A/N: First off, yay! First time writing a Clace fic! Whoop whoop! Second, welcome, peoples! How are you today? No? Ok. Third, as you all may know(just by stumbling your happy selves across this), that I, too,love The Mortal Instruments. Fourth, and last...I think, I'm still learning punctuation so I'm not going to have this thing looking like something Mr. Cleanmade. Yes, I did just compare a fully revised story to Mr. Clean. I'm only ELEVEN. Are you judging me now?

I just don't want people to be like 'omg, that eleven-year-old is writing smut!O.O' Yes, I have written smut before. It might not be that good(although all the peeps that have read it says its off the charts), but I've taken some 'interest' in it so I'm going to keep writing it with my head held up high.

Summary: Choose your target. Go for the kill. Get caught. Wait to be executed. That's the process; the process that every Grade 'A' criminal goes through. The job that the two best bounty hunters have to do? Catch every single one of them for the King that face pops up on a WANTED poster. Jace and Clary have been working for the King for the past three years. They've stayed together through thick and thin and have been by each others side since Jace found an unconscious Clary on the side of an abandoned building.

She thanked him but was like a closed book you couldn't get open when you were around her. Now, they're both the best of friends and partnered bounty hunters, catching the nastiest criminals by each others side. Yet, they have a little problem. They're in love with each other, aren't supposed to be in love, and won't confess for fear of their jobs to one another. How are they supposed to get through this with murders and robbers to catch, Clary still searching for her mother, and Jace having wet dreams about the fiery read-head almost at least once every week? These two are in for some shit, for sure. Clace. No pacific updating schedule. Constructive criticism welcomed.

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Truly Crimson Red - Chapter One: Prologue

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The old, musty smell of rusty manacles grasped at Clary's nostrils. She wriggled her nose, trying to block out the smell she'd thought she would have gotten used to after three years of working for the King. The smoky atmosphere still made her eyes sting and water.

The eerie feel of being underground with what Idris called Grade 'A' criminals that mainly consisted of highly professional bank robbers, murders, non-remorseful serial killers, and identity thieves still made her a little uneasy even if she refused to show it. The way every single one of them looked at Clary made her either want to stick her tongue out and say 'haha, I beat you to a pulp and threw you in here' or glare at them for the way the pedophiles looked her body up and down.

She scoffed under her breath. As if they'd ever even attempt to touch her. Every single one of them knew better than that. Every single one of them knew that Clarissa Fairchild wasn't one to be reckoned with even if her red hair, petite frame, and kind green eyes said otherwise. She was like a wolf in sheeps clothing, a perfect candidate for that thing where people say 'anyone is capable of murder', even short, friendly girls that smile in your face and deliver you pies every morning from their bakery.

Though, Clary didn't do any of those things; she simply never had time to do so.

She thought about how her life would have been if she'd never met Jace, Valentine, or maybe even the Lightwoods as she and said guy, Jace, walked down the long corridors of King Valentine's dungeon, personally escorting him to his new, comfy home: a small, rock cell with electrical manacles that only reached the metal bed that he would be sleeping on for the rest of his life, or, if he's lucky, until he is given a death sentence. Everyone knew that death was better than rotting in a cell for the rest of your life in Idris. It was just that: better.

Jace, Clary not knowing, could feel her unease but never pressed the idea as to why she still felt like that one apple in an orange tree, like she was out of place doing what she did by his side. True, she was small and almost seemed frail, especially next to Jace, but she was a stubborn fighter that almost seemed cocky whenever she knocked the enemy out and onto their backs.

Jace, for one, thought that was one of her most greatest traits. He'd thought she looked like a goddess threatening the hell out of this one murder, saying how she was going to torture him until he confessed to going on a killing frenzy, his targets being six men and twelve women with her heel balanced right about the guy's throat.

What? The poster said WANTED DEAD or ALIVE. Clary simply took the 'dead' part seriously while Jace just sat back and watched. Yet, he still felt a little under-the-bus because he didn't really play a part in actually 'getting' the fiend to confess his murders.

But he still was proud of the little fiery red-head. Her glare was almost menacing and she knew exactly what she was doing the entire time.

