his mischievous smile flipping to a frown with a speed that, Jem firmly believed, only he could manage. "I listen to you play all the time, Jem."
"But I have never gotten the impression you particularly enjoyed it."
"You do not know what I do and do not enjoy."
Jem laughed, and was rewarded with the return of Will’s smile. His chest warmed. "Okay, then, I will play. I have been working on something I would like you to hear, anyway." It was a piece inspired by his parabatai, lines of music in which he tried to capture his sour attitude offset by the depths of affection he showed privately, his flippant cruelty always layered over nearly unidentifiable bitterness and regret, the warring of darkness and light only Jem Carstairs could see within Will Herondale's soul. But he would not tell Will this; he was not sure the other boy was ready to feel quite so seen.
And Will was grinning at him again. "Excellent." He stood, as if to retrieve the violin, but Jem grabbed at his wrist, encircling it with his thin fingers and tugging him backwards.
"I am too tired now," Jem confessed, his voice quiet. He could not meet Will's fathomless dark blue eyes, but he knew his friend would not blame him. "Later."
His parabatai sat again without protest, and from the corner of his eye, Jem could see him searching the pile of items he had so rudely dispensed of all across his bed. Will grabbed something from the mess, then hauled himself onto his bed in earnest, pulling himself fully over Jem and settling on the other side of him, closer to the wall. Miscellaneous items Will had heaped upon the comforter tumbled to the floor beside the bed as he took position beside Jem on his back, the book clutched across his chest.
"I will read, then," Will declared firmly, but his voice was soft, pillowed with devotion, "and you can sleep until you feel well enough to celebrate us." Jem did not speak, too choked to form words; and, besides, there were no words he could find that would convey all he wished to say to his parabatai now. Will had always been good with words, prone to his rather dramatic speeches, but Jem found himself struggling to put his feelings into coherent sentences often; he had often found himself practicing important interactions before a mirror to ensure he did not make a complete fool of himself. He suspected Will knew this.
After making himself comfortable, his arm resting against Jem's back, Will began to recite the first few lines of whichever book he had selected. Jem did not hear the words, could not have told you the setting of the book or the name of the characters, but took comfort in his parabatai's voice, as he always had and knew he always would until the day he left for the place Will could not follow him to. Will's arm was warm against his back, and he allowed his eyelids to drop shut as the other boy continued reading in his low, steady voice, feeling all at once relieved and tired and appreciative and sorry and so, so content.
—
When Will had barged in on Charlotte, Henry, and Jessamine eating their evening meal and declared that he would be taking dinner to Jem's room for the both of them, Charlotte had been first annoyed, and then concerned. It was not uncommon for Jem to miss meals as he was so often unwell, but Will had not seemed worried—in fact, he had sounded downright pleased as he demanded their meals from a troubled-looking Sophie and paraded the trays to his parabatai's room, adamantly denying any offered help.
Charlotte had avoided checking on them, reminding herself that Will would retrieve her if Jem were in any true danger—Will might be unreliable in most things, but on the subject of Jem, he had proven himself uncharacteristically dependable. Still, her mind had remained unsettled, and she had broken herself from daydreams filled with Jem's unmoving body for the third time before her resolve had snapped and she had found herself standing at Jem's door.
She pressed her ear to the wooden barrier, hoping to discover the relative positions of the room's occupants, but all she could hear was the low murmur of Will's voice. After only a moment's hesitation, Charlotte turned the knob slowly, silently, and pushed the door open just a fraction, peering through the sliver into the room with curious dark eyes.
The very first thing Charlotte noticed was that the room was a disaster. Books had been strewn about the floor, clearly discarded, along with various papers, all with unintelligible scribbles of ink dashed across them in what was undeniably Will's handwriting. A set of playing cards lay abandoned in the center of the room, and Jem's violin was out of its case, propped against the cushioned chair in the corner, the bow resting across one arm of the chair as if it had been recently played.
One specific piece of paper caught her eye, laid out in the center of the room and surrounded by wax crayons. It was colored upon, a sloppy image of a silvery-accented figure—supposed to be Jem, Charlotte guessed—being chased by a particularly vicious looking creature that she could only assume was some sort of duck-inspired demon. It must have been drawn by Will, for his name was proudly scrawled across the bottom of the drawing as if he was signing a sort of artistic masterpiece. Charlotte had never associated Will with art; he had always been more closely aligned with words in her mind, prose and poetry alike, but there had clearly been a certain amount of affection poured into the otherwise childish depiction of his parabatai.
But, wait, where had Will gotten the wax crayons? They were not so commonly available that she suspected he would have a set of his own. Had he taken them from her office? Charlotte's lips creased into a tight frown—she would have to speak to him about snatching things from her desk without permission—as, finally, she sought the source of his low voice, still murmuring unintelligibly.
Charlotte's gaze found Will in Jem's bed, curled around the other boy's sleeping form, his silvery hair glowing ethereally in the thin moonlight that streamed through the curtains. Will was reading, though Charlotte could not determine from what, his blue eyes flicking from the page of the book to Jem's face and back again periodically. When his attention rested on Jem, the adoration written so plainly and vulnerably across his face was enough to startle Charlotte into pushing the door quietly closed once more, ensuring the latch did not make a sound as it clicked shut.