youfeelluckypunk | [july 12]

Entry tags:

luke

[july 12]

It'd happened all too quickly, having barely begun before it was already over, but the incident has left Reid with butterfly stitches at his temple, a bruised cheek, and a headache that hasn't gone away even after taking a hot shower and changing into a shirt that isn't bloodstained. Reid can't blame the man who'd done it; after all, an emotional outburst from Frank Hansen was to be expected when he'd suddenly appeared at the scene of his own wife's death, the sound of his anguished cry echoing between the walls of alley and overpowering the chatter of the crowd behind the crime scene tape.

Clank had tried to stop him, but the strength of a person suffering from a fresh loss is not to be underestimated, and Mr. Hansen had pushed past the tape and Clank and the other officer on duty before reaching Reid. He'd held his hands up in front of him, a calming gesture that never seems to do its job, and had received one punch, then another, then a rough shove into the brick wall to his left for his trouble.

In all honesty, the worst part about this ordeal hadn't even been the forced visit to the hospital. The worst part is that he'd been due at Luke's over an hour ago because it's his friend's birthday, one he'd promised to help celebrate nearly a month ago, and he hadn't wanted to explain via text the reason for why he's late so Reid is sure Luke must be thinking awfully poorly of him right about now.

As soon as he's straightened his tie in the mirror, poked at the tiny bandage strips on his face with a grimace, and patted down his hair for the eight time in the mirror, he rushes out of his apartment while shooting a quick text out to let Luke know he's finally on his way.

He has a wrapped gift in one hand and a cake, an ice cream cake with a wolf in icing on it, a custom request that hadn't gotten him so much as a raised eyebrow, sitting in a bag hanging from the other, and it's well past closing time for the store so Reid goes straight up the stairs and knocks on the door to Luke's apartment. There's a part of him that's worried that Luke has already left his place, already fed up with how late Reid is, but he reminds himself that there's little to no chance of that. They'd made plans and maybe Reid has been called away to a crime scene once or twice already, but Luke keeps agreeing to see him, and they keep having a great time together, all of which contributes to just how much harder Reid has to try to tell himself that he doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize this friendship. Namely, anything that would indicate that what he's been growing to feel for Luke isn't just friendly.

When the door opens, he breathes a silent sigh of relief and smiles, momentarily forgetting what had made him so tardy in the first place. He'd already texted Luke a happy birthday this morning, accompanied by a smiley face that had seemed innocuous enough, but he says it again now as he holds the bag containing the cake up for his friend to see. "Hi. Happy birthday, I'm sorry again that I'm late, I just-- There was this thing that happened at the crime scene, and-- well, obviously, I guess, but anyway... Yeah. Happy birthday."

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"No, go ahead," Luke says, gesturing at the freezer with one hand as he uses the other to open a cupboard for plates. He wants Reid to feel comfortable here, he realizes, and although he likes people, he's relatively good at making friends, he doesn't invite many people up to his apartment. It isn't due to any desire to keep people away from the more intimate parts of his life, it's mostly just because he isn't here very often, either working in the store or somewhere out in the city, but he knows that there are a few people who know they're welcome here and he would very much like Reid to be one of those people. He wants him to be comfortable, he wants him to feel free to open the fridge or go through the kitchen cupboards in order to find a glass. Sharing his home with people has always been a way for Luke to connect to them and he very much would like to do that here. "If you get the cake, I'll get us plates and forks. There are knives in the drawer beside the sink there."

And as he gets out utensils, he watches Reid, listening to him as he speaks and by the time Reid is singing the first few bars of the birthday song, Luke finds he's grinning, unable to help himself. Reid has been like this right from the start, filled with fascinating information Luke would have only ever been able to guess at, with statistics and numbers and studies to back up the things he's saying, which is a trait Luke respects more than he can possibly say. A good number of people seem to think as long as they say it, their information can be taken as fact, but Reid always has a way to verify what he's said, and Luke thinks that's a respectable, interesting trait. Not one many people seem to share. Valentine had always been of the view that his opinion was fact and it's rubbed Luke the wrong way ever since then.

"Oh, no," he says, shaking his head as he puts down the plates and holds up his hands in a defensive gesture, even though he's laughing at the same time. "No, now you really do sound like Clary and Simon." Who had tried to entice him to one of Eric's poetry readings more than once, who had tried to convince him going to Pandemonium would be good for him, who had tried desperately to talk him into getting up on stage when they had once accidentally attended a karaoke night in town when they had been up at his farm. "There is absolutely no hope of you ever getting me on stage. Not even for your birthday, I'm terribly sorry to say. I'll find you some other present, but not that. Not unless you'd like the better part of Darrow to be rendered completely useless when I shatter their eardrums."

And he waits for it with a little grin, wondering if Reid is going to take the bait. He'd used the turn of phrase on purpose, the expression of shattering their eardrums, knowing actually shattering them is utterly impossible. They can be ruptured or punctured and he knows especially loud noises can be capable of doing it, but shattering is not the right word, and Luke's singing would never be able of doing it. He wants Reid to correct him in a way, he wants to be told why he's not quite right in what he's just said and it's a strange sort of thing to crave, but he loves it. He really just enjoys listening to Reid speak. About anything.

It's so painfully obvious to him now just how hard he's fallen, but everything still feels like it's just out of his reach. He doesn't know what to do with this, but he knows that he doesn't want any of it to stop. One day he'll figure out what to do, but until then this is where he wants to be. Nowhere else.

"Actually," Reid said, reaching into the freezer to retrieve the cake, "you can't shatter an eardrum, that's a phrase that's grievously misused because people stopped caring about differentiating between words. You can rupture or perforate an eardrum, definitely, but to shatter would mean to break the eardrum into little pieces and that's just not what happens. A rupture in the eardrum just means there's a tear or a hole so when..."

He trails off as he turns to see the smile Luke is failing to hold back, and Reid stares blankly at his friend for a long moment before he eventually blinks and lets the corners of his lips curve into a smile of his own.

"You set me up," he accuses, though it's with a good-natured tone, "you knew I would correct you on that, didn't you?" It doesn't offend him and that's clear enough by his ever widening smile. He's always been encouraged to hold back except when his wealth of knowledge is useful for a case, and Reid had understood why. In the middle of a search for an unsub, detailing the background of how something like Halloween came to be isn't exactly the most helpful thing he could offer. During slower times, everyone just let him talk but that's just it, they let him talk. Luke, on the other hand, had goaded him into it.

