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They’ve known each other since they were little, since Wade marched right up to Peter and told him, “We’re best friends now,” in this self-assured manner that hasn’t dissipated in the years since.
They’ve known each other for so long that sometimes they forget there’s a time when they weren’t together, a time when they didn’t belong wholeheartedly to each other. And it’s not as if their relationship is anything more - is anything beyond swigs of beer and scary movies and talk of the stars - but there is nobody else. Nobody else who comes close to understanding them, not in this tiny town.
Wade’s a few years older than Peter but that just gave Peter a reason to work and work and work until he was taking almost all the same classes at the same time. And the few classes they don’t share, those few hours of hell, they leave. They skip out on school. They go for walks in the woods and drives around the winding country roads and when Peter remembers his parents’ faces just a little too clearly, and when Wade is sporting several new bruises, they use the latter’s fake ID and buy beer. It takes the edge off the pain.
But the night is when they thrive. As long as they can survive, as long as they can get through the day, the night is their reward. They can wrap themselves up in the inky blackness, go wherever they want to go, be whoever they want to be, and nobody notices until sunrise.
Their favorite place is a rocky outcropping behind Peter’s house, way back in the field that has never grown anything but weeds. They stretch out on their backs, cool air nipping at the strip of skin exposed as their shirts ride up, feet pressed together, and they try to count the stars.
“I’m gonna get out of here someday,” Wade murmurs, as he always does.
“As long as you take me with you,” Peter replies easily, as he always does.
“Yeah, of course. Your big brain is what’s gonna get us money.” Wade turns his head to grin cheekily at Peter. “Or I could turn to prostitution.”
A smile tugs at Peter’s lips. “Let’s explore other options.”
Wade laughs, not a loud enough sound to disturb the silence, little more than a huffy exhale of breath. They go back to watching the stars, quiet and peaceful.
*
They know what the kids at school say about them. The states they get, the whispered comments and slurs, each one of them digging like sharpened knives into the boys’ skin. Peter reacts by keeping his head down, working so hard that his teachers never pay attention to him, ignoring any attempts at conversation made by his classmates.
Wade responds by hitting and getting hit, until his lip is split and his eye is swelling and Peter’s so worried he thinks he might throw up.
It’s part of why they skip school sometimes, take the old truck that Wade fixed up last summer and go speeding down the back roads of their middle-of-nowhere town. Peter’s favorite ride is one where forests line the highway and there are hardly any other cars, especially at noon on a Tuesday.
They never play any music. Their words fill the air instead, sentences painting stories of the future.
“When we get out of here,” Wade says, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn bone-white, “we’re gonna go to New York City, man.”
“What, not out west?” Out west was where they were going last week.
“Nah. We’re not trying to make it big. We’re just trying to get out.”
Peter feels guilty sometimes, when he gets home and his aunt is waiting for him in the living room, phone in hand, waiting to try to yell at him. She always breaks down before she can finish. He doesn’t want to hurt her and he doesn’t want to leave her, except…he does. It’s like there are two sides to him, constantly battling, constantly trading punches in his gut.
Wade’s the only thing that makes those two halves shut up for a second and imagine a future where all the pieces fall into place.
“We can see shows on Broadway,” Peter murmurs.
“Yeah, sure. That’d be fun.” Wade drums his fingers on the wheel’s cracked leather and slows down - just barely - for a curve in the road.
“That’d be real fun.”
*
Peter waits at night for a tapping on his window, a buzz from his phone, something to tell him to go outside and meet Wade.
Nothing comes.
He can’t fall asleep that night, knowing there’s only one thing that would keep Wade from coming. Knowing damn well what’s happening to his friend right now and what he can’t stop.
He lies in bed, eyes wide open until his brain shuts down from force alone.
*
The next day at school, Wade has a cast pressing his right arm to his chest. They don’t talk about it.
Once, Peter did try to talk about it. He approached Wade gently, with resources and hotlines and offers of help.
The only thing he got for his efforts was a split lip. He learned not to talk about it again.
Instead, during math, he walks Wade carefully through each problem as he draws on his cast. He’s not a good drawer, but he sees Wade look down at the cast when he thinks Peter’s not looking, and the smile that splits his face is enough.
Peter draws lumpy little cars with stick figures inside. He draws skylines with towering skyscrapers, larger than life. He draws sunsets of the places they will escape to, small, poorly drawn promises to his best friend.
Wade grips a pencil so hard it snaps when he can’t figure out a formula. Peter hands him a brand-new pencil, sharpened to a point, and they start over.
*
It’s a drinking night, for both of their sakes.
Neither of them enjoys getting blackout drunk - drunk at all, for that matter. “Just enough to take the edge off,” as Wade says.
