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“Magnus, get the lights!” Alec called eagerly as he settled himself in the blanket fort he’d built with his best friend.
“Got ‘em!” Magnus called back, and seconds later, the basement was plunged into darkness. “Spooky,” Magnus said, inching closer to the entrance to the blanket fort.
“Shut up, you’re not going to scare me again,” Alec grumbled.
“Are you sure? You jumped pretty high the last time.”
“You said we could forget about that!” Alec whined, folding his arms across his chest petulantly.
“I said we could,” Magnus replied. “I didn’t say we would.”
Alec groaned and settled back against the pillows they’d set up inside. Despite their teasing, there were several glow-in-the-dark stars plastered to the “ceiling” of their fort, and while Magnus pretended he just liked the way they shined, Alec knew it was for him.
His easy acceptance of Alec’s ridiculous fear of the dark was one of the many reasons Alec loved Magnus so much.
Magnus scooted closer until he was laying on the pillow next to Alec, his hands folded behind his head. Alec thought, with the illumination from the stars painting him in yellow hues, that Magnus’s eyes, deep brown though they were, looked a bit golden.
“Thanks for having me over tonight,” Alec said warmly, bumping his shoulder against Magnus’s. “I know you didn’t have to.”
“Nonsense,” Magnus proclaimed. “My best friend wants to get away from his parents for a little while and I’m supposed to, what, say no?”
Alec’s lips curved upwards into a lopsided grin and he said, “Still, thank you.”
Magnus reached over and brushed a piece of ebony hair off of Alec’s forehead. “Of course, Alexander. You know you never have to thank me for something like that.”
Alec sighed and pulled one of the many blankets littering the floor up to his chin. “Yeah, I know.”
All was quiet for a few minutes before Magnus rolled over to face Alec and said, “So, d’you want to hear a ghost story?”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“Aren’t they, though?” Magnus countered. “I think they’re real.”
“You think everything from Bigfoot to the Loch Ness Monster is real, Mags,” Alec scoffed.
“That’s because they are!” Magnus replied, affronted. When Alec rolled his eyes again, Magnus rose up on his elbows and declared, “We’re going to get you to believe in ghosts tonight, Alexander.”
Alec snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“Nope, I’m serious,” Magnus said, and he bounced to his feet, offering Alec a hand up. Alec reluctantly took it and allowed Magnus to pull him to his feet. Magnus grabbed his hand and began to drag him out of the blanket fort.
“Uh, where are we going?” Alec asked in utter bewilderment as Magnus led them over to a cabinet in the dark. He tried to focus on the tight grip Magnus had on his hand rather than the darkness that was surrounding them, pressing in from all sides.
“Here,” Magnus said, and shoved a flashlight into Alec’s hand. Alec switched it on gratefully. The little globe of light illuminated the cabinet in front of them, where Magnus was reaching for an additional flashlight and what looked to be a digital camera.
“Come on,” Magnus said when he had both the camera and the flashlight in his hands. “We’re going ghost hunting!”
Alec raised an eyebrow. “Seriously, Mags?”
“Yes, seriously!” Magnus exclaimed. “Like I said, we’re going to get you to believe in ghosts tonight.”
Alec made a sound of disbelief. “Sure you are.”
Magnus smirked, the corners of his lips lifting in a way that had no right to be so ungodly attractive. Alec swallowed hard and forced himself to look away. The pair wandered upstairs, leaving their blanket fort behind in the basement. Magnus stopped by his mother’s room to ask permission to go outside, and then lead them into the forest that bordered his house.
“What are we doing here, Magnus?” Alec grumbled. “It’s cold.” Magnus shrugged his jacket off without a thought and offered it to Alec, who immediately shook his head. “No, what about you - ”
“I’m not the one complaining that they’re cold,” Magnus said with a raised eyebrow. “Take it.” Alec reluctantly obeyed and put on the warm, too-big jacket, huddling into it further under the pretense of gaining warmth. It smelled like sandalwood and Magnus’s cologne, and he took a deep inhale without thinking.
