Chapter 8
Osborn Manor is so much more inviting now. It almost reminds him of the way Aunt May’s home was decorated, even more so now after the acquisition of the money Harry had left to her after his false death. Money Peter knows for a fact Harry had not allowed her to return, with the guilt May had expressed to him as feeling like she was taking advantage of whatever misfortune had befallen the young Osborn to make him disappear and be thought dead for so long.
The building is filled with so much color that Peter blinks several times when he turns from the balcony he swung onto towards the window. It should clash, all things considered, all the wildly different shades of yellow and green and purple and blue and it’s overwhelming to even look at, but it all just works somehow. It takes Peter a couple minutes to realize the densely decorated space is a careful arrangement of chairs, tables, couches, lamps, and the wildest assortment of decorations Peter has ever seen, this haphazard arrangement that lacks any consistent identity is carefully arranged by color to form the delicate gradient of a sunset.
And within the middle of the bright and vibrant maximalist daydream is a little pocket of black. Harry’s back is facing the window as he lays on a couch that looks both like it would be incredibly soft and comfortable and horribly itchy. The man is dressed in all black, a simple t shirt and jeans, once again a pretty poor choice for a seeming attempt at sleep. He looks like a black hole in the middle of this overstimulating ombre, like he’s trying to suck the overwhelming amount of color into himself to fill the twin holes in his chest. Peter wonders if those holes have scarred shut, or if whatever force that keeps him alive has kept the holes intact, giving the ability to see straight through him like he’s not even there.
Harry shifts when Peter gets close enough to the window to see him, almost startling Peter. Peter is pretty good at being quiet, he didn’t realize he would be noticed.
When the man’s features become lit by the bright lights of the room—really, this place is a moth’s wonderland with how fucking bright it is—Peter rapidly realizes it’s the first time he’s seen Harry in any decently lit space in a while at about the same time he realizes how terrible Harry looks. He seems no less gaunt and thin than the first night Peter carried him into this place. His shirt hangs off him in a way that makes it seem like there’s just a void from his shoulders to his hips. He’s so thin his chest and abdomen might as well not exist beneath that fabric. The bulk of the goblin—well, mantis now—gear had hidden the degree of it the last several times the two had seen each other. But now, Peter sees all too clearly how emaciated he still is. Is he eating? Does he need to eat?
If Harry’s hair hadn’t been cut so short, it would probably have been returned to some state of matted by now. It’s still very short, only barely beginning to form tight curls that sit close to his head. But even then it looks rather greasy, like it’s been quite some time that showering has gone beyond just sitting beneath water for Harry. Peter hadn’t seen Harry out of long sleeves in a while. He’s beginning to think that might have been intentional on Harry’s part, based on the massive patches of scar tissue that seem to consume his arms. Patches that, if Peter calls correctly, correspond to where it had seemed like sheets of his skin had just fallen off when they first cleaned him off after he had come back. Harry seems to know Peter hasn’t seen much of his skin since then too, based off the way he draws his arms into himself when Peter looks at him.
But thinking back to that, even if he’s not actively bleeding, even if there aren’t patches of skin missing and exposing flesh, he somehow almost looks worse. When he first appeared, god knows he had been pale and sickly, completely starved of the sun and so fragile from malnutrition it seemed like his skin broke when his movements were more aggressive than the smallest he could manage.
But he had never looked decayed.
Harry had seemed so intact that any sort of… vampires and zombies implication hadn’t crossed his mind. His eyes were… strange. But the rest of him was fine. Undead didn’t apply to how he looked then, not really. But now he can’t deny it does.
Harry’s skin is still pale, but now mottled with faint green gray and dotted by purple bruising subtle enough that most wouldn’t be able to pick it out. Anyone would see that something is wrong, but it would require more than just a to realize that what’s wrong is distinctly corpse-like discoloration, not improved by looking like his skin is fused to his bones.
He shakes his head. That’s his friend. Not right to go around thinking he looks like he was put in makeup for the background of a zombie movie. Harry didn’t ask for this.
Harry stares at him on his balcony for a moment, eyes hollow and dead. He stands slowly, as if he’s being pulled to his feet on puppet strings, and approaches the window, silently sliding it open and letting him crawl inside.
