Work Text:
Art was one of the few things Clary knew would always be there. And she took comfort in that. She took comfort in the knowledge that when the world became too much, she could drown herself in a sea of acrylics or take cover in the safety of the miracle that was expressionism.
It was her love language. Her way of showing that she cared.
Her first work after the war had been for Raphael. And no one was more surprised than the vampire himself. She used her favorite Copic markers. Not that he’d know. It was a picture of the neighborhood he used to live in before he moved to New York, something he’d shown her in passing and she’d sneakily taken a screenshot before he noticed.
It was rather beautiful. Picturesque cream-coloured houses on a hillside, seemingly piled up one on top of each other with a narrow lane snaking its way up. There were children playing on the street who she paid close attention to while drawing after Raphael had mentioned that they were his brothers, hiding his pain under a smile, trees nestled in between the houses from where they’d stolen fruit on hot summer days.
She drew a big blue sky, fluffy white clouds that reminded her of cotton candy and a sun she knew he hadn’t seen in decades, because if she couldn’t bring Raphael to the sunlight, then she’d bring the sunlight to him.
The older vampire had been rendered speechless when he’d carefully removed the wrapping away to reveal the picture. Their little family had stood behind some pillars, phones set, all of them ready to capture Raphael’s face when he saw her gift. He’d then surprised all of them by pulling her into a hug, choking out a small ‘thank you’ to say all the words he left unsaid.
Her second piece had been for Magnus. She’d used watercolors. When he and Alec had come back from their honeymoon with pictures of vibrant beaches and mystical forests and hidey-holes that no one else knew about, she knew that sooner or later, inspiration would strike. And strike it did.
Magnus had been going on about this one waterfall that he and Alec had jumped off and how breath-taking it was and how peaceful everything had been when she’d decided to put her new watercolor set to use. With a bit of stealth and a lot of help from Izzy, she’d managed to sneak away the picture to use as reference.
Magnus wasn’t kidding, it truly was a breath-taking view. The photo was taken from under the shade of a cove or cave pretty high up, the two of them were mid-jump, eyes filled with excitement and mouths curved up into huge smiles, hands clutching onto each other for dear life. It was the most carefree she had seen them.
“And the least put-together” She’d thought as she added a few red streaks to the bird-nest that was Magnus’ hair . The cliff and the cove/cave like structure were her favorite parts to paint, grey and black melded together to contrast the falling men, vines grazed the green moss blanketing the floor, touching but not quite. The water glistened under the afternoon sun, creating ripples of light that reminded Clary of summers spent at the river near Luke’s farm where you could see the sun rays underwater. Seemingly unreal but still as ethereal.
The colour scheme should have clashed but somehow they fit. Black-grey cliffs, deep green moss and bright blue waters somehow created the perfect backdrop to the couple.
Magnus had lifted her off her feet when she’d presented it to them, ignoring all her warnings (And Alec’s) to avoid the vases as he swung her around. Alec had shaken his head but hugged her just as tight, whispering his thanks. Two days later, a brand new set of brushes that had apparently been sold out, acrylic paints and several canvases found their way to the doorstep of her art studio. It was clear who had sent it after she’d read the Post-It that read, “To capture more memories :)” She didn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day
Her third piece was Alec’s, sure, he already had the painting of Bali but she wanted to make one specially for him. She’d used the oil paints that Luke had gotten for her last birthday and one of the canvases Magnus had gifted.
She and Izzy had been going through her photo gallery when they came across a picture Izzy had somehow managed to capture without Magnus and Alec noticing and from the second Clary set her eyes on it, she knew she had to paint it.
She remembered that night clearly, the excitement that the war was over had finally died down and they’d finally gotten the time to just hang out and have a movie night.Of course, the universe couldn’t give them a break and the electricity had gone down thanks to some power outage in the electrical grid.
And Magnus, always one for dramatics, had insisted on sitting around by candlelight to just relax.
The two of them were half sitting-half lying on the sofa, Alec with his head tucked under Magnus’ chin, a blanket spread over his legs as the warlock played with his fingers. They looked soft and sleepy under the warm glow of the candlelight, nothing like the two men who had seen far more horrors than they should have in the last few months.
Oil paintings had never been her forte, she blamed it on the fact that oil paint took time to dry which meant more time for her to find mistakes, because if there’s one thing to know about Clarissa Fray, the artist, it was that she never knew when to let her work be. But Clarissa Fray, the Shadowhunter knew when to pull her shit together and stop herself. So she did.
She painted Magnus, hair rumpled and eyes soft as they focused on no one except the Nephilim lying in his arms. She painted Alec, sleepy smiles and sweater paws as he seemed to watch something going on outside the frame.
3 weeks and a broken paintbrush later, Clary had found herself handing over a square paper wrapped cover over to the Head of the New York Institute who had then let out the most unbecoming shriek she had ever heard him make, but before she had the time to ask him if it was that bad, he had enveloped her in what she forever remember as one of the best hugs that she ever received. Alec had spent the next 10 minutes ooh-ing and ahh-ing over everything, even the details that were always overlooked, the lighter outline of their shadow, the shine of the candle reflecting off the polished wood of the sofa, the rumples in the blanket, Alec saw it all and he appreciated every single one of them.
For her trouble, he had sent her off with a batch of chocolate-chip cookies that he’d been baking when she came to the loft. Seems like Alec was the lucky Lightwood that gained the ability to not set the kitchen on fire.