“I’ve been out here lots of times before,” Magnus declared, snapping Alec from his thoughts. “There are ghosts here.” He sounded so sure of himself that, for a minute, Alec almost believed him.
“I’ll believe it when I see one,” he said. Magnus smiled and took his hand again, leading them through the woods with practiced ease.
“Then let’s go see one.”
The two wandered for a few minutes, stopping every once in a while so that Magnus could shine his flashlight in the direction of a suspicious noise, only for him to make a disappointed sound when it ended up being an animal running through the underbrush. Alec grew less and less convinced as the night wore on that ghosts were anything more than a figment of a few people’s overactive imaginations.
Alec wasn’t sure how far they’d gone into the woods when Magnus stopped suddenly, so suddenly that Alec almost ran into him. “Wha - ” Magnus cut him off quickly by placing a finger over his lips. Alec blushed and fell silent.
Wordlessly, Magnus pointed to the trees in front of them. Illuminated in the glow of Magnus’s flashlight, Alec thought he saw a flash of white. His eyes widened.
Magnus met Alec’s gaze excitedly and crept closer, holding tight to Alec’s hand. Alec felt his heart leap into his chest as they drew nearer and nearer the shape that seemed to be moving in the globe of light cast by Magnus’s flashlight.
When they were a few paces away from it, Alec’s hand tightened in Magnus and his breath caught in his throat. The only sound he could make was a strangled, choked-off whimper. There was definitely something moving behind the trees and it was definitely not any sort of natural colour. There was no other explanation.
“Now do you believe me?” Magnus asked. He was grinning like they weren’t nearly face to face with an actual ghost and Alec was left to wonder just how many times Magnus had actually seen a ghost before.He distinctly remembered getting a call from the other boy at midnight quite a few times, a call where Magnus would talk excitedly for nearly an hour about seeing an apparition in his woods and Alec would do his homework, pausing every once in a while to tease Magnus. Had he been kidding, or were there really that many spirits out here, with them?
“Come on,” Magnus whispered. “Don’t just stand there. Let’s see if we can get it on camera!” With that, he was stepping forward and pushing back the branches without hesitation, raising the camera and -
“ARGH!” Alec let out a strangled scream at the sight of actual eyes blinking at him from beneath a white sheet. He tumbled backwards and would have fallen, had it not been for Magnus’s quick action. Alec tried his hardest not to blush as Magnus’s arms wrapped around his waist just before he hit the ground.
“You could have just told me you were falling for me,” Magnus whispered in Alec’s ear, his voice husky and teasing. Alec swallowed hard and extracted himself from Magnus’s arms with some difficulty. He could worry about his frustrating feelings for his best friend later. Right now, he had two delinquents to deal with.
“Jace? Izzy? What exactly do you two think you’re doing?”
“Scaring you, obviously,” Isabelle responded, flipping her hair over her shoulder and smirking up at Alec. Jace grinned, too, gathering up the white sheets the two of them had been wearing and throwing them into the backpack he was carrying.
Alec whirled around to face Magnus, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Did you know about this?”
“No!” Magnus replied. “I’m innocent, I swear!” Alec narrowed his eyes, and Magnus lifted his hand to heart in a gesture Alec was all too familiar with. “Cross my heart, hope to die. I had nothing to do with this, nor did I have any prior knowledge of the little stunt your siblings were going to pull.” Despite his words, a little smile was quirking at the corners of Magnus’s mouth, and Alec knew that, even if he truly hadn’t known about their plan, he was certainly amused by it.
Secretly, Alec was, too, but he couldn’t just come right out and admit that.
“You two are supposed to be at home!” he scolded his siblings. “What if Mom and Dad wake up and find out you’re gone?”
