Author's Note: Okay, so I don't know how many of you got to the end of City of Glass and said "Hey, wait a minute," but if you did, you can join my "Hey, wait a minute" club. If you read the part about Clary screaming at Jace, and the part where Magnus is almost a thousand years old and wants to date a seventeen year old and thought to yourself, "Sure, right, uh huh," you can also join my "Sure, right, uh huh" club.

I was not even a fan of Jace and Alec until I read another fanfiction that was mildly focused on them, and I had an epiphany in which I thought to myself "Wow, I did not know that would be so hot." If you're curious and have not read it, I highly recommend Deceptions and Seductions by gaymeninthetrenches. It's a fun read.

So anyway, the Mortal Instrument series doesn't belong to me, and I wouldn't want it to, either, because then I would be in possession of the copyrights to the worst book on tape ever. That would be embarrassing for me. Almost as embarrassing as writing stories about other people's books. That would just be ridiculous and sort of pathetic (PS, THIS MEANS I THINK I AM RIDICULOUS AND PATHETIC).

Also, while this chapter is pretty tame, THE REST OF THIS STORY IS GRAPHIC. If you are a minor, or against "that sort of thing" or have a bad case of the Cranky Old Mans, then I recommend you click the Back button and we'll never speak of this again. Deal? Awesome.

A final warning: this first chapter is goofy and fun. The rest of the story? Sexy, dark, dramatic, and depressing. Because that's how alcohol is. Anyway, for those of you who were not jamming the Back button while you read, I hope you all enjoy the story. The smut is already written and waiting to be posted, so stick around for fun.

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Jace swallowed the whiskey, hard. It no longer burned as it ran over his tongue and poured down his throat, and the corners of his mouth were no longer pulled down reflexively when his taste buds tried to tell his brain exactly what it tasted like.

The music in the bar thundered loudly, making his ear drums ache and his chest vibrate unpleasantly with the beat. Behind him, people packed like sardines in a can writhed against each other, sloshing drinks and ice cubes all over the floor. He closed his eyes for a moment, but it was impossible to pretend he was anywhere else.

Next to him, Alec was rolling between his hands a drained glass filled with mint leaves, ice, and crushed limes. Jace leaned onto his elbows and turned his face to look at his best friend.

"Y'want another?" he asked Alec, lifting his hand at the bartender and raising his eyebrows when she made eye contact.

"Mmm," Alex mumbled, sliding the glass aside. "Probably."

Jace asked the woman for another whiskey and "some fruity minty shit for the fruit."

"Mojito," Alec corrected him with a sigh. "For the man with the broken heart."

"Uh huh." Jace's voice was flat. They sat in a dejected silence until the bartender returned with the drinks. Jace lifted his glass. "To bitches."

"Bchz," Alec agreed.

"Of all genders, ages, occupations, and familial relationships," Jace concluded before tipping the glass to his lips and draining the glass.

"Be they stupidhead magician fancy pants pedophilic fickle unfaithful DOUCHE BAGS or… or… Clary," Alec announced, tipping his own glass back in a mimic of Jace so that the drink and mint leaves spilled down his shirt. He coughed and wiped his face, peering down at the mess on his black button down shirt.

"I'm not her brother," Jace informed them both, jabbing one finger at Alec's wet chest. Alec looked as though perhaps he was underwater, and also slightly cartoonish, so Jace felt the need to poke him again, just to make sure he was real. He smothered a laugh when Alec swatted at his hand, missing it completely.

"Nope."

"Even if she wants me to be!"

"Nope."

"I'm not gonna call her Sis! Not in bed or in the kitchen!"

"Nope."

"But you know what?" Jace asked, waving at the bartender again. "I'm gonna forgive her. For the forty-seven stitches in my head."

"Yer a big man," Alec told him, and when the bartender put down more drinks, quickly swapped out the whiskey with the rest of his mojito. He quickly drained the glass as Jace picked up the mojito and began to drink it.

"This whiskey's fucking good," Jace marveled, looking at the glass. "She put something in it. It's green. Maybe it's spinach."

"Maybe," Alec mused. "Do you have a phone?"

"A phone?" Jace echoed vacantly, squinting at the glass, still puzzling over what was in it.

"I'm going to call him," Alec said, getting to his feet. "I'm gonna tell him that he's a… stupidhead."

"You told him that already."

"When?" Alec demanded.

"Like, twenty minutes ago. When you called him and told him that you gave him herpes."

"That was a lie," Alec said in a stage whisper. In the cacophonous and chaotic bar, his voice carried surprisingly well.

"Yeah, you told him that already too, right after you started crying."

"Fine!" Alec snapped at Jace, who was pulling some of the mint out and sticking it in his mouth experimentally. "Then I'll go call Mr. Slutty McSeventeen-Year-Old-Slutface!"

"Good idea," Jace said around the mint. He chewed thoughtfully. "I don't know… it sort of tastes like spinach…"

"It's mint, you jackass!" Alec threw his arms in the air, looking extremely harried.

