Rating:Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:M/M
Fandom:Shadowhunters (TV)
Relationship:Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood

Characters:Alec Lightwood,Magnus Bane,Maryse Lightwood,Isabelle Lightwood,Jace Wayland,Clary Fray,Raphael Santiago,Luke Garroway,Maia Roberts,Simon Lewis,Lilith,Catarina Loss,Madzie (Shadowhunters TV),Original Characters

Additional Tags:Angst,Grief/Mourning,Abduction,Murder,Infanticide,Immortality,lots of happy stuff like that,Background Maia Roberts/Jace Wayland,Background Luke Garroway/Maryse Lightwood,Background Clary Fray/Simon Lewis,Background Raphael Santiago/Isabelle Lightwood

Part 3 of the One Easy Answerseries

Begin at Chapter One

Read on AO3

Summary:

In the wake of Dot’s death, Max’s murder, and Robert’s betrayal, Alec and Magnus and the Lightwood family try to find a new normal. But the wish Izzy made to Raziel on the shores of Lake Lyn is a dangerous secret that too many people know, and Alec isn’t certain he came back to life the same as he’d been before.

Meanwhile, as Alec awaits the fallout from his ultimatum to the Clave, Magnus and the other leaders of the Downworld factions try to work around the terms of the Seelie Queen’s deal with the warlocks and werewolves to build a lasting peace between the Downworld and the New York Institute.

**For the time being, this fic will be updated once a week, on Monday.

I’ll be tracking the tag #TDTfic on Twitter if you want to tweet about it. Or you can @ me. @MalecCrazedAthr

I apologize for the delay between chapters. Posting every other week has been a compromise, because between the #SaveShadowhunters campaign, health issues, and family and financial crises, I’ve been having a really hard time getting back into writing this story. Unless something changes soon, the next chapter I post will be the final one in my buffer. I will continue to try my best. In the meantime, if you want to know some of what is going on with me personally that is causing the delay, check out my tumblr.

My strong, beautiful girl.

Alec could remember the words clearly, even in his dreams.

My son has wanted a sister so desperately. He’ll be so happy with her.

It was one of his first memories, playing in the hallway outside his parents’ bedroom. He couldn’t remember the other sounds from that day. Surely there must have been a great deal of activity and bustle, cries of effort from Mother and encouragement from the medic who was there to assist if any trouble arose and to keep Mother’s iratze rune activated to relieve the pain.

He’d been too young to really register all that, though. He remembered the medic’s arrival, and then an eternity of entertaining himself in a household too busy to pay him any mind.

Hearing the first squall of his baby sister? That he remembered.

My precious daughter. Mother’s gentle croon was strange, unfamiliar, but thick with emotion, low and loving.

With a yell like an Iron Sister’s battle cry, the amused medic was supposed to reply. Alec looked up from his toys, frowning when she didn’t follow the familiar script.

It’s time for the ceremony, Mother said instead, and dread and alarm filled Alec’s chest.

No. No, this was all wrong. Baby Izzy was too young for her rune ceremony. Even Alec wouldn’t get his first rune for another six or seven years.

He flung his toys aside and began pounding on the door of the bedchamber.

Stop! Stop! He tried to scream, but his voice came out as a breathless squawk. She’s too little! You’ll hurt her!

The cries of the baby in the next room went silent, and never resumed. Soon, it was Mother’s sobs he heard instead.

“Izzy!” Alec jerked and nearly fell off the leather sofa. It took a moment to re-orient himself and remember where he was.

The living room of the loft. It didn’t appear to be much past dawn; the light creeping through the balcony doors was gray and the sky outside leaden, promising rain.

“Alexander?” Magnus’s groggy voice drifted from the bedroom. Alec ran a hand through his hair, feeling it standing up at crazy angles, and rose from the sofa to pad barefoot across floor.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he replied from the doorway. Mouse was on the bed beside Magnus, watching warily from Alec’s own spot. When Alec drew closer, she arched ran away.

At least she hadn’t hissed at him this time.

“You’re up early,” Magnus observed, scratching his ribs and yawning. “Restless night?”

“Sort of.” He sank down onto the edge of the bed next to Magnus’s hip. “I didn’t want to disturb you so I went out to the living room and I guess I fell asleep again.”

