2UPDATE VALENTINE'S DAY 2018: CHAPTER TWO IS NOW UP!...
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Author's Note:
On the whole, I try not to pry into my characters' sex lives.* And of them all, there's no one whose privacy I'm more disposed to respect than Valentine's. Not a man to take vulgar curiosity in good part!
So I'm not really sure where this little fic came from — an unexpected glimpse into his adolescence which just opened out without warning. It's an outtake really, something I should know better than to post: a scrap of intimate personal history which doesn't belong in the stories I'm telling. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that it — or something like it — is true. And as his (self-appointed) biographer, I'm inclined to let the record stand!
I confess I was initially of two minds about whether the events of this story really happened. I'm quite certain Jocelyn is the only girl Valentine ever loved — and equally certain that he is not the sexual innocent that she is, at the point where he finally puts his mind to winning her. Which would seem to make something like this extracurricular episode inevitable.
On the other hand, if anyone strikes me as fundamentally a prude, it's Valentine. It's certainly hard to imagine he has ever approved of casual sex: not so much that he thinks it's immoral, as out of a kind of fastidiousness about human passion and a clear contempt for unbridled gratification of all kinds. If Downworld embodies the louche, decadent, transgressive possibilities of human society — seedy, hard-drinking werewolves, pink-haired faeries, flamboyantly gay warlocks — Valentine seems like the arch-representative of the proper, traditionalist, faintly uptight culture of Idris.
But setting yourself to learn what sexual pleasure is — how to harness, deploy and resist it — it not the same as indulging in it. To allow a dislike of sexual licence to deny you a working knowledge of this vital aspect of human nature would be the height of folly, especially if you intend to lead. Valentine is nothing if not coolly instrumental, about his own desires as much as anyone else's.
And he is not an ascetic. If investigating the limits of pure physicality proves to be an exceptionally agreeable task, he is quite prepared to enjoy himself. As he says, anyone shut up all summer with the appalling Reinhardt Morgenstern is entitled to a little compensatory amusement...
Nonetheless, casual sex fundamentally holds no appeal for him. Having acquired the expertise and the insight he needs, he has no desire to repeat the experience. There is only one woman he desires or ever will desire. Which is of course his tragedy...
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*Ok, so I do realise they're actually Clare's characters!...
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Canon: My fics take the original City of Bones trilogy as canon. (For more about why I haven't read the later MI books, see my profile).
As always, everything in this fic belongs to the incomparable Cassandra Clare: characters, story and universe, of course, but also tone and language and imagery, which I've borrowed shamelessly to try to get closer to the feel of her story. To the extent that I've succeeded, the credit is entirely hers.
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Raven-haired and alarmingly pretty with snapping eyes and a lively, forward manner, she arrives at the Morgenstern manor the summer after his fourth year at school: replacement for the kitchen maid abruptly summoned home to her widowed mother after her father got himself decapitated by a wandering Tankuni demon. She's older than he is by several years, old enough to discharge her household duties with the discreet efficiency his father expects of his servants — and to be thoroughly practised in the deployment of her manifold physical charms.
In hindsight, he's not quite certain when he became aware of her, but somehow her path is forever crossing his on the narrow stairs and dim passageways of the rambling and ancient manor house: flattening herself respectfully against the wainscoting to let him pass, but with a warmth in her eyes and a challenge in the half-smile lingering on her lips that makes him fascinatingly aware of her body inches away from his. The invitation is plain, would be obvious even to a sensibility far less acute than his: if you want me I am yours, to do what you want with.
He has other things to think about, but he dockets the fact for further consideration, because she is exceptionally attractive, with a tidy, curving figure her demure uniform only barely contains, and a knowing, almost disquieting gleam underneath her black lashes that undeniably stirs his blood.
His father would profoundly disapprove: in these matters, as so many others, Reinhardt Morgenstern's views are rigidly straitlaced. But disregarding his father's inexhaustible disapproval — flouting, it even — is one of his projects for this holiday.
Not that he is under any illusions about the girl, or his own feelings: this is entirely an opportunity for a little recreation — and training. Aside from a few juvenile kissing-games beneath the mistletoe, it's an aspect of life he has not so far seriously addressed himself to.
In the long view, of course, he knows exactly where he is going, has known it almost from the day she arrived at the school, red hair straggling wildly from the knot at the back of her neck as she and Lucian dragged her absurdly heavy trunk of possessions up the front steps.
But there's no hurry there. It will be some time yet before she comes tame to his hand. For now, the first rule of the huntsman is patience: invisible and absolute. And in the meantime...
In the meantime, he decides, cantering dutifully at his father's heels on the latest of the old man's idiotic, self-appointed forest patrols, he's got an interesting new set of skills to acquire and hone.
And surely he deserves a little entertainment in a long, dire summer of dancing attendance on his father's iron whims and his crackpot one-man war on Downworld — as though the mongrel races were the biggest threat the Nephilim were up against. Frankly, the old warrior's obsession with charting the growth of Idris's Downworld populations is getting close to a mania.
But there's no arguing with his father. He has learnt that lesson the hard way. Better to keep your head down: do as you're told, at least as far as anyone can see — and perfect the art of subterfuge. Reinhardt Morgenstern may have a heavy hand, but in the last instance he isn't all that clever. Not as clever as his son, at any rate. And if the old tyrant is too pig-headed to see beyond the tedious Downworld bee in his bonnet — well it's been obvious for some time that if the Nephilim are to be saved from destruction, it's no use looking to the older generation to do it.
