Spiked
Peter clung to Harry's arm as he was guided into the restroom. The faces that he'd passed had started to become blank; the features hazy and unidentifiable. He rubbed at his eyes as he sauntered towards a urinal.
Harry hissed as he watched the other boy begin to fiddle with his robes and he glanced around, suddenly thankful that the room was deserted.
"Pete- maybe you should use a cubicle." He advised. It wasn't that he cared about the omega's dignity, but if another alpha walked in it might not end well. Hungry eyes had been following Peter around the venue as they’d weaved through the crowds.
"Mmmh." Peter hummed as his slowed thoughts caught up with him. "You're right." He hadn't even thought of the consequences of another alpha finding him in here with his cock in his hands. He was normally so careful.
Harry rolled his eyes and waited for him to disappear into the toilet. The door shut and he leaned against a wall. A beta man entered and eyed him suspiciously before quickly taking a piss and leaving. Time ticked by and the Oscorp heir heaved a sigh, getting impatient.
"What are you doing in there?"
"I'm almost done," Peter mumbled.
There was a loud clatter and a curse before the cubical door eased open. The omega stood with his phone in his hands and Harry noticed that the back cover was smashed, having clearly been dropped on the hard tiles. He glanced up at Peter and met his eyes. The venomous joke about what a butterfingers he was slipped from his mind when he saw how dilated his pupils had become.
They were blown wide and dark and he reached out to grasp the smaller boy by the shoulders when he noticed him swaying.
This wasn't alcohol.
He'd taken something.
"Hey… Pete? Uh, what are you on?" He dared to ask with a frown.
The other's eyes were a little vacant too. Subdued. Maybe he shouldn’t be worried. Maybe the omega had taken something to numb the nerves he must be feeling tonight. All of Norman’s other omegas had had this look on their faces from time to time- but Harry had been too aloof from them to bother asking what was wrong.
Peter was more his age. He felt like he could grill him.
"Whadaya mean?" Peter slurred. "I feel a bit dizzy… and slow. I think the drink was too strong."
Harry swallowed. Peter seemed oblivious. He wasn't out of it, but alcohol definitely didn’t do this.
The realisation hit Harry like a train and his face fell. He tried to ignore the building terror of what this coincidence could mean.
"You were spiked." He informed him with a forced smile and reached to take the phone out of his hands in case he dropped it again. He placed it in his back pocket and offered out his arm again. "Come on... you shouldn't be here."
There was no way he was letting Peter go back to the manor tonight. Not when his father had tried to make him pliable.
Harry’s stomach turned as he led him out of the side door and back towards the main road. Peter tried to protest a few times but he made up a lie, saying that Norman had already left without them. An emergency of sorts.
The omega’s brain wasn’t clear enough to question it.
-
When they arrived at a strange new building, Peter was asleep in the Uber.
After paying the driver, Harry considered scooping him up in his arms like how he’d seen so many alphas do in movies- but they weren’t like that. It would be incredibly weird and he didn’t understand the urge to want to do so.
Peter wasn’t his and after tonight he’d go back to having nothing to do with him.
Instead, he just gave the boy a little shake and moved around the vehicle to open the door for him, like any gentleman should.
“Can you walk?” He asked, holding a hand out to help him climb out. Peter’s long robes had gotten tangled and Harry smiled to himself at how unkempt he looked. Norman would have a fit. Even the driver had kept casting little glances in the wing mirror at Peter’s dishevelled looks.
“I’m good.” The omega took his hand and locked fingers with him and let himself be led into the building.
-
When Harry offered him the bed, Peter fell onto the mattress and rolled over onto his front. He inhaled the familiar scent that was clinging to the pillows and closed his eyes. "This is cosy."
"Don't you want to get under the covers?" The alpha looked down at his guest who was currently sucking up his scent and felt a foreign twinge in his gut at the sight.
He’d never spent much time with an omega before. He concluded that this was as alien to him as a cat person looking after a dog. Not that Peter was a dog. He just didn’t know how to treat him.
The temperature of the warm evening was dropping and he moved over to the wardrobe to pull out a spare duvet set, ignoring his stupid intrusive thoughts.
Peter hummed happily and cracked an eye open. He saw the bundle that Harry was holding and his brain tried to focus on the ‘whats and whys.’
"Why did you bring me here- and where is here?" He reached out to take the offering.
Harry grabbed a wooden chair that was tucked under a desk next to the bed and sat. He extended his legs and did his best to relax against the hard frame.