“I must have been tired to not notice you leaving the bed,” Magnus murmured, slipping his fingers through Alec’s.

“Sorry I wasn’t here to do this.” He leaned over to brush his lips across Magnus’s, and quickly found himself drawn down atop Magnus, struggling to get the covers out from between their bodies without letting go of each other. Alec groaned when Magnus’s hands delved under the hem of his t-shirt to grasp the bare skin of his back, blunt fingernails scoring lightly.

Until just a few weeks ago, until Magnus, the concept of ‘skin hunger’ wasn’t something that had ever had any particular meaning for Alec. He hadn’t known it was possible to miss something so completely he wasn’t even aware of missing it. But Magnus’s touch had quickly become something more than just a pleasure.

It was utterly and wholly necessary. As essential as oxygen or food or sleep. How he’d survived so many years without it, Alec couldn’t fathom.

Touching Magnus like this, the feeling of disconnection, the sense of being out of step with the world around him, faded for a while. The rasp of Magnus’s goatee against his jaw, the whisper of his clothing as Magnus tugged it from his body, the scents of sandalwood shampoo and night sweat and morning breath and musky arousal, all grounded Alec in some inexplicable way, made him feel real.

Especially once they were skin-to-skin.

Later, as he lay between Magnus’s thighs with a heavy breath warming his scalp and Magnus’s rapid heartbeat thudding under the sweat-slicked skin beneath his cheek, Alec wished desperately they’d had the other week they’d intended for their honeymoon, if only to make it possible for this sense of rightness to linger.

“What time did you get up?” Magnus murmured, voice resonating weirdly under Alec’s ear.

Alec frowned. “I don’t actually remember. We’ll just go with your ‘witching hour’ theory.”

“Not sure it’s a theory, really. Just an observation.” Magnus’s fingers danced lightly up and down the damp skin of Alec’s shoulders. He took a deep breath and Alec could feel him hesitating before speaking again. “It was around 3 a.m. when you found Max, wasn’t it?”

“I guess.” Alec rolled away, the bottom falling out of his gut because he’d forgotten Max for a short while. He pulled the covers over him, needing what dubious armor they could offer. “How long does it take?” he asked after a moment of chewing on the words.

“For what?” Magnus turned onto his side to face Alec, tucking his hand under the pillow beneath his head.

“Until it stops ripping a hole in you every time you think of someone you’ve lost.” Alec clenched his fists around the sheet pulled up almost to his chin. “I mean…you’ve had experience with that. I’ve been lucky, I guess, especially for a Shadowhunter. I haven’t really had anyone close die yet, except for my grandparents and I hardly remember them.”

Magnus’s throat clicked as he swallowed hard. “Oh, yes, I’ve definitely had that experience. Many, many times.” A thread of bitterness embroidered his tone and he fell silent for a long moment, breathing steadily in and out, each breath a little slower than the last. “Well, I suppose it varies. On a multitude of factors, particularly the strengths of your support system. How stable you are at the time of the loss.”

“Well, I’m good with the first. The second one, though…” Alec sighed and let his head roll to the side until he looked at Magnus instead of the season.

“We’ll get through it, Alexander.” Magnus reached over, his hand sliding into Alec’s, lacing their fingers so that they were palm to palm. His voice grew shaky. “My advice to you is not to try to rush it. Let it happen. Sometimes what follows is even more devastating.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I saw you lying there that night, what I felt… I wasn’t sure I’d survive it or if I wanted to. I wasn’t sure I could go through it again. And it’s not the first time I’ve felt that way. There have been other losses where I thought, this is it, this is the one that will finish me. Then it’s not, and in some ways, that’s worse. The day you wake up and you realize that yes, you will survive it…it’s awful. It makes you feel disloyal, makes you question everything you ever felt. You wonder, can you truly have loved that person as much as you thought you did, if you can just move on? That’s the worst part of the process, that day when you know you can let go, even when you swore you never would.”

He was my baby brother, he wanted to say. He was a Shadowhunter in my Institute. I was supposed to protect him.

But Magnus knew all that, of course.

“Is that how it is with losing Dot?” Alec asked instead.

Magnus shook his head, sighing. “No. I had months to mourn her before she was ever gone. Her actual death simply felt like the conclusion of the process, and the fact that it was her choice made it easier to accept. Ragnor…some days I still struggle with that one. Thinking someone will be around forever and then they’re not…”

He pressed his hand over the faint scar on Alec’s chest left by Valentine’s crossbow bolt. “Neither of us have been left unscarred by all this, have we?”

