
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/8704015.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Skins_(UK)
  Relationship:
      Sid_Jenkins/Tony_Stonem, Michelle_Richardson/Tony_Stonem_(mentioned)
  Character:
      Tony_Stonem, Sid_Jenkins, Effy_Stonem, Anthea_Stonem
  Additional Tags:
      Hurt/Comfort, Friends_With_Benefits, Comfort_Sex, Underage_Drinking, Drug
      Abuse, Implied/Referenced_Rape/Non-con, Smoking, POV_Second_Person,
      Mental_Health_Issues
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-11-30 Words: 2574
****** needle in the hay ******
by nihilistporcupine
Summary
     Sid is the only person who has ever told you the truth about
     yourself. Post-1x08.
Notes
     • if tony sounds manic in this, that's because he is
     • the warnings are there mostly for safety purposes? the rape was
     attempted, it doesn't happen on-screen, and it's not between the two
     mains— but the entire story is kind of about dealing with the
     aftermath of sexual assault, so i figured i might as well warn
     because it's a major theme. as for underage... honestly i have no
     idea how this archive defines that. tony and sid are both seventeen
     and over the age of consent in britain, but if 'minors under eighteen
     fucking' offends, time to hit the backspace button
     • what is british english
 
some say you're trouble, boy
just because you like to destroy
all the things that bring the idiots joy
well, what's wrong with a little destruction?
— the_fallen, franz ferdinand
===============================================================================
Sometimes, you think you might be a monster, honestly. Other people don't
always feel real to you, not even your friends, not even your family— they're
puppets that act out a plot, their limbs so easily manipulated into the proper
(or most entertaining) place. It's not like you want things to get fucked up
beyond repair; you're just having a little fun with the complacent sheep,
baaing and baaing while they go about their ordinary, useless lives. Doesn't
anyone understand what you mean? Doesn't anyone have the goddamn mental
capacity to understand what you mean?
You're just— so fucking bored, every moment of your life. The ecstasy and the
pretty white lines of coke and the nameless, faceless girls with their legs
spread in front of you, they don't affect you anywhere deep inside. It all goes
on and on and on and on and on, and maybe you crossed the line this time but
you couldn't sleep and your brain was racing even when your eyes were closed
and you had a brilliant scheme after Michelle slipped from your grasp, Abigail
batting her eyelashes and pulling off her bra, those pictures hitting Josh at
just the right time for maximum humiliation
what
get on your knees übermensch
this is a nightmare you can't drink away
===============================================================================
She's so small, so thin, for fifteen— for lying in this bed with heroin
polluting her veins and bruises on her face where she fell and her lips death-
blue.
"Hey, Effy," you say quietly, hoarsely. "Can you hear me?"
She doesn't say anything when she's conscious, and she doesn't say anything
when she's knocked out. Figures— but that's okay, because that means that every
word out of her mouth is infinitely precious.
"I'm so fucking sorry, Effy." You don't cry, you don't ever cry when you can
sneer and laugh instead, but you cried last night and you're kind of crying
now. "I never meant for this to happen. Mum and Dad think I set it all up, and
I know I can be a right bastard, but I swear I didn't mean any of it. Sid and I
ran around all night looking for you."
You wonder if they held her down when they jabbed the needle through her arm,
if she struggled against them— or (much worse) if she presented herself, arched
into it trustingly. You wonder if she'd be doing any of this, ever be in this
situation, without you as a shining example. But you can't make up for that,
you can't make up for it now, so you settle for taking her (tiny) hand in
yours. Listen to the beepbeepbeep of the monitor until it's white noise,
nothing at all.
===============================================================================
