The Obsession
NOTE- I DO NOT OWN THE MAGIC THAT IS THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS SERIES. I JUST BORROW CASSANDRA CLARE'S CHARACTERS, IN THE HOPES SHE DOES NOT MIND, AND MAKE THEM ENACT WEIRD DRAMAS IN MY HEAD. OK? OK.
Introduction (This might be a tad long; you can skip over it if you wish, but it might clarify some doubts):
In this fic, there are several major changes to the story that I'll outline here (If you don't want to read 'em, you can skip ahead. My reasons for including them are to clear up any discrepancies you will find in the plot line.):
Jocelyn drives a Jeep - not Luke's truck. She is an illustrator, and, therefore, earns an acceptable salary.
Kaelie, here, is a relative of the Lightwoods (seeing as how Jace isn't actually related in any way to the Lightwoods, it's perfectly ok for him to be dating her). She is pretty OC, loosely based on a girl I was unfortunate enough to sit next to at class.
Clary is unpopular, friendless (except for Simon), has terrible fashion sense and is continuously bullied by the Lightwoods. However, true to her character in the books, she's a bit of a rebel, as you will no doubt find out. I've made her witty (which wasn't a factor in the books), because I believe Clary was a multifaceted character, not the loose cannon she sometimes appears as in the books (meaning no disrespect to Queen Cassandra Clare). It is my personal belief, and I might be wrong, that temper and sharp wits go hand in hand.
In this fic, Max is musical and older than he is in the books. I have included this for reasons of plot management, and I hope you don't take offence at my doing so.
Magnus is basically the male Stella McCartney (his dad is in a famous band) and his fashion label is Bane.
Jocelyn has told Clary that her father left before she was born. This, again, is for reasons of plot management.
Luke is an author, and the CEO of Lupus Comics (the company for which Jocelyn does illustrations).
Right. If you've made it through all that waffle, thank you for being patient. The good stuff will follow...
Chapter One
Clary doodled absently on the strap of her backpack. She was waiting for her mother to pick her up from school (ugh, how she hated Jocelyn babying her) and take her to the art store.
Unoriginal as its name was, ArtsCrafts was, perhaps, Clary's favourite place in the world. In its sanctuary, surrounded by familiar smells of chalk and paint, Clary could forget that she was a short, unpopular freshman. She could forget how much she hated rich, snobbish Isabelle Lightwood and sexy, confident Kaelie Whitewillow, who were unceasingly mean.
"Clary! Hey - Clary!"
"Simon?" Clary tucked her sharpie away. Simon Lewis was her best friend (which did not exactly help her in the popularity department), and Idris Academy's resident funny-guy. He wasn't as witty as Jace Herondale (but then Jace Herondale wouldn't ever run around with a papier-mache hammer screaming "I've got your hammer, Thor - watcha gonna do?"), yet he managed to be as humorous as it is possible to be without having to resort to one's wits.
"Clary, I've got...a problem." Simon readjusted his glasses, which was something he had a tendency to do if he was nervous. "You see, the band needs a...new sound. Power chords and electric guitars are out. I'll have to retire my Strat to greener pastures." He continued to fidget. "And borrow an acoustic. Or buy one. I think I've got some cash saved up. Nothing fancy - there's a very reasonable Takamine I've got my eye on. Or I could get a Yamaha." He was rambling, as he always did when he was upset.
Clary frowned. Simon's band changed their 'sound' approximately five times a month, but they never did manage to sound any different to her. "Don't worry, Si," she soothed, "it'll blow over. You're the best guitarist they've got, anyway. You're - you're Dave Mustaine. Kirk Hammett. Uh...that guy from Led Zeppelin you like."
Simon gave her a hard look. "Jimmy Page. Except I can't be. Even if I could, that is. Because we need to - to Joni Mitchell it. To Bob Dylan it. You know what I mean?"
Clary was about to reply when something caught her eye. A tall something, headed her way at considerable speed, like a bullet streaking from the barrel of a gun.
Simon, noticing her horrified gaze, turned. "Oh...oh, dear…" he murmured.
Jocelyn, her red hair trailing fire, bore down on them, anger blazing in her eyes. "Clarissa Fray, may I ask you why I received a call about you from Headmaster Starkweather?"
Clary's gaze found the floor and she felt her face heat up (how she hated being an easy blusher). "It's...nothing. Really."
