A/N - First Hardy Boys fic but have been writing fan fiction for more years than I care to remember. Let me know what you think!
10 years on and life is very different for the Hardy brothers. Frank is an Ivy League graduate and respected NYPD detective with a young son. Joe is a club doorman with a wild lifestyle and a troubled past. Is brotherhood strong enough to hold them together, or have they drifted too far apart?
FOR WHAT THEY HAVE LOST
He stepped out onto the field, his hard muscled body strong and toned under the black shirt of the LA Raiders. His name was plastered in big white letters across his back. Hardy, number 12. The stadium was packed, tens of thousands of fans chanting his name.
Joe. Joe. Joe.
He was the star, the one everyone watched. He was the big, devastatingly attractive wide receiver that outshone even the quarterback. All-State, All-American, a promised place on that season's NFL All-Stars. Joe Hardy, aged just eighteen, had taken the NFL by storm when he shot to fame as the Raiders' teenage sensation. Nearly eight years later, with highly successful spells with the Cowboys and the Patriots under his belt, he had returned to the team that had made him great.
The game passed in a blur. Joe was on fire. Four touchdowns in the first half, he was untouchable, strong, fast and agile, sidestepping tackles and throwing off defenders. Anyone could see why he was ranked in the top twenty list of NFL players. His position as the fifth highest scorer in the Western Conference that season was taken for granted.
In the first down of the second half, Joe sprinted behind the quarterback for a subtle pass. He was away up the field before the defence even realised. Joe felt like he was flying. Nothing could stop him.
Nothing until two linebackers slammed into him together, twisting his body and crushing him against the ground. He felt his right knee take the brunt of the fall...
"Shit!"
Joe Hardy jerked upright in bed, suddenly wide-awake and breathing hard. Rivers of sweat ran down the sculpted muscles of his golden-brown torso and he could feel himself shaking. It was a dream he'd had so many times before, but he was always helpless to control his reactions.
Pushing back his sweat-damped blond hair, now almost long enough to touch his collar, he reached across and grabbed his cigarettes. He lit one with a shaking hand, inhaling the nicotine and holding it deep in his lungs. Slowly, he felt his pounding heart rate slow.
Nearly a year on from that fateful day and he still had nightmares about the devastating tackle that had torn his knee apart. The surgical scars, the marks that told the story of the doctors' struggle to save his career, were fading now, but the mental ones remained raw and painful. The attempts had failed. At the age of twenty-five, Joe had been told he would never play pro football again.
He took another drag on the Marlboro, leaning back against the pillows in the king size bed he was rarely alone in. That night, however, there was no beautiful young woman lying beside him for once. He was alone, a thing he hated to be.
Back then he had never been alone. His life had been one long wild party, surrounded by a huge, constant circle of friends with just as much money and success as Joe himself. Today, his life was still a wild party, but it was one he could no longer enjoy in the way he once had. Today, he partied to forget, pretend that his young life hadn't been torn apart. It didn't work.
Joe stubbed out the cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and swung his legs out of bed. Wandering through the open plan apartment in the highly desirable West LA neighbourhood Brentwood, his home ever since re-signing with the Raiders, the rent still paid for by the little money he had left, he pulled a beer from the refrigerator.
In the living room, he sat on the couch in just his boxer shorts, drinking the Bud in long gulps. The scrapbook sat on the glass coffee table, as it often did. Painful thought it was, Joe liked to look back on the past, remember the time when he had been a god to football fans. He opened the front cover and found himself staring up from the front cover of a magazine.
He was shirtless, wearing a pair of tight-fitting stonewashed jeans. His toned, muscular torso gleamed bronze and a lock of golden blond hair fell seductively over the ocean blue eyes. His ice-melting smile was directed straight at the camera. It had been the magazine's best-selling issue of all time.
Joe had been more than a football stud. He had been a star, Hollywood A- list. Every month he had done model shoots for countless magazines from high-society glossies to NFL Weekly. He had done TV appearances, catwalk modelling, numerous commercials and advertising for a wide range of products. He had partied at LA's most exclusive clubs with the biggest names in Hollywood. Everyone had known the name of Joe Hardy, star footballer and hot property.
Now, all those people had forgotten about him. Only the die-hard Raiders fans remembered his name. They still saluted him if he ever made a rare return visit to the stadium. No one else knew who he was anymore. He was nobody, just another washed-up jock with an attractive face and a good body. One of many. He was no longer something special.
