PEYOTE ● THE LAB MANAGER ● CLOSED
❝ You know the phrase karma’s gonna bite ya in the
ass if you’re not careful? Well, let’s just say Peyote
here has served some ice cold revenge. I’m not really
surprised because if your parents leave you to die at
the hands of your oppressor, then crime is justified. ❞
THE SINNER. TW: ABANDONMENT, DEPRESSION, FIRE, MURDER
Raleigh was named for a far off place that his mother was never going to visit. His name - like his entire existence - was a pipe dream Nina Turner had conjured up in a desperate attempt to convince her wealthy boyfriend to keep her around. After all, only a heartless bastard could walk out on the love of their life and their newborn baby. Raleigh’s father proved to be just that, leaving a check for $500 and absolutely no way to get into contact with him. Not that Raleigh ever shed many tears for his estranged father. His mother, on the other hand, shed so many tears that it was a wonder she didn’t flood the entire apartment. Some of his earliest memories are the sound of his mother’s voice shrilly insisting that ‘he would come back’ over the phone to whoever would listen. Still, Raleigh and his mother managed to live successfully on their own for eight years until Lithium clawed his way into the picture.
Raleigh remembers to warning bells going off in his head the first moment he met Lithium, the morning after his mother had gone out with friends. He was accustomed to seeing strangers in the apartment and didn’t bother questioning, passing him off as just another in a long line of painkillers for his mother’s broken heart. Unfortunately, Lithium didn’t just disappear as expected, appearing once again two days later, and then twice a week and then everyday. He came with seductive words and promises of adoration that may have sounded hollow to Raleigh but were a love song to his mother. They married not four months after meeting in a smudgy ceremony held in a local bar. It happened so quick that Raleigh couldn’t even process his mother actually dating again let alone deal with having a new father. They moved into Nina’s deceased mother’s house, a whole new castle of a lacking fairytale. Of course, Lithium didn’t exactly have the intention to be a father to young Raleigh. Truth be told, he barely even acknowledge his new stepson - something that irked Raleigh at the time. If only he could have told himself that invisibility is better than Lithium’s attention.
If anyone ever asked Raleigh about hell, he wouldn’t tell them that hell was the smoldering look in their step-father’s eyes as Lithium held his tiny, ten year old hand against the stovetop for forgetting to turn it off. How was he to know that no one would hire Lithium for his shoddy reputation and even worse people skills? Pissing off Juliana Lange? No one in their right mind would do that. Present and smaller than most kids his age, Raleigh provided the perfect opportunity for Lithium to work off some his stress. At first Lithium just passed off Raleigh’s new injuries to his mother as the young boy being clumsy and careless but as time passed and work became scarcer and scarcer, where not even the most desperate would come to Lithium, Raleigh’s stepfather became less concerned with subtlety. Soon, it didn’t matter if Nina was in the room, a fuck up was a fuck up and there was the belt to his face, welts rising from the buckle. At too young an age, Raleigh learned just how much pain his tiny body could take. It didn’t matter where he hid when Lithium got home - under the bed, in the closet, on the fire escape - Lithium always found him. Especially on nights he was feeling creative. There are some nights he will never unlock in his brain.
He tried running away a couple of times but in Dertosa, sometimes even the feeling of rings cutting into your mouth and being locked in a trunk for a night is a better option than being fourteen and alone in the dark crevices of the city. In his teen years, Raleigh didn’t know what peace was, or what help was. Everyone knew what Lithium was doing and no one raised a hand. Things became bleaker with each morning, the simple routine of waking up, suffering, going to sleep becoming his own type of purgatory. But, it was his mother that broke his heart. God, he could forgive her for staying in Dertosa, for marrying Lithium, for doing nothing, but what he couldn’t forgive was her leaving him. One day Nina Turner just left and didn’t come back, leaving behind a note for her only son: i’m sorry. Raleigh didn’t even try to hide from Lithium that night when Lithium discovered his wife had abandoned him and saddled him with a son he never wanted. He thought he’d die that night for sure - he prayed for it - but like all times before, his prayers went unanswered. He spent most of the night outside of his body, looking down on his situation and reflecting on everything that had gone wrong. He came out of it with a clearer mind, a purpose finally.
In the early hours of the morning, Raleigh pulled himself to his feet, stumbled to the basement. Lithium kept all his “work tools” down there, including the steel tow chains for his more unsavory tasks. The feel of metal against his palm is one he remembers to this day as he wound the chain around his sleeping stepfather, hooking him to his beloved recliner. Lithium didn’t wake up until Raleigh splashed gasoline over him, methodical as he drenched the entire place. Then, Raleigh gave Lithium the chance to beg for his life, to threaten him, to say fucking anything. Either way, whatever Lithium said or did was inconsequential, his words not even registering to sixteen year old Raleigh. Raleigh lit the match, flicked it on his stepfather and stared. Lithium burned red as his namesake was supposed to and when the bastard finally stopped screaming, Raleigh burned the rest of the house down too.
The months after that are a blur of just trying to survive on the streets, for straining and struggling to continue on with some of Lithium’s old buddies and the questioning police breathing down his neck. Raleigh fully believed he wasn’t much longer for this world but salvation came in the form of a man. Not knowing whether or not God was sending him an angel for make up for his shit life, when Heroin picked Raleigh up from the streets, he was wary as he had been taught to be. Almost feral in the beginning, Raleigh lashed out at Heroin in confusion and desperation but each time, the Drug responded with patience and a kindness that he’d never known. Heroin wiped Raleigh’s record clean, warned off Lithium’s associates, and inspired a loyalty in him that still burns as brightly and strongly as that house fire all those years ago.
For all the sorrow and pain he caused, Raleigh is reluctant to admit that his stepfather taught him much. He learned the nature of Dertosa, the dog-eat-dog world, the ins and outs of crime. After all, what could he have done besides listen numbly everytime Lithium quit tormenting him and just began preaching to him. He did what he could from time to time to avoid his stepfather’s wrath by entertaining him as an unwitting apprentice - how to load a gun, where to stick a knife to avoid the ribs, what to do if the police ever came, how to inspire fear, the list goes on. The list always went on as he learned, picking up quickly what everyone was putting down. Lithium was his biggest teacher with Heroin a close second, though the latter is definitely more fond.
Aware of his own potential, Raleigh threw himself into becoming Heroin’s right hand man. If Heroin has a problem, Raleigh is the one who deals with it - through words or violence. Perhaps when he was younger, Raleigh would have mourned for the loss of a good life but what’s the use in lamenting what could have been? This is the world he was brought into, this is the world he would survive in. Of course, his current world is better than the former. He dresses better, eats better, is better but Lithium is a constant at Raleigh’s side - sneering and commenting on everything.
Raleigh isn’t a lap dog - filling his master’s ears with honeyed praise and pomp - but rather a pit bull at Heroin’s side. Intelligent and capable, there hasn’t been a problem that Raleigh hasn’t fixed for Heroin yet. Of course, he can’t do anything about Heroin’s inner demons but he can keep things running smoothly long enough to give him a peace of mind. He adapts to what Heroin needs him to be - a reminder, a threat, a friend, a shadow. At public events, Raleigh is always by Heroin’s side, doubling as both his right hand man and a bodyguard for anyone who dares. Polite, cordial even, Raleigh doesn’t waste time or anger when he can, striving for quick efficiency but resorting to unimaginable violence when needed. While not big on bare skin to bare skin contact from his experiences with Lithium, there is very little Raleigh won’t do for Heroin. He doesn’t ask, he just does.
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