A/N: This story is not perfect, it's told in bits, and will probably seem very sloppy, but it's been in my head for a while, and it was time. It's told in a certain way, one that isn't particularly detailed, but the way that I thought I could best translate the idea into words. This is Junk centric, with a hint of Haley/Junk and Junk/Fergie.

This is my second story on this site, and while I don't believe that my first story was perfect by any means, I believe this one is worse. This was written in one sitting, and I wouldn't let myself sleep until it was finished.

At age seven he likes repetition.

Whether it's tapping each knee six times as soon as the clock strikes 11, or doing the same puzzle each day, or ordering the same flavor of ice cream from the school cafeteria at lunch. (Even after his mother tells him to stop. 'Isn't seven cavities enough?' she would say.)

He would shake his head no, ignoring the slight scowl that would tug at the edges of her lips, and continue pushing two ill-matched puzzle pieces together.

It's a Friday when the repetition breaks.

School is cancelled early, an outbreak of lice being cited as the cause. He smiles, in spite of the slight panic at the thought of the sheer lack of familiarity, because maybe a little change isn't the worst thing in the world. Perhaps a little change would make his life more enjoyable, and he wouldn't have to sit awkwardly in share circle as kids boast about their amazing weekends. (After the fifth time of the same story, his teacher asked him politely to stop sharing his.)

With that thought drifting comfortably in his mind, he manages to retain a smile on his face throughout the duration of the ride, happiness lighting up his expression.

Until he walks through his front door.

He's no longer happy.

His dad's yelling.

His mom's crying.

His dad walks out the door.

(He doesn't come back.)

Seven is when it starts.

Seven is when he starts to break.

He doesn't like third grade. Not in the slightest.

The material doesn't truly resonate in his mind, and nobody will talk to him (blatant cracks littering the surface of the friendships he hadn't even managed to form yet), instead choosing to talk about him.

He hears a few things from word of the mouth.

His mother's a cheater.

His dad's a deadbeat.

They are living in a junkyard, because she couldn't afford to pay for food any more, let alone a house.

Tree Hill is far too small for any secret to remain concealed.

So, he shouldn't be surprised.

(But he still is.)

None of the rumors manage to pierce his skin, none manage to break through his armor. Because he's only nine, and it's just far too easy to pretend his world wasn't crumbling around him, when he doesn't even understand his multiplication tables.

It's just too easy to—

The whispers escalate.

No longer are there a few words here and there, but a constant stream, washing away all remains of happiness, and good memories, and hopes for a future that wasn't so dark.

Tears fall, hands shake, lips quiver, but he doesn't fall.

Cracks cover his skin, but it's still intact, for all of the world to see.

But with a single sentence it shatters.

"Kid isn't his, that's why he left."

It's just too easy to pretend like it was all going to be okay.

Children never express themselves in the way adults do. They don't whisper incoherent words to one another, or sneak discrete glances, and still try to obtain an overall image of innocence.

Instead they steal your crayons, pull your hair when the teachers aren't looking and push you off the swing when they believe they are entitled to it.

It's a brutal lesson, one he learns quickly, thanks to Tommy Anderson.

He makes a mistake with Tommy.

Well that's not really new is it?

The words spill out of his mouth before he even truly thinks about it.

"Can I play?"

Tommy laughs, planting two hands on his chest, before pushing him with force. His body falls to the ground, his face connecting with the harsh asphalt.

"You're nothing but garbage," Tommy spits out. "Later, junk."

The nickname sticks.

It's a week.

(Seven days.)

Before every kid in the school (and some teachers) have abandoned his given name, and gave way to the deploring nickname.

Junk.

As in trash.

As in garbage.

(Maybe, that's all that he is.)

He meets Fergie when he's eleven. He has a basketball in his hands, and is singing a song lightly under his breath, walking towards the river court.

His body recognizes another body there, before his mind does. A sudden halt in his step, and he's frozen to the spot, confusion coloring his mind into a blank haze.

Their eyes meet.

And for a second he feels okay.

He feels okay.

A small smile lingers on his face, as he decides to start a conversation with him. Soon, they're both situated on the bleachers, two basketballs laying on the ground at their feet, forgotten.

"Yeah, I just moved here from Oak Lake," the kid shrugs. "Name's Fergie."

He scrunches up his nose. "Like the singer?"

"Nah. Ferguson is my actual name, but nicknames are cool, you know?" he offers, once again settling for a brief shrug of shoulders to replace the lack of words. "What's your name?"