Not goaded, Reid thinks, that implies that there's mockery in it and he doesn't think there is. Luke simply doesn't mind that Reid likes to talk and more than that, he never seems to be faking his interest in what Reid has to say. The last time some had made him feel like he could talk about anything without judgment had been his phone conversations with Maeve. Sometimes he'd stand at a payphone for hours, adding quarters with every warning tone even though he could never know how long they had together. The difference now is that Luke is here, he's standing right in front of him, and he hasn't asked Reid to stop or leave. He's just asking Reid to be himself.

"Anyway, now that we're talking about it, I have had my ears ruptured a couple times over the past nine years but that was due to being caught in explosions. I think I could probably handle a little bit of you singing. In fact, I'd like to hope I'd find it preferable."

Reid would never truly pressure Luke into doing karaoke if he didn't want to, there's nothing he loves so much about singing in front of a bar full of people that would make him want to do it regularly or encourage anyone else to do the same; but he likes the way the suggestion had made Luke laugh because the smile that creases his friend's eyes is so infectious. With a life like Luke's, Reid imagines it would be difficult to practice using that smile, as he knows it's been for himself. There's nothing worth smiling about when being handed photos of dead bodies day after day, after all, and bringing an unsub to justice is something to be proud of but it doesn't bring the dead back to life.

Killing Tobias hadn't made Reid any less of an addict and watching Diane Turner shoot herself hadn't made Maeve any less free of her stalker.

Still, there has to be something to smile about or none of it worth it, and Reid has found very quickly that Luke has become key in brightening his day. Any texts or the promise of a visit is enough to make him nearly giddy and it's a little embarrassing but at the same time, Reid has never really experienced this before. Ethan had been the one to encourage Reid into a relationship, albeit one that had consisted mostly of sex and a distinct dodging of labels, and Maeve had been the first to tell him she loved him. Reid has never known how to flirt, nor has he ever really known when he's being flirted with, which makes all of this exceptionally difficult but no less exciting. There's the possibility for rejection, yes, but when Reid is ready to take a step forward and tell Luke the truth about how he feels, he'll at least be able to say he'd had the courage to do it.

When that day will come, he has no idea; but he thinks it's something to at least be planning for it.

"If not the karaoke bar, you can just keep it between us," Reid continues, unveiling the cake from its box and showing Luke the wolf made of icing. "And voila, for you. It's kind of amusing, right?"

"Maybe a little," Luke admits with a smile. "But only because I do enjoy hearing all the things you know." And that one was rather simple, he thinks, the sort of thing many people know, but he doesn't imagine all that many of them would have said something and it isn't that he thinks Reid is predictable, but that he very much likes the way he responds to things. It shows a level of inquisitiveness not many people possess, and a willingness to be himself when Luke imagines others may have asked him to stop or at least go a little easy. He'd been that way when he was younger, he and Hodge together, the two of them always better with history and demons and languages than with their weapons. They had been the two students to most often correct the others in class, the ones more likely to tell Valentine when he had identified a demon wrong or suggest to Robert that maybe the dates he was recalling weren't quite right.

They hadn't exactly been well-loved because of it. Luke remembers well enough how often Robert had rolled his eyes at the two of them and they had only ever escaped without a physical altercation because they were both under Valentine's protection. He loved them in his way and so others were forced to love them, too. It's not the sort of love Luke thinks anyone should have to bear and he tries not to let the memories of that time creep in. Not tonight, not when it's his birthday and the decision to join Valentine and the Circle is officially two decades in the past. Not when he's here with a friend, someone who cares enough to have brought him a cake and a present, someone whose company he enjoys.

Someone who inspires the sort of feelings in him he'd long thought were over. Valentine has no place here. He has no place in Luke's life whatsoever and day by day he thinks he's taking the right steps toward forever undoing any hold his former best friend may still have on him. A parabatai is not a bond so easily undone. There are Shadowhunters who die of despair when their parabatai falls in battle and Luke felt the severing of that bond more keenly than he'd felt anything before, but it's been a long time now. The wound has healed, even if the scar is jagged and uneven.

"An explosion or my singing..." Luke shakes his head as he retrieves the utensils from the drawer and sets them out on the counter alongside the plates. "I'm actually not sure which would be preferable. With all the strange and crazy things that have happened in my life, I have to admit that explosions have never been all that common. I suppose demons have no use for dynamite." It's a joke, even if it's a bit of a silly one, but now that he's thought about it, it's always been interesting that the types of altercations Shadowhunters endure are fairly limited. Within the boundaries of Idris, magic prevents gunpowder from igniting, so it makes sense they're not used there, but he knows out in the world things are different. It does make him wonder why rouge Downworlders or even the angry Fair Folk don't use guns.

When Reid sets the cake down on the counter, his grin grows wider and then he laughs, shaking his head. "It's much better than a clown," he agrees, leaning closer to get a better look at the wolf done in icing. He wonders what the cake maker thought of it, if maybe they didn't think of it at all. It can't be the most unusual design they've ever had requested.

It makes him laugh, though, to see a little icing wolf on his birthday cake. More than that, it makes him feel good. Accepted. Reid isn't trying to ignore what he is or pretend it doesn't exist. He's acknowledging that the wolf is a part of Luke, a part of his friend, and there's no undoing it.

"You're one of the few," Reid tells him, and it isn't out of bitterness. Sometimes it's disappointing, maybe a little hurtful when someone hurriedly interrupts him because they don't have the patience to wait out his method of getting to the point, but Reid's grown a thick skin in his years since childhood. He hadn't had much of a choice, not as a twelve-year-old attending a Las Vegas high school. The kids had been cruel, Reid hadn't had very many friends at all and one year, his mother had promised him that she'd gone to all his classmates' parents to ask them to bring their kids to his thirteenth birthday and not a single one of them showed up to the party.

He wouldn't have minded if it hadn't sent his mother spiraling, and he'd spent the remainder of that afternoon trying to help her through an episode. It hadn't occurred to him until later that she might not have even done the inviting she'd said she had, but Reid had known even before the party that the others in his class had considerably better things to do than celebrate the birth of someone several years younger than them.

These are the kinds of things that can lead to a dysfunctional life; they're the kinds of things that can make people feel left behind, abandoned and alone, and maybe that's why Reid sometimes believe that he can relate a bit too much with the unsubus they catch. It's a frightening thing to realize, to think that he has so much in common with someone who could kill and that if he'd made certain choices, if his brain hadn't gone the route of cooperation, he could very well have fallen into the role of hunted rather than hunter. In a way, though, it's helped him understand exactly what parts of his life separate him from the one he could have had.