“No,” Alec whispered, and drew Magnus’s hand up to his face, pressing a kiss to the back of it.

After they’d showered, Magnus tended to some pressing correspondence from various clients that had arrived while he and Alec were on holiday, drawn out of his study only by the smell of breakfast cooking.

He found Alec setting the table, with Mouse perched on the arm of the sofa, watching him warily. When Alec glanced in her direction, she darted away.

Magnus sighed wistfully, remembering how gentle and sweet Alec had been the night brought the cat home to Magnus the night before their wedding, and how Mouse had readily adopted him as herhuman.

“Is that French toast I smell?” he asked brightly, forcing a little more bounce into his step on his way to his chair.

Alec managed a wan smile as he took his seat. “It’s one of the few things I can make, but Madzie liked it.”

“Young children are notoriously tough food critics, but usually anything that can be drenched in syrup is a big hit.” Mouse ventured closer again, drawn by the scent of food. Magnus conjured a small dish of cream and set it beside his chair.

“Well, if it’s terrible you can just magic away your memory of it,” Alec murmured under his breath, so quietly Magnus might have missed it if the coffee cup halfway to his mouth hadn’t acted as a small echo chamber.

Magnus set down the fork he’d just picked up.

“You’re still troubled by the request your mother made of me.” He covered Alec’s hand with his own. “You don’t need to be. I would never take your memories without your consent.”

“I know.”

Then what’s this about? Magnus wanted to demand, but he swallowed the question down in favor of something less confrontational.

“Do you? I wouldn’t blame you if you had doubted.” Magnus stroked the back of Alec’s fingers idly. “I…try not to look back very much. Or forward, either. When you live for centuries, worrying too much about the future, or an inability to let go of the past, becomes a liability. Anxiety and regrets could easily become an unbearable burden. But what I did for Jocelyn, with Clary…capitulating to that request is not something I’m proud of. Jocelyn had a way of swaying people, and I agreed that raising Clary someplace Valentine would never think to look for her was a sound idea, so I went along with it. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably make very different choices.”

Alec sighed and bowed his head over his plate, the lines of his posture as weary as they’d been before they’d left on their honeymoon. Maybe even more so. Had he been resting at all?

“Magnus, my reservations weren’t because I’m afraid you’d steal my memories. You asked my permission before we went to Idris, I trusted you wouldn’t do it again without permission. And maybe, to protect Izzy, I’d even agree to it. I just—”

He swallowed audibly, his mouth working around words that seemed lodged in his throat. Magnus didn’t attempt to fill the silence, but simply waited for Alec to find what he needed to say.

Finally his hand clenched into a fist beneath Magnus’s palm. “Look, if we get so entrenched in denying anything happened that we convince ourselves nothing did happen, we’re at risk of missing warning signs that something is wrong. With me.”

“So far there are no proof that anything is wrong. Everything you’ve experienced…”

“…Can be explained by other factors. Yeah, I know. Grief can be causing my bad dreams a-and…and trauma is what’s making everything feel foreign, and you just can’t redo a parabatai bond, and the damn cat is only being fickle.” His other palm smacked the table, making the flatware jump on their plates.

Mouse’s claws scrabbled at the flooring until she found enough traction to streak away.

“Oh, I can’t even imagine what else might be putting her off,” Magnus deadpanned.

Alec gave him a narrow look, his lips pressed into a tight line. “My point is, when do we stop rationalizing things away on a point-by-point basis and start looking at the bigger picture?”

“You’re assuming too much on too little evidence, Alexander.”

“Am I? Or am I just putting together the pieces everyone else is determined to bury?”

“No one is burying anything. You’re looking for fantastical explanations where simple ones will suffice!”

“You said yourself there could be consequences—”

“And if there are, we’ll deal with them, but right now you’re just borrowing trouble!”

“That’s easy for you to say.” Alec’s lip curled up into a sneer. “It’s fine for you to claim you don’t look forward or back. You have that luxury. But the last time I let my guard down, Max died. I won’t let anyone hurt the people I love again. Not even me.”

