THIS CHAPTER GOT SOOOOO OUT OF HAND! Seriously, so much stuff happened that I didn't even know was going to happen when I wrote it. Honestly, Will and Jem write this shit, not me. Don't blame me. Anyway, this is a part 1 of 2 because last I checked it got up to over 8k words and that seemed excessive for one chapter. So I'll post the other very soon. (Also, I just want to state now that I don't love my portrayal of Jem, but I am working on it, so keep that in mind. I think I may have to reread some TID to get into his head a bit better.)

WARNING: Contains graphic smut. Beware.

Chapter 36, How to get rid of skeletons pt 1:

Jem POV:

I've never cared much for Halloween. My family didn't celebrate it when I was a kid, so I never had trick or treating to look forward to, and then once I was old enough to enjoy the partying and dressing up, it all just seemed stupid and childish. The movies were good though. The last few years I've spent watching marathons of old movies on the 31st. Not like I really had the time or desire to go out and get drunk considering I generally had school the next day.

Tonight though... Tonight there was Will. And he would be dressed up and that's all I really cared about.

I put my costume on (English gent to match Will and because I am too busy and unoriginal to pick out anything else) and went to find Alec.

I had to force my mouth closed when he opened the door.

Shy Alec who never wears pants that aren't at least a size or two too big, or shirts that cling to his body, was in the most ridiculous and sexy outfit I have ever seen him in.

He really must love Magnus because there's no way he'd let himself be convinced to put something like that on for a fleeting crush.

""You said you wouldn't laugh. That's it, I'm changing." Alec misread the reason for my expression and I had to grab his arm to stop him from retreating.

"Don't you dare! It's a grin, not a laugh. There's a difference. I just was not expecting to ever see you in something so..." Hot was the word I was going to end that sentence with, but Alec suggested "Tight" so I went with that. It was too weird seeing him like this. Not that Alec isn't an attractive guy, I've just never seen him put so much effort into it and the result was certainly stunning.

He'd just grow self-conscious and try to change if I pointed it out though, so I changed the subject and we left.

Will's house was transformed for the party and I did not envy Magnus and the cleaning up he would have to perform tomorrow one bit. From what Will had told me, Magnus's friends were not the type to leave a house in one piece after an all-night bash.

Magnus immediately descended upon Alec when we walked through the doorway and I took the opportunity to sneak away and find my boyfriend.

I opened the familiar bedroom door without knocking and walked in, closing and locking it behind me.

"Hey what the-" Will whipped around from his position in front of the full length mirror, looking annoyed. His expression instantly changed though when he saw who it was. "Ever heard of knocking?" He asked, moving nearer to me.

I'm sure there are plenty of smart ass replies to that statement, but at that moment my thoughts were preoccupied processing the image in front of me and not with the secondary task of forming coherent sentences.

Will had on a similar costume to mine, except it was black and white, not grey, and he had no jacket on. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his hair was neatly styled to the era. He put his hands in his pockets and cocked his head to the side, raising an eyebrow and giving me a half smile.

"Cat got your tongue?" He asked casually, giving his voice a hint of family's Welsh accent and sauntering up to stand just out of reach. He licked his lips and I swallowed hard, still trying to remember how to speak.

I find my boyfriend mildly gorgeous on a bad day; on a day like today while he looked like my order from a "build your very own perfect man and dress him up" catalogue, it was just too much.

"You can't wear that." I said, finally regaining my voice. His eyebrows knit together.

"Don't you like it?" He asked, still employing that painfully attractive accent.

"If by "like" you mean equally want to both stare at you all night and rip it off of you and never leave this room again, then yes. I like it."

"That was the reaction I was going for. But if you'd rather I take it off..."

Will started unbuttoning his waistcoat slowly with one hand.

"You are the devil William Herondale."

"How can you say such a thing to a man who has done nothing but try to please you? I believe the word you were looking for is angel." He finished unbuttoning and untucked his dress shirt.

"I'm not that well acquainted with western religions but I'm fairly certain angels aren't supposed to instill the kinds of sinful thoughts you're making me have."

The expression on Will's face made my breath catch.

"Half angel then."

His hands found my waist and I was pressed against the cool wooden door.

"I've missed you." He whispered in my ear. It'd only been three days since we'd seen each other, but I knew how he felt. I craved his presence more than I care to admit.

I was fully absorbed in the warmth of his mouth on my neck when a crashing somewhere in the other room followed by some yelling brought me back to reality.

"Will, the party."

"Sod the party. You're the only company I want tonight." He guided/dragged me over to the bed, pushing me down and climbing on top of me.