In spite of his tendency to spend time with just himself or his mother as a kid, he'd grown up to have some incredibly intelligent, truly good people in his life. Gideon had taken him under his wing like nobody else could have, Hotch had always supported him in everything in his own quiet way, and the rest, Reid considers his family just as much as his mother. Outside of Darrow, those bonds wouldn't have been broken because there's a certain level of trust already required of them to work with each other. It's taking that step forward and moving past the surface relationships that have gotten them to where they'd been before Reid had been brought here.

That same bond is growing steadily between him and Luke, and Reid wonders if his friend can feel it, too.

"Speaking as someone who's been through a handful of explosions, I can confidently say that your singing would very much be preferable," Reid says, grinning as he slides a piece of cake onto one of the small plates and nudging it toward Luke.

He can't deny that he isn't pleased to see Luke smiling at the wolf, though he will gladly deny that he's pleased to see Luke smiling at all because it is such a wonderful smile. It makes him want to reach out and trace the laugh lines that crease at the corners of Luke's eyes, and Reid has to busy himself with cutting another slice because he's never thought that particular thing about someone so it's easier just to pretend he'd never thought it in the first place.

"Eat," he orders, "before it turns into soup. And while you do, just know that I'm already plotting ways to get you to sing me something, even if it's just between you and me."

"A handful of explosions," Luke echoes as he takes the plate from Reid and digs into the cake. He eats more than a regular man, he's always known that, but he does his best not to just devour things when he's eating in front of other people. Needing more protein than a regular person is just one more thing he's grown used to over the years, but he knows it isn't the sort of thing most people are used to seeing and if he and Reid are going to be friends -- or more, his mind tries to insist, even as he pushes it away -- then that's just one more thing he'll have to introduce to him slowly. His life is so different in so many ways and for the first time in a very long time he wants to be able to share that with someone. It means letting someone in on the things he's kept to himself for a very long time, little secrets he's held onto, things he's been afraid to share. He isn't quite so afraid anymore and he mostly doesn't know what to make of it, but it feels nice. It's something he thinks he's been missing for a long time.

Once Reid has a piece of the cake for himself, Luke covers the cake again and returns it to the freezer so it doesn't turn into soup as he's suggested, then nods toward the couch once he's picked up his plate again. The couch had come with the space above the store, as much of the furniture had, and while it's not exactly the most stylish, it's worn and comfortable, and he sinks down on one end, leaving sufficient room for Reid if he doesn't want to sit right next to Luke. So much of the time he feels like he's floundering, trying to figure out where to stand, where to sit, how to conduct himself around Reid without giving away too much of what he's feeling, and there are times when he wonders if he should just let himself relax. If maybe it wouldn't be such a terrible thing for Reid to understand how he feels, but he just doesn't know how to do that. He toes the line between too much and too little.

"While you plot ways to get me to sing something to you, you should tell me about some of these explosions," he says, sitting back on the couch as he takes his first bite of cake. It's been a long time since anyone has done something like this for him and he hums softly, clearly enjoying the cake. This is all he could have hoped for on a day like today. He's missing home and Clary more than he usually does, he keeps thinking about what things would have been like this year, if they would have even acknowledged the passage of time with everything else that had been going on, but he knows she would have done something special for him anyway. Even if it had only been a cupcake from his favourite bakery in a box waiting for him on the counter when he arrived in the morning, she would have done something to mark the day, and having someone here willing to do the same means a lot to him. It makes him feel a little less alone, a little less homesick.

"Consider it an extension of my birthday present," he says, grinning before he takes another mouthful of the cake. It's good cake, cool and creamy, and his smile softens a little as he looks at Reid. He'd meant what he had said, that he likes listening to him talk, and even if he is one of the few, he thinks that's the loss of everyone else who's had the opportunity and hasn't taken it. People are a vast wealth of stories and information, things they're able to share, and Reid knows what he's talking about, he speaks well and clearly, he draws people in. At least, he's drawn Luke in and he supposes that's really the only thing he needs to be considering here.

"I know your job was dangerous, I... I completely understand what that's like, that it isn't something to be romanticized, but I think about all the stories you must have and I just want to hear them," he admits, feeling faintly embarrassed to find himself still speaking. "They're not like my life at all, they're so completely different from anything I've ever known."

"You know, you're the first person to ever ask me for explosion stories as a birthday gift," Reid says, lowering himself onto the couch and realizing only after he's taken his seat that he'd gravitated closer to Luke. It occurs to him that the reason the other man might have sat all the way at one end of the couch had been because he didn't want to be too close but then he thinks of what little distance there's been between them at the movie theater, and he thinks that can't be true. Rather, he hopes it isn't.

He's never going to be the kind of person who welcomes casual touch from a stranger or often initiates it even with people he is comfortable with but there are certain people he doesn't mind it from at all. Typically, it takes a little bit of time and effort on the other person's part to unlock that part of Reid that's willing to open himself up to someone else a bit more but in Luke's case, it seems to have happened exceptionally quicker than usual. Since the night of Mindy's party, he's been searching for a way to say that, to let Luke know he doesn't have to be so careful or hesitant, but Reid has no clue how without making it sound unnatural. The issue of touch has never come up between them, after, at least not out loud. Luke had simply noticed Reid's tendency to avoid physical contact, even a simple handshake, and had respected that without even asking.

It's no wonder that Reid finds it so easy to trust him. So often, he's withheld his hand, a gesture returned with a quirk of an eyebrow or a look of offense, neither of which Reid thinks he really deserves. He shouldn't have to justify not wanting to touch people when even some hospitals back home had started internal movements to ban handshakes in the workplace just to help prevent the spreading of germs. It's not a novel concept but there's little he can do about people's skepticism besides try to educate them, though that rarely seems to end with a better result than the other person changing the subject midway through a so-called lecture.

But there's cake melting on his plate, he remembers, and Luke wants a story, so Reid allows himself to get settled without trying to create more space between them and sighs. "Okay, which one do I even start with, that's a tough one. Okay, this actually happened in my first year with the BAU, about nine years ago. There was this unsub, Randall Garner, we called him 'The Fisher King.' Highly delusional, but he believed in those delusions fully, which actually made him incredibly organized with his killings. One of his victims was decapitated, another impaled with a medieval sword. He started stalking us once we were put on the case, trying to figure out where we lived and what our schedules were like. He sent each of us on the team items that he knew would mean something to us, even made contact with our families."