His chair scraped against the floor as he pushed back from the table. “I need to get to the Institute,” he muttered, and strode away before Magnus could protest.

Alec’s thumbs hovered over his phone, hesitating before sending the text that would summon Izzy to his office.

When she arrived, what would he say? Should he thank her for bringing him back? Berate her for her recklessness and for not telling him what she’d done? Censure her for wasting the Angel’s boon on him?

Beg her to help him keep an eye out for the things Magnus clearly didn’t want to see?

A rap on his open door solved the dilemma for him, once he saw who it was. He pressed “send” and silently begged Izzy to hurry and rescue him from the harangue that was no doubt forthcoming.

“Welcome back,” Liz, their chief medic, said when he beckoned her in. “I thought you’d be gone for another week.”

“Change of plans,” Alec answered vaguely. She sank into the chair across his desk and he frowned, noticing the slump and the distinct lack of the brisk energy he’s come to associate with her. “You okay?”

She grimaced and nodded. “Yeah. Long night. That’s actually what I came to talk to you about.”

Alec’s eyebrows rose. “I assumed you’d come to rake me over the coals for not taking the full two weeks you wanted me to take.”

“And any other day, you’d be right.” Liz sighed, clutching her lab coat around herself. “There’s something I think the Institute needs to—”

“You wanted to see me, Alec?” Izzy came striding through the door and stopped abruptly. “Oh, sorry, Liz. I just got Alec’s text. I can come back.”

“No, it’s fine. Stay. Nothing confidential being discussed.” Liz shifted in her chair as though it were uncomfortable for her. “I was just telling Alec about a situation I think the Institute needs to check up on. Last night, Rona’s brother Tim was murdered.”

“Your girlfriend?” Alec asked.

Liz nodded. “Partner, yes.”

“He was a werewolf also?”

“No. The Dempseys adopted Rona when she was a toddler. She’s not a born lycanthrope, anyway. She got turned by a girl she hooked up with at a sorority party her first year at college.” Liz managed a half-hearted smile. “She’d thought it was tough growing up with people who never really understood the issues she faced due to her race and sexuality. Then she became a werewolf in a family of mundanes.”

“You don’t think her brother’s murder is a mundane crime?” Izzy inquired.

“Tim was a pediatric nurse working with neonates down at St. Ambrose. Whoever murdered him did it right in the middle of the nursery and then kidnapped one of the infants. Rona overheard one of the detectives taking a statement from the security officer who checked the surveillance footage. The killer isn’t on there.”

Alec frowned. “The footage was tampered with? Looped?”

“No. I mean the killer was invisible. Tim is clearly there in the footage. One minute he’s on his feet filling out charts, the next he drops to the floor clutching his neck. Whoever came up behind him and slashed his throat as he stood there at his terminal couldn’t be seen.”

“They were glamoured,” Izzy murmured.

“Werewolves can’t glamour. Which means we’re looking for a demon, Seelie, or a warlock,” Liz said.

“Or maybe a vampire,” Alec added.

Izzy shook her head. “Vampires can deceive human perception, but not a surveillance camera.”

“Not as such, but they could have been moving too fast to be seen,” Alec added. “We’d have to slow the footage down to tell.”

Liz made a disgruntled sound. “Why would a vampire take a baby when there’s a full-grown adult lying there, bleeding? Blood is blood, and the adult would have a lot more of it to offer.”

“Some vampires have certain predilections that don’t have much to do with the quantity of blood their victim has to offer,” Izzy conceded. “But a demon or warlock seems most likely.”

“It could have been a Seelie, especially with their history of swapping out babies for changelings, but they tend to go for easier and older targets, not newborns in a secured nursery.” Alec tapped his fingers on his desk as he pondered. “Newborn blood or flesh could be used in dark magic rituals. We should probably start looking there.”

Liz went a little pale and Izzy gave him a scolding look.

What? He mouthed at her as she continued to glare at him.

“Catarina works at St. Ambrose,” he said, shrugging her off. “Izzy, can you take point on this and find out if she knows anything? Grab Clary or Jace to accompany you if you need backup. Liz, do you know which precinct caught the case? Luke is our usual source in the NYPD and the one to try to run interference to keep the mundanes away from the Shadow World investigations.”

Liz sighed. “Rona asked her alpha in Queens to call Luke, but there’s bad blood there. Apparently her pack leader was good friends with Theo, the alpha Luke killed to take over the Brooklyn pack.”

