I was lucky enough to be able to get City of Lost Souls and there was a particular quote that I just had to write a fanfic for! There aren't any spoilers in here though, unless you count the quote which doesn't really give anything away.

Disclaimer: I do not own Mortal Instruments, it all belongs to Cassandra Clare. The excerpt below also belongs to her!

Please don't take this seriously.

" My father once asked me what I thought had turned me gay."

Simon felt Isabelle tense next to him. "Turned you gay?" She sounded incredulous. "Alec, you didn't tell me that."

"I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider," said Simon.

- City of Lost Souls

The outside world was always fascinating for a ten year old, but to a Shadowhunter child, who knew that fairies and other magical folk were real, it was even more so. Of course, the gardens of the Institute weren't as infested with faeries as other outdoor places (Downworlders loathed the Nephilim), but there was a huge space to play and explore. The only downside was that Alec only had Isabelle to play with, and she was a girl. His mom was pregnant, and had no energy to play, and as for dad, he was always away working. What he'd give for a friend to play with!

It was hard work being ten, having to balance out school and play time. His tutor, Hodge, was urged him to put more effort into his work. He usually obeyed him, but outside just seemed more interesting than boring old demon languages. Alec didn't understand why demons couldn't just write in English; it would be so much easier for everybody. As for Runes- Alec preferred drawing his stick men cartoons. He liked to depict his family going out having adventures, ranging from fighting off monsters, to going on quiet picnics. Because he was only young and couldn't Mark himself, he had to practice drawing his Runes on paper with a pencil to practice the shape. He used to like drawing those, but Hodge was so strict about them that he hated the lessons. If he hadn't drawn them exactly right, he'd have to start again.

Schooling for Shadowhunter children was tougher than normal schooling, but Alec was used to it. He liked learning, but at the same time he was only a child and yearned for adventure outside.

"Izzy," Alec moaned, tugging on the sleeve of her pink t-shirt. "Come and play with me!"

"I was going to ask mommy to do my nails," Isabelle whinged. She was only eight years old, but loved dressing up like a grown-up. "Later?"

"No, play now. It'll be dark soon, and you can do your nails any time!" Alec protested. He really wanted to go and play outside while the sun was out.

"Fine," she groaned, "but we have to play what I want otherwise we're going back inside. I want to play hide and seek."

"Okay," Alec grinned. It was typical Isabelle really, but he didn't mind, as long as she'd play with him.

They walked outside into the garden. The grass stretched out for what seemed like miles, covered in flowers and trees. Perfect for playing hide and seek.

"Okay, you count first and I'll hide," Alec said. He knew of this perfect spot behind a thorny bush where he wouldn't be spotted that he could hide behind.

"Noooo!" Isabelle cried, stamping her feet in frustration. "I want to hide first!"

"That's not fair, Izzy."

"I'll go back inside."

"Fine. You can hide first."

"Good, now count to a hundred and no peeking," Isabelle said, darting off.

Alec closed his eyes and began to count. One, two, three four….He then realised that he couldn't count all the way up to a hundred quickly. Instead, he'd just count to fifty or so really slowly and then go and look for Isabelle. She wouldn't even know; she'd probably already found her hiding place by now.

He mentally counted, just in case Isabelle was nearby so she wouldn't know he was cheating, and then walked off towards the apple tree in the far corner. Isabelle liked danger, so there was no way she was hiding in a basic place like behind a hedge.

"Isabelle," Alec called out, though he wasn't sure why; it wasn't like she was going to respond or anything. From up-close, the tree looked ever so high. How was he ever going to climb it? Did Isabelle even manage to? She was even smaller than Alec was.

There was a low branch on the other side, so he grabbed onto it and pulled himself up. He climbed higher and higher, grazing his knee several times. He wasn't old enough to use healing runes, so it'd have to heal naturally. He had almost reached the top, but there was no sign of his sister. Where could she be?

Only when he had finished climbing had he realised that he'd made an awful mistake by climbing this tree. It was so tall, looking down made him feel sick. The idea of falling was daunting, so to be on the safe side, he sat down on a relatively stable branch. Maybe she would give up waiting after a minute or so and reveal herself, then he could ask her to ask their parents to get him down. In the mean time, he could have used the tree as a lookout, had there not been so many leaves in his way. Alec sighed, but waited patiently in the tree.