Everything he planned to ask about is gone from his mind. “Are you okay?”
He just stares. “I died, Peter.” He says simply, then slinking back towards his spot. “I know it’s a mess. I didn’t know I was going to have company.”
I didn’t think I counted as company. Peter doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, “Don’t you have people who are supposed to clean for you or whatever?”
“I used to.”
It’s silent until Harry newly green eyes bore into
him as he stands in front of the couch he’d been curled on moments ago. “Take the mask off.”
Harry seems to relax when Peter does so. There’s a pause, then Harry sits, curled into himself. Something about him reminds Peter of a half starved alley cat, one of the ones that would hiss at Peter when he was in high school even as he was trying to sneak them bits of hot dog.
Why does Peter keep mentally comparing him to aggressive animals?
“Stop looking at me like that.” He snaps. Peter flinches. It doesn’t sound like it did when they were fighting. Really, very little about Harry now reminds Peter of that. Less of the Harry he knows now reminds him of the person he was friends with in high school and that first year of college. The only glimpse of that person he’s gotten was that short conversation only… god, was that last night? He does suppose that dying would change anyone. Harry is different now. He wonders if it would be easier if he could pick out exactly how Harry was different.
“Like what?” He asks, hesitation in every word.
“Like you—“ There’s this strange noise of frustration out of Harry’s throat and then the unpleasant sound of bone—no, Harry’s teeth, his teeth scraping against each other. “Like you think I’m going to bite you or something, I don’t know.”
Peter laughs slightly, some thought about Harry being undead or whatever and zombie movies and infection that immediately makes him feel guilty for thinking it before it dawns on Peter that in a tangential sort of way that Harry’s lead him to what exactly it is that’s so different.
Animalistic isn’t the right word, because that implies a ferocious brutality. It brings to mind something rabid. But this is something animal like. Thousands of years of slowly evolving civilization have numbed the need for a constantly present fight or flight response, as it ceased to be a complete necessity when people ceased to be getting regularly eaten by wild animals while picking fruit. But whatever happened to Harry while he was buried, it seems like whatever barrier developed in the human brain to hold all that no longer needed anxiety back just broke for him. Sure, there’s some sort of aggression there, but really Peter can’t think of a time he’s seen Harry since he dug himself out of his own grave where he hasn’t seemed, even if not immediately visible, just scared.
Immediately, Peter can’t help but feel a little guilty for treating him a little like he was something to be scared of. All the time he’s spent trying to help people as Spider-Man and he still can’t tell when the people closest to him need support.
Peter approaches the couch, causing Harry to draw his knees to his chest to give ample room to sit. Instead, he just smiles and sits directly on his feet, wrapping one arm around his bent legs and leaning against him. “You’re cold.”
Harry relaxes a bit with the touch. “Corpses generally are that way.” There’s something about his slight laugh afterwards that makes Peter think he’s not completely joking.
“Well, I stopped thinking you were one when you crawled through my window.” Peter really, really doesn’t like that he looks away at that. That he doesn’t respond. “Harry?” He asks carefully.
“Mmm?”
“Were you awake for it?”
Harry looks suddenly back up at him. Peter tries not to flinch at the look of his eyes. “Awake for what?”
Peter does his best to not let his voice shake. “While you were buried, were you awake?”
Harry immediately goes so stiff it’s like Peter’s wrapped his arm around a stone. “Yes.” He says. “I never wasn’t awake. Even when… the moment you thought I died, the moment I thought I should have died, I was… aware.”
Peter’s heart sinks into his stomach. MJ was right. But Harry hasn’t finished talking.
“And, so—“ Harry laughs, something about it sounding as if his entire body is hollow. “I don’t think I’m really alive anymore.”
Peter’s fingers dig into Harry’s thigh for a moment, making him flinch. But he doesn’t stop, needing to feel the solidity of the person beside him. Because Harry was gone for so long, Peter mourned him and ran through every alternative scenario and every moment he could have changed for six months. But now he’s back and Peter isn’t going to let him go around saying things like that when things like that come with the risk of Peter losing him again. “Yes you are.” He finds himself saying before he can stop himself. “You wouldn’t be talking to me if you were dead.”
