Fic [TID]: Minor Scrapes - Jem/Tessa, PG
Title: Minor Scrapes
Fandom: The Infernal Devices
Rating: PG
Word Count 500 approx.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Even if Jem comes home only slightly damaged, Tessa still wants a part in the repair.
It wasn’t the most horrible injury. Merely a single long cut below the chest, along the top of the uppermost rib. A bandage wasn’t even necessary, with Will’s rune scrawled over the broken skin.
But Jem agreed to rest, and it wasn’t until he said it out loud that Charlotte and Will finally left… leaving Tessa behind.
“You must admit that it’s a bit more severe than a paper-cut, James.”
She used his full name so rarely. It made smiling almost automatic when she did.
“And yet, with shadowhunter blood and runes, it probably needs little more treatment than one. Why? What would you suggest for a papercut?”
“Well, my aunt would always insist that the only remedy for minor scrapes and abrasions was to kiss them to make them better.”
Jem chuckled.
He tried to imagine a tiny Tessa-face all innocently somber-tugging at her aunt’s skirts demanding the appropriate cure for a battered knee or bruised elbow.
A moment later, he realized that Tessa herself was silent, biting her lip as she met his gaze.
The quiet was a heavy thing between them, growing and tensing, but not unwelcome.
There was a tiny pause before her fingers reached forth, and parted the opening of his unbuttoned shirt, so casually closed after his healing.
Her skin barely brushed his as she revealed the cut, already half-mended under the dark ink of the stele.
Jem was suddenly terribly aware of the breath in his lungs which made his stomach rise and fall and the strand of Tessa’s hair that slipped from behind her ear as she leaned forward… and the way that strand fell against his bare chest, creating a tickling sensation that engaged all his nerve endings at once.
It still paled next to the sensation of soft lips, full and gently pressing on the stinging rune. He couldn’t hold back the shiver that ran through his frame, emanating from that small patch of skin.
“Tessa.”
She looked up quickly, face faintly red and growing redder, her hand jerking away from his side, as if expecting censure.
His own hand reached forth almost of its own volition to stop her from moving away completely. His fingers tangled in her hair, finding it to be the most natural place to land.
“Jem?”
As his palm cradled the back of her neck, he saw her shoulders unwind, and the uncertainty fall from her face.
She let him draw her in for a kiss, and then followed with instigating one of her own. And then another. And yet another, till finally they had to choose between kissing and breathing.
Jem hated having to make that choice. Hated needing the one when he so wanted to continue with the other.
Finally, with slightly panting breath, he murmured against her cheek,
“She was right, you know…”
A crinkled brow. An adorable one.
“It’s the only acceptable remedy from now on.”
Tessa’s laugh rang out.
It had a healing power all its own.
f.i.n.
[*] [*] [*] [*]
Fandom: The Infernal Devices
Rating: PG
Word Count 500 approx.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Even if Jem comes home only slightly damaged, Tessa still wants a part in the repair.
It wasn’t the most horrible injury. Merely a single long cut below the chest, along the top of the uppermost rib. A bandage wasn’t even necessary, with Will’s rune scrawled over the broken skin.
But Jem agreed to rest, and it wasn’t until he said it out loud that Charlotte and Will finally left… leaving Tessa behind.
“You must admit that it’s a bit more severe than a paper-cut, James.”
She used his full name so rarely. It made smiling almost automatic when she did.
“And yet, with shadowhunter blood and runes, it probably needs little more treatment than one. Why? What would you suggest for a papercut?”
“Well, my aunt would always insist that the only remedy for minor scrapes and abrasions was to kiss them to make them better.”
Jem chuckled.
He tried to imagine a tiny Tessa-face all innocently somber-tugging at her aunt’s skirts demanding the appropriate cure for a battered knee or bruised elbow.
A moment later, he realized that Tessa herself was silent, biting her lip as she met his gaze.
The quiet was a heavy thing between them, growing and tensing, but not unwelcome.
There was a tiny pause before her fingers reached forth, and parted the opening of his unbuttoned shirt, so casually closed after his healing.
Her skin barely brushed his as she revealed the cut, already half-mended under the dark ink of the stele.
Jem was suddenly terribly aware of the breath in his lungs which made his stomach rise and fall and the strand of Tessa’s hair that slipped from behind her ear as she leaned forward… and the way that strand fell against his bare chest, creating a tickling sensation that engaged all his nerve endings at once.
It still paled next to the sensation of soft lips, full and gently pressing on the stinging rune. He couldn’t hold back the shiver that ran through his frame, emanating from that small patch of skin.
“Tessa.”
She looked up quickly, face faintly red and growing redder, her hand jerking away from his side, as if expecting censure.
His own hand reached forth almost of its own volition to stop her from moving away completely. His fingers tangled in her hair, finding it to be the most natural place to land.
“Jem?”
As his palm cradled the back of her neck, he saw her shoulders unwind, and the uncertainty fall from her face.
She let him draw her in for a kiss, and then followed with instigating one of her own. And then another. And yet another, till finally they had to choose between kissing and breathing.
Jem hated having to make that choice. Hated needing the one when he so wanted to continue with the other.
Finally, with slightly panting breath, he murmured against her cheek,
“She was right, you know…”
A crinkled brow. An adorable one.
“It’s the only acceptable remedy from now on.”
Tessa’s laugh rang out.
It had a healing power all its own.
f.i.n.
[*] [*] [*] [*]