"Because you need to sober up... and it doesn't matter who spiked you. My father would take this as a chance to bed you."
Peter's hand came up to rub at his face, then he was rolling over again to face his saviour.
"That's... kind of what I'm for though. Isn't it?" His eyes softened and he glanced down, not wanting to meet the alpha's gaze. He was glad he was a little subdued for this conversation. "I know I need to do it with him soon.”
Harry swallowed. Peter was smart. He had committed to the role of a whore already. Harry wanted to hate him so much, but still he wouldn't let an omega be taken advantage of in such a way.
"He should only have you when you're sober, Pete. Anything else is wrong. It's coercion."
Peter nodded and placed his arm over his eyes. The walls of the small room were spinning slowly. He was feeling much clearer-headed now and realised that whatever dose he’d been given was already starting to wear off.
Still, he felt like questioning the other. Harry seemed so cold one minute, yet so protective another. It was confusing him.
"Why do you care? I thought you didn’t like me."
"Because my mother was an omega- and she raised me well."
Oh.
Peter looked around the small apartment. It was tinier than Wade's. It was capsule lodging. A place that people rented who were on a major budget in New York City. It was only so many feet wide and had the tiniest bathroom and kitchen.
So why did Harry have it? It just didn't make sense. He was a billionaire.
"Is this your place?"
"Is that too hard to believe?” A small smile tugged at the corner of the young man’s lips. “I only sleep here. It certainly beats the circus that is my father's home."
Harry paid his landlord in cash. He didn't need Norman tracing it back via his bank statements. He didn't want the man to know where he holed up. It was good to have some privacy and independence away from his influence. If his father wanted to believe he lived between friends’ apartments and at parties, then so be it.
"It's basic." Peter's tongue was looser than it normally would be and he smiled to himself. "Before my aunt got sick- well before I went to the auction- I toured one of these buildings because we thought we might have to sell the house. We could have been neighbours."
Harry frowned at that. Was that part of the deal? No one had told him that Norman was paying for medical bills. He'd just assumed Peter was another greedy omega who was trying to profit from a needy rich alpha.
The sorry look on Peter’s face was haunting. He was smiling, but deep down Harry could tell that there was a strong sadness.
"What's wrong with her?" He decided to pry.
"Cancer. She's in her late sixties and is struggling to even go to work now. We noticed she was sick because she never had any energy. The doctor said it's a form of leukaemia." Peter swallowed as he moved to sit up more. “There’s a chance she might not get any better but I have to at least try.”
Harry felt a stab of guilt. Peter was here for one reason and one reason only. The medical costs would have been the main clause in his contract.
The extra money raised had been down to how much all of those stupid alphas had bid to actually acquire him.
"I'm sorry to hear that." He said as diplomatically as he could- like how he’d been taught to.
Peter was quiet for a moment. He felt a horrible niggling in his chest as an awkward tension held strong between them. He needed to say something nice. He needed to make this okay between them.
"I don't mind your father, you know?" He tried to soften the conversation. "My friends thought I was crazy for doing this but I got really lucky. He seems kind."
Harry nodded slowly. He loved Norman. He respected him to a degree, but quite often they didn’t see eye to eye. His father passed it off as them being two alphas who lived under one roof and Harry still being a hormonal youth.
There were bound to be clashes.
But the truth was that it was entirely down to differing morals. There was no doubt in Harry’s mind that Norman was crooked. He stood and moved to search the minifridge for a beer, desperately wanting to cloud his own mind too.
He didn’t want to think of this sickening reality tonight.
“You should get some sleep, Pete. I’ll get us breakfast in the morning.” He changed the topic.
He needed to have a word with his father about what he’d done and convince him to never do it again. But for now, Peter was safe in his bed.
He watched as the boy rolled back over, once again nuzzling into the pillows. The omega seemed to like his scent a little too much and it was unnerving him.
Harry uncapped the top of his beer and took a long drink and tried to ignore the festering moths swooping around his stomach. He didn’t like this feeling.
-
When Peter awoke, the apartment was empty. A neat pile was placed on the chair that Harry had been sitting in. A change of clothes that Peter already knew would swamp him. A pack of croissants and chocolate spread on a plate- the hint that he should eat. Some money to get home. And lastly, a note.
He picked it up and began to read.
Harry claimed he’d had to dash. He wondered how true that was.
Peter reached for the glass of water he’d been left on the bedside table and downed it, hating that he had to see himself out.