clarissadele: hey look at us finally getting an update schedule (sort of). As always, thanks for reading! Also, I've started an updates link on my Tumblr for this fic, the tag is aiwfic and there are links on both of our bios too if you want to check that out. We also have links to our tumblrs on our bios too so if you wanted to follow us there that would be super rad.

rippingbutterflywings: Hiii, guys! We do have a (tentative, because we're gonna be traveling a lot) update schedule. We're shooting for weekly updates on Fridays, so yeah. Anyway, thank you guys for reading, and I hope you like this chapter!

Through the good
Through the bad and ugly
We'll conquer anything
'Cause one day, we're gonna come back
And laugh at it all
One day, we'll look at the past
With love, love

"Love" by American Authors

The next few days rolled by, and Friday came quicker than Clary expected. She spent the week working on other things for the music festival. She avoided her family as much as she could, staying at Isabelle's house for a couple of nights. Alec and Magnus were back from college, so the house was kind of crammed, but it was nice to be surrounded by her friends.

She met Jace at the venue they had picked out for auditions at two, half an hour before the bands were meant to arrive. "Hey," she said to him, taking a seat at the desk they were meant to be "judging" from.

"Hey," he replied. "Okay, so I printed out a list of all of the bands who are auditioning. Here, take a look." Jace passed her the list of names, and Clary winced at what she saw.

"Hairy Nipples? Skinny Bums? No Life Losers? Your Mom's Fatass Face? What kind of names are these?"

"I've got to say, I read the list and my optimism slowly went down the drain."

Clary groaned and used all her willpower to stop her head from hitting the table. "I'm just picturing a bunch of guys with skinny bums, hairy nipples, and no lives."

"What about the mom's fatass face?"

"I really have nothing for that. I'm just kind of glad to see that Simon's name isn't the worst on here."

"What's his band name?" Jace glanced at the clipboard.

"The Mortal Instruments," Clary said.

"Not bad."

"It used to be Smelly Cat."

"A Friends fan?"

"You have no idea. He channels his inner Phoebe every day."

"Yeah, he doesn't seem to be cool enough for Chandler."

Clary fought the urge to smile. "Chandler's, like, the least cool guy in the series."

"What are you talking about? Tell me you wouldn't do Chandler."

"I have terrible taste in guys."

"It's sad that you're aware of that," Jace said, grinning. "Okay, so who's first?"

"Jace, there's eighteen minutes left."

"Don't people show up early to these things?"

"That would be us," Clary replied, rolling her eyes. She picked up the clipboard yet again. "The Funky Pants? Honestly."

"That sounds like one of those bands for first graders."

"Yeah, like the ones at birthday parties." She scrunched up her nose. "I had one for my sixth birthday."

"I always wanted one," he said, mock jealousy in his voice. "What was yours called?"

She shook her head vehemently. "Nope."

"Come on," Jace insisted. "I have to know."

Clary stared at him for a few seconds before sighing and angling her chair towards him. "Okay. But you can't tell anyone."

"Not even Simon?"

"Especially not Simon. I'm glad that he doesn't remember this."

"Why?"

"He fell that day and suffered from short-term memory loss, and then he just didn't remember it at all. The whole day was traumatizing, though, so I don't really blame him for blocking it out entirely."

"You're babbling," he said.

"Fiiiiine." She tried to look at him without laughing. "It was called The Crazy Banana Fruit Salad."

"What?"

"I know," she said, covering her face with her hands. "It's the worst band name of all time."

"They should win an award for that."

Clary groaned. "I think they have."

"I'll make one up and contact them. I'm serious."

"You're a terrible person," she said, looking at the clock that hung from the wall. "We should start letting people in before you ask me what their songs are called."

"Now I have to know!"

"Never!"

Clary sprinted to the entrance of the venue to announce that they were opening. Maia and Isabelle were acting as ushers, so the two of them were letting people in. They each had their own clipboards, which proved helpful, because neither Clary nor Jace wanted to move a lot once auditions began.

She sat back down at her table, ignoring the eager looks Jace was throwing her way. "Not a chance, Wayland."

A little over two hours, three and a half energy drinks, and four donuts later, Clary and Jace were both exhausted.

"That was terrible. Only, what, three of them were actually good? Why did we even sign up to do this?" Clary vented as they left the venue.

"To be fair, you signed up. I was volunteered," Jace replied. Clary shot him an exasperated look. She'd only really known this guy for less than a week, but they spoke to each other like they had been best friends for years.

"So now what?"

"I don't know. We should discuss the bands again, though," he mused.

"Well, we can't go back to my place. I'm still avoiding my brother. Don't tell me that you were secret friends with him too," Clary said icily, at the same time wondering why she was venting about her personal life to someone she barely even knew.