“Please,” Jace scoffed. “They won’t. Dad drank himself half-dead again and Mom’s on the warpath. She’s too busy plotting her revenge against those people from yesterday that dared to tell her she’s not always right to even notice we left.” He rolled his eyes.
Alec sighed. He couldn’t be too angry at them. After all, he too was in Magnus’s woods to escape their parents.
“Alright,” Alec said. “You’re not grounded, this time. If I ever find out you two snuck out again, neither of you will have a computer for a week.”
Izzy groaned and threw her head back with long-suffering dramatics. “You’re such a buzzkill.”
Alec couldn’t help the little smile that crept onto his face at her words. “Yup, that’s me.”
Jace and Izzy moved out from behind the trees, Izzy hanging back to talk to Magnus, Jace falling in step with Alec.
“Did we scare you?” he asked, shoulder-checking Alec with a grin. “Bet we did.”
“You did not scare me,” Alec scoffed.
“Lies,” Magnus spoke up from behind them. “He jumped a foot in the air. I had to catch him so he didn’t fall on his ass.”
“Ha!” Jace exclaimed triumphantly. Alec turned around and glared at Magnus, mouthing ‘traitor’, to which Magnus responded with a wink that made his heart skip a beat.
Before long, the group arrived back at Magnus’s house. Magnus, after checking to make sure the coast was clear, opened a window into the guest room and helped Jace and Isabelle through. Alec tumbled in after them, followed shortly by Magnus.
“Please don’t cause any more trouble tonight,” Alec said to his siblings. “Mrs. Bane doesn’t know you’re here, because you shouldn’t be here, so let’s please keep it that way.”
“Yes, Mother,” Jace said, rolling his eyes.
Isabelle yawned and said, “Don’t worry, big brother, we’ve had our fun.”
Alec nodded in approval. “Good. Come on, let’s get you all tucked up in bed.” With that, he began to fix the two guest beds for Jace and Izzy - turning down the sheets, plumping the pillows, and even grabbing a stuffed bear from the corner of the room for Izzy.
“I’m twelve, Alec, I don’t need to be tucked in,” Jace whined.
“Shut up and let me kiss you goodnight,” Alec grumbled, pulling the sheets around his younger brother and planting a soft kiss to his forehead. Jace made a show of groaning and trying to turn away, but Alec could see the smile on his lips and knew that his brother appreciated the gesture more than he would ever say.
“Alec,” Izzy whined from the other bed. “Come tuck me in!”
“Getting there, Iz,” Alec laughed. He brushed a few strands of Jace’s golden-blonde hair away from his forehead and left his bed for Isabelle’s. She grinned as he sat down next to her, carding his fingers through his hair.
“Night night, Alec,” she said, with a childlike innocence that made Alec’s heart constrict. “Love you.”
“Night, Iz,” Alec replied, his voice soft with poorly veiled fondness. “Love you, too.” With that, he dropped a kiss to her forehead and slid out of the room after Magnus, shutting the door gently behind him.
“I love how good you are to them,” Magnus commented as he and Alec made their way downstairs to the abandoned blanket fort.
Alec tilted his head to the side curiously. “What d’you mean? I’m just being a good big brother.”
Magnus shrugged. “Not everyone in your situation would be.”
Alec raised an eyebrow. “So what, I’m just supposed to abandon them because our parents suck? I’d never do that.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Magnus replied. “That’s one of the things I love about you, Alexander.”
Alec blushed and peered down at his feet. He tried to remind himself that Magnus didn’t mean it the way he meant it, Magnus didn’t feel the way he felt, Magnus didn’t love him the way he loved Magnus.
“Alexander? What are you thinking about?”
Alec looked up and immediately flushed bright red at the concern in Magnus’s dark brown eyes. Magnus reached for Alec’s hand and intertwined their fingers without a second thought. It made Alec’s heart hurt, because it was such a simple gesture, just something that his best friend was doing to offer comfort, but to him, it was so much more.
