First Fanfiction! I hope you enjoy it! (No copyright intended, all characters belong to Cassandra Clare)

CASTLES MADE OF SAND, CHAPTER SIX

Good day Sunshine

"We take a walk, the sun is shining down, Burns my
feet as they touch the ground."

Alec and Jace sat inside the Jeep wrangler, the sweet sounds of Nirvana engulfing the stuffy space. Jace sat beside Alec, in the drivers seat; his chair reclined and feet kicked up to level with the black leather steering wheel. Alec quite nearly mimicked Jace's position, although the only difference was his feet rested upon the dashboard, close to touching the window shield ahead. That was another difference between them, besides the hair color, eye color, and personality: Jace was fairly tall, and all muscle, while Alec was gigantically tall, and just as toned.

They had been in the car, like that, for over an hour, possibly two, watching the cars zoom past them along the downtown roadways. Alec watched as the sun dipped low on the horizon through the grey clouds; little rays of light would occasionally break their way through the barrier, and shine directly on his face -scorching his eyelids. Earlier in the day it had been all sunshine and rays; the intensity of the heat wafted throughout the air, almost suffocatingly hot and stuffy. But now, as the time inched closer to evening, depressive grey clouds rolled in, and took home base, across the once spectacular blue skies. Alec didn't quite know which he preffered; it was always nice to feel the suns waves hit his back whenever he went to the beach back home, but here it just didn't seem to fit his mood at all.

After school the boys had agreed to take Isabelle to the bath and body works shop, downtown -for only a couple of minutes. And somehow Isabelle had been gone for double, no quadrupole the amount of time. God know's what, was taking her so long in that store. If it had been Alec, he would have picked up the first bar of soap he saw that smelt at least decent, paid for it, and left. Get in, get out. Alec wanted to go home desperately, sit in his room alone with the blinds pulled, so he could wallow in his own misery before dinner time, and essentially sulk. He had optimistically thought that today was supposed to go well, light and easy -but by the end of the day, the way things shaped out, ended up being quite the opposite -like the inferno; cold and distant.

Jace tugged on the sleeve of his shirt lightly, gaining his attention. "So..." Jace slurred gaily, hiking his voice up an octave, "how was school?" Alec shrugged and bit on the corner of his lip absently; not all to sure if discussing his day would make him feel any better about the situation. "Aweh, come on. It couldn't have been that bad. Usually I can get a few words out of you," Jace muttered to himself, and pressed the recliner button, bringing his seat up, to hover over Alec's. He began to pout, sticking his light pink bottom lip out, and feverishly batting his crazy long eyelashes. Alec was dragged in; that stupid face, that Jace always made to have his way -actually worked for him in Alec's case. He was never the one to deny Jace of anything, especially given the circumstances that Alec did have feelings for Jace that he would never be able to intentionally deny.

Alec sighed, and ran his large hand through his thick black hair. "There's this guy -"

"Woah Alec, is there something you aren't telling us?" Jace cut in, and gave Alec his best fake shocked look, causing Alec to blush the color of a ripe strawberry.

"Jace! I-I didn't mean it like that," he quickly defended, thrashing his head exasperatedly from side to side.

"I know princess." Jace let out a short chuckle, "now do go on." He waved his olive toned hand in front of Alec's face. By now Alec felt too frustrated to continue, both Isabelle and Jace knew how to get a rise out of him, and they used their methods against him effectively. He, was the older brother; that should have been his job.

"Like I was saying," Alec sighed again, "there's this guy, well actually two guys, and this other guy."

"You aren't making any sense."

