Work Text:
Clary has ten new bruises and she shows them off to Izzy with pride.
"Lydia is teaching me to kickbox," she says, and tilts her chin up so Izzy can see the yellowing shadow left by the practicing crack of knuckles. They dive into Izzy's makeup to cover it up, because Izzy knows color correcting and Clary knows paint and together they make it vanish. Like magic, Clary says, laughing.
Another time, Clary says, "Alec was helping me with those stick things, what are they called –" Izzy suspects Alec was not helping out so much as he was working out Clary-shaped frustrations on actual Clary. Isabelle ought to have a talk with him about that, but Clary looks so pleased, showing off her black and blue shins. "I'm getting really good!"
Another day they're sitting in Izzy's room, Clary sketching on the bed. Izzy reaches out to tap three fingers, one two three, on the inch of torso revealed by Clary's shirt riding up. "What's this?" she wonders, and Clary turns onto her side so she can tug the fabric up a little more. The bruise is a big one, like she took a solid swat to the side.
"Tripped and crashed into the table," Clary informs her solemnly but her nose wrinkles half a second later so soon they're both laughing, helpless and stupid with it. Izzy doesn't remember half as much of this before Clary came here. She remembers smirks and side-eye and the occasional chuckle but never gasping laughing over something that isn't even that funny, when you think about it.
"Guess being a Shadowhunter doesn't make you graceful, huh," Clary says ruefully, but her eyes are still laughter bright.
"Mm, don't let the heels fool you, this took practice," Izzy tells her. "But you're making good progress, you know. It's only been a few months for you and look how well you're doing."
Clary ducks her head with a little smile, hair falling into her face. Isabelle reaches over to tuck it back behind her ear, fingers smoothing the soft strands. "I always wanted to be the kind of person who could…do things like this," Clary admits.
"You always were," Izzy tells her. "You just had to learn how, exactly."
Clary's smile seems to soften and brighten at once, so pleased, so shy.
"When did you start drawing?" Isabelle asks. She peeks over Clary's shoulder in time to see a charcoal rendering of Jace before Clary slaps the sketchbook shut. Izzy stifles a giggle.
"All little kids draw," Clary says with a shrug, no sign of embarrassment in her except for her very pink cheeks. "I guess I just never stopped."
Isabelle gives the end of Clary's braid a little tug before dropping into the chair beside her. "I never started."
"What?"
"Drawing," Isabelle says. She sparred and practiced and studied and fought. Danced, sometimes. But she did not draw.
"Lies." Clary turns in her seat so she's sitting sideways but facing Isabelle head-on. "What about runes, hm? What about this?" She reaches out and her fingertips graze the line of Izzy's jaw, meaning the full face – lips, eyeshadow, liner, contour. Clary is the only one who gets all that too.
Clary's thumb presses against Izzy's chin for half a breath and there's a feeling in Izzy's chest like doing a kick-step. "Okay, fair point. But I could never do that."
Clary looks at her for a moment and then she smiles. "Maybe you could," she says mysteriously. "You just have to learn how."
"Maybe if this were my subject I'd be more motivated –" Izzy starts, reaching for the sketchbook to flip back to the corresponding page and tease Clary a little, but in her page turning she finds herself instead. Clary's hands are on the edge of the book, a wince peremptorily sliding across her face, but Isabelle is absolutely delighted. She tells Clary she's stealing it and framing it, which makes Clary laugh, and then Izzy adds, "Next time you should tell me and I'll pose for you."
Izzy has never had a picture of herself like that, one that took time and patience until each detail was perfect.
Clary tells Isabelle all about growing up mundane. She tells her about ice cream trucks and first grade and school dances. She hums snatches of pop songs for Izzy until she's laughing too much to keep going. She tells Izzy about her mother, the only person she felt like she had for so long. Clary tells Izzy about everything she had to give up to get everything she has now.
"You're the only one who ever wants to hear it," Clary says with a shrug.
In return, Isabelle gives her Shadowhunter history, the Lightwood family tree, and stories about Alec, the only person she felt like she could count on for so long. Clary drinks up the details of a life she didn't get to have, a world she grew up on the outside of. Isabelle imagines the inverse. Sometimes she doesn't know which one of them has seen more of the world.
"I wonder what it would have been like if you had been here the entire time," Izzy says.
"I'd have a lot more tattoos," Clary jokes, but then she adds, "You and I could've been like Alec and Jace. Parabawhatsit."
She knows Clary is getting it wrong on purpose, angling for an easy joke. Isabelle knows all sorts of things about Clary by now. So she gives her the smile she wants, ignores any irony in the conversation. "Never say never," Izzy teases, heart tapping away.
She has renewed sympathy for her brother.
After the trial Izzy lays in bed staring at the ceiling in the dimness of the room, feeling relieved but dissatisfied somehow too. One thing had gone right, but so many things were still going wrong.
There is a knock on her door that she knows is Clary because Clary always knocks in the exact same rhythm, a spatter of quick little taps that might spell out some mundane song Izzy doesn't know. Clary knows that Izzy knows it's her because they're used to this by now, dipping in and out of each other's rooms, so the doorknob twists without an answer from Iz. Clary stands silhouetted for a minute: tank top, loose sweatpants, messy ponytail.
"Can I stay?" she asks.
Isabelle pushes down her comforter and wriggles over so there's room. Clary crosses the room, door closing behind her, and slides in, her shoulder pressed against Izzy's.
"Nothing makes sense anymore," Clary says, and sighs. "It hasn't for a while."
Under the covers, Isabelle slips her hand into Clary's. "I know."
"I don't know what we're going to do," Clary says. Despite herself, Izzy likes that. We.
"I know," Izzy says again, and squeezes Clary's fingers. "We'll figure it out."
She has no idea if that's true or possible or plausible; naïve optimism, she's heard that about herself before. But it doesn't quite matter, because Clary tilts so she can tuck her head against Isabelle's shoulder and that feels like understanding, or solidarity, or something.
"I've never had a friend like you," Clary says.
"Me either," Izzy says. "Maybe we were waiting for each other."
She feels the shift of Clary's cheek as she smiles. "Maybe."