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: Much thanks for the awesome feedback. I really appreciate it. There will be some sort of Leyton and Brucas although more in terms of the back-story and some flashbacks. Oh and yeah be prepared for the angst and the whole sordid melodrama sort. LOL. I can't seem to stop writing those which is weird, 'cause I'm generally a happy, happy person. But, ugh, yeah. Sorry for the long note.
Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers apply. Me don't own. Please don't sue.
Three
How weird that all these time, all those years of avoiding Lucas and now, here they are, on their way to Oak Lake for a visit. Except, it's definitely not going to be a happy family reunion - not that Nathan had ever fantasized about it - the happy family reunion that is.
He had known when exactly Lucas Scott had packed up and left Tree Hill for good. It was the summer he turned thirteen, already a shoo-in for the junior varsity basketball team. And even then, people were already buzzing with excitement. This would be the start of another basketball legacy. Two Scott basketball prodigies. Whitey's finally going to have the state championship he had always dreamed of and to be fair, it's not just Tree Hill High's most feared, most famous, most beloved coach who had started fantasizing about the glory of a high school state championship. Most of the townsfolk who lived and counted on the excitement of high school basketball were all already envisioning all the games - pre and post seasons – all leading to the state championship that they'd be watching. All the celebrating that they'd be doing. With the two Scott brothers, Tree Hill Ravens will be unstoppable!
And oh, how those dreams crashed and burned. How sorely, bitterly disappointed they had all been the day a single moving truck arrived and parked right in front of Karen Roe's house, hauling over cheap pieces of furniture, emptying the house that Dan Scott had gone over to countless night during his younger days. The very same house that he now avoided, that he now refused to acknowledge its very existence. It was as though the place - even though everyone knew the address: street number, street name- had been permanently erased from the local map.
It was a one-story, charming little yellow house surrounded by magnolias and roses whose thorns had pricked and punctured Dan's skin whenever he lurked over at the front porch waiting for Karen to come around from the back door, boldly meeting him at the front of the house even though her parents had absolutely forbidden her from seeing that boy ever again.
No matter how good he was at basketball, Karen's mother and grandmother had warned her about him and she didn't listen and when she got pregnant, when her mother's disappointment had been too much to bear, there was nothing left to do but pack up her bags and live with some distant cousin in Illinois. And when she came back, head held up high, baby in her arms, she let the rumors and the talk brush off of her. The more she walked around the town, little blue-eyed Lucas in her arms, the whispers behind her back became less and less until it slowly died down. One day, the whispering just suddenly stopped and then one by one, as though pulled by the irresistible shade of Lucas' eyes, the people of Tree Hill who had once scorned the sixteen year old single mother was coming over to their house, stopping her at the corner, just so they can look at bright-eyed Lucas.
When the whispers came back, they were all for Dan Scott. At night, when the Roe house is filled with the cries of a little boy, they all whispered amongst themselves: how could anyone abandon Karen and Lucas? They all asked: where is Dan Scott? How could he have left this precious blue-eyed baby boy?
While Karen was trying to raise her little boy alone, Dan Scott, Tree Hill local hero, was in college chasing after his college dreams and sleeping with another girl. And when it was his time to return, a different woman in his arms and a little boy of his own – the same blue eyes, but darker, as though already with a knowledge of his father's secrets – there was no hero welcome for him.
Dan Scott bitterly accepted that his glory days were over. He was tainted. And so he decided to forget about Karen and his high school mistake. He very carefully erased whatever memories he had of that little house at number 1829 Wrightsville Ave, Tree Hill, North Carolina. To Dan Scott, that place and those residing in it had long ceased to exist.
Dan Scott was exceptionally good with ignoring the people that were of no use to him. Sometimes, Nathan thinks that next to basketball, he had also acquired that very trait. In high school, he had shown how easily he can forget you, even when you have spent the whole night together, even if you tell him that he was your first. He forgets because they were just distractions. But there were certain things that Nathan can never forget; memories that he couldn't cut out and disregard.
He remembers distinctly how it felt every time people would stop and greet him by the street. He was instinctively well aware of what they were thinking: here he is, Dan Scott's other son. The one who is living the life that Lucas should have had.