"Let me finish," he replied quickly before continuing, "I met this guy Simon right before first block, and he told me to stay away from a guy that was tall, black hair, blue eyes, and a guy with cat eyes. And seriously I thought 'how hard could that be?' When I got to English I instantly saw the black hair, blue eyes guy -William, I found out his name was -and surprisingly enough the only chair left in the class was close by to him, but not so so close, yenno what I mean?" Alec rambled. Jace just gave him a faithful nod, his eyes locked in concentration, for Alec to continue. He took a deep breath, "so I sat down, in front of someone with a shiny grey jacket on, who was trying to doze off I guess, thinking he was someone normal. But then I asked him a question, he picked his head up sharply..." Alec dragged out the end.

"And...?" Jace waited for him to continue impatiently.

"And low and behold, it's the cat eyes guy -Magnus. I thought William was bad by the end of the day, seeing as though he knocked my book from my desk -"

"He knocked your book down? What kind of asshole does that?" Jace looked actually pissed off, his golden eyes darkening to a deep amber shade. Alec had only seen that darkness in his eyes before, on rare occasions.

"It's fine really, not a big deal. But as I was saying: I thought William was bad, since he continued to shoot daggers at my head in Math class with his eyes, but man was I horribly mistaken. I have Bio, with Magnus, who is also my partner, for the remainder of the year, and he's just awful. Down right awful. William is a major arrogant douche bag, that probably thinks anyone below him is absolute scum. And Magnus... Magnus -" Alec couldn't finish his sentence, because in that moment he really didn't have any words to describe Magnus. He knew that the words he used in Biology weren't actually truth -at first glance, yeah of course Alec would have thought Magnus was insanely superficial, judging by the way he looked. With his hair in a perfect faux hawk, his clothes pressed, shiny and sleek, and the suddle yet impact-worthy glittery makeup he wore around his eyes, would make anyone think he was someone who cared for the superficial things in life; someone who was vain.

But upon talking to him, only for a brief amount of time, in English class and at the beginning of Biology, Alec somehow sensed that it was a mask to cover up what was underneath. A glittery mask, that would help him move along amongst his peers. But then again, Alec couldn't be all too sure, after all, he didn't know a thing about Magnus except the fact that he had a fond taste in Shakespeare.

Jace clapped his hand softly onto Alec's shoulder, and gave him a firm squeeze.

"Damn, your day must have been terrible. Don't sweat it Alec, it will get better, just wait and see." Jace half smiled, revealing the chip in his tooth. Alec looked at him incredulously, placing his hand over the fabric of his shirt, where his heart would be. "What?" Jace gazed at Alec quizzically.

"Jace Lightwood, actually trying to console me? Well I never!" Alec mocked and gave his best rendering of old southern movies. Jace shoved at his shoulder, and tapped him once in the gut -not that hard that it would hurt, but hard enough to take some wind out of Alec. Moment's like these were a rare sight to see when it came to Alec, he never joked around all that much -only whenever in the presence of Jace, because it somehow came naturally to him. Jace brought out both the insecure shy Alec, more times then he could count, and the jokeful talkative Alec, on occasion -which was an amazing accomplishment really.

"Guys! Look what I got," Isabelle bounded into the car abruptly, sifting through three large green bags, with the stores logo spread across the front. "This ones for you," she handed Alec a Sandalwood body wash, "and this is yours." Jace took the Mountain Pine body wash from her, opened the cap and began to sniff it lovingly.

"This is what took you so long, Iz?" Alec regarded his body wash one more time, before turning around to glare at her, "picking out some dumb body wash?"

"Alec, body wash isn't dumb. Would you rather I take it back in, and you can go to school smelling, less then, well, sandal woody?" Isabelle shrugged, and threw her arms lazily over her chest, glaring back at Alec squarely. Determination laced the color of her dark eyes, and spread to the smug smirk she had on her pretty face.

"I for one, am loving this body soap." Jace commented, as he stashed it into the glove compartment, and stuck the keys into the ignition. Alec reclined his seat up as they began to pull out into the roadway, merging with the free flowing traffic around them.

"How were your guys day?" Isabelle asked from the back seat.

