youfeelluckypunk | [turkey day, nov 21]

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[turkey day, nov 21]

They've graciously been invited to Derek's Thanksgiving celebration on the actual day itself, but Reid had gotten to thinking after Luke had told him of the invitation that it would be nice to throw a small get-together of their own. Halloween at the bookstore had been a success, after all, and in spite of the fact that they'd been sent to a hellish version of Darrow for the next ten days, Reid had really enjoyed planning and decorating for the holiday with his boyfriend. In a way, it also serves as a bit of a housewarming, even if nobody else needs to know that. They've been officially living together for a week now, though the only real difference is that he's handed over his keys to the Dimera apartment back to the landlord.

Still, being able to call this apartment home, knowing that he gets to spend every night with the man he loves, it means something special to him, and he wants to share that sense of home with the rest of the people he cares about.

So he sends out texts to Alec and Magnus, Peter and Jason and Hild, telling them all to save the date for the twenty-first so they can have an early Thanksgiving celebration. Others are welcome, of course, and Reid suspects they'll have more than enough food because he'd made arrangements for one restaurant in particular (one that he visits often and had already been promoting take-out for Thanksgiving Day) to set him up with a turkey dinner early. There are all the expected fixings, though he'd ordered four turkeys because Luke still needs to eat more to make up for all the weight he'd lost in the alternate version of Darrow, plus a couple pumpkin pies and various other desserts strewn out across the table. The wine Peter had given to him on Halloween is out, available for consumption to those who want it, but Reid will be sticking to water tonight.

If anyone asks, he's been slaving away in the kitchen all day long, brewing coffee after coffee as he and Luke make sure everything looks nice and neat for their first Thanksgiving dinner together. The food is set out over the counter in the kitchen, china and utensils and glassware placed at the very end so people can take what they want and find a place to eat in the living room, where they've placed extra chairs, and it isn't until they hear the first knock at the door that Reid finally decides he's satisfied with the way everything looks.

Every single person who will be here tonight has been through so much, seen more than one person ever should, but tonight, Reid is just grateful that they're all still here.

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"My father's not an easy person to like," Alec said, pursing his lips briefly. His relationship with his father had been civil for a long time. They weren't close and Alec didn't feel comfortable opening up to him but he was family and Alec did love him. He just didn't know if he trusted his father the way he trusted his mother.

He trusted neither of them as much as he trusted Isabelle.

"She must have been different back then," Alec remarked quietly, thoughtfully. His mother had always been so severe, so regal and imperious that he could never picture her having anything close to fun. She was wholly dedicate to running the Institute and making sure the Law was followed without fail. Once upon time, his mother hadn't seen things in black and white. She'd seen gray areas and those gray areas had propelled her towards Valentine and towards the Circle. Alec knew she was still trying to atone for all that she'd done back then right now.

"They shouldn't have treated you like they did," he added in a much quieter tone. It wasn't so much an apology as a statement of fact. Alec wasn't the greatest fan of Downworlders but he could admit there were exceptions to his disdain. Several of them were in this room right now and he couldn't ever picture himself turning his back on Luke, on Magnus, just because something about them had changed.

"Regret changes a person," Luke says thoughtfully and although he doesn't know Maryse well now, he can gather well enough what she may be like from the things Alec has said about her. She'd always been composed, a little cool, and he can imagine how traits like that might shift toward the more severe under the weight of what they've all done. Regret has changed them all, he knows that, and while Maryse has perhaps become a little more singleminded in how she runs things, Luke knows there are a lot of ways in which he feels like he's constantly trying to atone for what he'd done. Reaching out, offering help, making sure no one is hurt, those have always been a part of his nature, but since Valentine he's felt them more keenly, he's acted on them more often.

They all have regrets and they've all been changed by their time with Valentine.

In the case of Alec's mother, he knows her regret runs much more deeply than that. There are personal matters at stake as well. Luke may no longer be a Shadowhunter, but he's heard things, whispers of rumours. They're not things he feels he can tell Alec, simply because he doesn't know them to be true, but he imagines how Robert's behaviour may have further changed his wife.

At Alec's comment Luke smiles softly and reaches over to pat his knee. "It's alright," he says. "It's hard to throw off the preconceived notions you've been fed all your life, no matter how close you may be to a person. I... when it happened, Valentine told me to do the honourable thing and kill myself. That's why I have the Morgenstern blade. He gave it to me to take into the forest where he hoped I would slit my own wrists and you know, Alec, I almost did. Instead I went to my sister, hoping she would talk me out of it, but when she told me that Valentine was right, I went to find the wolf that bit me and I challenged him to a fight. I thought for certain he would kill me and I wanted him to, because even I wasn't able to get over what had happened to me. I was the one who'd been changed and I was disgusted by the thought of having to live as a Downworlder." His smile grows a little. "So in order to forgive myself those thoughts, I have to forgive your mother for hers."