After a minute or so, he was bored. Surely Isabelle should have revealed herself by now? While he was thinking this, a pink glittery spider had made itself comfortable on Alec's leg. It was huge, but not so much as to be intimidating. Most people would have killed the thing out of fear, but Alec wasn't afraid of spiders. Spiders were his friends. The boy reached out towards the creature with his index finger and brought it towards his face.

"Hello," Alec said kindly. "Who are you?"

The spider did not respond.

"I'm Alexander Lightwood, but everyone calls me Alec," he said proudly. "Do you have a name, or do spiders not give each other names?" Alec paused for a moment- what if the spider didn't have a name at all? He'd have to think of one. Was the spider a boy or a girl? He couldn't give the spider a girl's name if it was a boy!

"I don't know whether you're a boy or a girl, so I'm going to call you Spidey." Alec smiled. "So, Spidey, do you like playing? I like playing a lot. I like pretending I'm a proper Shadowhunter like my dad. Do you know what a Shadowhunter is?" He didn't think the spider did, but just to be sure, he thought it'd be best to explain what one was. "Shadowhunters are like really cool superheroes, but instead of having superpowers they mark themselves with things called steles. They draw these symbols on themselves which can make them do cool things. They fight monsters and stuff. I'm going to be one when I grow up!

"And you, what do you want to be?"

The spider did not respond.

"Why do you keep ignoring me? All I do is talk and be really friendly to you, and you don't even say anything back. That's very rude, Spidey." Alec whined. He didn't understand why his new friend was being so mean. Was he doing something wrong? Alec didn't have any other friends besides Izzy, so maybe he wasn't as good at making friends as he thought.

"SPIDEY, WHY AREN'T YOU TALKING?" Alec demanded. "IF YOU DON'T TALK I WILL SQUASH YOU INTO A MILLION PIECES."

Just then, he felt a searing pain shoot through his finger, like someone had nipped him really hard. The spider had scuttled back onto his knuckle, revealing a pink lump on his finger. Spidey had bitten him!

Alec cried in pain. "Spidey! Why did you do that? That's not very nice." Alec sucked his finger to try and soothe the pain, but it only made it worse.

"Alec? Are you okay? I heard you screaming!" called a voice from down below. Isabelle.

"No! Spidey just bit me!" Alec shouted, hoping she'd hear him. "Will you get mommy or daddy?"

"Okay, stay there!" Of course I'm going to stay here, Alec thought, I can't get down! He was stuck here with mean Mr Spidey (he assumed he was a boy spider).

What felt like hours later, his sister returned with their parents. His dad held out his arms at the bottom of the tree. "Can you climb down?"

"No, I'm stuck!"

"If you climbed up there, you can get back down, now do it," he said, his tone slightly irritated.

"But it's so high: I might fall," Alec said quietly.

"No, you won't, and if you do, I'll catch you," his dad smiled.

Nervously, Alec stepped down onto the lower branch. He didn't fall. Maybe he could climb down.

He made it a few branches before his father picked him up and took him inside to see Hodge. Robert left him in Hodge's room before retreating to his own.

Hodge looked at his finger and deduced that a simple salve should remove the swelling. He'd asked Alec to recall what the spider looked like, just in case of poison. Alec told him that it was big, pink and glittery, to Hodge's surprise.

"There's only one kind of spider this could be," Hodge said softly.

"What is it?" Alec asked.

"The gay spider," Hodge replied, his tone so soft it was almost a whisper. Alec didn't know what gay meant, so he didn't see what the problem was.

"Oh. Am I going to turn into a gay spider?" Alec bit his lip. He didn't want to be a spider. He didn't like spiders any more. If he was a spider, how was he going to be a Shadowhunter like his mom and dad? Being a spider didn't seem very nice. You couldn't talk, and everyone was scared of you.

"No," Hodge replied. "You're going to be just fine. But you may feel some…side effects."

"Side effects? Am I going to be able to spin webs? Am I going to turn pink?" Alec pondered the possibilities of being pink. There weren't many advantages.

"Well, I don't think there'll be any damage now, but as for the future, I cannot say," Hodge said, dabbing the bite one more time with cotton.

"Okay, can I have ice cream?"

Hodge chucked. "Go ask your mother."

Not long after that, a boy arrived at the Institute, about a year or so younger than Alec. What surprised him most was that his first thoughts weren't "Hooray, a new friend!" like it would have been a year ago, but instead "He's really pretty".

Somewhere, not so far away, a gay spider was chuckling, for his revenge had worked. The really gay spider had bitten Alec Lightwood and turned him gay, and only Hodge Starkweather knew. But nobody was going to believe that.