"Nothing?" Jocelyn spat, fuming. "Pouring oil on Isabelle Lightwood's hair is not nothing. I'm ashamed of you, Clary. Really, I am."
Seeing that his tomato-toned friend wasn't about to reply anytime soon, Simon obliged, "It actually looks like Clary did her a favour, Mrs. Fray. Izzy loves her hair and oil is...good for your hair." Under Jocelyn's withering gaze, he stepped back a few paces.
"I didn't ask you, Simon. I asked Clary. Who is now grounded. Who is not going to Artsamp;Crafts today."
Uh oh, Clary thought, short sentences - mom must be really mad.
"Say goodbye, Clary. It's time to get going." Looking every bit the irate parent she was, Jocelyn stomped over to her Jeep, (which was parked close enough for her to glare at her daughter through the windscreen).
"Umm, I'm sorry for Mom. See you tomorrow, then? I hope you sort things out with the band." Talking hurriedly (lest Jocelyn stomp back out of her Jeep and scream at her again) Clary hugged Simon goodbye.
"Yeah, you worry about not being boiled in oil, ok?" For once, Simon was glad his own mother was so distracted. Busy as she was with her job, she didn't have time to nag him about his homework or his late nights or his detentions.
In the Jeep, Clary put her seat belt on, though she wasn't sure how a seat belt would protect her from the rocky journey ahead.
"So," she began, in what she hoped was an engaging tone of voice, "you're really mad, aren't you?"
Jocelyn's mouth tightened. "Clary, you can't go through life like this. Constantly acting like a child...it's got to stop. I've had a talk with Maryse, and she thinks - well, she and I think - that it would be good for you to get to know Isabelle better. To get over your silly rivalry."
"Mom!" Clary whined, not liking where this was heading. "It's not a silly rivalry. She's the leader of the cool squad and she hates me. Ok? She practically tortures me at school. Do you know what it's like to be unpopular?"
"You don't try to make friends!" Jocelyn snapped. "You sit and paint and exist in your own little world...you're not a child anymore, Clary. You need friends. You're going to the Lightwoods' tonight and you'll get over this, Clary, even if I have to force you myself."
Clary choked. "Tonight?" Oh the horror! Nothing she owned was Lightwood-worthy; Isabelle and her siblings would have a good laugh at Clary's only dress, which Jocelyn would, no doubt, force her to wear.
"Yes, tonight. Maryse and I have talked it over." Jocelyn replied, grimly. "And I'm warning you - there'd better not be a repeat of this morning's events. Or else."
Unable to argue her way out, Clary balled her hands into fists, nails digging into her palms. It was bad enough having to put up with the Lightwood gang at school - now she was being forced to hang out with them in her free time. Her free time, which she could have used constructively on a sketch.
Life just wasn't fair, she concluded.
️
"Stop fidgeting - you look fine." Jocelyn tucked a stray curl behind Clary's ear. That was a sure sign her anger had dissipated. Much like her daughter, she couldn't be gentle if she was still in a bad mood.
"I look like trash." Glaring at her reflection in the mirror, Clary wished, for perhaps the hundredth time, that her only dress wasn't in such an appalling shade of pink. Who even wore pink anymore? Let alone hot pink?
"With that look on your face? Yes, you do." Her mother held up a strand of silver pearls. "What about this? Would this make you feel a bit better?"
Clary's eyes widened. Her mother didn't usually let her wear any of her 'good jewellery'. All her good stuff was locked away in the bank, out of reach.
"You'd let me wear your pearls?"
Jocelyn shrugged. "Well, yes. You need a bit of bling and I...want you to know that I'm proud that you're doing this, even though you hate it. That you're trying to be grown-up."
Clary grinned as her mother fastened the string of pearls around her neck. "Proud enough to let me off the hook?"
"No such luck. Now get in the Jeep."
It was a fifteen minute drive to the Lightwoods', but, to Clary, it seemed more like a five minute drive. She had no time to gather her thoughts or school her face into an aloof, my-mom-is-making-me-do-this expression.
"We're here." Jocelyn announced, sounding deliberately cheery.
Clary swallowed nervously, wiping her sweaty hands on her dress. Thankfully, being cotton, it absorbed the moisture on her palms.
"Come on, Clary - I'm picking you up after dinner, so you've only got about two or three hours to battle through."
