[fic] destiny came a calling (1/5)
fic: destiny came a calling (1/5)
fandom: btvs/teenwolf/tmi
characters: dawn summers; allison argent/lydia martin; clary fray; other characters as necessary
word count: 3,000
setting: sisters Dawn, Clary, and Allison go off to college together, determined to leave behind everything about their small-town lives … but being a witch - they find - isn’t something you can choose to ignore
a/n: Think of this as the Charmed version of these characters - but the magic works more like the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness. Originally, I wanted this to be my fantasybb - but I'd rather just post the chapters as they come, if I sit on it I will forget that I love it. I made the art for this over a year ago and I've been struggling to just WRITE it since then. So please wish me luck!!
[original art] || [playlist] by arsenic_lies (who gave me the title!)
[#she is such a diva without her coffee; #i totes did not steal that shirt i borrowed it #please stop hitting on my girlfriend #please stop leaving your hot girlfriend unattended in the living room half naked #this looks better on me #did you take notes in latin? #stop leaving your spell books in the kitchen! #stop making cupcakes with the spell books #no anchovies this time please #so there might be a demon in the bathroom #i think my girlfriend is a werewolf]
Clary was going to college.
The wind was in her hair and her entire life had been crammed into three cardboard boxes and strapped to the bed of her old pick-up truck and her cat was angrily staring up at her from the armrest and she was singing loudly (and off-key) to the old Simple Plan cd she found in her sisters’ old stuff while they were packing.
It should be noted that her sister Dawn was driving, her three and a half boxes of memories were sitting next to Clary’s, and her cat was calmly sitting on the dashboard, looking quite bored about the whole thing. She was also singing off-key, that’s the thing that you should know about Clary’s oldest sister.
Dawn always sang off-key, most of the time she was falling or tripping or dropping something and laughing about it. She had long brown hair and long arms and long legs and boys were always just a little mad for her. It should also be noted that when they were kids and Clary picked out a kitten from the neighbor’s litter and named the mangy, dirty thing Rain, Dawn grabbed the smallest one in the litter and named it Bo.
Rain. And Bo. Get it? She said gaily as they walked the half a mile back to their hidden-away ramshackle house, Clary’s hand safely in hers as she carried the kittens in an old dog carrier they found that morning in the basement. Rainbow. Because together we can make the mundane beautiful. That’s what sisters can do.
They got home and found Allison sitting sullenly on the front step, angry either at their grandmother for not letting her continue building her treehouse without supervision, or at them for leaving her alone. Dawn, eleven years old and therefore the wisest of them, plopped the Bo-kitten in Allison’s lap and said, He’s for us, do you like him?
Did you name him yet?
Baby named hers Rain so ours is Bo.
Allison, ten years old and therefore only mildly less wise than Dawn, nodded solemnly, Rainbow. That’s good.
They spent the evening playing with their new kittens on the front porch, Allison and Dawn cooing in unison over Bo even after Clary lost interest and ran out into the twilight to pick wildflowers.
Clary had been seven at the time and thought her sisters were the most beautiful, magical beings she would ever meet.
Now Clary was seventeen and they were still just as magical and still just as beautiful, but also annoyingly concerned with her life in general.
There was a small part (the smallest, most petty) inside of her that wished she was leaving on a grand college adventure alone. That she could fly back on the holidays and find them sitting in front of the fire with Rain and Bo making a mess of the Solstice decorations and hot cocoa, waiting for her - but letting her go. Because as much as she loved them, Dawn and Allison were a unit and Clary often felt like the laundry basket that they constantly had to keep carrying up the stairs between them. Like there was no space for her, the baby, at the table.
It would be so much easier to redefine herself on the coast with cute boys everywhere and possibilities around every corner - without her sisters tagging along as well.
After grams died and Dawn was left alone - sixteen and in charge of two teenage girls and a house - taking her exit exams from school early so she could work full time to keep them afloat, they decided together to leave their small town the minute Clary graduated high school. Leave behind their ramshackle house in the woods, and the town that knew their history better than them, and the ghosts, and start over together in a new place.
