Chapter Text
“Do you know what time it is?”
The lamp on the desk flicks on, illuminating the man sitting in the chair, and if not for the fact that Peter is the one being caught sneaking in through the bedroom window, he’d give his foster father credit for the sheer drama of the moment. It’s straight out of a movie.
Peter straightens up to his feet and makes a show of checking his left wrist, which is bare. “I lost my Rolex.”
Skip stands up, his face thunderous. “It’s past 2 AM. Where the fuck have you been?”
“Out.”
“Out,” Skip repeats. “Out where?”
“I was just around. Y’know—”
He’s cut off by Skip grabbing his arm, dragging him around the bed that had been providing a barrier between them. “No, I don’t know. Were you out getting high again?” He sniffs, as if he’d be able to smell the drugs on Peter.
Peter shakes his head. “No.” Which is the truth, for once.
He was out selling drugs. There’s a distinct difference.
Skip’s grip on his arm is tight and bruising, but Peter doesn’t try to pull away. Skip only gets more angry when he does. “You’re lying,” he hisses.
“I’m not.”
Skip shakes him. “What are you on?”
“Why? Do you want some?”
That earns him a backhand, and Peter stumbles against the end of the bed. He jumps back up, not wanting to be lying over the bed.
“I’m not high,” Peter insists. “I was just at a party but I only had a couple drinks. I swear.” He raises his hands placatingly.
Skip gives him another shove, towards the middle of the room, and stalks around him to the still open window. “I’m nailing this shut,” he says.
“Right now?”
“Yes.” Skip stomps out of the room, but returns after only a few minutes, toolbox in tow.
“Are you kidding me?” Peter asks, incredulous. “What if there’s a fire?!”
“Then you can burn to death, and we’ll all be better off for it.” Skip slams the window closed. He opens the toolbox on the bed, pulling out a couple of nails and spilling them across the bedspread. The hammer is next.
Peter can only watch, stunned, as Skip follows through on the threat, hammering first one, and then another nail into the window sill. He goes for a third, but brings the hammer down on his own thumb and starts cursing, which serves him right.
Tiffany, Peter’s foster mother, appears in the doorway. “What the hell are you doing?” she demands.
“Making sure he doesn’t sneak out,” Skip says. He sucks on his sore thumb, then starts shaking his hand out.
“He’s gone insane,” Peter tells her.
Skip waves the hammer in the air, and Peter ducks instinctively, even though Skip is across the room. “You’re going to start doing what I tell you, or there’s going to be hell to pay.”
“Like there isn’t already,” Peter shoots back at him.
Skip sneers at him. “You want to go try your luck with someone else, boy? Go on then. Pick up the phone. Call your social worker. Tell her how mean I am. But you can be sure I’ll tell her all about the drugs you’ve been bringing into my house, and you’ll wind up in juvie, where the best you can hope for is being someone’s little bitch. And then you can kiss that fancy school goodbye. No more school. No college applications. No future for you. Not that you’re going to amount to anything anyway.”
Peter’s breathing hard by the end of Skip’s little speech, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Before he can reply, Tiffany steps into the room, her hand raised toward Skip.
“Honey, let’s go back to bed. It’s late.”
“I know it’s goddamn late,” Skip says. “He’s the reason we’re all up late.”
“You can deal with him in the morning. Just come back to bed.” Her hand lands on his arm, coaxing him to put down the hammer finally.
Peter ducks back out of the way when Skip walks past him, but he doesn’t reach for Peter again, just stomps out of the room.
Tiffany pauses to gather up the toolbox before following, not giving Peter a second glance.
After she’s gone the door slams shut and locks. From the outside.
- - -
The thing is… The thing is Peter should be able to stand up to Skip.
Ever since that field trip at the beginning of freshman year, when he’d gotten bitten by that weird spider, Peter has been stronger, and faster. He can hear better, he can jump farther, he can stick to shit, like there’s super glue on his hands and feet, and it lets him climb up the wall when the ladder for the fire escape is broken.
He should, by all accounts, be able to use these abilities to get himself out of the shitty situations he’s always finding himself in.