He tries not to flinch when he thinks about flying his mother out to the BAU, seeing her for the first time in so long not even because he'd wanted to protect her but because he'd needed her for her accidental involvement in the case, but he shovels a piece of cake in his mouth to distract him from the memory and carries on.

"We were searching for another victim that he'd abducted, her name was Rebecca, but we found out that he was institutionalized in the same sanitarium that my mom was. He actually talked with her, they were friends." In a way, it'd been a good thing. It's what had helped them in the end, but Reid remembers how horrified he'd been to know that his mother had been so close to Garner, even if it'd only been for a short period of time. There's no fault that lies with her, of course, but it'd been the first time Reid had really considered that the people he cared for outside of the BAU might also be put in danger simply because of his chosen profession.

"Anyway, it turned out that he'd given her a photograph of his residence so eventually, we were able to find an address. Rebecca, the victim, she was Garner's daughter, but she'd been put up for adoption because when she was very young, the rest of their family was caught in a house wire while they slept. Garner was severely burned, completely unrecognizable, and when he was insitutionalized, my mother taught him about..." Reid holds his fork up in lieu of a drum roll. "The Fisher King, keeper of the Holy Grail and antagonist to the Knights of the Round Table. In Garner's mind, he became the Fisher King, Rebecca the Holy Grail, and the BAU were the Knights. So when we finally got to the house, I was the one to confront him. He was strapped up, had a bomb planted on himself with a detonator that would set the bomb off if he let go. I knew the Fisher King story, he knew that, and he asked me to ask the 'magical question,' the one that would heal his wounds."

He smiles sadly, lowering his eyes to his cake and poking at it before taking another bite. "Obviously, that wasn't going to work. I tried to talk him down, I asked him to forgive himself for what happened to his family and for not being able to get all of them out. He'd been blaming himself for year, but it was faulty wiring, it wasn't his fault." He's seen it so often, a trigger that sparks the urge to kill in an unsub who just needed the right kind of help, and Garner was no different in that sense. "He let go of the detonator while I was still in the room, but my teammates got me out. No real physical harm done to me, just-- just Garner. We did find Rebecca, though, so..."

Reid trails off, knowing that's not exactly a happy ending to the tale, and he feels a little awkward now for talking about such a heavy case. He risks a glance at Luke, biting down on his lip. "I'm sorry if that wasn't quite what you were expecting. None of the stories I have about explosions really have a pleasant lead-up." Wetting his lips, he takes the last bite of his cake and lets out a deep breath, following it with a short laugh. "Okay, your turn now. You won't sing for me so maybe you'll tell me a story about your dangerous job."

Knitting his brow, he frowns, though the corners of his lips quickly turn back up into an amused smile. "We make an interesting pair, don't we? Trading stories like this while eating ice cream cake, I don't think that's something most people make a habit of doing. I can't say I mind it if you don't."

"Well, you already got me a ferris wheel," he teases softly, pleased that Reid is sitting closer to him than to the other end of the couch. It's a dangerous thing to be pleased by, he realizes, something he should probably just let go. Having someone simply sit next to him isn't cause to read into anything, but Reid is here, close enough that Luke can feel the heat coming off his body, close enough for Luke to smell, and for the most part he very much likes being a werewolf, he's found the abilities he's gained to be more a help than a hindrance, but there are moments when it's difficult. Moments like this, when every nerve in his body is humming with energy, when every instinct is telling him to lean closer, to just sway a little bit, a simple shift of his upper body until his arm is pressed against Reid's.

But that's dangerous, too. Because a simple shift might lead to ducking his head, pressing his nose against the curve of Reid's neck, breathing him in. Swaying closer until their arms are pressed together might lead to craving more of that warmth that comes off him, the heat every last living thing carries with them, the feeling of which Luke has begun to crave desperately, though there's really only one person in particular who'll be able to deliver what he wants. It isn't as if the wolf makes him some wild animal, incapable of any kind of self-restraint. Luke has been attracted to people before without having to worry that he's going to lose control. He's a very controlled man most of the time and it feels like Reid is slowly undoing him bit by bit.

He listens to the story attentively, eating his cake, letting Reid tell the story. It's terrifying on any entirely different level than Luke's life has ever managed to be. Fighting demons is one thing, demons are so clearly evil, there's no purpose to them besides wanting to come into this world and destroy it, but people are so much more complicated than that. Even the ones who are capable of true evil -- and Luke believes they exist -- can hide their intentions with much better success than a demon can. And often there are reasons under the evil things people do, guilt and fear, and that doesn't excuse it, nothing can possibly excuse hurting others, but it makes it a little less scary than those who have no reason. Those who just want to cause pain, like the demons do.

"I can't imagine stories about your work are often very happy," Luke agrees, his voice soft, but he had known that when he had asked. It's incredible to him that anyone can do that sort of job, day in and day out, seeing the horrors people are capable of committing. It's such a far cry from what he's done, even if they are both dangerous in their own ways, simply because there's never any reason to doubt or worry when it comes to demons. There's no grey area, it's all black and white, made very clear. Except even that isn't entirely true, he thinks, smiling very slightly. Because he is part demon now. Simon, Magnus, Maia and Bat. All the wolves and warlocks he's known and those he's loved, they're all demons, too, through no fault of their own, and that's where the grey area begins.

Of course, he would be inclined to say wolves and warlocks, at least, are more human than demon. Sometimes he doesn't know if the same can be said for the vampires and the fey, not when they're often so willing to cast aside any pretense of care for humans, but that doesn't apply to everyone. Nothing can apply to an entire population, there are no hard and fast rules everyone will live by. The Fair Folk might come closest, with their inability to lie, but he knows they've found ways around that by mixing faery and human blood.

"But you found her," he says. "And you were safe." As far as Luke can determine, those really the most important things. Reid had done what he could to bring the girl home and he's still here to tell the tale, so Luke can't really look at the story as having an unhappy ending. Not when it's given him this.

"No," he says, still smiling. "No, I don't mind. A story from my dangerous job..." He trails off and is silent for a moment, thinking. With Valentine as his parabatai, there is really a countless number of stories he could tell, but he settles on one within a few moments.