It was a pact they made together.
They waited for her, and Clary didn’t feel a little bit guilty about that.
Nope.
I’m glad auntie’s house is furnished, Dawn smiled over at Clary as she switched out the CD for something more road-trippy. I can’t imagine having to hire a truck or something for a cross-country venture like this.
Are you going to let me drive at all?
Oh,Dawn shrugged and kept her eyes on the road. I’m not tired yet.
You could always drive with Allison?
Just then, Allison’s little red car zoomed past them, two heads in the front nodding along to music screaming out of the windows.
(You should know that Allison, the middle child, always sang in perfect key. A fact that seemed the most natural thing in the world to her sisters.)
Nah, Allison and Lydia need some alone-time before we all start trying to live together at the end of the road.
It’s not like Lydia hasn’t practically lived with us for the past year anyway.
There’s a difference between having a drawer and sharing a room.
I guess…
Lydia hadn’t been a total surprise, not really. Clary was still reeling a little bit that she was coming with them to their new home, but it also made sense in a way. Dawn-and-Allison couldn’t continue on forever. They were all growing up and anyway, Lydia fit in on game night well enough. And she actually kept Allison’s things clean. (Or, rather - between the two of them, Lydia and Allison had a better handle on the mess that was Dawn and Clary than Allison had been on her own.)
Clary pulled a protesting Rain onto her lap and scratched her head, hand-knit fingerless gloves protecting her from the worse of his retaliation tactics (Bo ignored the whole business).
Do you think we’re going to be okay?
What makes you ask that, Baby?
Just… we’re leaving a lot. And I asked… for a lot, Clary shifted uncomfortably and looked resolutely out the window at the passing lights.
We all agreed this was going to be a fresh start. We all need that, after grams…
After mom.
Two weeks later, when they finally pulled up to the old Victorian house left to them in their grandmother’s will - a house they had never heard of before that came at the last minute from an aunt they had never met, Clary took her sisters’ hands in hers and took a deep breath, And we didn’t just run away, did we?
Of course not, kiddo. Starting over isn’t the same as running away.
Every good story has a make-over montage. We’re just giving it to our lives instead of our faces.
We have perfect faces.
And perfect hair.
Just a new start, that’s all.
That’s everything, Clary thought to herself as they marched up the seven impressive stone stairs to the door with a stain-glass window like in an old movie, hand-in-hand just like always.
Well it’s about time, a voice called out when they walked in the door. It’s not like I haven’t been waiting for forever.
Clary stared down at the black cat standing before them, judging them with her green eyes.
Did that cat just talk?!
Don’t be silly, the voice said from the top of the stairs leading to the second floor. I’m a ghost, not a cat.
And sure enough, a ghost of a woman in her mid-forties dressed in the style of approximately the 1940s, came flouncing down the stairs.
Stop standing in the doorway like a bunch of ninnies, you’ll let in a draft or let out a cat and I can tell you both circumstances will turn this house into an uproar.
(Oh, did I forget to mention?
The Rosse sisters are witches.)
The house, like all witch’s houses, was temperamental on a good day. And when Clary - all five feet of her - dropped her bag on the ground and declared to one of the (presumably) many ghosts inhabiting the residence that they didn’t hold with such nonsense and weren’t going to be practicing magic anymore … well, that pushed the house into a tantrum Allison seriously doubted they would ever see the end of.
Their first morning, everyone was locked in their rooms until Dawn quietly promised to her lock that she just really wanted to look at the herb garden behind the kitchen. After that, they made it a habit to only close doors if it was utterly necessary. Half of the groceries that went into the pantry were never seen again. Any attempt to use the stove or oven backfired mightily - resulting in not a few singed eyebrows.
