He cares about his family, even through their ups and downs. He cares about his friends, his band; they’re pretty much a family to him too. And he cares, so so much, about music. Music has been there his whole life. Mostly rock, his favorite, but he can appreciate pretty much any kind of music. He’s listened to music throughout his whole life. It made him feel better when he was sad, widened his grins when he was happy, and kept all the in-betweens interesting. 

He only loved music more when he started writing it. Luke started writing music late in middle school, but he would probably kill you if you knew. He always thought it was good he started early to get it all out of the way. It wasn’t really music yet, just putting down words without having anything to say. He still thinks they were less of lyrics and more like pages of word vomit. The old notebooks from that first year or so are probably still lying around somewhere, but Luke would rather look forward than back at all of that. He puts meaning into his music now, and Luke thinks it’s only ever gotten better, especially working with Julie. Except for a short period in the middle where it definitely got worse. 

The thing is, Luke puts emotion into every one of his songs. He thinks you can’t have truly good music without putting at least a little bit of heart in it; and Luke cares so much about all of his music he can’t honestly help it. Writing music has helped him understand his feelings, and it’s his biggest way of expressing them. Usually though, he doesn’t really need music as an outlet or anything. He loves playing the songs he’s worked on, all the emotions that go with them. The electric energy in Now or Never, the reassurance and connection in Bright, the determination and fearlessness in Stand Tall, all of his songs had pieces of himself in them. But he writes them because he wants to, not because he needs to get anything out. Most of the time, at least.

There was only really one instance in Luke’s life where that wasn’t the case. Where he was so overwhelmed with emotion that he had to get it out onto a page before he could move on. Dying and coming back as ghosts, making friends with the girl who brought you back and being able to play music again, only to find your only surviving bandmate stole your old songs, and the whole Caleb thing probably should have done it. The thing is, Luke (and Alex and Reggie) got put through that rollercoaster so fast that he could barely make out emotions from the jumbled blur, much less put them into music. Before he could even say “What the hell is going on here?!” Luke was writing new songs. For their new band with Julie, no less. And he had pretty much gotten past all that drama already, somehow. It probably had something to do with Julie. After all, “No music is worth making, Julie, if we’re not making it with you.”

The time that really got to Luke, was actually part of how he ended up playing up music anyhow. It all started when his mother got him a guitar for his birthday, happy to support his interest in music. Perhaps she didn’t understand quite how deep the interest ran, because she might never have gotten it if she had. He was immediately captivated by it, and within a week Luke had the basics pretty much down already. It didn’t take him long to get even better, and to decide to form a band with some friends. He went home that night, blood pumping fast with excitement, and told his mom the news. It didn’t go over quite as well as he thought.

His mother had already become a bit apprehensive about how much Luke had come to like the guitar, but she had decided not to say anything as she thought it was just a harmless hobby. But then Luke came home and told her he was in a band, and all the fears rushed to surface and spilled over. She never should have had that much of a reaction or been so harsh, but it was all because she cares about Luke. She is his mother after all. And he had already been falling a bit behind on schoolwork, spending all his free time working out new songs with his guitar. That would only get worse if he joined a band, not even considering his future and the bandmates he wanted to play with, and where they wanted to play music, and all sorts of other concerns that came out when Luke told her about the new band.

It really hit Luke hard that his mother was instantly full of criticisms. Couldn’t she just be happy for him? He came home all excited and she instantly twisted it into hurt and anger, which turned their discussion into more of a fight, or at least certainly didn’t help matters. He’s not quite sure anymore exactly what was said that night, but he got the memo- “You can’t ditch everything for a band when you live in this household” - so he lashed back with some venom of his own, and left. It didn’t even take a whole night for him to regret it. 

Biking away with basically only his guitar, the thing that mattered most to him but his mother hated most. Luke only took a good few minutes of furious pedaling to realize that he had no idea where he was going, and he was exhausted. All the fight drained out of him, all the adrenaline faded away, he was just hurt. No more energy to be angry, all the white noise of yelling in the argument cleared from his head, and he couldn’t believe his mother said all that to him. He was so excited to come home and tell his family about his new band, just earlier that evening. It already seemed like so long ago. He felt a little bad about the things he said back to his mom already too, but it was still very clear to him that they were in retaliation. If his mother hadn’t exploded at him for chasing his passion, it never would have happened. He ends up deciding to crash at the Molina’s place. After all Rose did say they could use the garage whenever they wanted. Luke was already almost drowning in this dread about everything that happened, and he was still too tired to really realize it. He just decided to knock out.

It hit him full force in the morning. Luke woke up in an unfamiliar room, confused for about half a second, before getting hit by a tidal wave of “oh, shit.” 

Fighting with his family is what really managed to upset him. Nothing in Luke’s life had ever hit him that hard before. That’s when his songwriting really hit a low point for a bit. He wrote Unsaid Emily once he had gotten himself together as a way to  conclude his feelings on the matter, and a way to say “I’m sorry” to his mom without actually saying it right to her. He wrote the song to summarize everything he had to say about what happened, but he tried to leave most of the emotion out of it. He learned his lesson about not putting his feelings about it all into song.

