"We can't keep this up forever" and Heronstairs!

(A few quick things before we get started here: Will has cystic fibrosis in this (they hadn’t really named it as a disease back then but it did exist) and his room is right next to Jem’s. This takes place a little while (maybe a month or two?) before Tessa comes. Also, this was partially inspired by the wonderful CricketCat on Wattpad! Go check out her stuff! The bolded part was also written by her and is based on a quote that Jem says to Tessa.)

After almost an hour of pursuing it, Jem killed the Vetis demon with a single stab of his knife straight to its head. It had already been weakened by the slashes that Will’s seraph blade had cut into it, but Jem’s knife was what really did it in.

As the demon disappeared with a screech, Jem wished he could celebrate his victory over the dragon-like demon, but he knew he had more pressing matters to attend to, one of which being the coughing he could hear from behind him. Jem turned around to see Will leaning against the wall, holding himself up with one hand and coughing into the other. Before going to help his parabatai, Jem looked around, and, upon seeing an empty crate a few feet away, grabbed it and turned it over in his hands, then went over to Will. He put the crate down on the ground near Will and put his hands on Will’s shoulders, gently coaxing him to sit down.

Once Will was sitting on the crate, Jem pulled Will’s hand away from his mouth and put his handkerchief in it. Will hadn’t coughed up any mucus yet, but when he did, spitting into the handkerchief would be much better than spitting into his bare hand. Now that Will was sitting down, his left hand was free, and he grabbed Jem’s shoulder in an attempt to ground himself. Jem didn’t know exactly what Will went through every day, but he knew that it must be terrifying to feel like you weren’t able to breathe during uncontrollable coughing fits. He had coughing fits too, but they didn’t last as long or came as frequently as Will’s did.

Jem hated it when Will coughed. They weren’t normal coughs, like he had a tickle in his throat or something just went down the wrong pipe. They were deep, hacking coughs that lasted for minutes on end and occurred multiple times a day. He knew that Will needed to cough to bring up the mucus that was clogging up his lungs, but he hated the panic that he could feel through their parabatai bond and the way that Will’s fingers were currently digging into his shoulder.

Will finally stopped coughing after a few minutes, but he was still extremely out of breath and shaking and holding Jem’s shoulder like his life depended on it. Jem could see mucus in the handkerchief in Will’s hand but he left it there in case it was needed again. He changed his position from sitting on the balls of his feet to sitting fully on the ground and gently took Will’s hand off of his shoulder so he could massage out the tight knots that had formed in the muscles.

“We can’t keep this up forever,” Jem said quietly. “Neither of us are going to be able to fight for much longer.”

Will shook his head and said, “I will keep going for as long as I can. A little mucus isn’t going to stop me. Besides, you’re the one who should be stopping. You’re sicker than I am.” His voice was still hoarse and breathless, but he obviously wasn’t going to let that stop him from saying what he wanted to say.

“I think we both know that’s not true, Will,” Jem whispered. Will didn’t answer, but Jem could see in his eyes that he knew Jem was right. “Are you ready to go?”

Will nodded and Jem helped him stand up. He wished they could stay longer, but they had to go before another demon showed up and neither of them were in any condition to go up against a demon, no matter how small it was.

They were only about a five minute walk away from the Institute, but it took them around ten minutes to get back. Jem wasn’t feeling his best and Will was still out of breath, despite the extremely slow speed they were walking at. Jem kept looking over at Will to make sure that he was alright, and he knew that Will was doing the same to him. After the fifth time that he caught Will staring at him, he reached over and took Will’s still-shaking hand for the remainder of their walk.

Charlotte appeared as soon as the Institute door opened and began fussing over them, asking Will how long he had coughed for and how much mucus had come up and asking Jem if he had taken his medicine that day and if he needed to go lie down and-

“We’re fine,” Will said, stopping Charlotte’s interrogation. “There’s no need for so many questions.” He dodged Charlotte’s hand that was about to check for a fever and left her and Jem standing in the hallway as he disappeared upstairs. They heard a door slam shut a few minutes later and Jem knew from past experience that it had been locked immediately.

