A/N Hello, yes this is very long, I know, but please bear with me. All you people are amazing!
DISCLAIMER: THE RIGHTS TO MORTAL INSTRUMENTS BELONG TO THE ONE AND ONLY CASSANDRA CLARE
Today was the day, she knew it. Today was the day that after many rejections of managers and businesses, Clary Fray would finally be accepted into a position to establish a decent start to her career path.
After Clary had graduated high school, her parents pushed her to go to college for lawyering. Clary, realizing she would rather pursue a more artistic path, had dropped out of college. Unfortunately, neither Jocelyn nor Valentine would pay for any schooling of something that they think is worthless. So, Clary had been searching for work with a steady income since then.
This job that she was currently prepping interviewing for was to work as the assistant of a designer in a major clothing company. It wasn't completely ideal, however it would be a great experience to work with a professional.
Clary was dressed in a green blouse that made her eyes pop and a black skirt for the interview. Dozens of people walked by her in the lobby of Wayland Wear, not paying any attention to her whispering to herself.
"Miss Fray?" Clary jumped at the sound of the blonde women at the front desk, pulling her from her reverie. She got up and followed the lady silently as to not forget everything she just went over repeatedly.
The woman pointed to a door down the hall and told her to go on in. Seemed simple enough.
Right as Clary began walking past one door, she felt something at her ankles.
Creek
As if everything happened in slow motion, Clary turned her head to the noise, only to see a falling bucket. Water drenched her and her clothes from head to toe. Confusion set into place, along with shock, before being turned into boiling anger and dread. How had she forgotten that it was the first of April? Otherwise known as April Fools.
And now she was going to have to face her potential bosses soaked. This made her spin around to find who was responsible for this disaster. She didn't have to look very hard because the apparent culprit had burst into laughter from his office.
Clary stormed into the room, outraged. "What the hell? You think this is funny? What are you, five?!" The man was...well gold. He had golden hair, golden skin and even golden eyes. His smile would have been the most beautiful thing she had ever seen had it not been him laughing at her expense.
Before he could get a word out, the door at the end of the hall opened up to see a man and woman who looked similar staring in astonishment, apparently not having seen the fiasco that caused her to look this way. "Are you Clary Fray?" Clary nodded, trying to not die of embarrassment. "We are ready for you now."
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.
About an hour later, Clary sat across from one of her best friends, Isabelle Lightwood, at a diner called Takis. She was so upset after the interview that she almost burst into tears the moment she left. It wasn't that it went horribly, it was just very awkward. No one mentioned her sopping wet clothing and hair. Now all she wanted to do was have a nice coffee with her friend in her new, comfortably dry outfit.
Isabelle looked dead at the table. "Why, oh why, did you have to force me out of bed at such ungodly hours of the morning, just to eat breakfast?"
"It's eight thirty, Izzy," Clary said, rolling her eyes. "So, I'm guessing you don't want to hear about my lovely morning?"
A smile spread across the raven haired girl's face. "Tell me everything."
And so she did. She told her about the huge fancy waiting room, the uncomfortable questioning from the top of the line business people, but she saved the best part for last.
"The reason why it was so unpleasant was because some blond, big headed, egotistical jerk decided to play a prank in the office, which ended up with me soaking wet throughout the whole thing and them not a clue as to why I was."
Isabelle gasped dramatically, "I can't believe he actually did it."
Clary replied, "I know-"
"No, you don't understand. Jace told me he was thinking about doing something stupid like this, but I never thought he had the nerve to do it. Especially to a new interviewee." Something clicked in Clary's mind when she said the name.
"Wait, do you mean your cousin Jace? That asshole!" She fumed with a rekindled fire in her heart for the man who might have ruined her only chance at paying off her debt and starting an actual life. "You have to help me get back at him in some way, please."
She tilted her head in a thoughtful way before answering with a devious glint in her eye, "I have the keys to his and Alec's apartment. We can do some real damage to his pride." Isabelle rustled through her bag before pulling out a key ring and twirling them around her fingers.
o.O.o.O.o.O.o
It took a lot of convincing of Alec Lightwood to let them in to do whatever mischief they desired, but finally he had to leave to visit his boyfriend and couldn't stay to fight any longer. Once inside, they went straight to the bathoom.
"He uses conditioner? That's hilarious." The ginger girl laughed at the man's antics when it came to his precious hair.
"We should stick this in his shampoo, though, just to make sure he gets it," Izzy said in between giggles. "We are so bad."
Clary started to leave saying, "Alright, well I am off to do the deed and then to the grocery store to restock our supply of milk and oreos back at our place. See you later."
"Bye!"
