The Business Trip

Chapter 1

Alec sighed, he and Jace were on their way to Ohio to check out a disturbance and it was a long flight. Now, there are a lot of things wrong with this sentence, Jace didn't have the attention span to sit on a plane. Alec gave a quick chuckle at this thought. They would usually never go farther than Edison for a job, but since the waters were currently calm at the New York institute, and the Ohio one was severely understaffed, Alec and Jace decided to take this one. After everything that's happened, they needed to get away from all the drama and spend some quality time together as brothers, parabatai. As for why they are taking a plane, Magnus was out of town on 'Business', though Alec didn't exactly know what that meant.

"What's so funny?" Jace asked, a board look on his face.

"The thought of us on a plane," Alec said, still bemused by the idea.

Jace let out a dry laugh, "Yeah, shadowhunters using mundane travel," he shuddered, "At least I get the window seat."

"Yeah, anything to keep you entertained and quiet," Alec muttered.

"Im sorry, what was that?" Jace asked, jokingly.

"You heard me," Alec responded, "Your like a child on caffeine."

Jace laughed, he had missed these moments with Alec. Ever since Clary, and Magnus too for that matter, had come into their lives, they hadn't hung out and laughed like they used to, just enjoying each others presence. Not that either of them were a bad thing, especially to the two who loved them, but Clary and Magnus definitely took away a lot of their brotherly bonding time. "Oh, and what about you Mr. 'I'm grumpy and sarcastic with everyone but my warlock boyfriend'."

Alec rolled his eyes, and Magnus was the eccentric one, "Don't be ridiculous, I'm not grumpy with you, usually."

"Yeah, only 5 days of the week," Jace smiled.

"Hey," Alec pointed at him, "That's 2 less than everyone else," He tried to keep a straight face but ended up smiling, which made Jace laugh, which in turn made Alec laugh until they were both in hysterics with no idea what was so funny.

After they calmed down, they just smiled at each other knowingly. The words didn't need to be said, they both already knew, that's what the Parabatai bond meant.

"Please return to your seats and buckle up as we are now going to start the decent, we should be arriving in Fort Wayne Indiana in 20 minutes," The captain said.

"You heard him, buckle up," Alec said somewhat sarcastically.

Jace rolled his eyes, "Day 4," He muttered.

After taking a bus from the airport to an old warehouse in Lima, Ohio where one of the many Ohio institutions was located, they were very exhausted. Mundane travel was awful, and though they didn't have to pay, or be checked by the handsy guards because of their stealth runes, it was still an experience they could have lived without.

"Well, never doing that again," Jace said on the way into the institute.

"Yeah, how are you planning on getting home?" Alec asked, being a wise-ass.

"Doesn't this institute have a warlock on-call?"

"Yes, we do," Said a woman, looking extremely unamused, "So why, prey tell, are two Lightwood's in my institute?"

"Uh, didn't Idris tell you we were coming?" Alec asked.

"Yes, but I don't see why we couldn't have handled it, its just a disturbance. There was no need to send two shadowhunters from New York," She was not happy.

"Well, we're here now so might as well put us to work," Jace said, he had a habit of making friends.

"Well, we got wind of a powerful downworlder at a local High School yesterday, but we haven't had the time to check it out yet. Not to mention that we have no idea who or what they are, or even how many of them there could be. I don't like the idea of going in blind, armed to the teeth and easy to spot with no idea what your up against, and no one here for backup if you get caught in a bad situation," She went on and on, after a while Jace kind of tuned her out. Alec, on the other hand, was listening intently like he did to authority members. Most of the time.

"So, what we shouldn't go and investigate?" Jace asked, fed up with her voice, "Did we come all the way down here for nothing?" He asked. He was going to continue until Alec shot him a look.

"On the contrary, I think that you two came at the perfect time. At the moment, our youthful shadowhunters are on assignment, and the rest of us are either too old to blend in, or too young to be in the field alone," She spoke, expecting them to understand what she was saying.

"Okay, and?" Jace asked, still not getting the point.

"No," Alec groaned when he realized what she wanted them to do.

"What?" Jace asked again.

"In this situation, it is the best way I can see to handle this matter, and if you don't like it you can go back to New York, but I run this institute and you need my permission to go on any missions within this area. So whats it going to be?" She gave them a 'you-better-not-complain-to-me' look.

"When does school start?" Alec sighed with disgust.

"Excuse me?" Jace said, hoping he had misheard him, but knowing that what he said was true.

It turns out mundanes get about as much sleep as shadowhunters on weekdays.

"7:00 AM is an ungodly hour!" Jace protested, "I mean I know we usually get up at that time, but to start school at thattime. That would mean waking up at 5 and actually putting effort into work."

"Whats wrong with you, you never complain this much about a mission, and we always wake up early," Alec stated with a hint of annoyance in his tone.

"Yeah but thats to train, it doesn't take much effort to kick your ass," Jace said, receiving a glare from Alec, "And, this is by far the worst mission we have ever been on."

Alec couldn't really argue with him there, going to a mundie school, there was no good way to spin that. "Yeah, and I thought fatty tuna sounded degrading, try shadow hunter high school student," At this, Jace gave a shudder.

"We are going to have to come up with a story about what happened here because no-one can know about this," Jace said.

"Agreed, we'll think of something on the way back home. Why did I let you talk me into this again?" Alec asked.

"Because Magnus was out of town and neither of us could stand Izzy for another second," Jace reminded him, Alec nodding at the mention of his overly hyper, nosey sister, "I swear, Im going to find the stupid mundane who introduced her to coffee and give him an all expense paid weekend at the luxurious, 5 star hotel Demort," Jace promised to no-one in particular.

Alec laughed. "Well, its already 11, and seeing as we have to be up early, I say we go to bed." They were sharing a room at the Lima Institute, the room operantly belonged to another set of parabatai, but they were out on assignment and wouldn't be back for at least another week.

"Dont remind me," Jace said as he fell on his bed and screamed into a pillow.