So they have a can each, just enough to take the edge off, and they sit pressed close together, and they talk. They talk and they talk without any filters, without fear of judgment or retribution.
Wade tells him what happened to earn him this cast, which bones in his arm are broken and how badly they snapped. He tells him about the pain, and about driving with his mother to the hospital, the woman barely coherent enough to sign the forms she was given. He tells him about lying, lying straight through his teeth, to the woman who asked him about his home life, who asked him if everything was okay.
Peter tells him that he heard his aunt crying in this morning, just sobbing in her bedroom. He tells him about the photograph of his uncle that haunts him from the mantelpiece every morning, and the photograph of his parents that he hides under his pillow. He tells him, “Thank you for telling me about your arm,” because it’s so, so, so important that Wade trusts him like this.
“Thanks for listening,” Wade replies, his voice heavy and scratchy like it is when everything’s getting to be a bit too much.
Peter’s not really sure what he’s doing when he inches even close to Wade and rests his head on his shoulder. He’s not sure what he’s doing, but it feels as right as rain.
Wade obviously agrees, because he doesn’t move a muscle.
*
Every few months, Peter makes a heartfelt apology to his aunt, usually after seeing her hit rock bottom. He starts off with a soft, “Hey, can we talk?” and then goes into a speech about how wrong he’s been and how right he’s going to be.
Every single apology feels like he’s tearing out something from deep inside of him, deeply vital. He knows he won’t be right. He knows he won’t stop skipping school or hanging out with Wade or bothering livestock.
But somehow his aunt hasn’t quite caught onto it yet. He does the apologies for her sake.
This one goes just as expected. He tears up a little bit - the fine dew blurring his vision is all too real - and sags into his aunt when she wraps him in a tearful hug.
And, just for a moment, he allows himself to imagine that he is telling the truth.
*
“What do you want to do when you grow up?” Wade asks. It is a surprisingly serious question coming from a surprisingly serious boy.
Peter thinks for a moment instead of blurting out one of the many acceptable answers his aunt and teachers love to hear. He won’t disrespect Wade by claiming he wants to be a doctor or a scientist or an engineer.
“I want to help people,” he says finally. “I want to create a world where people don’t have to be afraid.”
Wade purses his lips before he replies, “You think you can do that?”
“No,” Peter answers truthfully. “But I think I’d rather die than not try.”
Wade is silent for a moment before murmuring, “I had someone tell my future once.”
Peter twists around on the rock to look at him. Wade doesn’t seem at all like the sort of person for fortune telling or magic. “Really?”
“Yeah. I was drunk and…thinking about a lot of stuff and I just sort of…did it.”
“What did she tell you?”
Wade’s lips quirk up as if Peter has said something funny, and then he bows his head, his mouth quivering as if he is about to cry. When he looks over at Peter, though, his eyes are bone-dry.
“She read my palm,” he says instead of answering the question. “She didn’t like what she saw.”
He reaches over and takes Peter’s hand in his, turning it over gently so that he can see the lines etched there, hinting at some story of Peter’s life. The moonlight illuminates his shaggy blonde hair as he squints at the lines.
His fingertips ghost over a line by Peter’s palm, sending shivers up the boy’s spine.
“You have two lines,” he whispers.
“What does it mean?”
Wade raises his head and grins. “You’re good to go,” he replies easily, some of the weight lifting from his voice. “You’re gonna live a long, healthy life.”
“Glad to hear it.”
It takes a few seconds for Wade to let go of Peter’s hand, and Peter can’t help but notice that those few seconds feel as right as rain.
*
School passes and Wade does not show up.
For once, Peter does not skip class. He has nowhere to go, nothing to do, without Wade at his side. So he sits in his classes, quiet and complicit, turning in the work that was due and immediately starting on the work that is new.
After school he dusts off the bike that’s been lurking in the corner of the garage for months, ever since Wade bought his truck and he didn’t need it anymore. He climbs on, letting his muscle memory take over as he winds down the familiar dirt roads to Wade’s house.
It is empty and quiet.
Heart in his throat, Peter jumps up the stairs and knocks on the front door.
Nothing.
He knocks harder, pounding.
Nothing except a quiet shuffle, so small that he almost misses it.
“Hey! It’s Peter Parker!” he yells. It’s a very small house - there’s no way they could avoid hearing him unless they were purposefully ignoring him.
Which, considering Wade’s parents’ feelings towards him, is all too real of a possibility.
Finally, the door opens, and Peter is met by one of Wade’s many siblings. One of his little sisters, face smudged with dirt and dress in tatters.
“Where’s Wade?” Peter asks, not bothering with formalities. The little girl’s mature, closed-off expression tells him she wouldn’t tolerate them, either.
