Notes: Written for the prompt 'roadtrip au'. It'll be a two shot and I hope I'll be able to update it in a couple of days.
"And you're seriously saying that there's no one who could have opened a portal for you?"
"Not every Institute has its own portal," Isabelle said, clearly immune to her brother's scepticism. Over the phone – they'd put it on speaker – Clary heard Alec sigh.
"Okay," he said at last. "But you need to hurry up. Dad is worried."
That was all the information they got and Isabelle grimaced. Alec and Maryse had had a fallout just a few weeks ago and never seemed to acknowledge one another, but they still new that 'Dad is worried' translated to 'the actual head of this Institute is running out of patience'.
"We'll do our best," Izzy promised and ended the call.
"Are there really no Warlocks in San Francisco?" Clary asked doubtfully and the other girl scoffed.
"Of course there are, but there's no rush, right? Come on," she coaxed when faced with Clary's hesitation. "You can't tell me you want to go back already."
Clary couldn't argue with that. The war had ended and in the aftermath of it, everyone was tense enough that it would take quite a while before things went back to normal. She wasn't even sure of that – some things would probably never be the same, including her relationship with her mother.
"No rush," Clary agreed and was rewarded with a blinding smile from Isabelle.
"I'll tell the Starkweathers to give us the keys for one of the cars."
o.O.o
When Clary had said yes to this plan, she hadn't taken into account the heat that they would have to endure on their way back to New York. To make things worse, the car was a convertible and about twenty minutes after they'd left the Institute, Clary was starting to feel suffocated by the sun that seemed far stronger than it ever was at home.
"I think it's nice," Isabelle said when Clary couldn't take it anymore and complained. "Demons always come out at night, so a little sunlight will do us good."
"You, maybe," Clary conceded, "but I'm going to die."
"No need to exaggerate this, Fray," Izzy said cheerfully and focused back on the road in front of them.
Even after everything they'd been through – or rather, exactly because of that – the trip was an almost surreal experience. The only things surrounding them were the highway and the occasional motel here and there and, save for the conversation they had on and off, the only sounds were the wind and the music coming from the CD player. Clary had searched through the car and the only CDs she'd been able to find were classic rock compilations and while Isabelle was enjoying them a surprising amount, Clary found herself with nothing to do in the passenger's seat.
So she drew. She'd taken enough supplies with her to last her for the week they'd spent in San Francisco and she decided that it was a good enough distraction.
There was nothing to focus on, so she focused on Isabelle; on the way her hair shone under the sunlight in what seemed like a hundred different colours. She was dressed in a short leather skirt and a shirt small enough to make Melinda Starkweather – their host back in San Francisco – huff in indignation when she had seen it. Not that Isabelle had cared – one of the things about her that had impressed Clary the most at first was how indifferent she was to the opinion to anyone who wasn't part of her family.
It was surprisingly difficult – given how much free time Clary had right now – to do her justice. She could only see Izzy's profile and tried to catch every little detail of it – even how she squinted against the unrelenting sun as her eyes wandered over the road, alert of every movement in their immediate surroundings, her long eyelashes fanning over her cheeks as she blinked. Clary's pencil ran over the blank page in front of her and she watched the sketch come slowly to life as she added the finishing touches.
There was so much of her to take in, Clary thought, and she wasn't sure she would ever manage it all. The more she drew, the more distracted she got, because ever added detail was five more minutes of work to get it perfect.
"It's getting late."
Isabelle's voice brought her back from her quiet musings all of a sudden and Clary made a noise of acknowledgment. "What are we going to do?" Even if they didn't stop anywhere for the night, there was no way they'd manage to get home by tomorrow, and Clary remembered all the times her mother had warned her against travelling at night, especially on the highway and especially with only one person with a driver's license.
Izzy glanced at the GPS in front of her. "We'll pass by a motel in about an hour. We should stop for the night."
It wasn't that late yet – it wasn't even close to sunset – but Clary knew that she was right. They couldn't know where the next possible stop would be.
By the time they arrived at the motel, the sun had almost set and they were both more exhausted than they wanted to admit. Clary was relieved to get out of the car after hours with nowhere to go and she could see that the sentiment was shared – Isabelle stumbled out of the car and stretched like a cat, rummaging through her purse for something. Her makeup was smudged by the heat but it still somehow managed to look irritably perfect to the point where Clary wondered whether she was even capable of imperfection.
She was glad, right now, that they'd decided to travel the mundane way rather than find a Warlock who could open a portal for them. Everything here – the highway behind them, the weathered building they'd parked in front of, even the eerie silence that always came with being in the middle of nowhere – was like a different world; like they'd left behind all the worried they'd had in either of the cities they'd been in.
"I'll book us in for the night," Izzy said and locked the car and, as Clary picked up their luggage and followed her up the stairs, she felt lighter than she had in months.