Warning! This chapter contains a City of Glass spoiler. Most of this story seems to be happening before City of Glass, but that one part just kind of slipped in and I couldn't get it out. So, yeah, the time period of this story confuses me, too. But oh well.
Disclaimer: All these characters belong to Cassandra Claire, not me. It stinks.
And, ha, I know, only Jace could be refreshed after an intense physical workout. And also, for any of you who have seen sponge monkeys 'we love the moon' on youtube, I couldn't stop thinking of that as I wrote the end. =P
I'm going to try to get this done by tomorrow, but that might not happen. If it did, I would be posting either another chapter today or two of them tomorrow. We'll see what happens.
Happy Eve of April Fools' Day!
nirali: Thanks! Yeah, I didn't want this one to be too mushy or anything, more of just a family playing pranks on each other. Tons of them!
Oh, and I guess I should say this, just in case. Umm….Clary's staying at the Institute because…Luke is holding some kind of werewolf conference and is gone for the week, and Maryse and Robert are…on vacation and Max…is in his room reading.
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Later on that day Jace left the training room feeling refreshed and much better about the rest of the day. He headed back towards his room, thinking over the plans which he and Alec had made as they fought. First they were going to go clean up, and then they were going to put their plans into action.
As Jace turned into the hallway leading to his room, he almost bumped into Clary coming out of it. She gasped slightly when she saw him and stepped back quickly.
"Hey, Jace," she mumbled, trying to step past him. He reached out and stopped her.
"What were you doing?" he asked, quirking his eyebrow and grinning at her.
"Nothing," she said defensively, but blushing a little. He looked down at where he was holding onto her arm, but didn't let go.
"Really? Just wandering around? Or did you get lost?" he asked teasingly. "Your room's down the other hallway; mine is on this one."
"I was looking for Isabelle." She pulled her arm out of his grasp. "But she wasn't down there. So I'll just go find her now."
"Right. I think you're lying." He grabbed a hold of her arm again. "What did you do to my room this time?"
She gasped again. "What? Nothing! I told you, I was looking for Izzy"
"Uh-huh." He pulled her down the hallway behind him, to his room, and opened the door cautiously. Nothing seemed to have changed. His bed was still bare, and everything else was as he left it.
Clary looked at him innocently. "Can I go now?"
"Alright, go ahead. Have fun."
She turned quickly from his teasing smile and hurried away.
Jace closed the door to his room and went into the bathroom. Nothing seemed to have been messed with in there, either. Relaxing, he turned on the water in the shower and stripped off his clothes, then stepped in.
A shock went through him as soon as the icy water hit him. He couldn't help but yelp. He jumped out of the shower and checked the knobs. It was as hot as it could get, but the water was still colder then he had ever felt it before. Had someone used up all the hot water and the cold water, and left him with barely melted ice? Because that's what it felt like.
He turned off the water and glared at his shower. First at the knobs, then at the floor of the shower, which was still wet with ice water. Then at the showerhead, which had sprayed him in the first-
It was then that he noticed something strange about the showerhead. He got up closer for a better view, and saw strange, black markings. A rune, but one he had never seen before. It looked hard and cold, and yet flowed at the same time.
Jace growled out Clary's name. So she had been dumping ice on him - in liquid form. He would have to get her back for that.
Jace turned on the sink and was pleased to find water of normal temperatures flowing out. He washed up as best he could by dumping water from the sink on himself.
He was just getting dressed when someone knocked on his door. He quickly finished and opened it. Alec stood outside, holding out various different types of paint.
"Perfect," Jace said, examining them. "Do you know where they are?"
"In the kitchen, making something. They should be there for a while."
"Great. Let's go."
They hurried down the halls, fugitively sneaking glances around corners before they turned them. They ended up in Isabelle's room, and headed straight to her make-up scattered in front of her mirror.
Alec pulled out a tray of watercolors and put it in the place of Isabelle's eye shadow. Finger paint replaced the cover-up, and her eye pencils were removed to make way for water pencils.