It all seemed to come back to Valentine somehow. His mother and father kept that part of themselves well hidden, never discussing it with any of their children. Alec honestly wondered if they even talked about it when they were alone. It didn't seem like a subject anyone was proud of no matter what the whole thing had started out as. All Alec knew was that there were personal stakes involved when it came to Valentine. Personal stakes for his parents, personal stakes for Jace and Clary, and personal stakes for Luke and the other former members of the Circle.

It all came back to Valentine.

Alec curled the fingers one hand into a fist, upset that he couldn't be there with his family to take the fight to Valentine. He didn't want to think of the destruction that could be going on while he was here, sitting at a holiday dinner, powerless to help.

"I don't think she forgives herself for a lot of things," Alec said quietly, forcing his fingers loose again. He pressed them down against his jeans, pale against dark. "She doesn't talk to me about anything like that, though. Neither does my dad. I feel like I barely know them lately. There's always Clave business or Institute business so they're busy and I'm busy and I just don't know what's going on with them at all."

"I doubt very much they want their children to know about the things they did while in the Circle," Luke says, frowning slightly. "But I can understand how it would make you feel as if a part of them has been kept from you."

That's part of why he'd always wanted Jocelyn to be honest with Clary about the Shadow World, why the only arguments they had ever really had existed around Clary and what little she knew. He had always known the day would come when she would have to find out about everything that had been kept from her and she would be angry that she'd been lied to. Through some sort of miracle, she hadn't been angry at him, not yet, but Luke expects that's yet to come. If he ever sees Clary again, he's likely going to have some explaining to do.

"It's hard to own up to the mistakes you've made, but it's especially difficult when it comes to your children," Luke says. "You want them to think the world of you and while you want them to know it's okay to make mistakes, the sorts of things we did... well, it's easy to let those experiences drown in shame. I'm not proud of the way I behaved when I was in the Circle and I can't imagine your parents are either. You want to teach your children how to be good, but sometimes it's hard to remember there was a time when you wouldn't have been able to lead by example."

He's quiet for a moment, then says, "I didn't know my parents at all. My father died when I was very young and my mother became one of the Iron Sisters. If you ever see them again, Alec, if you really want to know them, you should ask."

The 'if' in that statement stabbed at Alec and he didn't really know how to deal with that unexpected pain. It sliced through his heart and settled in his gut, heavy and hard. Darrow was an enigmatic mystery, something that Alec had yet to figure out but he'd wanted to believe that he wouldn't be kept here forever. Whatever magical force had brought him here had to release sooner or later and then he'd see his parents and siblings again.

The thought of that not happening ever again made him nauseous. He hid it well, covering up any reaction under layers and layers of stoicism and cynicism.

"I don't know how much they'd tell me even if I did ask," Alec said, trying to remember the last time he'd had a very long and thorough talk with his parents. It hadn't been anytime recently and even before Valentine's reappearance, his parents had been busy with the Institute and the Clave. They'd been physically there but something always seemed to get in the way of conversations that were longer than basic greetings and a check on each other's well being. "They're secretive."

That, Alec supposed, is where he got it from. He kept huge secrets, kept them from everyone but Isabelle and only that one outlet kept him from dying on the inside.

"Your mother's an Iron Sister?" Alec asked, latching onto that new information in lieu of not thinking about his parents. "I didn't know. Have you never heard from her since she joined the order?"

In a place like Darrow, a place where something like the Clave could never survive and where Luke would be a little concerned for the safety of anyone who tried to instate something along those lines, he imagines a conversation might be a little more likely to happen. Without anything else to demand their attention, if Alec were to really press the issue, he can't imagine Maryse or even Robert would continue to essentially ignore their child. But that relies on one or both of them coming here, because he knows if Alec goes back to New York instead, nothing is likely to change. Even in the face of a potential war, even with Valentine trying to destroy everything they've fought for, he knows people tend to look at the battle instead of what's going on around them.

They always think there will be time for that later and sometimes nothing is further from the truth.