"Terrible," Alec breathlessly said and sighed, he placed his elbow on the window sill, then rested his chin on his knuckles, gazing out onto the towns landscape and charm. Every building looked as if an updated version of old Victorian houses -somewhat like how Mount Western Prep. appeared. People littered the streets around every corner, and many of the families grouped together had young children mainly the age of eight and nine... Alec gulped back the sudden rush of memories, and returned his eyes to the road ahead.

"Well I had a pretty eventful first day," Jace shrugged, shoulder checking before turning onto a steep climb.

"Oh my gosh Jace. Which girl did you terrorize?" Isabelle huffed.

"Her name is Clary, and I didn't terrorize her. Maybe almost, disrupted her virtue, but I doubt she still has one anymore in the first place." He shrugged.

"Jace!"

"What? Izzy, don't give me that tone of voice!" Jace mocked, mimicking their mother's tone, when Maryse received minimal back talk from her kids; causing Alec to giggle. "It's not like you, didn't have an eventful day. I saw you at lunch with Mr. Tall, dark and well, handsome or whatever."

"Who?" Alec swung his head to look at Jace. At first he wished he had his lunch break to hangout with his siblings and relax, but now more then ever hearing that a new guy had walked into Isabelle's life without his consensus, made him damn himself that he wasn't there. Jace would attempt to protect her, that was always a given, but the way Jace was never able to focus on one thing at a time provided a heavy challenge in that respect.

"From the way you were describing that one guy earlier, Alec, I would think it's the same person..." Jace furrowed his eyebrows tightly together. Alec's alarm system within his head went off, flashing a huge red warning signal across his vision.

"Iz, what's his name?" Alec nearly growled and turned his body as far as he could, so that he was practically facing Isabelle in the back seat. She raised her left eyebrow high on her forehead, and gave Alec a dubious look as if he were some crazy person.

"His name is William, and -"

"Oh my god!" Alec rolled his eyes widely. "You are not going to speak to him ever again, you hear me?"

"What are you? Mom?" Isabelle shook her head.

"I'm not kidding Isabelle. I don't want you around that guy." Alec glared at her sternly. He never called her Isabelle, for as long as he could remember. He attempted to soften his voice; any other time this conversation would have been smooth, and not so blunt and straightforward; but Alec had, had enough for one day, and didn't see the need to shelter Isabelle.

"You don't need to worry about what I do in my spare time," Isabelle muttered to herself, turning her face away to stare out of the window. There was a light flush that rested high around the apples of her cheek bones, and her perfectly shaped eyebrows were pulled tightly together in frustration. Her full cupid mouth, which was usually pulled into a smile, now sat in a straight unnerving line. Alec turned back to the front of the car, shaking his head in equal irritation, as Jace began to slowly pull into the driveway.

Isabelle moved like the blown bullet of a shot gun, when Jace had parked, darting out of the car, and into the house. Jace glanced at Alec, gave him a small incouraging smile, and shrugged his shoulders before easing himself out of his seat. Alec followed suit, and slammed the car door shut. As they made their way to the cherry wood front door, Alec caught a flash of black at the corner of his eye, at the same time Jace had -a sleek black Mercedes Benz drove into the drive way, and out stepped a tall man, with short dark brown hair that was perfectly combed, dark eyes that left no room for comfort, and a tailored pin-stripe dark blue suit.

"Dad?"

A/N: Oh my gosh, I'm terrible for making you guys wait so long. Sorry! I'll update a lot sooner for the duration of two weeks. I have a good amount of free time on my hands now (: If you haven't noticed yet, this story will not be all fluff, (but yes there will be some later on). I want to write this story in a way that it goes along with a very natural progression of relationship building between people, and not jump right into an immense amount of fluff, and smut, (but don't fret! that will come in a bit later). So yeah, stick along for the ride (: there will be chapters where Magnus and Alec might not interact, but it just adds to the background and atmosphere of the story in my opinion.
Review! (I would greatly appreciate it!)

Amber,