He hesitates.

"I'm Junk."

Because he is.

He's never had a best friend before.

Everything is new, and exhilarating, and memorable. Pre-Fergie the world had seemed so dark, so void of color, so meaningless. Post-Fergie is anything but.

He hardly notices when smiling becomes a regular occurrence.

(He's never had a friend before.)

And for a while he is okay. For a while he is fine.

Fergie turns out to be the better side of him.

The positive to his negative.

And with that realization, their friendship is no longer therapeutic, no longer an escape.

With him by his side, the world is reminded as to all of the overwhelmingly positive attributes Fergie has, unable to ignore the stark contrast between the two. The positive to the negative.

Next to each other, Fergie is a saint, and Junk is just—

And the good Samaritan award goes to…

Junk is just trash.

Fergie Thompson.

He tries not to sob at the thought.

The daunting realization stalks him each day, not allowing the smile on his face to contain even a trace of genuinity, a trace of contentment, a trace of happiness.

He doesn't leave though, because Fergie is all that he has.

Lucas, Skills and Mouth walk into his life, casually.

He's seen them around, but had never dared to speak to them, fear coursing through him at the thought of what the repercussions might've been.

But they approach him, and they want to be his friends.

Lucas, Skills and Mouth walk into his life, but Haley James dances into it.

With her head thrown back, she laughs, grabbing his hand lightly. "Let's dance," she whispers.

Almost reproachfully, he lifts his hand up to his face, gently grazing it across his features. It settles upon the slight upwards tilt of his lips. He's smiling.

Haley's head is tucked in the crook of his neck, her arms gently wrapped around his waist, as they sway back and forth.

He tries not to remember all of the other moments the smile was stolen off of his lips, as he holds Haley just a little bit tighter to his chest.

And with her kind words, and soft touches, Haley single handedly breathes life into him.

When he's in her arms, he feels the cracks in his soul slowly begin to heal.

"Describe yourself in three words," she says, her voice a low mumble, from where her face is buried in his chest. Her right hand continues to leisurely trace repetitive circles right above the placement of his heart, and for a brief moment he wonders whether or not she can feel how fast it beats when he's in her presence.

They're sitting in the back of his beat up truck, as 'Cradle of Love' drifts gently out of the speakers.

"Well…" he drawls lowly, before pausing.

She turns her gaze on him, her eyes fixed on him from underneath her eyelashes. "You honestly don't know how remarkable you are?"

He attempts to look away, not having enough energy to try and allow a lie to form, but her hand catches his jaw, turning him back to her.

"I wish you could see it," she speaks, before pressing her own lips against his.

He's okay when he's with Lucas, or Mouth, or Fergie, or Skills.

He's happy when he's with Haley.

Lucas tries to join the basketball team, and suddenly Nathan Scott becomes a presence in their lives.

He's the villain to Lucas's hero, the antagonist in the epic love story between Lucas Scott and Peyton Sawyer, the high school bully who uses brute force to mask the mottled flesh that lies beneath the charming smirk. A tortured soul.

Haley suddenly becomes withdrawn.

(He pretends like he doesn't know why.)

(She's always liked to save people.)

Haley barges into his room one day. Her bottom lip is trembling, and her eyes are sparkling with unshed tears, and almost immediately he is up and out of his chair, reaching out for her.

She swats his hands away, and he tries to mask the hurt marring his face.

"What are we? What is this?"

"What do you mean?"

In a small voice, she informs him of the tutoring sessions she's being sharing with Nathan, and how they went out on a date, and he kissed her, and how she kissed him back, and how she's so confused. Because she likes Nathan, but she loves him.

"We hang out, and hug, and cuddle, and…kiss. But we're not together. I love you, John, and I want to be with you. If you say no, I'll leave this," she motions between the two of them. "alone."

His tongue grows heavy, as her deep brown eyes look deeply into him, the tears that were once only small pricks at her eyes, now steadily flowing down the flawless skin of her cheeks.

His hands itch to take her into his arms, and never let go, tell her that he's loved her since the moment that they met, and that he can make her as happy as she does him. Tell her that he can make her happier than Nathan could.

"I can't," he chokes out.

She's better off this way.

He sees her holding Nathan's hand the next week, a bright smile lighting up her face.

High school turns into a nightmare, one that no matter how hard he tosses and turns, he can't seem to wake up from.

Haley and Nathan get married.

Lucas leaves for Peyton, then Brooke, then Peyton, and back and forth.

Skills leaves for Bevin.