“With Momma and Daddy,” she mutters, insolence seeping into her voice.
“Where are your parents?” Peter tries. He will not get angry at a child, he will not get angry at a child -
“The hospital.”
“Why are they there?” Peter asks, choking out the words around fear that he hasn’t felt since Aunt May answered that phone call all those years ago and burst into tortured tears.
“‘Cause Wade passed out.”
*
Harsh breath hisses out of Peter’s mouth, grating past his lips, only to be released for a second before being sucked back into his trembling lungs. On legs that feel like rubber, he tells the nurse who he’s here to see, how his brother fainted and his parents are here with him -
“Your parents are right through there,” she says kindly, pointing through a door with a small window in it. There they are, sitting with their heads bowed in the waiting room.
“I need to see my brother.”
She hesitates for a moment, then glances around and covertly gestures for him to follow her. He does, treading as quietly as possible, thanking her silently a million times over.
Wade looks small in the hospital bed, so small compared to the larger-than-life boy who can take punch after punch without falling. So small compared to the larger-than-life boy who has never failed Peter, not once, not ever.
“Wade,” Peter manages, scrambling to his bedside.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he assures Peter in a shaky voice, flapping a weak hand at him. “I just fell, that’s all. And Mom freaked out and made Pops drive me here.” His voice loses a bit of its shiny bravado. “Peter, seriously. I’m fine.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. They just took some blood work and now Mom and Dad have to wade through the paperwork.” Wade settles back in the pillows like this is a five-star hotel. “I’ll be out of here by tonight.”
“Meet at the rocks?”
“Yeah.” Wade opens his mouth to say something more, but muttering can be heard from outside the room, getting louder as it moves towards them.
“Shit, my parents,” Wade hisses. He casts around the room frantically, but there are no other doors.
Peter sneaks out the window, slipping outside and pulling it shut just as the door to the room opens. He bikes slower on the way home.
He has nothing to rush for.
*
That night, Peter tugs on a sweatshirt. Fall is in full swing and the night air is too brisk to go without.
He is about to sneak out when his phone buzzes in his sweatshirt, rattling against his hip bone. Tugging it out, he reads Wade’s text quickly.
I can’t get out of bed.
Peter leaves quickly, his feet almost tripping over one another in their rush to get outside, get to his bike.
Shadows follow him in the corners of his eyes, slipping among the cornstalks and peering out from behind tree trunks. They know better to approach, and they let him be as he lets his bike fall to the gravel in Wade’s driveway.
He knows which room is Wade’s from years and years of visiting the small house. The window is open and he slips quietly, silently into the room, his eyes already adjusted to the low light and quickly finding Wade in the bed.
The boy is propped up with pillows, eyes scrunched shut as if in pain. At the slight noise Peter makes upon entering, he opens them and views him from under half-closed lids.
“Wade. Jesus. What’s wrong?”
“I’m so tired.” His voice is heavy, each word thudding to the hardwood floor.
Peter crosses the room to stand at his bedside and Wade weakly shoves a couple pillows off the mattress, patting the bed beside him. It is small, but they make it work. The corner of Wade’s bedside table presses into Peter’s back, the flesh between his spine and his shoulder blade panging with pain, but he ignores it. He focuses more on where his and Wade’s hips are pressed together, how thin his best friend feels under his jeans.
How could he not have noticed something was wrong?
“It’s my goddamn lifeline,” Wade mutters after a silence that could have lasted for seconds, could have lasted for hours.
Peter says nothing. He knows better than to speak.
“That lady, that woman who read my palm?” Wade raises his hand, turning it in slow circles in the air in front of them. “I got no fucking lifeline.” His voice is dark and bitter, more so than when he talks about his father, more so than when he threatens other kids with violence he learned from the man.
“Doesn’t matter.” Peter grabs Wade’s hand, pressing their palms flat together. “I’ve got enough lifeline for both of us, according to you. Two lines, isn’t that what you said I’ve got?”
Wade nods slowly, a small huff of air escaping his mouth. “Won’t you need both of them?”
Peter shook his head slowly. “Nah. I need you, though.”
Wade turns to look at him, really look at him, and Peter’s not sure who makes the first move when they kiss.
Their lips move together, sure and strong and fast, like they’ve done it before, like they’ve been doing it forever and ever. And, as Peter’s head swims and his heart picks up speed, he thinks that maybe he’d like to do this forever and ever.
Wade’s hand twines in his hair and Peter runs his fingers, lightly, gently, over his hip bones, his too-sharp hip bones. Wade hitches in small, desperate breaths and Peter returns them.
They know already what the blood work will return as. And they know already how they will continue on.
Because this - this secret kiss, hidden by the shadows of the town they’re going to leave far behind them - this feels right as rain.