And yet, every time Skip raises his voice, or his hand, Peter freezes. The most he can do is mouth off, and that just earns him a harder hit. But if Skip is hitting him then he’s not—
Peter would rather take a beating than the alternative.
He’s lived here since he was thirteen. Skip and Tiffany had been so nice at first, helping him with the paperwork to get into Midtown. Not even his social worker, Ms. Dennis, thought he’d get in. No one has thought he’d be able to keep his grades up enough to stay. And he wants to stay at Midtown. He wants to graduate and go to college and get the fuck out of here.
Ms. Dennis had made it clear, when he moved in with the Westcotts, that if this didn’t work out his next stop was a group home. And none of the group homes are close enough for him to still attend Midtown.
So he doesn’t stand up to Skip. Not even when Skip is drunk and acting insane and nailing his window shut. Peter could pry it open, but it’s not worth the fight that would ensue. Not worth the beating he’d get for it.
It’s better to let Skip cool down for a few days, wait until he’s not thinking about the window anymore.
Peter is playing the long game.
- - -
It’s Tiffany that lets him out the next morning. She has dark circles under her eyes, and crosses her arms over her chest as she stands in the doorway. “If you didn’t stay out until all hours of the night, he wouldn’t have to lock you in.”
“Right.” Peter nods. “I’m the one who’s a problem.”
“Watch your tone.”
He rolls his eyes.
She glares at him. “If you sneak out again, I’ll be the one who calls your social worker and tells her we don’t want you anymore.”
Peter narrows his eyes at her. “No you won’t,” he says.
“Try me.”
“Skip won’t let you.”
Tiffany’s eyebrows climb up her forehead. “He doesn’t dictate everything in this house.”
“Yeah, he does,” Peter says. “And he’s not going to kick me out.”
The reason for that lies between them, unspoken, and all the louder for it.
Tiffany pulls back her hand, and then slaps him across the cheek.
Peter turns his head with the blow, and then brings a hand up to his stinging cheek as he looks back at her.
“Get out of my sight,” she says.
“This is my room,” he points out.
“Out!” she shrieks at him.
“Okay, okay!” Good thing he’s already dressed for the day. He ducks down, grabbing his backpack, and scoots around her to get out the door.
He’d rather spend the day away from the Westcott’s apartment anyway.
- - -
Peter roams aimlessly. He spends half the day at the library doing his homework, and eventually finds himself texting Ali that night, when he’s bored out of his mind and he’s eaten all the granola bars he had stashed in his backpack.
Ali and his crew are hanging out in the usual spot, a house across the street from the largest park in the neighborhood, and Peter makes his way there at a slow pace, not in any hurry.
“Parker, where have you been hiding?” Eric demands, as soon as Peter knocks on the door.
“I’ve been around,” Peter says, shouldering his way in. The house is a mess, furniture askew and mess littered across the floor. “Do you slobs ever clean up?”
“The maids haven’t been by,” Eric says with a laugh. He shoves Peter between the shoulders. “That’s why we keep you around.”
Peter stumbles, but stays on his feet, narrowly avoiding hitting the couch. “I’m not cleaning up after you,” he says. He eyes the coffee table. “Is that coke?”
There’s a gun there too, but he’s trying to ignore that.
Ali is leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed. “Not for you,” he says.
“C’mon man, just one hit,” Peter begs. It’s getting late, and he’s going to have to go back home eventually. He’d rather be high when he does.
“You got money?”
Peter frowns at him.
Ali scoffs. “That’s what I thought. No.”
“I’ll get you some later,” Peter tries.
“No,” Ali says, staying firm.
“Just one—”
“You already owe me, Parker. You lost the last batch of pills I gave you.”
Peter takes a step back, but Eric is behind him, and there are a couple of other guys there now too, among them Diya, who’s large enough to actually be frightening even when he’s not actively threatening anyone. He turns back to Ali. “I had to, the cops busted that party.”
“And you didn’t pay me back,” Ali says.
“I can make it up to you.”