Magnus tugged Alec into the basement and they made their way into the blanket fort from earlier, abandoning their flashlights outside. The sight of the glow-in-the-dark stars eased something in Alec, and he settled in against the pillows, still holding tightly to Magnus’s hand.
Magnus frowned and reached out to touch his best friend’s cheek. “What is it?”
Alec shook his head. “It’s nothing, Mags. I promise.”
“Clearly it’s something,” Magnus argued. “You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset,” Alec replied. “I was just thinking about some things, is all.”
Magnus hummed and stroked his hand through Alec’s hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about? It can’t be changed.”
“You don’t know that,” Magnus insisted. “Maybe you just think it can’t be changed.” He was quiet for a minute or so, obviously hoping that Alec would speak up, but when he said nothing, Magnus continued on. “Is it about your parents?”
“No,” Alec answered immediately. “No, it’s not about them.” He sighed and turned on his side, facing away from Magnus. “Just leave it, okay?”
“No,” Magnus said firmly, gripping Alec’s shoulder and preventing him from shuffling away from Magnus. “Not okay. You’re my best friend, and I don’t want to see you hurting!”
“That’s why I’m hurting!” Alec blurted out. Magnus recoiled as if he’d been slapped, and Alec’s eyes widened when he realised what he’d said. “Wait, shit, no, Magnus, I didn’t mean - ”
“I think it’s pretty clear what you meant,” Magnus bit out harshly, the hurt evident in his voice. He climbed to his feet, dropping Alec’s hand like it’d burnt him. Alec reached for him, but Magnus was already on the outside of the fort by the time Alec had gotten to his feet.
“Wait, Magnus!” Alec cried, crawling out of the fort after him. He heard Magnus’s footsteps heading towards the stairs, and he chased after them desperately. “Magnus, please, wait - ”
“Why, so you can tell me some more about how much being my best friend is hurting you?” Magnus snapped, and Alec could hear the tears in his voice. The sound of them made tears of his own begin to well up, and he reached for Magnus in the darkness, groping blindly until he caught his arm.
“Please, Magnus, that isn’t what I meant at all,” Alec explained in a rush, chest heaving. Now that they were outside of the blanket fort and the protection of the glow-in-the-dark stars within, Alec could feel panic creeping up his throat, threatening to choke him and turn his words to dust. But he had to get them out, had to say them, couldn’t let Magnus think the reason he was upset was because there was something wrong with Magnus.
No, he had it all wrong.
There was something wrong with him.
“Magnus, I said that because I want to be more than your best friend,” Alec choked out through the panic that was acting as a vice around his heart. “I want to go to prom with you, I want to kiss you behind the bleachers, I want to be with you, Magnus. Please, it’s nothing to do with you at all. It’s me. It’s all me.” Alec broke off with a sob, the tears from before spilling over and sliding down his cheeks in traitorous lines that he didn’t have the energy to try and stop.
Only a few seconds passed before Alec felt strong arms wrapping around his waist, pulling him close, hugging him tightly.
“Shh, it’s okay, Alexander,” Magnus promised. He hesitated, sniffling and bringing one hand up to card his fingers through Alec’s ebony hair, matted with sweat from their outdoors adventure and the adrenaline of the past few minutes. “It’s alright, I promise. We can talk about it in a minute, get everything worked out. For now, I need you to calm down, okay? Can you do that for me?”
Alec exhaled shakily and shook his head against Magnus’s shoulder. “D-Dark…” he gasped out, clutching the fabric of Magnus’s t-shirt.
