Author's Note: I don't want to say a lot and take away from this fic. It was written after I read Clockwork Prince and starts towards the beginning of the book, when Will, Tessa, and Jem travel to Yorkshire and this scene in particular does take place in Yorkshire. I'm not sure where to go with this story, but I have some ideas, it's just a matter of everything else going on with my life settling down enough to allow me to be a good human being WHILE writing stories. This rating could go up to M, it all depends on what I get into as far as plot.

This story contains the pairing of Will/Jem and Will/Magnus, as well as light, slashy smut. DO NOT READ IF THIS OFFENDS YOU AND DO NOT FLAME ME FOR IT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters. This is a work of fiction based on the characters in Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series. No money is being made on this work. This is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. I will accept critiques but not flames. Reviews are most definitely encouraged. Please enjoy!

Constant Craving

Chapter 1

When Will walked into Jem's bedroom, he found the silver haired boy sitting beside a small window which let in a cool, damp breeze. Jem should have been asleep. The trip to Yorkshire had taken much of the day and once there, they had seen the room full of ghastly spoils which caused each to react in their own way. Tessa had nearly fainted and had to be taken away, something Jem struggled to recover from. He and Will had seen spoils before, and even knew how ugly the business of spoils could be, but had never anticipated the revulsion which came with seeing such a vast collection. Will had needed a drink once the viewing was finished.

Jem was dressed in his nightclothes already, a pair of flannel pants and a dark shirt that must have belonged to Will at once point but had been pilfered from Will's closet. The silver haired boy was reading book by the light of a single candle and looked up only when Will pushed the door closed and locked it.

"Congratulations are in order, I would presume," Will said, "In regards to your… engagement?" Jem snapped closed the book he was reading as Will walked over. Seeing no other place to sit, Will flopped onto the bed, stretching his long legs out, waiting for Jem to say… something?

"Did you have a better plan?" Jem asked. He brushed some hair away from his eyes and studied Will. "We couldn't very well say that she is a mundane who decided to travel with us. That's not right or proper."

"But it's right and proper for you to say she is your fiancée?" Will asked. His voice came out more pleading than expected. Jem's eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch, but his face showed no other indication to Will's pain. "What if she believes that you want to marry her? What if she thinks you could be together… forever?"

Jem looked down at the floor, clearing his throat. Will studied him, his jaw set, his eyes feeling hot with something. Jem couldn't promise Tessa forever any more than he could promise Will forever.

"You care for her, don't you?" Will asked. "I saw you, this evening. You care for her."

"I care for her the same way I care for you," Jem said. He stood up and tossed his book onto the bedside table. The candle on the windowsill cast long shadows on the wall. Will thought back to a very cold night, the plaintive cries of a boy caught in a nightmare, the rough fabric on an upholstered arm chair, a sweaty hand in his, and a single candle burning, the only light left in a dark room. They had come so far together. "Will, where were you tonight? We're guests here. It was impolite for you to sneak out after dinner."

"I went down to the tavern, where I had a few drinks. On my way back I was accosted by a lovely young girl who decided to show me all that Yorkshire had to offer. It would only right that I take all she had to offer," Will said.

Jem smiled ruefully, knowing the truth yet not wanting to say it. He was always good with Will at being dishonest at all the right times. Jem knew how Will spent his evening, at the end of a lonely bar, one drink in his hand all night. Will could have stayed in, pilfered Starkweather's liquor cabinet, and be drunker than he was now, but Jem knew Will always had a need to escape and come back when he was ready.

Will reached into his pocket, brought out a cinnamon candy, and tossed it to Jem. Jem opened the wrapper of the candy and popped the red disk into his mouth. He looked down at the floor, at his bare feet cold against the floorboards. "You care for her," Will said again.

When Jem looked up again, his eyes were wide with fear, and something else, something Will couldn't identify, not then, anyway.

"When she fainted in the spoils room, I was so scared, William, so very scared," Jem said, his voice just above a breath. "I might know now… how you could care about me so deeply. You love me, Will, and every time I'm hurt, or I get sick, a part of you dies, and it eventually comes back to life, but for a moment there, that part is… dead."

"That's morbid," Will said.

"It is the truth," Jem said. "I know Tessa didn't die, but seeing her in anguish like that… it felt like death, William." There was silence in the room broken only by Jem's soft and quiet breathing.

"I know how that feels," Will said. He stood up and took Jem in his arms the way he used to whenever Jem was scared. "You're frightened, aren't you?" Jem closed his eyes and rested his face against Will's shoulder. Will kiss him gently on the forehead, moving the soft hair aside to feel the boy's hot skin against his lips. Jem clutched at Will's shirt tail, searching for skin and comfort.