Charlotte looked shocked and her hand had not moved from its raised position. She looked over to Jem for any explanation as to Will’s sudden disappearance, but Jem just shook his head.

“He’s fine,” he said. “He had a coughing fit after the demon was killed but it was nothing we couldn’t handle on our own. He’s still a bit out of breath but he’ll be fine if he rests for a while.”

Charlotte nodded. She wasn’t satisfied, but at least she knew that Will wasn’t about to be found passed out on the floor with a raging fever. “And you?” she asked Jem.

“I’ve… been better,” Jem admitted. “I’m going to change and take some yin fen, and then go check on Will.”

Charlotte smiled and went back to whatever she was doing before they had come in. Jem went upstairs to do what he told Charlotte he was going to do and passed Will’s room on the way there. He could hear Will coughing through the wall and decided that he would wait ten minutes before going in, or attempting to go in. He knew that Will hated being seen as weak and that he would need some time to cool down from the events in the alley and Charlotte’s questioning.

Jem changed out of his ichor-splattered gear and into something more comfortable, then mixed a spoonful of yin fen into the glass of water that Sophie had brought up a few minutes earlier. Once he had drunk all of it, he waited a few minutes before leaving his room and walking the few feet to Will’s door.

Will was still coughing, which worried Jem, but he had heard him spit up mucus a few times, so they were at least productive coughs. He knocked on the door loud enough for Will to be able to hear it over the coughing but not so loud that it sounded like he was desperate to get in.

Will must have known it was him, because after a pause, he answered with a curt, “No.”

Jem sighed. “Can I please come in?”

“No,” Will said. The hoarseness in his voice had gone away by the time they got to the Institute but had now returned with a vengeance. “Go away.”

“Why won’t you let me in, Will?” Jem asked. He may have been standing outside of a locked door, but it wasn’t just the door he wanted Will to let him through.

A few minutes passed with no sounds besides a few coughs. Jem felt a little flame of worry in his chest, but he pushed it down. He hadn’t heard any loud thumps or Will gasping for air that would give him reason to trying and break the door down.

“Will?” he asked, hoping to get an answer.

“Please,” Will said softly after a few moments, his voice filled with shame. “I do not want you to see me on my knees, trying to suck in enough air to keep me conscious. That is not how any man wants the boy he loves to see him.”

“Oh, Will…” Jem whispered as he heard Will start coughing again. He turned around and sat down with his back against the door. “You should never have to think that way. I don’t care if you can’t breathe enough to go on patrol or you’re stuck in bed all day with a fever. I only care that you’re happy and alive.”

Will didn’t answer, but Jem knew he had heard. “I know you don’t like to look weak, but you have to let people help you sometimes. I never would have survived this long if I didn’t accept help from others.” He paused as he heard Will cough something up into the bowl he undoubtedly had in his hands. “I don’t think you’re weak. I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not stronger than you,” Jem heard Will whisper. His voice sounded closer now than it had before.

“I highly doubt that,” Jem said. “I’ve only been sick for a few years. You’ve been sick for your entire life, and despite that, you still go out every day and fight demons, even when you shouldn’t. I rarely do that.”

Jem waited for a second to let Will respond, and when he heard nothing but coughing, he continued. “Please, please, never assume that I will think any less of you when you are sick because I never will. Nothing can make me change the way I see you. Please let me help you. Please let me in.”

On the other side of the door, Will was sitting crossed legged with the bowl in his lap and his forehead resting on the door. He had heard every word that Jem said. With every breath he took, his lungs burned and his throat felt tight. He knew that he was going to be paying the price for going after the demon for a while, and he knew that it was going to be a lot easier and go a lot faster if he had someone there to ground him and comfort him when he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Jem was still sitting with his back against the door, waiting for some kind of response from Will. If Will didn’t let him in, he was going to stay out there anyway, for as long as he needed to, because he knew Will needed him no matter how many times he claimed he didn’t.