"No, actually, but we did have a spontaneous love affair. After that, he couldn't keep himself away."

Clary glared at him and started to walk faster. Curse her short legs, however, because he was quickly able to catch up. "Come on, Clary, I was just joking."

She slowed down, because there was no use in trying to outrun him when she knew that he could just catch up at a normal pace. "Fine. Okay. Let's go to your place."

"My place?"

"Are you scared my brother will be in bed waiting for you or something? 'Cause you've already confessed to the love affair," she said, walking over to his car.

He shook his head and walked over with her. "Do your parents know you're coming with me?"

"Do you know that you sound like my mom sometimes?"

"I'm sure she's a stunning woman," he replied.

"As are you," Clary told him.

"I'm gonna start blushing," Jace said, getting into the car with her. "Seriously, these compliments are overwhelming."

"I haven't even talked about your penis yet."

He looked like he was about to choke on something. "What?"

"You know, the thing between your legs. The one you used when you and my brother were having that passionate love affair. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about."

"Jesus Christ, Clary."

"Too soon to bring up the affair, huh?"

He shook his head. "You're so weird."

"At least I have a sense of humor," she commented.

"Oh, I have a sense of humor, thank you very much."

"I think you left it behind at the venue along with your dignity."

"It happened when I confessed about sleeping with your brother, didn't it?"

"I think so. But don't worry," Clary said, patting his shoulder. "I'll find you another man."

The two of them drove in the direction of Jace's house. "Hey," Jace said, "can you put some of your music on?" He reached into the compartment that sat between them and handed her the aux cord.

"Sure," she replied, oddly flattered. She connected the auxiliary cord to her iPod and scrolled through the songs in her music library before finding something to play.

Some say if you don't go then you won't know
How to let go when you've gotta let it swerve
Some say if you don't try then you won't know

How to get by, no one said it wouldn't hurt, oh no
If I knew then

What I should have know now

Up and down, jump off the deep end and
Wreck this out, I should have left with you
With you
No way out, I met your best friend
She went down, but I should have made my move
With you

The two of them sang the song off the top of their longs, nodding their heads along to the fast beat. Clary couldn't help but smile as she looked over at Jace, who was mimicking her moves without realizing it. The windows were rolled down after they got to the highway, and the wind slapped her face, her hair flying all over. After a while, she made a sign for Jace to roll them back up, but the two of them sang loudly regardless.

I'm feeling lucky, lay all my cards down
Nothing can stop me, tonight we go all out
I'm feeling lucky, I'll bet my hometown
Nothing can stop us now

As the song began nearing its end, Clary began singing with more spirit. It was as if growing closer to the end gave her a burst of energy she didn't know she had. It was an exhausting day, but she always had time for moments like this one.

When the first few notes of the next song rang loudly inside the car, Jace looked over at her. "No way, Clary."

"I love this song."

"I love this entire soundtrack."

She smiled, pleased, as the song began to play.

Bought a beat up six string, in a secondhand store
Didn't know how to play it, but I knew for sure
That one guitar felt good in my hands
Didn't take long to understand

Just one guitar, slung way down low
Was a one-way ticket, only one way to go
So I started rockin', ain't never gonna stop, no
Gotta keep on rockin', someday we're gonna make it to the top
And sing

I love rock and roll, so put another dime in the jukebox baby
I love rock and roll, so come and take your time and dance with me

"It makes my life that you love this song," she blurted out, unable to help herself. This song always got her in a ridiculously happy mood.

"Right back at you. I mean, not that we shouldn't love it, because it's one of the best songs of all time."

She laughed and continued singing along. Once the song ended, she found herself wishing that the way home was longer, seeing as they were almost in their neighborhood. A Paramore song played in the background as they passed her house. She found herself dreading having to go back, even if that was going to be a few hours from now. Once she got out of Jace's car, she realized that she'd never been inside his house. Oh God.

The two of them made their way inside. Clary watched as Jace turned on the lights inside the house as they passed them, and she held the question inside until she felt like she might burst if she didn't ask. "Is anyone else home?"

Jace shook his head. "My parents left early this morning for Singapore. It's a work thing." He shrugged.

"Huh."

"What?"

"That's pretty cool," she said. "Not having parents around for a while."

"Are you sick of yours?"

She sighed. "It's just a hard time. They don't get that I need to do this by myself."

He nodded. "Do they bombard you with questions?"

"Yup. And I know that they don't do it to make me feel like crap, but they drain me. And now there's this thing with my brother, and that just makes them ask more questions." She was breathless by the time they made it up the stairs that led to his room. "It's just...exhausting, I guess."