Clary suffered the worst of it. After a week in residence, a radio piping Bette Midler showtunes started following the youngest girl through the house, seemingly existing in the walls and floating after her wherever she happened to go. Not to mention her immediately losing each left shoe upon unpacking and finding gum tangled up in her sheets every morning.
The worst affront, to her mind, was how quickly the house and Rain took to one another. Rain galloped around the furniture like a queen. She seemed to have befriended several of the ghostly residences, Clary often coming upon the tangled thing purring and content in an empty room. And while all human necessities - food, hot water, air conditioning, functioning doors and windows - were non-functioning at best and disappeared completely at worst, Rain seemed to be in a constant supply of cat toys and treats.
Bo was as stoically bored with all the proceedings as per usual, refusing to take sides in a war he clearly believed was beneath his interest. He found a nice window perch from which he could call to the birds outside and also cast judgment upon passing humans in between catnaps. He was as contentedly annoyed as he had ever and always been.
After about three weeks in residence, Dawn came home from her shift at the bar down the street and found the entire house lit up, the tell-tale sound of Clary shouting coming distortedly through the walls beneath the heavy-handed sound of a mariachi band. Allison and Lydia were sitting on the porch in their pajamas.
Hey there money-maker. Did you bring me anything?
Dawn tossed Allison the box containing a still-mostly-warm blooming onion, a specialty of the bar and Allison’s new favorite 3am snack. Is Clary throwing a party? Why weren’t we invited?
Lydia snorted and pulled the hoodie further down over her face, nestling down further into the porch swing.
I wish it was a party, Allison said through a mouthful of onion. A normal party with boys and dancing and Clary having a good time instead of fighting with the house. You know she hasn’t met anyone yet? She never goes outside. Just finds new ways to torture the house. You know she painted a mural in one of the rooms? I thought for sure we were all going to be thrown out of our beds.
I should talk to her…
Lydia’s head shot up, her bloodshot eyes narrowing down at Dawn and Allison, shoulder to shoulder in their misery, Yeah. That’ll definitely work. She’ll totally listen to you.
What would you say that we haven’t already said a thousand times? Allison ignored Lydia, throwing a bit of onion over her shoulder at her.
I don’t know…
How about: sorry kid, but giving up magic is a bad idea?
Allison and Dawn both cringed. Lydia had been outspokenly against the sisterly pact as soon as she heard about it, but promising Clary that one day they’d move away and say goodbye to being witches was the only thing that kept her from running away after grams died. It was the only thing that kept her by their side.
She could always move into the dorms. She has a scholarship? Maybe that would be better for her.
Dawn sighed, You know the minute she left, we’d slip. I’d start practicing again. The house would make it impossible for us not to. And we promised.
But is it what you actually want? Lydia yawned above them.
Allison crooked her head at Dawn and shrugged.
Dawn shook her head, Magic killed mom. It might as well have killed grams. It was something we all promised because it was something we all wanted.
Which is totally why I ended up dating Lydia and you’re working at a vampire bar.
It’s not a vampire bar.
It’s run by a vampire.
He’s an old friend of grams.
So he says.
There’s a photo hanging above the bar, okay? I know what grams looks like.
When did grams ever live here, anyway?
Before mom. Before aunt Susan even.
He’s still a vampire. And you still haven’t told Clary.
You three are a goddamn space opera. I’m selling you to the tabloids in the morning.
It was the best paying job I could find in a short time. She’d understand. Dawn said to her fingers twisted in her lap.
She probably really won’t. Especially when she sees how hot he is.
Vampires are always hot.
Not all of them look like Bon Jovi.
He looks like Bon Jovi?
Since when do you care about Bon Jovi?
He says the tosser stole his look.
Allison rolled her eyes, Yeah, I’ll bet.
It was true that on their third day, Dawn was in the front garden around twilight avoiding the turmoil inside the house, when a man appeared right in front of her like he’d been waiting, a cigarette between his lips and a long leather duster swirling around his knees. He offered her a job on the spot - she knew he was a vampire because she’s not stupid - and he knew she was a witch.
