"I'm going out, Alex, don't expect me until it's dark out." Nat said with a smile and an apologetic gaze.
Sitting home alone, bored out of his mind, he figured he would do something nice, productive, and brotherly for Nat in the meantime, since he had played and beaten every one of his video games and had no new ideas for a song to help Nat out.
Alex didn't know what he was in for when he decided to clean Nat's room for him while he was out with some of his new friends. He just wanted to surprise his older brother, maybe make him smile, things had been really hectic around the band lately and Alex figured he'd do his share of cheering Nat up. Cleaning up the room, an innocent enough idea, but during the process, young Alex found a sin amongst the rubbish beneath Nat's bed.
A syringe, a dirty needle, a deadly thing, he didn't have to go up to Cooper and ask him what this was, Alex knew what it was. He referred to it, however, as his broken heart in his hand. Alex was insistent on finding every dirty needle in this room, the bathroom, and the garbage. Alex clutched the disgusting thing in his palm, careful not to prick himself and risk disease.
After about two hours of tearing everything apart, Alex came to the grand total of seventy-eight needles hidden under Nat's bed, a small supply hidden inside the mattress itself that had yet to be used, fourteen at the bottom of the garbage can, and twenty-seven hidden behind the toilet.
He clenched his eyes shut and sniffled after staring at the abominations before him. Tears fell through his closed lids and his shoulders shook. Alex fell to the floor and let out a wail of sorrow. Nat was his hero, Nat was who he had looked up to his entire life, Nat could beat the socks off of Superman, Nat was his idol, Nat was a drug addict. The enormity of the disappointment Alex felt was too much for him to handle.
Who could he go to? Who could he tell? How could he help Nat? How did Nat even gets these things? It clicked that Nat had been hanging around with some thuggish kids a little older than him for the past five months. They must've given them to him.
There was no other option for Alex, he had to tell his dad as soon as he got home. No, he'd call his dad right here and now so that Nat could get help even quicker. Alex scrambled over to the couch where the phone sat facing downwards. He dialed for his dad but only got his voicemail.
"Hey, Dad, it's me, Alex. You need to come home as soon as you can. There's something wrong." He hung up after leaving the voicemail and dialed for Jesse. She'd know what to do.
"Hello?" Jesse answered in her normal and happy tone. Alex took in a raspy breath before responding.
"Hi, Jesse," He started before letting his sorrow getting in the way of his calm and collected tone. "Can you please come to the house right now?" He begged.
"Of course I can, sweetie, what's wrong?" She asked with concern.
"Just get over here as fast as you can. Please, Jesse, hurry." He sobbed.
"I'm on my way right now, Alex. Leave the door open for me." They ended the conversation like that and Alex hurried for the door. He held himself as tight as he could, settling for his self-hug until she managed to get here. Alex waited and waited, listening to nothing but his own sniffling, breathing, and the ticking of the clock.
"Alex!" He heard from downstairs.
"I'm up here, Jesse." He cried down to her. He heard Jesse's heels against the floor as she neared him with a worried expression.
"What's the matter, Alex? Why are you crying?" She asked, grabbing his shoulders gently and making soft eye-contact with him.
"It-it's in Nat's room. All of them, I found them everywhere." He muttered. Jesse gave him a quizzical look before going to Nat's room to see what had made Alex this way.
"You stay right here, sweetheart, I'll be right back." She told him. He nodded and said,
"They're all on his bed. That's where I found most of them."
Jesse's heart raced, not really having an idea of what Alex could've found hiding everywhere, especially in Nat's bed. When she made it to the teenagers room, she saw dozens of thin, tiny things laying on his bed, and at least six different syringes. Jesse gasped and put a hand over her mouth, backing out of the room.
When she made it back to the living room where Alex was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands she hurried over to him and hugged him.
"You knew what those are, didn't you?" She felt him nod beneath her chin. A tear slid down her cheek and landed on Alex's dark curls. "Okay, Alex, don't you worry about this. I know exactly what we're going to do." She sniffled and wiped her eyes before pulling Alex back, still holding onto his upper arms and looked at him. "Do you have any idea who gave those to Nat?"
Alex nodded, though he remained silent.
"Who was it, Alex? Who gave Nat the drugs?" She asked frantically. Alex bit his lip and coughed to the side a few times before answering her question.
"It was the three boys he's been with lately. They give them to him, they gave it to him, they gave all of it to him." Alex's head started bobbing forward with each word, making him cry harder. Jesse embraced him.
"I-I tried t-to call Dad, b-b-but there was no answer. I left him a message, I don't know if he got it though."
She rubbed his back soothingly.
"I'm sure he did, Alex, I'm positive he'll come home as soon as he gets it." Alex held onto Jesse's arms tightly.
"Jesse, I'm scared. I don't want Nat to go away, I want him to stay here." After hearing him say this, she remembered why she didn't think it was a very good idea for such guiltless children to be child celebrities. Alex wasn't even twelve yet, and he was talking about his big brother going into rehab, and he already knew what the needles were and why Nat had taken such an effort to hide them.
"He might have to go, Alex. We want Nat to get better don't we?" She asked him sweetly. He nodded again. Just then they heard Mr. Wolff come in panting.
"Alex? What's wrong? Is everyone okay? Why are you crying? Jesse, you're here too?" He asked his series of questions prior to Jesse's response.
"You might want to take a look at this." She said gravely. Mr. Wolff didn't like the way she had said that recommendation, it twisted something in the pit of his stomach. He knew he wasn't going to like what he was about to see. "Alex, stay here. I'm going to show your dad."