"Valentine, the man who set me up to get bitten, before that all happened, he was still a bit of a zealot. In the beginning, when he wanted to hunt Downworlders, he would always tell us they'd done something awful. Broken the Accords in some way," he says, telling the story slowly, carefully. Knowing it doesn't cast him in the best light and telling it anyway. "Looking back now I realize he was lying to us, but I wanted so badly to have someone to follow and the Clave, the system he was railing against, it was corrupt. It still is." But they'd all been so wrong in the way in which they had gone about their attacks.

"He told us once that he found a group of werewolves who were living outside the Accords. Attacking other wolves, attacking vampires, attacking humans. He told us they were mostly teenagers, barely a fight at all. We were supposed to find their base and arrest them. Take them into the Clave for a trial and sentencing," Luke says. "But when we got there, the base was heavily guarded with dozens of adult male wolves. We should have retreated, but Valentine pushed us forward, made us attack. We weren't there to arrest anyone and he knew it from the start. It was a brutal fight, but it was short. At the end all the wolves were dead and we'd lost four Shadowhunters, too. He had dragged us into that situation knowing some of us were going to die." Luke pauses, then looks at his cake. "That's when I realized what he was doing to us."

"Not very happy at all," Reid agrees, "not at the start." Smiling wryly, he leans forward to set his empty plate down on the table at their feet. He should have known better or at the very least, paid more attention, because his knee travels a little too far and brushes against Luke's and just for a second, it's like everything stops. It's not a big deal, just an accidental touch like at the movie theater, one that doesn't last long enough to mean anything to most people but means a great deal to him. There's nothing to read into when it hadn't been intentional, but it makes Reid remember the way Luke had reached out for him when this night had started, the concern on Luke's face at the bruises and bandages on Reid's.

It's friendship, he knows that, and he can tell himself that until he's blue in the face; but he's at a point now that trying to deny how he feels at all is just exhausting. It's pointless, too, to pretend that every time Luke even looks at him, Reid is afraid that he's going to give himself away with a flush that will reveal everything. He's afraid that one of these days, their knees will brush again and that time, he won't move away. He wishes he had the courage to do that now, to keep that physical contact between them without worrying so much about what Luke's reaction would be, but courage in romance has never been his forte.

Maeve had been the one to tell him she loved him first. He'd been the one to say over and over again that he'd wanted to see her in person, but she'd been the one to express her feelings for him before he'd even considered the possibility that she might actually want him, too. Ethan had been the one to pursue Reid, to convince him that he was wanted for the very first time in his life, and that relationship (or whatever Ethan had wanted to call it) hadn't ended particularly well but it hadn't ended up with Reid wanting to burn all evidence of Ethan's existence in his life, either. When they'd seen each other again in New Orleans, so many memories of the time they'd shared together had come flooding back, and maybe it'd been a mistake to spend one more night with Ethan again, but Reid doesn't regret it.

He doesn't want to spend just one night with Luke. He wants more of this, of this unexpected connection that they've developed in a few short weeks, but he also wants to be able to confirm what he's already imagined it's like to pull Luke closer to him. He wants to know what it'd be like to have Luke's fingers raking down his back or to kiss him until they're both out of breath.

But there's someone sending him love poems, he reminds himself, and it's not Luke. As badly as Reid wants it to be, it's not Luke. So touches between them will come few and far between because that's how it has to be, that's what Reid has to make sure of so he doesn't drift away into thoughts like those he's just had. It's a dangerous way to carry on a friendship, it would lead too easily to lingering gazes on Luke's lips or lip bites that aren't quite as innocent as they usually are. For the most part, he has an excellent poker face; but he thinks that there's the potential here for Luke to make that very difficult for him. Rather, for Reid to make that very difficult for himself.

"I've never been betrayed like that," Reid says softly, forcing himself to move past the so very minor thing that'd put such heavy thoughts in his mind and leaning back against the couch. He studies his friend for a moment, the undeniable attraction he feels for Luke pushed aside because right now, he wants to exist as what he already knows he is--a friend, someone Luke trusts enough to confide in with stories like these, and Reid wants him to know that it isn't taken lightly. There's no part of him that isn't grateful that they can talk to each other like this because without Luke, Reid would truly have nobody here.

He highly doubts, after all, that Clank would be impressed with him if he were to text randomly throughout the day; he'd even woken up from a nightmare last week well past one in the morning and held an internal debate with himself before texting Luke to see if his friend might, on the off chance, still be awake. He'd been so pleased to get a response, it's partly why he'd fallen into that fantasy of discovering that Luke was the one delivering poems, but now, Reid just feels glad to have someone he can rely on regularly.

His teammates, they'd all cared about him, they'd treated him like their younger brother; but they'd had lives of their own. Luke does, too, of course, but there seems to be enough room left in it to let Reid fill the gaps once in awhile. He wishes he knew how to thank Luke for that, but it's not something he's ever really had to think about before.

"You know," he continues, clearing his throat as he shifts just slightly on the couch so he can sling an arm over the back and turn his body more toward Luke, "people who go through traumas like yours, who've been manipulated that way, who've been hurt the way Valentine hurt you... They don't always come out very well on the other side of things." He can hear it in Luke's voice that his friend isn't exactly proud of standing beside Valentine, but Reid understands it; and he makes no judgments.

"He was supposed to be your best friend. He used that to twist you into believing what he wanted you to, and I know you've had years to figure that out for yourself and accept that but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. You could have let him turn you into someone like him, but you didn't. You could have given in to the people who told you that you weren't worth anything when you were turned, but you didn't. Instead, you became Luke Garroway. You became a-- a bookshop owner and a protector and a father."

Reid lets out a small sigh, offering Luke a crooked smile as he shrugs a shoulder. "And a really good friend to someone who needed one."

It feels so good to be physically near someone like this again and it isn't that Luke is especially selective about the people he's willing to touch, but there just hasn't been anyone like Reid in a very long. He cared about Mindy, he still cares for her, he even thinks it could have developed into something more had he not realized that she had feelings for someone else. What Luke wants is something long term, something more than simply casual, and she hadn't wanted that from him, which is fine. He's not upset by it, he hadn't even really been all that upset at the time, not because he hadn't cared but because he knows what it's like to have strong feelings for someone and feel unable to act on them. He can't blame her for that. But even she hadn't been like this. Reid's knee brushes his and Luke's heart picks up speed again, his chest feeling warm and tight all at once, like something is squeezing him, unwilling to let go.