That’s why he came, she grew to find out.
Just around the corner was one of the best well-kept secrets in the city, a bar for the supernaturals that circled around the outskirts. It was an older and calmer crowd than what she knew would prefer the more densely populated areas closer to the city center. But it was in desperate need of a witch’s steady touch. Witches could - if they chose - create an aura of calm and peace in a large crowd. Witches were in high demand as bartenders, waitresses, hostesses, and higher management at recreational facilities, especially those that catered to supernaturals. They did their best to stay away from professions that had them near the criminal justice system or the military, all of those strong emotions being too draining after a short time. Working at a sports bar as the closing bartender was easy.
It was as easy as taking a deep breath before a storm.
And it paid ridiculously well.
And it wasn’t like Dawn was qualified for much else besides the service industry. Anyway, she liked bartending. (Even if she occasionally had to handle O-neg.)
It just wasn’t something she was ready to tell Clary yet. Clary who had always been so adamantly opposed to learning her art, even when they were kids.
Speaking of, Dawn cleared her throat. Spike is thinking about extending the afternoon hours and says you can have first dibs on the new shifts if you want. He’s really cool about working around our school schedule.
The fact that your boss is named Spike thrills me you have no idea, Lydia laughed.
At the same moment Allison very shyly said, Yeah, I’ll come by and talk to him while you’re working tomorrow.
Great, Lydia said darkly. We’re all going to be working for a vampire and meanwhile little sister thinks that we’ve given up magic.
It’s not witchcraft, it’s a job.
Allison shook her head, Baby is not going to see it that way.
Clary was running through the woods outside her grams house. Or, she thought she was. The trees seemed older and the shadows seemed deeper than the friendly faces she grew up climbing and drawing in intimate detail in her sketchbook. Everything was too big and too dark, but she had to keep running.
Behind her, she could hear her sisters crying.
There was something so unmistakable about the sound of one’s sister crying that Clary never doubted they were there. If she just turned around, they’d be close enough to touch. She could take their hands and stop the sounds of their sobbing, maybe. Or join them. She felt very much like if she stopped running she would cry.
But she didn’t, her feet slamming into the earth again and again, relentless and unforgiving.
She screamed at herself to turn around, to reach back, to stop them from crying, but she wouldn’t. Still her feet pounded at the ground and still her legs scissored back and forth with no pain, only burning to go faster, faster, to keep going.
Where are you going you idiot? There’s nothing for you that way!
She woke up just inches from her destination. She felt as though she had just been pulled from a warm bath into a winter frost.
She shook and her breath came out in gasps. The black cat that greeted them upon their arrival gingerly picked her way down the length of the bed and sat on her chest, kneading a bit at the blanket.
Just as she had done every night.
She had pulled herself out of the warmth, had grabbed her own arm as she ran full speed ahead, and stopped herself from opening the door and letting the light inside shine out into the trees.
Just as she had done every night since she could remember.
Oh Cat, her voice cracked in her throat. I just can’t. I won’t.
The cat stared back at her, a dim light reflecting off of her dark eyes, as if to say, You can. You will.
Clary Rosse had two secrets that she kept from her sisters.
The first was that she loved the house and it loved her madly.
The second she kept in her dream.
I don’t want to live at the dorms. That wasn’t the plan.
Plans sometimes can be adjusted.
We can’t do this much longer, Baby. Classes start next week.
Look, the house and I are doing much better already.
I can still hear Bette Midler.
That’s because your headphones are in, the house switched over to Backstreet Boys yesterday.
The day before that it was all Nirvana.
Lydia grinned a little manically, That was a good day.
I think it’s wooing me, Clary said a little smugly.
Allison rolled her eyes,I don’t want you to live in the dorms either, but there’s still time if we jump on it this week and-
I’ll make it work. I’ll apologize to the house. Hey house!? I’m sorry!
I’m working for a vamp, Dawn had been uncharacteristically quiet through the whole debate up until that point.