“I’ll call him personally,” Alec assured her.

“How are you holding up?” Izzy asked gently, touching her fingertips to Liz’s forearm. “This has to be hitting pretty close to home.”

Liz’s smile wobbled a little. “I’m okay. Rona is my concern right now. Still, I’m glad we decided I’d be the one to try to carry this pregnancy. She nearly shifted when she got the news about Tim, and had another close call as we were leaving the hospital. If she’d been pregnant it would have been another miscarriage for sure.”

Alec’s mouth open and shut several times before he found his voice again. “Oh. Damn, Liz, I’m so sorry—I didn’t realize—”

No wonder she’d turned green around the gills when he’d mentioned using infants in dark magic rituals.

She smiled wryly and rubbed her belly while Izzy rolled her eyes. “It’s fine.”

Alec’s face heated as he looked away. “You’re always wearing a lab coat,” he muttered uncomfortably. “Congratulations?”

She gave him a weary chuckle. “Thanks.”

“You’re five months along now?” Izzy asked warmly.

“Just over six.” She glanced sideways at Alec and took pity on what was probably a hilariously clueless expression. “Adoption isn’t really an option for us. There aren’t any orphaned cubs from the local packs, and the Clave is never going to let a werewolf adopt a Nephilim child.”

“…And as far as mundane authorities are concerned, neither of you would pass the required background checks and vetting,” Izzy observed.

“Exactly.” Liz answered with another sigh. “Rona’s medical records indicate she suffered seizures and psychotic episodes back in college, and I don’t even exist. So when we decided to start a family, we knew we’d have to make our own. But transformations make lycanthrope pregnancies tricky.”

Izzy’s eyes narrowed a little and Alec could practically see her slipping into clinical mode. “She loses control of her shifts?”

“Unfortunately, yes. She’s fine controlling her it under normal circumstances, but pregnancy hormones just make her grip on her emotions too precarious. So she miscarried twice before we decided I’d be the one to have our baby. Not ideal, what with the Clave’s use of child soldiers, but we didn’t have much of a choice.” She grimaced. “If we’re lucky, our kid will want to train for a support role or as a medic.”

Even though he knew she hadn’t intended it, her remark about the child soldiers hit both him and Izzy like a punch to the gut. She saw their synchronized flinch and it was her turn to flush wretchedly.

“Oh,dammit. I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be,” he and Izzy answered in unison.

“Anyway, I’ll head back to the Infirmary, since the taste of my own feet may be the one craving I haven’t developed. Thank you for looking into Tim’s murder,” Liz said, rising. “Since you’re coming back to work early, swing by sometime today and let me check you over so I can get it down on record that you’re cleared for duty.”

When she was gone, Alec covered his face with his hands and sighed. Izzy chuckled at him.

“What?” he muttered, peering at her between his fingers.

“Do I have to explain the birds and the turkey basters?”

“Shut up. And close the door.” He dropped his hands and took a deep breath while she complied and returned to her chair, then asked softly, “How could you do that? Using Raziel’s wish that way. Really, Izzy?”

“What was I supposed to do? Just…tell the Angel it was all a mistake and o go back where he came from, while you were lying there dead?” Her hands twisted in her lap, and she looked as uncertain as he’d ever seen her. “Max was—I couldn’t lose you, too.”

“But at what cost? You know what the Law says about anyone who misuses Raziel’s wish. Mom and I will do what we can to shield you, but if the Clave finds out… Despite being the Inquisitor, Mom’s hands will be tied.”

“Butyou’ll be alive,” she replied leaning forward in her chair. “And happy. You’re happy with Magnus, right? He loves you. He’ll always be there for you.”

“Assuming the Clave doesn’t kill me just to be on the safe side,” he said bluntly.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Izzy snapped.

“Who says I’m joking? Iz, there’s no roadmap for this. A resurrected Shadowhunter—there’s no telling what the consequences could be. Not being able to re-forge my parabatai bond with Jace is just the start.”

Izzy huffed. “You sound like Magnus did that night.”

“Really? Well, he seems to have adapted to the idea. However, I’m still on the fence.”