Luke nods when Alec asks about his mother, though, letting him guide the subject change. "Sister Cleophas," he says with a wry twist of his lips that might have almost been a smile if not for the bitterness in it. Perhaps it's funny that it's his mother who still holds the majority of Luke's resentment, especially when so many awful things have been done to him over the course of his life, but the only one in which he can't find a direct correlation to his own behaviour is his mother's decision to leave him. He has so many questions about his parents, his family, but none of them will ever be answered and not only because he's estranged from his sister, but because he expects she knows as much as he does.

"She left when I was still quite young," he says. "I don't have many memories of her anymore, but I do feel like she never particularly wanted to be a mother, but that she loved my father very much. After my father died, I suppose she saw little point in trying to raise two children she didn't really care for one way or the other, so she left. Amatis raised me. Rather, she did the best she could, she was only a few years older than I was."

With what Alec knew of the Iron Sisters, he could imagine how difficult it might be for Luke to know his mother was out there, alive and well, but out of reach. That she'd essentially abandoned him for a job. It was an important, immensely respected job but it was a job, a duty, a responsibility. While his own mother was distant and aloof, she was still present and Alec could take comfort from that, at least. He knew if she was ill and or injured whereas Luke's mother wouldn't know what might be happening to Luke. Luke had, in essence, lost his mother of her own volition.

"It's a good thing you had your sister," Alec said, not apologizing for what Luke's mother had done. It hadn't been his fault and apologies wouldn't mend the relationship between mother and son. Luke had recovered from his mother's departure and if it still hurt, he hid it admirably. "I sometimes feel like Isabelle and I do the same thing for Max. My parents take him along when they go on trips to Idris but if they're in New York, we tend to make sure he eats and sleeps and doesn't get into too much trouble."

Though, with Max, trouble wasn't much of an issue. If he had books and a light, he'd be quiet and calm for hours on end. The thought of his younger brother, eyes hidden behind too large eyeglasses, made him smile.

"Maybe we don't have to keep him out of trouble as much as we have to keep him from acting like Jace. No one but Jace needs to act like Jace."

Luke laughs softly, easily able to picture both Alec and Isabelle stepping in like Amatis had for him. And unlike his sister, there's no outside influence, nothing that could possibly make either of them treat Max the way he had ultimately been treated by Amatis. He may not know Isabelle well and he knows that nearly everything he's learned about Alec has been learned here in Darrow, but based on what he does know now, he can't imagine there being anything that would cause them to disown Max, not even something like a werewolf bite. If that happened, he completely believes that both Alec and Isabelle would be there for Max, would support him entirely and knowing that somehow makes him feel better about what Amatis did to him.

"My god, I believe that completely," he says, shaking his head in amusement. Everything between Clary and Jace had been so deeply complicated and Luke realizes that if circumstances had been different, if Valentine hadn't faked his son's death, Luke may well have helped raised Jace alongside Clary. He knows it doesn't affect him nearly in the same way it does Jocelyn or Clary, but he can't help but think about all the ways in which their lives could have been different. Valentine changed so much.

"It was good of your parents to take Jace in," he says, his voice dropping a little. "It's good that he had you and Isabelle and Max. I hope things... I hope it settles down for everyone back in New York. Valentine has managed to make such a mess of things so many times over." And he has no consideration for anyone else, for how his actions make others feel, and while Luke realizes what everyone feels is probably the least of the Clave's consideration, but Valentine makes war on everyone and destroys so many people in his wake.

"I resented them at first," Alec shared, glancing over at Luke and shaking his head. "My parents, I mean. I resented them for taking Jace in because it had just been me and Isabelle for so long. I thought he'd come in and ruin everything."

It hadn't happened like that. He and Jace were polar opposites, two completely different types of people but they fit. They fit with each other, they fit against each other, and they fit as two parts of a larger unit. Jace was his brother. Jace was his parabatai.

He rubbed the Mark near his shoulder, hating the empty feeling that he had been left behind when he'd ended up in Darrow. Jace wasn't dead but he was far away, out of Alec's reach.

"I was wrong," Alec said, something he didn't admit very often. "I didn't really understand why my parents took him in until a lot later. I think they were probably trying to atone for what they did. I think it started out like that but turned into something else."

He trailed off then, having spoken more than he'd intended. Luke wouldn't spread the information around, he knew, but still. Being open was a new thing for him, a hard and treacherous path that scared him sometimes.

"It's possible," Luke agrees. "No, it's likely that it started as that. Michael was our friend, but he was especially close with your father. Their relationship... it was complicated. You know they were parabatai, right?"