He was just about to ask Will to let him in one final time when he heard the door unlock.

Salty fandom questions

Thanks to @darknesshadows @darknessp @malikaesthetics for sending in questions. I’m answering all of them together and putting my answers behind a cut because this turned into a bit of an essay. Because SOMEONE ( *cough* @dnteverdoubtme *cough*) said I should just answer them all (seriously, if I wake up tomorrow with no followers left I will blame this entirely on you). Also, well, salt. Quite a bit of salt.

Anyone following me for longer than 4 weeks shouldn’t be surprised by any of these answers (even though I’ve probably never spelled things out so explicitly), however for those of you who are new around here… beware some highly unpopular, possibly PROBLEMATIC™ opinions. Consider this your only warning and proceed at your own risk (or, you now, just don’t ;- ).

(I’ve done my best to ensure that this doesn’t end up anywhere near any tags, if it does anyway it’s not intentional)

All answers apply to Sh@dowhunters.

Disclaimer: when I talk about “The XY fandom”, this is obviously a generalisation. I know it doesn’t apply to everyone. Some of my mutuals are part of the xy fandom, and all of them are lovely people. /end disclaimer

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get? While I personally don’t ship any of the canon ships, I do get why people ship them. If we’re talking all the ships in this fandom that anyone could possibly ship, I’d have to say ClaIec. Or Alec/any girls really. Make no mistake, I’m not saying this due to moral or ethical concerns – personally I don’t give a flying fuck what people ship, even if its VaIentine x a Vetis demon, whatever floats your boat – but I just really, fundamentally do not get it. I mean that boy is as gay as they come, take that away and you’ve got an entirely different character. Beats me really.

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP? All the canon ships, current and future ones.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? More than once. I usually live by “don’t like don’t read”, and I scroll past / blacklist a lot. But there’s a handful of things where my stance is 100% A and if yours is B or C, that’s not something I can ignore. In this fandom, it’s mostly when people post / reblog certain nasty anti opinions/posts.

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP? *looks at the camera like I’m on The Office* (for those of you reading this who seriously DON’T know, just continue to the next answer)