Mouth disappears from his side as soon as Brooke smiles at him.

They all leave.

(Except Fergie.)

And suddenly the erratic pounding of his heart isn't a response to Haley's presence.

But that of his best friend.

(He doesn't know when everything got so fucked up.)

On a Tuesday he graduates high school.

When he grips the diploma securely in his hand, he sees a look of guilt briefly flicker across the face of his Math teacher, as the elderly man casts his gaze down to the ground.

(Naivety offers far more comfort than the words of the agonizing truth.)

He writes seventeen applications to seventeen different colleges.

And in a haze of white, he gets their responses.

"I'm repentant to inform you that…"

"After much consideration, we regret to inform you…"

"We thank you for your application. However..."

(Repeat fourteen more times.)

Time passes.

(Seven years.)

He continues to breathe.

(Barely.)

Life could be worse.

Lying isn't kind.

The people he knew could write a memoir on their past seven years, have two hundred pages littered in tales of success, and love, and memories.

He could describe his own impeccably, with three sentences.

1. He is in love with his best friend.

2. His life is going nowhere.

3. Feeling worthless is more common than happiness.

He stares at the bottle of pain medication in his medicine cabinet the next morning.

'Why am I still here?'

"You okay, man?" Fergie asks.

He blinks, coming to slowly. "What?"

"You've been staring at the floor for the last ten minutes," Fergie provides, leveling his own gaze with his. Concern flashes through his eyes. "You've really been out of it lately. I love you man, but you got to see a doctor."

'I love you too.'

He wants to say, but when he tries, he realizes that he's just too tired.

He just wants to go to sleep.

His aunt calls him sobbing the next day, telling him that his mother has cancer, and that he needs to come home. That his mother really needs him right now, that his family really needs him to be there for them.

A dull throbbing begins in his head, as his mother's last words to him echo in the surrounding atmosphere.

"I hate you."

He hangs up on her mid-sentence, as his fingers begin to dial the one number that he had always been too afraid to call, to let himself call.

He calls the number and waits, tremors running violently through his hands.

"Hello?" he asks quietly. His voice betrays him, when a small cry erupts from his throat. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. My life is going nowhere…." He trails off, struggling for the right words. "I can't even get a girlfriend…" Or Fergie.

He just wants somebody to love, and who will love him.

"Junk?" the person on the other line asks, softly.

"Haley?"

"Is everything—"

And once again, he hangs up.

He sees Haley the next day.

(She doesn't say a thing.)

With each day that passes, the harder it becomes to stay awake.

(He's not even sure he wants to be anymore.)

His life reaches its climax on a Sunday.

Fergie comes over, his face serious, as he pushes his way through his front door, not even waiting for an invitation to enter. Junk closes the door, before following him into the living room, wordlessly.

"You are going to the doctor. I don't give a shit, if I have to drag you out here kicking and screaming," he hisses at him, the second he enters the room.

He doesn't move, or speak, or even blink, he just stands there, and muses lowly to himself about how life would be if he weren't in it.

Somewhere in the background, he hears a sudden burst of sound, followed by the shattering of glass, before his arms are grasped at violently, and his face is mere inches away from Fergie's, as he continues to yell at him.

He leans in, and a part of him knows, just knows, that the aftermath of this will probably destroy him. But for the first time, he can't bring himself to even care.

With force, he smashes their lips together.

He thinks he sees white.

It doesn't even last a second, before the other man is looking at him wide eyed, as he harshly wipes his lips on the sleeve of his shirt.

Junk closes his eyes, in quiet resolution.

"Fuck!" Fergie screams. "Why the hell did you do that man?"

He stays silent.

"Why do you do this Junk? Why do you always try to deliberately fuck everything up!" Fergie shouts, forcing his hands through his hair. "You already destroyed your own life, so you gotta go and destroy mine too? JUST GO THE FUCK AWAY."

And with a small clink, the last of his strength falls.

'Maybe I will, Fergie.'

He wonders how many pills it will take to fill the cracks in his skin. And one pill at a time, he decides to find out.

(There isn't enough in the first bottle, so he gets another.)

As the dawn breaks, his breathing begins to slow. Minutes pass between each breath, instead of mere seconds. His vision swims with black dots, his head falling against the wall ruthlessly.

He's always been a little more than damaged. And it didn't matter.

Not at first.

He wonders if anyone will care.

A/N: I haven't written in a while, so I understand if people don't enjoy this story. The ending perhaps seemed too rushed, but besides that I hope it was okay.