It had always been that way. When people talked about Dan Scott, they automatically talked about Lucas and Nathan. Brothers and strangers. One doesn't think about Nathan without thinking about Lucas. The same way that one doesn't think about Dan without thinking about Keith. Strangers, too, those two men. What is it with these Scott brothers? It goes too that one doesn't also think about single mother, Karen Roe without thinking about trophy wife, Deb Scott.
In the small town where they live in, everyone knows that they were the second generation of Scott brothers destined to grow up hating each other. It's a family curse. One brother would grow up selfish and arrogant. He's going to be dark and beautiful. And the other, good-looking and trustworthy, is bound to be quiet, reserved, always willing to step aside. One brother gets to have everything. The other has to stand by and watch as his life becomes fuzzy shadows of possibilities. Blurry could have and should have been's.
Three guesses which brother Nathan is.
It wasn't as though he and Lucas had ever really talked. Sure, they saw each other but Nathan had always been proud and defiant and every time their paths crossed he used to call Lucas all sorts of name: Sheet Stain, Bastard Boy, Little Puke-Ass. He bullied his older brother relentlessly and Lucas never uttered a word, never fought back. He just stared at him like he was sorry for him.
Lucas's seemingly misplaced pity added more fuel to the already burning contempt that Nathan had for him. For their shared history. Their shared genes. After all, wasn't it just that? They shared their father's genes. Same blue eyes. Same love for the same sport. Nothing more, nothing else.
And yet Lucas always had a way of making him feel as though, between the two of them, he had gotten off worst, that there was something that Lucas finds pitiful in him and in Dan. And Nathan could not figure out why Lucas would ever think that way when he was the one left fatherless and living on the wrong side of the town.
Nathan remembers his father taking them to some fancy restaurant the very same night Karen and Lucas drove out of Tree Hill, leaving behind the past that would not and could not leave them alone. Nathan didn't know it then, but he understands it now.
Karen had enough sense to realize that with Nathan and Lucas headed for the same high school, it was time to take matters into her own hands. Lucas will have the life that he wants, whether it was going to be a star basketball player or an honor student, Lucas would have that in peace, her boy deserves it. He will not be forced to live with the past or with Nathan or Dan following him around the school like some dark shadow.
It was clear that there wasn't enough space in Tree Hill for the sons of Dan Scott.
And even though, at that time, Nathan had been somewhat relieved he had also felt a little flicker of envy. How wonderful would it be if he could also escape and live his life away from the ever looming, far reaching shadows of his father?
At dinner, Dan hadn't even tried to hide how pleased he was that he had managed to drive away the family that he had never wanted in the first place. There would be fewer talks behind his back now. Karen did the right thing, the smart thing and now, they could all move on with their lives. Put everything behind them and start a new one. None of his past mistakes could further taint and ruin their perfect future, the future that he had envisioned for them, especially for Nathan.
And as Nathan listened to his father proclaiming that he made the right decision when he chose Deb and him over Karen and Lucas, it made him feel as though they were going to be forever hounded, chained by the past. Whatever happens now, they'd always have to keep looking back over their shoulders, wary of Karen and Lucas returning and taking everything away from them, from him and his mom. And more than that, it drove home the truth that Dan saw them as nothing more than his property that there's always that slight possibility that he and his mother could have been the one running away from Tree Hill that very moment.
"It's a good thing too son" Dan added during dinner, "because if Lucas had stayed here... well, let's face it, you're going to have to fight tooth and nail for your spot in the basketball team."
He gave his father a sneer-like grin. Thank you, dad, for your overwhelming vote of confidence.
Nathan also remembers the first time he saw his half-brother again. It was at a basketball game and it was against Lucas's team. Nathan had puked three times on the way and countless more during the week as he tried to get in proper shape. Running lapses were doubled, lifting weights tripled. A few (okay, maybe a lot) of pills bitterly swallowed down.
Everyone who knew about Lucas Scott would be keeping scores between them: which brother will score more, which brother will have more assists, which brother is more graceful, will play better. Who will play like their father?
Nathan knew that he's taller than Lucas, that he's built better, that he plays better. But even with all that knowledge, it hadn't helped him at all. During the game, he remembered wanting to score every-fucking-time. The ball goes to him and only to him. Coach Whitey had threatened to bench him but he knew that was all just empty threats, after all, there was no chance his coach was going to put their winning streak on the line.