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you? (this one was sent in by ALL but one person, I would like to point out. So either you truly don’t know or you’re just here for the wank.*g*) Okay you might want to sit down and grab a bite cause this might take a while. You see (and that’s the part that usually surprises people) I actually started out as a pretty hardcore MaIec shipper in this fandom. Yep, me. Shocking, I know. I sort of migrated from the Teen Wolf fandom and everyone I followed back then was gushing about MaIec, I saw the first gifs on Tumblr (the show was already more than halfway through S1 when I started watching) and I thought hey, they’re cute, and actually canon, whee! So I pretty much fast-forward binged to 1x12 - through a pair of heavily MaIec-tinted glasses. My ideal version of the show back then, I’m ashamed to admit, probably would have been 90% MaIec, 9% Izzy and a little bit of Lydia on top (which was pretty much what a large majority of my dash was on about), I was totally ready to ditch everyone else for a short while. But thankfully, it wasn’t long before my brain remembered that I was capable of independent thinking, and I did a re-watch, and noticed that not everything was as picture perfect as it was made out to be, and I also actually noticed (and started falling for) the OTHER characters and possible pairings, most prominently Jace and JaIec (and honestly it will never cease to baffle me how anyone with a functioning pair of eyes will be able to look at S1 and NOT see that potential. Well, except for the MaIec-tinted glasses, probably). For a very short while, still blissfully oblivious to the nastier parts of this fandom, I happily multi-shipped (which was a first for me, I really am a ONE OTP kind of girl) both JaIec and MaIec pretty much equally, MaIec as far as canon was concerned (despite its many flaws - which where blatantly obvious once I cared to LOOK - but chose to ignore for the sake of happy shipping) and JaIec as a “God look at all that potential, in a different reality where xy had gone differently they totally would have been endgame” sort of way. And then that E!Online Shipping poll happened (the 2016 one where MaIec lost to CIexa) and that’s when got a first inkling of the truly ugly, rabid side of this fandom (back then I shipped both MaIec and CIexa so that’s probably what gave me a bit of a neutral observer’s perspective on these poll shenanigans, cause personally I didn’t care which of the two ships won since I loved them both). Around that time I had also started talking to a couple of JaIec shippers - who were lovely (looking at you fam) and refreshingly NORMAL compared to what I’d started to see in that other corner. Anyhow, from then on I was slowly distancing myself from the MaIec fandom as a whole. I still liked the ship in the sense that I enjoyed watching it in canon, even though, in terms of actual OTP, I quickly gravitated more and more towards JaIec (as I said I am a ONE OTP kind of girl so it was bound to happen). Long story short, during the long hiatus between s1 and 2a, (MaIec) fandom got exponentially nastier until, at some point – I’m still not sure when exactly - it just TIPPED (cause it definitely wasn’t like that back when S1 was airing, not to that extent) – and it suddenly started being “okay” to just outright attack and hate on everyone who dared ship either one of the pairing with someone else. With a level of vitriol and nastiness I have seldom seen (and I’ve actively been in fandoms since BtVS first aired, which was in the late ‘90s). Coupled with such a level of impertinent entitlement where everything has to be about or relate to MaIec, else there’s outrage across the entire fandom. And that, my friends, eventually managed to put me off the pairing for good. To the point where, if I’m entirely, brutally honest, I’d actually prefer to not see any Alec scenes at all to having to watch MaIec scenes, because this godawful fandom will find a way to ruin it one way or the other. If only by constantly whining about how it still wasn’t enough or “how dare that other character breathe while my OTP was about to suck face this is an OUTRAGE!!!”

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated? I can’t think of one, no. I might end up hating something I started out liking (see above), but I don’t think it ever happened the other way around. What sometimes does happen is that maybe there's something I don't actually care about all that much and then fandom will start hating on it and in the end I'll like the thing out of pure spite. But if I actually hate something, that'll stay that way.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now? See #5.

Have you received anon hate? What about? Nope, because I don’t have anon on.

Most disliked character(s)? Why? I don’t actually actively dislike any of the current main characters. I did Simon in S1 but I’ve learned to tolerate his existence (that’s as far as I’m willing to go here). If we expand this a bit to “characters I’m least interested in” I’d have to go with Luke and Simon. I’m just not interested in either of their personal arcs unless they are somehow relevant to my faves’. Also I’m not to keen on Maia or any of the other new characters they’re adding (unless they’re somehow relevant to my faves) for the sole reason that they will take up screen time I’d rather spend on characters I’m actually interested in. I did dislike Jocelyn, but, yeah.

Most disliked arc? Why? My knee-jerk reaction would be to say MaIec (bitter? Me? Naah!) but that’s only part of the truth. Actually it’s more “all the romantic arcs for the sake of romance while not contributing anything else to the greater plot or to individual character development”. Cause MaIec as a general development was an important part of Alec’s character arc in S1, and that whole “the girl who you’re falling in love with is actually your sister” an important factor for Jace’s, so I can appreciate them for that. But beyond that, I’m just not interested in any of the romance plots. At best, they bore me to tears (I’m not actually joking when I say that I signed up for a show where pretty people wearing leather jackets and fingerless leather gloves kill demons and are awesome together, not “the warIock and his shadowhunter and their epic romance”. I’m more of a “The Walking Dead” / “Supernatural” girl than “Friends” or “Gilmore Girls”, you know?). At worst, they make characters I actually like do increasingly stupid things to the point where I’m left wondering if they’re actually the same character I originally fell for.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? VaIentine & Sebastian. I usually tend to like villains, and while VaIentine really often leans towards “ridiculous comic book villain”, I just love AIan Van Sprang and what he does with the little that the show gives him. And Sebastian (judging from what we know from the books) is just so deliciously fucked-up badwrongevilPROBLEMATIC™ that he’s inspired the keepers of this fandom’s moral purity to write up entire manifests why Thou Shalt Not Like Him Under Any Circumstances Cause He’s Bad Wrong And Evil™ back before it was even certain that he would be in 2B in the first place. So obviously I’m going to stan the shit out of him. Also, WiIl Tudor’s cute and British and I’m really looking forward to him and Dom having scenes together. :-)