Football had been Joe Hardy's life. Now it was over, he had nothing to fall back on. He had refused to go to college; had always hated school, and the seduction of the NFL clubs begging him to sign for them in his senior year had won him over. He had only just scraped through high school, graduating at the bottom of his class. He hadn't cared. He had football and that was all that mattered to him.
He had never dreamt he would lose it.
X X X
In New York City, in his modest apartment in Brooklyn Park, Frank was also awake but for a different reason to the younger brother he hadn't spoken to for months. He was getting ready to go to work, begin the early morning shift at Brooklyn Central police station, where he had been a detective sergeant on homicide for nearly two years.
Knotting his tie in the mirror, his gaze fell, as usual, on the two framed photographs next to his bed. The first showed a young boy the spitting image of Frank, same dark hair and chocolate brown eyes. His son Bailey, now aged seven, beamed into the camera. Frank couldn't help but smile as he looked at the picture. He adored his son, just as Bailey worshipped the ground his dad walked on. They didn't spend as much time together as they would have liked, just two weekends a month, but they made the most of them.
Bailey's mother had been a brief flame of Frank's during his senior year of college, an employee at a downtown bar the students had frequented. She had refused to marry or live with Frank after falling pregnant during a drunken night. She hadn't even been keen for him to know his son but, even after graduation, Frank had been determined to take his responsibilities in Bailey's life and she had begrudgingly conceded. Frank Hardy had never been the type to walk away from his mistakes and pretend they hadn't happened. Besides, he had quickly realised Bailey wasn't a mistake. He was a gift.
His eyes drifted to the second photo and his smile faded as it always did. The second was of Joe, aged twenty, in full football uniform the day he had been named the NFL's young player of the season. Frank had been so proud of his kid brother that day, but he had still felt the deep sense of unease that had been inside of him ever since Joe had signed for the pros.
Frank had always worried that football would shatter Joe's life. He had known Joe's outstanding ability and extrovert personality would make him a star loved by all, just as he had known Joe would thrive under the pressure and exhilaration of pro football. But he had also been aware that if things ever went wrong, his kid brother would not be able to handle it. Joe needed football like other people needed love and if he ever lost it; he would fall apart. It had broken Frank's heart to be proved right a year ago.
Joe had been too young for fame and fortune, just as he had been too young to have his life ripped to shreds. He had been blinded by the allure of fame and money, the promise of certain adulation. It was the only thing he knew, what he lived for. When that was so cruelly snatched away from him, he had nothing left to fall back on. No education, no future, not even any money.
It hurt Frank so much to know what his little brother had become. He hid it behind a wild personality and a fast-living lifestyle, but beneath the show, Joe had become a shadow of his former self. And while Frank had gone from strength to strength in his life and career, Joe had only lost more of himself each month that went by in a sea of alcohol, parties and women. It had been so long since Frank he seen him last that he couldn't help but wonder if Joe had managed to retain the most important thing. Self respect.
In his heart, he didn't think so. Joe was too far-gone for that. He was on a downward spiral to nowhere. Worst of all, he didn't want to be saved from it.
X X X
Joe had fallen asleep again after several cigarettes and had woken to find himself late for work. He'd floored his Corvette C5 across to Sunset Boulevard. Not so long ago he'd been cruising around in a Porsche 911, but that had gone towards paying off numerous debts. The Corvette had been a gift from his old team-mates.
Joe had a casual job at Roxy's, a strip joint at the seedier end of the Boulevard. He stood guard on the door, taking the entry fees, dealing with troublemakers and keeping an eye on the street prostitutes that paid the club's owner for the right to tout on the sidewalk outside the club. He got paid a lousy $6 an hour. He couldn't bear to remember that once he had picked up $650,000 a year.
He stood silently by the door, dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a black bomber jacket, tired eyes shielded by a pair of mirrored sunglasses. The customers slunk warily past him, knowing Joe didn't take any bullshit from them. They were a pathetic bunch. Some were typical perverts with long jackets and dirty hair, but others were respectable businessmen from Bel Air with gold Rolexes and Mercedes. Just proved diversity was huge in LA, no matter where you were or what you were doing.