"What else did you do in Clary's room?" Jace asked.
"Nothing, just took the paints. You should go and finish in there, and I'll finish in here. Oh, and by the way, look in her closet while you're at it."
"'Kay. Don't get caught."
Jace snuck out of Isabelle's room and into Clary's. The first thing he did was walk right over to her closet and throw it open.
"So Alec was right," he said out loud, whether to himself or to an invisible Clary he didn't know. "You were in charge of the cats." He grabbed his blankets and moved then to the door so he would remember to grab them on his way out, after which he went into the bathroom and looked for a plastic cup.
"C'mon," he muttered. "Everyone has a cup somewhere in their bathroom." But no matter where he looked, he couldn't find one.
"Fine. Be that way. I'll go get one."
On his way out, Jace noticed a stack of sticky notes. Grinning, he reached out and took one. He drew a face on it, which made him laugh by looking at it. Then, after some hesitation, he wrote the words 'kiss me' under the picture. He reached under Clary's pillow and produced her sketchbook. This he added to the pile of blankets by the door, and put the sticky note in its place. He picked up the pile by the door and headed to his own room.
He didn't meet anyone on the way. He quickly made his bed and shoved the sketchbook under his own pillow.
Leaving to find Alec, he met him just outside his door.
"Where are they?" Jace asked.
"In Izzy's room."
"Jace's eyes widened. "Did you get out?"
"Oh, yeah. I was down the hall when they came. They hadn't noticed anything yet, as far as I could tell."
"Okay. Well, we need the kitchen now, anyway. I couldn't find a cup."
"Oh. Well, that's kind of an important thing to have. We should probably go get one."
"That's what I figured."
In the kitchen, Jace was rummaging around for a plastic cup when he heard Alec's stomach growling. He looked up and saw Alec staring at something. Straightening up with a cup in his hand, he noticed what had captured Alec's attention. There on the counter was a cake. Jace's mouth started watering.
He reached out and picked up a slip of paper sitting next to the cake.
"Sponge cake," he read from the recipe. "What's sponge cake?"
"It's angel food cake," Alec answered him, still not looking away from the cake. "Traditional meal of the Shadowhunters."
"Oh, great! We should try it, then, and see what it does."
Alec looked at him then. "What? Nah, you don't need any, you've got plenty of angel in you already. I'll eat it."
"Exactly," Jace said, replying to Alec's first comment. "That means I should start eating like an angel, right? Angel food cake seems like a good place to start. So, you see, it's really mine."
"Except," Alec said, opening a drawer and producing a knife, "that I've got the knife." He pulled the cake over to himself. "And the cake. So you'll just have to share it."
"Fine. But I get the bigger half."
Alec, beginning to cut the cake, just snorted and rolled his eyes.
Jace, watching Alec try to cut the cake, raised his eyebrows. The knife didn't seem to be making much progress into the cake. "Is that too hard for you, Alec?"
"I knew sponge cake was hard to cut, but really, I didn't think our knives were that dull," Alec muttered in deep concentration. After a few more seconds he gave up. He pulled a knife from his belt, and it sliced through the cake cleanly. Jace grabbed the first piece, and Alec, after glaring at him, cut himself another.
Jace bit into his cake, but it seemed his teeth were no sharper then the first knife. He pulled the cake back and inspected it. Something tasted wrong. He gasped as he realized what he was holding, and looked up when he heard Alec come to the same realization.
"It's a sponge!" Alec exclaimed incredulously. "Frosted with whipped topping."
"That was cruel-" Jace began, but stopped abruptly when he heard the click of a door closing. They both whirled to look at the kitchen door. After a moment of being stunned, Alec rushed over and opened it. They could both see someone disappearing around a corner. They raced to check, but by the time they got there, no one was in sight.
They stared at each other for a second.
"Wow," Alec said. "That was mean."
"Yeah" Jace trailed off when he noticed the cup he was still holding in his hand. He shrugged. "Welcome back to April Fools' Day."