"They gave Effy an overdose," you exhale, your throat painfully tight. Like
anaphylaxis. "She was out of it when I found her on the floor, not really
breathing. I tried to call an ambulance, but—"
You never knew how deep humiliation could crawl under your skin before now, how
the leaden heaviness could weigh down your proud head. More than anything, you
want Sid to stop shoveling food into his mouth while he watches you with wide,
shocked eyes, front-row seat to your downfall. He's always looked up to you as
though you were a god, admiration illuminating every curve of his face. You
don't like this.
"Then they said they'd only call one if I fucked her."
Sid's fork drops with a noisy clatter, one that echoes through your skull.
Misophonia. "God, Tony, you didn't—"
You laugh, and the sound comes far too close to a sob for comfort. You blink
very rapidly, staring at the lumps of curry on your plate that look like
congealed vomit. "Nah. They just wanted to screw with me. Watch me beg. It's
not a big deal."
(it'snotabigdealit'snotabigdealit'snotabigdeal it's not it's not it's not)—
This café is too hot, too cramped, too full-up with witnesses to your collapse.
Sid reaches across the table, attempts to touch your hand, but you pull away
before he can more than graze it. "Give me a cig. I don't care what kind."
He pulls a loose one from his pocket, palms it over soundlessly— which is good,
because your hundred-kph tongue has also sputtered to a stop. Your hands are
shaking, the veins bulging out obscene and purple as you fumble with a lighter.
Finally, you shove the thing past your lips— douse your lungs in smoke, dry and
filthy, feel the nicotine seep into your blood. It's a cheap solution, but for
the moment, you aren't drowning above water.
Sid will not stop looking at you. You can't bring yourself to meet his gaze.
===============================================================================
"Why, Tony?" Mum demands from her chair by the bed, her eyes red-rimmed. Dad
went out 'to the loo' two hours ago; the man can hold a screaming match with
you every morning over your too-loud radio, but he can't be bothered to twist
his tongue into a denunciation now. Honestly, you don't even think he's capable
of feeling disappointed in you anymore, as disappointment would have to be
predicated by him expecting better. "Why would you— you always got on with her,
or was that just another one of your games?" Her gaze is dead. You almost wish
she'd slap you instead of this. "Where did I go so wrong with you? I suppose
what you shoot up is your own business, I can't do anything about that, but
dragging your own sister into it?"
Your mother held you in her arms, and sang you to sleep, and went to all of
your primary school plays and choir concerts and tennis matches, and now she
thinks that you could do this. To anyone. To Effy.
"Mum, look at me," you implore, bile rising up your throat. "Look at me! You
really think I'd give Effy a fucking overdose? Just for the hell of it?"
"I don't know what to think," she says, her voice icy as she stares out the
window. "You're like a snake, Tony— there's nothing human inside. Maybe you got
a good laugh from it."
Part of you, the big, rational part, realizes that she woke up to her
daughter's near-death. That you were there with Effy, when it all happened.
That you didn't protect—
Part of you—
"I love her," comes out in a strangled gasp, and how you hate yourself for that
pathetic little confession. What good is your love, Tony Stonem? What good is
your paltry, anemic excuse for love? "There were two guys who— they were trying
to get back at me— they stuck it in her—"
You can't manage to parse this and create a situation where you are absolved,
where you weren't fucking useless and helpless, where they didn't pin you down
and strip off your clothes, where you didn't beg and cry for mercy god please
please I know I'm a bastard but she doesn't deserve this please. Where one
moment of impulsivity, of spiteful boredom, didn't end in you wondering if it
was better to rape your unconscious sister or just let her die on the floor.
You run.
===============================================================================
 