It even sounds stupid to him, but Harrys here, he can feel him. He’s cold, sure, but he can feel him solid beneath his fingers. He’s not decayed, he’s not the body Peter carried off that rooftop and he’s not laying in the casket Peter watched be buried. He’s right here like he should be and he shouldn’t be talking like he’s not supposed to be right here.
“I shouldn’t have survived six months with no air or food.” Harry points out, frustratingly correct. “I don’t need to breathe, I’ve tried it. I’m freezing cold, and nothing like blankets or layers or whatever changes that because I don’t have body heat. My fucking heart isn’t beating, Peter.”
Peter impulsively presses his free hand to Harry's chest, like he thinks he can prove him wrong as if Harry hasn’t probably spent hours searching for his own pulse. When he can’t feel anything within Harry’s ribcage, his hand travels to his neck, feeling around against his neck for his pulse but only feeling Harry’s breath catching in his throat at the sudden touch, only stopping his attempt to find some sign of life when Harry bats his hand away, forcing Peter to accept it.
There’s a beat of silence. “You shouldn’t have died when you did.” Peter insists. “This is just the world's way of fixing things. I’ll-I’ll help you—“ Struck by reckless, almost panicked impulsivity, he yanks Harry into his lap, holding him as close as he can and sloppily draping the afghan on the back of the sofa over his thin, cold body.
Harry freezes once again. “What are you doing?”
“You’re cold, right? Don’t have body heat?” Being pressed up this close to him feels like being pressed to an ice statue. Despite that, he wraps all four of his limbs around him. “I don’t care. I’ll share.”
Still very confused, Harry eventually perhaps begrudgingly settles into the full body embrace and leans his head on Peter’s chest. “Sorry.”
Now it’s Peter's turn to be confused. “What?”
“Your heart is beating really fast. You should have… I wouldn’t have kept talking about it if it was making you uncomfortable.”
“It wasn’t.” But when he focuses back into his body, he is… a little flushed and sweaty, and his heart is pounding. Is Harry making him uncomfortable? He doesn’t think he is, but Peter isn’t exactly fantastic at identifying what he’s feeling a lot of the time.
Harry's silent for a moment. “Why did you come over?” He asks.
“Can’t I just visit my best friend for no reason?”
“You don’t do that a lot anymore.” Harry points out. It’s true. Peter half considers not bringing the topic up, just to seem better, but really he’s done enough lying to Harry.
Peter tries to take a deep breath before he begins, but it’s a struggle when there’s the full weight of a grown if slightly decayed man on his chest. If he’s being honest, the weight is just as reassuring.
“Harry, have you been back to your grave?”
He shakes his head. “I tried. I nearly vomited. I ended up just hiring someone to pull the headstone so I didn’t have to keep thinking about it and the tabloid would shut up.”
Peter pauses. “I have.” He admits.
Harry's quiet for a good thirty seconds, before a quiet but tense “Oh,” is spoken.
Peter sort of laughs, not sure of how to begin describing this. “Do you remember what your dad’s grave looks like?”
“Yeah. Sort of on the nose that nothing grew there.” Harry pauses after that. He’s not looking at Peter anymore. He raised his head off his chest. “What’s he got to do with any of this.” It doesn’t sound like a question. It’s said like it’s a statement. A sort of angry—not angry, there’s fear there—statement. Like Harry can already guess where this might be going.
“Uh, you didn’t have anyone try to dig around and flatten the earth where you dug yourself up, did you?” The urge is there, to lie and keep everything peaceful.
“I asked MJ to fill the hole.” He says. “But that’s it.”
Just bite the bullet. “The area that’s… the part of his grave that’s all that rocky dry dirt looks like…” His entire mind, maybe even the spider sense, is screaming at him to stop. To lie. “The pattern is similar to where you dug yourself up.”
The entire room is silent, broken only by the sound of tires screeching on the road on the street below. Then, to Peter's shock, Harry laughs.
“Harry—“
“It’s the fucking performance enhancers, isn’t it?” The other man is saying before Peter can finish. “That’s why. That’s why I won’t die.” Peter looks at Harry's face, only then realizing that even as he lets out that bitter laugh again, he’s crying. “He’s never going to leave me alone, isn’t he?”
