A/N: Hey everyone =) I was typing away at my new When It's Right chapter and for some reason I just didn't feel like the writing was up to par and I felt the urge to write something a little different, more Dullness-ish. Anyways Here we go.
Warning: Some swearing
Summary: He smokes a cigarette and doesn't say much. He doesn't know why she expects an answer: his voice never has any emotion and his tattoos have meaning, but he'll never tell. Somehow she loves him anyways.
A/N2: This is my after it's been written Author's note, LOL. I'm not too sure about this one-shot but I kinda love it. I didn't really know how to end it, but oh well =(
Title: Devotion To The Unknown
I don't own anything but the title and plot. The characters are all owned by OTH creator =)
He's always been a bad boy. In the third grade, he was the first boy to punch a kid in their school. Afterwards, she ran over to tell him that cared about him anyways. He told her to fuck off. She cried for weeks after that incident, but he somehow made up for it, by bringing her flowers a month and half afterwards. When they were fifteen, she broke up with her first boyfriend and after discovering her at the beach, somehow they ended up her house, drinking for hours.
Brooke Davis thinks that's the first night she realized Julian Baker wasn't just a friend, if he was even that. Their relationship had always been complicated and they were complete opposites. She was the good girl, the one who never goes out her box and becomes very successful.
"Leaving him would be the best thing for your future." That's exactly what their school councillor told Brooke. Brooke disagreed with her and somehow managed to get in UCLA with him still in her life.
It was July 30th when he had discovered her at the beach. Brooke had never felt so lonely in her life. Usually, during the summer months, Julian and Brooke didn't keep in touch. On that summery day, Julian found her at the local beach, with a tearstained face and a leather jacket in her hands. She was soaked from her tears and the water drifting far into the beach.
"Brooke?" For the first time, she heard some concern in his voice. Brooke didn't say anything and continued to cry. Usually Julian would just walk off, but today he didn't.
"What's wrong?" Brooke shuttered, remembering the whole thing.
"Come here Brooke." Brooke allows him to pull her close and suddenly the whole story comes pouring out and the whole time Julian never let go.
Before they headed to her house, Brooke promised herself she would never leave him because when she needed him most he didn't leave. He made her heart beat again.
Ten years later, she still hasn't left yet and sometimes she wonders why. He's an actor now, a successful one. He doesn't need her, he has women follow him everyday. She could leave too, her business is doing really well and it's not like she doesn't get asked out.
"Julian, what are we?"
"Well, I say you're a girl and I'm a guy." Julian's voice comes in two tones, Brooke had realized by now. One of them was a sarcastic tone, where he's trying to be funny. The other was his standard tone, where he doesn't give off any emotion.
"That's funny, have you thought of a job in acting?"
"I'm trying baby, I'm trying."
"I'm serious Julian. What are we?" By now, they were eighteen and graduation had just passed. For the past three years, they had hung out after school, on weekends. They were always around each other and sometimes they laughed, other times Brooke would just talk about her fears, and Julian would usually just listen. Other times, talk was general.
"I just told you." He takes another puff from his cigarette, a habit that had slowly formed.
"No I mean it, are you my-?"
"Don't say it!"
He's not that guy, he'll never be that guy. No matter how much she wants him to be.
"Why not?!"
"Because."
Brooke's surprised, Julian's never yelled at her. He's never shown any emotion, other than that night.
"I love you." She tells him. "It is so stupid because you won't even give this a title but I do. I think I started loving you when you got me completely drunk. Which is stupid because the amount that we drank, I should of hated you the next morning but I didn't because you were there when no one else was. You've always been there."
It's Thursday night and he's still not home. Brooke worried beyond belief. She checks the clock for the thousandth time in the past hour. It's almost three. How could he do this again? Third time this week.
Finally, she hears him ruffle with his keys And she stands up to make presence known.
"Where were you?" She demands, the moment he walks through he door.
"Why does it matter?"
"Because I was worried. Because I love you."
"Why do you keep saying that?!"
"Why won't you say it back?!"
He smokes a cigarette and doesn't say much. He doesn't know why she expects an answer. And she can't figure out why she's here: his voice never has any emotion and his tattoos have meaning, but he'll never tell. Somehow she loves him anyways.
Brooke lets out a laugh.
"Your exactly like Chuck Bass."
"Excuse me?"
"Your exactly like Chuck Bass." She repeated.
"Are you comparing me to something that's fake?"
"You are fake." Julian shook his head and didn't say a word. Sometimes he wondered why she got into these moods, where she would set out to cause him pain.
Didn't she know that he knew he wasn't good enough? Didn't she know that was enough pain?
"Well aren't you funny." He retorts, his voice is the same it's always been. Brooke gives him a weird look and he knows it has to do with his voice.