This isn't something he's going to just be able to ignore, he realizes. At some point he's going to have to find a way to deal with it one way or another, but he can't just go on ignoring it, pretending it isn't happening. Reid might see him as just a friend and no matter how hard Luke searches, he can't see a single gesture that might indicate otherwise. Everything they've done together, every conversation they've had, every experience, it could all be in friendship just as easily as anything else and Luke has never presumed to think someone might care for him as more than just a friend without presented with something obvious and concrete. What Reid has given him is friendship, pure and simple. Wonderful friendship, there's no denying that their connection is strong, but there's also nothing to indicate it might be something more.

But if he allows himself to ignore all that for just a moment, it does feel nice to have someone be close to him. It feels nice to have Reid's knee resting against his, even for such a short moment, and Luke smiles as he leans back against the couch and glances up toward the ceiling for a moment. He listens to the things Reid is saying to him, the wonderful compliments he's being paid, and he lets himself just enjoy the moment. Accept the things that are being said to him. Allow them to just slide into his mind and settle there instead of immediately rejecting them.

Looking back at his time in the Circle, there are many things he's ashamed of. Luke had been a weaker fighter; he and Hodge had been better with books, languages and history. It wasn't until Valentine, a year older, had taken them both under his wing that either of them flourished. Hodge had never become an accomplished fighter, but he'd found his weapon, and Luke had grown by leaps and bounds, even moreso when he and Valentine had become parabatai. They had worked so well together, complemented each others' fighting style. They'd trusted each other, they'd been bound together. In many ways, Valentine had made Luke into the warrior he'd become and he knows it's because of that he'd had such a hard time letting go.

Before Valentine he had been nothing. A poor orphan with a preference for books who wore shabby, patched up fighting gear because he and Amatis couldn't afford better than that. After Valentine he'd been a warrior. The second in command in the Circle. Someone to be feared. And perhaps that's it, he thinks. Perhaps that had been the moment he had realized something wasn't right, because Luke has never wanted to be feared.

"Lucian Graymark," he says after a moment of silence. "You said I became Luke Garroway and you don't know just how true that is. I was Lucian Graymark until I was twenty-one and it became necessary for me to have a less distinctive name, something less easy to track. That's why I named the store Graymark Books." His smile grows a little, becomes easier as he looks back down at Reid. "I'm glad. That we've become friends."

"Lucian Graymark," Reid repeats, testing the name on his tongue and finding that it doesn't roll of quite as easily as Luke Garroway has come to, but it doesn't feel as foreign as it could. Lucian Graymark is as much a part of Luke as the wolf is, as the bookstore below them is, as the scars on Luke's body are. That Luke had to adopt a new identity for fear of his life makes something in Reid's chest tighten because it's practically the Shadowhunter version of the Witness Protection Program, but there's an irrational part of him that wishes he could have been there to help his friend through what had to have been an exceptionally difficult time.

That wouldn't have been possibly in any way, shape, or form, he and Luke aren't even from the same time, much less the same world, and it hits him then just how much his life has really changed since he's arrived in Darrow. There's almost nothing that's the same, from his job to what he accepts about the world around him to what he feels for someone who's given him no indication that those feelings might be returned; but in spite of how he's been struggling to understand and properly react to this growing attraction to Luke, a mental and physical attraction that he isn't sure he'll ever find the courage to act on, Reid, too, is so grateful that Luke had nearly crashed into him the day he'd arrived.

"I'm glad we're friends, too," he says, tone softening as he nearly reaches out to rest a hand on the knee he'd just brushed with his own, but Reid realizes in time (or too late, depending on how he wants to look at it later) that doing such a thing would be completely out of the question. Luke has already noticed his aversion to being touched by strangers and to offer it so freely now would be all too obvious an indication that there's something going on with Reid that inspires more than just friendly thoughts.

Then again, maybe Luke wouldn't find it strange at all. Reid knows he's overthinking this, but he has absolutely no idea what to do about it. Back home, he'd stopped trying to avoid the touch of his teammates fairy quickly because once someone has earned his trust, it doesn't take much for Reid to be willing to step out of his comfort zone. With Luke, though, he finds himself going out of his way to avoid his friend's touch, mostly because he's afraid that at any given moment, he might not be able to stop himself from showing all over his face what being so close to Luke does to him.

Right now, for instance, there's a flush creeping up the back of his neck that will surely spread to his cheeks soon if he doesn't stop thinking about this, and he quickly clears his throat as he straightens up in his spot on the couch. "Spencer Reid is the only name I've ever had, but I've had a lot of nicknames." He lets out a little laugh, rolling his eyes fondly as he thinks of them. "My teammates, some of them think they're hilarious. JJ, she's the only one who's ever called me Spence, which was fine but Garcia.... I think her best one was probably 'Junior G-Man,' though I should probably be thankful she didn't ever refer to me as 'Sugar Shack' like she did Morgan. Morgan did call me 'Pretty Boy' pretty often, though, which I never really understood."

He realizes he's never given Luke a full breakdown of each of his teammates, but Reid thinks this brief mention actually isn't a terrible introduction to who those three in particular are to him. He lowers his eyes, picking at an invisible piece of lint on his pants. "You know, I never thought I'd actually miss hearing that."

"Junior G-Man," Luke echoes with a laugh and this is always what seems to happen. There's a moment when he feels tense, like perhaps he's crossed some unknown, unseen boundary and bullied his way to close to Reid in some manner, a moment wherein he becomes convinced he's done something terribly wrong and will need to make amends in some way, and then the tension is all undone by Reid's ability to make him laugh. It's something as simple as a nickname and although he doesn't know who this Garcia is, for a moment he allows himself to try and imagine her. Her and Reid's reaction to being called something like Junion G-Man. Luke isn't even entirely sure what that means, but he can't deny that it's funny.

Reid mentions that someone named Morgan called him Pretty Boy, though, and that unfair jealous streak flares up again. He's clearly speaking about someone on his team, someone he's extremely unlikely to have any sort of romantic connection with, especially if they have the type of friendship where one of them uses playful nicknames on the other, but he can't help it. All his life he's been a rather jealous man, unable to calm the burning and tightness in his chest when watching someone else with something he wanted, but he's always fought against it. Jealousy is not a pleasant emotion, it's not a respectable response, it embarrasses him that he experiences it, and he's had excellent practice when it comes to hiding it.

That doesn't mean he's stopped feeling it.

There's a moment when he thinks he might laugh again, mostly at the idea that Reid has no idea why someone might refer to him as Pretty Boy, but he realizes a second later that Reid really doesn't know. He doesn't know how people look at him, he really doesn't see himself the way others do and Luke knows that's true of most people, but when he looks at Reid, he completely understands the origin of the nickname. There's a slight flush lighting up the sharp edges of his cheekbones and from this angle, looking at his profile, the strong line of his jaw is especially apparent.