At the end of the game, when he was thrown out for throwing the first punch, for making Lucas's mouth bleed, the Ravens were up by thirteen. They had won. He scored more than Lucas did. He played better. He had proven them all, everyone who ever doubted him, especially his father, that he was the right choice.
"Could have gone for a triple double tonight, son," Was the only thing Dan had to say to him on their way home.
And Nathan had the sinking feeling that that night was just the beginning and that it will never really end no matter how much he proves himself worthy of being Dan Scott's son.
And he was right.
How many times had he and Lucas fought in the court? How many times had he proven he was better, faster, scored higher? How many times had they won over Lucas's team?
Too many.
Too few.
Nathan could not decide.
"So, what exactly are we going to say?" Tim suddenly asks from out of nowhere, pulling Nathan out from his reverie. Nathan couldn't help but notice how genuinely, sincerely perplexed Tim sounded. Nathan gives him an incredulous glance.
"What the hell Smith, haven't you gone to a funeral before?" Jake irritably asks from the backseat.
"No." Tim says a little too defensively. He frowns and then makes a face, "Well, yeah. I mean, it was my grandmother okay? It was perfectly fine that I didn't say anything, it was enough that I just looked sad."
Jake silently stares hard at the back of his Tim's head and it takes Tim half a second before twisting in his seat to glare at Jake. "I was sad! It's was my nana, okay!"
Jake snorts and then turns his attention towards Nathan who hadn't spoken the entire time. "Although, Nate, hate to say it, he does have a point. I mean, are you gonna go there and say..."
Nathan finds himself gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly. He relaxes his fingers and takes in a deep breath. "I don't know what I'll say ok. I just, he's... he's still, you know, family." The word tastes odd in his mouth. Rubbery. "Whatever."
"He played ball too, didn't he?" Tim asks no one in particular, looking rather gloomy as he stared outside, almost like a little boy, keeping his eyes glued to the passing, wheezing green blurs of trees lining the highway. "Like won championships and stuff. Although," he pauses to grin at Nate and then at Jake, "we totally kicked their ass. Remember senior year?" He asks, eyes twinkling merrily at the memory.
"Tim," Jake starts in a serious voice, "I think it's not polite to say that we kicked someone's ass when they're, you know, dead."
Tim pales and nervously glances at Nathan. "Oh, shit, I'm... I'm sorry man."
Nathan remembers senior year. He remembers briefly thinking that it seemed oddly right that his last game in high school was against his brother. He remembers watching Lucas, though defeated, getting hugs from his mom and from a girl (probably a girlfriend) with long dark brown hair falling in waves and curls, spilling past her shoulder, almost reaching her small waist. Lucas had been engulfed by hugs that night, like he had won the championship game. Nathan sees it in his mind, the image is vivid, it's almost as though he's seeing it again, right in front of him and he feels the same stab of envy.
There he was, clutching the state championship trophy, clutching the dream that he had chased all his high school years, the physical proof that he had finally done something his father had not been able to do and yet even with the brightly colored confetti raining down on him and the adoring congratulations he had been receiving, he had never felt so miserable and alone.
"We did kick their ass." Nathan casually agrees, nodding his head. "He's a good player though." He admits, finally. But the admission tastes even more awful than 'family'. Like spoilt milk and he has to swallow something vile-tasting that lingered at the back of his mouth.
"He was ok." Tim agrees, "I mean, he got those threes down and the lay ups, but we all know lay ups are for pansies." Tim pauses and then as though realizing what he had just said, he winces, looking thoroughly wounded. "Sorry."
Jake snickers and after a few seconds, Nathan lets out a small chuckle.
Tim shakes his head and mutters: "Asshats."
It didn't take them long to find the chapel. It's the only chapel in Oak Lake and every black car on the road seemed to be leading towards it anyway. It's a somber looking building; all gray slabs of concrete with delicate arches coming together to form a small dome. Even the windows were empty black squares, no rose-colored glass stained depictions of heaven and angels and miracles, just blank spaces in between the gray columns. And above it, a solitary, solemn white cross.
It all looks utterly depressing. Everything so gray and white and blank.