I suppose I can indulge him for a little while.

He continued where he'd left off at my neck, letting his hands wander more freely, pushing my jacket off my shoulders. I sat up to take it off properly before he messed it up completely; it was a rather nice coat.

Will took this motion as encouragement to start removing more of my clothing and got all the buttons of my waistcoat undone, despite my weak efforts to stop him.

"William, there is a room full of people out there." I pointed out. It didn't really bother me that much, but we were supposed to be participating in the party, otherwise we could have just done this any night.

"There's like fifteen, tops. It's still early." He said as if that answered everything. I stared at him pointedly, but he ignored me and continued his undressing efforts.

"So impatient..." I tsked, lying back with my arms crossed behind my head.

"Would you prefer if I greeted you with complaints about my day and a cold, closed mouth kiss?" He asked, kneeling over me so that our bodies pressed together and I could feel the extent of his arousal.

His hands stopped their unbuttoning as he waited for a response.

"You can save that scenario for your future wife; for me, this is perfect." I gave up on trying to resist him, grabbing hold of his collar and pulling until our lips crashed together.

My now bare chest (thanks to Will's persistence) was craving to be in contact with his skin, not the fabric of his costume. No matter how delicious he looked dressed up, nothing trumped having him naked, skin to skin, feeling every line and dip of his anatomy and how it fit with my own.

My fingers made quick work of his buttons and soon his clothing met mine in the pile on the floor.

We lay side by side, naked bodies pressed tightly together while we kiss like it had been three months, not three days, since we'd done this last. Will's mouth went to my neck sucking and licking while his hands roamed over my form. I moved my head right as he attempted to bite down softly, making his teeth graze my skin much more roughly than he'd intended.

"Fuck." I moaned before I could stop myself, arching against him and clawing at his back. If he'd been surprised by my reaction he didn't let it interfere with what he was doing. In fact, to my immense pleasure, he bit me again, this time lower, just under my collar bone. It was only slightly harder than usual and probably wouldn't leave a mark, but when I reacted encouragingly he increased the pressure, until causing me to gasp and cry out his name.

He looked at me smugly after that and pushed me onto my back, grabbing the bottle from his bedside table drawer and positioning himself between my legs before continuing his onslaught of soft kisses intermingled with rough bites down my chest. There would definitely be marks there now.

He drew out every kiss and stroke, every thrust of his fingers; teasing, building up both of our desire. He brought his mouth back to mine and his fingers slipped out of me to be replaced by his slick, warm length. I moaned into his mouth and wrapped my legs around him, urging him to go faster, deeper.

Will obliged, reading my body as easily as one of his beloved novels, picking up on every subtle whimper, arch, flinch...

His hands slid under me, angling my hips to go deeper, making me bite my lip in order to keep quiet. He smiled down at me, licking his lips.

By the heavens he is beautiful.

His skin was flushed from our sex, his muscle taut; those sapphire eyes dark with need.

Will's movements soon became less fluid and his hand slid between us to stroke me. I closed my eyes and arched into his touch, my senses on overload from the sensations rippling through me. His thumb rubbed over the head of my cock, slicked with precum.

"God!" I clawed at his back, pulling him closer to me. The change in angle had us both gasping.

"Fuck James," his fingers dug into my hips while he thrust urgently.

My body began its descent into release, muscles tightening in anticipation. Will was right there with me, muttering indistinguishable sentences, mixing languages and sounds until it was nothing more than moans.

We came essentially in unison, the feeling of my orgasm sending him over the edge.

"I'm going to start finding excuses to wear that outfit more often." Will joked, moving to lay next to me while we both came down from our ecstatic high.

"You should."

Will POV:

"Do you work tomorrow?" Jem asked, tracing his fingers lightly over my bare chest once we'd laid back down after cleaning up. He was lying on his side facing me, propped up on one elbow.

"Twelve to twelve. I took off Sunday, but Magnus and I have plans." I had been meaning to tell Jem about them sooner, but it had never seemed like a good time.

Granted, lying in the afterglow of sex while a Halloween party rages on outside your bedroom door isn't really the most appropriate scenario either, but I would have to make do.

"All day?" He tried to cover up the disappointment in his tone, but I could hear it.

"For the most part, yes."

"Oh, ok. Perhaps I'll see you Monday then."

That's it? Accepting defeat so fast?

"You're not going to ask what I have planned?" I asked, turning to face him better. His pale skin contrasted heavily with my dark bedclothes and the way the light hit him accentuated his sharp features, cheekbones, collar, lines of muscles, distractingly so.