Ten minutes later, she pulled up at a familiar building for the second time that day, only this time with a vengeance. The woman at the front counter didn't even look up as Clary walked by with a paper bag in her hands. She looked for the certain doorway, checked it out to make sure that she wasn't going to get pranked again and then strutted into Jace's office. He glanced up at her, but couldn't do anything since he was on his work phone.
They looked at each other for a while and Clary just stood there with an innocent grin on her face. He sounded like he was about to hang up so she decided it was time to dump the flour on his head. Well, she had to get him to take a shower some how.
"April Fools," she said before running away to her car after seeing his flabbergasted look. Only once she was a mile away, she let herself chuckle at the adrenaline rush she felt from getting revenge.
Clary didn't know how long she stayed in the parking lot of the market listening to music, thinking to herself, but it must've been a lot longer than she thought because as she began walking to the entrance, a very bright pink haired Jace stormed out and past her, carrying gold hair dye.
This caused her to laugh even harder. "This. Is. War." She immediately stopped at his words. What was that supposed to mean?
She contemplated this as she shopped around for what she wanted. He sounded serious and the way he glared at her sent chills down her spine.
When she came back to her car, it appeared that he was deadly serious as it was surrounded by an infinite loop of shopping carts. Running to her car, she attempted to pull them apart, only to be even more distraught by the fact that she couldn't. "Jace Herondale!"
Clary whipped out her cell phone in anger to call Isabelle. "Hey, I'm at the store and I just saw your cousin, yes he looked absolutely ridiculous, but that's not the point. Basically, he said that we are at war now. I didn't actually take him seriously, except when I came out, he had somehow created a circle of carts around my car. While I'm taking care of this mess, could you make one on his car? Maybe spray it with silly string, egg it and tipi it? I don't care, just make him pay."
"Will do."
"Awesome."
Now back to the main problem at hand…
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Twenty minutes and two workers. It took twenty minutes and two store workers to help Clary get the carts away from her car. She had thanked them and paid them a small tip before rushing home to see how her best friend did.
By the time she got home, Isabelle was throwing away two empty egg cartons and three cans of silly string into the garbage.
"Nice work," the shorter girl praised the taller one and gave her a high five.
Isabelle replied, "Believe me, it looks like a rainbow puked all over it. Also, Magnus came by and gave me a small bottle of glitter to put on it to get back at Jace for thinking that he was attracted to him months ago. It looks amazing."
Before Clary could say anything else, the Lightwood's phone started to ring. She answered and paused for a minute till she snapped out a single word "fine" and hanging up.
Clary raised her eyebrows, cursing those who had the power to raise just one. "What was that about?"
"That was Jace calling to ask about a truce." Both girls looked extremely suspicious. "I know, it doesn't seem like him to just quit like that, but he wants to meet you at his place asap."
"Do you think I should go?"
Izzy shrugged and went to do her nails. "I think that you do what you want."
Warily, Clary drove to his place and stalked up to his floor, not before she set up a little failsafe in case something went wrong. This time, she was careful to watch anything and everything that had the potential for a prank. She knocked on the door carefully as to not set off anything messy.
Jace opened the door with a large grin on his face. "Come on in, I want to talk to you about a compromise." The fuschia hair had been sadly replaced with his normal color.
She slowly followed him into the apartment, taking it in. It was large for inside an apartment building. Everything was so tidy and clean, not a speck of dust could be seen on the table next to one of the two couches. The walls were bare, except for a layer of cream colored paint.
Jace went to the kitchen for a moment, only to come back out with a tray of what looked like were caramel apples on a stick. "So," Jace began, "I was wrong to start a war with you when it was so clear-" A disturbed expression crossed his face so it almost looked painful for him to be saying this. "Obviously, I couldn't beat some mastermind like you in pranks. Please accept these as a peace offering." The tray was held out to her, but Clary didn't move a muscle. It was strange that this man would just give up so easily, which was unsettling to her.
"Okay you don't believe me so here, I will try one." Jace picked one random one from the middle and bit into it. He licked his lips and showed her the inside. "See? They are perfectly fine."
This helped ease her a little so Clary reached for one to take a bite into it. Just as she started to enjoy the rich caramel flavor, a strong, bitter taste flooded through her mouth, making her spit it out. "Ew! What was that?"
"An onion," he snickered at her as she was scraping her tongue by the sink. "Did you honestly think that I would just willingly give up my throne as 'King of Tricks'? Wow, I must say, I never thought that you would react so badly. This makes it so much better!"
Clary was coughing into the sink and was starting to look a little green. "I...hate...hate...onions." He must have made one apple to get Clary's faith that it was real.
It took her a few minutes to make sure she wasn't going to puke. In that time, a thought had crossed her mind of her little devious plan she had set up.