“Yeah,” Ali says, “you can.” He waves a hand, and Eric moves, pulling aside some of the drywall to reveal a hidey-hole. Inside the wall cavity there are white blocks of drugs packaged and stacked, cocaine probably. Peter stares. He’s never seen so much at once.
“What the fuck?” he mutters. That’s got to be several millions worth of drugs. “When did you guys go big time?”
“I’ve got a new partner,” Ali says, as if it’s no big deal.
“Who is it?” Peter asks. “The fucking cartel?”
From behind, Diya smacks him upside the head. Peter stumbles forward, rubbing his head. “Ow.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Diya says.
Eric removes a few smaller packets, holding them out to Peter. He doesn’t move to take them.
“You go to those rich white kid parties, right? Find some buyers, move the merchandise, I might forgive your debts.”
“Is this coke?” Peter asks.
“Heroin.”
“Those kids don’t do heroin,” he argues. “They like weed and coke and pills.”
Ali’s eyes are narrowed, his mouth thin.
Peter raises his hands. “I swear. You want me to sell them shit it’s gotta be shit they’ll buy. They won’t buy heroin. They want the fun, easy stuff.”
Ali shakes his head, but waves a hand at Eric. “Fine, give him coke.” He points a finger at Peter. “Don’t sample any of it.”
Peter raises his hand. “Scouts honor,” he says.
That earns him a confused look from everyone in the room since none of them have ever been boy scouts, himself included. He smiles. “You got any oxy?”
“Take the coke and get out, Parker.”
“Right, yeah. Just—”
“Now.”
Peter shoves the coke into the pocket of his backpack, and goes.
- - -
Skip is in the living room when he gets home, watching ESPN Classic and drinking beer. That usually means he’s in a good mood, and sure enough he doesn’t even comment on what time it is, or on where Peter has been. He just waves Peter in, saying, “Come watch the game.”
Peter hesitates at the edge of the couch, fist tight around the strap of his backpack. “Who’s playing?”
“‘09 NBA Finals,” Skip says. “Lakers are about to win.”
“It’s boring if you already know how it ends.”
“It’s Kobe,” Skip argues. “This is greatness in action. Sit down and watch.” He gestures to the other seat on the couch with his beer bottle.
It’s not really an option, when he phrases it that way. Peter sets his bag down on the floor and sits, as close to the edge of the couch as he can.
Skip opens another beer from the six pack on the coffee table, and holds it out to Peter.
“You know I’m fourteen, right?”
“You want it or not?”
Peter takes the beer.
Tiffany is nowhere to be seen. Which is for the best, really, because the game isn’t even over before Skip has closed the distance between them on the couch, crowding into Peter’s personal space, his hands roaming over Peter’s skin and down to his pants.
The beer isn’t strong enough. Peter wishes he’d done some of the coke.
When Skip finally gets off of him, some time later, Peter doesn’t move. He lays there on the couch, listening to the thump of the basketball and the squeak of the shoes and announcer's voice on TV as the old game plays, but the screen is just a blur of colors.
After a little while, Skip comes back and nudges him. “Get up.”
“Why?” Peter asks.
“You can’t lay here all night. Go to your room.”
Peter groans, rolling over until he rolls off the couch and onto his hands and knees.
Skip is standing over him, drinking another beer. He frowns down at him. “What is your problem?”
“Besides you?” Peter mutters. He yanks his shirt back on.
“Don’t get smart.”
Peter rolls his eyes. He stands up and grabs a beer off the coffee table. They’re nearly room temperature at this point, but Skip doesn’t protest.
Back in his own room, Peter downs the beer quickly, ignoring how gross it is, and when that has no effect, digs through his backpack for the coke. It’s stupid to use the drugs he’s meant to be selling, Ali will have kept track, but Peter can just charge more to make up for it.
He uses his school ID to make a line on his desk, and rolls up a dollar bill to snort it. It burns his nostril, but the high hits within just a few minutes, and it’s not that he feels like none of the past half hour happened, but it just feels like it matters a lot less. He feels something close to happy, or what he thinks happiness might be, for a little bit.
And he’ll take what he can get.