He's more than simply pretty, but Luke thinks about it for even a second and he finds his mouth has gone dry. What he wants is to ask more about Reid's team, hear more about these people who would have been as close to him as family, but for a second he can't quite speak and he wishes he had grabbed himself a glass of water while they had been in the kitchen.

Glancing down at his knees, he clears his throat, then looks back up again and smiles. "Well, you spent more time with them than anyone," he says. "It makes sense that you would miss them and everything they do that's familiar. Once Clary found out I was a werewolf, she told me to feel free to hang my head out the car window if I wanted. At the time I felt like throttling her, but I can't deny it was pretty funny and I miss all the inevitable werewolf jokes she and Simon would have made."

Even though he keeps his eyes averted, Reid can feel the intensity of Luke's eyes on him. It doesn't bother him that Luke would try to study him in this moment, Reid would be doing the same thing if their positions were reversed, but a part of him wonders if maybe Luke is looking at him and thinking that he knows exactly why he'd earn a nickname like 'Pretty Boy', even if Morgan had only ever been teasing. Reid's pretty convinced, in fact, that it's everything to do with his hair and the fact that a few years ago, he'd finally agreed to let Garcia, JJ, and Emily take him to the shops to pick out a new wardrobe.

Admittedly, what they'd initially found for him had stuck and once he'd realized Hotch didn't mind that he wore his Chucks, Reid made more of habit out of doing it. The cardigans, he's been told, still make him look like a grandpa but there's no compromising there. The cardigans stay, and they always will. The occasional vest and scarf, though, those have been welcome additions, courtesy of Garcia's fashion expertise.

He has to force himself away from that train of thought because it's a dangerous one that can only lead to more troublesome things for his imagination. If he lets himself think that Luke really does agree with the 'pretty' assessment, Reid will wonder then just how pretty Luke thinks he is or how far Luke would go to make sure Reid knows. The only time he's ever been insecure about himself or the way he looks has been with someone he cares about, those people being Ethan and Maeve, to some extent even Lila, and now Luke. To Reid, looks aren't even secondary, they're lower on his list of desired aspects of another person. He hasn't grown to be attracted to Luke just because his friend is exceptionally handsome, which he is but that's hardly the point.

Luke talks to him like so few others ever have, like a person and not a doctor or an agent or anything but himself. It's a nice feeling, a refreshing, to be able to count on someone, all the while knowing that if he needed anything, Luke would help him if he could, even if it was something awful. If Reid were to knock on his door at three in the morning completely out of sorts and practically in hysterics, Luke would absolutely let him in. That's the kind of trust Reid puts into this man, and it's exactly why he'll keep his feelings to himself for as long as as appropriate.

No matter what they have been them now, Reid doesn't want to lose it.

"I'd say I'd be happy to emulate him with the jokes, but I discovered not too long ago that I'm actually not a very funny person. My best one goes like this: 'How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Two. One to change the lightbulb, and one to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness.'" He can't help but let out a little laugh at it, as he always does, though he narrows his eyes, waiting for a reaction. "It's always like I"m telling that joke to an empty room, nobody ever seems to think it's as funny as I think it is."

The way Reid prepares him for the joke feels almost feels like a warning and Luke finds he isn't sure what to expect of what's coming, but then Reid tells his joke and Luke laughs, the sound almost startled out of him. He doesn't laugh because he thinks Reid wants him to or because the joke is particularly funny, but given the warning he was expecting something much worse and he ends up coughing a few times, patting his chest before he manages to speak again. He hadn't been expecting this birthday, he hadn't been expecting that cake and he really hadn't been expecting a lightbulb joke about existentialists. "I have to imagine that's the sort of joke that you need to find the right audience for," he says, looking amused. "Maybe neither of us will be making our debut in a comedy club anytime soon."

Luke knows he isn't funny, he hadn't needed Clary to tell him, although she had on more than one occasion, but now and then Simon had told him that he was funny in a dry way. Luke had just sort of shrugged and accepted it, because he's never particularly tried to be one thing or the other. Whether or not he's funny has never worried him much, so long as his friends and family are happy to spend time with him. But he finds he does care what Reid thinks of him just in general. Not just whether or not he he has a good sense of humour, but whether he's a good man, a good friend. Whether he's fun to be around, trustworthy, all sorts of things.

There are times when he wonders if Reid finds him attractive, though he does his best to crush those moments. He isn't supposed to be thinking things like that about his friend, he should just let it all be, but sometimes he can't help it. His physical appearance isn't something he's ever given a lot of thought to, at least in part because Valentine had been so vain and Luke had never known what to do in the face of that. Even now he doesn't bother with much in the way of variety when it comes to his wardrobe and he doesn't do anything in particular with his beard or hair. He makes sure his beard is trimmed and he shaves most of the time, but there are definitely times when he forgets, when it gets to grow a little longer than usual and he wonders if he should start to make more of an effort now. Or maybe he needs to concentrate on not changing anything too completely, maybe if he starts to do that, he's never going to be able to dig himself out of this hole he finds himself in.

"I think as long as you make yourself laugh, that's the only thing that matters," he adds. That's certainly something Simon would have said to him, informing Luke that it's better to be easily amused than too serious to find the humour in anything. For a teenager, Simon had been rather perceptive most of the time and although Luke thought he took most things not quite seriously enough, it was actually a bit of a refreshing point of view. There wasn't much that seemed like it could bring Simon Lewis down and all he can do is hope whatever comes for them in Manhattan isn't going to take that from him. So much has changed, he knows what it's like, becoming a Downworlder, and all he can do is hope Simon has the support he needs.

"I've tried telling it on several different occasions," Reid laments, shaking his head with feigned disappointment. "I just get the same blank stares every time. You're probably the first one who's actually laughed, even though I'm pretty sure it wasn't because you thought the joke was funny." That's fine by him, which he hopes is clear enough by his smile, because regardless of whether or not Luke appreciates existentialist jokes, Reid likes to hear him laugh. It's a deep sound, rich and warm, a laugh that seems like it must resonate because it certainly does in Reid. His cheeks are flushed with pleasure at having heard it, like it's some kind of rarity that nobody else is privy to, and he's sure that isn't true but Reid will treat it that way all the same.

