antonym ; luke hemmings au

p r o l o g u e

p r o l o g u e

sydney, australia

The heel of his boot tapped on the wooden foot of the bed as he sat on the matress' edge with stale eyes. It would be over soon, he told himself, knowing that his mother's anger would subside and he would only need to blindly endure the screams that heated their household with meaningless nods and hums of false apologies.

"Why do you insist-" the blond woman hid her face with hands of beginning wrinkles as her frame was backed against the door. Her breathing hitched, causing the sentence to be cut short at the bordering tears that had just slipped to her cheek.

There were a few minutes of awkward silence ; Liz muffled her raging sobs and Lukes chest rose and fell in annoyance.

This had been routine for the Hemmings since the youngest had discovered he valued substance over the health of family relationship.

Cannabis has never clung to my back with regulations.

Opium doesn't expect anything of me.

Ecstasy won't invade my private life without consent.

This was Luke's argument in resistance to his mother's cries for an answer, which usually weighed heavily on her, but he didn't care. He was finished with abiding to every one else's advice and when his kin further pushed his intervention, he only distanced himself to the point where his father would no longer attempt talking to him. So they hadn't spoken in five months.

The boy was still spinning with the lingering affects of the white powder he'd snorted that morning when the middle-aged woman stepped towards him and leaned down, desperately reaching for her sons hands with a tear soaked face."Please," She frantically begged, yet Luke merely clenched his jaw with eyes trained on hers. "Please. Luke Robert, I love you, please stop this bullshit."

"You know what's bullshit?" He rhetorically yelled, startling Liz into freezing. "You constantly assuming you know what the fuck I'm feeling."

Her movements were paused in a state of shock at his harsh words though it wasn't the first time he had raised his voice at her.

She wanted to envelope him in a warm embrace and not retreat until he chuckled an excuse of not being able to breathe. She wanted to kiss his cheek and feel the sensation of her baby smiling near her ear. She wanted to hear his laugh, because the sound had been lacking and foreign for nearly a year.

It was the hardest thing to watch; raising her innocent and elated son into teen hood with the strongest of bonds and then finding his paraphernalia between box-spring and mattress and having him defend it with a sudden rage. To undergo Luke shoving her into the hallways glass table and then being punched square in the left eye by Andrew was the worst of it thus far, but she expected circumstances to only decline.

Luke never looked away from Liz with a bothered sight, even when her shaking fingers softly found both sides of his head.

She faintly remembered the feeling of his hair and flashbacks of petting his blond locks as he cling to her leg at the park as a child raced through her mind, sending another round of tears to gather on her lashes. Liz was nervous and scared to rest her forehead on his, but she did nonetheless.

How screwed was that? To be frightened by an eighteen year old you once carried and brought up.

Luke remained still, almost accepting her plea for affection and half-listened to her faltered words, though he was unable to shake the grudge. "Please, please. You're hurting everyone around you. I remember when you would come home for school and have the widest smile on your face because I would tell you to make your own cheese toastie after you stole bites of mine when I wasn't looking." Her features mimicked the memory, her lips stretching out before tasting the briny water that stemmed from her crying. "Luke, you were so happy. Please - these drugs and people you've surrounded yourself with are going to kill you. Please,"

And suddenly he once again had enough of her nagging and he jerked his head away, taking hold of her wrists and roughly tearing her hands from the sides of his head.

She fought back, flailing around her arms and trying to refuse his hostile grip.

They violently wrestled to the point where Luke stood from his sitting position and towered over Liz, his intimidating height only intensifying the fight and causing his mom into using a hand she managed to free to begin pounding her fist on his chest. "Luke! Luke, stop!" She screamed, knowing that her son could very easily abuse her and there was nobody else in the household to intervene.

Surprisingly, he gave slack, harshly throwing her elbow in a last motion of pure anger.

Then he stepped back, chest heaving and Liz wasted no time in swinging her hand and colliding it across his cheek, her grandmothers emerald ring creating a clean cut that beaded blood instantly.

She had expected it to be a cold realization to wake him up from the haze he was in, but it took a second to find that he had slapped her too in return and a searing pain was stinging her temple.

The woman cupped the pain, turned away from the inflictor now and slow motion setting in.

There were no words to describe her suffering, both mentally and physically, but she knew she wanted to flee the scene. Wanted to jump from her own skin and take shelter in the past that seemed now so carefree.

"Mum, I-" Luke huffed guiltily attempted to apologize, awkwardly reaching for her upper back, but she swatted his efforts away and backed up with a wild and appalled gaze.

>>>>

An hour had passed and they still managed to be in the same room. Liz sat at Luke's desk, while he laid on the bed, turned on his side and watching a nearby shelf that inhabited a picture of him and Benji in a broken frame.

"Consider it."

Luke bit his lip ring, breathing through his mouth since his silent crying had lead to his nose being stuffed up. He loved his mother almost more than anybody else in the world and he respected her infinitely. Liz had always been there for him and he had struck her in return, and he hated himself for it; he hated that he was low enough to even think of abusing such an amazing woman.

But at the end of the day he knew that if it came between obeying his mother and taking a dose of Molly, he would be comforted at night by the familiar sense of euphoric trances.

He was so humiliated and pissed at the world.

He wanted to die.

But when he heard his mother rising from her perch at bench in front of his desk, he jumped at how fast he spoke the words "I'll do it.".

Again everything went unbelievably still and both were too far afraid of breaking this fragile moment to move.

"I'll get help."