So this is actually an older request, I think that it was a request from about a year and a half ago, but I kept it! If I feel that I can live up to your expectations with a request, I will always keep it! This was from agentfandoms74, who wanted a Glee AU, with Clary as Rachel and Jace as Finn. This is loosely based after the first season, I guess? Although I haven't seen it in years...
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the title, which comes from Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
Jace Herondale stood at the doorway of the music room, gripping the strap of his backpack over his shoulder tightly with one hand.
Clarissa Morgenstern's fingers were gliding over the piano keys, filling the room with the gentle music, every key perfect, as to be expected when it came to Clary.
She could be a handful.
Hell, she could be more than a handful.
A short year ago, all Jace had really noticed about her was that she was that kind of weird girl with pretty eyes who always signed her name in sparkly, gold gel pen on sign up sheets around their school.
Now, he was actually pretty sure he was falling for her.
Which was also weird, because just a few months ago, he had been pretty sure he was in love with Kaelie Whitewillow.
He was having a baby with her.
Then it had turned out that his cheerleader girlfriend had actually cheated on him with his best friend, Sebastian Verlac, and he was the father of her baby.
The whole situation was a mess, and the thing that had actually helped him through was the teacher and the students who were all part of this glee club that he had been kind of blackmailed to join in the first place.
Again.
Weird.
And Clary had been awesome as well.
She could be neurotic, and a perfectionist, and incredibly bossy, and extremely competitive, and honestly, kind of a bitch at times.
But he had shown up at her place the night after he had found out that Sebastian and Kaelie had gotten together and had lied to him about it, and she had completely put aside the fact that she required exactly seven and a half hours of sleep each night to be operating at her maximum potential.
She had woken her dads as well, Stephen Morgenstern and Luke Greymark, because Stephen made amazing hot chocolate and Luke was the best listener, apparently.
They'd all sat around the kitchen table, Clary with her hand on his shoulder and her dads opposite them, prompting him to talk about what was going on and his feelings about the situation, all of them drinking the best hot chocolate that Jace had ever tasted.
The whole thing had been a bit odd and Jace couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Clary wore pink and blue bunny rabbit pyjamas and matching furry bunny slippers that had little ears that stuck up.
She really wasn't like any other girl in their school.
So even with Clary's flaws—the fact that she wasn't good with sharing the spotlight, and that she was still realizing that she actually had friends now and she had to learn how to treat them properly, and that maybe there was something more in the world than just focusing on earning a Tony Award one day—Jace really liked her.
Jace tugged his fingers through his shaggy hair, which was still damp from the shower he had taken after football practice, and then smiled as he recognized the song that Clary was playing.
Shallow.
Clary must have seen A Star Is Born at least thirty times already.
Lady Gaga was her absolute idol, Clary made no secret of that, and when they had done a whole Lady Gaga week in glee club, she had come in a different chaotic, colourful, crazy outfit each day.
Jace had seen the movie with her twice, but he knew that Clary had dragged Magnus Bane to the theatre multiple times, and Isabelle Lightwood had mentioned that she had gone three times as well, until she said that Bradley Cooper was hot but not that hot, and she wasn't going to pay to see it a fourth time.
Clary's voice was incredible.
It was insane.
It was powerful, and it was so strange coming out of such a petite little thing that barely looked big enough to carry around the pile of school books that she toted around.
That was what caught a lot of judges off guard when she took centre stage and hit the highest notes in the middle of the choruses—just how powerful her voice was.
"I'm falling..." Clary's voice was soft, not much louder than the keys of the piano. "In all the good times, I find myself longing...For a change. And in the bad times, I fear myself..." Clary's shoulders lifted, obviously taking in a deeper breath, and then she started again, that silky, strong voice lifting a little higher, filling the room with it's presence, demanding attention from anyone who was close by, even though in this case, it was only Jace. "I'm off the deep end, watch as a I dive in. I'll never meet the ground...Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us. We're far from the shallow now..." her fingers on the keys pressed down a little stronger, the noise coming out louder. "In the sha-ha-shallow, in the sha-la-low—"
"In the sha-sha-la-la-la-low," Jace joined in and Clary's head jerked up, her fingers jumping on the keys, but quickly finding their place once again.
"In the sha-ha, sha-ha-ha-low," Clary softly replied, eyes fixed on Jace as he came into the music room, slowly making his way over to where she was sitting at the piano.
"We're far from the shallow now," they finished together, voices mingling perfectly, one of the things that made them such good duet partners.
Their chemistry also played a huge part.
Jace sat down on the piano seat next to Clary and nudged her gently with his elbow, giving him a big smile, and she smiled back, her green eyes dancing, looking as though the only things that mattered to her in the world was the music and Jace.
She was going to get that Tony Award.
Jace didn't doubt that for a second.
And he was starting to really hope that he would be there with her when that happened.
Let me know what you think x