A/N: Hey guys, I'm so sorry about that super-long wait! I thought I would be able to start publishing as soon as summer started, but I've spent the last two weeks doing classes and community service. Fortunately, the grueling volunteer work is over so I'll be able to publish again :)
But I think I'm going to do something new, which will hopefully solve two things. I'm going to only publish the next chapter after I receive three new reviews, so this will give me time to write the next chapter and (hopefully) get me more reviews :D Thanks for reading, guys :)
Special thanks to the extremely talented author LxZrulez for helping me edit this chapter! You're amazing, LxZrulez! :D
As always, the 10 words we were required to use are underlined, and their meanings are provided at the bottom
Disclaimer: Cassandra Clare owns the Mortal Instruments series, ideas, and characters. I only own what was not explicitly stated in the books.
Chaotic Organization
Jace – 1; Magnus – 0; Casualties: Mangoes, Magnus' sanity
Or
What really happened when Jace was stuck with Magnus in City of Ashes
Humming jauntily to himself, Magnus unlocked the door to his loft. As he adjusted his grip on the groceries that the Shadowhunter had requested, he unwound his rainbow-colored scarf and placed it on the coat rack, taking care to not let the ends of the cloth droop onto his normally dusty floor.
"I'm back!" he called. "And I bought mangoes, just like you wanted."
Silence. Then: "Hmm," Jace said enigmatically from the other room.
Magnus frowned, suspicious at the ambiguous response. "What are you doing?" When there was no response, he hoisted the grocery bags up and walked into the room to see for himself.
And was confronted by a baffling sight.
His counters, normally covered with everything he might ever need, were startlingly empty. The papers that he normally kept in heap on the kitchen table were gone, replaced by a smooth white tablecloth, devoid of any sort of interesting colors. His artistic stack of used dishes (which he had once christened the Leaning Tower of Pizza Dishes) had disappeared, and the clothes that he had been spreading around to add color to his already brightly hued room were gone as well.
And the diabolical janitor from Hell, the golden-haired Shadowhunter, was standing in the middle of the appalling cleanliness with his arms folded over his chest, looking smugly at his handiwork.
Thunderstruck, Magnus dropped the bag of groceries, spilling mangoes all over the floor. "What – the hell - have you done?" he demanded, aghast. Jace turned and arched an eyebrow.
"Trying to find some order in this mess," he replied calmly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Magnus's mouth opened and closed a few times, speechless. "But that's my mess that you've ruined!" he cried indignantly when he recovered his ability to communicate.
"It's your mess that I have graciously volunteered to fix."
"But why?" Magnus spread his arms helplessly, indicating the unrecognizable room. "Why would you want everything to be so empty and not -"
"Not a insoluble labyrinth of all your worldly possessions? That's a tough one. A real mystery." The Shadowhunter brushed an invisible speck of dust off his sleeve. "Don't worry, I cleaned the rest of your place, too, except for the entranceway - Oh, good, you got mangoes, excellent."
Magnus briefly cogitated the quandary about the origin of a grinding sound and an acrid burning smell, until he realized that was gritting his teeth rather painfully. As he unclenched his jaw and looked down, he discovered that he had unknowingly set one of the boy's precious mangoes on fire. He couldn't have cared less, except that it would probably burn the rest of the building down, so he extinguished the fire with a crisp clap.
"Would 'the rest of my place' include my room?" Magnus asked after the mango stopped smoking, a dangerous tone in his voice. The boy, obviously in a state of complete disregard for his general welfare, nodded while looking extremely pleased with himself. "Hell," Magnus swore, dashing to his bedroom and groaning at the sight he was greeted with there.
"Don't worry!" the boy called from the other room. "I moved some of your clothes to inside your wardrobe, sorted first by color and then by the article of clothing."
Magnus could deal with the organization levels later. Right now, he had more pressing matters; he was looking through the wardrobe that Camille had given him, and some – some important, some vital - clothes were missing… "Some of my clothes?"
"Oh, I threw the glittery ones out," Jace replied dismissively.
The horrified shriek that Magnus emitted following that statement was three octaves higher than his normal voice. Chairman Meow yowled, the fur on his back and tail sticking straight up, and bolted out of the room. "JACE LIGHTWOOD," Magnus thundered as the room darkened ominously and blue sparks flew from his fingertips, "YOU KILLED MY GLITTER; PREPARED TO DIE."
The golden-haired demon stuck his head in Magnus' room, then ducked as Magnus chucked the nearest object he had at him. "Calm down, warlock," he said calmly, "I'm just kidding. Your glittery abominations are in a cabinet next to the wardrobe, so they don't spread that ghastly sparkle onto your other tolerable clothing. You see, I'm trying to help."
