Bucket List (Muke Fic)

Chapter Nineteen - The Final Chapter

It was a week after the funeral that Michael found Luke’s complete bucket list. Apparently, the one in the living room was only part of it.

Michael had been looking through the drawer on what had been Luke’s side of the bed, trying to find a pen so he could label a last minute present for Emily, when he had come upon a piece of notebook paper that had clearly been folded several times, but was relatively well taken care of. So he sat on the floor and unfolded it, wincing slightly at seeing Luke’s handwriting on the page. And then he noticed that despite the heading on the paper - ‘The Bucket List of Lucas Hemmings’, the list was longer. So, he read it.

‘spend night on the beach

turn entire living room into a blanket fort and have a movie night

sing a song with All Time Low

play a show with ATL

lose virginity

kiss a guy

get a giant stuffed animal from a fair/carnival

get a map and put a tack on every country I've been

cover as much of the map with tacks as possible

have a kid, adopted or not

come out as bi

make enough music to keep gradually releasing some for a long time even after I die

tell Michael Clifford I love him’

The bottom item stood out to Michael, and he read it over and over, sighing softly as he realised that Luke had been writing this the day that he had been diagnosed, when any of them could have pretended everything was normal, when they could still play shows because Luke could take the high energy and sing while playing the guitar at the same time while bouncing around onstage.

But shortly after they got together, it was too much and the band was reduced to calmer acoustic shows for a while and then just nothing aside from occasionally releasing a song.

Michael took a pen out of the drawer and slowly put a check mark next to the last item on the list, not being able to cross out something to do with Luke.

The sound of a door opening and small, bare feet pitter pattering their way to the bathroom made Michael rise to his feet and dash into Emily’s room. She had kept herself locked away in her bedroom, only coming out to go to the bathroom when no one was around, and refusing to speak whenever Michael brought her food and had to beg her to eat it. He sat down on the side of her bed, resting his head on his knees and sighing.

The small, bare feet pitter pattered back into the bedroom, and the door shut again, the lock clicking. The blankets shifted as Emily crawled under them, and Michael lifted his head, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Emily.”

She just pulled the blanket over her head, curling up. Michael sighed, tugging the blanket off of her, his heart breaking a little when he found that she was curled into a ball, wearing Luke’s shirt, her fists tight in it. That would explain where half of Luke’s clothes went though, they were scattered across Emily’s bed.

“Em, you know you can’t hoard Daddy’s stuff in here, right?”

She didn’t respond, and Michael frowned, scooping her up into his lap. The six year old just flopped against his chest, and he sat her up, frowning harder.

“C’mon, you’re six years old, you know how to sit up, don’t do that.”

Emily wordlessly sat up, but kept her head laid against Michael’s chest as he rubbed her back, Cassandra moving to curl into her lap.