Isabelle had told her all about his tiny, itty bitty fear of ducks, so she had taped about 23 cut-out ducks around his office to freak him out and also may or may not have put black paint on his chair so he would sit down on it.
"You might want to check your office, asshat, unless you actually thought that I believed that this was for real."
Pure terror shown in his eyes and he got really close to Clary's face that she almost thought he was going to kiss her. She shook her head at the crazy thought. Instead he just spat, "You wouldn't dare."
"Oh, wouldn't I?"
With that, the only sign that there had been a hot-ehem-awful golden man standing there was a tray of caramel onions crashing to the floor.
o.O.o.O.o.O.o
The clock struck four and Clary was sitting back at her and Izzy's place, scrolling through her phone lost in thought. It felt so satisfying to see Jace run for his life, yet there seemed to be an eery sense guilt hovering around her.
They were just having some playful fun, right?
Not hearing from anyone or getting pranked in a while got her thinking that she went too far this time. She didn't want to hurt his career or do something permanently damaging. He may be an immature prick, but that didn't mean he deserved something horrible.
A shrill ring rang out, bouncing off the room's walls. An unknown number blinked up at her from her cell phone. Normally, she wouldn't have answered it, however this time something made her do it.
"Good evening, is this Miss Clary Fray? It's Aline Penhallow from Wayland Wear, we talked this morning?"
"Ah yes! It's lovely to hear from you so soon. How are you doing?" Hopefully, her nerves were showing through her shaky voice.
"I'm well. I wanted to talk to you about your interview this morning."
So early? That meant that it was either really good or really bad for her. "Okay," was all she could get out.
"Well, we have been discussing it for some time now, but unfortunately, we are unable to hire you at the moment. You are a great artist, really, however you don't have the proper schooling or experience for a major career. Now, this wouldn't normally be a problem for an assistant job. However, the way you presented yourself and your emotions were in a way that were just too different from what we need in this office."
"No, but I wasn't purposely-"
"Please, I don't need to hear your excuses. I wanted to call you and tell you because you seemed very enthusiastic about this opportunity and I didn't want to make you wait in such suspense. Maybe in the future we can work together. Until then, good day." With that, the woman hung up on an astonished Clary Fray.
"No no no no no," she cried out. Her hands gripped at her hair as she felt the panic grow in her. Her desk was littered with bills that she has to pay, she couldn't let Isabelle cover for her all the time, even though she was rich.
She hadn't realized it, but Clary had been counting on this job more than she should have.
All of this weight had been on her shoulders for so long, now it was finally crushing her. So she did the thing that she always did when she was stressed.
Clary searched the freezer for a pint of Chocolate Cookie Dough ice cream. Disappointment set into her at the fact that instead of ice cream in the bin, it was just ice. Solid ice. Jace must've somehow got into her apartment and replaced the cream with frozen water.
Sighing, she went to her newly stocked oreo supply, happy to find it full. The taste of sweet cookie blended with a fresh minty smell...wait, that's not how they are supposed to taste.
She took out another oreo and opened it up to inspect it. It appears that he had also taken the cream out and filled it with toothpaste.
What is with him and ruining perfectly good food?
Suddenly, she couldn't take the sight of her home anymore and decided to get some fresh air at the park for a while.
In reality, the park only brought a nice, peaceful area for Clary's thoughts to flourish into insults and degrading words that continuously beat down on her.
She sat on the hill overlooking the daisy field a couple hundred feet away. To the right was a winding walking trail that circled throughout the park. Children's laughter could be heard mixed with birds chirping, which should have made her feel better. However, it did nothing to keep the tears at bay.
Someone was running on the trail, their feet stomping away before coming to a complete halt. Clary whipped to the side when she heard what sounded like a whole human body hitting the ground.
The one person that she wanted to see the least was picking himself up off the ground and brushing off the dirt from his clothes that he must have changed because of the paint. "You've got to be kidding me! I came here for some peace so I wouldn't have to see any more ducks that aren't in the pond to give me a heart attack. How did you know I would be here?" He looked around as if to spot any hidden traps that could hit him. "Where is the-"
Jace had stopped when he caught sight of Clary's red, teary face. "Listen Jace, whatever, you win. I'm sorry I did all of those horrible things to you." She shook her head, looking off into the slowly setting sun, suddenly exhausted.
"Hey," he sat down next to her, "what's wrong?"
"Doesn't matter, I'm fine."
"Oh, come on. Obviously there is something bugging you and it won't help if you keep it all to yourself."
"It's stupid." The upset girl began to stand until the insistent boy tugged her back down.
"I don't have anything better to do so I might as well listen."
For what seemed like the first time, she really looked at him and he looked straight back at her. They both got lost in each other's eyes until she relented. Clary just needed to vent to someone no matter who it was.