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? As for what has already happened, I didn’t actually mind Izzy’s Yin Fen plot. I wouldn’t say it was my favourite, but I certainly didn’t hate it as much as the rest of the fandom. I don’t have a particularly sophisticated reason for it though. As for what’s most likely / possibly to come, I hope the show will follow the book plot for Sebastian as closely as possible. (I don’t want to say too much for people who don’t know anything about it and don’t want to be spoiled.) Why? Because I like darkbadwrongnasty shit. Give me “darkbadrwongnasty shit where awful things and horrible people happen to good people” over romance any time. (Also, it would most likely piss large parts of this fandom off, that would be an added bonus.)

Unpopular opinion about XXX character? He’s not as flawless as you all like to believe. That’s okay though, flaws are what make characters interesting.

Unpopular opinion about your fandom? It’s the worst fandom ever? IDK is than an unpopular opinion? Probably, since around 80% ARE the worst people, and they would disagree with me so...

Unpopular opinion about the show? The writing really is rather subpar compared to some of the other shows I watch.

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? Age it up (have the characters be some of the actor’s actual ages, i.e. around their late twenties), move it to a network like HBO or Starz, and make it push the limits of an R-Rating. Also, put the main focus on the Sh@dowhunters, Sh@dowhunters politics, just all things Sh@dowhunters. Centered around the Lightwoods (including Jace). (And did you notice how none of what I would change would actually include “make JaIec canon”? Cause contrary to what large parts of this fandom seem to think, this is not all I / we think about. Wow what a shocker.)

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen… Well take a look at my shipping and plot preferences and then you can probably guess my answer.

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased? I don’t know, does it? If you ask the majority of this fandom, it really means I’m all sorts of –ist and just generally a horrible person. Or something. Do I get bonus points when I act like I care?

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom? Pretending to do everything for a higher, nobler purpose (shipping for representation and the likes), refusing to accept that not everyone else will or has to adhere to your own standards of what’s right or wrong or PROBLEMATIC(TM), and taking everything that happens on the show too damn seriously. Refusing to grasp that this is primarily a fantasy tv show with a main purpose to entertain its audience, and to earn the network money, not to make the world a better place.

What is the purest ship in the fandom? CIizzy and CIimon, probably. But honestly, nothing in this fandom is even remotely pure.

What are your thoughts on crack ships? Whatever makes you happy, I don’t judge.

Popular character you hate? Nope.

Unpopular character you love? see #11

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? As a piece of trashy popcorn entertainment to pass the time, yes. To someone who actually asks for a rec for quality television, no. Cause it just isn’t quality television. (And yes I know it’s a fantasy show geared towards teenagers, but so was BtVS, and that one still managed consistent writing and character development, over 7 seasons. But anyways.)

How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX? With the Lightwoods / Alec running the NY institute. The very last scene would end like the very first one began: Jace, Alec and Izzy together, just the three of them.

Most shippable character? For me personally? Jace. Generally (though I personally don’t actively ship them with anyone except low-key with each other), I think Izzy and Clary are pretty shippable as well. Simon too.

Least shippable character? Luke? But just because he doesn’t really interest me so I personally wouldn’t know who to ship him with. Except VaIentine (past times, and probably present time also), but I’m sure that’s all sorts of badwrongproblematic. Ah well.