It had been so much more than that, at least for Michael, but Luke isn't sure any of this is his information to give Alec. He isn't sure how he might react, knowing how his father responded to finding out Michael Wayland was in love with him, and after everything they've all just been through in that alternate version of Darrow, Luke doesn't want to give Alec any more reasons to think his father might have thought poorly of him. Luke's hope is that Robert has realized what a mistake he made with Michael, that he would never make the same mistake with his own son, but he's also not as charitable with Robert as he is with Maryse and he's not entirely sure he's capable of something like that.

"When your parents found out he'd died, I'm sure your father felt like he owed Michael something," he says. "Their exile had already weakened the parabatai bond, nothing was as it used to be, but none of us had ever really been able to apologize to the others. And with Michael gone, it took that chance away from them. That's likely why they took Jace in at first, but you're right. It turned into much more than that. Jace is part of your family."

"My mother did her best to sever that connection back in Manhattan," Alec said, bitterness lacing his tone. He'd watch his mother turn her back on Jace, hand him over to an Inquisitor that clearly had a chip on her shoulder and allow Jace to be imprisoned in the cells in the Silent City.

Jace couldn't control who raised him, whose blood he had flowing through his veins and yet he'd been punished for it. He'd been shown that the mistakes of the father were also the mistakes of the son in his case and Alec had watched it break Jace down, tear him apart. Jace had tried to hide it, make it seem like it was fine and he was fine but Alec knew better. He knew better than to think any of this was all right.

"They took Jace in but they turned away from him pretty quickly. When they heard something they didn't like..."

Alec trailed off because the rest didn't need to be said. Whenever Alec thought about being honest with his parents, something like this happened and he retreated further back and away, unwilling to be turned against as well.

Luke sighs softly at that, because although he suspects there are complications there he can't even begin to understand, he also doesn't disagree with Alec entirely. Turning away from Jace like she had was a mistake, one he doesn't know can ever entirely be undone. In a lot of ways, he and Maryse have been in the same position, raising one of Valentine's children as their own, and he knows there's nothing Clary could do or say that would ever make him turn from her like that.

Unless, of course, he had to hurt her in order to save her. He can't pretend he knows all of Maryse's intentions, but he can't deny that it's possible she'd been doing the same.

"Valentine's betrayal destroyed your parents' lives in a lot of ways," he says, his voice soft. "Finding out Jace was his son and not Michael's would have come as a blow and sometimes..." He pauses, wondering if he should say it, then decides there's no sense in keeping it to himself. "I only know I would do anything to protect Clary, regardless of whose daughter she really is and I have to wonder if perhaps your mother's thoughts weren't far from my own. I don't know her motivations, Alec, but I do know she loves her children. All of them. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made in order to keep them safe."

"Would you consider sending Jace with the late Inquisitor safe?" Alec asked dubiously. Inquisitor Herondale had been unhinged and out of her mind. She'd targeted Jace and she'd imprisoned him in both the Silent City cells and then later, in a Malachi Configuration. She'd stopped just short of torturing Jace and he'd let her because he thought he deserved it.

"Whatever reason they had for doing that to Jace isn't good enough," he said, shaking his head. There hadn't been any time to brood about it, confront it, because there'd been Valentine and his demon army to contend with but Alec had not forgiven nor had he forgotten.

"What's to stop them from doing that to me? Or Isabelle or Max? It shouldn't have happened," he said strongly. He blamed himself because he hadn't done more to get Jace out but he blamed his parents most of all.

"No," Luke agrees and he sighs softly, but doesn't argue it any further. The truth is that he doesn't know what Maryse was thinking or why she'd done any of the things she'd done. He only knows what it feels like to be a parent, even to a child who's come into your life later. He knows there are complicated reasons for nearly everything a parent does, that all of them are born of love, even if it might not seem that way to begin with. He can't defend her actions, not when he agrees with Alec that, on the surface, they seemed harsh and inappropriate, but he knows he can't for reasons beyond the fact that he's not privy to her thoughts. It's impossible to explain the love of a parent to anyone else, especially someone as young as Alec.

In time, Luke is sure he'll understand, but that sort of understanding comes with age and time.

"There's much that shouldn't have happened," he agrees. "Far too much. Too many people were lied to and too many people didn't think their actions through, myself included." But there's nothing to be done that can take them back. They can only go forward and live with what's happened.

"It's a dumb thing to think about because it's not like I can change anything while I'm here," Alec said, shaking his head. All he could hope for was that, with the Inquisitor dead, his mother had seen reason and allowed Jace back where he belonged. He could see Jace being stubborn though, staying away because he didn't think he was wanted or he thought he only brought harm and shame.

