23
By Grace (purplemud)
Pairing: Naley and a bit of Leyton and Brucas
Summary: Nathan Scott is done playing basketball. In fact, if he's going to be honest about it, he's done with living. But one funeral just might change that. AU. Totally.
Warning: Character death. Strong language. Some sexual content in the future. Maybe.
Author's note: Thank you for the wonderful feedback. I guess, the apology about killing off someone applies NOW (since it wasn't for killing off Dan) and I am probably going to get some tomatoes thrown at me for this and yeah, this should answer the question that nope, there's going to be NO love triangle here and their lives are a tad boring, compared to the show but I still hope that you guys stick around to find out what'll happen to them. Thanks again. Feedback as always is much appreciated.
Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers apply. Me don't own. Please don't sue.
Two
Fifteen minutes later, they are still at the café. Tim is still munching away. He's always been such a slow poke and he liked to talk a lot while eating. Actually, he just liked to talk a lot, period. Tim isn't as tall as Nathan, wasn't broody looking as Jake and had in most cases been pegged as the underdog, whether it is on the basketball team or the old gang of high school jocks that Nathan ran around with and commanded like a spoilt general during their Tree Hill High days.
Nathan had always been the leader and for whatever reason, both Tim and Jake seemed to have accepted this, although, Jake is definitely far more assertive than Tim, which is a good thing, since it's always Tim who comes up with the most ridiculous ideas. Like, for example: stealing their high school bus and trying to seduce younger freshmen girls.
Jake had always been more mature, always the voice reason. Well, no. Not always, but at least when it did count. Then again, Nathan's social status at school easily trumps maturity and rationality which was why most of the time, during their high school and early college years, Jake would find himself either aboard a stolen bus or on a stupid blind date with a willing sophomore virgin.
They knew there was some sort of hierarchy on their friendship; Nathan always getting the best out of anything and everything. It was never mentioned and Nathan, at times, did try to not make it look so obvious, which Tim and Jake appreciated. They had been friends far too long to start harboring any sort of deep-seated resentment. There were some bad days but it was generally accepted as how things worked. Besides, boys get jealous over the strangest things. Like for example, the amount of time someone spends on the court, playing ball. Exposure to college scouts, getting a play. All the deep, emotional shit, like always being left out during parties mostly goes over their head.
"So, I was like, dude, that's freaking juvenile, grow up man." Tim gets animated when he's talking about his co-workers. The artists at his office tend to look down on him just because he played ball during high school. Tim unfortunately wasn't well versed with really obscure comics and anime and manga. Most probably because Time had terrorized them when they were kids, calling them dorks and nerds and geeks; inflicting them with all the typical bullying, alienating, emotional terrorism that they had so callously employed back when they were jocks, when that kind of behaviour was casually accepted as part of growing up.
What goes around always comes around in strange ways, at least.
"Uh-huh." Jake mumbles disinterestedly.
Nathan doesn't bother answering. He has no idea what Tim is talking about it. Bored now, no other place to go, nothing else to do, he has somehow ended up playing with crumpled table napkins, sending them flying over to the next table watching with no particular satisfaction as they whooshed in inside a juice glass or a cup of coffee or tea, depending on which table Rachel had not yet cleaned and cleared up.
Another one goes in perfectly, soaking up the lightly reddish liquid in the glass. Strawberry juice. Nice, Nathan thinks, slightly bemused.
Basketball is still in his genes, but sadly, no longer in his heart.
"And that's twelve out of fifteen. Still got the touch Scott." Tim says, stopping mid-story, clearly keeping score.
Nathan doesn't make any further comment although admittedly, he's more than a little relieved that this has gotten Tim's attention off from one of his office-rants. If this is what being an adult is about, Nathan would be more than happy to go back to the angst of their teen age years. Plus, maybe he could take back all the things that he did during the height of his jerkness. Lately, it was all he could think of. Vague recollections of the many wrong things he had done during his stay at Tree Hill. Is it possible to be sorry after so many years? He thinks yes, he's certainly feeling it now.
"Tim, just finish your food already." Jake says not looking up from the paper. "And why is it that every time I hang out with you, I feel like I'm hanging out with my six year old daughter?"
