floriography [ stories five ]

the marks you've made || shadowhunters/mortal instruments au

[ instead of trying too hard for this au,,, i might not be trying hard enough
title is a song by anthony amorim

⚠️- language, blood and gore, demons, weapons, etc

stay safe,
lew. ]

——————

It was a typical occurrence for Lewis to witness and/or get into fights daily at school.

Given, when you're training to hunt and kill demons, fighting is a standard part of the curriculum. The betting on your classmates bit wasn't exactly procedure, but...

"Dammit!" Chase shouted, bringing her hand down on the table she'd been sitting on. "I thought you'd have him this time, Logan!"

Logan, who'd just been slammed into the floor by Ezra, rolled his eyes as he sat up. "Fuck off. I'm distracted today, all right?"

"Is it because Harry and his family are coming back from Idris today?" Lewis asked, holding his hand out to Chase. She groaned, but gave him the promised five dollars. He hated betting against Logan, but... he needed a new guitar amp and betting with Chase was as good a method as any to get cash.

Ezra snorted, arms crossed over his chest. "He's just waiting on Harry so they can go f—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up." Logan waved him off, finally getting to his feet again. "You're up, short stuff."

Chase glared at him as she got up, throwing off her leather jacket as she faced off against Ezra. "If you pull my hair out again, I'm gonna castrate you in the middle of the night," she warned the much-taller teen.

Logan joined Lewis off to the side, watching as the two practically feral of their group went at it. Chase was full of reckless abandon, and while Ezra normally had a plan, he too was impulsive and ruthless while fighting.

"Who's gonna win?" Lewis found himself asking, sparing a glance down at the botany book on his lap.

Logan studied the two, not flinching at the loud expletives exploding from Chase's mouth constantly like Lewis did. "Ezra. He always kicks her ass."

Lewis nodded, hands trembling a bit as he closed the book and set it aside. "There's a hierarchy here. Ezra and you are about even, Chase and Harry, Harry's sisters, then me."

Before Logan could respond, the pair watched as Chase went flying, off the mat and a little further than she really should've been able to. Ezra had a nasty grin on his face, accompanied by a large bleeding scratch that Chase must've managed.

Lewis got up to check on the younger girl, while Ezra took the stele Logan offered him. He traced over the Healing rune on his arm, tossed the stele back on the table, then said, "Since I don't think the plant fucker is going to step up and fight me, I'm out of here."

Lewis rolled his eyes, kneeling beside Chase and pulling his own stele from his pocket. She groaned, though, and pushed him away. "I'm fine, I'm fine." She sat up slowly, head in her hands. "Hey, Ez, tell your warlock fuckbuddy I said hi."

Instead of offering a response or explanation, Ezra just left, slamming the training room door behind him. Logan joined the other two on the floor, slightly pushing Lewis to the side to focus on the girl. He lifted her head, examined her eyes for a few moments, then tentatively told her, "You might have a concussion. You hit the floor pretty hard."

It took her a few moments to respond. "I'm fine. My head just hurts a little bit and maybe my ribs too. I dunno."

Logan stuck his hand out, and Lewis wordlessly handed over the stele. As he began to draw the runes on her skin, he said, "One of these days you'll beat him. You just need to pace yourself better."

"Whatever," Chase mumbled, wincing slightly as he finished the Mark and it sunk into her skin. "I'm gonna take it easy for the rest of the day. Get me when it's dinner time. Or when the Brooks clan gets home." She shakily got to her feet and left, leaving the door wide open.

"So..." Logan started, handing back the stele. "Do you want me to help you on your fighting techniques or do you want to see where Ezra's going?"

"Don't you wanna be here when Harry gets back?" Lewis asked timidly, looking away to tuck the item back in his pocket.

"But don't you wanna know where Ezra's always sneaking off to?"

"I don't think we should. He'd probably get super pissed. I was gonna go finish studying the—"

"That's just an excuse! You already know all the plants in that book, just like I already know all the Healing runes. Come on, Lew."

"Do whatever you want, Logan. I'm not chasing after Ezra."

——

Really, it wouldn't have mattered at all if the pair went chasing after Ezra or not. He was long gone by the time either of them made a decision, heading towards one of his least favorite parts of town.

The ragged-looking building had a sign above the door that read 'Wolf's Den', but appearances can be incredibly deceiving.

He knocked on the door, and when it cracked open just a bit, he stuck his foot in the gap. "I'm here to see the warlock again."

The werewolf boy at the door opened it the rest of the way to allow him in. This pack was slightly more tolerant of the Shadowhunter presence than most were. And the warlock was often here because of injuries or other general things.

Bailey the werewolf lead Ezra through the rooms, babbling on about nothing in particular until they reached the door to the office typically reserved for the warlock when he was here. It wasn't really any fault of the pup, but Ezra didn't give a shit. When his hand rested on the door handle, he sighed and snapped, "What are you still doing here? Go."

And Bailey, the poor child, whimpered as he left.

Ezra opened the door, fully expecting there to be another annoying werewolf in his way. But the only other person in there was the one he wanted to see, the one that was nearly enough to take his breath away.

He looked to be about eighteen, but, as you know, appearances are deceiving. Time meant almost nothing to them. Some of his kind had slitted cat-eye pupils, wings like oil spills erupting from their shoulder blades, webbed fingers, tails— something to mark them as unholy, an abomination.

This warlock had slightly luminous skin, and abnormally sharp teeth. Ezra had to admit, even if it was only to himself, that he nearly preferred the nip of those teeth to the nip of the stele tracing Marks into his scarred skin.

——————

[ me, banging pots and pans together and crying loudly because the mortal instruments books remind me of elementary school and being 12/13 bc that's when i started reading them and now i'm being hit by a ton of nostalgia

and now i have to hunt down a few pdfs of companion books bc there's one that has 'told in the language of flowers' literally in the title and then there's just?? so much interlocking shit i have to go through before i can get to the stuff i rlly wanna see ]