“Harry—“
“I finally get the chance to live without just doing whatever miserable thing he tells me to do just because I want him to love me, I finally get to figure out what the hell I want-“ It’s one of the few times Harry’s actually sounded more angry than scared, but the fear is still there. He just sounds broken.
“Harry—“
“And he’s… he’s never going to leave me alone. He was always right there to tell me how useless he thinks I am—“ Harry’s sort of rambling, saying all the things that shame normally locked deep beneath his ribs. “—and even when he was dead, he didn’t stop, I can’t even look at myself in the mirror without him—“
Harrys hunched over form is lifted, torso gently straightened before Peter pulls him into a tight hug, hearing Harry’s breath be knocked out of him by the force of it. That doesn’t make him stop. Slowly, Harry sinks into the contact, Peter’s shoulder slowly growing damp. Peter’s fingers play gently with the soft, wispy baby hairs on the back of his neck, yearning to truly stroke his hair. But doing so feels… too intimate, too much.
Eventually, Harry weakly lifts his head. “Why did you go?”
Harry can probably feel the way he shifts uncomfortably. “Maybe we should talk about the rest of this later.”
“Peter.” Harry snaps, and it’s so forceful that he doesn’t have to say anything else to persuade him.
“Uh, yesterday—“ he thinks it was yesterday. He’s been awake for far too long. “—someone stopped me when I was out doing bug things. A mortician.”
He can practically feel the dread enter Harrys body.
“Apparently there’s… basically an epidemic of bodies going missing. From a lot of morgues and cemeteries and things.” He pauses momentarily. “A lot were from that cemetary, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because they said that you might have been the first one—“ Harry makes a strange, strangled sort of noise. “—and I just… ended up over there and noticed it.”
Harry’s completely silent. Peter slowly realizes through his own dread that it seems like he’s staring at his own forearm for some reason.
“Are you okay?”
Harry pauses before he responds. “…it’s nothing.” And then he’s speaking again. “Me and MJ thought he might… come back like I did. I was just hoping…”
Peter nods. “I get it.”
Harry slid himself off his lap. Peter didn’t stop him, as much as he wanted to. Their sides are still pressed together. Really, he hopes that’s enough to help with the warmth thing. He’s hunching over again, slowly lowering his head into his hands. Somewhere in Peter’s mind, he can’t help but wish he hadn’t told him, guilt arising from the pain he’s caused just by telling him.
“Hey… hey, buddy, it’ll be okay.” It even feels hollow to Peter. “Things work themselves out.” That feels a little better. At the least, he feels like he has a little more evidence to support that.
Harry just shakes his head. “Not for me.”
Peter momentarily opens his mouth. But then, slowly, as if he’s diving into molasses, he realizes that Harry’s not wrong. Hell, every point in Peter's life that he could point out as evidence of that is a point in which, being honest, his own joy in some way came at the cost of Harry’s. Often in ways he can’t even begin to comprehend how his past self thought that was worth it. How he could have been so careless with the well-being and even life of one of his only friends. So he shuts his mouth again, just reaching over to lay one palm flat on his back.
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Oh.” Immediately the response feels stupid. “Yeah.”
Harry jerks upwards. “How late is it?”
Peter shrugs, irrationally disappointed that he’s moving even further away. “It was near midnight when I left.” Oh. Shit. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
Harry slowly shakes his head. “I haven’t been sleeping.” He says, almost in the same way you’d tell someone that you’ve run out of milk or don’t eat pork.
“Oh.”
“You can stick around till morning if you’d like.”
Peter’s limited social skills fire off for the first time in months, telling him Harry probably wants him to get out of his house. “Oh, I can swing back home. It’ll take like ten min-“
“I’d like you to stay. I’d feel better about this.” Then, very quietly, barely a whisper. “Safer.”
“Oh.” He says again. “I can do that.”
Harry nods slowly, a moment of shame flickering across his face. “I’d still let you live here, if you’d accept it.”
He laughs awkwardly. “I don’t think I can avoid that kind of rent.”
“Well, the rent is my decision, isn’t it?”
Peter doesn’t respond, trying to form a sentence that makes the slightest bit of sense. Harry beats him to it.
“I’m going to go make coffee.” His movements as he leaves the room are slow and stiff, a strained undead shuffle, giving Peter plenty of time to debate if he should follow.