Battle through, Clary's brain repeated. Interesting choice of words, considering the fact it might just turn into literal warfare the minute I step into that house.
"Hello, Clarissa."
Isabelle's mom looked stern. Stern and rich. The latter was no surprise, of course - the Lightwoods were rolling and weren't afraid to flaunt it.
"Umm, I go by Clary, Mrs. Lightwood."
Maryse nodded ever so slightly, a look of distaste creeping across her face. "Come in. Do you want something to drink, Jocelyn? A little Ro-"
"No, Maryse - I'm driving. Plus I have to drop off some sketches at Luke's." Nimbly avoiding the opportunity to linger, Jocelyn said her goodbyes and departed - leaving Clary alone. Alone in a house full of Lightwoods. Oh joy.
"The kids are waiting for you upstairs." Maryse gave her a brief nod and disappeared down a tastefully decorated, expensively carpeted hallway - the likes of which Clary had never seen before.
For a few minutes, she lingered in the hallway, thinking, almost stupidly, her presence would go unnoticed until it was time to be picked up.
"Clarissa."
No such luck.
Clary's ears pricked up at the familiar honeyed tones she had come to strongly detest. "Kaelie. Hi."
Kaelie Whitewillow, luscious and lovely from the abundant white-blond locks atop her head to the hip strappy sandals her manicured toes peered out of, smirked. "What colour do you call that dress? I'm sure I've seen it on a landing strip somewhere. They use it to guide planes for landing, don't they?" She laughed at her own joke, deeply taken in by her cleverness.
Clary gritted her teeth; curbing her acerbic tongue. On a good day, she could whip up some brilliant witticism that would tear Kaelie's banal comments to shreds. But that wouldn't be grown up, would it?
Footsteps clattered down the marble staircase; they belonged to confident feet, housed in appalling stilettos (from the noise they made on the floor).
Isabelle. Clary's hackles rose. The Lightwood girl was sharper than Kaelie by far, though she was less easy to read. Isabelle Lightwood always left you wondering. Everything about her was a cliffhanger; there was something deeply unresolved in her character. It was fair to say she unsettled Clary beyond belief.
"Well, well, well. I didn't think you'd show." Beneath lowered lashes, Isabelle's dark eyes were mocking. "You're bolder than I gave you credit for."
"You don't know a thing about me. You like to think you do." In true Clary style, her emotions were overriding her good sense.
Isabelle shrugged. "If you say so."
"Where are the boys?" Kaelie fretted. "Don't say we've got to entertain this girl on our own?"
"I'm quite happy to be left to my own devices." Clary replied, with a sardonic smile. "I've reminded you of that countless times, though you seem not to remember it."
Kaelie lifted a brow. "Who the hell do you think you are, walking in here and being a smart-mouth?"
"Clary Fray. She does that - or haven't you heard? But I expect you have; you get her in detention enough."
Isabelle cleared her throat. "Look. We don't like this...arrangement any better than you do. But there's no getting around it. My mother's pretty adamant about trying to make buddies of us all, and I'm sure yours is the same. Why don't we agree on a strategy to get us through this...whatever this is?"
Clary eyed her suspiciously. It was not like Isabelle Lightwood to be rational. "I'm not sure what you mean by 'strategy'."
"Really? It's pretty simple. You keep out of our way and we'll keep out of yours. The attic's free, and you can borrow some of my magazines."
Now Clary understood. Isabelle had something to do, or some place to be, and didn't want her hanging around. Well, that was fine by her. She didn't want to hang around.
"I'll haunt the attic then."
Isabelle looked relieved. Kaelie, on the other hand, resembled a startled eel. "Why are we letting her go? She's only going to snoop."
Clary let out a derisive sniff as she ascended the staircase. "Snoop? What am I, five?"
"You look it." Kaelie snapped nastily.
"Trust me when I say I've got better things to do than snoop around in your things, Kaelie. God forbid I lose a few brain cells if I do."
Kaelie opened her mouth to stick her foot in it again, and Isabelle stopped her. "Come on." She muttered. "Movie night. The guys are coming over. We don't want her around."
"Ohh." Recognition flitted across Kaelie's countenance. "Right."