THINGS YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE:
• Stopped Effy the first time she snuck out of the house, fourteen, ripped
fishnets and tiny skirt and daring half-smile, instead of playing your music
loud enough to wake the dead and hiding under her covers. Told Mum and Dad—
sure, they would've grounded her into the next century and she would've been
sore with you for weeks, but there's shit more important than being liked, more
important than her fun.
• Let Michelle go. For God's sake, just let her go, you fucked everything up
when you sucked Maxxie's cock, just admit that for once you miscalculated and
it can't be salvaged. You don't own her, she's not yours to keep, no matter how
much you want to pretend otherwise.
• Not taken Sid for granted— Sid, who you thought orbited you like the earth
around the sun, who you thought was incapable of protesting even your worst
behavior louder than a squeak—
Sid. That's it.
===============================================================================
 
You pound the doorbell hard enough for it to imprint itself on your hand, then
you pound it again, and again, and again, like you're reciting a prayer, until
Sid finally thunders down the stairs and yanks the door open. "Dad's not home,
but—"
"Hit me."
"Again?" he asks, looking so innocent, so clueless. So very Sid. "Mate, I
thought we already kind of—"
"Hit me." You grab him by the collar and push him up against the banister.
"Fucking do it, you pussy. I know you want to."
"I don't—"
That's when you kiss him, fury and lust and terror all mixed up in the pit of
your stomach, and it's Sid. You're not in love with him but you do love him
more than anyone else, and you always have to hurt those you love.
"Then fuck me," you gasp, reduced to begging now. "Please, Sid." You want this
to hurt you want this to hurt you need this to hurt. You don't deserve to
forget but you'll detonate if you don't.
Sid is the only person who has ever dared to tell you the truth about yourself,
who thinks you're good deep down, and he is the only person you would trust
with this kind of vulnerability. "Okay," he says, swallowing hard and not
asking any more questions, because even still he trusts you. "Okay. But come
upstairs. I'm not fucking you against the bloody wall."
===============================================================================
He kisses you sloppily like the blushing virgin he is, desperation and fumbling
grasps— but you're too breathless, too damn out of it, to be a better example.
You're drowning in his mouth, then you're undoing his zipper, you've tugged
your jeans past your thighs, you're on your hands and knees on the mattress.
"Hurry up," you mutter, touch me, make the ghosts of their hands vanish.
But he doesn't start shoving his fingers in there, just stares at you with
blatant pity, and isn't it a sad state of affairs when Sid is pitying you? Has
the world tilted off its axis yet? "What the hell are you waiting for?" you
demand, your neck twisted around to face him. "Just do it. Put it in. God, do
you need me to draw you a diagram?"
"No, Tony," he says, shaking his head. His tone is the kind you use on
frightened deer. "No, you bloody idiot. You're not even hard, for fuck's sake."
You're... really not hard, you realize— your cock is flaccid, floppy in your
palm as you give it a few experimental pumps. Nothing. You suddenly feel very
tired, as though the strain of holding yourself up on this bed is going to
overwhelm you. "Don't you want to?"
"This isn't exactly how I pictured my first time," he says, and he slips a hand
under your shirt, touches the thin skin of your shoulder-blades reverentially.
As though he's trying to transmute you into someone else— someone stable,
someone worthy. You breathe in, breathe out, trusting him, trusting him, while
he traces the outline of your ribs, glides down the ridge of your spine.
After a long while, a long long while to your flash bang speed-addled mind, he
does reach your cock, and you are hard now and he won't hit you, he won't pull
on your hair, he won't leave even more bruises on your battered brain and
battered body. "Just relax," he says as he strokes you, his inexperience
obvious but irrelevant. "Just... relax, okay, Tony? Calm down."
(You have fucked so many girls, so many girls so many times in so many places
high on so many things. You have never felt this naked before.)
Finally, you come with a low groan, arching your back and biting your lip hard
enough to draw a bead of blood. It feels too good, the taste of copper, the
flood of heat in your very core. The tabula rasa. There is sunlight streaming
in through the window, hot and blinding. 
"Are you... crying?"
"Of course not," you shoot back, tugging a sleeve across your eyes, "I'm not
the goddamn virgin here." And because you really owe Sid more than you can
repay, Sid who was warm and there and tangible when you had her body in your
arms, you push his stupid baggy cargo pants and stupid Primark boxers down past
his hips. He sits up against the headboard and you lie in front of him, move to
take his cock into your mouth.
"You don't have to, Tony," he says quietly.
"I know," you say just as quietly, hating how your voice cracks, and then you
close your lips around him. The last (the first) time you did this was with
Maxxie, cold and teasing and more than a little curious— Sid's gasping and
clutching the sheets all too soon, making these whimpery moans every time you
swirl your tongue around the tip. Sex is power, sex is power, sex is power, and
God isn't this intoxicating, the tiniest bit of control sliding back into your
grip? But mostly you want to make him feel good, too— Sid brings all sorts of
selfless impulses out in you— so you don't fuck around much, suck hard and
fast.
He doesn't last long, virgin, and he emits some kind of embarrassing hiss-
squeak as he jerks his hips forward, then slumps on top of the pillows. "Did
this... help?" he asks, looking so painfully concerned it makes your heart
constrict. "At all? Little bit?"
You could answer, but instead you press your lips against his, let him taste
himself on you. Conveys your meaning better than words ever could.
===============================================================================
 
"It's not your fault."
"Tell my mum that, won't you?"
"No, I'm serious, okay? You're a prick, don't get me wrong, but you love Effy.
You wouldn't hurt her."
"I love you, too."
"Fuck, Tone, you're drunk. You don't mean it. You don't mean like... you want
us to be boyfriends and shit?"
"Don't flatter yourself— this was a one-time only deal. And pass the damn
bottle, you lightweight. You remember when I kissed you in Year Nine?"
"Yeah. 'Cause you felt bad that I hadn't even had my first kiss when you'd
already shagged a girl."
"Well, I lied. I kissed you because I wanted to."
"Why the hell would you want to kiss me?"
"Do you always have to ask so many bloody questions? 'Cause you're not rubbish.
Quit thinking you're rubbish already. Reflects badly on me."
Sid drops the bottle and leans over to kiss you. His mouth is warm and soft and
faintly fizzy. You know somewhere deep in your bones that the two of you will
never be TonyandSid again, that without Michelle you're a stool with a missing
leg, but you thread your hands through his hair anyway and shove him down
against the couch cushions.
===============================================================================
 
"I've really fucked it all up lately," you tell your sleeping sister. You
wonder what her dreams are about, if they're as peaceful as she looks. You
wonder what she'll have to say to you once she wakes up. "But I'm going to make
things right. I promise. One way or another."
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