"Love makes me afraid," Jem whispered. "To love someone is to set yourself up to one day lose them, and for them to lose you. I never knew, Will. I never fell in love before…" Will sighed and looked heavenward, thanking the Angel despite already knowing this. Jem loved Will, yes, but not in the way Ella did, or even Tessa could have. There was no danger to Jem loving Will, for Jem would die having never learned of the curse.

"I love you," Will said. He ran one hand through Jem's hair and the other down Jem's chest to the top of his flannel pajama pants. "Do you want me to show you how much I love you?"

Jem smiled, the first proper smile Will had seen on his lips in some time. He reached up and opened the top buttons of his shirt before he pulled the shirt over his head. Will pulled away, if only to removed his shirt and undershirt. They fell together onto the tiny, quilt covered guest bed with Will's arms around Jem's body. Jem moved his hands down Will's sides, touching his ribs. All of the places that should have felt ticklish instead ached for Jem's eager grabs and gentle caresses. There was a need they had for one another. In the same way they needed to breathe, they craved the closeness they only had with one another.

"My undoing," Jem whispered against Will's lips.

"My sin," Will replied.

The cinnamon candy in Jem's mouth had dissolved quickly, leaving behind a spicy sweet scent that only heightened once Will joined his lips to Jem's. It had been far too long since they were together like this, what with Tessa and Mortmain and with all of the change happening at the Institute. Will hadn't felt the bare skin of Jem's chest against his own in nearly a month, yet it felt as though he and Jem were meant to be together this way. They knew each other's bodies perfectly, the scars each had endured, the painful healing time spent together. Jem's body was the same broken and weary body Will had nursed back to health time and time again. Tonight, in Will's arms, Jem felt strong and healthy, as if nothing bad could ever happen to him, but had things had happened, and might continue to happen.

There was a scar across Will's lower back from the talon of an awful demon. No one ever saw the scar, save for Jem. Will was the only person who saw the white lines across Jem's torso from another time Jem almost died. Their bodies were near replicas of Marks placed in the same spots by one another. After their first Healing runes were drawn by Henry, it was only one another who applied runes to their bodies behind closed doors, in times painful, passionate, and frightening. Jem's body belonged to Will in the same way that Will's body belonged to Jem.

When Will pressed his thumbs into the muscles between Jem's hips, he knew that Jem would gasp against his lips and move his lower body closer to Will's lower body. Jem knew that whenever he ran his fingers up Will's spine with hardly any pressure at all, Will would shiver, and he did, his body not fighting to get away from Jem, but rather moving that much closer. It was like this always, as it always had been. Some things between them never changed.

Jem pulled away first, laying back onto the covers of the bed, his eyes smiling as his face remained serious. Will untied the drawstring of Jem's pants, pulled them down, and tossed them onto the floor. Jem slid his nimble fingers down Will's chest to the button on his trousers and quickly relieved Will of them. Then there was more skin on skin, heat on cold sweat as Jem tried to end up in the same place Will was pushing him towards. Jem spread his knees, inviting Will closer, his fingers running hot trails up and down Will's back. Will groaned as his arousal seemed to build without any sort of relief in sight. Their lips became painful against one another's as their bodies, slick with moisture, moved together. Jem ran his hands up and down Will's body, across his chest, pulling him close, begging him, silently, for something, anything.

When it was over, they lay together in the dying light of the flickering candle, barely covered up with a sheet. Will had his arms around Jem's body, his lips to the middle of Jem's back, knowing they couldn't fall asleep together, not even here in Yorkshire. Only silence remained between them, where before, there was heat and passion and Will whispering "I love you, James? Did you know that? I love you."

"You should go to bed. Big day tomorrow," Jem mumbled. He lifted Will's right arm to his mouth and kissed it on the wrist, right over the rune they both shared. Jem was always the voice of reason, the one to say they should be careful when Will wanted to be anything but careful. "I could only imagine what might happen if old Starkweather caught us in bed together."

"Maybe he wouldn't be so unkind to Charlotte if the shock of two boys naked in bed caused him to die of shock," Will mused. Jem climbed out of bed and found his pants which he pulled up over his hips. Will sat up, running his eyes up and down the boy of the boy who was closer to him than a brother, a boy he knew so intimately, he wasn't sure where he ended and that boy began. Jem's back was to Will, his actions already intent of sending Will on his way, always the voice of reason. "You know, if the Clave knew I was in love with you, they would tear us apart."

"Then maybe my being with Tessa is for the best," Jem said. He dropped his shirt over his head and turned to Will. "Right?"

Will shivered as a cold feeling settled in his chest. This was heart break, finding out that what he wanted was nothing like what Jem wanted. It was a cruel twist: to have happiness in sight, only to have it snatched away by the one person he could never say no to.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading, please review!