He's stuck out here for another six weeks; six weeks when he'll be lucky if any word from Alicante or his promising little band of acolytes makes its way into this remote fastness. Few Shadowhunter families live this deep into the wild lands by Lake Lyn — and his father's unsociability is matched only by his rooted dislike of the Glass City and its inhabitants. Scant hope either, under the present useless regime, of an official Clave mission to enliven their seclusion. The active duty-roster of resident adult Nephilim, once routinely deployed on the Clave's more ambitious schemes, has fallen into disuse; barring some unforeseen demonic crisis, his father is unlikely to see any fighting before the summer is out — any official fighting, at any rate.
But you work with what you are given. He has his books and his experiments, one or two of which are showing gratifying signs of promise; and whatever he may think of his father, there is no one in the world who will train him harder or better.
And then there is the girl...
So when he walks into the library the next day to find without surprise that she is already there, poised halfway up the tall library ladder with her duster in hand and her neat skirt and apron looking suddenly delightfully and indecorously short, he greets her with a lazy smile and crosses slowly to stand beneath her, shoulders propped against the carved bookcase. She colours fetchingly and smiles back at him, a slow provocative smile. There is no question she knows he can see straight up her dress.
For the space of a heartbeat, she gazes down at him; and then her smile widens enchantingly. Holding out her bare arms to him with a charming little lift of her wrists, she murmurs,
"Lift me down, Master Valentine?"
Her skin is the colour of fresh cream, flawless and smooth as the alabaster urns that flank his father's mantelpiece; her small hands are delicate and shapely. Even at this distance, he can see the pulse fluttering in her throat.
Reaching up, he curves his hands around her waist and swings her lightly down. She's heavier than she looks, her flesh firm and warm as a sun-ripe peach beneath his fingers. He can feel her breathing accelerate as he sets her smoothly on her feet, hands lingering at her waist. He's forgotten how diminutive she is, her dark, glossy head level with his shoulder, scarcely taller than the cunning little fey assassin he killed in yesterday's raid. The enchanted snares she'd used to ambush him turned his dagger to dust; in the end, he'd strangled her with his bare hands. The clean, cold, expert violence of it still sends a cool ripple of satisfaction through him, as he remembers.
But the girl in his hands now is gazing up at him with look on her face that sets a very different frisson of excitement sparking across his nerve ends. He can feel every line of her body against his, as if the tiny space that remains between them were already gone. For the space of a breath, he gazes down at the heart-shaped face raised to his, listening to the drumbeat of his own pulse and watching every tiny change in her expression, the life-blood electric in his veins. Her lips are parted; the flush in her cheeks rosy and warm. He hears her breath catch. Then, cupping his hand in the raw silk of her hair, he bends his head and kisses her.
She smells of roses and soap and freshly-laundered linen. The soft curves of her body press closer against him as her arms slide around his neck, her kiss deepening, small fingers digging into the bare skin of his shoulder with a sharp, sweet pleasure his senses can't entirely distinguish from pain. And then he is kissing her back, his mouth hard and purposeful on hers, desire coursing dark as ichor through his veins. With a detached part of his mind he notes the quickening of his own breathing, the queer lightness in his limbs, the white fire spinning along his nerves as he gives his senses up to pleasure. This is uncharted territory. He has a lot to learn.
Ignorance is not a state that recommends itself to Valentine Morgenstern, though. He doesn't intend to remain in it for long. After that, they meet almost every day, unless his father has requisitioned him for some fresh expedition: in the library; by the tilting ground; in the empty storeroom at the top of the attic stairs, the light from the dormer windows throwing diamonds of shadow across her vivid face that spill fascinatingly down her arching neck and collarbones and on down beyond, their quick gasps echoing off the dusty rafters. They are careful and discreet — both of them have long practice at the art of evading detection — but the ever-present possibility of being caught gives an extra frisson to their encounters, and keeps their clothes on, more or less.
Which is fine with him for now. He has been master of his body for as long as he can remember. Self-discipline, as his father never tires of reminding him, is the Shadowhunter's first, most indispensable weapon; he has been brought up to ignore the demands of the flesh — weariness, hunger, cold, pain — from the time he could walk. He's got all summer to master this intriguing new art, and he intends to take this slowly and methodically, as he would any other skill.
He can see too that it is driving her a little crazy; and the banked fire of his own desires (as he acknowledges to himself), the awareness of their mutual hunger, pent-up together a millimetre away — a tinder spark — from combustion, rather sharpens the pleasure of it all. No reason not to take his time...
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UPDATE 2018: Ok, grovel: it's taken me a year to get back to this. But the next chapter is NOW UP, and with any luck it won't take me until next February to get the rest finished! Happy Valentine's Day everyone...
A/N (Original): I'd planned on posting this all in one go, but I'm running out of time if it's to go up for Valentine's Day! So here's a first installment anyway. The rest follows shortly — it's nearly done!
And for my faithful readers — I know it's been ages since I updated! I haven't given up on my unfinished fics, I promise. They just got...more complicated than I expected. I've got a couple of other stories on the table as well I hope to get up this spring. But this little fic just kind of insinuated itself into my head and demanded to be written NOW. So I did. Hope you enjoy it! Let me know...
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Anyone new to my stories and interested in the young Valentine should have a look at The Circle Game, my school-era fic about Jocelyn and Valentine, which takes place about a year after this fic, or Wednesday's Children, a story from the early, happy days of his marriage to Jocelyn. For a darker romance, see my City of Bones era fic Odi et Amo, which follows Valentine in the days and hours before he comes looking for Jocelyn. Of course dearest to my heart are my 'Songs of Innocence' cycle of stories about Jace's childhood with Valentine: Fall 1997, Discipline, Chiaroscuro, Lessons and An Orchard So Young in the Bark.
And for Valentine's Day, there's always my Jace and Clary story, Permanent Marks, set in the immediate aftermath of City of Glass. That fic is a lot of things, but above all, it's a love story...
—MM