Work Text:
Slowly his gaze wandered over the battered and bruised body lying half hidden under his white covers.
When he had wandered around the more shadier parts of Los Angeles the night before he hadn't thought that he might meet someone he once knew. It was a great surprise when he heard shouting and the sounds of a fight from one of the alleyways he was passing and saw the profile of this smart and funny, fearless boy he once knew, now signed from a hard life. He had watched him, how he looked down on the three men lying unconscious on his feet, how he looked down on the fourth man on his knees, begging to leave him go. With a kick of his foot he had knocked the man out while looking on indifferently the whole time. The second he looked up Peter had taken his wrist in his hand and pulled the boy with him.
Now the young man - because it had been so long he wasn't a boy anymore - lay in his bed, slowly waking up from a restless sleep.
"Why am I here?", he asked, his voice toneless.
Peter walked into the room, sat down on the bed next to the boy. Slowly he pulled the covers away, traced the tattoo of bloody and ripped wings on the younger one's back with a finger. No claws.
"What happened to you in the past five years?"
The boy turned his head so that he could look Peter in the face with his empty amber colored eyes.
"Too much."
The slight caress stopped and Peter stood up. Then he lay down next to the young man and pulled him into an embrace.
"My beautiful, broken boy."