Alec could tell the moment realisation dawned on Magnus, because he tightened his arms around him and immediately started maneuvering them back towards the blanket fort. Alec stumbled along beside him, shaking and clutching his shirt so tightly that the fabric bunched in his fists. He could feel the darkness pressing in on him from all sides, suffocating and full of unknown things, so many fucking things, and they were all looking to hurt him, and oh god, he wasn’t going to make it out of here alive and -
Magnus tugged him into the blanket fort so forcefully that they both stumbled and ended up sprawled atop the pillows, awkwardly crushed together in a hug that wasn’t quite a hug, limbs splayed at awkward angles. Magnus rolled off of him, giving him space to breathe, and grabbed his chin, forcing it upwards.
Alec’s breath caught in his throat at the easy act, and he focused his gaze on the glow-in-the-dark stars, reminding himself that they were there, that everything was fine, that it wasn’t dark and Magnus was here and he was safe. Beside him, Magnus turned on his phone flashlight, the bright LED adding to the lighting in the blanket fort. Alec took a deep breath. He was okay. Everything was going to be okay.
...except it wasn’t.
Alec’s eyes snapped up to meet Magnus’s, and Magnus must have seen the fear there, because he immediately reached out to soothe the other boy. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s fine,” Magnus said, placing a light kiss to Alec’s cheek. “You are completely fine, I promise.”
“B-But you - I - ”
“Alec, did I ever say I didn’t feel the same way?”
The words Alec had been about to say died in his throat and he blinked up at Magnus, uncomprehending.
“I don’t believe I did,” Magnus said.
Did that mean…?
“Yes,” Magnus answered his question, and Alec realised that he must have spoken out loud by accident.
“You - but I - ”
“Alexander, you’re perfect for me,” Magnus cut him off. “You always have been. Even when we were just friends, acquaintances even. You knew me. You got me in ways that no one else ever could or even tried to. You stayed with me. You didn’t give up on me, even when I came out to you as bi or told you about my dad and what he did to my mom and I. You stayed, Alec. Through everything, you stayed. There’s nothing I value more.”
Alec looked down, worrying his lip between his teeth. “I - do you really feel that way?”
“Of course I do, silly,” Magnus said softly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I’m not who you think I am,” Alec protested, his voice tinged with sadness and self-loathing. “I’m not perfect. I’m not even good. I’m - I’m nothing.”
“First of all, I didn’t say you were perfect, Alexander,” Magnus replied. “I said you were perfect for me. As in, I love you and all of your flaws, scars, dreams, aspirations, wishful hopes that you just can’t hold back on the phone to me at four in the morning.” Alec felt tears rise to his eyes again and chuckled wetly. Magnus continued on. “You are perfect for me. You know me better than anyone else in this world and I tell you things that I wouldn’t share with anyone else in my life. Of course I feel that way.”
The tears began to spill over, and he hastily wiped them away with the palm of his hand before Magnus could see. Magnus, of course, spotted them anyway and began to stroke Alec’s cheek with the pad of his thumb, brushing away the remnants of his tears.
“I’m so glad,” Alec muttered. “I, gods, Magnus, I’m so glad to hear you say that!” His eyes were still glassy with tears, but they were now sparkling with something much lighter, too.
Magnus chuckled and pressed himself closer to the other boy. “You’ve just made me so fucking happy, Alexander.”
Alec grinned and pulled back just enough to peer into Magnus’s eyes. “Does that mean I can have a goodnight kiss?”
Magnus laughed and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to Alec’s lips. “There you go.” Alec felt warmth flood his body, and he moved closer to Magnus, tucking himself underneath the other boy’s chin. He smiled and placed a light kiss to Magnus’s hand, still intertwined with his own.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow, right? What all this means, what we’re going to do now?”
“Of course,” Magnus reassured him. “Promise. Come on, let’s go to sleep.” He smiled sadly at Alec. “You’ve had quite the eventful night.”
Alec laughed softly. “Yeah, we both have.”
“Let’s get some rest,” Magnus said, his arms tightening around Alec, “and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“Agreed,” Alec mumbled.
The last thing Alec heard before sleep came to claim him was Magnus, whispering to the glow-in-the-dark stars.
He was thanking them for granting his wish.