{tonight, tonight} // luke standalone

Luke is high when his sister dies.

But that’s not much of a surprise to anyone, much less himself. It’s not so much being high anymore as a constant state of removal from a world too large and too unjust for him to bear, shimmering powders that used to sing euphoria in his veins now only whispering the bittersweet promise of escape for a few hours, indifferent numbness to the horror that paints the television screen. The interviewers never even came for him. They recorded his parents and Imi, though, fresh off a stint at the Detention Center and looking distinctly the worse for wear. That’s what he watches on constant loop when he isn’t watching Ink fight for her life, watches the families of the other tributes parade across his hazy vision in slow-motion Technicolor, a symphony of longing and loss that will never be justified.

There is one in particular that piques his clouded interest, though. The camera sputters to life on the posh interior of a living room larger than Luke’s entire childhood home, but the stick-skinny boy on the couch seems at odds with the overstuffed furniture and rich décor, chocolate eyes wide and wary as slender hands grip the guitar in front of him like a security blanket. The overly made-up Capitol woman in such close proximity seems to make him even more uncomfortable, a microphone shoved inches from his lips without warning. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Um… Riley?” he says like it’s a question, like he’s not sure who he is anymore. Luke can relate. “Riley Lightwood.”

“And you’re Avon’s brother, yes?”

He nods, fingers fretting nervously over the guitar strings and producing an intricate melody, beauty born from pain. “Yeah. We’re triplets. I’m the oldest, she’s the middle and Antoinette’s the youngest.”

“You two must be close,” the Capitol woman simpers, earning another nod and more notes blooming from the metallic strings. “The scene from this year’s Reaping really struck a chord across the nation.” The interview cuts to a snippet of One’s Reaping footage, a strong-looking girl with short hair ascending the stage while a lanky form in the crowd screams, fighting the arms holding him back as a sound that can only be described as pure anguish tears itself from his throat. The camera snaps back to the interview and Riley looks pale, lack of sleep more evident in the slump of his shoulders and shadows beneath his eyes than Luke had originally noticed as the music stops and his fingers tighten to a white-knuckled grip around the neck of the instrument. The interviewer is merciless, though, shoving the microphone back in his direction. “How did that feel, them calling your sister? How does it feel?”

There is a long period of silence, and even through his shitty, jittery TV screen there is a look in the boy’s eyes that makes an echo resonate in the part of Luke’s soul that hasn’t been cut off from the world by a wall of morphling and heroin. “Awful. The worst… I felt like my world was ending. I still do. I feel like there’s a part of me missing.”

There’s a heavy sincerity to the mild tenor of his voice that makes even the Capitolite woman pause, and Riley seems to take advantage of the falter in her composure, looking right into the camera. “When we were kids, our dad died in an… accident at work. It was hard, losing a parent at six and having a bunch of younger siblings who looked to you because they were just as lost as you were. But Avon was always the one that helped me hold it together. And now, waking up in the morning and not seeing her at breakfast, going to bed without sitting in the library with her and talking about our day… it’s surreal. It’s like living someone else’s life, and I just… It’s like having to run a marathon when you don’t even know how to walk. When you lose someone that close to you it’s almost impossible to function.”

The interviewer snaps on a disproportionately cheery smile, snatching the microphone back. “If you could talk to your sister right now, what would you tell her?”

“That I’m keeping my promise. And that we all miss her and want her to come home.”

“And what did you promise her, Riley?”

He looks solemn but strangely determined, a resolve hardened by someone else’s dying wish, and Luke gets the feeling that this isn’t the first time that Riley Lightwood has borne the burden of such a heavy thing as a promise to someone leaving the world. “I promised her I’d stay strong and take care of everyone. She trusts me to do that. We keep our promises to each other, that’s just how –“

The interview cuts off, music that is out-of-place and upbeat blaring the announcement of an urgent update, and when Luke’s mind registers what’s happening, his stomach sinks all the way down to his shoes. In a dank cave full of moist stones and a shimmering pool of water, his sister is standing opposite a very haggard but still strong-looking Avon Lightwood. Luke just has time for the ragged beginnings of a gasp before the District One’s voulge bites into Ink’s arm.