If that was the case, Alec had to hope that Isabelle could get through to him or she'd throw her considerable weight around and make sure she got her way. That was probably the most likely solution to the problem.

Alec let the subject drop. It was futile to try and argue about it when and Luke were both removed from the situation now.

"Is this anything like the Thanksgiving's you had with Clary and Jocelyn?" he asked, turning the conversation onto something safer and less intense for the both of them.

Luke has a feeling that Alec is expressing what should be a relatively healthy sentiment -- that he can't change the things out of his control and so shouldn't worry about them -- in an unhealthy manner, because he doubts it's that simple. Learning to let go, learning to accept that some things simply can't be changed, that comes with a lifetime of work and while Luke has grown closer to Alec in recent weeks and thinks he has a high number of very good attributes, he feels as if letting go might not be one of them.

At the change of subject, he glances around the living room and then shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not at all. Jocelyn was an aggressively private woman in her attempts to keep Clary from learning about the Shadow World. She didn't make very many friends in New York and she wasn't particularly keen on having Downworlders around her daughter. Given that most of my friends were werewolves, holidays were always relatively quiet."

Then his mouth twitches into a smile and he adds, "Except at Hunter's Moon. I would sometimes slip away from Jocelyn and Clary early just to spend time there. Their parties were always big and loud and... warm. They were happy."

Alec had heard of Hunter's Moon but had never visited, never wanted to visit. He had a contentious relationship with most Downworlders and liked to keep his distance from them if at all possible so, unless there was a need for a Shadowhunter, Alec let the werewolves have Hunter's Moon to do whatever they wanted to do. Raucous, rowdy parties weren't really his thing either so double the reason not to put him in a situation where he'd be unwelcome and uncomfortable.

"Never been," Alec said though he was sure Luke had assumed that anyway. Even if he'd been the type to welcome Downworlders with open arms, he wasn't the party type at all. That was the other Lightwood, the one who wasn't here right now. Might never be here. "We probably ended up at Taki's on a few Thanksgiving's though I didn't really keep track. Sometimes, we saw some of that big parade they have while we were out. Demons love big crowds."

"I guess Semele's is probably as close as we have to Taki's here, isn't it?" Luke asks, though he doesn't spend much time in the bar and he'd never visited Taki's all that often. At the time he'd been as disconnected from the Shadow World as he'd ever been and it's only now he's spending more time with Downworlders, though he doubts they'd take very kindly to being referred to as such.

He smiles then and says, "Although I doubt Derek has much faerie food on the menu." Not for lack of friends who may have eaten it, because he knows how close Derek and Sookie had been. She'd been unlike any of the Fair Folk he'd ever known, though, and he's still smiling as he thinks about what Alec might have thought of her.

"You know, there was a young woman here, she disappeared before you arrived, but she was one of the Fair Folk," he says. "She smelled like them, by every definition she was one of them, except... she was nothing like them. You wouldn't have been able to tell just by looking at her or listening to her. She was sweet and blonde, she looked like the girl next door. Southern accent, nicest girl you could have ever met, but she was a faerie. It's different all across these worlds and that's what I find so interesting."

"I've met Derek and from what I saw, he doesn't have faerie food unless it's on some hidden menu," Alec recalled. Derek's menu had been very mundane based, full of typical diner food. It had been similar to Taki's though the menu had not been as expansive, obviously.

"He had a lot to say about my mood," Alec said, shaking his head. Alec was well aware of his moods and didn't see any reason to change. He was focused and committed, completely and irrevocably, to his work and his duties. If that meant he didn't give off an aura of fun, so be it. "And then offered me a piece of pie."

The encounter hadn't started off very well but it had seemed to end on an even keel and it'd given Alec someone attractive to look at covertly. If Derek had sensed anything, he hadn't said.

"Maybe the Seelie Queen hadn't gotten her talons into her just yet," Alec said bitterly. Luke's description of the girl made her sound like an anomaly in terms of the Fair Folk but Alec doubted he'd trust any Fair Folk, no matter how nice and sweet they were.

"Well, did you call him werewolf upon meeting him?" Luke asks, although he's smiling when he says it and he gives Alec's shoulder a gentle nudge with his own. He's considered introducing them now and then, though he's imagined they wouldn't particularly like each other at first. It's hard for a Shadowhunter to dispel of everything they've been taught, Luke knows that better than most, but given that he truly does believe he and Alec are growing closer, he has a faint hope that Alec's (possibly deeply hidden) affection for him might slowly extend to other Downworlders. At least a little bit, anyway, at least to the point where he might not be immediately suspicious of all of them.

