InsaneJournal

Who: Jem Carstairs and Tessa Gray
What: Tea, cuddling and a little dream discussion
When: Backdated: Mid June; just after Spider plot
Where: Their Condo
Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly
Status: Complete!

Exerting himself as much as he had over the last couple of weeks what with vampires and demons in May then trying to help with the giant spider just recently, Jem was beginning to feel weaker as a result of his illness and started taking a little more Yin Fen than usual. He still didn’t know quite how the Yin Fen was replenishing itself, but he assumed it was a dream thing and he wasn’t complaining. He had talked to some of the other magic users and Magnus about the synthetic version in case he ran out back when he’d first gotten the drug, but that was before he knew it would replenish itself. However, he still wondered if a synthetic version would continue to slowly kill him the same way the actual thing was.

He’d started using his cane a little more than before and knew that Will and Tessa were worried about him, but as always, he played it off. He didn’t like them worrying about him. He knew it was inevitable, but he wanted them to treat him the same way they had before any of this happened.

One thing that always made him feel better was tea, so he was currently in the kitchen, a pot of water on the stove.

Tessa opened the front door and put her keys on the cupboard beside it. Shutting the door behind her, she heard the kettle boiling in the kitchen and smiled to herself, someone was home. Making her way to the kitchen, she saw Jem with his back to her, messing around with the cups she imagined. Walking silently up behind him, she slid her arms around him from behind and rested her cheek against his shoulder blade contentedly. Smoothing her hands over his chest, she hummed her satisfaction. He was warm, warmer than usual but nothing to cause alarm right now.

Jem smiled as he felt Tessa’s arms around him, “Hello, Tessa. Would you like a cup of tea?” He didn’t need to see her to know that it was Tessa. He knew everything about Tessa by now even when she was behind him especially since there were quite a few drastic differences between her and Will.

“I would love a cup a tea,” Tessa smiled, pressing a kiss to the back of his shoulder through his shirt while her hands worked their way under the front of his shirt to touch the skin beneath.

Jem hadn’t expected Tessa to be quite so bold, but he wasn’t going to tell her to stop, because he liked the feel of her fingers against his skin. He and Tessa hadn’t been quite as intimate as he and Will had been so far, but considering Jem and Will shared a bed, it was a little easier to fool around. “You may need to let me go though, so I can get the kettle when it goes off.” He was able to reach for another tea cup from the cabinet, but the stove was just a little too far to his right for him to be able to simply reach for it.

Tessa pretended to grumble against his back, but smiled and reluctantly stepped back for him to make them tea. “How’s your day been?” she asked, leaning against the kitchen counter to watch him move.

“I slept most of the morning.” Jem was still recuperating from attempting to fight the giant spider with Will a few days earlier, but at least he hadn’t slept all day like he had the day after. Today he’d simply slept later than he normally did on a day off, which he had been happy to have that day, “And you?” Getting another tea cup, he began to set up Tessa’s tea the way she liked it as the kettle whistled.

"You're taking care of yourself though?" Tessa asked, still concerned with his recuperation. "Because I can close the shop tomorrow and stay home if you need me to," she offered, of course she could probably leave Myrcella and Capable in charge instead of closing it but she'd worry about that later. "That spider definitely didn't bite you or anything?"

“I assure you that I’m taking care of myself.” Jem said, turning to smile at Tessa, “I don’t want you or Will to worry unnecessarily, so I’m being careful.” He turned to finish making both cups of tea and brought them over to the table where his cane was leaning against one of the chairs, “So you don’t need to close the shop. And that spider was quite large. If it tried to bite me, it would have eaten me.”

“Ok, I believe you,” Tessa smiled, running a hand up his arm, to his neck and up to cup his cheek. She stroked his pale, soft skin as she gazed at him. Stepping forward she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before moving to the front room with her cup of tea. “Come sit with me on the couch and tell me more about your day,” she smiled, settling herself on the couch, leaving room for him to sit beside her.

Jem reached for his cane and headed into the living room, being careful not to spill his tea. The last thing he wanted was to have to clean that up when what he really wanted was to sit with Tessa at the moment, “Why don’t you tell me about your day.” Jem said as he reached the couch and set his tea cup down on the coffee table before sitting down beside Tessa, “I already told you that I spent most of the day sleeping.”

“That’s true, I just want to know you’ve been alright without us. Not pinning too much,” Tessa teased, a little glint in her eyes as he settled next to her. She smiled and snuggled into his side, getting him to lift his arm so she could be close to him. “The shop was busy again, but Myrcella and Capable are more than able to manage things. I’m so proud of them,” she smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist as they sat.

Jem's arm went around Tessa's shoulders as he settled into the count beside her, "That's fantastic. I'm so glad that everything is going well at the shop." Jem was extremely proud of the fact that Tessa's shop was doing so well.

“Thanks,” Tessa grinned in return. “But you know I wouldn’t be able to do so well if it weren’t for yours and Will’s support,” she told him genuinely, looking up to press a kiss to his cheek before resting her head in his chest again. “You two complete my life so much that it lets me go and do the things I love. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

Jem smiled and squeezed her shoulder as she kissed his cheek, "Well, my support will only, likely, get stronger." He leaned forward for his tea cup and took a sip before placing it back on the table and sitting back as his recent dreams came to mind, "Can I ask you something?"

