"Alec!"

He was welcomed to their usual table with a piercing shriek courtesy of Izzy, who grabbed his arm and pulled him down between her and Magnus, where they sat with the rest of their motley crew.

"Hi, Izzy." Alec greeted her, making sure that she hadn't unbalanced anything on his tray with her exuberance. "Nice to see you too. What's up?"

She gave him the filthiest look she could muster. If looks could kill.

"How can you ASK that?!" She cried. "You know what today is!"

Alec was still confused.

"Sure…um…" he looked around helplessly. Will, Jem and Tessa were in their own little world as per usual, Jace was preoccupied with the food in front of him and Clary and Simon were sniggering at Izzy's expression. "Today is…"

Magnus winked at him on his other side and mimed ballroom dancing, throwing his arms out dramatically, making Clary and Simon choke on their mouthfuls as they burst out laughing.

"Er, right. Homecoming was announced?"

"Yes!" Izzy clapped her hands in excitement.

"Cool. What's the theme?" He picked up his slice of pizza and took a large bite. "Ow!" he exclaimed as his shoulder received a hard blow.

"Oh, bro." Jace laughed, shaking his head.

Izzy looked horrified. "Alec! Do you walk around with your eyes closed?"

"Give him a break, Izzy." Will smiled good naturedly. "You are way too excited over this thing."

"This thing? This THING?" Izzy now directed her death glare at him – a weaker man would have quailed. "This thing is the biggest dance of the YEAR, bar Prom! Am I the only one excited about getting to dress up and look fabulous?!"

"You are not, my dear." Magnus leaned in, grinning. "I, for one, am exceedingly excited – but then, I do look fabulous every day, so it's not really going to be any different for me."

He ducked as Clary sent a bread roll flying toward him.

"Yes, we are excited Izzy." The redhead spoke up. "But to be honest, I think that Simon here is the most excited." She winked at him and he flushed scarlet.

Alec hadn't noticed the big grin he'd been sporting when he sat down, but he saw now that Simon looked more flustered than usual.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"The theme," Izzy cut in "is James Bond, and what's going on, is I already have myself a dashing date." She grinned at Simon, while Will, Jace and Magnus cat-called.

"What?" Alec cried, astonished.

They'd all known that Simon had been in love with Izzy since the moment he'd set eyes on her on their first day over a year ago. None of them had thought, however, that he would ever have found the guts to ask her out, or that in the unlikely occasion that he did, that she would actually say yes.

But now that Alec was looking between them, Izzy's dark eyes unusually bright, he wondered how they'd all missed the signs of her reciprocating Simon's feelings.

"When did this happen?"

"Oh, Alec." Izzy sighed in exasperation. "It's already midday! The announcement was three whole hours ago! You can bet that most people have dates already. In fact, we all do, except for you!" She frowned at him as though his lack of a date to a dance that had been news for three whole hours was the saddest, most disappointing thing she'd ever heard.

"How do you know I don't have a date?" Alec was affronted. Magnus raised his eyebrows as Izzy looked at him, sceptically.

"Do you?"

"Well, no…"

"See!"

Alec sighed. "Alright, I give. Who's everyone going with then?"

It was a rhetorical question, really, and slyly directed at Magnus. Obviously Jace and Clary were going together; they'd been attached at the hip since they'd started dating. Will, Tessa and Jem all had a thinggoing on that nobody questioned. They were sort of all together but not...it wasn't technically official, but none of them dated anyone else. Alec wasn't sure the three of them even knew exactly what they were, but it seemed to work for them. And now, apparently, Simon and Izzy were dating. Everybody knew that Magnus had been seeing Axel, but nobody had met him yet and Alec didn't know how serious it was.

"I don't know if I have a date yet." Magnus announced, and Alec's heart flipped.

Everyone on the table swivelled to stare at him, questioning. He grinned smugly, loving the attention. He dragged out the silence, pretending to be oblivious, splaying his hands to critique the smooth black polish he had on today.

"Well?" Alec asked when he could bear it no more. "What about Axel?"

He missed the way Clary switched her gaze to him.

Magnus sighed theatrically.

"Axel is del-icious, I do admit." He drawled, in a seductive tone. "But I just don't know if he's the one!" He slumped to the table in mock exhaustion.

Everyone but Alec burst out laughing at his theatrics.

"Magnus." Tessa smiled, shaking her head. "Nobody is going to be the one if you don't give anybody a chance."

"And we haven't even gotten a chance to meet the poor boy." Jace complained. "You have to have a good reason to write him off, like for example, how he swoons when he sees how much better all of this" he motioned to his body "is than whatever you've got hidden under there." He waved a hand at Magnus' flamboyant outfit, which today comprised of a bright silver silk shirt tucked into dark green pants that clung to his body, showing off his lean figure.

Alec had long since mastered the art of surreptitiously checking him out, though he had to admit, Magnus didn't make it any easier when he insisted on wearing such tight clothing.

Clary shot a reprimanding glare at Jace, thumping him on the arm as Magnus winked at him.

"Oh he's seen pictures and trust me darling, he really wasn't that impressed."

Jace clutched his heart in mock offense.

"Ok, ok!" Izzy called them all to order. "Magnus, I don't know what the hell you do with your love life, and quite frankly, I don't care."

"Izzy!" Alec shook his head apologetically.

"He knows I mean no harm Alec! All I mean is that Axel or no Axel, he will have a date, so I don't have to worry about him."

"She's not wrong." Magnus agreed, self-depreciatingly.

"So," Izzy continued. "Do you know who you're asking?"

Alec felt a surge of horror, turning wide eyed to his sister. He tried to communicate with her telepathically; Izzy. What the hell are you doing.

She ignored him, and suddenly all the attention was on him.