At such an 'innocent' thought , Jace looked to his right and a tiny bit down to find a concentrating Clary, her now forest-like eyes never leaving the man in front of her. Jace saw how uneasy her gaze made him, it made him almost feel sorry for the murder. That is, if he wasn't a murder. The guy's shoulders were tense and Jace knew that he knew Clary was watching him.

The golden light of the many torches that were hanging on the walls was reflecting off of everything, including Jace and Clary. Clary always acknowledged Jace as her 'golden boy' for some reason.

It wasn't odd and Jace liked it till no end. Hell! He loved it! Maybe it was how much it boosted his ego or maybe it was just the fact that it was coming from Clary herself. Whenever they accidently got split up during a bounty hunt, Jace knew that it was Clary calling him whenever he heard 'golden boy' being shouted at the top of someone's lungs.

As it seemed, they were both thinking the same thing as they walked(or more like 'took' or 'kept an eye on this guy so he doesn't try anything') the murder to his knew 'home'. Yet, lastly, they thought about how much they cared for each other, how they'd die for one another, or maybe even how they'd give themselves up for the other. Jace knew he'd take a bullet to the head for his partner and Clary knew it, too. Clary knew she'd sacrifice anything just so her partner could live and grow up more and have a family. And even if Clary didn't know he knew, Jace knew. He always would, and she always would know that he would do anything for her.

But it was oh so the saddest that neither knew that they were comically in love with each other. They just...couldn't be; those were the orders from the King himself.

I knew you two will become the greatest of friends. I knew it from the day Jace saved you're life, Ms. Fairchild. Yet, to maintain an obedience to the Clave so feelings will not interfere with your line of work, I ask you not to fall for the other. Die for each other, but do not fall for each other. He'd said that to Clary...alone. She was never sure if he had told it to Jace, too, but she never asked. It hurt to much.

They spent every single day of their lives together. They cared deeply one another. How were they not going to fall in love? Wasn't it inevitable for two souls that cared to much for each other too fall for the other? Calry sure as hell would never know. She just...wouldn't.

And neither would Jace.

~~ Three Days Later ~~

"Tell me, Clarissa, how much fun was it to take down the most known serial killer that Idris had ever seen? I mean, he's been on the loose for, like, how many years?" Note that Clary and Jace had both taken down that serial killer and dully state that it had only been this early morning they had done it. They both got a message from the King talking about how he had a suspicion that this certain murder had been in Alicante on this very fine day.

Jace and Clary were already in leather, lack gear, ready for anything. Yet, Clary always knew that Isabelle took far to much interest in her line of work. She asked about it daily, emailed her about it daily, always asked how her day went after a hunt, and would never shut up about it. Yet, it still made Clary smile. "Well, for you're second question, he's been on the loose for almost forty years," Isabelle shivered at that, "and he's killed more numbers of humans I've ever seen.

What the hell makes someone want to hurt or even take someone's life away like that?" It was a quizzical question that no one seemed to know the answer to in all of Idris.

"Well, I don't know, but you still didn't answer my first question. How was it? I mean, I know you got paid a lot of cash for it-" Clary cut her off, worried that someone in the bar might hear her. There was still underground pic-pockets and kidnappers roaming the streets that Jace nor Clary had caught yet, and the red-head doubted they'd go after her since they didn't know she was a skilled fighter. And, besides, Clary was off tonight.

No ass kicking for her for the next twelve hours.

So, she quietly hissed a scold at her raven-haired friend. "Don't say that! We're in public and I'm not really up for someone trying to put a gun up to my head and making me give them all my money." Isabelle made a 'o' shape with her mouth and nodded in understandment.

"Sorry. Anyway, you still didn't answer my question." The taller girl shifted in her seat, which was a surprisingly new and polished bar stool, and took a sip of her alcoholic drink. Whereas Clary chose a normal cup of soda, Isabelle decided that Gin worked just as fine for her, even if it did taste like something that humans shouldn't put in their bodies.

How did people even drink that stuff, Clary thought.

"Well...," Clary looked around herself as she spoke, noticing how polished this bar was. It was so clean she would have thought it would smell like cleaning materials instead of the occasional whiff of bear and alcohol. The table was clearly real wood-red wood to be exact. Anyone else would have thought it was a light shade of brown with a twinge of crimson, but Clary's artistic eye knew better. Just like she knew that the walls were hand designed and painted with light strokes of spirals and geometric shapes from coherent triangles to incoherent thingys that looked like a triangle and a square colliding together at odd angles and ends. People were shuffling about everywhere; waitresses were serving whatever their customers ordered, people were all about dancing, some talking, some kissing, some just having a good time. The floors they stood on were shiny and Clary could almost see her face in them even if they were black.