“Of course, anything,” Tessa replied, frowning and hoping it wasn’t anything serious.

"Have you been dreaming lately?" The three of them didn't really talk about their dreams much. Jem was the only one who seemed to talk about them on Valarnet so he was never really sure where Will and Tessa were in their dreams.

“Nothing really new,” Tessa replied with a frown. “I’ve actually been Dreaming about the Dark Sister’s house lately. Before that I think I last Dreamt about...I went to a ball. As Jessamine where I met Nate Why do you ask?” she leaned her head back against his shoulder so she could look up at him.

"In one of my more recent dreams you and I learnt about Will's past. What he didn't want us to know." Jem thought back to Charlotte explaining Will's backstory to them; things that not even Jem had known.

“Will’s past?” Tessa asked, frowning as she shook her head. “What do you mean?” she sat up a bit more and turned to face him, swinging her legs over his lap.

“Well, the three of us had gone to York to try and get some information on Mortmain’s family and in the process we found Will’s family, but were unable to get near them because there was an automaton there.” Jem placed a hand on Tessa’s leg, running it along the length of her calf lightly, not really aware of what he was doing, “The Automaton told us to stop looking into Mortmain’s past or the Herondale’s would be killed. Upon arriving back in London, Will ran off, but you and I went back to the Institute. There, Charlotte told us how Will’s parents had come looking for him once after he’d come to the Institute. He then told her to let him know if she ever heard about something happening to them. After that, Will’s father lost their house while gambling and Charlotte hadn’t heard anything about them since.”

Tessa nodded and rested her arm along the back of the couch, gently stroking the back of his neck, fingers playing lightly along his hairline there. “I remember that,” she frowned, thinking back on her Dreams. “We pretended to be engaged for Starkweather so I could go too,” she said in a low voice, a slow smile spreading across her face. “You let me wear your ring,” she pressed a slow kiss against the pulse that beat at his throat.

Jem nodded, silver eyes closing as Tessa played with the hair at the nape of his neck, “We did. Had to pretend you needed to do research to ascend so that we could try and get information on Mortmain’s family.” Opening his eyes he glanced down at his finger where the Carstair’s ring, that had shown up recently, was. “Speaking of…” He lifted his hand to show off the ring, “It showed up not too long ago.”

Tessa reached down with her other hand and lifted his hand with the ring on it. She ran her thumb over the ring as she contemplated it before raising it to her lips to press a kiss to it, looking up into Jem’s eyes as she did. “How does it feel to wear it? Does it feel...familiar? Or foreign?” she asked quietly, pressing her lips to the skin just above the metal again.

“It feels right. Like I should be wearing it.” It was his family’s ring after all. Maybe not in real life, but in the dreams and the dreams felt just as real as real life now, so why shouldn’t he wear it? He put Runes on his body like in the dreams so how was this any different? He watched as Tessa kissed the space above his ring and his pulse rose slightly.

"It's very becoming," Tessa smiled up at him, turning his hand over so she could place it against her cheek. Closing her eyes, she turned her face to kiss his palm before resettling it on her cheek. She looked up at him again and asked, "How are you feeling with all the Dreams?"

“I don’t mind them so much. I mean, I hate that you’re in danger in them, but aside from that, I don’t mind them,” Jem wasn’t stupid, he knew that she was likely asking how he felt physically, but he didn’t like to talk about his illness that had happened as a result of the dreams and even though he’d talked to Caspian fairly recently, he still hadn’t told Will or Tessa that he had started taking more Yin Fen than he’d taken in the beginning. He didn’t want to worry them when he could handle it.

“I think, given the nature of our Dreams, that I will always be in danger,” Tessa smiled wryly. She stroked a hand down the side of his face, watching her hand as she did and stroking her thumb over the back of the hand she still held to her cheek. “And what about with the condition and the Yin Fen? Do you feel like the Dreams are affecting them?”

He had hoped that she wouldn’t inquire further, but he couldn’t exactly ignore it now, “Nothing has changed. I still tire if I exert too much energy and the Yin Fen still appears to be replenishing itself.” For that Jem was grateful for. He had been worried about what would happen when it ran out, but it seemed that he had nothing to worry about.

“That’s good,” Tessa smiled, eyes still watching him with quiet concern. “You’d tell us if anything changed, wouldn’t you?” she asked quietly, carding her fingers through his hair. “Even the smallest thing?”

“Of course I would,” Jem couldn’t help but feel guilty now that he’d been keeping things from the both of them, but he wasn’t about to say anything just yet. He didn’t want to ruin this perfect moment. “I promise.”

“Ok,” Tessa replied quietly with a gentle smile. “Now, since the world’s not ending, Will’s out for a bit and the tea’s still hot, why don’t you kiss me?” her smile broadened to a grin as she spoke in a low, sultry voice.

Jem chuckled, a smile crossing his lips as he nodded, “I think I can do that.” Even as he kissed Tessa he still felt a little guilty for keeping certain things about his illness from her and Will, but that was the last thing he was going to think about at the moment.