"Mint doesn't go in whiskey." Jace gave him a scornful look. "Don't you have a teenager to harass?"

"Fuck yes," Alec replied, turning. "I'm gonna tell him Magnus will never love him like he loved me. And then I'm gonna tell him about the herpes. And then I'm gonna tell him to watch his back. And then…"

"I do not care," Jace said loudly and emphatically, fishing out a lime and gnawing on it. "This definitely isn't spinach. Should we be writing this down? I don't wanna forget it tomorrow."

"You wanna call Clary with me? Isabelle said drunk dialing is a great way to soothe a Thavage Breatht. Thavage. Thhhhhavage. Savagggge. Savage." By the time Alec said it correctly, Jace looked ready to smack him in the face. Instead, he set his chin on one hand, elbow on the counter.

"Which one is the savage one?" he asked Alec mournfully. "Is it me? Is it her? She told me I was crap in bed and that I sound like a jackhammer when I sleep. And then she threw an ashtray at the back of my head when I turned to leave. So I called her a whore, and she tried to gouge my eyes out with her thumbs."

"Your sister is totally psychotic," Alec said with a sigh, shaking his head.

"SHE'S NOT MY SISTER!" Jace wailed, dropping his head to the bar and dropping the lime.

Alec hesitated, looking at the phone and then back at Jace, face down on the counter. Then he sat back down on the barstool and put his hand on Jace's back.

"Hey. I'm sorry."

"Whatever." Jace sat up, his face flushed red with emotion. "It would be better if we were siblings. Then she might not pick so many damn fights with me."

"Sure she would," Alec said with a frown. "They'd be different fights, like who's hogging the shower for two hours, and whose turn it is to feed the evil pet raven, and who Mom loves more, and who stole whose glittery pink miniskirt."

"You don't have a glittery pink miniskirt," Jace pointed out, reaching into the glass and pulling out a cube of ice. He stuck it in his mouth and began to chomp on it loudly.

"Magnus did," Alec said, and for a moment looked like he might cry.

"I don't think he could get any gayer. Unless every full moon he transformed into a lesbian."

"That'd be pretty gay," Alec agreed tearfully. He sniffled once and Jace waved his hand at the bartender for another round. He handed Alec the whiskey, frowning when Alec reached for the mojito.

"That's my fruity spinach shit."

Alec took the whiskey and knocked it back with a grimace before handing Jace the empty glass. The music playing in the bar had changed to a techno beat, and as Jace slowly drained his glass, a female voice began singing.

"They only want you when you're seventeen. When you're twenty-one, you're no fun."

Jace glanced sideways at Alec. His best friend looked pale for a moment. Not overdramatic sad, not alcoholic melancholy, and not Greek tragedy; Just really and truly broken. Like everything else was just a cover for the aching emptiness inside of him.

"That's why, isn't it?" Alec said, and Jace could barely hear him over the music. At first he didn't understand what Alec was talking about, but when his eyes flicked up to the speakers over their heads, Jace realized he was referring to the song. "He's got a thing for kids."

"You don't know that," Jace replied, as the bartender set a bowl of pretzels on the bar in front of him and walked away. He picked one up. "I mean, maybe you two just weren't meant to be."

"THIS SONG IS THE STORY OF MY LIFE!" Alec wailed, and Jace jumped, almost relieved to see the melodrama back on Alec's face.

"Huh," Jace mused, "and all this time I thought it was 'Dick In a Box.'"

"I don't know, is there a line in that song about dirty Polaroids and dirty back rooms and dirty old men pretending to be young?"

"Alec, this song only has two lines and neither of them make any sense," Jace said dubiously, popping the pretzel into his mouth. "If it's the story of your life, then you are a complete loser."

"I," Alec said, sitting up straighter, "am not a loser. You are."

"I didn't date someone who owned rainbow leather pants." Jace raised his eyebrows emphatically.

"She only wants you when it's forbidden," Alec began singing along with the song in off-key monotone. "When you're not her brother, you're no fun."

"You're such a prick."

Alec stood so that he could pick up a glass of vodka that was sitting, ignored, in front of the woman next to him, and gulped it quickly, stepping away from the bar casually. It made his head swim and he put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment.

"You're so drunk," he told Jace as he opened his eyes.

"I am?"

"I mean, I'm so drunk," Alec corrected himself, shaking his head quickly. He laughed once, then stopped. He looked at Jace and began laughing again, but harder; so hard that he sat down sharply on the floor, laughing hysterically.

Quickly Jace stooped and grabbed his elbow, yanking him back up to his feet.

"Alec, people are staring," he said under his breath. "They're gonna kick us out if you act like a moron."

"I need to piss," Alec mumbled, and began stumbling toward the bathroom at the back of the bar. Jace considered accompanying him, but thought better of it when Alec began giggling again.