"If you want to tell me you will. I don't like to pry." He smiled in a way that told me he was confident I had been planning to tell him all along. Which I had.

Well, here goes nothing. Time to sound like a psycho.

"Do you know what the Days of the Dead are?"

"Kind of. I thought there was only one though, tomorrow isn't it?" He asked uncertainly.

"Tomorrow is All Saints' Day, November second is All Souls' Day, for friends or relatives, anyone else basically." I explained in the Cliff Notes version.

"Oh. Then no, obviously I know nothing about them."

"Well, our first year of school together Magnus and I got stuck with a history project where we had to present on a holiday from a different country. We were both drawn to choosing the Days of the Dead." I'd still been coping with my parents' deaths, even though it had been a few years by that point, and Magnus was searching for a way to honor his mother's memory better.

"Essentially people take food offerings to their deceased loved ones and feast with them to honor their memories and keep the spirits happy. Something about the celebrations just resonated with us so we sort of bastardized the holiday, picking the aspects we liked and adapting them to our specific situations and have been celebrating together ever since. I know that probably sounds really weird..."

Telling him that I go eat breakfast with my dead parents every November second had to make me sound deranged.

"Not at all." Jem reassured me. "The Chinese have a similar holiday but it's in the Spring; the Qingming or the Tomb Sweeping Festival. My parents would take me to the grave of my grandfather every year when we lived there. I was old enough the last couple of years to actually go out and help my father with the more ritualistic aspects that happen before dawn. We moved here when I was ten though and I got sicker so they stopped going back, but my father started going again last year."

"Just your father?"

"My mother is paranoid that something will happen to me while she's away. It's more important for the male head of the household to perform the rituals anyway though." He rolled his eyes when talking about his mother's paranoia, but I didn't blame her. If my choices were fly halfway around to world for my dead father-in-law or stay home for my ill son, it would be no choice at all.

"So you don't think it's strange to go have a picnic in a graveyard?" I asked, just to clarify.

"No. I think it's sweet really. And comforting. To know that when I die I won't be forgotten, at least not immediately; to have someone who cares enough about you and your memory to take the time to clean off your grave, bring you offerings, it's beautiful. In China it's also about pleasing the ancestor spirits so they don't curse you, but I still find it endearing." He smiled thoughtfully, despite the depressingness of the subject.

"Will your parents be buried here or in China do you think?" I wasn't actually curious about his parents, I couldn't care less where they were buried, but I didn't want to ask the question that was really on my mind.

"China. We have a family plot where most of my ancestors are buried. That's where I'll be shipped off to as well. My life is here, but my history is there." He laced his fingers in mine as he answered the unasked question, reading my mind as usual.

I hated hearing him talk so calmly about it. Like he'd planned everything out for a nice long vacation and was just counting down the days until he got to leave. I also hated the thought that if we stayed together until that inevitably, he would leave me, in every possible sense of the word. I wouldn't even have what I have with my parents.

He would be gone.

I sat up and turned my head away, my throat burning with sudden overwhelming with emotion.

"Let's not talk of such things anymore tonight, alright?" He asked, sitting up as well.

I nodded still looking away, unable to speak without revealing my feelings.

"We're supposed to be having fun." He kissed my cheek and turned my head to face his. "Stop thinking about the future William. All that matters is right now." His eyes held mine until I finally nodded in agreement. No more future thoughts tonight.

"Now let's go see what's going on out there."

We ran into a rather lost looking Alec in the hallway and convinced him to hang out, which saved Alec and I both from having to hang out with Magnus's weird friends.

He was surprisingly fun once he relaxed a bit. He also brought out a playful, goofy side of Jem that I hadn't seen before. It was mesmerizing watching them together, acting as if we three were the only ones in the room (and Magnus when he occasionally dropped by). I nearly died laughing when they started doing the Timewarp and was then punished by being forced to join in, even after the song had ended. We eventually exhausted ourselves enough on the dance floor (and annoyed enough people who take their slow songs FAR too seriously) that we retreated to an empty corner to cool off.

In hindsight it probably would have been better to just keep dancing; once Alec's mind wasn't distracted by trying not to fall over, he had time to be upset by the guest list, and the lack of Magnus-time he was getting.

I saw the man in question walking over and was glad for about a half a second until he opened his mouth.

"I need to talk to you for a minute. Sorry Alec, if you'll excuse us." Magnus helped me up and led me over to the opposite side of the room away from the crowd.

"What's going on? You're freaking me out." He was wearing a very solemn expression.

