Work Text:
The first time he’s offered drugs he’s with his father. They’re in the middle of a ‘business deal’ with a Lebanese woman wearing a push-up bra and a cocktail dress one size too small. She has her butler – although a more accurate description might be ‘henchman’ – bring them out a platter of assorted drugs. Rafe looks at his father with his eyebrows raised, then back at the platter. “What are we-,”
“Show some respect Raphael.” His father says out of the corner of his mouth. Rafe bites his lip. The woman beckons him over to her side, his father pushing him to go sit with her. Rafe tries to keep his distance, tries to be respectable with her. She wraps her arms around his neck, pushing her breasts together and pulling him into her.
His father laughs at them.
“Try some,” she says sweetly, using her finger to scoop up a small pile of what Rafe assumes to be cocaine. Placing her finger before his nose, she raises her brows, waiting for him to make his move. His eyes dart over to his father who is just staring at them both. Rafe grabs her wrist and brings her finger closer, sniffing as hard as he could to get the powder up his nose. When he’s finished, his eyes water. The pain is excruciating. His nostril feels like it’s been torn up by thousands of tiny razor blades.
Rafe wipes his face with both of his hands and shakes his head. Damn, that was intense.
Her hands on his face and her lips are on his. He doesn’t think his father will stop her, and he doesn’t think his father wants him to stop her either. So he puts his hands on her waist and tries to kiss her back. He thinks maybe it’s the cocaine, or the taste of her expensive lipstick, but he starts to feel lightheaded. Her hands push off his jacket and he begins to think that he’s going to lose his virginity while his father is watching.
Her body is small but when she starts to press him down on the couch she becomes almost too heavy to bear. Before her lithe fingers can zip his fly down, he shoves her to the side and bends over the side of the couch, emptying his stomach contents on the floor. Rafe stares wide-eyed at the vomit on the floor. He doesn’t have time to look at his father before he’s puking again, stomach tightening and throat tensing.
The woman chuckles softly and backs off of him, sitting farther down on the couch and crossing her legs. She lights up a cigarette and pops one of the pills from the table into her mouth. “Your son is weak,” she says with a smile. “Although I’m not sure why he’s puking. The drugs…or me?”
“I doubt it was you.” Mr. Adler says, lighting up his own cigarette and not bothering to look at his son. “The boy has a weak stomach. But I do believe that he will be a great CEO when the day comes.”
“Don’t bullshit yourself. The poor kid looked like he was gonna cry after one line.” She blew smoke out in front of her. “If you could even call it that.”
“He’s smart.”
“He’s enabled. When was the last time you let him do something for himself?”
Rafe is still staring at the mess he’s made, wondering if he should clean it up and how the conversation went from them doing drugs to the woman questioning his ability to run his parents’ company. “Not to be rude Alder,” she ashes her cigarette straight on the table, as if it wasn’t made of treated wood worth more than his father’s car. “But I don’t want to be a partner in a business that’s run by a kid who can’t hack it.”
His father scratches his head and just sighs. “Raphael, go get cleaned up, we’re leaving.”
He does what he’s told. He wonders if his father is sticking up for him. Or if he’s protecting himself. Getting them out of there before she can see through all of his bullshit and lies he’s been spitting to her the past few hours. He splashes water on his face right before he leaves the bathroom, slicking his hair back as he reenters the smoking room they had been sitting in. He’s surprised to see that her maid staff had already cleaned the floor. His father is holding his jacket out to him.
She walks them to the front of her estate, readjusting her dress as they walked. Rafe watches as she kisses both of his father’s cheeks, smiling as she speaks with her silver tongue. She turns to Rafe, kissing both of his cheeks. He has no chance to break away when her hand slips into his pant pocket. It tickles but he manages to not react to her delicate touch.
He reaches into his pocket when he reaches their family car. Rafe pulls out a small baggie of white powder, looking up to make sure his father isn’t watching, and rolls it around in his hand. On one side the bag of cocaine has ten numbers scribbled down, then a name, then a ‘call me’ followed by a heart. He shoves the baggie back into his pocket and rubs it with his thumb. He doesn’t expect to ever call her.
He also doesn’t expect to become addicted. To cocaine. To her. To him. To adventures. To glory. Rafe doesn’t expect to become the villain.