As though to disprove Jake's point, Tim makes a face, sticks out his tongue before huffily crossing his arms against his chest. "So, Captain Nate," Tim said, using the old high school nickname he had for Nathan. "What's the plan for the day?"
"Can't stay out late, I promise Jenny to get some ice cream tonight and watch DVDs," Jake reminds them both.
There was a time when basketball had been nothing but a distraction to Jake and Nathan used to think it should have been backwards, that Jenny, the daughter, should've been the distraction. Nathan had been smart enough to not ever tell Jake this during high school and he is sorry that he ever thought that way. Sometimes, Nathan wonders, if maybe all he needed was not something but someone to bring some semblance of something to his life. Like a direction or a reason. Something that would make him want to not stay out late.
"NBA Live?" Nathan suggests, "We could play at your place, that way you could still be with Jenny."
Tim snorts loudly, "Dude, not again. I mean," he turns towards Jake, twisting his lips in a semi-sneer, "have you not have enough of repeated spirit-crushing humiliation as only I, the Tim Man, can inflict upon your sorry loser ass?"
"Just say you're going to beat Jake again." Nathan said with a roll of his eyes.
"Or how about that you're just going to cheat like always, Cheater." Jake adds. He turns towards Nathan, "No can do, Nate. I promised Jen. We could just swing by the Rivercourt. Skills and Junk are gonna be there."
"Sounds good." Nathan nods his head in agreement. Not like there's anything else he'd be doing tonight. He aims and throws another perfect arch and it makes a full circle around the rim of an abandoned cup before swooshing in.
"Quit it." Rachel goes over to the other table, picks up the three balled up napkins that had missed their targets. She glares at him before snatching the cups and glasses away, placing them on her empty tray. "Jackholes." She hisses as she passes by their table.
"She likes you man." Tim says, kicking Nathan underneath the table and smirking at him.
"Are you blind?" Jake mutters over the newspaper he's been poring over. He's looking at the scores. Team standings, all those statistics that Nathan used to check out every morning before breakfast, before his daily runs. Nathan told them once that Dan used to quiz him over it: Scorboxes. Stats. Numbers. It seems like life is a never ending list of numbers that measures well, everything. Maybe even happiness. Sometimes, Jake truly feels sorry for his friend. He burrows his head deeper into the paper, trying to hide from Nathan. If there's one thing Nathan picks up just as easily as he can pick up a basketball, it was pity. And he gets more than just his usual grumpy self at the merest hint, even suspicion, of being pitied.
"Man, that girl has got the hots for you." Tim repeats, ignoring Jake and nodding his head over to Rachel's direction.
Nathan scoffs but idly glances back, checks Rachel out. She's not bad looking. She went to Tree Hill with them, was probably a cheerleader, Nathan tries to remember if he ever spoke with her, ever offered her a drink at a party, ever led her into a closet or an empty room. He tries really hard but he can't remember. Lately, that too has been bothering him. That he can't seem to remember anything from before. Things that happened yesterday seemed vague, far away, like from a life that did not belong to him.
Rachel must have felt his stare; she turns to look at him, glowering darkly before turning her back and walking away.
Nathan might have been an ass to her before and he isn't at all surprised if that was the case. He wonders if he had acted out all his high school life as the arrogant jock who took everything because it had been given to him; because people said it was alright, he deserved it and because Dan Scott certainly had a reputation for being a ladies' man as well. Like father, like son.
Again, he finds himself wishing he hadn't been such a jerk back then; maybe he'd have more or at least better friends. Not that Tim and Jake were bad; it's just that, they were the same people who had been jerks like and with him. He couldn't remember anyone outside the basketball team and cheering squad that he had been friends with and besides, all of them were gone now. Probably also leading lives that were not the lives that they had wanted or dreamed of.
Jake shakes his head. "Forget her, she's dating Lips or Chin or I don't know, someone's face."
"Mouth." Nathan answers almost automatically, surprised that he remembered the geeky little kid who used to follow the whole team around and who always knew how many points they scored at any particular game. He wonders if Mouth was having a better life than he is. He sincerely hopes so. He'd been one of the good kids. Mouth never hero-worshipped him. A lot of times, he'd call on Nathan's ball-hogging and un-captain like behaviors. This of course earned him a couple of locker shoving. Nathan hangs his head in shame at the memory.