Alex didn't respond, but watched through half-closed eyes the retreating forms of his dad's and babysitter's legs disappear into his older brother's room. Before he could even blink, Alex passed out, a lone tear rolling down his moist and red skin.
When he opened his eyes next, he felt Jesse's consoling arm around his shoulders and her head on top of his. She was sleeping too. What he saw, however, was not pleasant.
"How could you do this, Nat? How can you be this stupid to pull something so ridiculously disgusting? I have never been so disappointed in my life! I've done nothing but praise you and the boys and you were an amazing influence on your brother. Now look what you've been degraded to!" Mr. Wolff bellowed to his eldest son.
"How could I do this? Really? You're honestly asking that question? I have the weight of writing the band's songs, keeping my grades up, interviews, paparazzi idiots, and being expected to be the best of the best! It's too much for me, god forbid I get a break!" Nat shouted back.
"Drugs is not a break, Nat! They're stupid and for pathetic people who have nothing better to do with their lives!" Mr. Wolff yelled.
"So what? Now I'm pathetic and have nothing to look forward to in life?" Nat said with tears in his eyes.
"No, you pulled an imbecilic move. You want a break you lock yourself in your room and take a nap or watch some TV. You don't lock yourself in your room and start shooting up shit that could kill you!" Nat backed up a bit, never before hearing his father use profanity.
"It's not going to kill me, it hasn't killed me yet, so obviously it's not going to kill me in the future."
"You're damn right it's not going to kill you in the future. You're not going to be hanging out with those little punk-wannabes anymore, you'll be supervised at all times, and to top it all off, you're going to go to drug rehab." Mr. Wolff screamed. Alex felt Jesse's fingers curl around his arm.
"What?" Nat screamed back.
"You heard me! You're not going to turn into one of those drug reliant celebrities just because you have the fortune, fame, and talent and by god you will NOT do this to Alex!" He explained loudly. "You are so selfish for ding this to your family, to your friends, and to the band. I can't believe you would do something so low. I thought you were smarter than that but I guess I was fringing wrong, huh? I was wrong to think that you were responsible and I thought I could trust you whenever you went out with those little bastards. How wrong was I, Nat?"
"I am responsible, Dad! I am trustworthy!" Nat cried out, attempting to defend himself.
"You are most not responsible nor are you trustworthy, you're turning into a drug addict and you have the gall to call yourself responsible and trustworthy. Maybe you will be after you come out of rehab." Mr. Wolff hissed. "Alex is trustworthy, he was cleaning up your room when he found that foul thing, he knew exactly what is was the second his picked it up."
Mr. Wolff stated. "He went as far as to find every single one in every place he could think of, put them all together on your bed, then called me. My phone was out of service at the moment so he left me a voicemail telling me to get home as soon as possible. Then he called Jesse telling her to come to the house immediately. Alex was in tears when I got home, he was in shock. After he passed out Jesse had to explain everything to me."
Nat put his hands to his forehead and growled in frustration.
"Yeah, well, it isn't my fault he found them and it's not my fault he looks up to me." He felt so guilty and dirty saying that. He felt like a demon saying that his little brother was just a nosy son of a bitch in basic terms and that it wasn't Alex's place to look up to him.
"No, it's not, but it is your fault that you left him home alone, ditching him for some little Satan spawns and it is more than your fault that you said yes when they offered you the drugs. Above all, it's your fault that you are the monster that you have become."
Nat threw his arms out in front of him.
"A monster? A fringing monster? How the hell am I a monster?" Nat questioned, completely infuriated.
"Watch your mouth!" Sonny yelled.
"Answer my question!" Nat bit.
"Look at you, Nat! Look at what you started off as and look at what you are now. I wouldn't call it an angel, hell, I wouldn't even call it human."
"That's not a monster! A monster is someone who kills people and rapes women and children! A monster steals from poor people and plan attacks on anyone and everyone!"
"A monster is something or someone that one fears, Nat. What do you think Rosalina will have to say about this when she finds out? You think she'll be proud? How do you think your brother and I feel? What would your mother say?"
"Leave Mom out of this! Just leave her out of it!" Nat screamed at the top of his lungs, eyes leaking with salty tears as he fell to the ground, pounding the floor with his clenched fists.
"Okay, then how do you think Alex feels?" Sonny asked calmly, realizing that it was a big but necessary step in bringing the involvement of his deceased wife into the picture. "What did you think his reaction was like?"
"I don't know." Nat mumbled into the carpet.
"He was completely heart-broken, Nat, he accidentally cried himself to sleep. He's traumatized. He's asking himself why would his big brother do such a thing, he has always been such a good kid, what's happened to my brother."
Just then, Alex stood up after pushing Jesse off of him, letting her 'wake up' on her own.
"Alex," The Wolff brothers' dad spoke with shock. Alex sighed and stared at his brother, who sent him a glare.
"Why did you do it, Alex?" Nat asked angrily. Alex only replied sadly with disappointment.
"I did it to help you. You need help. But the question is, Nat, why did you do it?" Then Alex went to bed, hoping that this was all just a hideous nightmare and that he could go back to the way his life was before Nat had met those boys.
NoTe: Okay, this probably took me a good thirty minutes to whip up. I got the inspiration for this fiction from the song "Why" by Alex Wolff himself. I forgot why he wrote it but the whole feeling of it just made me get the reaction that Nat had done something awful. The "boys" are mentioned frequently but are not shown because I didn't exactly know what to do with those kinds of characters in this story, considering this is just a Nat and Alex one-shot.