“What’s to be on the fence about, Alec? You’re alive. Whatever else happens, we’ll deal with it. As long as we have you.” She gave him a tight smile and smoothed her skirt over her legs in a gesture so reminiscent of their mother that Alec had to do a double-take. “Besides, Mom’s right. You have work left to do, good work. I talked to Clary about what the Angel said when Valentine summoned him. He outright told Valentine it wasn’t the will of Heaven to eradicate the Downworld. The Nephilim have been moving away from our purpose for centuries. What Max died for, protecting Madzie…you can make that happen.”

“Not if the Seelie Queen has her way.”

“You’ll find a way. It just may take time. Which you have now.” She rose and skirted his desk, kissing the top of his head. “And so do we. I’m going to go check out St. Ambrose and see if Catarina is there. I’ll call Luke and have him meet me there if he can.”

A Separate Peace

Finny: Hey Doctor! Are the results of my tests ready? I’m dying from curiosity!

Dr. Stanpole:Heh.

Dr. Stanpole: Not only from curiosity.

going to reread A Separate Peace by john knowles. i am absolutely, positively looking forward to the heartbreak it’ll give me.

Chet: What scares you the most?

Finny:Werewolves

Brinker:Sharks

Gene: The unstoppable marching of time that is slowly guiding us towards an inevitable death

Leper:Gene

Brinker: Leper… can I be frank with you?

Leper: Well sure Frank, if you prefer it to Brinker.

Finny, to Gene, right after the mock trial: hey there buddy chum pal friend buddy pal chum bud friend fella bruther amigo pal buddy friend chummy chum chum pal i don’t mean to be rude my friend pal home slice bread slice dawg but i gotta warn ya if u take one more diddly darn step right there im going to have to diddly darn snap ur neck and wowza wouldn’t that be a crummy juncture, huh? do yuo want that? do wish upon yourself to come into physical experience with a crummy juncture? because friend buddy chum friend chum pally pal chum friend if you keep this up well gosh diddly darn i just might have to get not so friendly with u my friendly friend friend pal friend buddy chum pally friend chum buddy…

Gene: If you had 10 cookies and I asked for 5 how many would you have?

Finny:None

Gene: Finny, this is basic math. Don’t mess with m-

Finny: I would give them all to you because you’re my best friend!

Gene: Gross. Absolutely disgusting. Get out of my house immediately.

Finny, to Brinker: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? No, because a summer’s day is not a bitch!

Gene: One day I hope I’m the person who walks into a room and all eyes are on them

Leper: The trick is to get a really big hat and scream

Finny: You know what strength is? Forgiving a person who wasn’t even sorry

Brinker: Not to be dramatic but I would literally rather die

Yeah sex is cool but have you ever had stable mental health for more than 48 hours?

Leper

Gene: I’m cold

Quackenbush: Like my heart

Gene: Now is not the time for us to debate which one of us is more dead inside

Finny: Am I right, Brinker?

Brinker: I’m almost certain you’re not, but to be honest I wasn’t listening

Kidnapper: I have your son

Finny: I don’t have a son

Kidnapper: So who’s this kid talking about snails and asking if we can go skiing?

Finny: Oh my god you have Leper!

Finny: Hey Gene! Nice hair!

Gene, internally: Oh my god, the first piece of positive reinforcement I’ve received in 6 months. Respond appropriately

Gene: Thank you. I grew it myself

Gene, internally:DAMMIT!

Finny: I hate going into the kitchen and realizing I’m the only snack in the house

Finny: Everything is going to be alright. It’s just a crush

Gene: Hey Finny

Finny: I’m in love with you

Brinker: If I were in the tree I simply would not have fallen

Leper: Bro, Finny was in there and got the limb jounced out from under him. Not worth it

Brinker: Rip to Finny, but I’m different

Gene, yelling: Brinker! Brinker!!

Finny: Brinker Hadley!!

Gene: How many Brinkers do you think there are at this school?

Gene: I may say “fuck school,” and my god do I mean it, but I’ll cry if I get a damn B

Gene: Finny, I think you should play the role of my father

Finny: I don’t wanna be your father

Gene: That’s perfect! You already know your lines

Gene: I didn’t understand why people care so much about their dumb friends until I got a dumb friend myself

Gene: I’ve only known Finny for a day and a half but if anything happened to him I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself

Did I check this book out from the library just because it made me think of a separate peace? Yes, yes I did