"Holy shit!" Jake suddenly exclaims, putting the paper down.
"What, someone broke Nate's scoring record or something?" Tim asks trying to read the paper from his seat across the table. They still have an on-going bet that Nathan's high school record can never be beaten. Jake said it's possible. One day, some kid will smash that record. Tim thinks it's simply impossible. Nathan doesn't particularly care. He doesn't want to hold that record anyway, everyone's going to ask: well, what happened to the guy who held the record for most number of points in a high school game ever (40 points)?
Nathan knows the answer to that: ran away from the game, mixing drinks at the bar. The basketball prodigy is now a bar manager. Yes it's true. Come at Tric, watch him be a failure.
"Man, look, here." Jake slides the paper over at Tim, pointing at a small box and Nathan silently watch as Tim's eyes move through the words getting slightly bigger by the second until they're practically bugging out of his head.
Jake shifts away from him, the movement catching Nathan's attention. Nathan feels his heart suddenly beating a slower pace. What? The expression on Jake's face-
"Don't give it to him, jackass." Tim hisses, grabbing the newspaper but Jake would not let go.
Nathan clenches his teeth. Easier to say that it no longer mattered to him that some up and coming hot shot had broken his record. Now that it's here, it's different.
"Hey, stop, give it back." Jake latches on to the pages of the newspaper and Nathan, despite his growing dread and irritations, has to admit that his friends were acting pretty fucking ridiculous. "What is it now?" He asks in a tightly controlled voice.
Jake and Tim immediately stops bickering and the look that passes between them tells Nathan it's something bigger than a broken scoring record. And that quickly, everything changes. And he is well aware of the unspoken universal truth: The more things change, the worse they get. But just how worse could it get for him? He could feel his stomach clenching. He grits his teeth and leans over the table. "Give it to me."
"Aw, Nate, it's really nothing." Tim says, lying badly.
"It's not nothing." Jake insists angrily, earning him a sharp elbow from Tim.
"Hand it over." Nathan says, the tone of his voice not leaving any room for arguments. Jake lets go of the paper and now it's all up to Tim to be the bearer of bad news. Tim gives Nathan the puppy dog eyes, which is seriously disturbing, to say the least, before sullenly surrendering and anxiously sliding the paper towards him, giving him one last painful stare.
At first he couldn't find what the big deal was. The page wasn't even at the sports section. To his left were stupid ads and on the other page was the obituary. He's about to ask them what the hell was their problem and were they PMS-ing or what? when he sees it.
It's just a small box. A small announcement. He would've totally missed it if he hadn't been aware that he's supposed to be looking for something awful.
Awful. What a flimsy word that is.
"I'm so sorry man." Jake says his voice low and sympathetic.
Nathan doesn't look up. He keeps his eyes on the printed letters. He could feel Tim's stare, could feel the sudden heavy tension in the air, the silence that had settled over them. It's the kind of silence that is filled with burning questions, weighted by the truth, by this reality.
Nathan doesn't say anything. Not because he's too shocked or because he's suddenly gripped with sadness. To be honest, he isn't feeling anything at all. Should he feel something? He asks himself, reading the words over and over again. Maybe grief? Even a little bit of it. But there's just… nothing. He didn't even know the guy. At least not personally, although he was aware of his existence and now, it seems, as well as his non-existence.
"I gotta go." He announces all of a sudden, surprising both Tim and Jake. He feels his legs pushing him up, out from his seat. He feels his hand groping into the pocket of his jeans, feels his wrist flicking sharply as he threw a few crumpled bills on the table, he feels his face wincing when he realizes that there's not enough tip there for Rachel and she'll probably put it down on her list on the many ways Nathan Scott had made her life miserable. He is aware of all these motions and actions, like being on court. It's all automatic. He feels as though he is having an out of body experience. Kind of like the same thing that happened when he heard the news of his father's death.
A wide-eyed, panicked look is slowly making its way on Tim and Jake's faces but he barely notices it. "What? Nate, man, go where?" Tim asks, watching as Nathan walks past their table and then at Rachel who is watching them with interest now.
