Couplings? - Will/Tessa, Jem/Tessa, Will/OC, Gabriel/Cecily, Sophie/Gideon, Henry/Charlotte, Cyril/OC
Setting- After Clockwork Prince. In Victorian London -duh.
Rated? Definitely M.
Description: The London Shadowhunter gossip is excited when Lenora Wayland- Consul Wayland's daughter and his two sons Eldest: Valerian and his youngest: Jacian, have returned to London from their Idris Education for the summer to spend with their loving but distant Father. Meanwhile Will struggles with his feelings towards Tessa and slowly but surely becomes emotionally detached and rather frigid towards his parabati Jem whom of which is still in high spirits about his happy engagment to Warlock Tessa Gray whose own indecisive heart is being wretched apart by her emotions toward these two brothers and all the while Cecily finds new ways to get on her brother William's nerves as he learns to accept the horrible and sometimes even wonderful fact that the little sister he tried to protect by leaving becomes a permanent fixture in the clave and his life again- and befriends Tessa, Jem, Chalotte, Sophie and even Henry with her dark but now spiting sarcatic humor and innocent smiles earning their trust.
The insistute hangs in despair as Jessemine Grey's Shadowhunter trial looms like a dark shroud overhead whilst Mortimers horrible ploy falls into place and rattles them to their very bones.
"Hello" said the girl, in a voice both surprising soft and surprisingly firm.
"I apologize for interrupting your dinner hour, but I had nowhere else to go. I am Cecily Herondale, you see. I have come to be trained as a Shadowhunter."
(...Clockwork Prince, Pg 498, Cassandra Clare...)
Chapter 1:
It takes two flints to make a fire.
-Lousia May Alcott
No one spoke at first.
They all watched her in frozen disbelief, unfazed by the sudden unbroken silence she looked at each face with a narrow yet still mildly pleasant expression that was until she came across the face they all knew she would find and had most likely came here to see in the first place- and something extremely violent happened to that face the moment she smiled brightly and said one word "Will!" her excitement in seeing her loved elder brother not concealed.
Jem stared at his parabati with a helpless O shape on his pale lips.
Tessa shot quick meaningful glances from Cecily and her brother with a frantic unspoken warning to Cecily, whom blinded by joy didn't notice.
Then Will flushed his entire face and patches of his neck turning a deep scarlet, whilst the dark midnight pools of Will's eyes narrowed at his sister and were suddenly so very frighteningly piercing that Tessa was afraid Cecily might burst into flames and all the while the hand gripped his wine glass became so dangerously tight. Cecily as did everyone else-Tessa noted now seemed startled...
"William..." Charlotte whispered, "Don't." As if she has known his exact reaction.
The thin glass shattered in William's palm as if queued by Charlotte's words, Jem's eyes widened considerably watching as a thick stream of crimson blood dripped down his parabati's wrist, though Tessa saw that Jem was more startled by William's lack of reaction to the evident pain then the blood itself.
"Will..." Jem slowly started to stand, but was instantly quieted by Will who exploded emitting his full strength slammed both of his palms on the wood and stood up causing the poor wooden thing to shutter and groan, "No!" he hissed through his teeth as rabid and as cutting as snake demon Tessa had seen him dispatch with a seraph blade, "NO! NO! NO!" he continued.
He leaped atop the table in a flash of movement, "I forbid it! Leave! Leave now or so help me BY THE ANGEL RAZIEL I WILL.." But He never told them what I would have done Charlotte was quick to stop him from speaking before he said anything any further...
"William!" Charlotte exclaimed in both worry and anger, "Don't speak to your sister that way and for the angels sake get down from the table at once young man!" he ignored both her requests,"Make her leave Charlotte, send her away" William pointed a sharp finger at Cecily who looked both angry and confused.
"I cannot..." Charlotte said in an half-guilty whisper, "You know I cannot just like I could not turn you away."
Tessa swallowed. No not guilty, sorry... Charlotte was sorry she could not turn Cecily away.
"I am not leaving Will." she said firmly despite her now glossy eyes, "I have come to become like you brother and you cannot send me away by clave law..." she paused mid-speech as he began stomping towards her breaking dish after dish- Tessa heard Sophie gasp- under his black leather Shadowhunter's boots until he was an arm length away and above her staring down menacingly at her like the devil himself...
"And you would know anything about our clave law, you stupid, little, girl!" Will spat his fists balled so tightly that the skin of his knuckles turned an unnatural white clenching almost as if he wanted to break something, "Do you even understand what you've done by coming here Cecily? What you are asking to become... Do you think this will be fun? This is not a game sister-" Will said the word 'Sister' with no warmth almost an insult the way he said it like the word was posion on his tongue, "You will never be allowed to see Mother and Father ever, ever, again, you will never have any normal semblance of a life or perfect peaceful mundane future and then you will teach your children to be the same and thats only if you do not perish first yourself..." He continued.
"That's enough William." Jem snapped at him.
"Jem is right Will," Tessa spoke softly to calm him, "Cecily has already made her decision like you made your's all those years ago, it's too late."
"Too late..." Will repeated doubtfully. "It's never too late, there is always a chocie Tess."
Tess. she bit her lip at the name he once called her in private.
"Please, do as Charlotte says and get down from the table William." Tessa suddenly felt bad for Henry who was geniuenly trying to sound unyielding and paternal to help his wife but sadly he was barely heard by his intended reciever whom just stood glaring at his sister his face screwed up into an angry scowl. Charlotte began to rub her temples and Henry looking and feeling powerless averted his eyes downwards to his ruined dinner plate.
Cecily was unfazed, "I understand Will. perfecty. And I am not going to leave." she cross her arms in a gesture of finality. And Tessa watched with a wash of sympathy for Will, though he constantly confused and annoyed the daylights of her... Was only like her, trying to protect the weaker sibling.
As she had once tried to protect Nathaniel. She tried to imagine innocent little Cecily fighting a demon or an automaton, but quickly flinched away from the image once she realized her imaginative Cecily would inevitably not win that fight.
Will's face fell from it's violet mask of rage, becoming as miserable and desolate as a statue of a weeping angel, "No you don't, but you will." he gave a joyless terrible laugh and leaped down from the table much to Charlotte's dismay and Jem ran after him as Will dodged Cecily and bolted out the door she emerged from before.
Sophie began cleaning Will's mess scowling as if by automatic nature but then...
"Sophie." Charlotte said with evidently forced benvolence, "I will have William clean this mess up himself," She rolled her bird-like eyes and huffed at the sight of his destruction, "Even if I have to put a control rune on him to do it..." she said under her breath as if she never really intended any of the to hear her,"If you would be so kind as to bring Miss. Herondale and any of her items to a clean empty room far away from Will's room I would be most grateful."
Sophie stood straight blinked, nodded, and scurried away, Cecily in quick nervous pursuit.
Henry stood frowned, "So I suppose Dinner has been discontiued then Darling?" he looked to Charlotte with sympathetic hazel eyes.
"The word ruined better fits with this scenario Henry." she began rubbing her temples.
Gideon whom had sat quiet and very much confused by the whole ordeal finally spoke, "There are two of them?" he said bluntly obvious he didn't think that the fact there were two Herondales was a good thing.
"Funny," Tessa said with now unhidden past repugnance rising to the surface, "I came to that exact conclusion when I learned of you Gideon." though she didn't approve of Will, she disapproved of the Lightwood's disdain for anything that wasn't proud and downright nasty like they were. But she hoped she would come to like Gideon.
Charlotte and Henry smiled but Gideon seemed more than unamused and pouted.