She falls like the last leaves of autumn, almost graceful in the most heartbreaking way, an utter peace painting her features as the life all but evaporates from her with each whispered word. Each one carves at Luke’s heart like a dagger but it’s not until she speaks to him directly that he feels the salty-hot moisture trailing down his cheeks, limbs shaking as one hand extends toward the television as if he could reach through the screen and hold her hand. Ink is dying. His sister is dying. Her life is fading and she is so alone and he can’t, he can’t, he can’t… Inexplicably the words of another tribute’s brother shoot like quicksilver through his head. When you lose someone that close to you it’s almost impossible to function. Ink shudders and a bloodstained hand presses the quiet gleam of silver into Avon’s outstretched palm, a quivering entreaty to make sure it sees the light of day again almost too quiet to hear. And then…

And then she is gone.

A cannon fires, and somewhere his mother is sobbing inconsolably with her head in her hands, somewhere Imi is screaming, clawing at the television screen and calling for the sister who will never hear her voice again, somewhere his father is staring blankly ahead and wonder what sort of world would rip his baby girl away from him so viciously.

I am so far from home. So, so far from home.

Ink is so beneath the Capitol’s notice that her death only replays once or twice to maddeningly chipper commentary before the music starts again, the program shifting to coverage of the earthquake that decimated One mere days ago. Luke sees the wreckage of houses, shops, lives, and there is a tipping point somewhere inside him, a black sort of rage that consumes him even more than the sobs shaking his very soul, anger that grows hot and destructive at the memory of guitar strings and fragile determination in amberdark eyes.

And in that moment, his mind swirling with Ink's fading smile and the unsure posture of an unfamiliar, lanky frame and the wreckage of One on the TV screen, Luke hopes with every fiber of his being that Riley Lightwood is cold and dead under the fallen memory of what his home once was, hopes that every dream he ever had, everything he ever could have been is gone now. Because he wants Avon Lightwood to hurt the same way he does, wants to watch her face when the Victor's crown settles atop her head and she returns home to find the one person who cared enough to throw his life away for her struck down by the cruel (just?) hand of fate. Luke knows he's horrible, but he wants it nonetheless.

He’s never been the lucky one in this world, but only now does the unfairness of it all rip at the fabric of who he is until he is nothing but displaced rage and pain so deep that it threatens to undo him, scatter him to the winds like his baby sister’s last breath. He isn’t aware of rising from the couch, isn’t aware of his feet carrying him halfway to the door, as if he could run from all of this just like he runs from everything else.

Write me a song. It's all that resonates in his mind even as an anguished scream tears at his throat and his fist makes contact with the wall, the old drywall giving way and opening a ragged gash across the back of his hand. Write me a song. It's the only thing he can do for her now. Shaking with body-wracking sobs, Luke dives for a pen and a pad of paper, the words blooming in spirals of ink - ink, ink, Ink - like the notes had spiraled from Riley Lightwood's guitar on the screen. Beauty born from pain.

Ink's song is written in blood and tears.

Luke gets a variety of looks that range from confusion to sympathy when he walks into the bar, the denizens of the slums that have almost-but-not-enough felt like home for years doing everything from laying comforting hands on his shoulder to ordering him the strongest drink they can think of. But he shrugs them all off, shoving his way through the throng with his still-bleeding hand clutching tearstained paper, climbing up onto the ramshackle stage (this, this is home, the only home he has left) and settling onto the piano bench. “This… this is for my sister. And it will never be enough. Never. But it’s what she wanted.”

His fingers almost don’t remember the keys as they brush over the worn ivory, but they soon reacquaint and come running back like lovers sorry for the fight, flying over the arpeggios as his voice edges in, rich baritenor heavy with a sorrow that will never leave and words he will never get to say.

Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change the less you feel

He is ten years old. They play in the wide fields of the pasture, two dark-haired little girls dancing until they’re too dizzy to stand any longer. Imi’s fingers fly over the stems in her lap, crafting them into a delicate crown that she places on Ink’s head. Luke smiles, holds out his arms. “C’mere, Princess.”