You always had a way of bringing a room to its knees.
fandom: btvs/teenwolf/tmi
characters: dawn summers; allison argent/lydia martin; clary fray; other characters as necessary
word count: 3,000
setting: sisters Dawn, Clary, and Allison go off to college together, determined to leave behind everything about their small-town lives … but being a witch - they find - isn’t something you can choose to ignore
a/n: Think of this as the Charmed version of these characters - but the magic works more like the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness. Originally, I wanted this to be my fantasybb - but I'd rather just post the chapters as they come, if I sit on it I will forget that I love it. I made the art for this over a year ago and I've been struggling to just WRITE it since then. So please wish me luck!!
[original art] || [playlist] by arsenic_lies (who gave me the title!)
[#she is such a diva without her coffee; #i totes did not steal that shirt i borrowed it #please stop hitting on my girlfriend #please stop leaving your hot girlfriend unattended in the living room half naked #this looks better on me #did you take notes in latin? #stop leaving your spell books in the kitchen! #stop making cupcakes with the spell books #no anchovies this time please #so there might be a demon in the bathroom #i think my girlfriend is a werewolf]
Clary was going to college.
The wind was in her hair and her entire life had been crammed into three cardboard boxes and strapped to the bed of her old pick-up truck and her cat was angrily staring up at her from the armrest and she was singing loudly (and off-key) to the old Simple Plan cd she found in her sisters’ old stuff while they were packing.
It should be noted that her sister Dawn was driving, her three and a half boxes of memories were sitting next to Clary’s, and her cat was calmly sitting on the dashboard, looking quite bored about the whole thing. She was also singing off-key, that’s the thing that you should know about Clary’s oldest sister.
Dawn always sang off-key, most of the time she was falling or tripping or dropping something and laughing about it. She had long brown hair and long arms and long legs and boys were always just a little mad for her. It should also be noted that when they were kids and Clary picked out a kitten from the neighbor’s litter and named the mangy, dirty thing Rain, Dawn grabbed the smallest one in the litter and named it Bo.
Rain. And Bo. Get it? She said gaily as they walked the half a mile back to their hidden-away ramshackle house, Clary’s hand safely in hers as she carried the kittens in an old dog carrier they found that morning in the basement. Rainbow. Because together we can make the mundane beautiful. That’s what sisters can do.
They got home and found Allison sitting sullenly on the front step, angry either at their grandmother for not letting her continue building her treehouse without supervision, or at them for leaving her alone. Dawn, eleven years old and therefore the wisest of them, plopped the Bo-kitten in Allison’s lap and said, He’s for us, do you like him?
Did you name him yet?
Baby named hers Rain so ours is Bo.
Allison, ten years old and therefore only mildly less wise than Dawn, nodded solemnly, Rainbow. That’s good.
They spent the evening playing with their new kittens on the front porch, Allison and Dawn cooing in unison over Bo even after Clary lost interest and ran out into the twilight to pick wildflowers.
Clary had been seven at the time and thought her sisters were the most beautiful, magical beings she would ever meet.
Now Clary was seventeen and they were still just as magical and still just as beautiful, but also annoyingly concerned with her life in general.
There was a small part (the smallest, most petty) inside of her that wished she was leaving on a grand college adventure alone. That she could fly back on the holidays and find them sitting in front of the fire with Rain and Bo making a mess of the Solstice decorations and hot cocoa, waiting for her - but letting her go. Because as much as she loved them, Dawn and Allison were a unit and Clary often felt like the laundry basket that they constantly had to keep carrying up the stairs between them. Like there was no space for her, the baby, at the table.
It would be so much easier to redefine herself on the coast with cute boys everywhere and possibilities around every corner - without her sisters tagging along as well.
After grams died and Dawn was left alone - sixteen and in charge of two teenage girls and a house - taking her exit exams from school early so she could work full time to keep them afloat, they decided together to leave their small town the minute Clary graduated high school. Leave behind their ramshackle house in the woods, and the town that knew their history better than them, and the ghosts, and start over together in a new place.