In the few weeks before that, his writing was closer to the state they were in middle school. Except this time instead of having nothing to say, he had too much he needed to get out, and he didn’t know how to make it into proper lyrics. He poured too much emotion into them. Instead of being a wave of energy over a crowd, they’d be more like a tsunami, too overpowering. Luke was just writing them for himself at that point, even the band wouldn’t see those songs, much less a stage. 

The one thing he could come up with to say on it, looking back, is that’s the thing about being hurt. You have too much to hold inside of you so you bleed your soul out onto paper in ink, but instead of making it beautiful, it just makes the pages dark. All the feelings are just as ugly when you put them down on paper, and once they’re no longer caught in your chest, you don’t want to have anything to do with them. But their ink still stains your hands, and you know they may be gone but you can never forget them. 

Reggie is sick. It's no big deal, really. Not fun, that's for sure, but it's your standard cold, if a little worse than average. November, pretty much the beginning of cold and flu season, and he already managed to catch something. Oh well. The only real kicker is that he doesn't even get to skip school because there wasn't any school today anyway. 

Being home alone with a cold is probably the worst part. His parents used to stay home from work when he was sick to make sure he was ok, but he's not a kid anymore. Not to mention he would rather die from this fever than have his parents argue their way through the whole day spent at home with him. So he downplayed his cold maybe a little bit in the morning, just so they wouldn't worry, and now he's the slightest but miserable.

After blowing his nose for what seems like the millionth time today, Reggie puts his mac ‘n’ cheese in the microwave. He knows he has a good bit of a fever and he had a headache earlier but he took some painkillers and he's feeling a little better now. What really sucks though, is the chills. Reggie has felt hot and cold all day, but mostly cold. Even wearing his warmest hoodie and eating microwave mac ’n’ cheese hasn't heated him up. 

It's also a bit boring to stay home alone with a cold. Both Luke and Alex offered to come over but Reggie declined because he didn't want to get them sick. Bobby probably would have offered too, but his parents are pretty strict and he was supposed to watch his siblings for the day anyway. 

Reggie decides to take a hot shower to get warmer, and maybe clear out his stuffy nose a bit. There's not much of anything better to do. Sick days really make you realize how boring you are, huh. He grabs a towel and robe and heads to the bathroom to turn on the shower and let it heat up. 

Stepping into the shower and feeling hot water on his skin has him feeling warmer already, and Reggie starts to wash his hair. Moving on to washing the rest of his body, he's already starting to feel a bit hotter than he would like, but both his parents take their showers hot, so he doesn't think much of it. He decides he's not getting out until his nose feels a little better though, so he ignores it. Reggie finishes washing himself and decides to just stand in the shower a little longer. He's gotten pretty hot, a little uncomfortably so at this point, but he figures that's the point of a hot shower. 

As his nose clears with the steam, his head clears a little too, and he really starts to realize how hot he feels. A searing sort of heat, making his pulse throb under his skin and bringing back his headache. Quickly turning the shower off, Reggie is regretting staying in for so long. Wrapping himself up in his towel and noticing how weak he feels now, Reggie stumbles over to his phone. He manages to grab his phone before dropping to his knees on the floor. His blood rushing in his ears, head spinning, burning up, Reggie types out a text to Alex, who he knows constantly checks his phone out of anxiety. 

“Hey turns out I actually do need you to come over. Like, now.”

As soon as he verifies that the text sent, he slumps against the cabinets beneath the sink counter, where he set his phone down. With nothing else to distract him, Reggie can't help but focus on the pounding in his head, eyes getting hazy and drifting closed. 

Reggie opens his eyes, not quite realizing he had passed out in the first place, to a ringing phone and banging on the front door downstairs. Clutching his head, he answers the call to grumble "I'm coming geez" before hanging up again. With a sigh of relief that the assault on his ears had quieted, he stood and wrapped himself in a robe. 

Reggie made his way slowly down the stairs, one hand on the railing and one still gently resting on the side of his head. Still feeling weak, each step like a chore, he notices the overheated burning sensation rising beneath his skin again now that he's wrapped in his fluffy robe. 

He reaches the door and opens it slowly, apprehensive of how loud his friends will be clashing with his headache. As soon as the door is open a crack, Reggie gets a face full of concerned Alex and Luke as they basically force their way into his home. Reggie stumbles back, and immediately Alex has a hand under his arm to support him, and gestures to Luke to get his other side. Reggie mumbles something about closing the door and not being babied, but Luke and Alex insistently drag him up to his room anyway. 

Once they get Reggie propped in a sitting position on his bed they warn him to stay there; to which he protested even though he had no real intention of doing otherwise. Luke goes to the bathroom to grab Reggie’s discarded towel and phone, upon request, while Alex frets like a concerned mother. Luke comes back from the bathroom with a wet hand towel, showing more thoughtfulness than ever expected of him. He drapes the towel over Reggie’s forehead and Reggie grumbles a little, but it feels nice on his too warm skin.