"Maybe. Or maybe it's possible other worlds don't behave the same as ours did," he says. "She was even physically different than what we're used to. The idea is the same, but it's never quite as exact when it comes to execution." That seems to be the case with everything. Vampires, werewolves, even those who can do magic. What Ron and Hermione are capable of would make them warlocks in Luke's world, but in their own, they're celebrated in their own way, with a school for them, much like Shadowhunters have.

"Anyway, try to be nice to Derek at least a little," he says, that little teasing smile still in place. "He's probably the closest thing to pack I have here and I'd prefer not to have to choose between the two of you."

"Yes," Alec said, not sounding at all ashamed of that fact. It was one of those things that was so ingrained in him that breaking the habit and changing his behavior wasn't as easy as people liked to believe. He'd grown up around his parents who called every Downworlder they encountered something other than their proper name and Alec had imitated what he'd seen and heard.

He was, however, starting to understand that people didn't necessarily like being called what they were and not who they were.

"I think he threatened me and told me I didn't know anything about werewolves before he said some other things." After he'd left, Alec had realized that Derek might have been flirting with him albeit lightly and subtly.

"I was plenty nice to him," he insisted with a shake of his head. "I stayed and ate his pie. I could have just left."

"And he didn't immediately kick you out, so I suppose that is something I should be thankful for," Luke answers, still looking amused. He truly doesn't require everyone in his life to be the best of friends and he doesn't expect it either, not when it comes to Shadowhunters and Downworlders, but he does appreciate the attempt at civility, if nothing else. For all he doesn't want to be responsible for another pack, for how little he ever wants to step into the alpha role ever again, it's still nice to have one other werewolf he can refer to as family in that way. And although he'd been teasing about not wanting to have to choose between the two of them, it isn't entirely a joke.

He won't stop spending time with Derek, but he also knows he can't stop spending time with Alec. Not when it's so clear he needs someone in his life, possibly someone like Luke. Even if he's just there to give Alec a place to go when he needs it, there's no way he'd ever take that away from him. It's important they get along at least as far as that becomes necessary.

"A lot of the werewolves here talk about pack," he says thoughtfully. "And some of them don't seem to understand why it is I'm not comfortable with the word or with the idea of being a pack leader again. You saw the wolves I was in charge of in Manhattan, though, you know how readily they followed me into a war against Valentine. How many of them died. I can't imagine anyone would be willing to take that up again."

"If he'd kicked me out, I probably would have just left," Alec said like it wasn't a big deal. Alec didn't get kicked out of a lot of places because he just didn't go out enough for that to happen. He was the one who stayed behind to watch the Institute or stayed outside to make sure no demons slipped in and tried to sneak attack his brother and sister.

"If you don't want to be a pack leader, why not just be a part of a pack?" he wondered. There were more things to do than lead. Packs couldn't get by without a leader but, from what he knew, there was more to it than that. A leader needed a pack and a pack needed a leader. "Never really took you for the lone wolf type."

"I'm not a lone wolf," Luke answers, looking at Alec as if it should be obvious. "For most of my life I've had Clary and Jocelyn and Simon. Now in Darrow I have Spencer and Magnus and you. Hild and Caroline and Derek. Everyone who's here tonight."

They don't have to be werewolves for Luke to consider them his pack, for him to know he'd live and die for them. Alec's question might be a valid one for another werewolf, but Luke's life has been strange. He hadn't been born this way, he'd been born someone entirely different, someone with a life very much like Alec's.

"Being in a pack, being part of a collective of wolves, it's very different," he says. "There are different rules and while I've long since grown comfortable with who I am, I'm not prepared to live by those rules anymore."

The differences between Luke and Alec were glaringly clear right then. Alec's point of view was still strictly regimented in that he saw packs as packs of wolves and not packs of people that Luke cared for. He couldn't see people like himself or Hild or Reid as part of a pack because they were wolves or vampires or warlocks. He had yet to break himself of the thought that everyone had to belong to a specific group and deviating from that just didn't happen.

"So, you consider mundanes and other Downworlders part of your pack?" Alec asked, not sounding judgmental or accusatory. If anything, he sounded curious and interested. He didn't know if he could ever see anyone the way he saw other Shadowhunters, though. They were just too valued, too trusted to allow anyone not of angelic blood and birth into their ranks.

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