Joe himself has spent many a night in Roxy's. All the girls knew him and he was allowed to take his pick. He didn't do every night, preferring to check out the upmarket bars back in West LA for a classier type of woman but sometimes he relented. He usually went for the new ones. They were less bitter about life and more likely to be up for a simple night of hassle-free fun. But even when drunk out of his mind, Joe made sure he used a condom with the Roxy girls. You never knew what disease-ridden creeps they slept with in the line of duty.
He liked the girls. They were all mouthy, street smart and some had drug or alcohol problems, but most had young families to support, the partners having walked out or died or gotten arrested. In a way, Joe admired them. Life had dealt them just as tough a deal as it had him, but they had picked themselves up and got on with things. They hadn't lain down and given up. They worked hard in horrible conditions to feed their kids and pay the rent. Joe knew many of those girls were mentally stronger than him, and that hurt.
"Hey, Joe, how you doin' today?" One of the street girls, a Hispanic woman a lot younger than him, sashayed up to him, nearly falling off her stiletto heels.
"Hey, Rosita." He only knew her street name.
"You have a good night?"
"Yeah, not bad."
"Plenty of drinking, right?"
"Why change the habit?"
"Hey, I got a fresh bag if you want some." She opened her purse to reveal a small, clear plastic packet of white powder.
Joe shook his head. "Not right now."
"That's not like you. You got any dope?"
"Nope. I'm right out."
"I can get you some."
"For a price, right? Thanks but I can sort myself out."
"Suit yourself."
She patted her hair and smiled. She had lipstick on her teeth that somehow endeared her to Joe. She couldn't have been more than seventeen. Just a kid, like he had been when he'd be catapulted into the limelight. Why hadn't Rosita got that sort of break? Joe liked talking to her. She made him see that he was fortunate to at least have had the chances he'd had. She'd never had anything to even lose.
"Know what, Joe?" she asked.
"I guess you're gonna tell me."
"I went to church last night?"
Joe laughed. "You? Go to church?"
"Yeah, went to confession."
"Bet that took hours."
"Well, I only confessed the little things. If I'd gone into detail, I guess the priest woulda kicked me outta the box."
Joe's smile faded. "My parents used to take me and my brother to church when we were kids. They let us make up our own minds about it when we started high school. Frank still goes occasionally, but I never went back."
"You should. It chills you out."
"I thought coke chilled you out."
"I'm for real, Joe. Church lets you escape reality for a while."
"Reality ain't so bad."
"Bullshit, man. You know how bad it is."
Joe shrugged. "My church days are long gone, Ros. I don't care about that sorta thing anymore."
"You care about the wrong things, Joe Hardy. We all do."
"So we're even, right? Quit bugging me about goddam church already."
"If that's what you want. See you later?"
"You never know." He gave her a quick smile. "Stay safe, OK?"
"I'll do my best."
"You just shout if you need me."
"You're a sweet guy, Joey."
"Don't go spreading that around. I got myself a reputation as a tough guy."
"There's more to you than big muscles and a hard punch."
"That's what I keep trying to tell everyone."
The next second Rosita had gone, hurrying towards the car that had just pulled up to the sidewalk. Joe watched shrewdly as she climbed into the passenger seat, automatically noting the number. His teenage years had stood him good stead when it came to security measures.
"Well, if it isn't Quarterback Jock," a male voice said behind him.
Joe turned sharply to find two men in jeans and leather jackets standing behind him. His hard face relaxed into a grin and he slapped palms with Rick McDonald and Jake Delaney, detectives of LAPD's Vice Squad and close friends of Joe's for several years.
"I was a wide receiver, not a damn quarterback."
"Hey, we know your profile. There ain't a guy in the state who doesn't."
"What you guys here for?" Joe asked
Roxy's never got busted. The owner had most of the LAPD who could cause him trouble in his back pocket, being well paid to ignore any illegal activity. Rick and Jake were no different. Joe had got to know them through delivering their wage packets and the three had looked out for each other ever since. Joe introduced them to the hot girls he partied with and the two cops made sure he never got pulled in when he frequently got a little out of control.
"Pay day, Joey boy," Rick said. "Up for a party tonight?"
"You know it, man."
"All right! Hey, we'll go check out the Viper. You can get us in."
"Sounds good to me." Joe slapped palms with them again. "Meet you at the usual place."
"Sure. We'll bring a packet of snow with us."
"If you want."
The two cops sauntered inside the dilapidated building. Joe sighed softly and returned to watching the street girls.