"I have to be honest here, don't I," Clary asked as she eyed Isabelle with a smile. "Of course you do, and if you aren't, I'll make you wear heels more than you have to." Clary knew her friend was serious and cursed under here breath.

No less than eight inches.

Clarissa shivered. She'd fall on her face more than she walked if so. "I have to say it was fun. The guy put up a fight, though. It took me and Jace to catch up with him after he ran," Clary made a 'phew' sound and finished with, "guy must have run track or something in his teen years." There was a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth, Isabelle's included. "Thank God you didn't convince me to wear heels that day." The statement made Isabelle snort a laugh. "Yeah, right. You know you love being taller than a midget."

Clary fake gasped and put a hand to her heart in mock hurt with a pained expression, clearly all fake. "Now my best friend declares how short I am. First Jace now," she made a gesture to Isabelle with her hand, "you!"

Both girls were in a fit of laughter, Isabelle clutching to the bar. If only Clary knew how funny she looked when she made a sarcastic joke. Her eyes grew wide like a never ending valley of bright-green grass and her pinkish-paleish lips instantly puckered, even when she talked her heart out. Isabelle suddenly jolted upright, making Clary do just the same. Both of their eyes were huge, one an ebony color and the other emeralds.

"What," Clary exclaimed, hastily looking around her, instantly alert, her bounty hunting skills immediately coming to the surface. Isabelle saw the paranoid expression on the shorter girls face and clamed herself. "Nothing, nothing. Now stop going all hunter-girl on me. You looked like you're ready for anything." Clary breathed, saying, "That's what I'm trained for, actually. To go all 'hunter-girl' on people."

Isabelle snorted again, something she only did around Clary, or occasionally, her brothers, Alec and Max, or maybe even Jace . "Well, Ms. Hunter, you said 'first Jace and then me'. It just made me think about him...," Clary rolled her eyes. Does this girl have a crush on him or something?

"Him...and you." Once that came out of Isabelle's mouth and rolled off her tongue, Clary almost choked on her drink. "What do you mean 'me and him'", she asked.

"You make it sound like we're together or something." Although I wish we could be, Clary thought in the privacy of her own head. "Huh? What do you mean? You obviously like him," Izzy said with a smirk as she sipped her drink once more, slightly irritating Clary. Clary shrugged.

"You know we can't be together, Izzy...thinking about how we can never actually be together makes it worse and it's not like he likes me back." Clary fiddled with her fingers as they sat atop the perfectly shiny bar table and outlined the rim of her soda with her fingertips two or three times.

Clary had told Isabelle and Maia, her other friend even if they weren't as close to each other as she and Izzy, both how she felt about Jace, knowing neither would spill her beans. Isabelle saw the sad expression on her best friend's face. How could she make this conversation go from a sarcastic and witty joke to a grim reminder to Clary that she could never be with the one she loved? Izzy mentally slapped herself. How could she be such a inconsiderate friend? As if to reading Isabelle's mind, Clary said, "Don't feel bad. It isn't your fault."

"But I shouldn't have brung it up. I'm sorry, Clary," she leaned over in her seat and hugged Clary by her side, slightly bending down. She was still taller than her in her seat. "After all, you two can always either run away together, end up like Romeo and Juliet, or just hide you're love."

Clary chuckled. "I hope the Romeo and Juliet thing was a joke. You do know they ended up dead in the end...right?"

Isabelle looked shocked and looked Clary in the eye, slightly lifting her head off of her shoulder. 'Are you serious. I thought they got together in the end?" Clarissa smiled. "You never did pass that Shakespeare class in high school even if it was just a year ago." Isabelle gave her friend an all knowing look and they both went back to hugging each other like they always did almost everyday.

If only we could hide our love, Clary thought, if only...

A/N: Did I just name the first chapter of this Prologue? Yes, yes I did! Did you like this? Was it to short? Should I try harder? TELL ME, friends! TELL ME!