It was a pact they made together.
They waited for her, and Clary didn’t feel a little bit guilty about that.
Nope.
I’m glad auntie’s house is furnished, Dawn smiled over at Clary as she switched out the CD for something more road-trippy. I can’t imagine having to hire a truck or something for a cross-country venture like this.
Are you going to let me drive at all?
Oh,Dawn shrugged and kept her eyes on the road. I’m not tired yet.
You could always drive with Allison?
Just then, Allison’s little red car zoomed past them, two heads in the front nodding along to music screaming out of the windows.
(You should know that Allison, the middle child, always sang in perfect key. A fact that seemed the most natural thing in the world to her sisters.)
Nah, Allison and Lydia need some alone-time before we all start trying to live together at the end of the road.
It’s not like Lydia hasn’t practically lived with us for the past year anyway.
There’s a difference between having a drawer and sharing a room.
I guess…
Lydia hadn’t been a total surprise, not really. Clary was still reeling a little bit that she was coming with them to their new home, but it also made sense in a way. Dawn-and-Allison couldn’t continue on forever. They were all growing up and anyway, Lydia fit in on game night well enough. And she actually kept Allison’s things clean. (Or, rather - between the two of them, Lydia and Allison had a better handle on the mess that was Dawn and Clary than Allison had been on her own.)
Clary pulled a protesting Rain onto her lap and scratched her head, hand-knit fingerless gloves protecting her from the worse of his retaliation tactics (Bo ignored the whole business).
Do you think we’re going to be okay?
What makes you ask that, Baby?
Just… we’re leaving a lot. And I asked… for a lot, Clary shifted uncomfortably and looked resolutely out the window at the passing lights.
We all agreed this was going to be a fresh start. We all need that, after grams…
After mom.
Two weeks later, when they finally pulled up to the old Victorian house left to them in their grandmother’s will - a house they had never heard of before that came at the last minute from an aunt they had never met, Clary took her sisters’ hands in hers and took a deep breath, And we didn’t just run away, did we?
Of course not, kiddo. Starting over isn’t the same as running away.
Every good story has a make-over montage. We’re just giving it to our lives instead of our faces.
We have perfect faces.
And perfect hair.
Just a new start, that’s all.
That’s everything, Clary thought to herself as they marched up the seven impressive stone stairs to the door with a stain-glass window like in an old movie, hand-in-hand just like always.
Well it’s about time, a voice called out when they walked in the door. It’s not like I haven’t been waiting for forever.
Clary stared down at the black cat standing before them, judging them with her green eyes.
Did that cat just talk?!
Don’t be silly, the voice said from the top of the stairs leading to the second floor. I’m a ghost, not a cat.
And sure enough, a ghost of a woman in her mid-forties dressed in the style of approximately the 1940s, came flouncing down the stairs.
Stop standing in the doorway like a bunch of ninnies, you’ll let in a draft or let out a cat and I can tell you both circumstances will turn this house into an uproar.
(Oh, did I forget to mention?
The Rosse sisters are witches.)
The house, like all witch’s houses, was temperamental on a good day. And when Clary - all five feet of her - dropped her bag on the ground and declared to one of the (presumably) many ghosts inhabiting the residence that they didn’t hold with such nonsense and weren’t going to be practicing magic anymore … well, that pushed the house into a tantrum Allison seriously doubted they would ever see the end of.
Their first morning, everyone was locked in their rooms until Dawn quietly promised to her lock that she just really wanted to look at the herb garden behind the kitchen. After that, they made it a habit to only close doors if it was utterly necessary. Half of the groceries that went into the pantry were never seen again. Any attempt to use the stove or oven backfired mightily - resulting in not a few singed eyebrows.
Clary suffered the worst of it. After a week in residence, a radio piping Bette Midler showtunes started following the youngest girl through the house, seemingly existing in the walls and floating after her wherever she happened to go. Not to mention her immediately losing each left shoe upon unpacking and finding gum tangled up in her sheets every morning.