Ink runs to him, shrieking with joy when he lifts her off the ground and spins her around in circles and wobbling on her feet, crown of Queen Anne’s lace lopsided when he sets her back down. “Am I really a princess, Luke?”

“You are to me.”

Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain
We're not the same, we're different tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight

He is fourteen years old. Ink and Imi giggle and splash in the deep blue of the swimming hole and he looks on with absentminded observation, more pre-occupied with the talking to the red-haired angel at his side and the faint buzz of morphling withdrawal ticking uncomfortably at the back of his neck. But he’s not addicted. He can stop anytime he wants. “Come on, you two, Mom said only a quick dip!”

Ink slots her hand into his as their feet slap against the packed dirt of the path, hazel eyes wide and curious. “Who was that girl? She’s pretty.”

“She is,” Luke nods with a smile. “Her name’s Clea. I’m taking her out for ice cream this weekend.”

“But you said you’d take us out for ice cream!”

Luke laughs, wrapping his arms around the shorter forms on either side of him. “Don’t worry; you two will always be my favorite girls.”

And you know you're never sure
But you’re sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake
The place where you were born

He is fifteen years old, and he can’t do it anymore. But the sight of Ink’s sleeping features almost makes him reconsider, makes him take back everything and swear he’ll be better from now on. But it’s too late now, the fights have been had, the bags have been packed… the damage has been done. Luke knows he’s a screw-up. Somewhere, he’s always known it. But in front of him there are two little girls that think he’s the beat all end all of big brothers, who he’d like to think he’d throw out all the morphling and bad decisions for if he didn’t know better than that.

Ink’s eyebrows furrow, a nightmare playing out across her face as she shifts beneath the covers, dark hair a halo around her face against the stark whiteness of her pillow. Luke tries to fight back the tears but one escapes, falling in a crystalline drop against her cheek as he slides the bracelet onto her bedside table, brushes her hair back from her face and presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “I love you.”

He grabs his bags and shimmies out of the window, the road ahead long and lonely. He doesn’t look back.

Believe, believe in me, believe
In the resolute urgency of now
And if you believe there's not a chance tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight

He is eighteen years old, and he is holding her for the last time. In the back of his mind, behind all the tears and promises and the ragged hole beginning to form in his heart, Luke wonders where he went wrong. The answer of course is everywhere, too many mistakes he can’t trade away weighing him down. There are so many things to say, so many I’m sorry’s and I never meant for it to end like this’s and Please don’t leave me’s that he knows he’ll never be able to say them all, not in the time they have and not when he knows he’s too far past the point of redemption for it to matter.

“I love you, Luke. I always have and I always will. Don’t forget that, okay?”

And even though there are a million words hanging thick along the tip of his tongue, Luke settles for only eight. “I love you too, Ink. More than anything.”

We'll crucify the insincere tonight
We'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight
We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight
The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight

He is eighteen years old. His sister is dead and tears are pouring down his face, falling to the keys of a piano that rings out across the utter silence of the bar. But he swears that for a moment he can feel her, feel her arms around him and hear her laughter, and he knows that she's not gone. Not really. Luke’s voice falters and wavers but it’s a broken beauty, just like she was, something flawed but so pure in its intention that it shines like the stars. Ink was everything he wasn’t, everything he could have been, everything he vows to be as his way of fulfilling his promise to her. He will be better. He will make himself be better.

He will not forget. He will never forget.

He won’t forget that she loved it when he would sing on summer nights, that she always liked oranges in her ice cream or that she was always the one to calm Imi down when she went into a rage. He won’t forget that she always smelled like sunshine and home or that her smile was the quiet sort of pretty, like moonlight on water. He won’t forget when the song finishes, won’t forget when he goes back to his apartment and packs his bags, won’t forget when he hops on the next train full of rescue workers to One, the hate no longer sitting heavy in his bones as he searches for a boy who understands what it’s like to have a piece of you missing. Luke will not forget.

He won’t forget that he had a sister named Inkling Vanessa Marling, and he will not forget how much he loves her.

Believe in me as I believe in you tonight

[ooc: graphic credit to Elegant. Song is Tonight, Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins as covered by Panic! At the Disco.]