pvlmer:
the mood feels weird to jason. even as someone who’s normally adaptable in most situations, he can’t help but feel a little uneasy. and he can’t quite put his finger on it. he figures it was because of nate’s mood shift, that’s what’s putting him off. hes’ so used to seeing his brother crack jokes and be the life of the party, but this mood on him was seldom something jason saw. he wonders if it’s a mood that nate keeps hidden from others, kind of like how jason keeps parts of himself hidden to certain people. jason tries to focus on the lake, rather than how creepy everything is. he remembers his therapist telling him focusing on one thing can help alleviate anxiety. he’s not sure if it’s working or not. he hears what nate says. so he settles on: not.
“i only told them stuff i thought was relevant to the case. i mostly told them that i didn’t think anyone here is capable of something like that but they kind of pressed me so i did say someone’s name but it was more like just a theory, you know?” a couple moments pass before what nate had said really sunk in for jason. he was mostly talking about the police investigation and didn’t even register that nate had said he was trying to keep the cops from suspecting jason. “wait…why would you want to keep them from looking in my direction?” he gulps. because deep down, he knows the answer. but he can’t tell nate what happened that night. how he laughed in the face of orson as he bled out, how he liked seeing him suffer. the guilt of his actions and of keeping this from nate have been heavy on jason, but not as heavy as knowing that his brother would never look at him the same again. “nate, i…don’t know what you’re talking about.” his voice was unconvincing to even an ordinary person, so it certainly wouldn’t be enough to convince his brother. but he couldn’t, he couldn’t let nate see that side of him. the side that got lost in the shadows and became the darkness within them.
.
nate winces at jason’s words. for so long, he had tried to be the best brother - or at least, the best brother he knew how to be. in their household, nate had learned specific lessons about patience, kindness, and empathy. all of which he never had to really use with jason, because things had been easy for them for a long time. now in hindsight, while trying to analyze his brother, nate felt that familiar pang of guilt he always managed to push down. had things only been easy because nate didn’t try to work on their relationship? how much was there that they hadn’t talked about, simply because they didn’t think it was necessary? had nate pushed jason away, somehow? the answers to those questions were hard to think about.
but he couldn’t let jason shut down on him this time; the stakes were too high. “who’s name did you say? is that so much of a secret you can’t even tell me?” nate looks out past jason, out towards the rest of the campus through the thick of the trees. he thinks about the police, about the investigation, about orson’s body and - “jason...i love you, okay? i’d gladly give you a kidney, a lung, a part of my pancreas - if they were healthy, that is.” nate steps closer to him, “my point is that i’d do just about anything for you. but i need you to trust me.” nate knows he’s handled jason with kid gloves practically their whole life, so this feels especially weird for them, but he has to see this through. no matter what the answer might turn out to be.
“tell me the truth”, nate signs with a mixture of nostalgia for their ‘secret’ language as kids and fear of what jason might actually reveal to him. “did you kill o-r-s-o-n?”