"It sounds like it," Jace replied. "Well, I have no parents for the week, so you can stay here if you want." He shrugged.

Clary smiled. "Thanks. I'll think about it." As she sat on his desk chair, she began thinking about the prospect of staying over. It wasn't necessarily a bad one, but she didn't really know him. Sure, she'd stayed over at Simon's, and even at Jordan's, but that was after having known them for a while—at least a year.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"Okay, well, do you have the papers from today?"

She nodded. "Sorry that I spaced."

"It's fine. Hey," he added, "do you wanna order some pizza?"

"God, yes."

"Okay, just let me call the pizza place and then we can go over the bands again and talk to Maia about it. Ham and pineapple okay?" Jace asked, picking up his phone from where he'd left it on his dresser.

"Sure, that's fine."

She sorted through the papers while Jace made the phone call, sounding far more polite on the phone than he did when they interacted. She took a blank piece of paper from his desk, grabbed her pen, and began ranking the bands in order of preference, with The Mortal Instruments making it to the very top. She could feel the stress of getting this whole thing together coursing through her veins, especially since they only had a few weeks before they had to start rehearsing. They'd decided that the festival would last for three days, and that it would be on the first week of August. It gave them plenty of time to recuperate afterwards so that they could go off to college with the weight of the festival off their shoulders.

"Okay," Jace said, "that's done. What do you have for me?"

She handed him the papers she'd been working on while he sat on his bed. "It's just ranking and what I liked and stuff. Your papers are in there, too. I made a finalized list with the comments and everything."

"You're so good at this," he muttered, skimming through the list.

"Thanks, I guess." She let herself take in a deep breath as Jace read the comments. "I'll notify Simon now."

"Sure." He shrugged. "So we're picking The Mortal Instruments, The Skinny Bums, Kaleidoscope, Pandemonium, and The Beauty Queens?" He raised an eyebrow at the last name.

Clary nodded. "Unless you wanna switch it around."

"Nope," he replied. "I totally agree." He moved closer to her so that they were sitting right in front of one another. "Do you know if we could write letters to other, more well-known bands and ask them to participate?"

She chewed on her fingernail. "It's just so late, you know? People usually take a year to prepare for this."

He sighed, closed his eyes, and nodded. "I know. But we have to try, right?"

"Right." She nodded. "I'll have Izzy draft something up. Let's make a list of bands for this."

"Okay, sure. I don't know...Jordan was into a lot of alternative rock, but his tastes were all over the map."

Clary smiled to herself, remembering the hours that they would spend holed up in her room just listening to music sometimes. "Yeah. There was this one time we were over at my place, and he admitted to me that he secretly loved One Direction." Jace almost fell out of his seat laughing.

"Oh my god. Are you serious?"

"One hundred percent."

"That doesn't sound like something he would have wanted you to tell me."

"Oh, yeah," Clary replied, another boat of laughter coming over her. "Well, shit. Nothing he can do about it now, though."

"Yeah, I guess so." They both sobered up at that.

"So," Clary said after a silence a bit longer than what she would normally call socially acceptable, "we should call Maia now and give her the list of bands. We can also tell her about the idea of asking others to come." Jace nodded in agreement. She heard the doorbell ring from downstairs and realized it was probably the pizza they had ordered.

"I'll go get that. Hang on."

He disappeared through his door, and Clary heard him greeting the delivery guy at the door. After a few minutes, he came back with the pizza box in hand. "Okay, you call Maia and put it on speaker."

Clary scrolled through her contacts after grabbing a slice of pizza from the box. When she came to Maia's name, she hit the call button. It rang twice before she picked up.

"Hey, Clary. How's it going?"

"Hey, Maia. You're on speaker. Jace and I were actually calling to talk about the list of the bands we have so far," Clary said, grabbing the list from where Jace had left it.

"Great. Let's hear it." Clary recited the names for her. She also mentioned the idea they'd had about sending letters out to bands, and Maia seemed to agree that there was use in trying. They agreed to meet up the next day with Isabelle and Simon to go over things in a bit more detail before Clary ended the call. She looked out the window and realized for the first time how late it was. She'd forgotten the sun had already been setting when they first got to Jace's house.

"Well," she said after carefully tucking the list and her phone away in her bag, "I should get going. It was nice hanging out with you today."

Jace stood up, presumably to walk her to the door. "Yeah, it was." They were at the door now, and, just as she was reaching for the handle to open it, he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, and Clary? If you really need to get away from your place for a while, my offer still stands."

Clary gave him a small smile. "Thanks. I'll think about it." She opened the door and stepped outside. "Goodnight."

Jace smiled back at her, leaning against the doorframe. "Night, Clary."

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