The worst affront, to her mind, was how quickly the house and Rain took to one another. Rain galloped around the furniture like a queen. She seemed to have befriended several of the ghostly residences, Clary often coming upon the tangled thing purring and content in an empty room. And while all human necessities - food, hot water, air conditioning, functioning doors and windows - were non-functioning at best and disappeared completely at worst, Rain seemed to be in a constant supply of cat toys and treats.
Bo was as stoically bored with all the proceedings as per usual, refusing to take sides in a war he clearly believed was beneath his interest. He found a nice window perch from which he could call to the birds outside and also cast judgment upon passing humans in between catnaps. He was as contentedly annoyed as he had ever and always been.
After about three weeks in residence, Dawn came home from her shift at the bar down the street and found the entire house lit up, the tell-tale sound of Clary shouting coming distortedly through the walls beneath the heavy-handed sound of a mariachi band. Allison and Lydia were sitting on the porch in their pajamas.
Hey there money-maker. Did you bring me anything?
Dawn tossed Allison the box containing a still-mostly-warm blooming onion, a specialty of the bar and Allison’s new favorite 3am snack. Is Clary throwing a party? Why weren’t we invited?
Lydia snorted and pulled the hoodie further down over her face, nestling down further into the porch swing.
I wish it was a party, Allison said through a mouthful of onion. A normal party with boys and dancing and Clary having a good time instead of fighting with the house. You know she hasn’t met anyone yet? She never goes outside. Just finds new ways to torture the house. You know she painted a mural in one of the rooms? I thought for sure we were all going to be thrown out of our beds.
I should talk to her…
Lydia’s head shot up, her bloodshot eyes narrowing down at Dawn and Allison, shoulder to shoulder in their misery, Yeah. That’ll definitely work. She’ll totally listen to you.
What would you say that we haven’t already said a thousand times? Allison ignored Lydia, throwing a bit of onion over her shoulder at her.
I don’t know…
How about: sorry kid, but giving up magic is a bad idea?
Allison and Dawn both cringed. Lydia had been outspokenly against the sisterly pact as soon as she heard about it, but promising Clary that one day they’d move away and say goodbye to being witches was the only thing that kept her from running away after grams died. It was the only thing that kept her by their side.
She could always move into the dorms. She has a scholarship? Maybe that would be better for her.
Dawn sighed, You know the minute she left, we’d slip. I’d start practicing again. The house would make it impossible for us not to. And we promised.
But is it what you actually want? Lydia yawned above them.
Allison crooked her head at Dawn and shrugged.
Dawn shook her head, Magic killed mom. It might as well have killed grams. It was something we all promised because it was something we all wanted.
Which is totally why I ended up dating Lydia and you’re working at a vampire bar.
It’s not a vampire bar.
It’s run by a vampire.
He’s an old friend of grams.
So he says.
There’s a photo hanging above the bar, okay? I know what grams looks like.
When did grams ever live here, anyway?
Before mom. Before aunt Susan even.
He’s still a vampire. And you still haven’t told Clary.
You three are a goddamn space opera. I’m selling you to the tabloids in the morning.
It was the best paying job I could find in a short time. She’d understand. Dawn said to her fingers twisted in her lap.
She probably really won’t. Especially when she sees how hot he is.
Vampires are always hot.
Not all of them look like Bon Jovi.
He looks like Bon Jovi?
Since when do you care about Bon Jovi?
He says the tosser stole his look.
Allison rolled her eyes, Yeah, I’ll bet.
It was true that on their third day, Dawn was in the front garden around twilight avoiding the turmoil inside the house, when a man appeared right in front of her like he’d been waiting, a cigarette between his lips and a long leather duster swirling around his knees. He offered her a job on the spot - she knew he was a vampire because she’s not stupid - and he knew she was a witch.
That’s why he came, she grew to find out.