When his father died, Nathan had been too busy shaking people's hand and nodding dumbly and numbly as they murmured their condolences. He couldn't remember how the chapel look liked. He couldn't remember the faces of the people who had been there. It's funny (although definitely not in the haha-knee slapping way) how the only thing he remembers about his father's funeral was the cloying smell of flowers and how brightly colored they all were, a stark contrast to all the dark gray suits moving before him in a blur.
He kills the engine and sits there, staring at the chapel. His brother is there and Nathan realizes sadly that he's never really thought of Lucas as brother. He had always been more like a rival - a constant, permanent rival - and he regrets it almost as bitterly as he regrets the night he last spoke with Dan. Father and son had been so incredibly angry at each other, at themselves that every word that came out of their mouths was harsh, painful, brutal. They felt like punches, only, they were just words. Easily taken back, if only they both hadn't been so stubborn.
Like father like son.
Jake and Tim seems to be waiting for him to say something but he honestly does not know what he's supposed to say so they just silently sit and wait.
"Nice charming little chapel." Tim observes conversationally and Nathan hears and feels Jake's shoes solidly connecting with the back of Tim's seat. He ignores them, keeps a close watch at the building spilling with people of all ages, wearing black suits and dresses.
Nathan suddenly realizes that they're dressed horribly wrong for this. He's wearing a faded Duke sweatshirt, Tim is wearing a ridiculous lime green shirt with the words Jock spelled in Latin letters – or so he says. Jake's probably the only one who looks decent enough but they're definitely going to stand out in the sea of mourning black.
"Man, look at all those people." Tim whispers in awe.
There are more people here than on his father's funeral, Nathan thinks almost automatically. And that says a lot, considering his father once held office as the mayor of Tree Hill. It was the year they've won state championship and Nathan had a feeling that the golden trophy encased in a glass cabinet with words: 'Tree Hill High North Carolina State Champions 2007' had something to do with his father getting voted as mayor. It was both a scary and ridiculous thought, one that he didn't really bothered himself with because if Tree Hill wanted a mayor that had abandoned his then pregnant girlfriend and then his very own first born son, well, fuck, it wasn't his problem anymore.
"How many people do you think came here for your... I mean, for Puke, I mean for you know... him." Tim reluctantly whispers the last word.
"Jesus, Tim." Jake mutters exasperatedly behind them.
Nathan pretends not to hear them as he scans the crowd before them. Close to a hundred. Maybe even more. He does the estimate all inside his head, ignoring Tim and Jake who were yet again bickering over... well, God knows what. There is something so wrong and totally unnerving about the way Tim and Jake would constantly argue. Like they were an old married couple. Nathan lets out a small chuckle of amusement, still keeping his eyes on the small chapel. More cars are coming in, parking and slamming their doors shut. He keeps his eyes trained on the fluttering of black dresses and stiff jackets everywhere. More than a hundred, he decides.
Well, well, Nathan thinks not unkindly, the son, who had lived half the life of his father seemed to have left a better legacy. Guess it's never really about how many scores you made in a high school basketball game, or how much power you wielded, or how old you are to have actually touched people's life. Or at least touched them in a way that would make them want to come to your funeral in black swarms of tears and regrets. He couldn't remember anyone from his father's funeral coming over to him and telling him that his father was a great guy. Every one of them said that they were sorry and that his father will be missed and man, wasn't he one of the most amazing basketball player ever in Tree Hill?
Not even the greatest. Nathan is pretty sure Dan was regretting that he's dead, unable to say anything about the public opinion. Nathan wonders if his dad will be as upset that no one ever told him that he was a great father or that Dan had been a great friend to them.
Not one.
That was the saddest thing about his father's death.
That and the fact that he hadn't even bothered telling them that Dan had been a good father to him. No matter what they might say and what he might feel, it still didn't change the fact that Dan wanted the best for him. Or at least what he thought was the best for him and let it never be said that Dan didn't push and push and push him some more to be a great basketball player. Nathan owed it all to his father. His skills, everything that he had accomplished in the court it was because of his dad.
Dad. It had been such a long time since he had thought of Dan Scott as his dad.
"Are we gonna just stay here or what?" Tim asks switching his glance from Nathan to Jake and then back to Nathan again.