"It's no big deal, I just thought you should know that Tessa's here." He said, opting for the 'rip the Band-Aid off quickly' method instead of the 'ease into it' one.

"What? Why would you invite her? Why would she even want to come?" The questions were coming too fast for my mouth to keep up.

"I didn't. Cam convinced her to go out after they closed the store and didn't tell her they were crashing because she knew I'd feel bad about kicking them out if Tessa was involved too."

He'd been Tess' friend for the last four years as well, and though our break up (and entire relationship) had put a crimp in that, they were still pretty close at work and I know he still talks to her outside of that sometimes.

"Where is she?" I looked around the room, doing my best impression of a drunken owl, but didn't see the tall brunet.

"I think she went to get something to drink."

"In the kitchen?" My heartbeat sped up.

"That is where the cups and ice and drinks are, so yes probably."

"Awesome." I slammed my fist against the wall, demonstrating that it was anything but. "She and Jem are probably getting acquainted right about now."

"I'm sure it's fine, they were hitting it off pretty well the last time, until she figured out who he was that is."

"What last time? They've met? Where the hell was I?" My brain was spinning.

"He and Alec stopped by the store the other day to bring me some coffee. Jem wandered off and I found Tessa chatting him up. It's actually kind of funny if you think about it; you two both having the same taste in men." Magnus laughed for about two seconds until he saw the look on my face.

"I'm going to chalk that comment up to the alcohol you've been drinking because my sober best friend couldn't possibly think that was appropriate."

"Sorry, I'm just trying to lighten the mood. Look, there's a ton of people here, I'm sure you can avoid her." He tried to reassure me.

"Yeah that shouldn't be too difficult, you've been doing it to Alec all night."

"What are you talking about? I've seen him plenty." Magnus looked taken aback by my statement.

"Yeah? Do you even know where he is right now?"

"Of course I do he's right..." He turned back to where we'd been sitting then knitted his eyebrows, looking around. "He's around here somewhere, I'll find him."

"So if you're not ignoring him how is it that I know where he is and you don't?" I'd seen Alec slip outside while we were talking and Magnus's back was turned.

"This isn't about me William, it's about you and your need for closure."

"I have closure Magnus, I just don't particularly want to rehash two years of bad memories. I know this is a hard concept for you to grasp," I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye like I was about to say something extremely important. "But people in normal relationships generally don't enjoy spending an evening with their ex, especially when their current boyfriend is in the room. Not only is that incredibly awkward for Tess and me, but what about Jem? I mean, have you even bothered to put yourself in Alec's place tonight and considered how uncomfortable this must be for him?" My speech had gotten convoluted, but it apparently made at least a little sense to him.

"Fuck."

Magnus looked light I had hit him over the head with a lamp. That was a resounding 'no'. The idea probably hadn't even crossed his mind that his current boyfriend might not enjoy hanging out with a bunch of his ex-lovers. Which would be understandable if he was dating someone more like himself, but he should have taken into consideration the type of person Alec was.

"I should probably go find him. Do you want me to tell Tessa to leave before I do?"

"No, I'll figure something out. I just really don't want to deal with this tonight." I rubbed my temples, starting to feel fatigue creeping up.

"Or ever." Fair point. "Look, you've moved on and she's mostly over it. You guys used to be best friends before everything went to shit, can't you try to move past it?"

"You really think she'd want to be friends with me again after what I put her through? I'd want to stab me."

"She still cares about you Will." He said softly.

"I know. That makes it all the worse. It would be so much easier if she hated me. Then I could be content with us never speaking again. Why does she have to make me feel so goddamn guilty?" Why was he still making me talk about this; I just wanted to go back to my room now and hide until she left.

"Oh I don't know maybe because you strung her along for two years, lied to her, hid things from her, and then dumped her with a note and haven't spoken more than ten words to her since? Could any of those be why? Or maybe because you're more happy with a person you've barely known for two months than you were with someone everyone thought was your perfect match and you don't know how to cope with that?" I could tell I was trying his patience.

"For a drunk man you're very philosophical tonight."

"It's what tequila does to me. I can't help it." He shrugged theatrically.

"Well you should shut up and go find your boyfriend. I don't need your bullshit analyses right now."

"Fine. Where is he?" He huffed, finally giving up on our conversation; thank the angels.

"Your bedroom." I'd just watched him hurry back inside from the porch and practically run down the hall.

Magnus gave me a quick hug and told me not to make a scene the scampered off to retrieve Alec.

For anyone living under a rock, the Timewarp is from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.