️
The attic was hot and stuffy and Clary felt faintly claustrophobic under the low ceiling. "This is not how I intended to spend the evening." She muttered aloud, pushing a stack of books out of the way so she could recline more comfortably on the motheaten sofa that she had plonked herself down on.
A low chuckle issued from behind a cobwebbed bookcase. "You know, I find myself thinking that a lot. More than I should, actually."
Momentarily stunned, for she had assumed she was on her own in the attic, Clary stared.
"You don't have to look like that." The voice went on, most conversationally. "You're too cute to resemble a fish."
Caught between shock and embarrassment, Clary said, "Who are you? If you're hiding behind bookcases and spying on people then I can only assume that you're a Lightwood."
From behind the bookcase there came the sound of someone getting to their feet. Then, an attractive, albeit dusty, boy appeared. His curling golden hair gave him an almost leonine appearance, made more so by his queer light gold eyes. He grinned. "You're wrong - I'm a Herondale. Jace Herondale, to be exact."
"Nice to meet you." Clary replied, in a voice that oozed sarcasm, for she knew Jace Herondale - thankfully not too well. He was Kaelie's boyfriend, the boy she made out with beside Clary's locker every morning, knowing full well that things like that were plenty gross. Nobody needed to have a close-up of people sticking tongues down each other's throats at nine in the morning.
"You needn't say it quite like that."
"Yes, I do." Clary replied, bluntly. "You're an asshole. Or, at least, your girlfriend is."
Jace looked unperturbed. "I can't disagree there. Though I'd prefer the term 'spirited'."
Clary snorted. "Spirited? Do you call chucking gum in someone's hair being 'spirited'? I call that being an asshole."
"We might be using two completely different dictionaries." He replied; his grin never seemed to slide off his face. It, like the rest of him, was the very definition of perfection. For, whilst some guys resembled nothing more than sly horses when they smirked, Jace looked as if he had stepped out of a Burberry ad. He continued, "So, what are you doing up here? I assumed you'd stick with the girls and be the thorn in their sides."
"They don't want me around. I can't say I'm devastated by the news."
Jace laughed - a sound of honest, unaffected amusement. "No wonder they hate you." He shook his head, still chuckling.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you know. You hardly make an effort to ingratiate yourself. Izzy doesn't like that. Neither does Kaelie." Jace ran a hand through his lion's mane of hair. "You make them pretty insecure, I can tell you."
This was news to Clary. "I make them insecure? I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you properly."
Jace yawned, perfecting a posture of ennui. "Yes, you did. Now shall we stop this pointless conversation and move on to something more engaging?"
Clary raised a brow. "Such as?"
"Well, I'm a guy and you're a girl."
Her face flamed furiously. "Wh - what?"
Jace met her gaze with one of indifference, before breaking away and letting out little roars of laughter. "Oh God, your face! You should see your face, you really should. But I couldn't resist teasing Mother Superior."
If Clary had thought her face aflame before, it was nothing compared to the raging inferno spreading over her cheeks now. Not only was she short and smart and unattractive - she was also an idiot.
"I'm just...upset at the lewd suggestion." She lied. Good God, did I really believe he'd flirt with someone as appallingly unpopular as me?
"Nuh-uh." Jace waggled a finger in a manner reminiscent of a school teacher telling off a naughty student. "You were taken in weren't you?"
"I was not." She snapped.
"Yes, you were."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"Stop it." Clary got to her feet, flinging the book she had been (unsuccessfully) trying to absorb herself in down on the sofa.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to find some intellectual company."
Jace chortled. "That might take awhile. There's precious little of that in this house. Besides, it's nearly dinner time. We could go down together."
Clary debated this. Whilst Jace Herondale might be a smug, annoying asshole, having him escort her to dinner would irritate Kaelie beyond belief. A slow smile inched across her face. "You know what? That actually sounds like a good idea."
️
Well, that is...that. As an introductory chapter, this is more like a taste of what is to follow. Think of it as a wine-tasting tour! If you like the wine (that is, the chapter) then buy the bottle (follow and comment).
Seriously, I adore feedback, as long as it's constructive and honest. Fair warning: I'm studying linguistics, which can be a bit of an ass to get on with, so I really don't re-read my fic countless times to check for bad grammar or misplaced lexis. If I've missed something, I'm sorry - I'm up to my eyeballs in work! I hope the next chapter will make up for it!
Ok, Ann, stop talking. Fine.