"I have been trying to get a job ever since I dropped out of college. My parents wanted me to go into something that I would have hated doing, so when I left, they refused to help me. Now I have all of these bills that I have to take care of that I can't since I didn't get the job I wanted and no one else is hiring and I just don't know what to do anymore."
He could see that she was getting very worked up so he tried to do something. "Wait, that's why you were in my building today? You were getting interviewed." It wasn't a question. Regret pooled in his gut as he realized that he was the cause of this beautiful woman's distress. Wait, beautiful?
"Yeah." Her fingers wove through her hair as she put her head in her hands.
"If you don't mind me asking, why didn't you get the job?"
"They said I wasn't presented well enough and I didn't have enough experience." A humorless laugh escaped her, causing the tense atmosphere to become even more tense.
Jace slapped his hand to his forehead repeatedly. "I can not believe this. Clary, I am so so sorry. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have played that stupid joke on you, especially since you were applying for a job."
"No, Jace it's not your fault." She put her hand on his, immediately pulling it away when something like an electrical current flowed through the both of them. Different from a static shock, it was pleasant. "Besides, this pranking stuff has been the most fun that I have had in awhile."
The smile on his face was so unlike his other insidious pranking smile. It was more happier and playful, making her think that there was more to this malicious man than she first thought. "Can I see some of your work?"
"Um, it's kind of personal stuff…"
"Pleaaaaaaase?" He gave her the most adorable puppy dog face that the girl just could not say no to.
"Fine, here are my sketches. They aren't very good, so no judging." The book was pulled from her bag considering Clary never goes anywhere without it.
Her hands wouldn't seem to let go of it, but he pried it out of them and started to flip through it. It made her uncomfortable to be bearing her soul to this mostly stranger. Once he finally stopped to stare at a page, Jace's face was priceless as it was filled with tons of emotions; amusement, surprise, amazement, joy, and so many more. It made giving him the book worth it.
"Clary, these are amazing. How could Wayland Wear not hire you?" An idea popped into his mind. "Come with me, they don't close till seven, right? Why am I asking you, you won't know. Anyways, I am talking to whoever denied you a job because this is crazy good and they are blind to see that."
Jace reached for her hand to tug her up with him. Their hands fit together like they were made to and that small, but noticeable, shock was there.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Jace Herondale had gone to the office building in his running outfit and sneakers without a care in the world. The only thought in his head was to get this stunning artist a job.
Kaelie smiled at him from the front desk and said, "What can I do for you, Mr. Herondale?"
"I must speak with Mr. Wayland immediately."
"Is everything alright?" She looked slightly alarmed.
"Yes." The tall man and the smaller girl next to him ran upstairs, not even bothering with the elevator.
He didn't knock before he barged into the lavish office, "Sir you have made this biggest mistake of your life!"
The owner of this huge company happened to be a big, burly man who turned around in a large spinning chair. "Oh, and how do you figure that? And Mr. Herondale, I do not take to kindly to people who just storm into my office whenever they please."
"Sebastian and Aline did not hire the right assistant for design because this woman right here is the most outstanding artist I have ever seen."
"Jace, I'm not in the mood, nor do I have time for this." Mr. Wayland waved them away, but Jace wasn't prepared to give up so easily.
"I won't leave until you sign this girl in as the assistant designer."
Clary squeezed his hand. "Jace…"
In order to get rid of them, Mr Wayland hastily looked over her art after a lot of pestering on Jace's behalf and gave her the job, only because "no one else was good enough and Jace is like a son to me. Annoying and won't leave me alone".
They walked into the hall after dealing with all of the boring information and such. Clary leaned against the wall in relief, being very conscious of their still holding hands, and broke the silence, "Thank you so, so much, Jace. I'm so happy I could just-" To prove her excitement, she went up onto her tippy toes and brushed her lips against his.
When she drew back quickly, she looked worried that she stepped over the line or had misjudged the whole situation. Her eyes were so wide, Jace was sure her eyeballs would fall out of her head.
Without delay, he leaned down and pressed his mouth back against her soft smooth lips again. She tasted very minty. They moved in sync with one another, living in the moment. This wasn't like any other kiss he had before. This was something different. Special. He had a feeling that he would remember this kiss for a long, long time.
And Jace knew he wasn't the only one feeling this sensation too.
His hand cupped her cheek as her arms went around his neck so her fingers could play with his silky hair. With his other hand on her waist, he pulled away only to say one thing.
"You are beautiful. This is most definitely not a prank."
And years later, when they were still together, Jace proved that to Clary.
It's past April 1st, but I worked on this for a while and I wanted to post this. Thank you for reading even though it was super long!
I would love to hear what you thought! Keep being the amazing person you are!
~ALB