Just around the corner was one of the best well-kept secrets in the city, a bar for the supernaturals that circled around the outskirts. It was an older and calmer crowd than what she knew would prefer the more densely populated areas closer to the city center. But it was in desperate need of a witch’s steady touch. Witches could - if they chose - create an aura of calm and peace in a large crowd. Witches were in high demand as bartenders, waitresses, hostesses, and higher management at recreational facilities, especially those that catered to supernaturals. They did their best to stay away from professions that had them near the criminal justice system or the military, all of those strong emotions being too draining after a short time. Working at a sports bar as the closing bartender was easy.
It was as easy as taking a deep breath before a storm.
And it paid ridiculously well.
And it wasn’t like Dawn was qualified for much else besides the service industry. Anyway, she liked bartending. (Even if she occasionally had to handle O-neg.)
It just wasn’t something she was ready to tell Clary yet. Clary who had always been so adamantly opposed to learning her art, even when they were kids.
Speaking of, Dawn cleared her throat. Spike is thinking about extending the afternoon hours and says you can have first dibs on the new shifts if you want. He’s really cool about working around our school schedule.
The fact that your boss is named Spike thrills me you have no idea, Lydia laughed.
At the same moment Allison very shyly said, Yeah, I’ll come by and talk to him while you’re working tomorrow.
Great, Lydia said darkly. We’re all going to be working for a vampire and meanwhile little sister thinks that we’ve given up magic.
It’s not witchcraft, it’s a job.
Allison shook her head, Baby is not going to see it that way.
Clary was running through the woods outside her grams house. Or, she thought she was. The trees seemed older and the shadows seemed deeper than the friendly faces she grew up climbing and drawing in intimate detail in her sketchbook. Everything was too big and too dark, but she had to keep running.
Behind her, she could hear her sisters crying.
There was something so unmistakable about the sound of one’s sister crying that Clary never doubted they were there. If she just turned around, they’d be close enough to touch. She could take their hands and stop the sounds of their sobbing, maybe. Or join them. She felt very much like if she stopped running she would cry.
But she didn’t, her feet slamming into the earth again and again, relentless and unforgiving.
She screamed at herself to turn around, to reach back, to stop them from crying, but she wouldn’t. Still her feet pounded at the ground and still her legs scissored back and forth with no pain, only burning to go faster, faster, to keep going.
Where are you going you idiot? There’s nothing for you that way!
She woke up just inches from her destination. She felt as though she had just been pulled from a warm bath into a winter frost.
She shook and her breath came out in gasps. The black cat that greeted them upon their arrival gingerly picked her way down the length of the bed and sat on her chest, kneading a bit at the blanket.
Just as she had done every night.
She had pulled herself out of the warmth, had grabbed her own arm as she ran full speed ahead, and stopped herself from opening the door and letting the light inside shine out into the trees.
Just as she had done every night since she could remember.
Oh Cat, her voice cracked in her throat. I just can’t. I won’t.
The cat stared back at her, a dim light reflecting off of her dark eyes, as if to say, You can. You will.
Clary Rosse had two secrets that she kept from her sisters.
The first was that she loved the house and it loved her madly.
The second she kept in her dream.
I don’t want to live at the dorms. That wasn’t the plan.
Plans sometimes can be adjusted.
We can’t do this much longer, Baby. Classes start next week.
Look, the house and I are doing much better already.
I can still hear Bette Midler.
That’s because your headphones are in, the house switched over to Backstreet Boys yesterday.
The day before that it was all Nirvana.
Lydia grinned a little manically, That was a good day.
I think it’s wooing me, Clary said a little smugly.
Allison rolled her eyes,I don’t want you to live in the dorms either, but there’s still time if we jump on it this week and-
I’ll make it work. I’ll apologize to the house. Hey house!? I’m sorry!
I’m working for a vamp, Dawn had been uncharacteristically quiet through the whole debate up until that point.
You always had a way of bringing a room to its knees.