A/N: So... is it bad that I like junkie!Peter more than I like sober!Peter? The character's more interesting that way, I think, when all his issues and insecurities come to the forefront. So I decided to take a short break from writing Supernatural fic (though there are a few I'm working on) and write about that. Because it didn't last nearly long enough on the show. :D
A/N 2: Somehow the formatting got a little jacked up. I have no idea why it happened, but it was bugging the crap outta me, so I fixed it. I mean, it was meant to be a little confusing, not a clusterfuck of "LOLWHAT". Anyway. I'd like to thank everybody who has reviewed, favorited, or even read this fic without comment. I appreciate your time and words more than I can say.
This is unbeta'd. If you feel so inclined, please feel free to leave constructive criticism in review form; it's both welcome and appreciated.
Summary: -There's blood all down his chin, dripping thap, thap, thap onto the linoleum. He honestly can't remember how he got here, but everything hurts like hell.- AU, drugs, sex. You've been warned.
Amphetamine
His eyes are a dull blue when he looks in the mirror. He does not see himself for the tired rings that settle like bruises under his eyes, and the greasy shock of hair that he doesn't care has gone unwashed. And that's okay, because right now he doesn't want anything to do with himself.
Everybody leaves. This is the culmination of his life lessons thus far, and something he has embraced with all his being.
It has to be that something's wrong with him. He is fundamentally flawed, cracked at a foundation that was never really built properly. The time when he's not high he spends making lists of the people who have left. The people he has driven from him.
It isn't a spectacularly long list, but it's enough to give him pause. To make him think.
But then, he doesn't really want to think, so he takes another hit.
He nearly stops the first time he can't pay his dealer, because the man's offer is not something he'd consider, even as fucked up as he is. And he knows he's fucked up.
He hasn't spoken to Spinner or Danny or Sav in weeks. Riley's the only one who's tried to keep in touch, and Peter appreciates that. Really; he does. He just wishes he wouldn't sometimes, because that kiss from a while back still lingers on his lips like he can taste it, and he doesn't want Riley sticking around for him if it's because he's in love.
He feels like shit for a day and a half.
He thinks Riley might laugh if he could see him now, but probably not.
Peter takes the offered hit, some Crystal Courage before he sinks to his knees in front of the disheveled bed where his dealer sits.
Didn't take him long at all to cave.
The ground shifts beneath his feet as he wanders aimlessly.
Side streets and sidewalks and old street signs that hang, rusted, on their last metal dregs. The air is crisp and cold, and he feels it to his marrow.
A light bulb above a dilapidated front porch blinks once. Flickers and dies.
He wonders how long this can last.
The bed he wakes up in is not his own. Sadly, he remembers that this is not a new experience for him. Something gurgles, and he finds that it's his stomach. He can't remember when he last ate.
Gropes for his pants on the floor beside the bed, pulls them on not caring if they're clean. The man in the bed (Thomas, his dealer) grunts disapproval as the cold hits him, and Peter reaches over like second nature to pull the blanket back over him. Some random blond girl with a snake tattoo lays still and quiet on the far side of the bed.
It only occurs to him after he's found something to eat to hold a mirror up to her nose to check if she's still breathing.
She is.
He finishes getting dressed, pockets the drugs he's earned, and tries not to shiver in the early morning chill.
The wet sand in the gutter reflects the street lamps, makes interesting and delicate patterns that he traces with careful, shaking fingers. Fingers that look more like bones.
The boy reflected back at him in the store window is a skeleton. And it's funny, because it's not even Halloween. It's so funny he laughs until he pukes.
And then he wishes he could cry, 'cause he just totally ruined the awesome sand patterns that had thrived in the gutter long before he came.
He does things like that.
He feels the thrum of the music dividing him into sectioned off parts, like an amoeba.
This is where Young Peter lives. Inside he is safe and happy in the knowledge that good things last. He is yet untouched by the world and all the bad things in it.
This is where Angry Peter lives. He lashes out at everyone whose fault it is not, because he can't bring himself to tear into those whose fault it is. He is misguided youth at its pinnacle; a rebel without a clue.
This is where Lonely Peter lives. He crawls in and out of beds like he's trying on jackets. He feels his wounds deeply, and never lets them heal all the way. Just keeps picking himself apart like some science experiment gone terribly wrong.
And he dances until the loneliness swallows him up in its vast darkness. He wakes up next to Thomas, in a room he barely recognizes. In a body he barely recognizes.
Because Peter was happy once, but he isn't anymore. All he has is this guilt and weight dragging at his neck, the feeling- the knowledge- that all of this rests squarely on his tired, skinny shoulders. That somehow he is the key and the problem, and the resounding conclusion he has come to is that it isn't just that everybody leaves, it's that everybody leaves him.
Night falls like a blanket over his limbs. Sunken eyes gaze at street corners, watching. Not seeing.
He hopes that whatever the awful thing inside himself is that he's trying to kill dies before he does.
Then he gets in the man's car.
There's blood all down his chin, dripping thap, thap, thap onto the linoleum. He honestly can't remember how he got here, but everything hurts like hell.
'You okay?' That's a voice he recognizes... just... can't quite place it at the moment- the moment his body decides that a better place to be is the floor.
'Peter?' Someone is slapping his face lightly, as if they're afraid he might break.
'Riley...?' But talking hurts, so he stops.
A deeper voice mutters in the background, and he swears he knows that one too.
He's right here; at the precipice of either giving up or starting over.
Those dull blue eyes that he doesn't like to look at are his, and he is the only person he can ever be. This thought is terrifying, and it makes his knees wobble like he's seven years old again and the two people most important to him are leaving each other and no one will tell him why.
And he doesn't want to leave. Not really, not anymore. He needs to learn how he fits in his own skin. He needs to stop killing himself slowly, but it might still be pretty damn nice if he could die trying.
After two days, he wakes up and Riley is there at the couch with a glass of water. He takes small sips.
'Spinner had to go to work.'
Peter nods, and closes his eyes against the garish light of day. Splintered moments come to him in flashes of pain, the ache in his head pulsing like a living thing. His stomach turns, and suddenly the water that he's just drunk is coming back up to say hello. Which, for the record, is not nearly as nice or polite as it sounds.
After he's taken a quick nap, he realizes he's maybe been too high to know he was even here. That's what Riley tells him, anyway. And he trusts the guy. He really does.
Four weeks later, things are not better. They are, pointedly, not worse.