"How considerate of you," Magnus said sourly, his voice still cracking in extreme displeasure. He threw open the cabinet and sighed in relief as he recognized the intricate swirls of color and glitter on his clothing. Satisfied that those precious items had been more or less unharmed, Magnus allowed his room to be slowly returned to its normal brightness.
"I think I'll do the entranceway now," Jace informed him, and immediately Magnus scrambled to find a way to deter him as he hastily left his room, in case physical restraint was needed to protect his belongings – and his sanity.
"No! No, that won't be necessary – It looks fine the way it is – You've done enough," he stuttered, resisting the urge to add 'damage' at the end.
"It won't be too much trouble, I think," the Shadowhunter replied, surveying the room thoughtfully. "And besides, I'm bored. There's nothing else to do."
"Well, maybe you can do something else," Magnus hedged, trying another tactic. "Do you like watching TV?"
"Not really," Jace said dismissively. "There's no time at the Institute, so I never really watched any TV."
"Well, you have time now," said Magnus, desperately. He quickly ran through his mental inventory of all of the shows he had. Would the Shadowhunter be interested in something as mundane as Gilligan's Island? Probably not. Knowing Jace, he'd probably only watch shows such as The Real Shadowhunters of New York, or Sneaking Up with the Shadowhunters, or The Shadowhunterette, or something. "Just watch the TV, Shadowhunter," Magnus entreated.
For a moment, Magnus thought the Shadowhunter was going to refuse. Then, the boy arched a golden eyebrow and shrugged, plopping down on the newly cleaned sofa. Sighing with relief, Magnus handed him the remote control and snapped his fingers, and the television turned on.
After watching the boy flip through the channels for a few moments, Magnus entered his room again to change clothes. He automatically searched for his customary pile at the foot of the bed, but couldn't figure out why it was gone until he remembered that the Shadowhunter had not spared his room. Frowning, he opened the wardrobe and searched for a while in the unfamiliar organization until he located his floor length green silk dressing gown. He pulled it over his silver mesh shirt and black jeans, tied the strings loosely, and hunted for an earring to complement the look. A few minutes of fruitless searching led to him to call out in an annoyed tone, "Jace, where the hell is my jewelry!"
"Blue cabinet, third drawer, left compartment," the Shadowhunter replied crisply, adding, "All of your programs suck. And your clothes."
"We can't all be perfect, my dear, and jealousy ill becomes you," Magnus replied, not as offended as he normally would have been because he had just found his red earring that complemented the green dressing gown well, "You have your organization fanaticism, and I have my flawless taste."
A snort from the living room was his only reply, and the familiar sounds of the show What Not to Wear replaced their conversation for a few minutes. That is, until Magnus noticed another vital component of his room was missing.
"Where did you put my cosmetics bag?" he asked.
"In the bathroom," responded Jace absent-mindedly, seeming enthralled by the poor fashion choices on display in the television.
"Why in the bathroom?" Magnus shook his head, confused. "Never mind, don't answer that, I don't want a lecture."
As he headed off to the bathroom, he heard his front door open. Changing direction disappointedly, he strode, make-upless, towards the entranceway to see Alexander, Clary, and the rat-boy standing there.
"Hello, hello," he greeted them. "Alec, my darling." Alec blushed. "Clary. And rat-boy." He swept a bow at the irritated boy. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Clary answered. "We came to see Jace. Is he all right?"
Magnus felt a sympathetic pang as he recognized the convoluted mess of a relationship that Jace and Clary now shared. Trying to crack a joke, he replied, "I don't know. Does he ormally just lie on the floor like that without moving?"
"What – That's not funny," Alec said reproachfully.
"You're so easy to tease. And yes, your friend is just fine." Unfortunately for his apartment. "Well, except that he keeps putting all my things away and trying to clean up. Now I can't find anything. He's compulsive."
"Jace likes things neat," Clary said softly.
"Well, I don't," Magnus replied shortly. "Jace is in there if you want to see him."
He hoped that they would leave soon – and take Jace with them, before the tattered shreds of Magnus' sanity disappeared for good.
The words and their meanings:
Ambiguous (adj) - unclear
Baffle (v) - to confuse
Cogitate (v) - to ponder
Convoluted (adj) - twisted or complicated
Enigma (n) - a mystery
Insoluble (adj) - not solvable
Intricate (adj) - complicated
Labyrinth (n) - a maze
Quandary (n - a state of uncertainty
Tactic (n) - a strategy
I hope you guys liked it! Remember, I won't publish the next chapter until I get three new reviews, so please please review! :D Thanks so much :)