"I – uhm…I don't want a date." It sounded lame, even to him.

"That's fine Alec." Jem came to his rescue, as he flushed in hypocrisy at his own words. "You don't have to ask anyone." He shot Izzy a look, one that he always gave her when she overstepped her boundaries. Aka – often.

"Are you sure there's no-one you'd like to ask..?" Clary trailed off, suggestively.

Alec shot her a confused look. "I'm sure."

Magnus was uncharacteristically silent beside him, but he didn't dare catch his eye. He needed his blush to fade.

"It's ok bro." Jace said. "I'll set you up."

What.

Alec now turned his horrified look upon his adoptive brother, who was wearing the same grin he wore whenever he and Will were up to no good.

Once upon a time, a look like that would have had Alec's heart racing, but now, he just wanted to strangle him.

"I don't need setting up Jace." He said dangerously. Why wasn't lunch over yet?

"It's no trouble, dude." Jace winked. "I'll get you a cheerleader!"

"Alec doesn't want a cheerleader." Simon cut in, sarcastically.

"Thank you, Simon."

"He wants someone he can actually have an intellectual conversation with, and I know just the girl!" Simon continued and Alec's face fell. "She's in our art class, and she's great. Smart, pretty." He nodded at Alec. "You'd look so cute together."

"Cheerleaders can be smart, dude. Don't be sour just 'cause you never had any luck-"

"Fine, ok, they can be smart. But this girl is perfect for Alec-"

Alec glared at Izzy again as Jace and Simon argued back and forth and this time, she had the grace to look ashamed.

"Um…its ok guys, you don't have to do that." She cut in quickly, trying to backpeddle the mess she'd gotten Alec into. "Everyone knows I'm the best at matchmaking, I'll find him the best date there is!"

I'm sorry!She mouthed at him.

Alec just groaned. Izzy what have you done.He knew she only ever meant well, but right now, she'd thrown him deep into a hole he wasn't sure he could climb out of.

He closed his eyes and tuned them out for the rest of their lunch period as they argued over who was going to find him the best date.

.

Alec and Magnus were sprawled on the floor of Alec's bedroom and surrounded by a mound of books, sheets of paper, pens and pencils. Only a month into the school year and they were already besieged with homework.

Alec sighed as he flipped through his journal, realising how much more he had left to do. They had already been at it for two hours.

"Bio is going to be the death of me." He stated, pulling a thick textbook toward him.

"Alec, you're going to be pre-med. I plan on you surviving through college, at least." Magnus winked playfully.

"Oh, and why's what? Because you need someone alive to drag your sorry ass through to graduation?" He grinned at the boy lounging next to him. He was partially joking; Magnus was even smarter than Alec, Alec was first to admit. But he didn't care as much about grades (correction: his parents didn't care as much about grades) and had dedicated his academic success thus far many times to Alec, who always made sure he got his assignments in on time.

Magnus grinned at him. "Well you're the only one I'd let drag my ass anywhere, so yes, Lightwood, that is why."

Alec flushed. He was well used to Magnus' flirting by now, he flirted with everybody. But sometimes it was hard to tell himself that he didn't mean anything by it.

"So," he said in a conversational tone, looking back to the book in front of him. "What about Homecoming, eh?"

"You mean Axel?" Magnus deadpanned.

Damn. He always saw right through him. Sometimes Alec couldn't believe that he'd managed to keep his crush a secret for so long. Magnus was usually so good at reading people. He'd heard somewhere that people saw what they wanted to see though. And he'd long since come to terms with the fact that Magnus just wasn't interested in anything more than friendship. He'd had plenty of opportunities through the years, opportunities he'd taken with every other person he'd been attracted to. Alec knew that Magnus thought he was straight, but that hadn't stopped him before. He'd always been wildly confident. He didn't mind getting shot down but he always gave it a go. With everyone but Alec.

"Well, I was assuming that you'd bring him. Then we could all check him out. See if he's good enough." He poked Magnus swiftly in the side, where he knew they boy had a weak spot.

Magnus jumped at his touch, smiling. "You don't have to worry, he's not going to hurt me. I – I actually was thinking of ending it. So yeah, I'm not sure about Homecoming."

"Oh, really?" Alec's heart jumped again and he cursed himself.

"Yeah…he's just…not quite what I'm looking for." Alec couldn't discern the tone in his voice.

"I didn't realise you were looking." He flipped through a couple of pages, looking for the topic they'd been studying.

"I'm not." Magnus said cryptically, sounding amused.

Alec sighed. He knew better than to delve deeper. He didn't want to know about Magnus' love life anyway.

"What about you, anyway?" Magnus changed the focus. "It seems our friends are in no way overbearing or inappropriately invested in the lives of others!"

Alec suppressed a grin, shaking his head ruefully. "I want to strangle them all."

Magnus laughed. "I can understand why you wouldn't want to announce it at lunch – it'd be all over the school by fourth period – but is there anyone? That you'd like to ask, I mean? You can tell me." He ducked his head conspiratorially.

This time Alec couldn't stop the blush from spreading across his cheeks. He wanted more than anything to say yes. He wanted to be brave. He wished he were the kind of person who could easily admit their feelings, throwing caution to the wind, risking everything. If he were, he'd sit up, look Magnus straight in the eye and ask him. If the answer was yes, great. If it was no, he wished he would have been able to not let it break him. But he knew that it would.

So he refused the urge to look at Magnus, staring intently at the page in front of him.

"No. There's no-one."

He hoped that Magnus would mistake the redness of his skin as embarrassment for being hopelessly, perpetually single. Or a shyness for the subject. Either way he picked up his pen and started his work, marking the end of their conversation.

He didn't see the intense, indecipherable look in Magnus' eyes, or the pursing of his lips before he looked away and continued with his own work.