She’d used acrylics for Izzy. A simple picture really, one Simon had taken of them on a midnight run to Walmart for cereal. Izzy was in the shopping cart, eyes alight with laughter, her hands gripping either sides as Clary pushed her down what seemed to be the cereal aisle.
It was funny, the contrast between them. Izzy was all ink-black hair and pale skin whereas Clary was all fiery red and freckles. They complimented each other rather well. Clary remembered how they’d nearly crashed into one of the displays because she had been laughing too hard to pay attention to the cart.
It was quite fun, spying attention to all the little details, the labels on the boxes, the mirth in Izzy’s eyes, her untied laces, the light rays emitted from the tube lights above.
She paid careful attention while painting on the scales of Izzy’s dinosaur hoodie and the pikachu shoes, who knew Isabelle Lightwood was such a dork? She made a mental note to get her a dinosaur onesie for her birthday, and according to Izzy’s secret fashion taste, she’d implode with excitement.
Her efforts had not gone to waste, for the next 2 days after the presenting, Izzy had dragged her to every single art store possible and forced her to pick out as many art supplies as she wanted and instead of saving her, Jace and Simon had laughed and followed the pair around, videotaping Izzy’s increasingly loud rants on how Clary’s “inner artistic genius needed all the tools it could get to create more masterpieces” and Clary’s increasingly exasperated statements on how she didn’t need any more supplies.
Pastel crayons went to Simon. A picture she’d taken just days before, in Central Park when they’d all gone on a picnic, him lying, half-asleep on a blanket, puddles of light shining through the leaves of the tree above shining down on him, a squirrel looking down at him mid-climb, and 2 seconds after this picture was taken, that very squirrel would decide to jump onto Simon’s face and send everyone into a frenzy as the vampire yelled out in surprise. Clary doesn’t think Magnus will ever forgive Simon for knocking the lemonade onto his jeans.
The bright green grass and deep red blanket provided the perfect backdrop to draw Simon. He was wearing one of his usual graphic tees and the same ripped jeans that were splattered with paint after years of wearing them around Clary while she was painting.
She used to draw him all the time, when they were in kindergarten and still using finger crayons, in middle school when her mother finally trusted her with acrylic paints and in high school when she’d worked all summer to finally get enough money to buy her very own set of artist's water colors. He’d been the first piece she’d painted with that set.
And she drew him now, the brown of his eyes and the sharpness of his jaw ingrained into her memory, his smile and glasses, as easy as breathing. The familiarity of it comforted her.
He’d been ecstatic when she gave it to him and had drawn her into a tight hug, not letting go until she began gasping for air and smacking his shoulder.
Her last one was for Jace. This one was her favorite. She had bought a whole new set of ink pens to use and sharing an apartment with Jace meant very little privacy, so she took to hiding out in Alec and Magnus’ apartment to finish her piece. There was a certain elegance to ink drawings and she wanted to capture Jace’s grace with. A precision that she couldn’t find in a paintbrush.
It took up nearly half of all her coloured ink pens but the final product was definitely worth it.
When they’d first moved into the apartment, neither of them could sleep and after a particularly restless night, Jace had grabbed the car keys and decided that a midnight trip was overdue. 20 minutes later, they found themselves sitting at the stained glass water tower, legs dangling over the edge, the rail digging into their chests as they looked down at the dark roads below them.
Jace seemed to glow under the moonlight, eyes soft and tinged gold, a small smile gracing his lips, hints of his runes peeking out from under the collar of his hoodie. The light behind them shone through the stained glass casting patches of red, blue and green down onto his white jacket. The city lights shone behind him, blurry yellow and white dots melding together to form a starry background against the night sky.
It was the most beautiful she had ever seen him, arms folded over the railings with his chin resting on them, red, blue and green stains of lights decorating his white hoodie, golden hair flopping around his hair, glowing like a halo under the moon. Nothing like the soldier he'd been raised to be.
She took great care while drawing him, Jace had this captivating duality about him, he could be cold and sharp and still be as safe and gentle as he was when they first got together.
It was what made him so hard to draw when she had first met him but now… now she knew exactly how to draw him. She enunciated the gold of his eyes and toned down the edge of his smile until it was an exact replica of the one in the picture.
When she gifted it to him, he’d gone silent for so long that she was worried he hated it.
She’d knelt down in front of him but before she could say anything he’d looked up, eyes shining, a myriad of emotions flickering in his eyes and asked, “Is this for me?”
He had sounded so uncharacteristically quiet and hopeful that she couldn’t find herself to do anything other than nod, but before she could do anything further, Jace’s lips met hers, one hand coming to caress her cheek as the other wrapped around her waist. He pulled back seconds later, resting their foreheads together and breathed out a small thank you.
That night in bed, he’d opened up to her about how he’d never received a hand-made gift from anyone, all of his gifts had been weapons or books. The thought of someone putting in hours of work into crafting something so beautiful just filled him with so much joy that he hadn’t really been able to say anything. Clary had smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheek and said, “Well, I can fix that for you…” His answering smile was blinding.
Clary can't sing like Simon, she can’t fight like Jace or Izzy or recount stories like Raphael. She can’t joke around like Alec or do magic like Magnus. But what she can do is paint and draw, she can bring pictures to life and capture memories between the strokes of paint. And that’s enough for her.