Author's Note:

Written for the prompt - When the sheriff tells Jackson how it's the ones that least deserve the abuse that are abused in episode 2. I'd like to something where it is Jackson who's the one being abused by his adopted father. With Danny living opposite from him instead of Isaac (and knowing about his situation), that's the whole reason why Jackson has this inferiority complex. Anything less than perfection and his dad takes it out on him. One night after a particularly bad beating Jackson goes over to Dannys so that he can take care of him. I'd like to see Danny lose his cool especially if Jackson is abused sexually for the first time. I know I'm totally evil.

It's not going to be a perfect match to this prompt, but I'm going to see what I can do with this. The first part is how Danny finds out about the situation in the first place, the actual specifics of Jackson going to Danny for help will be in a subsequent chapter.

Disclaimers: Don't own Teen Wolf, Don't make any money from this.
Warnings: Child Abuse

It should have been raining. When you finally hit the bottom, when there was nowhere else to go, it was supposed to be raining. You couldn't tell if the actors in movies were good at crying when they were soaking wet, and you had to be drenched for someone to towel you dry as they put you back together again. You weren't supposed to be able to fall apart in broad daylight, with sunlight on your face and a pleasant breeze cutting the heat. What a joke, Jackson couldn't even self destruct the way he was supposed to. Maybe they'd put that on his grave. Here lies Jackson Whittemore, even death he couldn't get right.

He took another long drink from the bottle of bourbon he'd taken from his father's liquor cabinet. It burned going down, but it wasn't nearly as bitter as the disappointment in his father's eyes when he'd learned that Jackson was now just the Co-Captain of the lacrosse team. It didn't sting as much as the bones in his wrist snapping when his father slammed him into the wall. His father had asked him what was next, wanted to know if he planned on dropping out of his AP courses and quitting lacrosse altogether. He hadn't answered quickly enough, or maybe he hadn't said 'sir' enough times. Did it matter why? There was always a reason, always something he hadn't done well enough.

He rolled over onto his back, hard to do with a cast on one arm and a bottle of alcohol in the other. There was something funny about a rich kid slowly drinking himself to death while sunbathing next to his family's pool. He wasn't really going to die, but he wondered how much of a statistic that would make him. The kids at school would hold a vigil, probably wouldn't even mention how much of an ass he was. They'd whisper to each other, hold each other, and try to make sense of the tragedy. What a crock of shit.

The second floor window to his mother's studio had the curtains drawn. All she would have to do was look out to see him there. That wouldn't happen though, she probably thought he was at school, maybe didn't even know what day it was. She wouldn't come looking for him until she realized her pills were gone. Little promises of a better life, a happiness she couldn't find on her own, all in an orange plastic container. It was a wonder people hadn't just flat commercialized it, but he doubted the doctors wanted to get cut out of the profits. He glanced over at the prescription bottle, wondered if it could take the pain away. Mix drugs and alcohol Jackson, prove to everyone you're as worthless as they think. Fuck them; he'd live just to spite them. He'd figure it out eventually, how to do everything so well that no one could tell him he wasn't good enough.

He couldn't wait till he graduated. Then he'd leave and he'd never come back to this prison that looked so wonderful from the outside. He wouldn't have to look into his mother's eyes, wouldn't have to hear her tell him that he could do better. He remembered when he was ten years old he'd given her a charcoal drawing of a flower. She asked him if he thought it was good enough. How was a ten year old supposed to respond to that? They didn't cover that in school. She hadn't given him the chance anyway, told him to put it away because his grandmother had just gotten to the house. The punch line of the joke? It was Mother's Day. He stuck to Hallmark cards without a signature after that. She probably hated the way he wrote his name, probably hated that 'Whittemore' was at the end of it.

School taught you that it was never your fault, that there were things you couldn't control. They told you to find someone that you could trust. Who could you trust if the people who were responsible for keeping you alive didn't give a shit? It's not like being beaten really mattered. Physical pain was a joke. It was the things people said, the look in their eyes when you failed, you couldn't walk that off. You couldn't rub some dirt on it and power through. You ate it, swallowed it down, and tried not to choke on the bitterness of it.

He tried to take another drink, but all the bourbon was gone. He hurled the bottle at the diving board. He missed even though it wasn't that far away. Guess it was a good thing he hadn't bothered to try out for basketball. That was really his secret. Not that he hated his life, not that his father beat him, and his mother was on too many anti-depressants to care. That shit was probably expected of upper class families with a worthless adopted kid. The secret was that the only reason he seemed like he was amazing was because he never did anything he wasn't naturally good at. Why try and fail? That wasn't good business. Stick to what you're good at, get better at that, be the best you can be, try, and when you think you've tried as hard as you can you have to just keep going, because personal disappointment wasn't the only penalty for failure if you were a Whittemore.

He staggered to his feet; Danny was supposed to be on his way over. Danny was just about the only thing that made Jackson's life bearable. He figured he should grab some more beers from the fridge inside, but he accidentally knocked over the table with his useless broken wrist. The pills rolled across the deck and dropped into the pool. Jackson cast a nervous glance back at the house. It was one thing to take them for a little while; they might pass that off as his mother's mistake. It wasn't likely, but if he lost them completely there really wouldn't be any excuses. He didn't want to try to live the next few weeks with two broken extremities.

Jackson stumbled towards the edge of the pool. His ribs ached, his sides and back were covered in ugly purple and yellow swellings. He'd need to get a shirt before Danny got there too. His father hadn't bothered holding back after the wrist had broken. Not like he'd be getting changed in front of anyone in practice. Somehow that had been Jackson's fault too. His father hadn't even seemed angry, he never did, and maybe that would have made it all easier, if his father was prone to fits of rage. No, his father was calculating, knew what he was doing, and thought it was for the best. Not like Jackson could argue with him. He should have tried harder, not let some asthmatic asshat on steroids take away his position on the team. If he'd been better, practiced more, put in more effort then nothing would have happened.

The deck was burning hot; the mid-summer day had heated it enough that it was a little painful to walk on. Jackson didn't really care; he was too wasted, too used to far worse things to care about a little heat. He stepped over an empty beer bottle, then another as he made his way around the edge of the pool. He'd been drinking pretty hard since he woke up, was several beers in and started on the bourbon when the sun came up. Too bad drinking wasn't a skill his father could be proud of. That might have been the only metric Jackson could have measured up to.

He was only a few feet from the edge when his phone rang. He could tell by the tone that it was Danny. He looked back towards the overturned table; the little electronic device was half covered by it. He took another step forward, figured Danny was just calling to say he was about to walk over. His foot came down on an empty bottle with too much force. It shattered, shards of glass embedding in his skin. He cursed, lost his balance and pitched forward. Pain spiked through his head. The rational part of his brain, the tiny piece that wasn't drowning in booze realized he'd slammed into the diving board, that he was sinking.

He probably should have been afraid, probably should have tried to do something, but his body felt heavy, and the cold water felt good after he'd been letting himself bake in the sun all morning. He kept his eyes closed, tried to ignore the fire in his head. Down in the water it was peaceful. Everything made sense. Danny was on his way, he'd just chill in the pool till he got there, probably should have just gotten in earlier…