Julian rarely changes the tone in his voice, and only recently did he bring in his sarcastic tone. It was just better that way, no one could really know what he was feeling. There was rare times when his voice would change, one of them being a few years ago on July 30th.
He remembered that day like it was yesterday, he hated that jackass. Lucas Scott, who did he think he was? Just because your dad is a freaking politician doesn't give you the right to use people like that.
Julian looks over at Brooke, the wind in her hair, she looks so beautiful, but he'll never tell her, That would screw everything up, Brooke will begin to think that he's that guy. In the end, he'll only disappoint.
"What?" She asks him. Here's his chance.
"My cigarette fell." But they both know very well, it's still in his mouth.
Brooke doesn't ask any questions, she's learned its better that way.
"Stop asking so many questions." Julian fires back.
"Who the hell are you?" Julian takes another puff from the cigarette and realizes he wants a drink.
"I'm Julian Baker."
Julian walks to the kitchen and pulls out a bottle of alcohol. He doesn't realize that Brooke has followed him until he hears her voice.
"Put the bottle down." She tells him.
"What are you going to do?"
That's when Brooke does the unthinkable.
"Hey Julian." A six year old Brooke waved. A few of her blonde friends snickered from behind her. Julian looked up from his spot on the fence, where he stands everyday at every recess.
"Hi." Julian doesn't say anything.
"I think your cute." Brooke giggles.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Kiss me then."
And Brooke did.
The bottle crashed against the ground and no one said anything. Julian looks shocked and Brooke looks heartbroken.
"Brooke!" Julian looks up to see her bleeding, it's a small cut on her hand but there's still lots of blood. Julian's the first to react, he grabs some paper towels and puts it on the cut. Brooke's completely frozen.
"It's okay." He tells her in a soft voice, she hasn't heard since that night.
"Where were you?" He hasn't seen her this broken since that night.
"US magazine is going to print an article about my dad. Everyone is going to know."
Brooke opens her mouth but she doesn't say anything. Its been 19 years since she first kissed him, 10 years since she first fell for him and she realizes he has never mentioned his dad.
"I don't wanna talk about it." He whispers.
"There you go again." She tells him.
"What?"
"Never wanting to talk about things that could possibly upset you or that do."
"What?"
Brooke knocked on the door of a tiny apartment, with a beat up sweater in her arm. An older lady opened the door, she looked to be in a lot of pain.
"Can I help you?" Her voice wasn't cold but it wasn't welcoming.
"I'm looking for Julian."
"Julian!" The woman yelled. Brooke looked down, regretting her decision to come and bring Julian the sweater in person.
"Brooke?!" Julian looks angry but by his voice she wouldn't have known.
"I came to bring you your sweater." Julian grabs the sweater.
"Thank you." He murmurs, going back inside, slamming the door.
"That was one time."
"How about this Julian?" Brooke pauses because the blood in seeping through the and she needs to get something to cover it.
Julian follows Brooke and waits at the door of the bathroom.
"How about we've been living together for three years but were not boyfriend and girlfriend."
"I can't be that guy."
Now it's all coming out.
"What guy? The guy that tells me that I'm beautiful? The guy that kisses me on the forehead? What guy?" She's yelling now.
"I'll only let you down." His voice has risen to match hers.
"Julian I have loved you for ten years. And I feel like, why should I stay? Give me a reason to stay. And I want a real reason, I want explanations. I wanna know why you think I want you to be that guy. And if I stay I want to know what your tattoos mean, I want to know and be reminded that I didn't spend the last ten years loving someone who had no intention to ever love me back. Tell me I haven't wasted my time. Don't let me go cause I don't wanna leave, but I'll leave if I have too."
Julian doesn't say anything, instead he takes off his shirt.
"Oh good. I shouldn't leave cause you have one sexy body. Good reason, Julian." Brooke leaves the bathroom and starts to put her shoes on and then she feels his hand on her arm.
"You shouldn't stay because I have a tattoo on my shoulder, of a sweater, it's the sweater that I wore when you kissed me when we were six." Brooke looks up and looks at the tattoo, that's the exact same sweater.
"And because, I love you too. And because, you're beautiful and I've been wanting to tell you that since that one night on the beach when you told me that I was like Chuck Bass."
Brooke laughs at the memory.
"Don't leave me, please."
She lets him pull her into a hug and she feels so warm and protected.
The next two hours are dedicated to his life-story, or at least the important parts, while she cleans up the mess in the kitchen.
Suddenly everything makes sense, when he tried to be the perfect version of himself, he was let down.
"I know I can't fix everything over night." He tells her, once there in bed.
"I just need them to be fixed. And you."
"I love you."
A/N: If anyone is curious, during this one-shot I listened too: Never Say Never - The Fray.