"Move it, get out," Jake orders. "C'mmon, where do you think he's going?" He asks in annoyance, grabbing the paper from the table.
"This can't be good." Tim is glaring at Jake and Jake happily returns the glare. "You shouldn't have, man." He says in a barely audible whisper.
"Like he wouldn't have found out anyway," Jake reasons out quite reasonably too and Tim has nothing to say to that, but he has to whine, since he hasn't finished eating yet and whining is his forte. At least it is for situations such as this.
This is how it feels, being thrown in a time loop or being trapped in a recurring dream. No, Tim thinks, not dream, but a nightmare.
This was how it had been the morning they found out that Dan Scott had died in the hospital. Nathan had been with them the whole night, playing NBA live and refusing to talk, let alone, acknowledge the fact that the night before Mr. Scott died, Nathan had threatened his very own father that he'll quit basketball for good and that he was going to leave Tree Hill.
Tim could just imagine Dan Scott sneering at Nathan asking: And do what, son? And in that moment, that small fraction of a second, Tim almost thought that Nathan's better off without Mr. Scott. Just that briefest moment and then he was back to being sorry for Nathan. Nothing could be worse than losing a parent, your father, your childhood hero.
"Couldn't you have waited until we finished breakfast?" Tim complains again, looking back at the café a forlorn expression crossing his face. He wishes they were back at the café, without this knowledge. Tim wishes they were back to being bored and clueless. Anything but this.
"Tim, grow up man." Jake scolds, glaring at him.
Tim huffs and sniffs, walking beside his friend. Typical of Jake, The Mature One. Well, as far as Tim is concerned, screw growing up. Growing up has not done him any sort of good at all. And besides, he thinks, leaving this unsaid, it's not like Nathan actually cares. Nathan never cared, at least not about this. This has always been, for the greater part of their lives, something that they never talked about. Never mentioned. Not even in the sneering, name-calling way. Unless it was absolutely, absolutely necessary.
Well, ok. So maybe this counts as absolutely necessary. But still.
They step out of the café, eyes going everywhere, trying to look for Nathan. They've known him long enough to actually be worried of what he'll do. The moment they lose him, there's just no way for them to catch up with him. Or find him. Nathan wasn't a six-time MVP for nothing. Speed was his greatest strength and Nathan had always had a bad habit of trying to out run his problems. That and making decisions on the spot. Decisions that usually didn't bring out the best in him or in any situation, for that matter.
Who knows what he'll do this time? The last time something like this happened, he completely up rooted himself from himself; dropping out of the team and practically out of everyone's lives. If Tim and Jake had not been stubborn bastards, Nathan would've probably cut them out of his life as well.
Someone honks at them and they both let out huge sighs of relief as they peered inside Nathan's massive black and chrome SUV. The bass is thumping around Nathan, like an irregular heartbeat as a new hip hop song blasts out from his car stereo.
"Well, you two coming or what?" He asks impatiently over the music. Not a tremor, nothing in his voice. It was as though he was asking them if they were coming with him to see a game or to watch some stupid movie.
"Do you want us to come?" Tim asks in a rather small, nervous, tentative voice.
Jake rolls his eyes, hits Tim's head with his knuckles, pushing him into the car. "Get in dipshit."
"I don't think this is a good idea, Nate." Tim says, buckling his seatbelt and glancing worriedly at Nathan.
"Where's he at?" Nathan asks out loud. Tim shoots Jake a pained look as Jake unfolds the paper once again, the bold, black letters staring at him. It looks stark and angry and just too fucking real for it to be just some sort of mistake. A horrible mix up. The name is familiar, but it looks severely out of place and just wrong. Amongst the rest of the names of the people who had just died, a small announcement: two boxes from the left, in between 63 year old Mr. Fitzburg and 87 year old Annie Cornwell, there it was, the name of Nathan's older half-brother:
Lucas Scott.
23 years old.
So young and already so dead.
Jake winces, shudders and tells Nathan the address and as they got into the state highway, Tree Hill receding from behind them, he silently agrees with Tim. This isn't a good idea. But that has never stopped Nathan Scott before.