Nathan doesn't answer. He doesn't even know if he wants to go in. Tim's right. What is he going to say once he's inside? Excuse me, hi, I'm Nathan Scott. I'm the son Dan Scott chose over him. I'm sorry.
"Nate, we gotta go in or we'll look like creepy stalkers." Tim looks pleadingly at him and when Nathan doesn't say anything, he adds in a desperate voice: "At a funeral."
And Tim makes yet another valid point. Nathan shakes his head. Will wonders never cease? He takes a deep breath, steeling himself for... for, fuck if he knows. "Yeah, yeah, ok." He opens his door and steps out, looking around. He tries not to act or feel like it, but he can't help it. He's feeling not only severely out of place but also painfully guilty.
His brother is a popular guy, he thinks once again, trying to distract himself as he began counting the people lined up outside the chapel.
Was a popular guy, he corrects himself almost immediately.
Nathan takes a few tentative steps, wincing at the sound of the car door slamming shut. He turns his head to glare at Tim who quickly mouths the word "sorry", feebly raising his hands in apology before jogging over to him, bumping against his shoulder and almost stumbling down the path. Nathan starts to walk more briskly, leaving behind Tim and Jake behind.
Best to get over this as quickly as possible, Nathan thinks to himself, people die every day, it doesn't have to be such a big fucking thing. Every second, every minute, every hour someone loses someone. At this very moment, someone would lose a wife, a daughter, a son, a friend, a lover, a sister, a brother. It's a way of life. He has learned to accept that and besides, Nathan reasons out, this shouldn't be as painful. After all, Lucas has never really been a brother or a friend. This is like just saying goodbye to a stranger.
Nathan is almost at the door but he stops dead in his track as the dark heavy doors open up and there, in bright sunshine, with the blue, blue clouds hanging over them, Lucas's bronze casket is being carried out of the chapel.
"Shit." Someone mutters behind him and he isn't sure if it's Tim or Jake. Maybe it's even him. He must've spoken out loud.
"Shit." He mutters (again?) to himself, completely at lost for words. He wishes he could say something better than that, but what was there to say?
There is something heavy inside Nathan's chest and he is vaguely thankful that he didn't have any heart problems or else there's going to be a double funeral today and he's a long way from Tree Hill, the people here might just decide to bury him with his older brother, maybe then they'd find something to bond about. Being dead.
Fuck. He should not be thinking this way. Nathan shakes his head, averts his eyes and stares hard at the pallbearers instead. There are four guys carrying his Lucas's casket. Two on each side. Two of them are vaguely familiar. Must be Lucas' old high school teammates. Nathan must have played against them at one point in his life. One of them is his long lost uncle Keith. The uncle he never knew. The uncle his father had banned from the house, the uncle who was more than happy to escape the ever suffocating family history of brothers hating brothers.
His uncle doesn't see him and Nathan thinks that if Keith does see him, he wouldn't recognize him anyway, after all the last time they saw each other was the Christmas before he became officially part of the senior varsity team. Keith had given him a present wrapped in royal blue paper and his father had thrown it out, must have set fire on it because when Nathan had tried looking for it after dinner, there was no trace of that gift, just semi-charred blue-black papers sitting at the bottom of the trash can. When Dan Scott gets rid of someone in his life, he does it precisely, cleanly, erasing all traces of that person, and it was as if he or she or they had never existed in the first place.
His father could be a cruel son of a bitch sometimes.
Nathan ducks his head low. If Keith did recognize him, he might ask him to leave. The last thing Nathan wants is to create a scene. He bows his head even lower and he tries to offer a small prayer of something. Something like regret or sorrow or love but nothing comes to him.
The heaviness in his chest doubles and he is suddenly slammed by the memory of how heavy his dad's coffin had been. When they got home, he found his hand marked with dark red blisters and nothing could get rid of it, not even when he had buried his hand inside a bucketful of ice, wincing at the cold and at the pain that strangely enough, would not come.
Nathan had not been able to say goodbye his father and now to Lucas too. He feels his heart hammering against his chest. He clenches his jaws so tightly that his whole face starts to hurt. How could he say goodbye when he barely even said hello to Lucas? Barely even politely acknowledged him?
"Hello, Lucas." Nathan mumbles as the pallbearers and his brother passed by him. "Good bye, Lucas."