Hearing Luke laugh, seeing him smile, they're both things that Reid has wants more of, and he may not be an especially funny person but he'll find a way. So much can be derived from what's in a person's voice, and he may not yet be able to figure out whether anything Luke has said to him is an indication of there being the possibility of more between them, but Reid remembers what it'd been like to listen to Maeve on the other end of the phone for all those weeks. He things he'd been fairly obvious in his feelings from the moment he'd realized the extent of how much he'd come to care for her, but Maeve had always been a steadier force than he was.

She'd had her practice, with the stalker she'd feared so much, and he sobers a bit at the thought as he sinks deeper into the couch and tilts his head back just slightly to look up at the ceiling. Reid knows that he's never really been looked at by anyone in his life as the man who could make things better just by being there, by being present, and he wishes so badly he could have proven himself to be just that for Maeve. He wishes that by simply existing in the same space as her, as Diane, that he could have prevented what'd happened because people who love each other that much shouldn't be separated so cruelly. It isn't right and it isn't fair but if there's one thing Reid has always been aware of since childhood, it's that rarely is anything right or fair.

Maybe in Darrow, that won't be so true. He would never call himself a man without hope but somehow, being here and next to this man in particular, he feels like he has more of it. What that could mean is beyond him, he'd given up on trying to predict how his life might turn out a long time ago, but even if nothing more than platonic ever happens here, Reid will still want to do everything in his power to make his friend happy. He'll do what he can to see that smile.

"I don't know," he says, glancing over at Luke with a gaze that lingers maybe a little longer than it should, "I think it pays to hear others laugh, too. Maybe I just need to narrow my audience down more, to the ones I care to hear."

This is a moment, Luke can feel it. It's simmering just under the surface of everything they say and do, it's the moment where he's supposed to find some hidden reserve of courage and push himself away from the corner of the couch to catch his fingers against the edge of Reid's jaw. Over the course of his life he's had so few of these moments, but he knows well enough to recognize it for what it is. And yet just as he lets himself begin to feel it, just as he begins to recognize it for what it is and dig deep to find that courage, he feels a flicker of doubt. Reid is looking at him, holding his gaze, and Luke is looking back, but it doesn't have to mean anything. He says he needs to narrow his audience to the ones he cares to hear laugh and there's one part of Luke's brain telling him it means something, but the other part is louder. The part saying it's only a friendly gesture is the one that wins.

It's the one that always wins and Luke closes his eyes briefly, wishing he could just let himself believe. There have been moments in the past where he's let himself believe he might deserve something good and in those moments the good thing has always been taken from him. Snatched away, not in a manner that's particularly cruel, but gently, in a way that's made the sting especially memorable. None of this is Reid's fault, none of this is information he could know, but it makes Luke cautious in a way that perhaps isn't fair. He's afraid, though. In the end it all comes back to fear and he wishes he could be stronger. That he could finally beat his fear.

But for all that he was convinced there had been a moment between him, he can't make himself act and now the moment is gone. He smiles, though, when he opens his eyes again and glances over at Reid, because more than anything he desperately does not want to lose this burgeoning friendship. If he's never allowed to make a move toward something more, he'll accept that fate if it means he's still allowed these nights where he sits on his couch with Reid, the two of them laughing and smiling. This is what he needs desperately and maybe he needs so much more than this, too, but if he's allowed either only friendship or nothing, he'll pick friendship every time. He's not prepared to lose this. Not now, not after feeling like he's really connected to someone who trusts him.

"So karaoke for me and an open mic night for you?" he asks, looking amused as he tries to calm the racing of his heart. "That's something I think I'd very much like to see and you might even get me up on a stage to sing in exchange. Maybe." He feels comfortable saying this only because he truly doubts Reid is going to be willing to get up and perform stand-up comedy, not that Luke could blame him. He's a leader in a good number of ways and has no problem speaking to a crowd when it's necessary, but being the centre of attention in a manner that's meant strictly for entertainment leaves him with a creeping feeling of discomfort. It's just not the sort of thing he's cut out for, being in the limelight, and it's something he'll continue to avoid as fervently as possible.

"Thank you for this," he says after another moment, though he's looked up toward his ceiling again. Their friendship is already strong, he really believes that, but Reid makes him nervous regardless. He makes Luke feel like a silly, fumbling teenager who doesn't know what to do around another person, and while there's a part of him that relishes that, there's another, deeper part that's still just afraid. "For the cake and the gift and mostly for coming to spend the evening with me. I'm having a good time."

"If watching me bomb and run off the stage in a room full of people is your pleasure then sure, open mic night for me it is," Reid says, shaking his head in his amusement. There's not a chance in the world he'd be willing to do something like that, there's nothing about the thought of being scrutinized by strangers that sounds appealing to him; but he can take comfort in knowing that Luke would never publicly do karaoke, either, so they're about on the same level here. "Private comedy act, maybe, with the world's densest jokes, in exchange for a sing-along. Maybe. Possible Christmas gift exchange, anyway."

It's a little strange to realize that he's already accepted a future here, even if it's uncertain, but Reid isn't as at odds with the idea as he'd been in the first weeks of being here. It's easier to let something like that settle when others are going through the same thing, he supposes, but he knows he also owes a lot of that to Luke.

"And you don't need to thank me," he continues, and he means it because he feels as if he should be the one thanking Luke for allowing this evening to be possible at all. It's Luke's birthday, he could be doing anything with anyone else, but Reid can't help but be privately pleased that his friend had chosen to stay in with him instead. "I'm having a good time, too. Quiet celebrations are the better choice, in my opinion, but I'm sure that wouldn't surprise you."

The team had always gone out of their way to celebrate Reid's birthday, even if it meant postponing for after a case, and he'd never really been all too certain whether that was because he was the baby of the group or because every single one of them had understood just how important it was to him to know that they would remember it. A bit of both, most likely, but Reid had always appreciated it. Some years, his mother would forget in the midst of having an episode, and he'd never resented her for that but it'd become easy to think that the day didn't really matter, in the grand scheme of things.

He hopes that even with just a cake and a small gift and some good conversation on the couch, this is notable for Luke. It's notable for Reid, at least, and he's beginning to think that he's not alone in that the more they spend time together. It's all hope he has to believe is false until proven otherwise or he'll drive himself mad, but he's happy to do that if it means this friendship can continue to grow. It's not just the best thing about being in Darrow anymore, knowing Luke; it's becoming one of the best things for him, period. There's something a little frightening about that but with a new world comes new experiences, and Reid is finding that it's much better to embrace the change.

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[july 12]

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